Item Guide: Orchid Malevolence

If you're a #2, 3 or 4 (5's too, but you'd have to be pretty far ahead) farm priority and can benefit in any way from the Int, Mana Regen, or DPS Orchid Malevolence is generally a great pick up.

NOTE: if you don't know, generally 1 = carry, 2 = solo, 3 = offlane, 4 = 2nd support, 5 = support (see this post)

Almost every game has an opponent that is worth silencing.

Good Against

This is exceptionally powerful against heroes like Anti-Mage and Storm Spirit who rely on their escapes. If you can Orchid Anti-Mage and focus him a bit, the 30% amplified damage should finish the job.

Likewise, it's good against heroes that rely on spamming/spells to be useful like Leshrac, Invoker (well, Exort can DPS decently), or Zeus.

Not Particularly Useful Against

One-hit Wonder heroes like Tidehunter, Sand King, or Venomancer. If you can silence them and kill them before they use their ult, that's great. But most of the time that's not the case. You'd probably be better off getting a Pipe (or BKB).

Queen of Pain is an interesting case. It's good to lock her down and kill her (i.e. preventing her blink), but you're probably not going to stop her from blowing her ult.

Synergizes Well With

Clinkz:

• He loves the Mana Regen
• He loves the attack speed
• Silence + Amplified Damage means that he can gank without worry of being stunned or having his victim blink away

Silencer:

It was always a pretty decent pickup on him. However, with his new changes to Last Word, you can basically guarantee a disarm by using Last Word, then Silencing before they can cast (both Orchid and Last Word last 5 seconds).

It also gives him Int and Regen which benefit his Glaives, as well as attack speed which he desperately lacks.

Generally Recommended For:

Heroes that have a slow, but nothing to prevent their target from blinking away, stunning, etc. Or just generally need mana regen and DPS.

For instance:

• Broodmother - can be great if you're not the primary carry. She can slow heroes, but has nothing that will prevent them from just stunning her
• Venomancer - tons of slows, but no actual CC. The attack speed is somewhat useful, but the bonus INT and Regen are huge on Veno who is largely mana dependent.
• Enchantress - she can slow, but again, nothing to stop her target from using spells. She also can spam her ult for tons of damage.
• Nature's Prophet - he can surround someone with trees, but that won't stop them from jumping/blinking out or going invis until the trees go away
• Storm Spirit - he has Vortex, but that has a 20 second cooldown. If you want to ensure you kill your target, Orchid is a nice addition; He also benefits from the regen
• Wind Runner - she has a lot of spammable spells, the extra CC adds to her very versatile kit, and she can benefit from some DPS
• There are plenty of others too, these are just some examples

Miscellaneous Notes

• This will not stop Skeleton King from Resurrecting. He will still Rez even if he's silenced. Only burning his mana below 140 will stop his ult.
• The 30% amplified damage is dealt as a lump sum at the end of the 5 second duration
• The build up is pretty great
• This is more of an offensive item than defensive
• Heroes that have toggle abilities will continue casting because silence disables the ability to toggle the spell (e.g. Pudge's Rot, Leshrac's Ult)

Item Guide: Bloodstone

Great item on Mana Heavy heroes that can also benefit from some tankiness. However, it is mostly useful for the mana regen as the mana regen is the part that scales (along with reduced gold lost from death, death timer reduction, and the heal nearby allies get when you die).

If you look at the item's design, it screams "ganking". Regen helps you stay in the field longer. All the other benefits come from ganking. If you get a kill, you get a charge. If you die, it's not so bad when you have charges.

When to Get It

 

• On #1/2 farm priority heroes (i.e. carry and solo lane) - "Bloodstone Carries/Semi-Carries"
• When you're doing extremely well - it costs a shitload and you need to be getting/involved in a lot of kills for its passive to be most effective
• You're a Ganker or heavily involved in Team fights -- gotta get your charges
• You're Regen dependent

In Short: heroes that need mana regen, will not die often, benefit from flat HP, and are heavily involved in skirmishes/team fights.

When to Give Up

Remember, sometimes it's best to give up on a big item like this. If it's 30 minutes in and you've got boots, Magic Wand, and perseverance, just fuck it. Get something useful (i.e. a utility item like Drum of Endurance or Pipe - which you can break Perseverance apart for). It will help the team more than watching you struggle to complete the rest of your Bloodstone.

Also, if the enemy carry has their BKB before your Bloodstone is done, it may or may not be worth the investment.

Heroes You See This On

• Storm Spirit - dude can use regen. More Ults, more jukes. His spells are all pretty spammable. Also, he's incredibly hard to kill, leading to massive amounts of charges on his stone.
• Semi Carry Leshrac - his spells are spammable, and the better his regen, the longer he can ult. The longer he can ult, the more damage he does in a team fight and it makes it easier to push. NOTE: This is for SEMI-CARRY Leshrac (i.e. not #4/5 support Leshrac - I've made this mistake before, I'm sure others have too)
• Death Prophet - she can spam spells and the added HP helps her take damage while ulting. She can get pretty ballsy for a woman because her ult heals her at the end.
• Necrolyte - at a certain point, he becomes nearly invincible because he can keep spamming his heals. This makes his entire team hard to kill as well. However, Necro really needs some snowball for this to happen.

Heroes it can be situationally good on:

• Zeus - he can spam like a mother fucker, the HP helps him survive. However, it can often be more beneficial to get other items like Aghs, Refresher, etc.
• Enchantress - helps her spam impetus, the extra tankiness makes her more obnoxious due to her Untouchable spell. However, most Enchantress' are played as #4, so it's not really on your itinerary to get a big semi-carry item like this
• Ogre Magi - more spam, more tank. Again, like Enchantress, he's usually not going to have the farm to get a big item like this
• Witch Doctor - justification is basically being a walking Healing Well. However, WD is mostly a support hero at Pro Level.
• Puck - helps with survivability and he's usually a big piece in team fights. Phase Shift helps him survive (i.e. keep charges). He doesn't have the spam to make max use of the regen. Generally seems better to get yourself a Blink Dagger and some utility/initiation items
• Queen of Pain - able to spam to an extent and she has high survivability. A lot of players will opt for more utility or carry items though like Sheep Stick or sometimes a Desolator.
• Semi Carry Lina - again, spammy spells, improves her tankiness, and she also has Fiery Soul, which means the more you spam, the faster you auto attack, giving her that carry potential

Things New Players Generally Overlook

• Bloodstone > Aegis :P
• You keep getting XP in a 1000 radius after death (makes a suicide initiation less sad)
• You gain a massive 1800/1800 vision of the area around your death

Passively, Each Charge:

• +1 Mana Regen/sec (but not HP)

On Death, Each Charge:

• Reduces Gold Lost by 25
• Reduces Respawn Time by 4 Seconds
• Resores 30 HP to allies within 1675 range (in addition to the flat 400 HP) - it's like a Super Mek or Chen Ult

Also:

• It's not necessary on anyone, but it's super nice to have
• You can get early Mana Boots, break them apart and have a piece of your Bloodstone ready to go

Item Guide: Boots

There are many different options for boots. Each has its own set of scenarios where they are most applicable. Here, I'm going to walk through my understanding of when to get each.

 

Power Treads:

 

 

Advantages:

• Versatility: you can switch the main stat depending on the situation (e.g. switch to Int so you can cast 1 more spell, switch to Str to tank that last hit)
• Generally good if you need survivability, or you don't need move speed
• Also can be good on illusion heroes because stats transfer to them
• Gives raw attack speed as well
• Only breaks invis if you switch stats

 

Example Heroes That Might Get These:

• Fast & Squishy: Anti-Mage, Luna
• Illusion Heroes: Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight
• Heroes That Need to Extra Str: Batrider, Enigma
• Invisible heroes: you can't use other boots while invis, plus this gives you stats (most invis heroes are squishy), examples are Riki, Broodmother, Clinkz
• Nature's Prophet - when you're not playing some sort of support, this gives him what he needs. He can TP around with his skills, so the MS isn't a problem, he can lock people in trees, so no chasing. Basically, he just needs attack speed and some stats
• Morphling - this gives him more stats to morph between
• Faceless Void - when you have people Chrono'd, the stats & attack speed work wonders (Phase could also be decent though)

 

Tranquil Boots:

 

 

Advantages:

• High Movespeed (unless you get hit by enemies) - decent for ganking
• Able to heal yourself - sometimes good for taking harass or jungle
• Diassemble-able - has many of the components needed for Vlads or Mek
• Very cheap - easy to make for broke ass supports, especially if you have crap for HP regen

 

Example Heroes That Might Get These:

• Pudge - rotting can be used to harass/farm, gives him movespeed to gank, easy recovery from ganking w/ rot
• Wisp - good for abusing tether
• Some Junglers - Ursa (can be used until you want to finish Vlads), Axe (heal between clearing camps)
• Solo Hard Laners - some players get it on solo hard laners to keep up with harass in lane
• Supports that are broke/have no regen - Crystal Maiden (who also like the MS), Lich
• Roamers - helps to get between lanes and heal between ganks

 

Phase Boots

 

 

Advantages:

• No Collision - great for chasing through crowds of creeps or juking through them
• Speed burst - again, good for chasing or escaping, also for getting between creep camps quickly in the jungle
• Helps with positioning - use for a quick speed burst to help position that shackle shot
• Raw Damage - gives +24 damage, which is the highest any boot can give you. Some heroes don't need anything more than just raw damage
• Better able to stay on a target - if you have a DoT that is centered on your hero, this can help
• Roaming - like Tranquil boots, Phase boots help with roaming as well. Both gives good move speed, but Phase are more dependable in a fight

 

Example Heroes That Might Get These:

• Heroes that need positioning: Wind Runner, Invoker, Pudge, Leshrac (non-support version), Witch Doctor (if not hard support), Kunkka, Templar Assassin
• Heroes that need to stay on their target: Pudge, Leshrac, Clockwerk, Juggernaut, Razor, Ursa
• Heroes that benefit from the raw damage: Bounty Hunter, Kunkka, Phantom Assassin
• Roamers: Pudge, Tiny, Vengeful Spirit (I like it on her at least)

Special Note: Juggernaut can start spinning and then use Phase Boots to get the Phase Bonus while spinning (the other way around cancels Phase Boots)

 

Arcane Boots

 

 

Advantages:

• Benefits the whole team (or at least whoever is around you)
• Improved Mana Pool
• Disassemble-able
• Gives enough mana to cast most spells

 

Example Heroes That Might Get These:

• Mana Dependent Heroes: Sand King, Bane, Tiny, Zeus, Omniknight
• Support Heroes: Rubick (when not mid), Jakiro, Dazzle
• Wisp: can be abused the same way as Tranquil boots using tether (they get 2x the mana), however, Soul Ring can also provide the same benefit

 

Boots of Travel

 

 

Advantages:

• Don't have to carry a TP Scroll
• Best base movespeed bonus
• Can TP to creeps (instead of just buildings)

 

Example Heroes That Might Get These:

• Tinker - his ult resets the cooldown on these boots
• KotL - his ult allows him to teleport a friend to his location (effectively getting a free BoT for the other player)
• Pushers - easily port to a lane creep to help push, e.g. Pugna, Leshrac, Tinker, KotL
• Beastmaster - he can port to his minions (i.e. Hawk/Boar)
• Anyone during late game - if you're all maxed out and want to free up your TP scroll slot, get these. You probably have the stats to make any other boot negligible

 

Build Boots for the Situation:

• Get Arcane in a Support/Utility Role (e.g. don't get them on Carry Tiny)
• If you're dying a lot, you might consider Power Treads or Tranquil Boots. Both are affordable and help you deal with harass (though, don't get Tranquil if you're chased down a lot)
• Don't get Boots of Travel early if you're not going to use them (i.e. pushing/ganking super hard)
• Don't get Boots of Travel just because you can 
• a) afford them
• b) they're recommended (e.g. if you're Pugna and dying a lot, get something like Treads instead of wasting time saving your Boots of Travel)

Basically, make sure you're getting your boots for the circumstances, not because it's a recommended item. Situation is based on a lot of things:

• What is your role in this game? (many heroes can be played in multiple ways. You're not always going to be Carry Nature's Prophet or Solo Mid Pugna)
• How is your farm?
• Are you dying a lot?
• Are you able to use the active to max potential? (e.g. you're not ganking/chasing enough for Phase to be useful, but you could use the Stats & Attack Speed in team fights from Power Treads)

Hero Classification

Heroes are hard to classify because there are no set positions. Each game is different and that's part of what makes it fun. Heroes can be played in multiple ways, each has different properties associated with them, etc.

The way I view this is that each hero has a Role and Properties. A role determines how you function on this particular team during team fights, the laning phase, etc. Properties I see as something being a side benefit to picking that hero.

Role

Farm Priority

Farm Priority is a major deciding factor in a hero's role. Generally, it is broken down into a 1-5 system, with 1 being the highest priority for farm.

Some heroes can be played in multiple ways. This is a major deciding factor as to what way they will be played.

Class

I break classes into 3 broad categories with sub-divisions. These decide how a hero will function on a team, especially during team fights. These have a fairly strong link to farm priority as well.

• Carry
• Farm Priority = 1
• General Description = heroes that are effective in providing consistent damage output, or DPS.
• Types
• Hard Carry = excellent skills for being effective in the late game. Need immense amounts of farm for maximum effectiveness.
• Examples: Faceless Void, Anti-Mage, Morphling
• Semi-Carry = able to carry under the right circumstances, decent carrying ability, but definitely not as effective as a Hard Carry with the same farm
• Bloodstone Carry = heroes that need the regen in order to carry. Typically have a lot of spammable spells that can output a ton of damage.
• Examples: Death Prophet, Leshrac, Storm Spirit
• Snowball Carry (A.K.A. Mid-Game Carry) = heroes that can carry, but need to get a lot of kills in the early-mid game, or need to not die much early on.
• Examples: Night Stalker, Juggernaut, Chaos Knight
• Utility
• Farm Priority = 2, 3, (4)
• General Description = heroes that are versatile and aid in progressing the game through ganking, pushing, and starting fights
• Types
• Hunter = heroes that are good at finding singled out heroes and getting an easy 1v1 kill
• Examples: Bounty Hunter, Bloodseeker, Clinkz
• Roamer = heroes that are most effective bouncing between lanes
• Examples: Vengeful Spirit, Enchantress,
• Initiator = heroes that have a skillset that works well for starting a team fight
• Examples: Tidehunter, Sand King, Enigma
• Opportunist = heroes that are good at ganking and pushing if an opportunity arises such as a lucky Rune, bad positioning on the other team's behalf, etc.
• Examples: Invoker, Templar Assassin, Broodmother
• Support
• Farm Priority = (4), 5
• General Description = heroes that are effective with little farm and are therefore able to purchase team items like Wards, Dust, Smoke, etc.
• Types
• Second Support = heroes that have support as a secondary task. They typically set up kills, stack the jungle, pull creeps, etc.
• Examples: Leshrac, Enchantress, Rubick
• Hard Support = heroes that excel with little farm, have good early game abilities, and are therefore able to buy almost all the team support items (e.g. Wards, Dust)
• Examples:  Crystal Maiden, Venomancer, Jakiro

Properties

Heroes have properties. These are things that are characteristic of them, and not necessarily their role on a team.

• Survivalist
• Heroes that have an escape mechanism like Invisibility or Blink
• Examples: Windrunner, Bounty Hunter, Queen of Pain
• Tanky
• Heroes that are naturally able to take more damage via Strength Growth, an ability, etc.
• Examples: Axe, Centaur Warrunner, Lifestealer 
• Pusher
• Heroes that have a skill that aids in taking towers down quickly
• Examples: Pugna, Leshrac, Chen
• Disabler / Crowd Control
• Heroes that are able to help control a fight through stuns, silences, etc.
• Examples: Shadow Shaman, Lion, Bane
• Lane Control & Counter-Pusher
• Heroes that help control the creeps in the lane and their positioning
• Examples: Lich, Tinker, Undying
• Healer
• Heroes that have a healing spell
• Examples: Dazzle, Omniknight, Witch Doctor

How I Would Do DotA Lore - Part I: The Rift

 Note: This is being done in an abridged fashion. I'd spend much more time if I were making a full novel, but I also want this to be easily accessible to the gamer crowd.

The Three Prophets

Every being ponders its purpose in life.

There were just the three of them in all of existence. Tequoia (Furion), Krobelus, and Roshan. That's all there had been for hundreds of years. Emptiness occupied every direction. More than anything, the three were confused and, quite frankly, incredibly bored.

Every now and then there was something to make the ordinary passage of time interesting. A tingling sensation, a great sorrow, the feeling of fullness, a sharp pain, and so on. Feelings that seemed to arise from no particular source.

Tequoia and Krobelus had grown increasingly irritable as of recently. Both felt a void in their lives. Roshan, however, seemed to carry on just fine, even though all three felt the same seemingly randomly assigned feelings.

The most upsetting part for Tequoia and Krobelus was that their sense of purpose was teeming. The feeling continued to grow until it was unbearable. Even Roshan had shown symptoms of being affected. He had fallen into a deep depression.

It was at this point when the Rift appeared. As the feelings intensified, the Rift grew from a small slit in the emptiness, to a full doorway. While the three were terrified of the Rift, it was also becoming the lesser of two evils as the pain from their sourceless feelings became unbearable.

The Rift

"That's it, I'm going into the Rift," stated Tequoia. He staggered towards the Rift, clutching his forehead as though it would tame the headache that was overwhelming his being.

Roshan and Krobelus said nothing, but followed his movement with disconcerted faces.

"How long have we wanted to get out of here and figure out what our purpose is? And right now, with these intense headaches, how much worse could existence be?"

Tequoia stuck his hand into the doorway. "It feels... sticky. Not physically, though. I don't think it's dangerous. I feel as though I'm supposed to enter, and I think it wants me to enter as well." He attempted to turn back, facing his siblings once more before entering, but the Rift was stuck to his hand, following it like an aqueous glue.

Krobelus and Roshan reached out, mouths agape, but unable to produce sound as the Rift wrapped around their brother. Just before he vanished, they saw his face relax, as though he were in a state of bliss.

On the other side, Tequoia felt the stickiness fade. It was quickly replaced by a sensation of being pushed and prodded as though thousands of cilia were directing him. He glanced around at the dark and murky mix of blacks and purples. "Is this a mouth? Am I being swallowed by the doorway?" he wondered.

But then, he saw another doorway opening up. The force surrounding him pushed him toward the new doorway. He glanced inside to a dark greyish brown area that was hallow.

The Tree of Life

Without any choice, Tequoia was thrown through the doorway. He landed on a soft patch of grass. Tequoia drew himself to his feet, brushing off. Ahead of him was a bright light. He ventured toward it, feeling the tingling sensation of grass between his feet. The headache was slowly fading and his sense of purpose was skyrocketing.

He stepped into the light and found himself in a clearing upon a hill overlooking a forest. However, the forest appeared to be in decay. He turned around and discovered he had just exited a massive tree. "What is this place? What is this?" he thought. The tree was bigger than any in the forest, but had the same sickly look as the rest.

Tequoia laid his hand on the tree in attempt to better understand what it was. At the moment his hand made contact with the surface, the color of the tree began to change from a withered grey to a bold brown. This spread throughout the tree. Its wilting leaves and branches straightened out, the color in them returning as well.

He stood back and gasped. The tree was bursting with life. Tequoia looked at his hands, but nothing had changed. They were the same hands he always had. He touched his hands to his chest, where it felt as though a burden had been lifted from him.

Tequoia stood and admired the beauty while he tried to sort out what happened. But, his time to think was cut short when the ground began to shake. Out of the forest, a tree-like figure emerged.

"It is true what the roots have told me. The Tree of Life has been cured. But how?," said the tree being. He coughed, some of his wilting leaves detached and floated to the ground.

He looked down to see a creature like he had never seen before quizzically staring up at him.

"Are you referring to this thing behind me?" asked Tequoia. "I placed my hand on it and it changed. My apologies."

"Apologies? Ha! You have done a great thing. I have been searching for a remedy, but was fruitless in my efforts. Who are you? A great healer? A god?" asked the tree man.

"I am Tequoia, and I am not sure of much else."

"Greetings, I am Rooftrellen, the Treant Protector," said the tree man, extending a hand. Tequoia reciprocated, his touch sending a surge of life through the tree man.

Death and the Fight to Live

Krobelus and Roshan looked at one another. "I do not know what to do," said Roshan.

"We cannot just leave him to his own means," said Krobelus. She cautiously approached the doorway. "I am going after him."

Roshan nodded and together, they crossed into the Rift.

The force that had guided Tequoia reached out to Krobelus and Roshan. It brought them to a doorway and pushed them through.

On the other side was a sickly child and his lifeless mother. Roshan reached out to comfort the sobbing child. Upon touching the child, Roshan felt relief overcome him. The child stood up, wiped the tears from his eyes, and walked toward the village nearby.

"He was mourning, was he not?" asked Krobelus. Roshan nodded, though bewildered.

"Then why would he leave like that? Is it part of some ritual? Was it this being's doing?" she asked. Krobelus reached down and touched the corpse. The limp body's chest sprang forth as it exhaled a faint gaseous figure identical the the corpse.

The woman looked at her hands, then up at Roshan and Krobelus. She shrieked, "What are you?"

"I could ask the same of you," Krobelus replied.

"I must be dead," said the woman as she gazed at her hands again. "Are you the Reaper?"

"What is a Reaper?"

"You know, the Reaper. The Death Prophet. The one that deals with the soul after death."

"I don't rightly know," said Krobelus. She motioned toward the corpse, "I touched that and you appeared."

The woman appeared to be on the verge of tears upon hearing this. She then glanced around, her expression shifting from sorrow to terror. "My son, what did you do to my son?"

"That small creature next to you? I placed a hand on him and he stopped sobbing, then ran that way," said Roshan, his finger pointed at the village.

"Impossible. That boy was so sick he couldn't barely walk."

Enter the Elementals

"Calm yourself Darkness," said Light.

"No. Are you blind? Do you not see through the window that Life, Death, and Perseverance have entered the mortal realm?" fumed Darkness.

"We agreed long ago when Chaos ripped this window into existence that this would be it. The window is enough. We need not interfere with mortal lives more than we already do," said Light.

"We would be called if we were intended to enter the mortal realm," said Strength.

Darkness stormed off. Not after long, Chaos found Darkness.

"Don't fret Darkness, the others are just afraid to enter the Ethereal Plane," said Chaos.

"Perhaps, but they are also probably correct. After all, Ice entered the Ethereal Plane and has not been seen since," said Darkness.

"Does not not cross your mind that despite Ice's disappearance, there is still ice in the mortal realm?" said Chaos, smirking.

"What are you saying? He exists?" said Darkness.

"It took me some time to track him. In the mortal realm, they call him by Ancient Apparition, or Kaldr, depending on the tongue. He has had quite an impact on the Northern kingdom of the mortal plane of existence. Did you not notice how cold it became there?"

Chaos raised his hand and prodded the air. After a moment, he grinned, then slid his hand downward. A Rift appeared, growing longer as he moved his hand. "What are you waiting for my friend? Let's go," said Chaos.

Without hesitation, Darkness entered the Rift.

Item Guide: Farming Items

Last Updated: February, 2013

There are a number of items that help with farming:

• Hand of Midas
• Battlefury
• Radiance
• Maelstrom/Mjollnir

In this post, I'm going to analyze and compare each of these options.

Comparison

Item	Cost	Build Up	Passive	Active
Quelling Blade	225	N/A	(Melee) +32% Damage to Non-Hero Units (Ranged) +12% Damage to Non-Hero Units	Destroy Tree: Destroys Target Tree 100 Range 5 Seconds Cooldown
Hand of Midas	1900	Gloves of Haste (500) Recipe (1400)	+30 Attack Speed	Transmute: Kill Non-Hero/Ancient Target 190 Reliable Gold (instead of normal) 2.5x XP 100 sec Cooldown
Battlefury	4350	Ring of Health (875) Void Stone (875) Claymore (1400) Broadsword (1200)	+6 HP/sec 150% Mana Regen +65 Damage 35% Cleave in 225 Radius	N/A
Radiance	5150	Sacred Relic (3800) Recipe (1350)	+60 Damage 45 Magic Damage per Second (650 Radius)	Toggle Burn Effect on/off
Maelstrom	2700	Gloves of Haste (500) Mithril Hammer (1600) Recipe (600)	+24 Damage +25 Attack Speed 25% Chance to proc Chain Lightning	N/A
Mjollnir	5400	Maelstrom (2700) Hyperstone (2100) Recipe (600)	+24 Damage +80 Attack Speed 25% Chance to proc Chain Lightning	Static Charge: Place Shield on Target Unit Lasts 20 sec 20% chance to proc Chain Lightning when attacked

 

Quelling Blade

A very cheap item that helps with getting last hits. It also brings infinite tree chopping to the table, which can be helpful when up against a hero like Nature's Prophet, or just juking through the trees in general.

Many players, even at the professional level, miss last hits and if a cheap item can boost your ability to last hit, it can be well worth the money. However, note that it does not bring much else. It's purely for farming/escaping.

Benefits:

• Increased ability to last hit in lane (or jungle)
• Pseudo-escape mechanism
• Can be bought entirely in lane
• Very cheap in comparison to other items that help with farming
• Helps with stacking the jungle

Disadvantages:

• No application to fighting heroes (other than the pseudo-escape)
• Little to no application past early game
• Potential to screw up last hitting under the tower (there are patterns of last hitting)
• Does not build into anything

Uses:

• Farming / last hitting
• Juking through the trees (certain trees can be cut down to enable juke routes)
• Cut down certain trees to stack multiple jungle camps, or reduce time between camps
• Some trees can be cut down to give extra vision (e.g. in the safe lane to get rid of the tree that blocks vision)
• On Radiant side, it can be helpful when pulling to cut down the tree between the lane and primary pull camp

Notes:

• Kunkka's Tidebringer - only impacts main target (no cleave element)
• Illusions can benefit from the damage 

Hand of Midas

This is a decent early game item that has no impact in late game (most sell it in late game). It's kind of a "selfish" item as well.

The item pays for itself through Transmute, it's Active Ability. The item costs 1900, and you get 190 gold per use. You can use it every 100 seconds. In a perfect world, that means it takes 1000 seconds, or about 16 minutes and 40 seconds to pay itself off. Note: in theory, if you use it 5 times and sell it for half price, you make up the cost of the item.

If we factor in that the average game is probably between 35 and 45 minutes, that means you need to get this very early for it to be anything more than a waste of money. Most people would say you want to target between 6-10 minute mark if you're going to get this at all.

Benefits:

• Gold is reliable (i.e. you won't lose it upon death)
• Guaranteed farm/XP, even if you're having a rough time
• Can use it for farming gold or XP (small creeps vs. big creeps)
• Fairly cheap

Disadvantages:

• You don't get much other than farming ability
• No real use late game

Uses:

• Use on a big creep if you want to focus on gaining XP (gives you 2.5x)
• Use on a small creep if you want to focus on gaining gold (gives you 190 gold instead of the normal bounty)
• Good for Junglers who are always near creeps
• Good if you can get it early
• Can be good if you're struggling for farm

 

Battlefury

This is a great item for melee carries. The build up is very nice and provides a lot. Perseverance is excellent for survivability and mid-game jungling. You also get one of the best gold-to-damage ratios for an item.

The cleave helps you farm and push incredibly fast. You also can cleave on-attack modifiers like Crits (Note: On-Attack Modifier is no the same thing as a Unique Attack Modifier).

While it is an excellent item, it is much more effective early-mid game. General consensus is that optimally, get this before 20 minutes. I would also say that you can still get it before 25 minutes, but after that, it's usually better to give up and go a different route. This is because you get the item mostly for farming. At a certain point, you just won't have enough time to farm, so it's better to focus on Survival and Team Fight items.

Benefits:

• Excellent Regen
• Excellent Damage Output
• Able to Cleave
• Stacks with other sources of Cleave
• Increases Farming Ability
• Increases Pushing Ability (or counter-pushing)

Disadvantages:

• Cleave only works on melee heroes
• Somewhat costly

Uses:

• Early-mid game farming
• Pushing/Counter-Pushing
• Mid-Game Jungling (i.e. more farming)
• Doing lots of damage in team fights with good positioning (e.g. after a Dark Seer Vacuum)

Notes

• Cleaved Damage will affect primary target normally, but secondary targets will only have the damage reduced by their armor type (i.e. by some standard percent, rather than based on armor value).

 

Radiance

A great early-mid game farming, harassing, and pushing item. This is very common on Illusion heroes like Naga Siren, Spectre, and Phantom Lancer because Illusions alone can farm/push effectively with the Burn Aura.

You also see it picked up frequently on beefy heroes like Alchemist and Doombringer because they are difficult to kill, have trouble farming (not real great candidates for Battlefury, but also need the farm). Being tanky and carrying Radiance makes you very deadly in team fights. The longer the fight lasts, the more damage Radiance will deal out. If they can't kill you, then they have to deal with the aura for the duration.

Weaver is a unique case. Because of Germinate attack, Weaver usually just wants raw damage. Getting attack speed won't give you more Germinates because it's on a cooldown. It does benefit from Raw Damage though (unlike some other modifiers that only take your Main Attribute into account). In addition to the damage output, it gives Weaver a way to farm. She is also difficult to kill, not because she's tanky, but because she has temporary invisibility and her ult gives her another health bar (essentially).

Lastly, you'll see this picked up quite frequently on Lone Druid's Spirit Bear. Using the aura, he can send his bear to push a lane while he farms (and he gets the gold from each kill Radiance gets). Normally, if the bear is out of range, it cannot attack. However, it can grant auras. This is a huge benefit for Lone Druid so he can use his bear in more than one way.

Like Hand of Midas and Battlefury, Radiance also loses potency over time. Common opinion is that you want to get Radiance before 25-30 minutes. After that, the burn damage just doesn't do so much to heroes, or the creeps.

This is what makes it a difficult item to decide to go for. Sometimes, you'll have to abandon going for it. It's hard to save up for because you need 3800 gold, then 1350 for the recipe. That's no easy task and you need a lot of uninterrupted farm.

Benefits

• Easy harass due to the burn damage
• Works on Illusions (and spirit bears)
• Great farming ability
• Great early-mid game pushing ability
• Excellent in early-mid game team fights

Disadvantages

• Very difficult to save for
• Loses potency in late game
• Aura can give you away while ganking (but you can turn the aura off)

Uses

• Tons of damage in team fights
• Farming
• Split pushing/farming (send illusions to different camps or to the lane to push while you farm safely)
• Raw Damage output
• Killing invisible units (not a reason to pick it up, but fun nonetheless)

 

Maelstrom/Mjollnir

When people think farming items, this is one that doesn't always come to mind. However, it can be loosely labeled "the ranged Battlefury". This is because the passive (Chain Lightning) rips through creeps, especially given the attack speed increase the item grants.

The two items are fairly similar (granted Mjollnir builds off of Maelstrom). They do have some differences though.

Differences

• Chain Lightning
• Maelstrom: Deals 120 Magic Damage, hits 4 targets, 25% chance
• Mjollnir: Deals 160 Magic Damage, hits 8 targets, 25% chance
• Attack Speed
• Maelstrom: +25
• Mjollnir: +80
• Active
• Maelstrom: N/A
• Mjollnir: Static Charge
• Lasts 20 seconds a target unit
• 20% chance to cast Lightning when attacked
• Lightning deals 200 Magic Damage to attacker and 2 nearby units
• Costs 50 Mana, 35 sec Cooldown

As far as I know there's no standard time to get either by.

It's a great item for farming/pushing as a ranged hero. The Lightning Jumps do a good deal of damage in a team fight too (e.g. 480 Magic Damage per proc for Maelstrom, 1280 per proc from Mjollnir).

The active ability on Mjollnir is also pretty veratile. It can be cast on allies, along with yourself. So say you cast it on Axe, he uses Berserker's Call. Least you can say is that the enemy team will be hurting.

Benefits

• Increases farming ability
• Can be used on Ranged heroes
• Mjollnir's active ability has lots of uses
• Exploits teams that don't have magic resist/immunity/Pipe
• Gives Magic Damage to accompany Physical Damage
• Huge increase to attack speed
• Build up can surprise people (Mithril Hammer looks like you're going for BKB or Desolator)
• Mjollnir can be disassembled

Disadvantages

• Still a lot of discussion as to whether it's worth picking up versus more "standard items"
• Counts as a Unique Attack Modifier

Uses

• Mjollnir can be a counter to Radiance carriers (each tick of damage can proc Lightning)
• Farming/Pushing
• Teamfight Damage output
• Static Charge can be placed on allies (like initiators), or yourself
• The attack speed can be great in combination with other effects like chance based bashes
• Heroes like Dragon Knight and Lone Druid benefit from it in both their Melee and Ranged forms
• Gives mostly Physical Damage heroes some Magic Damage to ensure they hurt everyone

Item Guide: Armlet of Mordiggian

Overview

Armlet of Mordiggian

This is a great item in many respects. Yes, it's a risk/reward item. However, it is very cheap for what it gives you. The build up is excellent. And the Active is very versatile.

Passively Gives:

• +8 HP/sec Regen
• +9 Damage
• +5 Armor
• +15 Attack Speed

Actively Gives:

• +31 Damage
• +10 Attack Speed
• + 25 Strength 
• Which is 19 HP/STR and 0.03 HP/sec regen == 475 HP, 0.75 HP/sec regen
• -40 HP/sec 
• Which as I recall is HP Removal, similar to Necrolyte's Aura
• You cannot die to it (at worst, left with 1 HP)
• It doesn't count as "taking damage"
• It cannot be reduced in any way

Some Uses

Turn it on When:

• Going into a fight (500 extra HP, lots more damage)
• You're super low, then immediately turn it off for a quick burst of HP (you get to keep some of it!)
• You're low and hear something coming (e.g. Clockwerk Rocket, if you hear the Sunstrike audio, etc.)
• You're low on HP and someone is coming to finish you off
• This is how it goes down:
• Someone thinks "Oh, look at this easy kill"
• flips on Armlet 
• Hue hue, my friends ;)
• (works great on Huskar)
• You want to quickly kill a neut camp, then turn it off right after

You turn it off When:

• You're fairly high on HP
• You're not in danger
• You're not using the effect to it's maximum capacity

Basically, you want to avoid being "caught with your pants down". Don't turn it off too early while going back to the well if you know they have some global presence hero like Invoker, Clockwerk, Zeus, Ancient Apparition, etc. You can easily toggle it repeatedly for some quick HP (i.e. when you're on like 100 HP, toggle off --> 1 HP, toggle on --> 475 HP)

When to get it

There are lots of scenarios that are "Well known" like:

• Huskar
• It synergizes with his abilities because he gets better the lower on HP he is
• He's a STR hero, so instead of 31 damage, he gets +56 (31 damage + 25 damage from STR being his main stat)
• Skeleton King
• He is STR
• He has massive life steal
• Lifestealer
• Same deal as Skeleton King
• He also has built in magic immunity (can't be stunned and get boned by the HP loss)
• Chaos Knight 
• This one is pretty cool: turn it on, use your ult, then turn it off. Now you have 1-3 clones that still have the active (or at least the STR from it), but don't take any damage.
• Nightstalker 
• Another STR hero
• He's a "Hey, I just met you, but not you're dead" kind of hero. The effects are negligible when he can kill you so damn fast at night.
• Alchemist
• You're strength
• Your ult basically cancels out the HP drain.
•  Others
• Slardar
• Quickly kill a stunned enemy that also has your ult on it
• Sven
• Deal out massive damage while ulting
• Dragon Knight
• You have naturally high damage, and in your ult form, you're ranged (one of the few STR Ranged)
• Clockwerk
• Works well while you have someone trapped in cogs
• Pugna 
• You're squishy, but your ult gives you a massive HP drain, so the HP loss is negligible

So, we extract this "rule of thumb" (i.e. a good general rule, but not always applicable):

• You have Lifesteal (or can regen ~40 HP/sec, like Alchemist)
• You can quickly kill a hero with the active (i.e. you're an awesome ganker)
• You're a Strength hero (and will benefit extra from that being your main stat)
• You get better at lower HP (which right now is basically just Huskar, though some future heroes like Terrorblade/Soul Keeper can benefit as well -- look at his ult)
• You love to bait attacks (being low on HP and then flipping Armlet on is hilarious)

Less Common Uses:

• Some players pick it up on squishy heroes for the HP, Attack Damage and Attack Speed (e.g. like a Drow/Luna/Anti-Mage)
• (As I recall) Some casters analyzed some mid game items and determined Armlet to be the "best bang for your buck" (i.e. best deal)

As you get better, you'll find times to pick things up because they provide what you need, even though it's not an "obvious pick" or doesn't fit the mold of when to buy it.

Risks

• If you get stunned, you're going to lose a lot of HP (so generally, grab a BKB afterwards if you plan to Carry/Semi-Carry)
• You can easily get sniped by Invoker on your way to the fountain
• If you can be kited, you're gonna have a bad time

Miscellaneous / Final Thoughts

Armlet has a great build up. Helm of Iron Will is great in lane for dealing with harass. It also leaves you open to either going Armlet or Helm of the Dominator (and technically Veil of Discord).

It's a great mid-game item, which is also where it shines due to the HP bonus tapering off at higher levels. Therefore, you get this when you want to be aggressive early/mid game, as it does not scale very well. If you would rather farm, then opt for a farming item. They tend to be the safer choice if you want to carry in the mid-late game.

Armlet is also very, very good for it's price (2600g, holy shit). I think a lot of this is attributed to it being a double-edged sword item (i.e. high risk/reward). It's kind of on par with Mask of Madness in that respect, but still a little less risky (you get HP and shit with it, plus it's great without the active).