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Dota 2 Juggernaut Hero Overview
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Standard Abilities & Ultimate
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Juggernaut is one of those heroes in the Dota 2 who can take over the entire game on their own. With his powerful early game presence and impressive scaling potential into the late game, he's an excellent hero to add to your mains list if you plan to increase your MMR.
Of course, the first step to learning the hero is to understand his item progression. While not the most complex hero to figure out, without the right items, he can feel extremely underwhelming. In this guide, we provide you with a complete Juggernaut build guide to help you learn the basics of playing the hero.

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Dota 2 Juggernaut Hero Overview
Juggernaut is a melee hero known for his above average movement and attack speed. It's one of the easier carry heroes for sure to learn Dota 2but 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 opposing team picks a heavy counter.
Standard Abilities & Ultimate
Here's a quick overview of Juggernaut's basic abilities and ultimates Dota 2:
The name of the ability |
How it works |
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Blade Fury (Q) |
Juggernaut starts spinning his sword, damaging enemies in an AOE around him. Juggernaut is deflected immune and gains bonus magic resistance for the duration and gains a strong dispel when Blade Fury ends. |
Healing Department (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 deal critical damage on hits, dealing bonus physical damage. |
Omnislash (R) |
Juggernaut jumps towards the target unit and begins slashing at nearby targets. The hero gains bonus attack speed and damage for the duration. The number of total slashes depends on the Juggernaut's attack speed. |
Aside from these, purchasing Aghanim's Shard upgrades Blade Fury with a new effect. Picking up Aghanim's Scepter, on the other hand, gives Juggernaut a whole 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 Omnislash with a low cooldown of just 20 seconds.
Similar to Omnislash, Swiftslash gains all benefits from Juggernaut's physical damage and attack speed items.
In it Dota 2 Crownfall update, Juggernaut also gained two facets and an innate ability:
- Innate Ability (duelist): Juggernaut deals more damage to enemy targets 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 (leaf form): The hero gains a stacking bonus to movement speed and agility when not taking damage. When he takes damage, the stack is reset after a 2 second delay.
Juggernaut Build Guide in Dota 2
Juggernaut is one of the strongest lanes in Dota 2 and can hold its own against most Offlaners that are good in the current meta. His Blade Fury ability makes him a threat to almost every 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, meaning you can always use it to recover after an engagement and heal yourself to full. And once you unlock your ultimate, it's almost impossible for any hero to stay in lane without a creep wave.
That said, Juggernaut isn't really a hero you 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 snow the ball throughout the game. This means you need to upgrade your abilities properly and get the right stuff so you don't drop out in the middle of the game.
The following build guide will help you get a complete picture of how to play the hero.
Aspects, talents and abilities
Juggernaut usually prefers to go with Bladestorm Facet to get the crit in Blade Fury. Remember that the auto attacks during Blade Fury can scale with your attack speed, meaning that in the late game each Blade Fury will be that much more deadly, allowing you to hunt down enemy supports without having to commit your Omnislash.
As for his ability order, you always want to start the laning phase with Blade Fury. The damage from this ability is insane for the early levels, and with a little help from your support, you can get kills on Offlaner from level 1 with it. Once you hit level 2, either put a point into Healing Ward (if the enemy has a lot of harass) or Blade Dance (if the lane is in your favor). Max Blade Fury first, then put your points into Blade Dance and only upgrade Healing Ward when all your other abilities have been upgraded.
For talents, take the following as soon as they become available:
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+4% Duelist Damage
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+40 Movement Speed during Blade Fury
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+50% Blade Dance Lifesteal
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+1s Omnislash duration
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Juggernaut has two distinct item builds, and the one you choose depends mostly on the matchup. First, there's the Battle Fury build, which lets you become a late game monster that takes down heroes with no problem. However, this build takes a while to come online, and if your enemy team is playing well, they will likely punish you for going this route.
The build we prefer is with Mjolnir, making Juggernaut a huge threat around the 20 minute mark. Sure, it still requires a lot of farm to be effective, but it's much easier to pull off and also allows you to join fights with your Midlaner to get yourself a few kills.
While we'll be focusing mostly on the Mjolnir build, we'll also drop tips for the Battle Fury build if you want to try it out for yourself:
The Juggernaut starting items are the same for both builds. You'll want to start with a set of Tango, an Iron Branch, a Magic Stick, a Circle, and a Boiling Blade. It's a simple item build that gives you decent regen and stats while allowing you to last hit more easily due to the Quell bonus from the Quelling Blade.
Alternatively, you can take two Iron Branches and a Faerie Fire instead of Magic Stick if the enemy has no spammable ability for the laning phase.
Boots of Speed is your first priority on the lane when playing Juggernaut. The movement speed from it allows you to stay on top of enemy heroes during Blade Fury. Afterwards, buy the Wraith Band for the stats and finish off your Magic Wand. Upgrade your Boots of Speed to Phase Boots next.
If you go with the Battle Fury build, consider buying Power Treads instead of Phase Boots.
Since Juggernaut is a safelane carrier, you naturally need to build a lot of core items on the hero. The first thing you need after Phase Boots is Maelstrom. It will increase 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.
For the Battle Fury build, of course you want to build Battle Fury first instead of Maelstrom. After that, build a Yasha and join Sange And Yasha. You'll also need a Linken's Sphere when going with this build.
After you collect your core items, the last inventory slots are reserved for situational items, depending on the matchup. When you get to this point, you have tons of options for what item to get next. For example, if you need to disable an enemy hero's passive, go with Silver Edge. Against Eul's Scepter of Divinity or Glimmer Cape, go for Nullifier.
If the enemy team has heroes with escape, Monkey King Bar is always a good choice. On the other hand, if you have a hard time killing tanky heroes like Dark Seer, go with Eye of Skadi. You can also pick up Butterfly to greatly increase your own damage output and gain evasion.
Once you note down the item build, playing Juggernaut will be much easier. The hero isn't squishy and the stripped down magic immunity from Blade Fury allows you to be much greedier with your item selection. Mastering the hero will help you dominate your ranked games and slowly climb the MMR ladder in Dota 2.