Largo is Dota 2’s bard: a strength, melee, durable disabler and support who fights through repositioning, buffs, and a literal rhythm minigame. He arrives with patch 7.40 as the shamanic head of the bardmonk order, roaming the world with a troupe of tiny froglings and a lute that doubles as a support toolkit.
Largo’s basic profile and role
Largo is tagged as Melee, Durable, Disabler, Support and uses Strength as his primary attribute. His baseline numbers put him firmly in the tanky support camp:
| Stat | Base | Gain per level |
|---|---|---|
| Strength | 24 | +3.6 |
| Agility | 14 | +1.3 |
| Intelligence | 21 | +2.4 |
| Combat stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Attack Type / Range | Melee, 150 |
| Damage | 63–69 |
| Base attack time | 1.7s |
| Armor | ~4 |
| Movement speed | 290 |
The combination of high strength gain, solid starting armor, and melee range favors positions 3, 4, and 5, with the hero leaning hardest into “aura bot” style support. His kit revolves around three ideas: saves and repositioning, zone control and disables, and amplifying teammates’ spells and items.
Encore: longer buffs by default
Encore is Largo’s innate ability. Any buff he applies to himself or his allies lasts longer than normal, with a bonus duration of 10%. This includes Croak of Genius and unit-target buffs from items, and it becomes much more important once his Aghanim’s Shard upgrades it.
Catchy Lick (Q): targeted tongue save and dispel
Catchy Lick is the centerpiece of Largo’s basic kit. It targets a hero, ally or enemy:
| Level | Damage | Enemy pull distance | Ally pull distance | Bonus HP regen | Regen duration | Cooldown | Mana cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 85 | 210 | 375 | 4 | 10s | 13s | 80 |
| 2 | 170 | 240 | 375 | 6 | 10s | 11s | 85 |
| 3 | 255 | 270 | 375 | 8 | 10s | 9s | 90 |
| 4 | 340 | 300 | 375 | 10 | 10s | 7s | 95 |
On enemies, Catchy Lick deals magical damage and drags them slightly toward Largo. On allies, it does not damage but pulls them a longer distance and applies a basic dispel, removing many standard debuffs and most common damage-over-time effects. If at least one debuff is removed, Largo gains bonus health regeneration for 10 seconds.
The spell does not pierce debuff immunity on enemies, so it won’t pull a Black King Bar target, but it still applies its damage in that case. It can move allied units even if they are magic immune and can reposition them across impassable terrain or while rooted. It also works on certain controllable units such as Visage familiars and Lone Druid’s bear, and on creeps in general, but not on runes or couriers.
With the level 10 and 15 talents increasing Catchy Lick’s regen and range, this ability scales from a simple lane nuke into one of the most powerful, low-cooldown saves in the game, offering repositioning, purge, and sustain in the same button press.
Frogstomp (W): area control with froglings
Frogstomp turns Largo’s froglings into a zoning tool. He throws them at a point on the ground; once they land, they repeatedly stomp, dealing damage, ministunning, and slowing enemy movement speed in a radius.
| Level | Damage per stomp | Number of stomps | Total raw damage | Move speed slow | Radius | Cooldown | Mana cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 35 | 4 | 140 | 12% | 350 | 20s | 85 |
| 2 | 45 | 5 | 225 | 18% | 350 | 18s | 95 |
| 3 | 55 | 6 | 330 | 24% | 350 | 16s | 105 |
| 4 | 65 | 7 | 455 | 30% | 350 | 14s | 115 |
The ministuns come every second as the froglings stomp, which is enough to interrupt channeling spells and keep enemies slightly locked in place while the slow makes it difficult to walk out of the area. That combination makes Frogstomp a flexible tool for:
- Contesting rune spots and jungle choke points.
- Defending towers with repeated area denial.
- Setting up combos when paired with Catchy Lick to drag a target into the stomping zone.
- Farming waves and stacked camps once it’s leveled up.
Croak of Genius (E): cheaper spells and “reverb” damage
Croak of Genius is Largo’s core amplification spell. He targets an allied hero and plays them a buff that changes how their abilities and items behave for a long duration.
| Level | Damage reverb | Mana cost reduction | Base buff duration | Mana cost | Cast range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30% | 15% | 12s | 25 | 800 |
| 2 | 35% | 15% | 18s | 35 | 800 |
| 3 | 40% | 15% | 24s | 45 | 800 |
| 4 | 45% | 15% | 30s | 55 | 800 |
The buff has two effects:
- Reduced mana cost for the target’s abilities and items.
- Damage “reverb”, where a percentage of each eligible damage instance is echoed over the next five seconds as bonus magic damage over time.
Only damage that is affected by spell amplification gets the reverb treatment, so normal right-click physical hits without spell modifiers do not benefit. The buff can be refreshed before it expires, and its total length can reach permanent uptime on one hero, but every time the target spends mana the remaining duration ticks down by 0.5 seconds. This design pushes the spell toward high-impact casters who spend a lot of mana in short windows rather than idle right-clickers.
Because Encore extends buffs and the Shard later mirrors them onto Largo or a nearby hero, Croak of Genius becomes the backbone of his late-game scaling. With the level 15 talent, it also gains a max health damage-over-time component, further punishing tanky targets.
Amphibian Rhapsody (R): a toggle ultimate that turns Dota into a rhythm game
Amphibian Rhapsody is where Largo turns fully into a bard. It is a toggle ultimate with a two-second cooldown. When activated, several things happen at once:
- Largo becomes disarmed; he cannot perform normal attacks.
- His standard abilities (Q/W/E) are replaced on his bar by three song abilities.
- A beat indicator appears, and songs only take effect if “strummed” on the beat.
Every successful strum grants a stack of a passive called Groovin’. Each stack provides bonus armor and reduces the mana cost of songs. Missing a beat removes one stack. When Amphibian Rhapsody is toggled off, stacks linger for a short time before disappearing.
| Level | Armor per Groovin’ stack | Song mana cost reduction per stack | Max stacks | Beat interval | Radius | Toggle cooldown | Stack linger duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1s | 750 | 2s | 5s |
| 2 | 3 | 1.5 | 5 | 1s | 750 | 2s | 5s |
| 3 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 1s | 750 | 2s | 5s |
Items remain usable while the ultimate is on, and Largo can move normally. What changes is that his attention has to split between the battlefield and the beat indicator. A loose timing window and optional visual/audio aids make this more forgiving than full-on rhythm games, but it still introduces a real mechanical skill check into teamfights.
The three songs are:
- Bullbelly Blitz – buffing allied heroes around Largo with bonus spell amplification and extra magic damage added to their attacks for a short window.
- Hotfeet Hustle – giving nearby friendly units bonus movement speed for a second and very high slow resistance for a brief moment.
- Island Elixir – healing nearby allied heroes on each successful note.
| Song | Key | Effect values | Buff or effect duration | Base song cooldown |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bullbelly Blitz | W | +20/25/30% attack magic damage, +8/12/16% spell amp | 1s | 0.2s |
| Hotfeet Hustle | E | +16/22/28% move speed, 70/80/90% slow resistance | 1s move speed, 0.3s slow resistance | 0.2s |
| Island Elixir | D | 34/56/78 heal per note | Instant per note | 0.2s |
The songs share the rhythm and Groovin’ stacks but are cast individually as no-target spells. As long as Largo keeps hitting the beat, he can layer a continuous stream of these effects on his team, with the five-second linger on Groovin’ letting him briefly drop out of song mode to use Catchy Lick or Frogstomp before jumping back into jamming without losing all his setup.
Because the buff durations are just one second and the beat interval is one second, Amphibian Rhapsody rewards consistent, uninterrupted play. The payoff is massive: in longer fights, fully stacked Groovin’ combined with Bullbelly Blitz and Island Elixir can make a team’s damage and sustain feel dramatically higher than the scoreboard suggests.
Aghanim’s upgrades: double songs and mirrored buffs
Largo’s late-game identity is tied heavily to Aghanim’s Scepter and Aghanim’s Shard.
Aghanim’s Scepter: more songs and AoE damage
Aghanim’s Scepter upgrades Amphibian Rhapsody so that Largo can play two songs on the same beat by pressing both song keys at once. When he successfully strums two songs together, he also deals area magic damage around himself that scales with his Groovin’ stacks.
| Effect | Value |
|---|---|
| Max simultaneous songs per beat | 2 |
| AoE damage per double-strum | 50 + (10/15/20 × Groovin’ stacks) |
This changes Amphibian Rhapsody from pure utility into a hybrid aura-and-damage ultimate. Common patterns emerge quickly: pairing Hotfeet Hustle with Island Elixir to speed up a retreat while topping everyone off, or Bullbelly Blitz with Hotfeet Hustle to supercharge a dive. The downside is much heavier mana consumption per beat, so managing Groovin’ stacks and Croak of Genius becomes crucial.
Aghanim’s Shard: Encore becomes a duplicator
Aghanim’s Shard upgrades Encore. Whenever Largo casts a unit-target buff on an allied hero, he also gains that buff. If he targets himself, the buff is additionally applied to the nearest allied hero within the cast range.
In practice, this interacts with both Croak of Genius and Largo’s support items. Croak of Genius no longer forces a choice between empowering a core or empowering Largo; both get the mana reduction and damage reverb. The same goes for unit-target items like Lotus Orb, Solar Crest, Glimmer Cape, Spirit Vessel, and Linken’s Sphere. A single cast now affects two heroes, doubling the value of each activation and making Largo significantly harder to bring down.
Combined with Encore’s innate duration boost, this Shard turns him into a walking, self-sustaining aura platform: he can layer item buffs on himself and a carry, maintain long Croak of Genius uptime, and then flip into Amphibian Rhapsody to stack songs on top.
How Largo actually plays in lane and fights
In lane, Largo’s pattern is straightforward. Catchy Lick is both harassment and protection: licking an enemy for damage and a small pull can set up your lane partner’s spells, while licking an ally removes early damage-over-time effects and drags them away from danger. Frogstomp provides reliable wave clear and a deterrent against melee cores trying to trade hits under the creep wave.
Once Croak of Genius comes online, the hero shifts into a buff engine. Placing Croak on a spam-heavy mid hero or offlaner before a skirmish stretches their mana and adds extra ticking damage to their nukes. Because the buff duration is long, Largo can apply it before a smoke or tower defense and stay in the backline focusing on positioning and item usage.
Teamfights are where Amphibian Rhapsody separates casual Largo players from specialists. Strong play revolves around three decisions:
- When to toggle in – jumping into song mode too early can leave Catchy Lick on the bench when an ally needs a save; doing it too late means losing early stacks and pressure.
- Which song to prioritize – healing through Island Elixir for extended brawls, Bullbelly Blitz when your lineup is ready to unload magical burst or right-clicks, or Hotfeet Hustle to kite enemy melee cores and dodge big ground spells.
- How long to stay in rhythm – sometimes the correct move is a few beats of Bullbelly Blitz into a quick toggle off, Catchy Lick to reposition someone, then back into Amphibian Rhapsody before Groovin’ stacks fully fall off.
The beat window is intentionally generous and can be tracked through a UI bar, overhead animation, and an optional metronome. That makes the hero playable even without staring directly at the rhythm indicator, but there is still a learning curve, especially for players juggling multiple active items and mouse-intensive heroes alongside Largo.
Largo is unusual even by Dota’s standards: a support hero whose ultimate borrows its structure from rhythm games, who licks allies for their own good, and whose strongest builds revolve around duplicating item buffs and keeping time under pressure. For players who enjoy positioning-heavy supports and mechanically demanding spells, he offers a fresh way to control fights without ever needing to top the damage charts.
