Dota Heroes Guide

Furion The Prophet Guide

Furion The Prophet Guide & Walkthrought

The land is never safe. Furion, therefore, never rests. The leader of all Night Elves, Furion tirelessly works to protect the sanctity of his woods. It comes as no surprise that he who helped defeat Archimonde would be called upon once more in the Sentinel's hour of need. The fury of nature is at his disposal, the trees come to life at his command, the wind carries him to lands far away, and nature itself strikes all who defy his will. He is more than just a Keeper or a Prophet, he is a savior.



Base HP: 473
Base Mana: 169

Strength - 17 + 1.8
Agility - 15 + 1.5
Intelligence - 21 + 2.9 (Primary)

Base damage 39-53
Attack range of 600
Base Armor 4.1
Movement speed of 300

Skills

Sprout (T)



Sprouts 8 trees around a unit, trapping it in place.
Level 1 - Lasts for 3 seconds.
Level 2 - Lasts for 3.75 seconds.
Level 3 - Lasts for 4.5 seconds.
Level 4 - Lasts for 5.25 seconds.

Mana Cost: 115 / 140/ 165 /205
Cooldown: 12 seconds

This skill is very usefull for ganking, especially when ganking melee heroes. But you must watch for this countering measure!

Blink
There are two heroes in dota with blink and many heroes like to buy a blink dagger. Sprout is useless on them. Dont waste your time and mana. Later on when you have guinsoo you can disable them properly. There are also a bunch of other assorted "blinkers" like sand king, Darkterror, morphling and priestess of the moon. Some spells like rikimaru's smokescreen and beastmasters wild axes will also destroy trees.

Tango of Essifation
This can be used to counter sprout effectively. I wouldnt worry about it too much though because there is reaction time to consider and they arent going to carry a supply of tangos around for the entire game.

Teleportation (R)



Teleports to any explored point on the map.
Level 1 - 60 second cooldown.
Level 2 - 50 second cooldown.
Level 3 - 40 second cooldown.
Level 4 - 30 second cooldown.

Mana Cost: 75/ 65/ 55/ 50
Cooldown: 60/ 50/ 40/ 30

Very usefull for ganking. You can surprise your enemies by suddenly teleport to the blind spot and gank with your friends.

Force of Nature (F)



Converts trees in an area into Treants. Each tree is transformed to a treant. Treants have 550 hit points and deal 21-23 normal damage, and 0 heavy armor. Treants last 60 seconds.
Level 1 - Raises at most 2 Treants.
Level 2 - Raises at most 3 Treants.
Level 3 - Raises at most 4 Treants.
Level 4 - Raises at most 5 Treants.

Mana Cost: 160
Cooldown: 40 seconds

This skills is very usefull for pushing Furion. But, since this strategy is focused on build carry Furion, this skill only usefull for helping neutrals creeping.

Wrath of Nature (W)



Summons damaging energy to swath around the map and damage random enemies. Each enemy hit beyond the first adds 7% damage.
Level 1 - Deals 140 (155 with Scepter) base damage, hits 12 targets.
Level 2 - Deals 180 (211 with Scepter) base damage, hits 14 targets.
Level 3 - Deals 225 (275 with Scepter) base damage, hits 16 targets.

Mana Cost: 200/ 380/ 610
Cooldown: 90/ 60/ 60

Skill Build
1. Sprout
2. Teleport
3. Sprout/Stats
4. Stats
5. Sprout/Stats
6. Wrath of Nature
7. Sprout
8. Stats/Force of Nature
9. Stats/Sprout
10. Stats/Sprout
11. Wrath of nature
12. Teleport
13. Teleport
14. Teleport
15. Stats
16. Wrath of nature
17-20. Stats
21. Force of nature/Stats
22-25. Force of nature

Sprout first is needed to creep block. Maxing sprout early is recommended when you have a lane mate, because another 2.25 seconds will help you ganking. When you are soloing, choose stats to help you get last hit and survivability.

Wrath is taken at level 6. Even tought the damage is not significant, if you use it wisely you can still help your teams get a kill. Teleport is not maxed until mid game when the set lanes break down and you can teleport around rapidly and farm. During early game it will just be needed to tele/sprout gank and make fountain trips.

Force of nature is a great pushing skill but furion is better played as a ganker and carry hero. Due to mana and time restrictions you cant be a pusher and a ganker at the same time. You will also need the stats to buff up for a carry role. If you like to neutral creep I suggest adding a point of force of nature. It lets you creep without losing any HP at all.

Item Build

1. 2 circlets & 1 tango of essifation
2. Gloves of Haste
3. Finish Hand of Midas
4. Boots of Speed
5. Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse + Bracers
6. Power Treads

Your items should be like this:



Start with 2 circlets and 2 tangos for a nice stats boost and some light regeneration. You can make easy fountain trips with teleport if tangos are not enough. The circlets will later be made to bracers. Now try your best to get the midas. It is imba but only if you get it very early. You will have a noticably buff late game, which is particularly important for furion and the attack speed is very good for a battle mage. If you can't finish the midas due to a very hard lane or you just suck at last hits and denies then skip it. No midas at all is better than a late midas in furions case. Guinsoo will come too late.

As you get spare change make a couple of bracers. If you're european go ahead and make 6 bracers. If you went a stats skill build you might not even want to bother. Teleport scrolls on furion are more than a little broken so make sure to abuse it as much as you can. If you get low on HP in a push or fight you can scroll back to base and teleport straight into the field again.

Guinsoo is your next best option because you are a ganker furion. With a 5 second sprout 3 second hex and teleport you can appear out of nowhere and hold a target down while you and your team rape them. This will also be your only means of countering the very frustrating teleport scroll. The mana bonuses here are very essential as well. Sprout costs a hefty 200 mana and later on you will need to constantly use wrath of nature to farm and it costs 600 mana. The damage you get from this is also equivilant to a sacred relic. A very good deal. Forget using the euls charges, just upgrade it to guinsoo as soon as you can. Euls has been well nerfed so the hex is much more useful. You have a 30 second cooldown teleport so you dont need BoT. Treads are then the perfect option for your battle furion, especially after the convenient buff from icefrog.

If the games last long enough, buy this great stuff:

OR +

Aghanim's Scepter will boost your ultimate. Whenever your ultimates active, use it immediately for fast gold and help your creeps pushes. Aghanim's will also gives you additional health and damage. If you are a good ganker, well farmed and lust for more damages, go for Desolator and Tarras. Those two items will makes you even more Godly.

Strategy

The first thing you need to do is choose your lane. I wouldnt reccommend any particular lane for furion. He can work well with an ally because of his very long disable and range and can often handle a solo lane. Just work with whatever strat your team is pulling. I often like to use the solo lane. If you can get your levels and money quickly you can start tele/sprout ganking much earlier which can absolutely destroy some teams. The downside to choosing solo though is that furion doesnt have the worlds best lane control. He will get heavily denied, outfarmed and possibly killed if versus a very strong lane combo (bane/necrolyte or lich/pugna). Use teleport and just adjust to the situation.

One thing you can do to give yourself a lane advantage is creep block. Its much easier with furion than any other heroes because of sprout. Just sprout as many creeps as you can on their way to their lane. Most of the time they lose their pathing and will just stop. This means the enemies completely miss out on exp and money from those creeps you manage to stop. Note that this is often illegal in leagues. If it is, just use conventional creep blocking, which is walking in front of the creep wave and slowing it down.

Furion doesnt have any nukes to speak of so you are just going to have to use your attack. Concentrate and fight hard for every last hit and deny and keep them at bay with your attack. Versus very hard lane opponents you may have to play very conservatively to avoid dying. When closer to your tower and with an ally you can play more aggresively. Sprout is an unusually long disable and its a strong possibility to snag a kill.

Furion has the very powerful ability to instantly teleport behind a target and sprout them for 5 seconds. You can turn a lane from 2v2 into 3v2 with the element of surprise. This is a very effective technique and can give your team a large advantage. You will have to watch the minimap diligently to see opportunites. Generaly you want to catch heroes away from their tower in a fogged area for a surprise gank. The little pink portal appears when you teleport so if you teleport right next to them they will just run away. You can also teleport in after fights to mop up.

I find the best way to avoid ganks is teleport. You should be watching the minimap carefully anyway for tele/sprout ganking so seeing the heroes go missing is easy. Even if you dont notice and get ganked you have a good chance of getting away with teleport. Often they wont have readily available stuns or won't react fast enough to stun you.

A useful thing you can do is run into the bush where there is heavy fog of war. This makes it very difficult for enemies to get in and target you with stuns. If teleport is on cooldown or gets cancelled you can try sprouting them and running away. It only really works against single enemies though. Later on when you get euls and guinsoo they are also options.

When reaching mid-game, the game ganking becomes slightly less effective as the set lanes break down. Start to focus a little more on farming and getting that guinsoo finished. Wrath of nature is now an avaliable tool. Between farming use your guinsoo teleport and sprout to make sure that the enemies arent farming. That is the core of a ganking lineup and strategy. Keep picking them off individually and dont let them farm. You need to establish a clear level and monetary advantage.

To farm you need to teleport around rapidly between lanes. The best defence against getting ganked while farming, is to use teleport every time it cools down. Dont give them the time they need to get organised and kill you. If there arent any free lanes to farm, get a point in force of nature, teleport to the sentinel creep camps and kill everything there.

When dealing with an aggressive pushing scourge there isnt a hell of a lot you can do. Defend your base by focusing key targets with sprout and teleport. The best defence against nasty pushes is to keep ganking, get an early kills advantage, keep them distracted from pushing and your lategame can then come into play.

Wrath of Nature increases in power the more enemies are shown on the map so you should only use it when you can see all three creep waves in the three different lanes. If you time it right you will find you get quite a few creep kills. If you plan to use it on heroes, use it on the creep wave and it should bounce around a little to gain some damage before hitting the hero.

Late game is going to be all about finishing luxury items, backdooring and pushing. Teleport gives you a massive advantage in this kind of gameplay. Use it whenever it cools down. Changing lanes every 30 seconds makes you almost impossible to get ganked and puts pressure on their base. Pushing constantly from all sides often keeps the enemy team distracted and locked up in their base trying to fend off the pushing. If they manage to mount a large push however make sure you are there to defend. Also if your team is mounting a large push, push with them.
Alleria the Windrunner Guide


These are her skills.
Shackleshot
Alleria fires an enchanted arrow using wind magic that binds the target to an enemy unit or tree behind it.
Cooldown: 14
Manacost: 90/100/110/120
Always knocks back the target. If the target hits a group of units or a tree, the struck units (including the target) are stunned for 1.4/2.1/2.8/3.5 seconds. (700 unit cast distance)

Power Shot
Windrunner winds up her bow for up to 1 second to perform a single powerful shot. The arrow travels 1700 distance, dealing damage and destroying trees in its path. The damaged dealt is greatest to the first target of it hits and is reduced by 10% with each other it passes through.
Cooldown: 12
Manacost: 90/100/110/120
Deals 120/200/280/360 damage to all enemies in straight line. The arrow has vision and knocks down trees in the process.

Windrunner
Imbues her body with the essence of wind, increasing her movement speed by 50% and giving her the ability to evade all physical attacks for short period of time. Additionally, the gusts of wind around her impairs the movement of nearby enemies, slowing their movement speed in a 300 AoE around her.
Cooldown: 65/50/35/20
Manacost: 100
Say goodbye to this Imba cyclone skill, now it only gives you 50% ms increase, and 100% evasion for 2.75/3.5/4.25/5 seconds and 8/16/24/30 % slow.

Focus Fire (ultimate)
Alleria channels wind throughout her body to surge an excess of adrenaline, giving her maximum attack speed on one target for 10 attacks. Damage is reduced in this state.
Cooldown: 60
Manacost: 200/300/400
Now, her ultimate has been nerfed. No longer IMBA flying unit. Now it seems to give max attack speed for 10 attacks as long as your attacking the target. Your damage get reduced on 50/40/30 % while using this skill.

She is very good at chasing and ganking. Shackle Shot and Power Shot make for great chasing abilities. Power Shot can be used to create shortcuts through trees to catch up with your target.A properly aimed Shackle Shot (to ensure the enemy hits other units or trees and gets stunned) is necessary to make full use of this skill. Windrunner makes you easily catch up with fleeing enemies. Her ultimate aim you to be a damage dealer. All in all, a fun hero. A bit lacking in damage, but makes up for it with interesting abilities. Thanks to redrach and Mr.Jag for this complete analysis of Alleria.

Skill Build
Level 1 - Windrunner
Level 2 - Powershot
Level 3 - Powershot
Level 4 - Shackleshot
Level 5 - Powershot
Level 6 - Shackleshot
Level 7 - Powershot
Level 8 - Shackleshot
Level 9 - Shackleshot
Level 10 - Focus Fire
Level 11 - Windrunner
Level 12 - Windrunner
Level 13 - Windrunner
Level 14 - Focus Fire
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Focus Fire
Level 17-25 - Stats

Windrunner will be taken at level 1 so you can avoid potential first blood ganks on you. From here, Powershot will be levelled over Shackleshot; Shackleshot is too unreliable at the beginning to be truly effective. Powershot's damage is tremendous so it's much better to rely on and it also allows you to harass your enemies much better. Finally it helps finishing off escaping enemies in ganks and whatsoever should you get in a such situation. However, Shackleshot will be maxed directly after because you will hit it in many situations once you learn to use it effectively and its duration is terrific once it activates correctly.

Add 1 level of Focus Fire after you've maxed Powershot and Shackleshot. 1 level is good because you can use it to shoot towers and other huge resting things (hi Roshan!), but leveling it from here is overdoing it. The 10% extra damage is not a negative thing, but a lower cooldown and longer duration on Windrunner is more important right here. Max that ability fast and get the rest of your skill points in Focus Fire when you're available.

Item Build

Starting items
Core item build

Luxury items afterward


Justifications
Two Mantles of Intelligence, a Circlet of Nobility and a set of Ancient Tangoes of Essifation will be bought as your starting items because they give you good damage for last hitting purposes + some health and mana to harass/withstand harass. The Ancient Tangoes of Essifation will of course be used to neglect harassers too, so you can stay in your lane longer.

Later you will upgrade your two Mantles to Null Talismans so you have more health and mana for ganking + some extra damage to last hit and "general attacking" as well. Boots of Speed are mandatory as always.
Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse will then be bought so you can (almost) perfectly set up ganks yourself without having to rely too much on other disablers. Once you have your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse, positioning Shackleshot will be ten times easier hence this is why this item is your corner stone.

Once you have your sheepstick, you should buy Orchid Malevolence because it gives you excellent damage and attack speed, which is just what you need to fight with and without Focus Fire. Buying pure damage is not a completely good choice because you will shoot too slow when you don't use Focus Fire which of course you won't be able to all the time, hence you need attack speed too. Finally the buffer effect it gives neglects Focus Fire's reduced damage very well. This is also why you should buy a pair of Power Treads later when you feel like you can squeeze them in your build. Boots of Travel are good but not completely necessary; Windrunner will give you 518 movement speed when you have Boots of Speed alone, so you don't need the extra movement speed from Boots of Travel + you can get around more easily when you blaze fast. The attack speed on the Power Treads is really what we're looking for so you can deal greater damage "outside" Focus Fire.

Finally Stygian Desolator gives you excellent damage for your ultimate as it penalties a part of your target's armor, giving you more direct, raw damage.

Gameplay walkthrough

Early game

For lane assignments I usually prefer to either solo somewhere, or lane with a stunner, but it doesn't matter terribly much though.
Once you're in it, you should try to harass your enemies with Powershot from time to time when you're level 3 and above. If you're laning with a stunner, you can try to go for kills at level ~3-4 and above where he stuns first so you can position yourself for a Shackleshot.

See if you can stay in your lane for awhile and farm some gold for your items, but once you're level ~6-7 and above, you should begin to look for opportunities to gank. Try not to spend too much time roaming so you lose too much gold and experience without really succeeding in anything. Try to look for "obvious" gank opportunities with allies and something that you can finish successfully and quickly.

When you're not ganking you should try to farm a little gold for your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse. Don't spend all your time running forth and back because it will make you horribly outfarmed later.

Middle game

Still try to look for opportunities to gank. Ganking on your own is often not very smart because you won't have the capability to take your enemy down. Ganking with one or more allies (preferably someone with a stun) is way better, hence you should try to follow your allies around in ganks to make them successful.
Try not to get yourself in the spotlight; you're vulnerable to nukes and disables so getting in the front and in the center of the combats every time is mostly a bad idea. Try to let your teammates walk first and let them initiate. Then wait for a correct moment to catch someone with Shackleshot and/or finish them off with Powershot.

When you aren't ganking with your teammates and if you aren't pushing either, you ought to farm (lanes preferably) for your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse. In a decent game with decent farm and decent opponents, I usually have it around the 30th minute to compare. Getting it before is very common, but getting it later is not uncommon either. Just try not to get it delayed too much. If you get close to no gold and experience at all, you should stop attempting and failing too many ganks and instead try to farm a bit so you aren't completely no fool.

Late game

Around this time you will often have your Orchid Malevolence. Your job in the late game is to look for heroes in combats to disable with Shackleshot. It would of course be best if you could disable the ones that need focus, but seeing that it's not always possible, disabling anyone (or even double-disabling them) to nullify their combat powers for awhile is fine. You can and should use your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse on the enemy that needs to be disabled (e.g. their carry hero or whatsoever, someone that is a great threat to your team).
When you fight, try to use your Orchid Malevolence first and then activate Focus Fire, because the amplified damage will neglect the reduced damage on Focus Fire greatly. Try to focus the hero that your team wants focus on. Mostly it will stand out in the combats whom you are focusing hence you should be able to determine it rather fast.

Again, try to avoid being focused when you fight. Don't stand in the middle of everything, don't be the first to run in and try to avoid as many bad ultimates and other abilities as possible. Try to stand from as far range as you can and do not get reckless. Survival is vital.

Your main job in the combats is basically trying to disable as many heroes as possible while using Orchid Malevolence/Focus Fire on a good target while staying safe from a distance.

Shackle Shot Guide


Powershot Guide


You can use Powershot to create a path in trees


Powershot has a long distance, use it for your advantages
Rubick the Grand Magus Guide

Nortrom the Silencer Guide
Nortrom the Silencer Guide, Build & Strategy. Silencer is having another buff on Dota 6.61. While Nerubian Weaver got a skill remake, Nortrom has a change on his first skill and a buff on his Last Word aura. Now, every enemy heroes that dies within his aura range (950 AoE), will give him a permanent +1 intelligence. Wow! It's pretty cool since usually we must got the kill to do so. The first skill changes, Curse of the Silent also tempted me to level up it. Before, CotS is a skill that never taken since it halt Silencer damage. Well, let's check out the new skills and plan a new build for Nortrom the Silencer.

Hailing from the magical community of Quel'Thalas, Nortrom is one of the strongest Elven warriors defending the integrity of the lands. Mastering the ancient art of glaive-throwing, and combining it with the volatile nature of the Blood Elves' arcane magic, he is able to disrupt the magical energies in his enemies. By binding his magical powers to his glaive, he is able to cause damage beyond devastation, gaining intelligence from every kill. Concentrating all his energies, he can cause chaos within his enemies' magical pools, making them unable to cast spells. He is determined to fend off the Scourge and their demon magic until he has breathed his last.
Strength 17 + 1.7
Agility 16 + 2.1
Intelligence 21 + 2.5

Affiliation: Sentinel
Base Damage: 39 - 61
Base Armor: 1.3
Movespeed: 290
Attack Range: 600
Sight Range: 1800 / 800

Curse of the Silent
Afflicts enemies with the Curse of the Silent. The target will lose hp and mana per second until it casts a spell.

Reduce 50 HP and 25 Mana for 2/4/6/8 seconds
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Manacost: 105/115/125/135
700 casting range and 350 AoE

• It will be removed when the target dies or begins the effect of a spell.

Glaives of Wisdom
Nortrom's Glaives are enchanted by his experience in magic. Dealing extra damage based on his Intelligence.

Deals 15%/30%/45%/60% of your intelligence in bonus damage
Cooldown: 3/2/1/0 seconds
600 casting range

• Damage type: pure

Last Word (Passive/Aura)
Causes any unit under the effect of this aura to become silenced after it finishes casting a spell.

Silences unit if it casts anything for 0.75/1.5/2.25/3 seconds

• The aura will be disabled when Nortrom is silenced.
• Channeling skills will activate this even if they are canceled.
• Silencer will permanently steal 1 Intelligence from any enemy hero that dies within 950 range.

Global Silence (ultimate)
Stops all enemies on the map from casting spells.

Duration: 3/4/5 seconds
Cooldown: 160 seconds
Manacost: 250/350/450

• This skill works on invisible units.
• Silence works on magic immune units.

Nortrom the Silencer Skills Build

Level 1 - Curse of the Silent
Level 2 - Glaives of Wisdom/Last Word
Level 3 - Curse of the Silent
Level 4 - Last Word/Glaives of Wisdom
Level 5 - Curse of the Silent
Level 6 - Global Silence
Level 7 - Last Word
Level 8 - Last Word
Level 9 - Last Word
Level 10 - Glaives of Wisdom
Level 11 - Global Silence
Level 12 - Glaives of Wisdom
Level 13 - Glaives of Wisdom
Level 14 - Curse of the Silent
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Global Silence
Level 17 - 25 - Stats

Justification

Curse of the Silent is taking first as it will help you drain your enemies mana and will save you from enemies spells.

If you're laning against someone that can easily couter cots you might want to skip it (zeus, storm), if you're laning against someone that can hardly cancel it (viper, leo) you can go ahead and max it.

The skill build is focused on CotS + Lastword. CotS is much stronger compared to your Glaives, either in lane or in ganks. CotS is not as easily counterable as most makes it to be, it is common sense to cast it after your opponent had casted their spell. CotS will deal major dmg due to:
1) opponent spell on cd
2) they have no mana to cast a spell (CotS drains mana, and hero starts with pitiful mana pool)
3) casting it while in a chase

After you steal sufficient Int, you can pile on the hurt with Glaives. It's more important to control your lane and get as many free Int from enemy deaths earlier now.

Nortrom the Silencer Items Build

Starting Items

+
Nortrom is very fragile, so we get the Bracer parts early to boost his HP. If you're in the side lane (which i recommend), get the Magic Stick as soon as possible. If you use CotS and your enemies cast their spells, you will got some free charges for your stick ;)

Core Items


The new Silencer build should capitalize on his survivability. Put it this way. The longer he survives in a battle:
1) the longer his aura can disrupt opposing's combo
2) the better the chance he can steal enemy's int and add it to his own
3) the longer he can DPSAnd this core is  for survivability.

Phase Boots will help you escape from gank and chasing while Meka will support your team. Bracers is needed as your HP is low and you're not getting stats. Void Stone for mana regen which can be turned into either Eul's or Guinsoo.

Luxury Items

OR + +

If you farm poorly, convert your Void Stone into Eul's. But if you got a lot of money, get sheep stick instead. After get either Eul's or Guinsoo , start aiming for Heart of Tarrasque and Shiva's Guards component.

Silencer Strategy

Start with the above items and pick top/bottom lane with a partner. The new Silencer is more fit on dual lane. Get CotS and start casting it on your enemies since level 1. It will screw your enemies more than you thought. Cast it especially to low mana stunner like Sven or SK. And don't forget, it's area spells, aim to get 2 target at once if possible.

Get Last Word on level 2 if you feel you can get early kill. If you're not sure, get Glaives instead for free creep aggro harass. Get Magic Stick as soon as possible, it work perfectly with your CotS. Keep playing cool and cast CotS on enemies stunner.

At the middle game, start ganking and helps your friend. You're know getting free Int if the enemies died within your range. Maximize this! Don't forget that your enemies will suffer from the permanent -1 Int.

When it come to team clash, maintain your distance. Hide behind your tanker but still keep your Last Word aura in range. Cast CotS on low pool mana hero with deadly spells if you have the chance. Keep your self safe while throwing your Glaives. Use Global Silence in the right time. It can cancel channeling spells like Epicenter and Blackhole. In the opposite, if you have a friend with channeling spells, you can make a great combo. As soon as they started the channeling spells, use Global Silence.

Overall, DPS Silencer was from 6.48b. A lot have changed since then. Silencer just doesn't fit in the DPS carry field anymore, other carry heroes had been discovered and new heroes with imba stats, such that Glaives + Stats pales in comparison. To be picked in the new version, Silencer has to play an unique role that no others can do, and this capitalize on all out support with Last Word.

What do you think of the new Silencer? Honestly, he is one of my favourite hero. I hope with this changes, he is more viable on the competitive game. Well, share your build here. Do you keep the old way, skip CotS and going to stats, or leveling CotS to get some kills? Share your thought here ;)
Zeus the Lord of Olympia Guide
Zeus Guide, Build & Strategy - Lord of Olympia Guide written by MYM|Merlini. Zeus remains one of the most popular heroes in DotA. Not only is he incredibly fun to play in public games, but he is considered so powerful that he is either a ban or first pick in organized games. Although he does not have an escape mechanism (more recently with the Dagger nerf), he is one of the few non-stun Intelligence heroes to see competitive play. Zeus is not too complex of a hero: He has insane burst damage early game, with great scaling lategame thanks to Static Field, and a global nuke that is perhaps one of the most annoying skills in all of DotA.

Zeus the Lord of Olympia

Once a deity of unfathomable might, Zeus reluctantly sacrificed his much relished immortality in exchange for the chance to crush the sinister armies of the unholy undead. As his soul crossed into the mortal plane, his omnipotent powers withered greatly, yet not nearly enough to quell this destructive Thunder God's resolve for justice. With sheer precision, he cleanses through the enemy ranks with an impressive mastery of electrical discharge, smiting the fool hardy with formidable bolts of lightning from the heavens above. Ever vigilant in his relentless assault, the Scourge cowers in fear of incurring the fearsome wrath of the Lord of Olympia.

Strenght: 19 + 1.8
Agility: 15 + 1.7
Intelligence: 20 + 2.7

Base Damage: 41 - 49
Base Armor: 2.1
Movespeed: 295
Attack Range: 350
Sight Range: 1800 / 800

Hero Abilities

Arc Lightning
Hurls a bolt of arcing energy that laces through many nearby enemy units.



Level 1 - Arcs 5 times, deals 85 damage.
Level 2 - Arcs 7 times, deals 100 damage.
Level 3 - Arcs 9 times, deals 115 damage.
Level 4 - Arcs 15 times, deals 130 damage.

Cooldown: 2 seconds.Manacost: 65/72/79/86
Cast range 700, 500 AoE

A great skill for finishing off creeps, harassing and controlling a lane. With static field the damage it does is highly significant.

Lightning Bolt 
Summons a bolt of lightning from the heavens to strike a target enemy.



Level 1 - Deals 100 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 175 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 275 damage.
Level 4 - Deals 350 damage.

Cooldown: 7 seconds.
Manacost: 75/95/115/135

• Gives true sight within 900 range.
• Reveals the surrounding area (1000 and 750 range on day and night, respectively) for 3 seconds.
• Posseses a mini-stun, which allows Zeus to interrupt channeling spells and items with this ability.

A very powerful single-target nuke that not only does 350 damage at level 4, but also gives true sight.

Static Field (Passive)
Whenever Zeus casts a spell, he shocks all nearby enemy heroes for a percentage of their current hit points as damage.
Affects an area of effect of 800.

Level 1 - Shocks for 5% of current hit points.
Level 2 - Shocks for 7% of current hit points.
Level 3 - Shocks for 9% of current hit points.
Level 4 - Shocks for 11% of current hit points.

• The damage from Static Field is dealt before the damage from the used spell.
• Using items does not trigger Static Field.

This skill enables Zeus's spells to effectively scale lategame since it does a percentage of HP.

Thundergod's Wrath
Strikes down all enemy heroes with a bolt of lightning.



Level 1 - Deals 210 (335) damage.
Level 2 - Deals 335 (460) damage.
Level 3 - Deals 460 (570) damage.

Cooldown: 120 seconds.
Manacost: 225/325/450

A global nuke that is extremely useful for comboing, finishing off heroes, granting vision, and in team battles, it adds effective "AoE".
• Reveals the surrounding area (1000 and 750 range on day and night, respectively) for 3 seconds.
• Gives true sight 900 range around each affected target for 3 seconds.
• If a target is invisible it will get revealed (both vision and true sight) but not damaged.
• Can be improved by Aghanim's Scepter

Skill Build

Level 1 - Arc Lightning
Level 2 - Static Field
Level 3-5 - Lightning Bolt
Level 6 - Thundergod's Wrath
Level 7 - Lightning Bolt
Level 8-10 - Static Field
Level 11 - Thundergod's Wrath
Level 12-15 - Attribute Bonuses/Arc Lightning
Level 16 - Thundergod's Wrath

Justification
Bolt and Wrath are maxed as soon as possible since they are his most powerful spells, and static is gotten afterwards to add multiple-target damage during team fights. Some people max Arc before 23-25 but it is actually not always good to max arc because you can only re-cast arc lightning when the first one is done 'bouncing' and since level 4 hits 15 targets, the cooldown is often over before the lightning finishes bouncing. Since Dota 6.60 you can cast Arc as soon as the cooldown finished, so now it's worth to level up arc. In rare occasions sometimes you might want to go Stats/Bolt/Bolt/Stats/Bolt/Ult/Bolt/static/arc/static/etc - I'll explain that more later in soloing.

Item Build

Start Items


4 branches + 3 clarities + tangoes

Core Items



Nulls/Bracers: I started getting 3 nulls instead of arcane ring when Nerubian Assassin was popular. I feel that maximum hp / mana is very important on fragile int heroes: Feel free to make bracers instead.

Point Booster: Since a lot of battles are 2v2 3v3 or whatever from full health to death, mass hp is the most important factor for survival. Point Booster provides great hp/mana for its cost.

Bottle: Enables you to control the lane, have regen, and if you are soloing mid, collecting runes is very essential to your game.

Luxury Items


Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse: Lategame, having a guinsoo will work wonders for your team - great stats, imba range, and mana regen, and of course hex is a priceless ability.

Boots of Travel: It is a standard choice on Zeus for mobility and movespeed.

Other Items


Arcane Ring: You dont see many people going for mana regen or arcane because those only help with the laning phase and since zeus is such a glass cannon, he is often focused first.

Other Lategame Items: If you farm more than a guinsoo etc., you are probably farming too much (taking away from carries) or not fighting enough, or both. Zeus is still very potent late game, but reserve the farm for heroes on your team who are more item dependent.

Playing Zeus

Early Game: For starters, its 4 branches + 3 clarities + tangoes. Since I tend to solo middle when I play Zeus, I rush bottle to get the quick lane advantage. Usually my build is 3 nulls, boots, tp scrolls, and bottle.

Attack Animation: His 'wind-up' (frontswing) is very long, but you can use that to your advantage to 's- cancel your attack and out-lasthit your opponent. Many players rely on Arc Lightning too much.

Lane Control: Arc pushes the lane and is also dependent on clarity potions, but pushing the lane also gives you free time to check the runes, so you have to weigh both choices. Both Arc and Bolt have a range of 700, enabling you to stay out of danger when casting

Strong Enemies: Against a good laner, Bolt/Stats build is needed sometimes against Shadow Fiend or Silencer. It's important to get early last hits against SF, and stats helps with both allied/denied units (obviously, Arc only works for offensive purposes). When dealing with a really problematic hero like Broodmother, make sure you keep a tp scroll on you at level 6 and definitely go Arc. Try to rune whore it with bottle while keeping sentries up (from teammates) and you should do ok. Go gank the side lanes

Oh, maybe try out the stats/bolt build a few times so you can work on last hitting with zeus


The 5 MYM|Merlini Golden Rules

1. Always Lightning Bolt before Arc
It may seem better to arc before lightning to get maximum effect from static field but if you arc first you may lose your opponent in the fog

2. Always ALWAYS watch your positioning
Lightning bolt has a hell of a long range, Thundergod's Wrath has infinite range, and Arc has pretty damn long range too, so there is almost no reason to be 'up close and personal' in battle unless you are chasing down heroes.

3. Wrath for Vision
When trying to kill low hp heroes (low, but not low enough for wrath only) in hard to navigate areas (e.g. below sentinel bottom right tower), use wrath to gain vision of your enemy so you can bolt them to death.

4. Share control with your allies
Communicating to a teammate to do something is always much slower than doing it yourself

5. Abuse Bolt Range
Try to ninja that extra bolt in before team fights actually start - it has ridiculous range and helps in battles way more than you think

Zeus Video


Alright, somebody pointed me out to some of the more constructive criticisms in the thread and I''ll try to expound on some of the finer points of Zeus. Some people may say that I'm "holding something back" in my description of how to play the Lord of Olympia; however, I feel that this is more of a reference to my personal playstyle. There are many different ways to play Zeus and I don't want to say that one particular style is better than another. Some games you gank a lot because the other team has a lot of late game, you have good ganking heroes, and your support player is badass at taking out enemy wards. Some games you have to settle for farming for the first 15-20 minutes because your opponents have vision of the whole entire map or you have better late game and are 'turtling' until late game. Because a lot of the playstyle depends on the exact situation of the game, I choose not to explain the intricacies of play that may change from game to game.

Zeus only has 3 nukes. He is not a very difficult hero to play per se. How difficult can a hero be if they don't have any 'difficult to use' spells (Earthshaker's Fissure, Meepo's chain netting/poofing)? Some people use this same argument to relegate Skeleton King to a 'noob hero'. After all, he only has 1 activated skill (3 passives!?!?). But of course, it is easy to tell the difference between an experienced Skeleton King from a first-timer. Things to note include how aggressive the player is, the timing of the actual stun (are his teammates close?), target of the stun, target of attack, map awareness, etc. But these are things that come with many many games played, not something that can easily be taught in a guide. However, maybe there are some 'skilled maneuvers' that can be taught in a guide, and I'll try to the best of my ability.

1. Lightning bolt has a very short mini-stun. Some uses are obvious - canceling tp's, canceling long channeled spells (Black Hole, Shackle...). Others are less obvious. Canceling blink animation of QoP. Interrupting the delicate timing of Earthshaker's Blink Echo, Fissure, Enchant Totem combo. Canceling 1 of your opponent's attacks. The last one may seem ridiculous, who cares about just one attack? My argument is that, in the solo lane, everything matters. One gank, one extra attack thrown in, can upset the balance in one person's favor. Use the mini-stun to maximum effectiveness!

2. Zeus is one of the rare heroes that can 'see' an opponent in a fight without the opponent seeing Zeus. Other heroes that can do this are Bloodseeker, Alchemist, etc. When you bring a fight to a place heavily obscured by fog, Zeus has a huge advantage if you can get a Lightning Bolt or Wrath off. You can cast spells/attack normally (as can your allies) while your enemy is still searching for you in the fog. It's like creating your own hill. I abuse this aspect of Zeus more than anybody I think, and this can dramatically improve your Zeus play.

3. Going along with the first point, Zeus only has one way to cancel tp's. This can be an issue when you are ganking heroes with relatively high hp left because an enemy needs to feel 'threatened' in order to tp. Typically you start off a gank with a Lightning Bolt / Arc Lightning combo, then recast each spell when you can and Wrath if needed. A skilled opponent will just tp after your first Lightning Bolt...then you are shit out of luck because of the 7 second cooldown. If you save bolt for his tp, then he'll just run away (and he surely won't die from Arc Lightning spam). Sometimes forcing an opponent to tp out is almost as good as killing them. They lose out on a lot of farm and they won't be able to tp assist their teammates for another 60 seconds. But if you really want to kill somebody and you think that they will tp out safely, you could actually start off with Wrath then arc, to 'fake' your opponent out into thinking that you bolted them first (the animation is the same), then bolt when they tp. There is no mini-stun on Wrath, but if your enemy is so observant that he notices that, then he probably deserves to survive anyways. Most people just think, "Oh fuck, Zeus!" and run away panicking

Q&A / Comments

Why not get level 2 Arc against dual lanes?

Getting Level 2 Arc means that you have to sacrifice a level of Lightning Bolt or a level of Static Field before level 8 (which is a big deal). I advise just waiting until some creeps die so that Arc will hit all 5 targets instead of leveling up Arc in this case.

Why not get Arc/Bolt/Bolt/Static/Bolt instead of Arc/Static/Bolt/Bolt/Bolt?

If you start spamming at level 3 (when the build is actually different), then mathcrafting it...

It's 65 mana for 85 damage + 5% of Current HP (~25 hp) + almost a guaranteed creep. 95 mana for 175 damage. I value the former choice over the latter. And I don't usually spam bolt until level 5 anyways unless I'm at full mana (rare) or I think I can get a kill. Another argument for static at level 2.

How is Eul's for Zeus?

I view Eul has an item well suited for very few heroes. The heroes that I like to get it on are Lion and maybe Rhasta. I think that there are much better item choices for intel heroes. If you are looking for survivability, the same gold (~3200 for Eul's) can get you an Ulti Orb and Point Booster for huge stats gain. Eul's offers no strength or hp, so if you get it on Zeus, you are a very fragile int hero with just Cyclone (not much) as an escape mechanism. I view the almost 400 hp given by the PB/Ulti Orb combo far more valuable because it will help you survive chain stuns and it allows "much more room for error" so to speak. Sometimes you have to be really quick on the Cyclone to survive while straight up HP will get you through a lot of situations. Also, Sheep is unquestionably far superior to Cyclone (although it costs almost twice as much), and since Zeus probably won't be getting that many items, working ultimately towards a Guinsoo will serve you far better than a Eul's in my opinion. The comparison of mana regen is almost nonexistent - if you are in dire need of regen, you can get an early Void Stone that will help towards your Scythe as well. Eul's components are much easier to farm; however, if you have trouble farming, I would just suggest getting 4 bracers/nulls and tp scrolls and learn how to fight without a huge item advantage. There are certainly other opinions on this matter, but I would almost always not even consider getting a Eul's on Zeus.

Anyone else get stuck in no man's land after you get your point booster? It's hard to farm all the way to Guinsoo when you know that the other heroes should be farming instead. Any advice for this mid game stale period?

Guinsoo is a 'nice' item to have, but by no means is it necessary. You will inevitably die a lot as Zeus because you wreak so much havoc in team fights. I often find myself with just 2 Nulls, Point Booster, Bottle, TP scroll, and Boots (around 3400 gold total). But sometimes I'll get lucky and I'm able to switch out boots & tp scroll for BoTs and a branch or something (~ 2200 gold). And if I manage to get a sick nasty Godlike streak or get lucky with the kills, I "might" have my Guinsoo's (~5700). The sheep stick costs more than everything else in your inventory COMBINED, so obviously don't expect to get it every game. In competitive games, I'll probably get my Guinsoo once every 6/7 games, and on top of that, the game is usually 'decided' before I finish my Guinsoo - it's just the icing on top of the cake. But really, Zeus doesn't need items outside of the core build.

About your first golden rule, doesn't that only apply when your target is running? During big team fights (Or if you gank someone from behind, so there is no chance he will run into the fog) isn't it better to get Arc off first to get the max out of Static Field?

I believe that starting off with Lightning Bolt is still better because in team fights, it is imperative to have as much vision as possible. Having vision a third of a second earlier (or however long it takes you in between chain casting two spells + cast animation times) of vision may be crucial because of an ES hiding in the fog or something else relevant to the opponent's positioning. If you see something like that or any other Blink initiator just waiting to engage, you can use your ult and prevent them from blinking. This is HUGE advantage in battle compared to the meager benefits from casting arc before bolt (maybe 30 damage?) and preventing the initiator from blinking can be the main deciding factor of a team fight if your team follows through after you cast Wrath. This is just one scenario but my point is that knowing your opponent's position is far, far more important (to you and to your team) than the damage increase from casting arc before bolt.

Is orchid good on him for silence or no?

JustinKong puts it quite well: He does not benefit from the damage, or get any stats, and hex is a better effect overall, so while Orchid is good, Guinsoo is simply better.
***But regarding any other Tier 3/4 item suggestion, chow again also states it better than I can: The problem with other items such as scepter, refresher, orchid, bloodstone, shiva on zeus is that they are all good items but pales in comparison with guinsoo, zeus is an int hero without a stun/disable. therefore hex is a virtual necessity on him.

If you are having a hard time and can't farm and get owned a lot, would you consider getting Strength treads?

Yes, if you already filled up on your other slots (3 bracers + tp + boots + PB/Bottle) and you don't see yourself farming travels ever (your gold amount isn't rising above 700-800), then I would shoot for Strength treads and just keep my inventory at that, buying the occasional TP scroll and maybe even wards if you have a little extra money. Consider those your end game items and don't even bother farming for gold anymore. Let your teammates carry you!

Is point booster really worth it for that 1200 gold? Aren't bracers better? And should you be working on Guinsoo instead of buying an item that you're not gonna turn into anything?

Point booster gives 200 hp and only takes 1 slot. 2x Bracers cost slightly less and give 228 hp...so why not just get 2 bracers? My reasoning is that Point Booster only takes 1 slot (so effectively your 'paying' 200 gold for a slot - a bargain!) AND it gives more mana. If you don't understand this reasoning, think about how much you would pay to have SEVEN item slots instead of 6 (more than 200, right?). The 3 Bracer/Null and Point Booster build gives you maximum HP (and mana) for the amount of available slots you have. The only upside to bracers is that they come in pieces. Also, the argument that you aren't turning Point Booster into anything doesn't really work because you aren't turning your bracers into anything later, now are you

Why max Static Field at levels 8-10? Isn't the damage negligible?

You get Static Field instead of stats because a lot of team fights happen around those levels (9-13 let's say) and it is imperative that you have as much 'AoE' as possible so you can do maximum amounts of damage in team fights. It's kind of like why some people get Orb/Stats on Obsidian instead of Astral. Astral is way better early game (like stats on Zeus instead of Static), but the Orb/Stats build is superior after 15 minutes or so (like maxing Static on Zeus).

Are Phase Boots a good item choice for Zeus?

This guide was made before the invention of Phase Boots. I would definitely say that Phase Boots is a core item if you are in a dual lane with Zeus (provides much needed MS/armor and the 'Phase' Ability is very handy), while getting Phase Boots is situational if you are soloing. Just take a look at your team. If there are gankers on your team with BoT (such as Earthshaker, Tinker, etc.) then you should more than likely get BoTs as well to assist them in ganking. That is the only time I would say to 'definitely' get BoT over Phase Boots, and again, that is only if you are soloing and farming rather well. Otherwise, the choice is up to you. But if you get Phase Boots in 100% of your games, nobody is going to criticize your item selection. Just be at the right place at the right time, which is much easier said than done.

If you haven't know, MYM|Merlini is the most famous  Dota Zeus player in the world.  What do you think about this guide?
Puck the Faerie Dragon Guide

Puck Guide, Build & Strategy - the Faerie Dragon Guide. Puck is a versatile hero that can entering combat with ease and cause massive damage to the enemies. Let's check Puck the Faerie Dragon.

Puck the Faery Dragon

In Sentinel's search for heroes to aid them in the war against the Scourge, they discovered the lost lands of the mystical Faerie Dragons. Upon explaining the conflict to the Faerie Queen of Agrace, she sent forth Puck, a personal guardian, to turn the tides of war. Despite his small size and mischievous personality, the little dragon soon proved to pack more than his fare share of power on the battlefield, blasting through the enemy ranks with balls of magic, faerie dust, and the capability to stupefy an entire army with nothing more than his imagination. His foes all learned the hard way that size matters not in combat, and that appearences are, ultimately, deceiving.

Strength - 15 + 1,7
Agility - 22 + 1,7
Intelligence - 25 + 2,4

Attack range of 550.
Movement speed of 295.

Level 1 information:
- Health: 435
- Mana: 351
- Damage: 40-51
- Armor: 2
- Attack Speed: 1,39 sec.

Level 25 information (without any worn items):
- Health: 1575
- Mana: 1573
- Damage: 114-125 +20
- Armor: 8 +2,8
- Attack Speed: 0,93 sec.

Abilities

Illusory Orb
Sends a magic orb flying down a straight path damaging everything in its way. At any time during the life of the orb the Faerie Dragon may teleport up to it, taking its place. 1800 range, 225 AOE.

Level 1 - Deals 70 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 140 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 210 damage.
Level 4 - Deals 280 damage.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.
Mana cost: 125.

Comment: This spell works like the Keeper of the Light's "Illuminate", or the Warcraft III's standard Shockwave. As it says, the spell fires an orb in a straight 1800 range path, dealing damage to everything that comes within 225 range or closer to it. This spell is extremely good with just about rest of your spells. It's one of the most powerful escape mechanism. Some enemies might think they are smart and will just run after the orb when you cast it, but after all, you can choose just not to swap yourself which makes it an extremely good distraction. The enemies will never know if you are going to swap yourself or not. It's also a really powerful initiation spell in both ganks and team combats as you can pop literally out of nowhere. It's like Blink, just with damage and a longer range.

Ethereal Jaunt
Shifts into the Illusory Orb.
Cooldown: 0 seconds.
Mana cost: 25

Useful information: The Faerie Dragon can switch his position with the orb as long as it's alive. This swaps him instantly to wherever it is, but it kills the orb, which means it won't float any further. Compared to units' movement speed, the orb has about 550 movement. This means it will move faster than any hero at any time, but it's still hard to aim. The orb also gives you sight wherever you cast it. If you think you are about to get ganked, it can be worth to throw it into the forest to see if someone is approaching. The Orb floats for about 3 seconds in it's complete path. If you attempt to use this spell without an active Illusory Orb, it only returns a "No Illusory Orb found."-error. It doesn't burn mana.

Waning Rift
Releases Puck's mystical faerie dust around him dealing damage and silencing enemies. 400 AOE.


Level 1 - Deals 60 damage and Silences for 0.1 seconds.
Level 2 - Deals 120 damage and Silences for 1 second.
Level 3 - Deals 180 damage and Silences for 2 seconds.
Level 4 - Deals 240 damage and Silences for 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 20 seconds.
Mana cost: 100/110/120/130.

Comment: This spell is extremely powerful, especially combined with Illusory Orb. The damage itself is not quite cool compared to other nukers, but the 3 seconds silence can be devastating. E.g. in a team combat where everyone usually cluster, pop in with Illusory Orb and throw the silence. This gives your allies 3 seconds to throw their spells and ultimates. Mostly, 1 second would be fine, but 3 seconds can be devastating if you have the right teammates. It's also good to cancel channeling effects such as Crystal Maiden's Freezing Field, Sand King's Epicenter and Enigma's Black Hole.

Useful information: The diameter of the fully AoE circle it makes is fine, but the radius from Puck (center) and to the edge is rather low. "Only" 400 range. This means you will have to pop up almost next to any enemy that you want to hit. This is fairly easy in team combats, but it is not that easy in ganks where enemies have the time and overview to react.

Phase Shift (Auto-cast available)
Shifts the Faerie Dragon out of existence for a brief period, temporarily avoiding any further damage.


Level 1 - Up to 0.75 seconds.
Level 2 - Up to 1.5 seconds.
Level 3 - Up to 2.25 seconds.
Level 4 - Up to 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 6 seconds.
Mana cost: 50/40/30/20.

Comment: This spell can be manually activated by clicking on the icon or pressing "f", but it is also an auto-cast and it's an extremely powerful tool to avoid damage. Especially in team combats, you can avoid a crap load of it. Especially devastating ultimates like Epicenter, Black Hole, Poison Nova, Ravage, Freezing Field and Requiem of Souls can easily be avoided by one single click.

Useful information: Puck becomes invulnerable to all damage for an amount of time. Some spells can be avoided by having it on auto-cast (e.g. LVL? Death, Arc Lightning and Lightning Bolt) and some cannot (e.g. Ensnare, Storm Bolt and Doom). Spells that has a missile (e.g. Storm Bolt and Ensnare) can be avoided by manually activating Phase Shift just before the missile hits you. This will make you avoid both the damage and a possible stun/disable. I haven't found a pattern yet to which spells Puck can auto-cast avoid and which spells he needs to activate it manually to doge, but normal damage can be dodged by auto-cast too.

If Puck is ordered no other commands when he has it on auto-cast, he will immediately Phase Shift (unless he is hitten by e.g. Storm Bolt). During the Phase Shifted time, he can move if he wants and is therefore not forced by stay for the fully period. However, if he moves, he turn vulnerable again and the spell remains on cooldown. That means if you click immediately after Phase Shifting, you will only be Phase Shifted for a very short moment.

Dream Coil (Ultimate)
Puck's powerful imagination engulfs an area, creating coils of volatile magic that damages and stuns enemy units as it latches on to them. Stretching the coils beyond 600 range causes it to snap and deal additional damage and stun time. Lasts 5 seconds.

Level 1 - Initial: 100 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 100 damage and 1.5 seconds stun.
Level 2 - Initial: 150 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 150 damage and 2.25 seconds stun.
Level 3 - Initial: 200 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 200 damage and 3 seconds stun.

Cooldown: 85 seconds.
Mana cost: 100/150/200.

Comment: This spell is extremely powerful, and is a very good followup to your other spells, but it also gives your allies time to tear your opponents apart. Especially with some comboes, this can be deadly. In a easier description, Puck throws a little ball at a place which only affects enemy heroes. As soon as it is casted it stuns enemy heroes for a short peroid and gives slight damage. If the enemies that get hitten by the coil move more than 600 range away from it during its duration (5 seconds), they will get stunned for a longer period as well as taking extra damage.

Useful information: The coil only affects the heroes that are inside the AoE range when you cast it. Heroes that come near the ball after you've casted it won't be affected. You can see which enemy heroes you hit because there is a weak visible link between the coil and them.

Skill order

The offensive
Level 1 - Illusory Orb
Level 2 - Waning Rift
Level 3 - Illusory Orb
Level 4 - Waning Rift
Level 5 - Waning Rift
Level 6 - Dream Coil
Level 7 - Waning Rift
Level 8 - Illusory Orb
Level 9 - Illusory Orb
Level 10 - Phase Shift
Level 11 - Dream Coil
Level 12 - Phase Shift
Level 13 - Phase Shift
Level 14 - Phase Shift
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Dream Coil
Level 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanation

Illusory Orb is taken at 1 and 3 because it's the most safe spell to harass with and it also gives you an early escape mechanism just in case you should need it. Waning Rift is then taken at 2, 4 and 5. The reason why it's taken instead of Illusory Orb at level 5 is because it's around this level that you will begin to try to get kills in your lane. It only damages 30 less than Illusory Orb, but it silences for one morel second which is a huge difference. It's way better to swap in and silence them for an additional second than to damage them for an additional 30 which can be done through a single shot.

Dream Coil is taken as fast as possible because it damages the enemies a little when you throw it, but if they run they get stunned and even more damaged. Combined with Wanin Rift and Illusory Orb, this is very effective for ganking. After maxing your other abilities, Phase Shift is taken.

This build should be followed if you can be offensive without getting killed. If you're in a very hard lane or if jumping in with Etheral Jaunt means you get yourself killed, it makes sense that this is not very smart.

The cautious

Level 1 - Illusory Orb
Level 2 - Waning Rift
Level 3 - Illusory Orb
Level 4 - Waning Rift
Level 5 - Illusory Orb
Level 6 - Dream Coil
Level 7 - Illusory Orb
Level 8 - Waning Rift
Level 9 - Waning Rift
Level 10 - Phase Shift
Level 11 - Dream Coil
Level 12 - Phase Shift
Level 13 - Phase Shift
Level 14 - Phase Shift
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Dream Coil
Level 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanation

Unlike the previous build, Illusory Orb is skilled over Waning Rift. This is done to let you harass in your lane with it in order to stay safe but still gain lane control. Sometimes you might experience that jumping in equals death thus making this kind of stupid. So instead of taking Waning Rift which you will prolly not use anyway in such situatioins, Illusory Orb is prioritized to gain more damage. Still, Phase Shift won't be skilled untill you've maxed both Waning Rift and Illusory Orb.
This build should be followed when you're against someone who doesn't make a huge threat to you if you stay distanced, but if you Jaunt in you risk losing your life. This means you can harass safer and better from your ranged position which will sometimes help you against semi-strong lanes.

The passive

Level 1 - Illusory Orb
Level 2 - Phase Shift
Level 3 - Illusory Orb
Level 4 - Waning Rift
Level 5 - Illusory Orb
Level 6 - Dream Coil
Level 7 - Illusory Orb
Level 8 - Waning Rift
Level 9 - Waning Rift
Level 10 - Waning Rift
Level 11 - Dream Coil
Level 12 - Phase Shift
Level 13 - Phase Shift
Level 14 - Phase Shift
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Dream Coil
Level 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanation

This is the build to fight the most dangerous lanes. Sometimes you will face evil dual combos, people who stun and rape you, heroes you cannot do anything against. It's time to take Phase Shift into the early game to avoid stuns and hard nukes. Most stuns like Storm Bolt, Lightning Strike Array and Fissure can easily be avoided if you activate Phase Shift fast enough. Nukes like Lightning Storm and Dragon Slave are easy to dodge as well. This stage of the game can be really dangerous for you thus playing very passive with a maxed Illusory Orb to harass from distance and a point in Phase Shift to avoid nukes and disables to help you through makes this build the most helpful against hard hero comboes.

Item Build

Core item build



The first thing you want to buy is one or two Bracers. Puck has ridiculous low health so he needs to boost it asap in order not to die by 2 nukes. After that, buy a Bottle because it supports your mana and health very well which helps your gank effeciently. As a bonus, it also gives you incredible good rune control while ganking. Finally buy your Boots of Speed.

Items afterwards



When you have the money, you wanna start saving for Shiva's Guard. If the game hasn't ended yet, we're gonna start working on the Eye of Skadi. Even with 2 Bracers, you still have rather low health and armor, so additional health is not bad. Eye of Skadi is of course bought mainly for the +mana, +intilligence, +strength and +health, but the frost attack is definatly not bad either. With this item you almost make your health and armor acceptable. With Phase Shift as a supporting damage neutralizer and Shiva's Guard's -attack speed aura, you become rather hard to kill and very difficult to target.

After completing your Eye of Skadi, go ahead and buy Boots of Travel. Before this point, try to have a Scroll of Town Portal on you as often as possible so you always have a teleport.

Optional items

After getting your Eye of Skadi, Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse might not be a bad idea. Disables are always a plus and it probably nullifies your last possibly mana issues. This sheepstick is my recommendation after you've finish your Shiva's Guard, Eye of Skadi and Boots of Travel.

Necromonicon is a good item on Puck. Not only has it got good team synergyzes with different kinds of attack speed and movement speed auras. It also gives you fine strength and intilligence to buff your health and mana. Best of all, if you use it just after Dream Coil you can Mana Burn nearly any hero you've captured with it. The heroes you capture can either stay and get mana burned or run, get stunned and then get mana burned. Just remember to use it after you've used your coil, quickly select the demons, find the mana burning dude and burn your target. Imbaness.

In the bottom line, Puck is a hero that teleports in, rapes and kills and gets raped and killed. Bloodstone gives you health, mana and some other neat stuffs that makes you able to rape. The item itself kind of makes it okay to get raped if you should do so.


Orchid Malevolence is a rather "cheap" item in terms of the pieces. It's very easy to build and its use is great. The silence is astounding, especially against heroes with crucial spells, escape mechanism and so on. Queen of Pain, Earthshaker and Magnus can be three very good examples but the list is much longer.

Wards are not very reliable in public games, but in games where people intend to teamwork the slightest, they are great. If noone of your teammates want to buy them, feel free to get some, either for map control (Observer Wards) or for spotting invisible units (Sentry Wards).

Where's the Dagon in your build? I think Dagon rocks hard!
As quoted from someone else and as said in this very own guide, Puck really needs early game Survivability. If you buy two Bracers, a Bottle and a pair of Boots, the Dagon comes really late and is much less effective. If you do it the other way (buying the Dagon before the survivability) you are too vulnerable against nukes, disables and multiple enemies while ganking because you run around with 700 health. Besides, a simple allie can replace the 2700 gold heavy Dagon by throwing a Storm Bolt or a Lucent Beam for instance. 2700 gold you can use on a Mystic Staff to start working on your Shiva's Guard for a 200 damage aoe slow.

Items not to buy
Black King Bar. You have your Phase Shift and later in the game with being invulnerable 50% of the time (theoretically), also being immune to magic. If you can't survive with Skadi, 3 Bracers, a Bottle and a 3 seconds lasting Phase Shift, Black King Bar probably won't help.

Kelen's Dagger of Escape is not recommended. Of course, the idea of popping in with Illusory Orb and Wanin Rift and then blink out is fun, but completely unnecessary. You have no reason to blink out in e.g. a team combat. Activate Phase Shift and force your enemies to target your teammates and then run away yourself in the right moment. In any other situations, you will have Illusory Orb to escape.

Lothar's Edge is not recommended. You do not need to stealth in among the enemies because you have your Illusory Orb and for the same reason as Kelen's Dagger of Escape, you do not need to get out, nor to have another escape mechanism.
Monkey King Bar, Mjollnir, Buriza-do Kyanon, Stygian Desolator and Divine Rapier are not recommended. Dishing out tons of damage is not your style. You need health, not damage to be effective.

Vanguard and Stout Shield are not recommended. You do not need a chance to block damage. If you don't block it you will receive full damage and even if you block it, you will still receive a lot. With such a low health pool, you need health instead of chance-to-block items.

Strategy

Early game

After you've chosen Puck, start with buying a couple of tangoes, a Circlet of Nobility and a Gauntlet of Strength. Then head up or down. Try not to get the the middle because you will most likely fight a strong solo hero or a strong double lane. E.g. if you fight solo against Tinker, Lich or Shadow Fiend, they will nuke you to death in no time because of your low health pool.

Try to lane with a friend that has some kind of nuke, slow or disable. Like any other hero, you should try to last hit and deny as much as possible without pushing the lane too far. When you are level 3 and have a level 2 Illusory Orb, start spamming it in such a way that you will never have full mana. The longer time your mana is full, the more mana regeneration you waste, so you want to throw at least one orb every time you are nearly full.

As soon as you are level 4 and especially 5 you can effectively try to get kills in your lane together with your mate by popping in with Illusory Orb and Waning Rift. However, if you face a strong lane, be careful as they might kill you when you appear. You can always soften up the enemies by casting a few orbs and in the right moment pop in, use Waning Rift and let your mate follow up with his nukes/disables too (if he has any of course). It's stupid to pop into two or more enemies alone, so unless they are at low health, don't attempt to do it.

During this stage, you should farm for 1-2 Bracers, your Bottle and your Boots of Speed.

Middle game

As soon as you are around level 6-7 or above and you have your Bottle, you should start to look for heroes to gank. Your total burst damage now is just fine. Most heroes only have a single strong nuke, but you have two decents that combined have a rather high damage + an AoE silence and you also have your ultimate, however, it has a little too much cooldown to be used in every single gank. Try not to gank someone alone unless he has low health. Instead wait for an allie to approach either from the site or from the front. If he can bait the enemy that would be best, because after all your Waning Rift is not a disable but only a silence. Standing too close to the enemy's tower can be dangerous. If the enemies run out, you have a higher chance to kill them because they then have a longer way back.

Continue like this during the middle game. Pop in a lane where your allie(s) are waiting and kill your foe. Refill your Bottle with runes if you can or at the fountain when you're back.

Again, try not to kill enemies on your own. You will most likely not have the nuking power to take them down on your own and you do not have enough health for an effective counter attack. It only takes the help of a single allie to succeed in most ganks.

Late game

It's time for the big team fights. Your job here is either to stay in the back or to stay hidden. Stay hidden is the smartest thing because it makes it harder for your foes to know when and where you appear. Use Illusory Orb when the enemies cluster (beforer the combat starts), pop in, silence, throw your coil, phase shift and let your allies take over. When the 3 seconds are over you are ready to run towards your team again, which should now have torn most of the enemies apart. It's important that you either initiate combats with your silence or follow up on initiators like Warlock's Rain of Chaos, Tidehunter's Ravage or Magnataur's Reverse Pulse. In other words, get the enemies silenced and captured in your Dream Coil before they throw their comboes.

When there are no team fights going on, you should try to farm as much as possible.

Using Illusory Orb

Okay, to sum up; it moves with about 550 unit-compared movement speed, meaning that no units can run faster than it. It has 225 AoE which is almost the ball's model range, so a rule of thumb is that where it looks like it hits, it hits. It takes about 3 seconds from it to start till it ends if you do not swap yourself with it. This is what the orb looks like and how long it moves:

Illusory Orb

Now, the hard part of using your orb is when you have to throw it. Like Meat Hook, Earthbind and Elune's Arrow, you have to aim and predict where you have to throw it because you cannot click on units. It is a ground targetted ability. Illusory Orb can be used for several situations. Some of the most common scenarios are:
Harass
Ganks
Escapes
Mindgames
Team battles

Harassing with Illusory Orb

Harassing with Illusory Orb is rather easy. It's essentially the same thing as throwing a Shockwave. This is mostly done during level 1-4. It's as simply as aiming it at the enemies and try to hit them. During level 1-4 you should only throw it once in a while and wait untill you have full or almost full mana and then throw it again, just to keep your mana not full so you don't waste the mana regeneration.

Illusory Orb in ganks

If you are shooting an orb parallel to an enemy e.g. in your lane, the most common place to aim is through him and behind him. If you pop in in front of him instead of behind him he has a ten times better chance to escape. If you pop up behind him he has to walk past you to get away.

If you are going to get them from a perpendicular angle to where he stands, you want to aim just at him because shooting next to him is too "risky". If he moves just a tiny bit, you might waste the damage from the orb. If he is moving, try to aim a little bit in front of him so you pop up just in front of him.

As you can see on the above scenarios, Illusory Orb can be extremely effective for tower diving, which means going behind the enemy's tower.

Using Illusory Orb to escape

When you use Illusory Orb to escape, there are two important things you want to remember. Firstly you want to swap you as late as possible, but still not waste the orb and get killed. Secondly you want to draw your enemies in another direction than your orb. Run wherever you want, just not towards the orb. This will make your enemies follow both you and the orb. If you split up from your orb, they will have to follow either of them. If they follow the orb, just don't swap yourself unless you cast it through cliffs or behind trees etc. If they follow you, which is most common, just swap yourself from a good distance. Let me show you:

Notice how I cast the orb as soon as Viper attacks me. I don't follow it but run right instead. When the orb has passed the trees, I swap myself and can now run safely away.

Always try to use the environment around you. Shoot your orb through trees and cliffs so your enemies can't follow you.

I shoot my orb over the cliff and appear on the other side of the river. Like this, my enemies won't have time to catch me again.

Again, when you have to escape, in most situations it's better to let the orb go as long as possible before swapping. However, you have to watch out not to let the orb die. The best way to keep an eye on when it dies is the cooldown on the icon.

Playing mindgames with Illusory Orb

An important thing to remember when you use Illusory Orb is that you can choose by yourself whether you switch positions with your orb or not. You will be swapping yourself in 90% of the cases, so every time your enemy sees the orb, his immediate reaction is that you will switch place with it. As an example, if you have to escape, you start with casting your orb.

Depending on your enemy, you now have two opportunities; most enemies will still hunt you and try to kill you. In this situation you want to swap yourself with the orb. The tricky part appears when your enemy thinks he is a step ahead and starts to follow your orb. In this situation you only need to use it as a distraction and then run away in another path yourself.

In other words, you can play mindgames with the orb by making the enemies think that you will appear when you don't. Making them think you won't appear when you do is extremely hard, because the common action is to pop in. This method is brilliant for escaping because you can decide which way you want to go and you will almost always get away from the enemy. It can also be used to brake your enemies if they e.g. are hunting your team if you are losing a battle. Send an orb towards your chasers and make them think you will appear and use Waning Rift. This will sometimes make your enemies run after the orb to kill you instead of hunting down your entire team.

I will get back to how to use Illusory Orb in a team battle situation later in the guide.

Using Phase Shift

As you may have noticed. Phase Shift can be manually activated, but it's also an auto-cast. As soon as it's activated, it makes you invulnerable for a given amount of time. You can deactivate it any time you want by giving Puck a new order such as to cast an ability, move or attack.

Now, the easiest solution is to have it on auto-cast and phase shift every time you take damage, but this is also the worst. If you have it on auto-cast you can never predict exactly when you will shift, and if you are doing something else like running you have a huge chance to cancel it right on the spot and when you finally need it for something huge like avoiding devastating ultimates you won't have it ready. Ergo you should always activate it manually. By activating it manually you can avoid missiles like Storm Bolt and other nukes, ultimates, attacks and focusing and you won't accidentally deactivate it because you know when you enable it.

Also, because Phase Shift forces your foes to target someone else, this is also extremely powerful to lose tower aggro. If a hostile tower is shooting on you, activate Phase Shift and it will shoot on something else.

Using Phase Shift with Illusory Orb

Combining Phase Shift with Illusory Orb can be a very strong move, especially when you have to escape. Many enemies will try to stun you when you use your orb in order to interrupt you in escaping. If you throw your orb and activate Phase Shift, you will be invulnerable as long as your orb is floating. You can then swap yourself into it without getting stunned or killed meanwhile.

Here's the Illusory Orb + Phase Shift method in action. Vengeful has swapped me into Earthshaker and Treant Protector and they've just killed my allie Zeus. Immediately I cast Illusory Orb and activate Phase Shift so Vengeful Spirit and Earthshaker cannot stun me. After 2,999999999 seconds, I swap myself out and teleport safely away.

Using Dream Coil

Dream Coil is a ground targetted spell and has an initiate damage and stun just like Warlock's Infernal, but in oppose to Rain of Chaos it only affects heroes (enemies of course). It isn't dropped from the sky like the Infernal but appears instantly after it has been casted. After that it will only affect the heroes which you casted it on. When these heroes move more than 600 range away from the coil, they will get stunned and damaged again for a longer period. If they don't move away, nothing more will happen to them. The initial AoE and the AoE of which the orb binds the enemies is the same as Waning Rift which is 400 AoE.

Dream Coil's (and Waning Rift's) area of effect

If you haven't thought of it yet, please notice that the snap range of the coil is a little longer than the range that binds the heroes (200 range longer), so the snap range is larger than the coil's initial AoE (see the picture).

Now, because the heroes who are outside the range when you cast the orb won't get affected by it, you want to hit as many as possible.

Using Dream Coil in ganks

When you use Dream Coil in ganks, you want to force the enemy to take the extra stun and damage when the coil "snaps" them. When you pop in with Illusory Orb, most enemies' reaction will be to run backwards untill they have a clear view of the situation. It's here you want to throw it at the opposite direction of where he is moving towards. The longer he is from the center of where you cast it, the bigger are the chances that he will snap it (take the extra stun and damage).

Combining your spells and items

It's time to explain the devastating combo and synergy between all Puck's abilities. Let me describe the spells' main purposes in this combo before describing the combo itself:

Illusory Orb: Used for suddenly and without warning pop in at the right spot at the right time - in other words to position yourself perfectly without danger.
Waning Rift: The initiation spell to silence and damage all the enemies near you. The condition is that you stand close to your enemies, which you will need Illusory Orb for.

Phase Shift: The target-me-not spell in order to let your teammates follow up on your silence and Dream Coil. Also used for distraction to get out when they can't focus you and therefore loses it from you.

Dream Coil: Used to either lock your enemies to one spot in order to let your teammates fire their nukes/disables/AoEs as long as they are silenced or making them split up and get further stunned and damaged so your teammates have a better chance to finish them off.

Shiva's Guard: Shiva's Guard's active ability works as a nova. The blast comes from "the inside. It's not a missile. It's more like a giant wave moving out in every direction from Puck himself, hitting anyone who stands close to him. In other words, the hero using Shiva's Guard, need to be up next to his enemies in order to make best use of it. Puck is the master of positioning with Illusory Orb. Infiltrating the enemies' ranks with Illusory Orb puts you in the most perfect position for this item's use. Shiva's Guard is used as an extra nuke and to make the enemies unable to escape and want to escape at the same time due to the aoe damage.

In every team battle you should start hided in the flanks or behind your team. Just before the battle starts and especially before your foes cast any spells, you should pop in between them all with Illusory Orb. Immediatley use Waning Rift so they don't have the chance to disable or nuke you. Instantly follow up with Dream Coil. Make sure to hit as many enemy heroes as possible. The more, the better. In this situation you don't have to think about who runs away from the coil or not, the main thing is to hit as many as possible.

After you've popped in, used Waning Rift, immediately activate Shiva's Guard. Then drop your Dream Coil and use Phase Shift. This shouldn't take more than one or two seconds. The enemies are silenced, stunned and damaged and are either forced to stay and take damage from rest of your team who should follow up on your spell combination within the split second or they can try to run and get another stun for 3 seconds. It's of course normal that your enemies will try to kill you as soon as you stand between them, but Phase Shift makes you invincible. They can now choose to drop all their nukes/disables (if they get the chance!) on your allies, or wait for you to get out of the Phase Shift and have to get struck by your team whole 3 seconds just in order to kill you.

When you see the opportunity, run back to your casters' rank and start to beat on them normally. As soon as your Illusory Orb and Waning Rift are ready, immediately pop in again and repeat the whole thing. Eventually catch enemies that try to escape with low health with your abilities and Shiva's Guard.

In ganks it isn't always necessary to use Phase Shift after the rest of the combo, but the principle is the same. Pop in with sudden surprice, use Waning Rift and, if you have it, use Dream Coil to stun them.

Enjoy this Puck guide! If you have different build for Puck, share it here ;)





Thrall the Far Seer Guide

Raijin Thunderkeg the Storm Spirit Guide

Storm Spirit Guide - Raijin Thunderkeg Build and Strategy (after Dota 6.58 remake). Along with Dirge the Undying, Storm Spirit now is having new skill set on Dota-Allstars 6.58. Before the remake, Storm Spirit is DPS hero that's aim for damage items. But now, his skill is more absolutely mana dependent. But before we think about the new strategies, let's take a look on his new skills.

Storm Spirit
==============
Attack Range: 500
Strength: 17 + 1.5
Agility: 22 + 1.8
Intelligence: 23 + 2.6
Movement Speed 295

Static Remnant
-----------------
Raijin creates a remnant of himself containing his essence. The Static Remnant will release its stored energy whenever an enemy units comes near it. Lasts up to 12 seconds.

Damage: 140/180/220/260
Trigger AOE: 210
Damage AOE: 260
Cooldown: 4
Manacost: 70/80/90/100

Takes 1 second to create after cast. This is not channeling, just time delayed.



Note: Remember, the cooldown is only 4 seconds, so you can stack it until 3 Remnant in one place. Use this as your farming tool and your only nuke. Another thing is that your Remnant is not invisible.

Electric Vortex
-----------------
Storm focuses his energy to rip open a vortex drawing an enemy to it. This process slows the Storm Spirit down for a brief period.

Pulls 100/150/200/250 units over 1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds.
Your movement is reduced by 50% for 3 seconds.

Cast Range: 300
Manacost: 100
Cooldown: 20



Note: Great spell for ganking. Ball Lightning and combine it with Vortex and immediately Remnant. Most of your enemy won't be able to escape. Please note that this can cancel Town Portal, channeling spell. And while you hold it, enemy can't cast spell.

Overload
---------
Storm Spirit becomes overloaded with electrical energy whenever he casts a spell. The charge is released on his next attack as an electrical burst, dealing damage and slowing nearby units.

Slow: 50% as 80% ms Lasts 0.6 seconds (Same stats as old overload)
Bonus damage: 30/45/60/75
AOE: 275



Note: Combine this with your other spell to slow down your enemy. Remember, Ball Lightning will also give you an Overload charge.

Ball Lightning
---------------
Storm Spirit becomes enveloped with energy, losing his physical form, and travels until he depletes his mana or chooses to stop. While in this form, he deals damage to nearby units based on how far his electrical form has traversed. Damage, speed and area of effect improves per level.

Stops traveling whenever you run out of mana. Deals damage in a small area around you based on distance traveled.

Damage: 8/12/16 per 100 units traveled
Manacost: (15 + 7% of total manabase) + mana based on distance traveled (10+1% per 100 units)
Cast Range: Global
Cooldown: 0


Travel speed and damage AoE improves per level.
You can cast spells like Static Remnant during your roll if you are quick enough.
Specific interactions with spells/projectiles follow the same rules as Waveform does.

Note: I think this skill is Imba! Despite of the mana depleted, the cooldown is 0(zero) and this make huge difference in battle. An enemy escaped? Use this to chase him. Trust me, you won't believe how much this can surprise your enemy. You get ganked? Use this to rolling out as far as you can or just simply rolling into the cliff. Don't use this to hide into the tree because the tree will falling off and they still can chase you (i learn this by mistake T_T). Once you got your Bloodstone, you can maximize the potential of this skill.
Skill Build
1. Static Remnant
2. Overload
3. Electric Vortex
4. Static Remnant
5. Static Remnant
6. Ball Lightning
7. Static Remnant
8. Electric Vortex
9. Electric Vortex
10. Electric Vortex
11. Ball Lightning
12. Overload
13. Overload
14. Overload
16. Ball Lightning
If you are not soloing, you can leveling up Vortex before Remnant to catch a kill with your partner.
Item Build
Aim Bloodstone as fast as you can! The massive mana regen that you gain for each kill on Bloodstone is really support this hero. My item build order is:
1. 2 Null + 2 Branch + 2 set of Tangoes
2. Void Stone
3. Ring of Health
4. Point Booster
5. Energy Booster
6. Finish Bloodstone

You can buy shoes before Point Booster or RoH.
StrategyUse Static Remnant for farming your Bloodstone. The manacost is cheap and cooldown is low. Combined with Overload, farming is not that difficult with this hero. After get the Ball Lightning, you can start ganking. The combo i usually use is:
1. Ball Lightning into the target.
2. Hit with Overload
3. Electric Vortex
4. Hit with Overload
5. Quickly use Static Remnant
6. Hit with overload again and keep it on.

Just remember one thing, Ball Lightning is having 0 cooldown! If you are missed your target, just keep chasing it. You also suddenly surprise the low HP enemy from very far distance with your Ball Lightning. Use this hero for ganking, this is his role now. The only mistake i made with this hero is when i keep farming in early-mid game like the old Storm and waste his ganking potential.
Ball Lightning will make you hard to kill. Keep some mana for rolling and you will be safe. The only chances i got raped is with Sheep stick ^_^"
I know this hero is rather more difficult to use than the previous, but prefer this new one. It's more entertaining and remind me of Kungfu Panda, Rofl ;p






Goblin Techies Guides

Do you love to play Goblin Techies? Or you always interested on playing him but afraid to messed up your teams and called noob? Well, i think this video will help you! It's really great for you who want to try Techies but doesn't have experience with him. Techies is a unique character, but it still can be learned with some effort. Just learn from for this video :)



Actually, Goblin Techies play style is rather unique and rarely changes. Even in the future Dota 6.58, i believe his game play is still the same. The recent ward nerf on Dota 6.57b also really help him. And back to the video, how about it? Feel better? Or you didn't agree and have other suggestion? Just share it here :)