Tuesday, January 29, 2008

King Leoric Guide


Once a noble knight protecting his kingdom, the man was thrown into Hell, where he was ripped apart over and over for centuries. Now, Lucifer has thrown him back onto the soil, corrupted and mindless, as King Leoric, the Skeleton King. He marches on, leading his minions with an unfaltering gaze, knowing only one thing: the orders given to him by the dark lord himself. Able to cripple his opponents with a powerful magical hammer, King Leoric is a major threat on the battlefield. His mighty blade allows him and others in his presence to drain the blood of their enemies. It is said that he is unkillable, and those who are struck down by his hammer don't wake up again.(From Warcraft III: Frozen Throne)

Hero Skills

Storm Bolt - A magical hammer is thrown at an enemy unit, causing damage and stunning the target for 2 seconds.

Level 1 - 100 damage.
Level 2 - 150 damage.
Level 3 - 200 damage.
Level 4 - 250 damage.

Vampiric Aura - Nearby friendly melee units gain hit points when they hit enemy units.

Level 1 - Gains 5% of attack damage.
Level 2 - Gains 10% of attack damage.
Level 3 - Gains 15% of attack damage.
Level 4 - Gains 20% of attack damage.

Critical Strike - Gives a chance to do more damage on an attack.

Level 1 - 15% chance, 1.25 times normal damage.
Level 2 - 15% chance, 1.75 times normal damage.
Level 3 - 15% chance, 2.25 times normal damage.
Level 4 - 15% chance, 2.75 times normal damage.

Reincarnation - When killed the Skeleton King will come back to life.

Level 1: 100 mana, 300 sec cooldown.
Level 2: 150 mana, 220 sec cooldown.
Level 3: 200 mana, 140 sec cooldown.

Hero Builds

MVP Build I - Best MVP build for King Leoric.
  • Starting Items - 4 tangos, the rest to branches
  • Early to mid game items - boots, relic, town portal
  • Late game items - radiance, heart of tarrasque, boots of travel, sange & yasha( the rest you can choose between another heart of tarrasque, cuirass, dagger of escape, eye of skadi )
  • Skill Build : storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, reincarnation, storm bolt, vampiric aura, critical strike, vampiric aura, reincarnation, vampiric aura, critical strike, vampiric aura, critical strike, critical strike, reincarnation, then the rest to stats.

Gameplay :

King Leoric is best if he has a good support hero(like warlock) or another stunner (like lina) with him on the lane. He should be given priority to creep kills since he needs to secure his items and later on in the game he will be a very dominant hero when he has the items that he needs.

On the early part of the game, just try your best to get the creep kills. Don't worry about denies so much. Just focus on killing enemy creeps. Get as much gold as you can. With this build, you need to have another hero watching out for you. If it is a support hero, he will take care of healing/protecting you and with denying your own creeps. If it is another stunner like lina or leshrac you can start being aggressive when you reach at least level 3. You need to cast storm bolt first then have the other hero do a chain stun for you. If you do this right, the target enemy hero will most likely die unless he has a healer with him or another stunner. If that's the case, target the healer or stunner. It's up to you on which hero is easier to kill.

From early part to middle part of the game, you are just going to do some farming. You will not engage in clashes. You will not help defend your outer towers. Let your teammates do all that. If you need help, they should respond quickly to help you. Remember to have enough mana so when you get killed you still have your reincarnation. At this point, your teammates should have responded or tped to your tower to help you so you won't get killed without the reincarnation.

King Leoric is very hard to kill on lanes once he reached level 6 if you make sure he is protected like having wards on enemy gank locations and by responding quickly when there is an attempted kill. You should be patient too on farming. The hard part is just getting relic straight away but when you have it, it would be easier from then on since it's not hard to do last hits with a very high damage. When you already have relic, don't make radiance right away. Farm for reaver. Radiance will affect your farming with last hits and it's good if you have reaver after that so you can at least help your teammates on clashes at this point and for your own survival too. If you only have radiance and boots at a stage where your enemies have around level 2 ultimate, you can be killed quickly. With reaver you have more health points, more hp regen, higher damage...and get higher life steal. :)

When you already have at least radiance, boots, town portal and heart of tarrasque you are ready to go to battle. You will serve as a tank for your team. With heart of tarrasque you can sustain high amount of damage and even if you die, you still have your second life(with full hp and mana). This is what I like about King Leoric, if your enemies decided to focus their attacks and spells on you, you still have another life then at that point your enemies have used all their spells on you without harming your teammates. You will win clashes for sure if they do this. The key to playing leoric is to go into clashes first, take whatever damage, stun one opponent(best if it is a weak hero or a support hero) then keep on attacking. Don't stop attacking even if you have low hp. Remember that you have life steal and even if you die you still have your second life. :)

Late game items are for you to decide. If a tank is what your team needs then you might go for more heart of tarrasque. If you need more fire power or you need to kill a hero immediately after stunning then you might want to get sange and yasha for more damage and faster attack. If your enemies have blinkers then you can get dagger of escape. It's really up to you.

MVP Build II - Alternative MVP build for King Leoric. Use this if you have a hard time getting relic because it's really hard to farm for it with the pace of the game or if you think you need splash damage to overcome your enemy's heroes like chaos knight and naga siren, etc.
  • Starting Items - 4 tangos, the rest to branches
  • Early to mid game items - boots, battlefury, town portal
  • Late game items - eye of skadi, boots of travel, sange and yasha, hear of tarrasque, the last one is up to you whether it would be dagger of escape, another heart of tarrasque or cuirass
  • Skill Build : storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, reincarnation, storm bolt, vampiric aura, critical strike, vampiric aura, reincarnation, vampiric aura, critical strike, vampiric aura, critical strike, critical strike, reincarnation, then the rest to stats.
Gameplay :

Just the same with the first build. You are still going for lots of kills(for gold) as early as possible. The only difference with this build is you might have a hard time farming for relic, it could be an adjustment for countering an enemy or it could be another. With battlefury as your first item choice instead of sacred relic, it is definitely easier to secure and you even have hp and mana regen. You can spam bolt on the lane and you can even go to creep camps earlier because of perseverance. Well you will be forced to go to creep camps anyway since you will push the enemy creeps back with your splash damage. But it's easy to farm creep camps because...well you have splash damage. lol. Just be careful not to be ganked your enemies while farming on creep camps so your teammates should protect you as much as they can(with wards, a support hero with you, etc.)

17 comments:

Sven[own] said...

this build sucks its so corny farming relic will take u 30 mins if u playing aganist denies also if u go mid you will get raped by range heros also spell build is dumb if u dont get leech how are u gonna keep ur hp up u must be talking about a em game cause thats a noob build

Anonymous said...

Obviously you didn't read the whole guide. Did you just look at the build? Please read the gameplay explanation so you'll get to understand things.

And to be clear, this guide is best for good team plays like you are with a team. You are right it might take about 30 minutes but like I said on the gameplay, this build is suitable for situations where you don't have much difficulty on farming or being harassed and have your teammates give full support to you. If you have a hard time then you can go with the number 2 build on the guide(did you read that one?). If a build on public games is what you are looking for then you might go for bracers as early items.

Anonymous said...

yes i like the alternative build. BoT for map control and -ms, SxY for a bit of everything, fury for nice farming, but skadi wont stack with SxY

Anonymous said...

You're right leo. I added S&Y there for additional damage, hp and attack speed since on this build we went for boots of travel instead of power threads. Attack speed is very important for leoric for greater chance on critical(because you do more attacks). I even see some buy butterfly instead of S&Y. We'll for butterfly you have lots of attack speed and you have evasion too so that's good. I don't care about the maim at this point since we got skadi already meaning we have frost attack. Also we can ask why not cuirass? I chose to get cuirass later part because it will take a little more time on farming and I want leoric to be helpful at this point so I went for S&Y. He might die on some clashes so you are safe with your gold because S&Y components are cheap.

Anyway, thanks for your comments. Let me know what you think of my reply. I see that you are starting a guide of your own. Good luck. :)

Anonymous said...

sven has a point it is not always you are fighting with an Ai what if it is a person or somebody else this strategy is for noobs cause your not thinking what if your opponent is aggresive its just like you are wasting your money and its not that everytime in DOTA you have teammates to you know sometimes you have to play on you own.

Anonymous said...

Haha.. juz read the guide huh?.. i'll nvr read the guide.. coz i'll use wat ever item and how ever that i wan ~! Nah..

Anonymous said...

Well that's ok. This is a guide but it doesn't mean that this is the only thing to do. Try to experiment and post what you find out that would be better. I might post it here and give the credit to you. :)

Anonymous said...

my best leoric build:
-power treads
-vladimirs
-sny
-battle fury (may change in late game)
-buriza
-heart of tarrasque

Anonymous said...

@simi

Yes, it could work but not in the order you mentioned. But I assume you meant final items? I may change power threads to boots of travel though because there is no space for town portal.

Anonymous said...

I agree with buriza, I have personally had great success with a buriza and a crystalys, as they both stack with your own critical. Well, not really cumulatively, but with each hit the game first rolls for the highest prob critical (buriza), if unsuccessful then it rolls for the second highest prob (your skill critical) and if nothing either it rolls for crystalys. So it makes quite many hits critcal as the chance that one of the three works are high in each hit.

mr.chiiler said...

all of you guyz are noob!! go for battle fury not for relic. perseverance will help for hp and mana regen. mana is big deal for leoric. u can only use ur 1st skill once or twice with 0 mana left for ur reincarnation. Mask of madness will do, for lifesteal and fast movement and attack speed!amF

Anonymous said...

mr. chiller, read the other guides for leoric and you will see the battlefury that you are talking about. unless you are too noob to read yourself.

Salazaar said...

i think it's a good guide but i don't like so much the item build.why radi?he's not a dps...
why HotD or Vlads? he alrdy has his second skill which gives him lifesteal...why buriza?he alrdy has his 3rd skill whick gives him a chance for crit.he needs some dmg and also mana regen so bf it's good.i post my one and only item build and u can post ur comments and tell me what u think about that:
starting:1 set of tangos 1 healing salve and the rest gg branches.
u go top or bot and u buy quelling blade from mystic shop.
mid game items:armlet of modrigian,perseverance,treads(attack speed)
Late game items:fury,HoT and whatever orb u want.
final inventory:armlet,fury,treads,Heart,skadi...if u keep having money save them for revives.

Anonymous said...

I own with imba lifestealer Leoric

My build?

-Bracer
-Power Threads
-Vlads
-Mask of Madness (at this time with vampiric aura lvl 4 and critical bout lvl 2 or 3,combined with mask of madness's atk speed and lifesteal and of couse vladimirs lifesteal, u already are pwning everybody)
-heart of tarasque
and last if game still runs,
-hypersone
(and later AC if games goes further, but i doubt that, hyper was my last item to buy on leoric)

In my opinion is one of the best and imba heroes in dota, great lifesteal and crits, you can stun, and most of all, you have free aegis. Don t focus on tanking and shit, let this things later in game, after u make HoT. I got like 15 kills and 4 deaths in a game. But of course, is just my build.

noob said...

my build

bracer(for last hit, survival and mana pool)
boot(ms)
mkb(as)
BoT(ms,gb,farming)
AC(teamplay,tank)
HoT(tank)
Divine(rampage!)

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

This is a inquiry for the webmaster/admin here at mydotaguide.blogspot.com.

Can I use part of the information from this post above if I give a backlink back to this site?

Thanks,
Jules

dim said...

Hey Jules. Sure, go ahead. As long as you give credits to me.