Drow Ranger
Drow Ranger's given name is Traxex--a name well suited to the short, trollish, rather repulsive Drow people. But Traxex herself is not a Drow. Her parents were travelers in a caravan set upon by bandits, whose noisy slaughter of innocents roused the ire of the quiet Drow people. <br><br>After the battle settled, the Drow discovered a small girl-child hiding in the ruined wagons, and agreed she could not be abandoned. Even as child, Traxex showed herself naturally adept at the arts they prized: Stealth, silence, subtlety. In spirit, if not in physique, she might have been a Drow changeling, returned to her proper home. But as she grew, she towered above her family and came to think of herself as ugly. After all, her features were smooth and symmetrical, entirely devoid of warts and coarse whiskers. <br><br>Estranged from her adopted tribe, she withdrew to live alone in the woods. Lost travelers who find their way from the forest sometimes speak of an impossibly beautiful Ranger who peered at them from deep among the trees, then vanished like a dream before they could approach. Lithe and stealthy, icy hot, she moves like mist in silence. That whispering you hear is her frozen arrows finding an enemy's heart.
Base STR
16 +1.9
Base AGI
22 +2.8
Base INT
15 +1.4
Move Speed
310
Attack Range
625
Base Armor
0
Attack DMG
27–34
Projectile
1250
Innate Abilities
Precision Aura
Grants Drow bonus agility based on Drow's current agility and level. Nearby ranged heroes received 50% of the bonus agility.
RADIUS:
1200
AGILITY BONUS:
10%
Traxex' time spent alone in the forests of her Drow home has allowed her to teach other archers how to improve their bow skills.
Abilities
Frost Arrows
Mana
9 / 10 / 11 / 12
Adds a freezing effect to Drow's attacks, slowing enemy movement and dealing bonus damage. Slow lasts 1.5 seconds.
MOVEMENT SLOW:
-15 / -25 / -35 / -45%
BONUS DAMAGE:
10 / 15 / 20 / 25
HEALTH RESTORATION LOSS PER STACK:
0%
BONUS DAMAGE PER STACK:
0
STACK DURATION:
0
BURST RADIUS:
0
BURST DAMAGE PER STACK:
0
BURST MOVEMENT SLOW:
0%
BURST SLOW DURATION:
0
MAX STACKS:
0
- The slow duration is refreshed on successive casts.
Ice-encased arrows pierce the silence, chilling their victims to the core.
Gust
Cooldown
19 / 17 / 15 / 13s
Mana
70
Releases a wave that silences and knocks back and reveals invisible enemy units. Knockback distance is relative to how close they are to Drow.
WIDTH:
250
SILENCE DURATION:
3 / 4 / 5 / 6
KNOCKBACK MAX:
450
KNOCKBACK DURATION:
0.6 / 0.7 / 0.8 / 0.9
Traxex is rather fond of the tranquility of physical combat, calling on her Drow heritage to end the incantations of opposing magi.
Multishot
Cooldown
24 / 21 / 18 / 15s
Mana
50 / 70 / 90 / 110
CHANNELED - Drow releases a flurry of arrows in continuous salvos, hitting enemies for extra damage and applying Frost Arrows. Lasts up to 1.75 seconds.
Drow can move slowly and use items while casting Multishot.
WAVE COUNT:
3
ARROWS PER WAVE:
4
ARROW BASE DAMAGE BONUS:
100 / 120 / 140 / 160%
ARROW RANGE MULTIPLIER:
1.75
MOVEMENT SPEED PENALTY:
35%
- Arrow base damage pierces magic immunity.
- Frost Arrows' damage and slow do not pierce magic immunity.
In the ranger's youth, learning to fire multiple arrows at once was considered a distracting frivolity. In the war of the Ancients, such technique has become strange necessity.
Marksmanship
Drow's experiences in battle grant her a chance to launch arrows with incredible accuracy and effectiveness. Pierces through the enemy's defenses, ignoring their base armor. This ability is disabled if there is an enemy hero within 300 range.
CHANCE:
30 / 35 / 40%
BONUS PROC DAMAGE:
50 / 70 / 90
- Marksmanship procs have true strike.
The Drow Ranger is the epitome of archery prowess.
Talents
Aghanim's Scepter
Frost Arrows
Frost Arrows now apply a Hypothermia stack to enemies, increasing damage from Frost Arrows and reducing their Health Restoration per stack. If an enemy dies with Hypothermia stacks, they burst and deal damage per stack and slow in an area around it.
Aghanim's Shard
Glacier
Cooldown
25s
Mana
50
Drow creates a hill of ice beneath her, knocking away nearby enemies. Units on the hill gain flying vision and Drow and her ranged allies gain bonus attack range. Drow gains additional damage while on the Glacier and attacking targets below her.
The front of the hill obscures vision and cannot be moved through except by Drow. Does not interrupt Multishot when cast.
DURATION:
8
ATTACK RANGE BONUS:
200
HIGH GROUND DAMAGE BONUS:
25%
Traxex wasn't just adopted by the Drow, she was adopted by the lands they lived in.
Hero Performance
Median across all public matches · OpenDotaForm
50%
Win rate in recent matches
Performance
100%
KDA ratio (kills + assists / deaths)
Laning
61%
Last hits per minute over full game
Farm
72%
Average gold per minute
Fighting
34%
Average kills + assists per match
Experience
84%
Average XP per minute
Strategy
When to Pick Drow Ranger?
Pick Drow Ranger when your team has the frontline to protect her, the draft gives her space to stay at range, and the enemy lineup has absolutely no reliable way to close the gap and get within 400 units of her—because the moment someone touches her, she loses Marksmanship and suddenly half her identity as a damage dealer just evaporates completely.
She is situational right now, and I want to be crystal clear about that, because people keep picking her into lineups with four gap closers and then wondering why she did nothing all game. But in the RIGHT draft?
She is one of the most oppressive right-click carries in the entire game—Power Treads into Silver Edge into Hurricane Pike into Manta Style into Butterfly is one of the most disgusting item progressions any agility carry can have, and when she has those items with proper peel around her, she is just impossible to deal with from a distance.
She is disgusting in lineups with strong aura heroes that amplify her damage—Vengeful Spirit, Witch Doctor, Assault Cuirass carriers—because Marksmanship grants bonus agility based on her CURRENT agility and every single point she gains from external sources stacks directly into that passive, making her hit even harder.
She thrives in lineups that have strong initiation and tankiness on the front line—Tidehunter, Centaur, Axe—heroes that can absorb all the enemy's attention while Drow stands in the back firing arrows into everything from maximum range without a single hero looking in her direction.
She pairs beautifully with heroes that have strong lockdown—Clockwerk, Shadow Shaman, and Bane—because a rooted or stunned target standing exactly 400 units away from her is basically a free kill with zero counterplay.
Avoid picking her into lineups with a lot of gap closers and blink initiators—Storm Spirit, Slark, Anti-Mage, and Phantom Assassin—heroes that will just teleport directly onto her face, disable Marksmanship instantly, and delete her before her supports can even react. She has no real escape mechanism, and if the enemy understands that and drafts accordingly, she will spend the entire game being hunted down and killed before she can do anything meaningful.
Also feels absolutely terrible in heavy silence lineups—because Gust is her ONLY defensive spell, and if she can't push away the hero diving her, she is just standing there with no escape and no answer to whatever is running directly at her face.
Tips & common mistakes
- Drow is all about positioning, and people forget this every single game. Marksmanship gets disabled the moment an enemy gets within 400 range—stay behind your teammates at ALL times, use them as a buffer, and keep moving throughout fights so nobody can close the gap on you without going through your entire team first.
- Learn to manually cast Frost Arrows—orbwalking—immediately. It prevents you from drawing creep and tower aggro while you harass, and the difference between a Drow that orb-walks correctly and one that doesn't is enormous in the laning phase.
- Stop spamming Frost Arrows on everything in the early game. They drain your mana incredibly fast, and then you have nothing left for Multishot when a real fight breaks out. Manage your mana like it actually matters—because it does.
- Drow builds agility and stat items, NOT raw damage items—because Multishot only uses base damage and Marksmanship scales off current agility. Every agility item you buy IS your damage on this hero. Stop buying Desolator and wondering why your Multishot feels like it tickles.
- Gust is not a casual button press. It is your ONLY defensive tool, and you should be saving it exclusively for when a gap closer is diving directly onto your face. Wasting it on a fleeing hero at full HP is one of the most tilting things a Drow player can do to their own team.
- Hurricane Pike is not optional — buy it every single game. The active pushes away heroes that get too close and saves your life in situations where Gust is on cooldown. It also gives you the range to out-damage towers without putting yourself in danger.
- Frost Arrows stack fully with Eye of Skadi — together they slow even the fastest heroes in the game to an absolute crawl. If the enemy has high-mobility carries that love to chase you down, Skadi completely removes their ability to run you down and is one of the best late-game purchases you can make on this hero.
Summary
Drow Ranger is a hero that punishes every single draft mistake the enemy makes around mobility and gap closing—put her into the right lineup with the right frontline, and she will stand at maximum range and delete the enemy team so fast they won't even have time to reach her. But she is situational for a very good reason, and if you pick her as one of four heroes with blinks and gap closers because you like the hero, you are not playing Dota 2—you are feeding.
Position perfectly, keep marksmanship active at all times, and make sure your team understands that their entire job is to make sure nobody gets within 400 units of you. Just don't make the mistake of thinking Hurricane Pike and Gust will save you from every bad position—because a Drow Ranger that gets caught out of position without her team nearby is just an extremely fragile archer with a bow and absolutely nothing else standing between her and a very fast death.
Strong Against
Weak Against
Popular Items
Starting Items
Early Game
Core
Late Game
Popular Neutral Items
Pro Players Known For This Hero
