Juggernaut is one of those heroes in Dota 2 who can take over the entire game on his own. With his powerful early-game presence in the laning stage and impressive scaling potential into the late game, he's an excellent hero to add to your list of mains if you're planning to increase your MMR.
Of course, the first step to learning the hero is understanding his item progression. While it's not the most complex hero to figure out, without the right items, he can feel extremely underwhelming. In this guide, we'll give you a complete build guide for Juggernaut to help you learn the basics of playing the hero.
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Dota 2 Juggernaut Hero Overview
Juggernaut is a melee Agility hero known for his above-average movement and attack speed. It's one of the easier safelane carry heroes to learn in Dota 2, but truly mastering the hero requires a lot of practice and a clear understanding of his limits. Thanks to his excellent DOT (Damage Over Time) and Healing Ability in the early game, the laning phase usually goes in his favor unless the opponent's team picks a heavy counter.
Standard Abilities & Ultimate
Here's a quick overview of Juggernaut's basic abilities and ultimate in Dota 2:
|
Ability Name |
How it Works |
|---|---|
|
Blade Fury (Q) |
Juggernaut starts spinning with his sword, damaging enemies in an AOE around him. Juggernaut is debuff immune and gains bonus magic resistance for the duration and receives a strong dispel when Blade Fury ends. |
|
Healing Ward (W) |
Summon a healing ward that heals all allied units in its AOE. It can be controlled independently of the hero and lasts for 25 seconds. |
|
Blade Dance (E) |
Gives Juggernaut a chance to inflict critical damage on hits, dealing bonus physical damage. |
|
Omnislash (R) |
Juggernaut leaps towards the target unit and starts slashing at nearby targets. The hero gains bonus attack speed and damage for the duration. The number of total slashes depends on Juggernaut's attack speed. |
Apart from these, purchasing the Aghanim's Shard upgrades the Blade Fury with a new effect. Picking up the Aghanim's Scepter, on the other hand, grants Juggernaut an entirely new ability.
- Aghanim's Shard: Gives Blade Fury bonus radius and also causes it to slow enemy movement speed by 35%.
- Aghanim's Scepter: Juggernaut gains the ability Swiftslash. It's a short 1-second duration Omnislash with a low cooldown of only 20 seconds.
Similar to Omnislash, Swiftslash gains all the benefits from Juggernaut's physical damage and attack speed items.
In the Dota 2 Crownfall update, Juggernaut also received two Facets and an Innate Ability:
- Innate Ability (Duelist): Juggernaut deals more damage to enemy targets that are facing him. The effect is always active during Omnislash and Swiftslash.
- Facet 1 (Bladestorm): Blade Fury applies critical hits based on the level of Blade Dance.
- Facet 2 (Bladeform): The hero gains a stacking bonus of movement speed and Agility when not taking damage. When he takes damage, the stack resets after lingering for 2 seconds.
Juggernaut Build Guide in Dota 2
Juggernaut is one of the strongest laners in Dota 2 and can hold his own against most Offlaners that are good in the current meta. His Blade Fury ability makes him a threat against almost any hero in the game. If your Position 5 Support has a stun or a slow, it's pretty easy to claim First Blood.
On top of that, Juggernaut's Healing Ward does percentage-based healing, which means you can always use it to reset after an engagement and heal yourself up to full. And once you unlock your ultimate, it's close to impossible for any hero to stay on the lane without a creep wave.
That being said, Juggernaut isn't really a hero that you'll want to play from behind. This hero relies on getting a good start in the lane to get the key items that he can use to snowball throughout the game. That means you'll need to upgrade your abilities properly and get the right items so that you don't fall off in the mid-late game.
The following build guide will help you get a complete picture of how you should play the hero.
Facets, Talents, & Ability Order
Juggernaut usually prefers going with the Bladestorm Facet to get the crit in Blade Fury. Remember, the auto-attacks during Blade Fury can scale with your attack speed, which means in the late game, each Blade Fury will become that much deadlier, allowing you to chase down the enemy Supports without having to commit your Omnislash.
As for his ability order, you'll always want to start the laning phase with Blade Fury. The damage output from this ability is insane for the early levels, and with a bit of help from your support, you can get kills on the Offlaner from level 1 with it. Once you hit level 2, you'll either put a point in Healing Ward (if the enemy has a lot of lane harass) or Blade Dance (if the lane is in your favor). Max out Blade Fury first, then put your points into Blade Dance and only upgrade Healing Ward when all your other abilities are upgraded.
For talents, take the following as soon as they become available:
- +4% Duelist Damage
- +40 Movement Speed During Blade Fury
- +50% Blade Dance Lifesteal
- +1s Omnislash Duration
Item Progression
Juggernaut has two distinct item builds, and the one you choose depends mostly on the matchup. Firstly, there's the Battle Fury build, which will let you become a late-game monster, taking down heroes without any trouble. However, this build takes a while to come online, and if your enemy team plays well, they'll likely punish you for going this route.
The build that we prefer is with Mjolnir, which makes Juggernaut a massive threat around the 20-minute mark. Granted, it still requires a lot of farm for you to become effective, but it's much easier to pull off and also lets you join fights with your Midlaner to snag a couple of kills for yourself.
While we'll focus mostly on the Mjolnir build, we'll also drop hints for the Battle Fury build if you want to try it out yourself:
- Starting Items:
The starting items for Juggernaut are the same across both builds. You'll want to start with a set of Tango, an Iron Branch, A Magic Stick, A Circlet, and a Quelling Blade. It's a straightforward item build that gives you decent regen and stats while allowing you to last hit more easily because of the Quell bonus from the Quelling Blade.
Alternately, you can take two Iron Branches and a Faerie Fire instead of the Magic Stick if the enemy doesn't have any spammable ability for the laning phase.
- Early Game:
Boots of Speed is your first priority on the lane when you're playing Juggernaut. The movement speed from it allows you to stay on top of the enemy heroes during Blade Fury. Afterwards, buy Wraith Band for the stats, and finish up your Magic Wand. Upgrade your Boots of Speed to Phase Boots next.
If you're going with the Battle Fury build, consider buying Power Treads instead of Phase Boots.
- Core Items:
Since Juggernaut is a safelane carry, you'll naturally need to build a lot of core items on the hero. The first item you need after Phase Boots is Maelstrom. It will ramp up your farming speed drastically. Buy Yasha and upgrade it to Manta Style next. After that, either upgrade your Maelstrom to Mjolnir or start building towards an Aghanim's Scepter.
Manta Style lets you dispel abilities like Terrorblade's Reflection or even disjoint projectiles.
For the Battle Fury build, you'll naturally want to build Battle Fury first instead of Maelstrom. After that, build a Yasha and go with Sange And Yasha. You'll also need a Linken's Sphere when you're going with this build.
- Situational Items:
After picking up your core items, the last few inventory slots are reserved for situational items, depending on the matchup. Once you get to this point, you have plenty of options for which item you get next. For instance, if you need to disable an enemy hero's passive ability, go with Silver Edge. Against Eul's Scepter of Divinity or Glimmer Cape, go for Nullifier.
If the enemy team has heroes with evasion, Monkey King Bar is always a good choice. On the other hand, if you're having a hard time killing tanky heroes like Dark Seer, go with Eye of Skadi. You can also pick up Butterfly to massively beef up your own damage output and gain evasion.
Once you get the item build jotted down, playing Juggernaut becomes a lot easier. The hero isn't squishy and the debuff magic immunity from Blade Fury lets you be a lot greedier with your item choice. Mastering the hero will help you dominate your ranked games and slowly rise up the MMR ladder in Dota 2.
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