Dota 2 – Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!)

Dota 2 – Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 1 - steamlists.com
Dota 2 – Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 1 - steamlists.com
This guide is for a custom game: Atomic War. It focus on summoners: which summoners for beginners and this includes also tier list. Keep it mind that this is just my opinions, based on my game expedience so far.

 
 

Introduction

 
This is description from the custom game (can be found from the discord information and Workshop description) 
 
We are Atomic Nucleus Studio , but people say the name is dumb. We love games, but too old to keep playing. We work very hard, but still left so many bugs and flaws. We will keep improving, but not without your support. 
 
Atomic War is a Rogue-Like PVP mod. Starting with your summoner and their special ability, you can choose from a pool of random Heroes, Items and Spells to build your strongest squad and fight against others. Bots will be automatically added if you start the game alone. It is recommended for new players to start learning the game this way. 
 
What I could add to the text, this game mode is Auto Battlers, very close to Dota Auto Chess, Dota Underlords and Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds (mostly because some summoners are similar to bg’s heroes). Personally I like Atomic Wars the most because you can personalize units even further and Summoner is better than Underlord. Just my opinion.
 
 
Now it’s time to introduce myself: I am Spatio, Finnish (currently inactive) YouTuber who also likes to do posters with Source Filmmaker (learning Blender as well). My YouTube channels are Kekkospoika (older and now mostly only my personal account) and GBDClub (Gamer’s Best Day Club). I have played Auto Battlers since the early days of Dota Auto Chess and I have spent hours… HOURS in many titles of Auto Battles (the only big title what I haven’t touched yet is Teamfight Tactics). I have enjoyed Atomic War a lot and to be honest: I haven’t enjoyed any other auto battlers so much for a long time. I was the 18th player who reached the Legend rank in Atomic War. 
 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
I don’t go for the basics, there are in-game tutorials and you can learn the game with bots. Bots will be added when you start a lobby as solo. The reason why I am writing this guide is because I want to help you to climb up in the ladder. Because matches will become harder and harder when more people install the game mode and learn it. In this guide I just want to give some tips from the Summoners: I can make another guide from builds and unit setups but in this guide, I focus on the summoners. 
 
NOTE: This guide is based on my opinions and they can be stub. I am a simple man who likes simple summoners so I might not notice some summoners’ potential. I will update the lists (Recommendations / tier) when I discover something new / sleeper. 
 
 

Summoner

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) - Summoner 
You will pick one of the summoners at the beginning of the match and this choice can already decide whether you will lose or win the game. The selection is based on unlocked and some extra random heroes whose change every week. I made some mistakes and I have mostly lost matches badly because of them. In this guide, I will approach Summoners as a beginner at first and then I will make my own tier list from the summoners. I don’t own many of those but I have some visions how the hero works and is she / he / it worth to choose. 
 
 

Recommended summoners for beginners

 

Pudge

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Initial HP is 600, instead of 400 
 
How to get: Should be unlocked for everyone 
 
With extra HP you can get into the game easier. You have more time to learn game mechanics + see how the late game goes on. These extra 200 hp (what should match like two heavy 10+ round losses) can save your plus (Top 4) placement if your board and items are not the best. The bad side of Pudge is… well… you don’t get other benefits from him than just HP. 
 

Bounty Hunter

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Gondar stores one coin / round. When you press the button, you will withdraw all stored coins. You can press the button only once per match! 
How to get: Log-in Reward, seven days 
 
Some extra money when you need it! Summoner will automatically store the coin so you don’t need to worry about it. So don’t press the button accidentally in turn 1! In that case you will have only +1 coin to use and you can’t use the ability for the rest of the game! This summoner works just like Hearthstone Battlegrounds’ hero: Skycap’n Kragg
 
But when is a good time to use this ability? Use 12 or more coins for upgrading Summoner / shop level from 5 to 6. Why? Usually upgrading from five to six is really hard because it usually means that you will spend all coins for lvl 6 and you can’t do anything else. Unless you start selling items / useless hero(es). With those extra 12+ coins you have better change for important items and access to delicious tier 6 items. 
 
The con of Bounty Hunter is the early stage of a game. If you have to spend the extra money at the early stage (because of possible losing streak), you won’t have the late game advantage. So try to create as a good board as possible before you hit the round 12+. 
 

Omniknight

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Upgrades chosen hero’s level to 18 (means two extra copies of the unit from the shop if you select lvl 6 hero). You can press the button only once per match! Levels from the ability won’t count when the hero is sold. 
How to get: Unlocking him or randomly chosen to weekly pool 
 
This summoner doesn’t have straight unlock but I have to mention Omniknight because he is the one who has carried me hard. Most likely (I don’t have any statistics but I am sure this is fact) I have the highest winrate with him. 
 
Which unit / hero is worthy of his ability? 

  • Scaling hero (for example Pudge with Flesh Heap) 
  • Tinker or hero with effective AoE spell damage. (If you have checked end game statistics screen, there is usually someone’s Tinker as the most damage dealer)

 
With the good unit choice, the unit will carry you for a very long time. Because of the good early stage, you should have a very good chance to reach top 4 unless everything is nuts in a match (for example three Alchemists with big boards and you have to face all of them three rounds in a row). 
 
Because of the good flash start there isn’t a straight con with Omniknight. But you still have emberto create a good board beside the upgraded unit and place it in a good position (so it doesn’t get nuked hard by enemy units). Just remember to use the ability to a good hero unit so everything goes well / starts paying back later. 
 
 

Summoner Tier list (2000 Players update)

 
This is based on my opinions and experience from my public matches. If I don’t have any experience from the summoner, he/she isn’t in the list. But I will place missing summoners to my prediction list. This list also includes my opinion on how to balance the hero. But they are in my prediction list. 

  • SS means “Too nasty!”, 
  • S is “Very solid”, 
  • A “playable”, 
  • B “niche”, 
  • C “try to avoid” and 
  • F “Avoid this with any cause”!

 
In nutshell: every economic summoner is strong while class based summoners are bad / niche. Try to avoid RNG summoners. 
 
 

SS tier

 

Alchemist

 
Ability: Loses 30 HP but you get two coins 
Reason: Economic Summoner. This hero is all or nothing. Basically you want to use the hero power so many times as possible, taking a board advantage at the early stage of a game. And yes, you can still use the hero power even if the HP is under 30. 
 
Even after the rebalance / nerf, Alchemist is still too strong, in my opinion. I faced two Alchemists (while the hero was still in the weekly pool), they still managed to get a Godlike streak. With the godlike streaks it is almost guaranteed for Alchemist that he is at least in the Top 4, most likely winning the game just because of the summoner ability. Only counter for the ability is another Alchemist or very bad luck while shopping. 
 
My balance feedback: The first balance which I like to test is adding a condition using the ability: Alchemist has to have enough health to use the ability. So if HP is under 30, then Alchemist can’t use the hero power anymore. If this balance is too huge nerf, I would keep the condition but I would bring back three coins with the cost of 40 HP. The point is that Al can keep his early stage advantage but it should have its own consequence to the late stage of a game. 
 
 

S tier

 

Omniknight

 

 
Ability: Upgrades chosen hero’s level to 18 (means two extra copies of the unit from the shop if you select lvl 6 hero). You can press the button only once per match! Levels from the ability won’t count when the hero is sold. 2 coins 
 
Reason: Economic hero. With good hero choice, the upgraded unit can carry the team by itself. With that, the unit can manage to save his early stage of a game (unless he faces unluckiness / Alchemist) and the player can focus on getting a good board. More details can be found from recommended summoners. 
 
My Balance feedback: If Omni needs to nerf, I would increase the cost of the ability to three coins.It would slow Omni down slightly. 
 

Dark Willow

 

 
Ability: Lower mage heroes’ price by 1 coin. Reduce magic resistance of the enemy by 9%. Passive 
 
Reason: Very solid economic summoner. You can fill a board quickly with cheap mages and the best part is that you can sell the mage unit with the full price! Reducing 9% magic resistance doesn’t sound huge but keep it mind that this means all your units deal more magic damage! Players with Dark willow should take a huge advantage with mages before scaling heroes go out of their hands (or trying to stop scaling right clicker with Leshrac with Agham Scepter) 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Ember Spirit

 

 
Ability: You start with a broken sword. You can forge the sword with coins. Using nine coins in total (one forge costs one coin), Broken sword transfers into level 1 sword. Using another nine coins as total, lvl 1 swords transfers into lvl 2. 
Reason: Utility summoner. Lvl 1 / 2 sword is damn good (highly recommended to use assassin / archer). Lvl 1 is basically the same as Divine Rapier (+180 attack damage) in this game mode except it also has extra ability which is the same as Ember Spirit’s Sleight of Fist. This sword ability is nuts and it can swipe an entire enemy team with two activations in right hands. 
 
Level 2 is the most powerful weapon in the entire game mode which is almost the same than actual Divine Rapier (+320 attack damage except it still has the Ember Spirit’s skill and true strike for normal attacks). This lvl 2 sword makes DPS damn good and it is most of the time game winning item. But the thing is the cost. I recommend that you avoid rushing for the working sword, especially don’t rush to lvl 2. 
 
This weapon is all about investing. You will have rounds when you have one or two extra coins before locking for good hero copy / item. Those extra coins can be used for forging. Rush the forge only when you have a feeling that you need to turn your lose streak back to winning or you can spend a specific shop phase for forging. 
 
My balance feedback: Ember just got nerfed (before forging cost was 8+8) so hard to say, does he need another nerf. Personally I would make +attack damage slightly weaker: +150 / +300. After all the sword has true strike which is a huge advantage because only few skills / items have true strike. 
 
 

A tier

 

Batrider

 

 
Ability: When an ally summoned dies, Batrider hurls an explosive cocktail to its location and deals damage to nearby enemies (Damage = Level of the Summon unit*19). Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. Batrider is actually pretty neat because there are so many heros with summonable units (+ Necronomicon as tier 3 and Book of the dead as tier 6 item). Cocktail deals pretty nice extra damage but in my experience with his ability is not totally game winning. 
 
My balance feedback: In my opinion, I would make cocktail pools at least slightly bigger. 
 

Rubick

 

 
Ability: Gives FREE Aghanim’s scepter to your courier every 6 rounds in the shopping phase. Passive 
 
Reason: Economic Utility summoner. Very useful item drop for specific heroes (For example Disruptor, Kunkka, Tinker and Drow Ranger). You can’t win only with Scepter upgrade but free and good items (You most likely get at least two-three scepters while the game) are very economical and finding a scepter otherwise can be difficult (since it is the tier 4 item). Absolutely a playable summoner. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Luna

 

 
Ability: Gives permanent + 11 attack damage for all allies. This ability stacks. 1 coin 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. This can be very handy especially if you find scaling DPS hero and ESPECIALLY Phantom Assassin. This can be a dangerous ability but there are some cons: Since ability costs one coin, your overall economy suffers a little bit and you have to still build a good board. And you should press the button every single time to get the best effort from the ability. She is still playable but at the first sight the summoner ability is not the direct winning condition. 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would like to test +6 main attributes instead of +11 attack damage. Back to 7.20 – 7.22f main attribute Lunar blessing was one of the strongest passive (at that time attributes had some extra efforts) while the attack damage Lunar blessing has been always clunky. 
 

Bounty Hunter

 

 
Ability: Gondar stores one coin / round. When you press the button, you will withdraw all stored coins. You can press the button only once per match! 
 
Reason: Extra coins are really handy for late game. But you have to survive the early game before the payday. He is totally a playable summoner. More details can be found from recommended summoners.. 
 
My balance feedback:– 
 

Rikimaru

 

 
Ability: Melee heroes get additional damage from their agility attribute (0.5 multiplayer). Last stand (Not sure about this) gets temporary invisibility, movement speed etc. and refresh after killing an enemy unit / hero. Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. I am not sure how Rikimaru actually works. It claims that it buffs only melee heroes but usually invisibility will be activated for last stand heroes (what I have seen so far). But this ability is actually a rare ability / technique which counters summoning heroes, especially Shadow Shaman. Once my hero managed to kill the last two heroes because his invisibility refreshed every time when he killed SS’s ward. This summoner can be nasty if you don’t have true sight (Zeus, Gem, True Sight Skadi). Still Riki needs a good board before his ability can be good as well. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Keeper of the Light

 

 
Ability: Targettable or for the first hero whose mana goes low enough at first in next round. His/her mana gets restored back to full when mana goes under 25% from his/her max mana. After the ability cast, the current spell CDs will be reduced by 90%. 0 coin. 
 
Reason: 
Utility Hero. I feel like this hero is currently the sleeper one. KotL is for a mage, who really likes to waste all of his/her mana. After spending all mana he/she will get basically the second chance (Storm Spirit, Skywrath Mage). I tested KotL once and I am pretty sure that this ability can carry many rounds if the target is right. I used Skywrath Mage and yes, he did massive damage since he got so much mana. The weird thing in this match was that assassins and blinkers jumped into Skywrath Mage. Even I had two backliners! 
 
I can be silly, but I am sure that KotL is good. I highly recommend testing KotL when there are mana thirsty mages! 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Crystal Maiden

 

 
Ability: Ally Heroes gain mana regen based on missing mana. Spended mana will turn into a shield. Passive 
 
Reason: 
Utility Hero. Another good mage summoner. I am not 100% sure how the shield works but it can block Zeus hero ultimate / summoner ability! Shield can be the live / round saver. A playable summoner in my opinion. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

B tier

 

Pudge

 

 
Ability: Initial HP is 600, instead of 400. Passive 
 
Reason: Pudge is meant to be a beginner summoner, just like Hearthstone BG’s Patchwerk. You can survive longer with extra HP but Pudge doesn’t have any effects to make his board better. More details can be found from recommended summoners. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Axe

 

 
Ability: He kills instantly the first enemy hero whose health is less than 45%. Passive 
 
Reason: Another beginner summoner, who likes to dunk (expect you can’t hear the satisfying sound effect). The ability sounds good in the paper (killing fast one unit) but the ability is clunky. Scaling heroes can’t get credits from dunked targets. And some frontliners counter Axe (for example Wraith King with his resurrection and Tidehunter whose mission is just to make a massive AoE stun at the beginning). And usually the frontliner dies quickly so sniperthe dunk doesn’t make the progress so much faster. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Sniper

 

 
Ability: Increases the attack range of Archers by 150, also increases damage by 8%. Passive 
 
Reason: Does Sniper increase all characters’ damage or just archers’? But anyway, I will go for my experience. Sniper feels too niche. To get maximal potential from his ability, you should put so many archers on board as possible and usually it is just bad. I have tried to make archers to work in Dota Auto Chess and Dota Underlords (those titles the class name is Hunters) but stacking too many have been too many. Mostly my archers have gotten destroyed by assassins and things are not changed in Atomic Wars. Sure, you can build archers more defensively but usually people go greedy bash builds with their archers. I saw one poor guy who tried to get so many archers to his board as possible but he got destroyed because of lack of frontline. Most balanced Sniper team is just simply two archers, two frontliners and one utility / spell damage hero. Currently Sniper is mostly just a clickbait for beginners (just like he did while I started to play this game mode). 
 
My balance feedback: I would increase the damage to 10% and still I feel like Sniper would be underperforming. Yes, you can change archers’ abilities but Sniper doesn’t have economic advantage, just like Dark Willow
 
 

C Tier

 

Phantom Lancer

 

 
Ability: When an illusion gets killed, the original hero gets HP regen and bonus attack Amount of enchantment depends on the… Passive 
 
Reason: Summoner of specific abilities. I don’t even know the entire text of the ability. PL is just bad. At least in my hands.I have tried to make him work in many games and only ONCE I managed to get top 3! Yeah, Terrorblade, Chaos Knight and Phantom Lancer himself are good for this summoner but what happens when one of them is not in the pool? PL and Terrorblade have the only buyable illusion ability (you have to hit the jackpot while searching it/them) and Manta style is kinda rare (tier 4 item). This summoner will work well at late game but you have to SURVIVE with those illusion heroes who need to level up badly. 
 
And I want mention one thing from PL’s bad early stage. One match what I played, there was two PL player. Both of them placed to bottom three! 
 
My balance feedback: I would like to add one more effect for this ability: Summons one illusion from all of your heroes at the beginning of the round. This could make ability more helpful at the early game. 
 

Enchantress

 

 
Ability: Sells items at the original price. Passive 
 
Reason: Weak economic summoner. For me the ability is useless because I know which items are very useful and they are handy even in the long run just switching the item to support/ utility hero (for example: Vladimir’s offering). Many games I just sell two items in the late game so I just saved… two extra coins if I played Enchantress? Yay… 
 
My balance feedback: How about changing her Charm to this: ”The first bought hero each shopping phase costs 2 coins. Passive”? 
 

Tiny

 

 
Ability: Throw ally heroes to enemy’s back at the beginning of each round. Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner.I haven’t played this hero before but I was kinda expecting what is happening when I have played a couple rounds against Tiny. Basically all Tiny’s heroes will be tossed just like assassins’ jumps but they will stun the target as well. This is a good surprise ability. But only so far until players start to counter Tiny. Opponent player can leave just a bait to backline and wait for the Tiny round. Then that Tiny’s group will most likely get nuked easily by split shot archers and kited by utility heroes. With beefy heroes Tiny ability can still work but once again, other people might start making new placements for their units to counter Tiny’s toss. Almost just like setting a trap to the Fountain. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

F Tier

 

Necrophos

 

 
Ability: Randomly kill a Hero, the probability of killing an enemy is higher (55 % chance to kill enemy. The chance increases by 15% if you kill your own hero or you lose the round. The counter will reset always with successfully killing an enemy hero). 0 coin 
 
Reason: RNG gambler summoner. He kills your own or enemy’s hero. I tested him once and it was literally 50/50 chances. Can be countered by Wraith King (not sure about Linken Sphere) and summoner’s ability steals possible stats from your scaling hero (because the hero can’t kill the target / don’t get credits from it). I didn’t enjoy Necrophos at all because he is so RNG based. 
 
My balance feedback: Rework the ability. 
 
 

Predictions

 

Zeus

 

 
Ability: Deals damage to 2 enemy units. The damage will be increased after each cast. 1 coin 
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. He can nuke two weak heros at the beginning to steal a round win. Similar to an old version of Battlegrounds’ Patches the Pirate But this can be countered by the large HP heroes, Horn and BKB, second chance heroes and Crystal maiden’s shield (not sure does the invisibility ignore the ability as well). And the player’s economy can suffer from using the ability in midgame. And at the late game Zeus’ ultimate just tickles enemies. 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would like to add an extra effect: Gives true sight to the whole battleground / targets’ area for 5 seconds. 
 

Tinker

 

 
Ability: The cost of the refreshing Shop will be zero before purchasing anything. 2 coins 
 
Expected tier: B or A 
 
Reason: Economy summoner. Sounds fun to use at the tier 6 shop but.. How about the early game? Using two coins at the early / mid game sounds very expensive. Sure, you can reroll as long as you can find a specific hero / item / ability but is it worth it with less than 12 coins? I need to test him before proper tiering. 
 
Balance: 
Personally I would see summoner Tinker being the same as Hearthstone BG’s Nozdormu: “Your first refresh each shopping phase costs 0. Passive” 
 

Bloodseeker

 

 
Ability: Deals 40 HP to yourself. If you win the next round, you will get 100 HP back. Win also deals extra 50 HP to your opponent.  
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Gambler summoner. So you gamble your HP to bet that your board will win next round. Unlike Necrophos, Bloodseeker is more forgiving. But still, you should have the board advantage before you can use the hero power. But this one sounds fun and you can push other opponents faster back to a lobby. This is another hero who I need to test before proper tiering. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Naga Siren

 

 
Ability: Too long ability to explain. Basically the selected hero is “charging up” at the beginning of the round, until the hero comes into the fight with buffs. 0 coin  
 
Expected tier: C 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. I saw one player who went nuts with his/her Phantom Assassin (also makes sense since PA is a jumper so she can come back to the fight and start destroying backlines). This is another interesting ability but how does this work with a bad board and/or bad target (for example Archer is kinda bad because she/he loses some DPS because of hypnotization)? Currently the summoner sounds really niche. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Morphling

 

 
Ability: Selected hero’s stats changes for next round: reduce hero’s sub-attributes by 10 and transfers them into main attribute. Cannot cast to a hero with 0 sub-attributes. 0 coin 
 
Expected tier: C 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. Oh yes! Now I can make my own Morphlings! Just wait for the Ethereal blades- Nope. Just nope. Agility and intelligent heroes will get nuked by burst damage. And you can buy Flesh heap ability for strength heroes which is much better than Morphlings ability. Morphling mains can test this out but this summoner is not my cup of tea. 
 
My balance feedback: In an old tooltip it is mentioned that Morphling has started with a hero who has 10k HP but only 75 Mana as total and zero abilities. I kinda want to test this version of Morphling. 
 

Nature’s Prophet

 

 
Ability: Gets a random item. 4 coins. 
 
Expected tier: F 
 
Reason: RNG summoner. Spending lots of coins and praying to the RNG gods to give good stuff. But it is all about random. Very bad. Next summoner! 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would drop the cost of the ability to 3 coins. Or just remove Furion from the summoner pool. We have already 24 other summoners. 
 

Phantom Assassin

 

 
Ability: Ally Hero gains the damage amp and spell immunity after using flash (I guess it means blink) spells. Passive 
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Mortred sounds interesting but I haven’t tested her yet. Damage amp and Spell immunity sounds juicy but the question is: how long this ability lasts? 3 or 5 seconds? More or less? 
On paper this sounds very good because assassins (mostly they have blink abilities) really need some extra buffs. But the thing is: Usually spell immunity is mostly needed as soon as the assassins jump to the backline. There can be risk that they can get heavily silenced / stunned before they can even use the needed blink spell. 
I really need to test PA before proper tiering. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

Final words

 
Thank you for reading this guide / tier list! Especially lots of respect if you read entire guide! 
 
It took me hours (almost ~4,5k words) to make this. I was kinda losing my mind from covering every single 25 summoners with text (especially I don’t have any experience from many summoners). 
 
I might do another guide from making a good team / board in the future but now… I want play some Atomic War matches! 
 
Spatio 
 

Written by Spatio

I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Dota 2 – Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!); if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!
 
 
 
 


This guide is for a custom game: Atomic War. It focus on summoners: which summoners for beginners and this includes also tier list. Keep it mind that this is just my opinions, based on my game expedience so far.

 
 

Introduction

 
This is description from the custom game (can be found from the discord information and Workshop description) 
 
We are Atomic Nucleus Studio , but people say the name is dumb. We love games, but too old to keep playing. We work very hard, but still left so many bugs and flaws. We will keep improving, but not without your support. 
 
Atomic War is a Rogue-Like PVP mod. Starting with your summoner and their special ability, you can choose from a pool of random Heroes, Items and Spells to build your strongest squad and fight against others. Bots will be automatically added if you start the game alone. It is recommended for new players to start learning the game this way. 
 
What I could add to the text, this game mode is Auto Battlers, very close to Dota Auto Chess, Dota Underlords and Hearthstone’s Battlegrounds (mostly because some summoners are similar to bg’s heroes). Personally I like Atomic Wars the most because you can personalize units even further and Summoner is better than Underlord. Just my opinion.
 
 
Now it’s time to introduce myself: I am Spatio, Finnish (currently inactive) YouTuber who also likes to do posters with Source Filmmaker (learning Blender as well). My YouTube channels are Kekkospoika (older and now mostly only my personal account) and GBDClub (Gamer’s Best Day Club). I have played Auto Battlers since the early days of Dota Auto Chess and I have spent hours… HOURS in many titles of Auto Battles (the only big title what I haven’t touched yet is Teamfight Tactics). I have enjoyed Atomic War a lot and to be honest: I haven’t enjoyed any other auto battlers so much for a long time. I was the 18th player who reached the Legend rank in Atomic War. 
 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
I don’t go for the basics, there are in-game tutorials and you can learn the game with bots. Bots will be added when you start a lobby as solo. The reason why I am writing this guide is because I want to help you to climb up in the ladder. Because matches will become harder and harder when more people install the game mode and learn it. In this guide I just want to give some tips from the Summoners: I can make another guide from builds and unit setups but in this guide, I focus on the summoners. 
 
NOTE: This guide is based on my opinions and they can be stub. I am a simple man who likes simple summoners so I might not notice some summoners’ potential. I will update the lists (Recommendations / tier) when I discover something new / sleeper. 
 
 

Summoner

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) - Summoner 
You will pick one of the summoners at the beginning of the match and this choice can already decide whether you will lose or win the game. The selection is based on unlocked and some extra random heroes whose change every week. I made some mistakes and I have mostly lost matches badly because of them. In this guide, I will approach Summoners as a beginner at first and then I will make my own tier list from the summoners. I don’t own many of those but I have some visions how the hero works and is she / he / it worth to choose. 
 
 

Recommended summoners for beginners

 

Pudge

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Initial HP is 600, instead of 400 
 
How to get: Should be unlocked for everyone 
 
With extra HP you can get into the game easier. You have more time to learn game mechanics + see how the late game goes on. These extra 200 hp (what should match like two heavy 10+ round losses) can save your plus (Top 4) placement if your board and items are not the best. The bad side of Pudge is… well… you don’t get other benefits from him than just HP. 
 

Bounty Hunter

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Gondar stores one coin / round. When you press the button, you will withdraw all stored coins. You can press the button only once per match! 
How to get: Log-in Reward, seven days 
 
Some extra money when you need it! Summoner will automatically store the coin so you don’t need to worry about it. So don’t press the button accidentally in turn 1! In that case you will have only +1 coin to use and you can’t use the ability for the rest of the game! This summoner works just like Hearthstone Battlegrounds’ hero: Skycap’n Kragg
 
But when is a good time to use this ability? Use 12 or more coins for upgrading Summoner / shop level from 5 to 6. Why? Usually upgrading from five to six is really hard because it usually means that you will spend all coins for lvl 6 and you can’t do anything else. Unless you start selling items / useless hero(es). With those extra 12+ coins you have better change for important items and access to delicious tier 6 items. 
 
The con of Bounty Hunter is the early stage of a game. If you have to spend the extra money at the early stage (because of possible losing streak), you won’t have the late game advantage. So try to create as a good board as possible before you hit the round 12+. 
 

Omniknight

 

 
Dota 2 - Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!) 
 
Ability: Upgrades chosen hero’s level to 18 (means two extra copies of the unit from the shop if you select lvl 6 hero). You can press the button only once per match! Levels from the ability won’t count when the hero is sold. 
How to get: Unlocking him or randomly chosen to weekly pool 
 
This summoner doesn’t have straight unlock but I have to mention Omniknight because he is the one who has carried me hard. Most likely (I don’t have any statistics but I am sure this is fact) I have the highest winrate with him. 
 
Which unit / hero is worthy of his ability? 

  • Scaling hero (for example Pudge with Flesh Heap) 
  • Tinker or hero with effective AoE spell damage. (If you have checked end game statistics screen, there is usually someone’s Tinker as the most damage dealer)

 
With the good unit choice, the unit will carry you for a very long time. Because of the good early stage, you should have a very good chance to reach top 4 unless everything is nuts in a match (for example three Alchemists with big boards and you have to face all of them three rounds in a row). 
 
Because of the good flash start there isn’t a straight con with Omniknight. But you still have emberto create a good board beside the upgraded unit and place it in a good position (so it doesn’t get nuked hard by enemy units). Just remember to use the ability to a good hero unit so everything goes well / starts paying back later. 
 
 

Summoner Tier list (2000 Players update)

 
This is based on my opinions and experience from my public matches. If I don’t have any experience from the summoner, he/she isn’t in the list. But I will place missing summoners to my prediction list. This list also includes my opinion on how to balance the hero. But they are in my prediction list. 

  • SS means “Too nasty!”, 
  • S is “Very solid”, 
  • A “playable”, 
  • B “niche”, 
  • C “try to avoid” and 
  • F “Avoid this with any cause”!

 
In nutshell: every economic summoner is strong while class based summoners are bad / niche. Try to avoid RNG summoners. 
 
 

SS tier

 

Alchemist

 
Ability: Loses 30 HP but you get two coins 
Reason: Economic Summoner. This hero is all or nothing. Basically you want to use the hero power so many times as possible, taking a board advantage at the early stage of a game. And yes, you can still use the hero power even if the HP is under 30. 
 
Even after the rebalance / nerf, Alchemist is still too strong, in my opinion. I faced two Alchemists (while the hero was still in the weekly pool), they still managed to get a Godlike streak. With the godlike streaks it is almost guaranteed for Alchemist that he is at least in the Top 4, most likely winning the game just because of the summoner ability. Only counter for the ability is another Alchemist or very bad luck while shopping. 
 
My balance feedback: The first balance which I like to test is adding a condition using the ability: Alchemist has to have enough health to use the ability. So if HP is under 30, then Alchemist can’t use the hero power anymore. If this balance is too huge nerf, I would keep the condition but I would bring back three coins with the cost of 40 HP. The point is that Al can keep his early stage advantage but it should have its own consequence to the late stage of a game. 
 
 

S tier

 

Omniknight

 

 
Ability: Upgrades chosen hero’s level to 18 (means two extra copies of the unit from the shop if you select lvl 6 hero). You can press the button only once per match! Levels from the ability won’t count when the hero is sold. 2 coins 
 
Reason: Economic hero. With good hero choice, the upgraded unit can carry the team by itself. With that, the unit can manage to save his early stage of a game (unless he faces unluckiness / Alchemist) and the player can focus on getting a good board. More details can be found from recommended summoners. 
 
My Balance feedback: If Omni needs to nerf, I would increase the cost of the ability to three coins.It would slow Omni down slightly. 
 

Dark Willow

 

 
Ability: Lower mage heroes’ price by 1 coin. Reduce magic resistance of the enemy by 9%. Passive 
 
Reason: Very solid economic summoner. You can fill a board quickly with cheap mages and the best part is that you can sell the mage unit with the full price! Reducing 9% magic resistance doesn’t sound huge but keep it mind that this means all your units deal more magic damage! Players with Dark willow should take a huge advantage with mages before scaling heroes go out of their hands (or trying to stop scaling right clicker with Leshrac with Agham Scepter) 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Ember Spirit

 

 
Ability: You start with a broken sword. You can forge the sword with coins. Using nine coins in total (one forge costs one coin), Broken sword transfers into level 1 sword. Using another nine coins as total, lvl 1 swords transfers into lvl 2. 
Reason: Utility summoner. Lvl 1 / 2 sword is damn good (highly recommended to use assassin / archer). Lvl 1 is basically the same as Divine Rapier (+180 attack damage) in this game mode except it also has extra ability which is the same as Ember Spirit’s Sleight of Fist. This sword ability is nuts and it can swipe an entire enemy team with two activations in right hands. 
 
Level 2 is the most powerful weapon in the entire game mode which is almost the same than actual Divine Rapier (+320 attack damage except it still has the Ember Spirit’s skill and true strike for normal attacks). This lvl 2 sword makes DPS damn good and it is most of the time game winning item. But the thing is the cost. I recommend that you avoid rushing for the working sword, especially don’t rush to lvl 2. 
 
This weapon is all about investing. You will have rounds when you have one or two extra coins before locking for good hero copy / item. Those extra coins can be used for forging. Rush the forge only when you have a feeling that you need to turn your lose streak back to winning or you can spend a specific shop phase for forging. 
 
My balance feedback: Ember just got nerfed (before forging cost was 8+8) so hard to say, does he need another nerf. Personally I would make +attack damage slightly weaker: +150 / +300. After all the sword has true strike which is a huge advantage because only few skills / items have true strike. 
 
 

A tier

 

Batrider

 

 
Ability: When an ally summoned dies, Batrider hurls an explosive cocktail to its location and deals damage to nearby enemies (Damage = Level of the Summon unit*19). Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. Batrider is actually pretty neat because there are so many heros with summonable units (+ Necronomicon as tier 3 and Book of the dead as tier 6 item). Cocktail deals pretty nice extra damage but in my experience with his ability is not totally game winning. 
 
My balance feedback: In my opinion, I would make cocktail pools at least slightly bigger. 
 

Rubick

 

 
Ability: Gives FREE Aghanim’s scepter to your courier every 6 rounds in the shopping phase. Passive 
 
Reason: Economic Utility summoner. Very useful item drop for specific heroes (For example Disruptor, Kunkka, Tinker and Drow Ranger). You can’t win only with Scepter upgrade but free and good items (You most likely get at least two-three scepters while the game) are very economical and finding a scepter otherwise can be difficult (since it is the tier 4 item). Absolutely a playable summoner. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Luna

 

 
Ability: Gives permanent + 11 attack damage for all allies. This ability stacks. 1 coin 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. This can be very handy especially if you find scaling DPS hero and ESPECIALLY Phantom Assassin. This can be a dangerous ability but there are some cons: Since ability costs one coin, your overall economy suffers a little bit and you have to still build a good board. And you should press the button every single time to get the best effort from the ability. She is still playable but at the first sight the summoner ability is not the direct winning condition. 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would like to test +6 main attributes instead of +11 attack damage. Back to 7.20 – 7.22f main attribute Lunar blessing was one of the strongest passive (at that time attributes had some extra efforts) while the attack damage Lunar blessing has been always clunky. 
 

Bounty Hunter

 

 
Ability: Gondar stores one coin / round. When you press the button, you will withdraw all stored coins. You can press the button only once per match! 
 
Reason: Extra coins are really handy for late game. But you have to survive the early game before the payday. He is totally a playable summoner. More details can be found from recommended summoners.. 
 
My balance feedback:– 
 

Rikimaru

 

 
Ability: Melee heroes get additional damage from their agility attribute (0.5 multiplayer). Last stand (Not sure about this) gets temporary invisibility, movement speed etc. and refresh after killing an enemy unit / hero. Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. I am not sure how Rikimaru actually works. It claims that it buffs only melee heroes but usually invisibility will be activated for last stand heroes (what I have seen so far). But this ability is actually a rare ability / technique which counters summoning heroes, especially Shadow Shaman. Once my hero managed to kill the last two heroes because his invisibility refreshed every time when he killed SS’s ward. This summoner can be nasty if you don’t have true sight (Zeus, Gem, True Sight Skadi). Still Riki needs a good board before his ability can be good as well. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Keeper of the Light

 

 
Ability: Targettable or for the first hero whose mana goes low enough at first in next round. His/her mana gets restored back to full when mana goes under 25% from his/her max mana. After the ability cast, the current spell CDs will be reduced by 90%. 0 coin. 
 
Reason: 
Utility Hero. I feel like this hero is currently the sleeper one. KotL is for a mage, who really likes to waste all of his/her mana. After spending all mana he/she will get basically the second chance (Storm Spirit, Skywrath Mage). I tested KotL once and I am pretty sure that this ability can carry many rounds if the target is right. I used Skywrath Mage and yes, he did massive damage since he got so much mana. The weird thing in this match was that assassins and blinkers jumped into Skywrath Mage. Even I had two backliners! 
 
I can be silly, but I am sure that KotL is good. I highly recommend testing KotL when there are mana thirsty mages! 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Crystal Maiden

 

 
Ability: Ally Heroes gain mana regen based on missing mana. Spended mana will turn into a shield. Passive 
 
Reason: 
Utility Hero. Another good mage summoner. I am not 100% sure how the shield works but it can block Zeus hero ultimate / summoner ability! Shield can be the live / round saver. A playable summoner in my opinion. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

B tier

 

Pudge

 

 
Ability: Initial HP is 600, instead of 400. Passive 
 
Reason: Pudge is meant to be a beginner summoner, just like Hearthstone BG’s Patchwerk. You can survive longer with extra HP but Pudge doesn’t have any effects to make his board better. More details can be found from recommended summoners. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Axe

 

 
Ability: He kills instantly the first enemy hero whose health is less than 45%. Passive 
 
Reason: Another beginner summoner, who likes to dunk (expect you can’t hear the satisfying sound effect). The ability sounds good in the paper (killing fast one unit) but the ability is clunky. Scaling heroes can’t get credits from dunked targets. And some frontliners counter Axe (for example Wraith King with his resurrection and Tidehunter whose mission is just to make a massive AoE stun at the beginning). And usually the frontliner dies quickly so sniperthe dunk doesn’t make the progress so much faster. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Sniper

 

 
Ability: Increases the attack range of Archers by 150, also increases damage by 8%. Passive 
 
Reason: Does Sniper increase all characters’ damage or just archers’? But anyway, I will go for my experience. Sniper feels too niche. To get maximal potential from his ability, you should put so many archers on board as possible and usually it is just bad. I have tried to make archers to work in Dota Auto Chess and Dota Underlords (those titles the class name is Hunters) but stacking too many have been too many. Mostly my archers have gotten destroyed by assassins and things are not changed in Atomic Wars. Sure, you can build archers more defensively but usually people go greedy bash builds with their archers. I saw one poor guy who tried to get so many archers to his board as possible but he got destroyed because of lack of frontline. Most balanced Sniper team is just simply two archers, two frontliners and one utility / spell damage hero. Currently Sniper is mostly just a clickbait for beginners (just like he did while I started to play this game mode). 
 
My balance feedback: I would increase the damage to 10% and still I feel like Sniper would be underperforming. Yes, you can change archers’ abilities but Sniper doesn’t have economic advantage, just like Dark Willow
 
 

C Tier

 

Phantom Lancer

 

 
Ability: When an illusion gets killed, the original hero gets HP regen and bonus attack Amount of enchantment depends on the… Passive 
 
Reason: Summoner of specific abilities. I don’t even know the entire text of the ability. PL is just bad. At least in my hands.I have tried to make him work in many games and only ONCE I managed to get top 3! Yeah, Terrorblade, Chaos Knight and Phantom Lancer himself are good for this summoner but what happens when one of them is not in the pool? PL and Terrorblade have the only buyable illusion ability (you have to hit the jackpot while searching it/them) and Manta style is kinda rare (tier 4 item). This summoner will work well at late game but you have to SURVIVE with those illusion heroes who need to level up badly. 
 
And I want mention one thing from PL’s bad early stage. One match what I played, there was two PL player. Both of them placed to bottom three! 
 
My balance feedback: I would like to add one more effect for this ability: Summons one illusion from all of your heroes at the beginning of the round. This could make ability more helpful at the early game. 
 

Enchantress

 

 
Ability: Sells items at the original price. Passive 
 
Reason: Weak economic summoner. For me the ability is useless because I know which items are very useful and they are handy even in the long run just switching the item to support/ utility hero (for example: Vladimir’s offering). Many games I just sell two items in the late game so I just saved… two extra coins if I played Enchantress? Yay… 
 
My balance feedback: How about changing her Charm to this: ”The first bought hero each shopping phase costs 2 coins. Passive”? 
 

Tiny

 

 
Ability: Throw ally heroes to enemy’s back at the beginning of each round. Passive 
 
Reason: Utility summoner.I haven’t played this hero before but I was kinda expecting what is happening when I have played a couple rounds against Tiny. Basically all Tiny’s heroes will be tossed just like assassins’ jumps but they will stun the target as well. This is a good surprise ability. But only so far until players start to counter Tiny. Opponent player can leave just a bait to backline and wait for the Tiny round. Then that Tiny’s group will most likely get nuked easily by split shot archers and kited by utility heroes. With beefy heroes Tiny ability can still work but once again, other people might start making new placements for their units to counter Tiny’s toss. Almost just like setting a trap to the Fountain. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

F Tier

 

Necrophos

 

 
Ability: Randomly kill a Hero, the probability of killing an enemy is higher (55 % chance to kill enemy. The chance increases by 15% if you kill your own hero or you lose the round. The counter will reset always with successfully killing an enemy hero). 0 coin 
 
Reason: RNG gambler summoner. He kills your own or enemy’s hero. I tested him once and it was literally 50/50 chances. Can be countered by Wraith King (not sure about Linken Sphere) and summoner’s ability steals possible stats from your scaling hero (because the hero can’t kill the target / don’t get credits from it). I didn’t enjoy Necrophos at all because he is so RNG based. 
 
My balance feedback: Rework the ability. 
 
 

Predictions

 

Zeus

 

 
Ability: Deals damage to 2 enemy units. The damage will be increased after each cast. 1 coin 
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. He can nuke two weak heros at the beginning to steal a round win. Similar to an old version of Battlegrounds’ Patches the Pirate But this can be countered by the large HP heroes, Horn and BKB, second chance heroes and Crystal maiden’s shield (not sure does the invisibility ignore the ability as well). And the player’s economy can suffer from using the ability in midgame. And at the late game Zeus’ ultimate just tickles enemies. 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would like to add an extra effect: Gives true sight to the whole battleground / targets’ area for 5 seconds. 
 

Tinker

 

 
Ability: The cost of the refreshing Shop will be zero before purchasing anything. 2 coins 
 
Expected tier: B or A 
 
Reason: Economy summoner. Sounds fun to use at the tier 6 shop but.. How about the early game? Using two coins at the early / mid game sounds very expensive. Sure, you can reroll as long as you can find a specific hero / item / ability but is it worth it with less than 12 coins? I need to test him before proper tiering. 
 
Balance: 
Personally I would see summoner Tinker being the same as Hearthstone BG’s Nozdormu: “Your first refresh each shopping phase costs 0. Passive” 
 

Bloodseeker

 

 
Ability: Deals 40 HP to yourself. If you win the next round, you will get 100 HP back. Win also deals extra 50 HP to your opponent.  
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Gambler summoner. So you gamble your HP to bet that your board will win next round. Unlike Necrophos, Bloodseeker is more forgiving. But still, you should have the board advantage before you can use the hero power. But this one sounds fun and you can push other opponents faster back to a lobby. This is another hero who I need to test before proper tiering. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Naga Siren

 

 
Ability: Too long ability to explain. Basically the selected hero is “charging up” at the beginning of the round, until the hero comes into the fight with buffs. 0 coin  
 
Expected tier: C 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. I saw one player who went nuts with his/her Phantom Assassin (also makes sense since PA is a jumper so she can come back to the fight and start destroying backlines). This is another interesting ability but how does this work with a bad board and/or bad target (for example Archer is kinda bad because she/he loses some DPS because of hypnotization)? Currently the summoner sounds really niche. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 

Morphling

 

 
Ability: Selected hero’s stats changes for next round: reduce hero’s sub-attributes by 10 and transfers them into main attribute. Cannot cast to a hero with 0 sub-attributes. 0 coin 
 
Expected tier: C 
 
Reason: Utility summoner. Oh yes! Now I can make my own Morphlings! Just wait for the Ethereal blades- Nope. Just nope. Agility and intelligent heroes will get nuked by burst damage. And you can buy Flesh heap ability for strength heroes which is much better than Morphlings ability. Morphling mains can test this out but this summoner is not my cup of tea. 
 
My balance feedback: In an old tooltip it is mentioned that Morphling has started with a hero who has 10k HP but only 75 Mana as total and zero abilities. I kinda want to test this version of Morphling. 
 

Nature’s Prophet

 

 
Ability: Gets a random item. 4 coins. 
 
Expected tier: F 
 
Reason: RNG summoner. Spending lots of coins and praying to the RNG gods to give good stuff. But it is all about random. Very bad. Next summoner! 
 
My balance feedback: Personally I would drop the cost of the ability to 3 coins. Or just remove Furion from the summoner pool. We have already 24 other summoners. 
 

Phantom Assassin

 

 
Ability: Ally Hero gains the damage amp and spell immunity after using flash (I guess it means blink) spells. Passive 
 
Expected tier: B 
 
Reason: Mortred sounds interesting but I haven’t tested her yet. Damage amp and Spell immunity sounds juicy but the question is: how long this ability lasts? 3 or 5 seconds? More or less? 
On paper this sounds very good because assassins (mostly they have blink abilities) really need some extra buffs. But the thing is: Usually spell immunity is mostly needed as soon as the assassins jump to the backline. There can be risk that they can get heavily silenced / stunned before they can even use the needed blink spell. 
I really need to test PA before proper tiering. 
 
My balance feedback: – 
 
 

Final words

 
Thank you for reading this guide / tier list! Especially lots of respect if you read entire guide! 
 
It took me hours (almost ~4,5k words) to make this. I was kinda losing my mind from covering every single 25 summoners with text (especially I don’t have any experience from many summoners). 
 
I might do another guide from making a good team / board in the future but now… I want play some Atomic War matches! 
 
Spatio 
 

Written by Spatio

I hope you enjoy the Guide we share about Dota 2 – Atomic War Guide: Summoners (includes tier list!); if you think we forget to add or we should add more information, please let us know via commenting below! See you soon!
 
 
 
 


Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*