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.)

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Dynamic Duo for the Week

It's been a while since I made a post on this blog. I have been very busy with other stuffs I didn't even have the time to play DOTA. lol. Anyway, I will start this year's post with a very fun dynamic duo, a classic. My friend and I never get tired of doing this one public games...well, even on LAN games. :)

So our first dynamic duo for the year is the Vengeful Spirit - Goblin Techies combo. Most of you might already have an idea at this point on what will happen with this combo. Some of you might even have used this one a long long time ago but I posted it here anyway because this still works very well until now and it never fails to tick off people when used properly. ;)

First, get magic missile as a first skill for Vengeful Spirit(I will refer to this hero as venge later on) and suicide for Goblin Techies(I will refer to this hero as techies later on). Get boots as a first item for techies and the rest goes to consumables. Get branches and consumables for venge. As soon as you see an enemy hero on your lane, cast magic missile then let techies suicide on the target. And there you have it....first blood! :D Do some normal attacks if there is a few hp left on the enemy hero. If you see two heroes on the lane, choose the one with the lower hp. Don't worry with techies not catching up with the target hero. There's a reason why you bought boots as a first item. heh. At this very early part of the game, you already ticked off your enemy but don't stop there. Keep repeating the same process each time techies gets back to the lane. Be sure to check the enemy's remaining hp before you do the combo to be sure that the target hero dies. Just to be sure, deduct 200 damage from the total damage of suicide and magic missile then compare it with the enemy hero's hp. If the damage is greater or equal to the enemy hero's hp then it is safe to do the combo. I deducted 200 because of the hero resistance. It is not accurate but it is safe and fast to compute.

With techies always doing suicide, the experience goes to venge so you should expect techies to be below venge's level. So when venge gets to level 6, techies is still below that. What you should do is plant lots of land mines on a blind spot(or any open spot which is not on the enemy creeps pathway). 5-7 land mines would do. Then have venge position on the land mines and wait for an enemy to swap. When you see one, have venge swap right away then..boom! Enemy dies. If the enemy survives somehow, cast magic missile or even cast suicide. He has no chance at all.

By the way, techies should get suicide and land mines. Get stasis trap later part of the game. Maybe around levels 9-10. Get remote mines when you get to levels 6, 11 and 16. Get lots of void stone for your items so you won't run out of mana. (The rest of the build is not covered on this guide) For venge, I suggest getting lothar's edge. So when you see someone coming your way, just use lothar's edge so he won't see you standing there waiting for him.

When techies reaches level 6, plant 5-6 land mines on blind spots. This will surprise your enemy when he passes by that place. Then use your remote mines to plant on open spots. 5-7 remote mines will do. Then have venge do the swapping again. :) You can even do this during clashes. Specially when defending your base. Plant lots of mines near your tower and when your enemy pushes, swap one to the mines. This will really scare them making them push each other on who will go first.

In case your enemies buy sentry wards, buy sentry wards too. You should have more money than them considering that they always die on the mines/suicide. Do not stop buying sentry wards until they do. Don't ever give them a chance to stop your killing spree. Keep repeating this until their heads explode. :)

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