I think that means a hero that can dominate early/mid game, gain a significant gold advantage than the opponents and "snowball" to the end of the game. This is how i look at that word.
A snowball hero starts off small, then gains momentum. If the momentum continues, the snowball gets so big that he/she just stomps on everyone. All snowballs come to an end though, so they must end game before hard carry overwhelms them in the late game.
![[DFG] Whale King](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/avatars/00/00b016e373367df38e0ed26933efc17ee8871348_full.jpg "[DFG] Whale King")
A snowball hero is a hero that needs early kills to get going but once he's gotten a few it's very difficult to stop him until late game due to an increasingly large Exp and Gold advantage. He also usually is easily countered by certain heroes early game and until getting a few early kills are usually relatively weak.
Snowball heroes usually often ganking mechanisms (slows,dashes, invis, and speed ups) to help kill opponents early.
Examples of snowballers include:
Storm spirit (Countered early by ranged harass or stuns and slows)
Spirit cow dude (Countered by stuns and nukes as well as good ward vision)
Templar assassin (Countered by DOT damage)
Bounty hunter (Countered by True Sight)
Tinker (Countered by silences and nukes)
There are also heroes such as Pudge who don't have a direct way to gank other lanes (without maybe an invis or haste rune) but have very good abilities to surprise an unsuspecting enemy. (Meat hook)
I can keep expanding on this if you'd like :)
Husker may be ?
And that good old Bloodseeker LOL
Every time you hear "don't be negative, be positive", you just wanna laugh......
Well I was only trying to list out a few :3 there are many more for sure. Most of them being mid heroes (whoop whoop)
Snowballing can apply too any character in dota, essentially it just means a player gains momentum until they take complete control of the game.
I will list the best snowballing characters in the game.
Tier 1:
Queen of pain
Slark
Shadow fiend
Templar assasin
Ursa
Nyx assasin
Storm spirit
In terms of snowballing these are the absolute monsters who will snowball faster than anyone if you give them a chance.
Tier 2:
Pudge
Puck
Nightstalker(not very common in pubs because most people are morons)
Tinker
bounty hunter
Invoker
Technically, any character can snowball given the right circumstances however that list is your list of usual suspects.
Slark Slarkinson of slark said it very well, except I disagree on invoker. To snowball, your hero needs to have a strong early game. Invoker's spells have very long cooldowns/high mana costs and he does not have mobility or ultimate. Also, invoker has been bumped down to tier 5:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xVhGGEUqE90Ogqdjw_6NzzQ2FsQa4WMywz5alUlrylo/pub
Pudge and Silencer are the biggest ones because they get STR and INT when they kill someone. Or heroes with high burst damage can snowball really well as well. Tiny Tuskarr QoP Puck and Mirana if you hit the arrows are great examples.
Any hero "can" snowball, and sometimes people will talking about a team snowballing...although with teams this is usually called a deathball. But the term is really supposed to refer to heroes that need a level advantage to be effective. Usually these are solo mid, high mobility heroes that rely on burst dmg to win.
You could build any hero that way, by getting dagon and urn, but some are naturally snowballers. Because they gank a lot and can't do it well when losing.
Tusk, obviously...he does 3 big burst dmg spells. He needs to be ahead of you in levels for them to instantly kill you. If he can't kill you in 2 seconds he is not that effective.
NS is a snowball hero. First night is critical to getting ahead on levels. He does big burst dmg with his nuke, is very fast to tower dive and kill you from full health (should be in about 4 seconds) if he does not win first night, he is likely to lose because he is far less powerful without his night time bonuses.
Timbersaw is a snowball hero. He does a lot of burst dmg. Its very powerful early...once you have lots of hp its not. The same is true with QoP. When people have less than 1k hp Qop is really scary. When they have 2k hp...eh who care about Qop ganking them. If heroes with burst dmg are ahead in levels their spells hit for a larger % of your hp. If they are behind in levels their burst dmg does not work very well.
Tinker is not a snowball type hero. Tinker can be extremely effective despite losing early and returns to power late game with lots of farm. You can make him "feel" snowball like by rushing dagon...but no really this is forcing his mechanics in a direction they do not naturally go.
AM is not a snowball hero. AM can get his butt kicked early and still come back to dominate the game later. He does not use burst dmg but dps.
Morphling is not a snowball hero...you can force him to play that way rushing eblade, but he does not require burst dmg to get kills, does massive dps late game. He really does best with lots of farm. It is not hard for a morphling to have a huge impact late despite a weak start.
If you go bottle-blink-arcanes on tiny and gank all the time...he plays like a snowball hero. High burst dmg, crap dps, needs to be ahead in levels. If you build racecar drums-aghs-manta "carry tiny" then he doesn't snowball. He is very strong late game and can't do much mid or early.
Lol carry Tiny stil does a lot at early and mid game. A combo usually means a dead support.
Carry tiny has to farm or he does not carry. You can't do both. The act of farming itself makes ganking impossible. The only way carry Tiny has a big game impact early ....is the other team are feeders.
No carries are strong early. Farming is not powerful. Farming is something you have to spend other heroes resources to protect.
If your carry "does a lot early and mid game" its either because the other team is a bunch of feeders and nothing matters....or its because your team is losing badly, and so the carry can't farm and is forced into fights.
Im not sure i get it... So the difference between a carry and a snowballer is that a snowball hero relies on levels whereas a carry relies on gold? ...
^Yes snowball heroes are much better when they are ahead in levels, a snowballer hero with kills has more impact earlier in the game than a carry with the same number of kills. The concept of snowball is it gets bigger in a slower period of time as oppoesed to a carry which shines in the 30 minutes mark. Naix is a carry and a good snowball hero too
Nightstalker Nyx Tusk Centaur Zeus there are also those retardly boring ones u can see every game like qop slark puck or bat
I would put gankers in that class. Spirit Breaker, Nyx, Clinkz, BH, and Riki to name a few. If they get a gold and xp advantage early, it's tough to deal with. The thing with the gankers is they just keep getting bigger because they can keep going from lane to lane getting bigger and stopping the other team from getting big.
@gimorum: I call bullshit on invoker. His cold snaps/forged spirits have a negligible cd and mana cost. The spirits can be around basically forever and if he gets a cold snap off it's pretty much a guaranteed kill. He can't get off any big number of combos early, but if shows up to lane early enough even a single defening blast can fuck a lane hard enough to establish dominance.
*edit: when you said fifth I thought you were referring to fifth position :) My bad.
Does it have to be kills? Lately, I'm trying to learn Lone Druid and I discovered how crazy the bear can push. I may not have that many kills, most of the time just around 4 or less but games can be over in 20+ minutes. Just go from one tower to another.
@Josh
Spirits+snap is very strong; however, it requires a minimum of level 10. NS, QoP, Slark, etc can dominate at level 6. Moreover, a level 10 invoker does not have mobility, flash farm skill, burst damage, nor positioning skills. Without any of those four important components, invoker cannot contest runes against strong mid heroes. However, Invoker does have a 50% chance of destroying rune with spirits.
Invoker is a strong mid-late game hero. A snowball hero must be strong early game. Therefore, invoker does not fall in the category of "snowball hero."
At level 5 we are already approaching midgame...
I don't agree with your vision. A weak early game hero can be a snowballer.
For example, heroes like NS (doesn't do much until the first night), Tinker (is only truly effective after getting his BoT), Storm Spirit (needs his ultimate) are awesome snowballers, while being not that strong in the first minutes of the game.
Strong early game heroes that snowball would be Nyx, Cent, BH.
^ level 5 = near mid-game? Anyone that requires 2500 gold is not a snowballer.
SF can sorta snowball with very little farm though. Actually some of the best games are where you gets some early ganks going and then you go "aww fuck it" and the whole team basically just snowballs down a single lane.
I am a shitty SF but he is a good snowball hero http://dotabuff.com/matches/260434657
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What is the real definition of a snowball hero? AFAIK its a hero that gets better as the game progresses, but pretty much any hero / carry should get better as the game reaches late game....
and what is so good about "a snowballer", yeah they are good late game but thats the same as a carry. Can any1 tell me? :)