Introduction
“Tiny smash!”
Tiny is a melee strength hero who can be played as a carry or a ganker. His popularity as a ganker – where he is played as a solo mid and prioritises an early Blink Dagger purchase – has drastically fallen out of favour in recent years.
Nowadays he is traditionally played as a safe lane farmer and quickly stacks attack speed items in order to make the most of his insane base damage, with his magic damage combo seeing him through the early stages of the game.
You can find our complete character profile for Tiny here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Incredible burst magic damage in the early and mid game
- Has an AoE stun
- Has insane attack damage
- The strongest late-game pusher
- Quite tanky & passive tends to put enemies off focussing you
- Fun to play
Cons
- Poor use of Toss will actively harm your team
- As a carry he needs a lot of items to be effective
- As a ganker his impact trails off past the mid-game
- Mana issues
- Poor attack speed
Item Build
Starting Items
There are two main ways to play Tiny, and both of these will be detailed below. The starting build for both builds is pretty much identical:
- A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, an Iron Branch, a Circlet, and a Gauntlets of Strength.
This gives you good starting stats and plenty of regeneration to secure last hits under harassment.
Old School Ganker Build
The old school ‘ganker Tiny’ build is considered outdated by many, but it is most definitely viable. With this build you should be laning mid and will aim to get a quick Bottle, followed by Arcane Boots and a Blink Dagger.
Try to secure last hits and, most importantly, good experience. You can use your Avalanche & Toss combo on creeps to quickly clear a creep wave ahead of the rune spawn if you can guarantee you’ll get the rune. Try not to use either of your abilities for harassment unless 1) you think you can secure a kill, 2) the lane opponent lacks regen and you want to punish them for this, or 3) you’re confident you can secure rune control.
You gank when finding a decent rune (such a Haste) and use the level advantage acquired from laning mid to deal insta-kill burst damage to any squishy enemy heroes.
The goal is to snowball, and as soon as you acquire your Blink Dagger you can essentially permanently be on the prowl. Blink, followed by Avalanche, followed by Toss and right-clicks should net you a kill on most heroes at this stage of the game.
Carry Build
The carry Tiny build has only really eclipsed the ganker Tiny build in recent years, but it has definitely done so, and will typically see Tiny laning in the safe lane. Nowadays when a Tiny is picked it is presumed that he’s a carry Tiny. This build is particularly popular in competitive Dota, where Tiny will often be combined with Wisp/Io to make for a potent global ganking combo as well as a late-game hard carry.
With this build you get some early stat and attack speed items – Power Treads, Drums of Endurance, Magic Wand - to allow you to take part in those early teamfights and skirmishes, then you build up your core carry items – Aghanim’s Scepter is number one priority, primarily for the cleave effect which is absolutely incredible, followed by a Hyperstone (which will eventually build into either an Assault Cuirass or a Mjollnir).
If you farm well at the start of your laning stage Hand of Midas can be an absolutely stellar pick-up. It gives you the attack speed your sorely need and will help accelerate your farm. Only go for a Hand of Midas, however, if you have a good early game and do not expect to be punished for it by early enemy pushes – if the enemy team forces fights once you have your Hand of Midas you’ll find it much harder to fight and maintain map control than if you’d gone Power Treads and Drums straight away.
Luxury Items
Luxury item choices are actually identical for both Ganker and Carry Tiny. In the case of a carry Tiny these all make for great natural extensions. In the case of a ganker Tiny you will want to be transitioning into a DPS’er role since your burst damage potential will have started to trail off.
Assault Cuirass – Tiny doesn’t lack base damage, but he desperately needs attack speed so this is hands down the best luxury item for Tiny. Assault Cuirass’s attack speed and minus armour aura both make your carry potential go through the roof when combined with your insane base damage.
The extra armour will also make you that much more tanky; the multiple auras benefit your entire team; and the minus armour works on structures, which makes Tiny’s base pushing potential absolutely insane (no one can push faster than a farmed Tiny).
Mjollnir – The other option for attack speed is Mjollnir. Mjollnir will massively increase your attack speed, moreso even than Assault Cuirass, but AC’s armour benefits make it hard to opt for Mjollnir over it. I do like to get it as well as AC if possible though.
Mjollnir is an especially good option if you’re facing a push-heavy line-up, or an illusion-based carry (such as Phantom Lancer or Terrorblade).
Black King Bar – BKB is the only luxury item you may need to prioritise ahead of an Assault Cuirass (which is your natural go-to next). If the enemy team is able to lock you down hard then consider going Black King Bar as your first luxury item in order to be able to actually get stuck into the fights by using the Spell Immunity active, and so not find yourself stun-locked and prevented from dealing right-click damage. It naturally makes you tankier and gives you some additional damage as well.
Manta Style – Manta is actually a great item on Tiny – a good attack speed and move speed boost, some good stats, and two illusions, which sends your pushing potential through the roof.
Butterfly – Usually thought of as an agility carry item, but this is not to be overlooked on Tiny – huge chunks of attack speed, evasion, and damage. An excellent 5th item on Tiny, who by such a stage will likely be your team’s primary damage dealer even if you originally built Tiny as a ganker.
Daedalus – Very high damage and a chance to Critical Strike. A good 5th or 6th slot item – definitely not better than most of the options above on Tiny, who doesn’t need for damage from items like a lot of carries – but a good option if you have an empty item slot you want to fill.
Skill Build
Avalanche is skilled first but maxed second. It is an AoE stun ability that also deals burst magic damage. The stun is a static 1.3 second at all levels, and the damage does not scale as well as Toss, and so it should not be maxed ahead of Toss. However, as it is your only reliable stun it is skilled first in case of a level 1 engagement.
Toss is skilled second but should be maxed first. Toss grabs a random unit within a small 275 unit radius of Tiny and throws at the target chosen by the player. It deals 75/150/225/300 damage in a radius at the landing area and deals 20% extra damage to the target, so in effect it deals 90/180/270/360 damage, meaning it scales better than Avalanche.
These two abilities together form Tiny’s early and mid game damage-dealing combo. Tiny’s combo is: Avalanche the enemy hero, Toss him on himself instantly, and then follow up with right clicks. If timed correctly, a hero which is Tossed on itself immediately after being hit by Avalanche takes double damage from Avalanche. In most cases this will net you a kill straight away in the early and mid game.
Craggy Exterior is a passive ability which increases Tiny’s armour and gives a chance to stun and damage any unit which attacks Tiny. It is always skilled and mast last, but the armour buff is useful for helping to mitigate Tiny’s low base armour, and the chance to stun upon attack increases from 10% at level 1 to 25% at level 4, which is usually enough to put people off focusing you early on in teamfights.
Unlike most hero ultimates, Tiny’s ultimate - Grow - is not skilled at level 6. It is best skilled at levels 8, 11 and 16. Grow increases Tiny’s base damage by 50/100/150, reduces his attack speed, increases his movement speed by 40/50/60, and increases the damage of his Toss ability. It also has a secondary effect of literally increasing the size of Tiny.
The reason it is almost never maxed at level 6 is because you want to get the most out of your combo damage as early as possible (i.e. you want to maximise the damage from Avalanche & Toss first). This is best done by maxing Toss by level 7, getting a point in Grow at level 8, and maxing Avalanche by level 9.
The reason Grow is taken over the final level in Avalanche is because not only of the passive benefits of Grow but also because it gives a significant buff to Toss (with 1 point in Grow, the tossed enemy takes 465 magic damage, not the 300 that a quick glance at the ability description may initially lead you to think).
Gameplay Tips
Above all you need to learn how to effectively combo with Tiny. Tiny’s combo is: Avalanche the enemy hero, then Toss him on himself instantly, and then follow up with right clicks. If timed correctly, a hero which is Tossed on itself immediately after being hit by Avalanche takes double damage from Avalanche. It takes some practice to perform the combo effectively, however, so it’s best to practice it on bots before trying out Tiny for the first time.
Another reason to practice Tiny beforehand is that there is a slight delay on Avalanche, which makes it possible to dodge the stun and damage. Anticipate the enemy’s movements, or close the gap between you before using Avalanche. Better yet, use it as a follow up to an ally’s reliable stun.
Avoid spamming your abilities early on unless you have the mana regeneration to support doing so (for example through a Bottled regeneration rune). Tiny’s mana pool is fairly low and his two damage dealing abilities have high mana costs, so you want to save them for when you can ensure a kill or need to stun an enemy to prevent them from diving you.
| Tip: Toss actually breaks channelled abilities, and although the damage does not go through spell immunity the Toss will often still take effect. This allows Tiny to cancel some powerful channelled spells, even if they are nominally protected by spell immunity. |
Toss actually deals damage to structures – another reason Tiny is a great base pusher. You cannot target structures with it, but if you Toss a unit at another unit that is within a 275 unit radius of the building in question you will deal 33% splash damage to the building.
| Warning: You can Toss allied units and heroes. This can often cost a teammate his/her life, and so you should be careful of using Toss if there are allied heroes within a small radius of yourself and to Toss them would involve putting them in harm’s way. The flipside of this is that you can use Toss to effectively throw an ally at a retreating enemy, making Tiny a great chasing hero. |
Craggy Exterior only works on enemies that attack Tiny within a 300 unit radius, so it is not a good counter to most ranged heroes. A lot of players do not know this, however, and so most players will avoid attacking Tiny in teamfights even if they could do so without risking the stun from Craggy Exterior.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
