Io — hero grid for mains

Io is what the game calls the hero in every client; Russian-speaking players say “Ио” (or “висп”). The game files call the hero “wisp”, and the site's search knows that name too.

Valve's one-line description from the hero list: “Links to its allies to buff them”.

Search in the hero picker is forgiving: “Io”, “Ио”, “wisp” — each of them lands on Io.

Io is a Universal hero (22 of them in the game), ranged, complexity 3 of 3 by Valve's rating, one of only 13 heroes at the top level.

Role dots from Valve: Support ●●●, Escape ●●○, Nuker ●○○; full marks for Support.

In the ready layouts that means the “UNIVERSAL” (13th of 22) block of By attributes and the “HARD” (6th of 13) band of By complexity.

Io is played in two positions — hard support (5) and soft support (4) — like 38 other heroes with two scores of 0.5 or more; the main one is hard support. All five scores (best = 1): carry 0 · mid 0.18 · offlane 0 · soft support 0.52 · hard support 1 — which is why the editor's Auto-pick places Io in the “5 · HARD SUPPORT” and “4 · SUPPORT” rows and nowhere else.

Median gold per minute for Io is 332, experience 571 — pure support gold on the site's scale (360 or less); by lane, 854 parsed OpenDota matches as of 23 Sept 2026 split 52% safe, 31% mid and 17% off.

In Classic: positions 1–5 Io sits in the “5 · HARD SUPPORT” row, 16th portrait of 18.

Io in other layouts: not in Meta by stats (ten heroes per position); Two columns — “SUPPORTS”, 40th of 44.

With the button at the top, the MAINS block of Mains + situational starts with Io, then Dazzle, Bane and Abaddon, because all three share the same main position (hard support) and the same attribute.

Then it is “Download grid” and hero_grid_config.json into Steam\userdata\<number>\570\remote\cfg while Dota is closed; load your current file in the “Your grid is ready” window and your old grids stay (install guide).

In the OpenDota snapshot of 23 Sept 2026 Io shows up in 177,429 games (91st most played of 127) and wins 49.0% of them (81st).

Rank barely changes the picture: 48.6% at Herald–Crusader and 50.1% at Ancient–Divine. Players pick Io more than usual at Divine (+16%) and less at Legend (−7%).

Io in the snapshot's pro matches: 2 picks, 1 win, 4 bans. Turbo: 113,150 games at 48.4%, about the same as in ranked brackets.

For a grid with an Io portrait, bring your own art: Picture to dots draws it in dots right on the field. Among the heroes with skins that are also played as hard support, the closest to Io are Vengeful Spirit, Crystal Maiden and Techies — their dot drawings are ready for a hard support grid.