Tidehunter
The Tidehunter known as Leviathan was once the champion of the Sunken Isles, but his motives are as mysterious as those of his people. We all know the importance of the Drylanders' shipping lanes, how empires may rise and fall according to who controls the open water. Far less is known of the submarine lanes, and how the warring tribes of the Meranthic Diaspora have carved out habitations through endless undersea skirmishes. In the fragile treaties between the Mer and Men, we can glimpse the extent of the drowned empires, but their politics appear complex and opaque. It would seem that Leviathan tired of such petty strife, and set off on his own, loyal only to his abyssal god, Maelrawn the Tentacular. He stalks the shallows now in search of men or meranths who stray into his path, and with a particular loathing for Admiral Kunkka, who has long been his nemesis for reasons lost in the deepest trenches of the sea.
Base STR
26 +3.7
Base AGI
15 +1.5
Base INT
20 +1.7
Move Speed
300
Attack Range
150
Base Armor
0
Attack DMG
25–31
Projectile
900
Innate Abilities
Leviathan's Catch
Whenever an enemy hero is killed by Tidehunter or dies under his debuffs, a fish appears in their place; Tidehunter can eat the fish to permanently gain 3 Health, 2 Attack Range, and 1 Bonus Damage Block.
Tidehunter eats a free fish every time he reaches an even hero level.
HEALTH GAINED:
0
ATTACK RANGE GAINED:
0
BONUS DAMAGE BLOCK GAINED:
0
- Enemies can destroy the fish.
- Bonus Damage Block only applies if another source of Damage Block will be affecting the incoming physical attack.
Abilities
Gush
Cooldown
12s
Mana
100
Summons a gush of water to damage an enemy unit, reducing their movement speed and armor.
DAMAGE:
100 / 160 / 220 / 280
SLOW:
-40%
ARMOR REDUCTION:
3 / 4 / 5 / 6
RADIUS:
0
COOLDOWN:
0
RANGE:
0
DEBUFF DURATION:
4.5
During his championship of the Sunken Isles, Leviathan gained mastery over the open sea.
Kraken Shell
Cooldown
30s
Mana
45
Thickens Tidehunter's hide to passively block a portion of any incoming physical attack damage. Reduced block amount versus creeps. The hide also removes negative status effects if the damage taken crosses a threshold. Can be activated to double the block amount at the cost of 40% movement speed. Lasts 4s. DISPEL TYPE: Strong Dispel
DAMAGE BLOCK:
15 / 35 / 55 / 75
DAMAGE BLOCK PER KILL:
0
CREEP PENALTY:
50%
DAMAGE CLEANSE THRESHOLD:
600 / 550 / 500 / 450
DAMAGE RESET INTERVAL:
7
Claddish navymen tell tales of a mighty sea-faring beast that suffered spear and sword but continued to lay waste to the fleet.
Anchor Smash
Cooldown
7 / 6 / 5 / 4s
Mana
40 / 45 / 50 / 55
Tidehunter swings his mighty anchor to attack and deal bonus damage to nearby enemies and reduce their attack damage. The radius of Anchor Smash is Tidehunter's attack range plus 225 units.
ATTACK BONUS DAMAGE:
50 / 100 / 150 / 200
DAMAGE REDUCTION:
-25 / -30 / -35 / -40%
DURATION:
6
- Anchor Smash works on all Ancient creeps except for Roshan.
- Damage done by Anchor Smashes triggered by Kraken Shell Cleanse is considered reflected damage. Reflected damage does not provide any lifesteal and cannot be reflected.
Stolen from one of Admiral Kunkka's flagships, Leviathan's heavy anchor proves useful as a melee weapon.
Ravage
Cooldown
150 / 145 / 140s
Mana
125 / 225 / 325
Slams the ground, causing tentacles to erupt in all directions, damaging and stunning all nearby enemy units.
RADIUS:
1250
DURATION:
2 / 2.2 / 2.4
- Ravage will hit invisible units.
- Ravage waves move outwards at a speed of 725.
Calling to the abyssal god Maelrawn has resulted in entire armadas being lost at sea.
Talents
Aghanim's Scepter
Gush
Gush becomes a ground targeted wave ability that affects enemy units in a line. Decreases cooldown.
Aghanim's Shard
Dead in the Water
Cooldown
35s
Mana
110
Tidehunter attaches a heavy anchor to an enemy hero. The hero is leashed while attached to the anchor. Attempting to move more than 350 units away from the anchor forces the hero to 100 move speed, dragging the anchor behind them. The anchor can be destroyed with 4 hero attacks.
ATTACKS TO DESTROY:
4
ANCHOR DRAG SPEED:
100
CHAIN LENGTH:
350
ANCHOR DURATION:
10
Anchors Aweigh!
Hero Performance
Median across all public matches · OpenDotaForm
51%
Win rate in recent matches
Performance
64%
KDA ratio (kills + assists / deaths)
Laning
41%
Last hits per minute over full game
Farm
58%
Average gold per minute
Fighting
20%
Average kills + assists per match
Experience
76%
Average XP per minute
Strategy
When to Pick Tidehunter?
DM—professional player Dmitriy Dorokhin—released his 7.41a offlane tier list and put Tidehunter in S-tier alongside Bristleback, Doom, Enigma, and Batrider. Strafe tracked a 2.27% winrate increase with a 1.27% pick rate increase after the current patch dropped. D2PT shows him sitting at a 52.5% win rate as an offlaner right now. The hero is strong; it has always been strong in the offlane, and the current patch gave him something that makes the long-game version of Tidehunter genuinely frightening—the Fish innate.
Every time an enemy hero dies while affected by ANY Tidehunter debuff—Gush slow, Anchor Smash damage reduction, or Ravage stun—or is killed directly by him, they drop a fish. Tidehunter eats that fish to permanently gain 3 max health, 2 attack range, and 1 bonus damage block. He also automatically eats a fish on every level up regardless. Strafe specifically called this out as the reason Tidehunter saw such a significant winrate jump—abilities that stack with no cap have always tended to break Dota, and this one stacks literally forever. After fifteen teamfights where Tidehunter's debuffs are present on every dying hero, his Anchor Smash radius has grown because his attack range has grown, his damage block has grown because every fish adds 1 block on top of Kraken Shell's base, and his HP pool is permanently larger. A Tidehunter who snowballs fish stacks across a fifty-minute game becomes progressively more unkillable than any item combination could achieve independently.
The current patch is also a perfect environment for Tidehunter's role identity. Sportskeeda's April 2026 tier list described the current offlaner role as primarily needing to be a tanky frontliner who controls teamfights or keeps important enemy cores out of fights—and Tidehunter does both simultaneously. Kraken Shell in the current version applies a STRONG DISPEL when enough damage accumulates, removing essentially any debuff in the game, including Doom, Winter's Curse, and hex effects from the duration—and with the level 20 talent active, every Kraken Shell cleanse automatically triggers an Anchor Smash on nearby enemies simultaneously, meaning soaking huge amounts of damage and cleansing simultaneously converts incoming punishment into an AOE damage reduction debuff on everyone around Tidehunter. The offlane is where he thrives specifically because Anchor Smash in the safe lane terrorizes melee carries—every time the enemy carry tries to last hit, Anchor Smash reduces their attack damage by 30/40/50/60% for four seconds, which in the early laning phase is the difference between a carry who gets every last hit and a carry who misses constantly while also taking bonus physical damage from the Anchor Smash instant attack. He pairs perfectly with Carries who deal physical damage from range and want the enemy frontline's armor reduced—Gush reduces armor by 4/5/6/7, and Aghanim's Scepter Gush becomes a LINE WAVE hitting every enemy in a corridor, applying the armor reduction to the entire enemy team simultaneously after a Ravage stuns them all. The teamfight sequence of Blink Dagger into Ravage stunning five heroes, immediately Gushing through the grouped stunned team for armor reduction, and Anchor Smashing AOE damage reduction debuffs on all of them while your carry's physical attacks deal amplified damage through the combined armor reductions—this is one of the cleanest teamfight setups in Dota 2. Avoid putting him into lineups with multiple BKB users who pop them before Ravage lands, or into heavy magic damage teams where Kraken Shell's physical-only damage block provides minimal protection.
Tips & common mistakes
- Do NOT buy Vanguard — it does not stack with Kraken Shell. Both are ensured damage-block sources, but Kraken Shell's value takes precedence, making Vanguard's block completely wasted gold. Most pub Tidehunter players instinctively buy Vanguard because Tidehunter looks like a Vanguard hero and it feels tanky. It gives zero additional damage block. Every gold spent on Vanguard is wasted. Buy Phase Boots, Blink Dagger, and Aghanim's Shard instead.
- Anchor Smash's radius equals Tidehunter's attack range PLUS 225 units—and Fish stacks permanently increase attack range by 2 per fish. Most pub Tidehunter players never think about the compounding Anchor Smash radius growth throughout the game. With twenty fish stacks, the Anchor Smash AOE is 40 units larger than at game start. By fifty stacks it is dramatically larger and catches heroes who thought they were standing outside its range. Position Anchor Smash around grouped enemies and let the radius work — do not restrict yourself to only hitting the closest single target.
- Aghanim's Shard's Dead in the Water ability attaches an anchor leash to an enemy hero—if they try to walk more than 350 units from the anchor point, they are forced to 100 movement speed, dragging it. Most pub Tidehunter players use Shard only after Ravage to double down on lockdown. The correct use is as an independent catch tool on mobile heroes who would otherwise escape: Blink → Dead in the Water on a fleeing Storm Spirit or Ember Spirit who has already used their mobility—they can still try to Ball Lightning or Sleight of Fist out of range, but the leash pulls them back to 100 speed if they exceed the anchor distance. It also buys time for your team to rotate to a caught hero without needing Ravage.
- Kraken Shell's level 20 talent makes every cleanse proc automatically trigger an Anchor Smash — most pub Tidehunter players take this talent and then never actively think about maximizing its value. The correct play with this talent is to intentionally stand in the middle of grouped enemies and soak controlled bursts of damage to proc the cleanse threshold, triggering a free Anchor Smash on every enemy in radius simultaneously without spending any mana or cooldown. This converts incoming punishment into free AOE debuffing — the enemy team literally attacks themselves into giving Tidehunter's carries a damage reduction advantage.
- BKB counters Ravage — a full BKB-duration team during Ravage means the stun lands on nobody and the lockdown is wasted entirely. Most pub Tidehunter players Ravage the moment they blink into the enemy team regardless of BKB status. The correct approach against BKB-heavy lineups is waiting for BKBs to expire before committing Ravage, using Dead in the Water and Gush to stall until the immunity runs out, and then landing Ravage into the non-immune follow-up window. Refresher Orb lets you cast Ravage twice — once to drain BKBs from the entire team, once after they expire.
- Kraken Shell's active doubles the damage block amount at the cost of 40% movement speed for four seconds—most pub Tidehunter players activate it reactively when already at critical HP. The correct use is activating it PROACTIVELY the moment you blink into a teamfight initiation, BEFORE the enemy team's attacks land, so the doubled block value absorbs the burst damage of their initial counterattack rather than the slower sustained damage after they've already half-killed you.
- Fish stacks accumulate from ANY hero death affected by ANY Tidehunter debuff—which means in team fights where your carry is doing the killing, Tidehunter should still have Gush or Anchor. Smash active on dying heroes even if Tidehunter himself is not landing the kill. Most pub Tidehunter players treat fish as a bonus that happens accidentally. Actively tracking which enemies are about to die and casting Gush on them — even at max range from safety — guarantees the fish drops from every kill throughout the entire game. Never let a hero die near you without at least one debuff active.
Summary
S-tier in DM's offlane tier list, with a 52-54% win rate across brackets. Hard to kill, strong in lane, and a teamfight ultimate that — when it lands on five grouped heroes — is one of the single most impactful spells in all of Dota 2. The Fish innate is the piece that makes the current version of Tidehunter quietly terrifying in long games—stacks with no cap, grows Anchor Smash radius permanently, and adds damage block on top of an already formidable Kraken Shell.
Blink Dagger is his most important item; his job is to be the tankiest, most annoying frontline in every fight, and if you let him collect fish all game while your carry farms behind him? Mark my words—by the time the enemy team realizes they cannot kill him, it is already too late to deal with what he has become.
Popular Items
Starting Items
Early Game
Core
Late Game
Popular Neutral Items
