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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Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! I'll take a break for a while. DOTA Guides and Strategies will resume in a couple of days.

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Off Topic

This blog, mydotaguide.blogspot.com, has been disabled by google for a few days including my other blog progdiary.blogspot.com. Their bots mistakenly thought that this was a spam blog. Good thing it's back now after 5 days.. :( But my other blog is still disabled. I hope they get it back soon.

In case any of you experienced or are experiencing the same thing, please let me know.

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Sven Guide

Sven (Rogue Knight)
A follower of the great God of Order, Paladine, Sven has sworn to uphold the rights of all. Born of a Knight and a Night Elf and ostracized since birth, Sven has lead a solitary existence of meditation and training. He has come out of his wanderings determined to guard the innocent against evil. Armed with his blessed cleaving blade Justice, and harnessing the power to strike down his enemies with the might of God's Strength, Sven's wrath toward the unjust is a sight to behold.(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.

Great Cleave - Sven strikes with such force that all nearby enemies take damage.

Level 1 - 10% damage is splashed.
Level 2 - 20% damage is splashed.
Level 3 - 30% damage is splashed.
Level 4 - 40% damage is splashed.

Toughness Aura - Sven is here to pump you up!

Level 1 - Increases base armor by 2.
Level 2 - Increases base armor by 3.
Level 3 - Increases base armor by 4.
Level 4 - Increases base armor by 5.

God's Strength - Sven gets pumped up! Adds bonus damage for 25 seconds.

Level 1 - Adds 100% damage.
Level 2 - Adds 125% damage.
Level 3 - Adds 150% damage.

Hero Builds

Semi-MVP Build - This build is best if you have another option to be a primary mvp in your team

• Starting Items - 2 tangos, 1 flask, the rest to branches
• Early to mid game items - power threads, 2 bracers, town portal
  
• Late game items - black king bar, mask of madness, heart of tarrasque
  
• Skill Build : storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, god's strength, storm bolt, great cleave, stats, great cleave, god's strength, great cleave, toughness aura, great cleave, stats, toughness aura, god's strength, toughness aura, toughness aura then the rest to stats.
  

Gameplay :

During lane battles, concentrate on making last hits. Don't worry about denies too much. Let your teammate on the same lane with you worry more about that. It is best that you get most of the last hits(therefore getting the gold) so you can secure your early items. While doing last hits, keep an eye on your enemies if they go out of position while doing last hits or denying or even harassing your lane themselves. At any chance one of them is exposed, cast storm bolt right away then follow up with some spells from your teammate. Always try to go for the kill if this happens but don't go in their tower yet.

Once you reach level 6 or so, go back to regenerate your mana and health. Shop for items too like boots and bracers. Go for power threads if there is enough. Once you have at least 2 bracers and power threads, you are now ready to do some hunting. Try to visit every lane possible and go for the kill. Be aggressive. Sven is very strong early game with just 2 bracers and power threads together with level 1 god's strength and level 4 storm bolt. With good team play, you are sure to get the kill. Make sure that you always come from the blind side for surprise. Always check for rune from time to time. When going for the kill, don't hesitate to use god's strength. At the early stage, one storm bolt and 2-4 attacks kills an enemy with god's strength enabled. Slowly get black king bar and mask of madness while repeating the process. This is very helpful for your team because it pressures the enemies and at the same time you are preparing yourself for middle to late game clashes. Get black king bar first. When you have this item you can now go inside clashes without being interrupted of any disabling spells like bolt or voodoo. And if you have mask of madness, it will just make things quicker for you to kill enemies.

During later game, get heart of tarrasque so you can still endure physical damage in case the enemies decide to focus on you with their physical attacks. If you still have extra gold after that, try to experiment what items are best for your gameplay. You can get another heart of tarrasque, sange& yasha, eye of skadi or dagger of escape. Just try it out what works best and it also depends on what are the enemy heroes. If they are blinkers, get dagger of escape...you get the idea. :)

MVP Build - This build is best sven is your primary option for mvp and you really rely on him for the late game

• Starting Items - 2 tangos, 1 flask, the rest to branches
• Early to mid game items - boots, black king bar, mask of madness, town portal
  
• Late game items - heart of tarrasque, sange & yasha (or another heart of tarrasque if you have lots of gold)
  
• Skill Build : storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, stats, storm bolt, god's strength, storm bolt, great cleave, stats, great cleave, god's strength, great cleave, toughness aura, great cleave, stats, toughness aura, god's strength, toughness aura, toughness aura then the rest to stats.

Gameplay :

Lane battles is the same with semi-support build. Sven gets the priority on all kills would it be creeps, heroes or structures. The main difference on this build is sven focuses on farming and securing his items early. He will not go hunting but will stick on the lane. He will also be fully supported with wards and support heroes by his side if really needed. You can go for the kill but on enemy heroes on the same lane. Use your town portal to escape gank attacks and to help your teammates from other lanes if you are absolutely needed or else just keep farming. You don't need threads early part. Boots is enough but you can get power threads if you want. The important thing is to secure black king bar as early as possible then at this point you can help on clashes and then go back to farming your next items. You will come out middle to late part of the game with good items. If done correctly, you will have way better items compared to other heroes making you a very big threat to the enemies.

Note : On clashes, remember to cast black king bar first before casting god's strength. Casting god strength first will cancel it out when you cast black king bar after that.

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Dynamic Duo for the Week

This week's dynamic duo is a fun one. I like to play with this with a close friend specially on public games like battle.net. This is best to use if you play DOTA games for fun and for the sake of doing trash talks with your friends. :)

So this week's dynamic duo goes to Lion and Lina. I think you already see where this leads. heh. But I will discuss it deeply here so you will know how make this combo really work. Thus making your friends very annoyed. :)

First, buy mana regen items for both heroes and starting items that will boost their stats. These are most probably ironwood branches and clarity potions. Other one can also make ring of basilus for mana regeneration on both heroes. The best you can do is equip Lion with the ring of basilus and then have Lina buy sobi mask. This way Lina can spam her two offensive spells, Dragon Slave and Light Strike Array. Lion only needs to cast one offensive spell during the early part of the game which is impale. Let Lion get mana drain too so he can absorb mana from enemy creeps or heroes when he is almost out. At this point, both heroes will have the ability to spam their spells.

During lane battles, always cast your spells in combo. It is important that Lion will cast impale first then Lina will follow it up with light strike array and then dragon slave. Keep doing this to harass your enemies on the lane but be sure that you will have enough mana to cast level 6 when you are almost leveling up from level 5. This way your enemy will be very pressured of getting killed so he has to go back to heal. At this point concentrate on farming while harassing the remaining enemy with seasonal attacks(if there are two enemies in the lane). When you reach level 6, you can go back to the base to purchase items and heal or you can attempt to kill an enemy on the lane with low hp. When both Lina and Lion are level 6, this is the fun part. Choose one hero then let Lion cast impale. Lina will cast light strike array after that for chain stun while lion is doing a normal attack at the same time. Lina will then cast dragon slave then Lion will do the finish with finger of death and if the enemy is still alive, Lina can make sure of it by casting laguna blade. :) The best scenario is if you are able to kill one enemy with only one ultimate like finger of death. If this happens, you can harass the remaining enemy on the lane with normal attacks while getting creep kills and denying at the same time. When Lina has enough mana to cast laguna blade and one spell at least, you can attempt to kill the remaining enemy. Keep repeating this process killing enemy heroes alternately unless they will switch to another lane. lol.

At this point, Lion and Lina are near or about level 11. Get dagon for both heroes as their next items. This is will make them more deadly doing chain stuns and then making sure that the target hero is dead because even though the enemy has higher health points at this point because of item and level, Lion and Lina have additional offensive which is dagon and if they reach level 11 their ultimate is deadlier. With both heroes having dagon, always go together for the kill. Visit enemies who have been farming for long to kill them and waste a portion of their gold. Push every time you killed a hero. You don't want the game to take so long that the enemy will have the time to recover and the mvp heroes will get their desired items.

If the game lasted long enough to reach level 16 or more, get aghanhim's scepter and refresher orb for both Lion and Lina. This will make their ultimates' damage even greater and also reduce their cooldowns. And with refresher orbs, Lion and Lina can cast dagon, minor and ultimate spells twice ensuring death to the enemy. :) If you still have enough gold, experiment with other items. You can buy heart of tarrasque if you have problems on staying alive during clashes or you can buy guinsoo to increase damage, mana, mana regen and to be able to disable a target enemy making chain stun even longer. You can also choose to upgrade dagon to max level at this point.

Note : For advanced gameplay, you can get dagger of escape for proper positioning, good element of surprise therefor executing attacks effectively and for escaping death.

So there we go. I hope you like this week's dynamic duo. Now try it out with your friends or against your friends. :D

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DOTA Lane Control Guide

Today, I was going to post a comprehensive DOTA guide to lane control but I found this very good guide by Blaow which pretty much said it all and it is complete with screenshots and advanced techniques. But the you must have at least a basic understanding of DOTA to fully understand the guide. Here is a part of it :

Preface: This is a guide to early game lane dominance. I assume the reader has a basic knowledge of DotA and can refer to other sources to look up heroes/items/abilities. If I use an abbreviation or term you do not understand please refer to Malle's excellent DotA game commands and common abbreviations list. I will be focusing on non em since lane control in em is less important, although I will try to point out some points for em as well. If you disagree or have something to add please post and back up your points with a valid argument, I'll try to include other's view points with credit if they are good even if they disagree with me. Sometimes there is more than one right way, or different things work in different situations. Please post your comments, opinions, and disagreements, constructive criticism is welcome! Anyway, on to the guide.

What will I learn from this guide?
This guide is an effort to comprehensively cover every aspect of lane control and early game strategies within reason. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of lane control I suggest you read all of it. However more advanced readers will certainly be familiar with some or many of the ideas covered so if you belong to that group feel free to skip sections. If you wish to explore a certain aspect of lane control use the table of contents - hit ctrl-f and type in the section you wish to go to.

Brief Table of Contents

1. What is Lane Control?
2. Your Hero
3. How to Build a Lane Controller
4. Choosing your Lane Control Style
5. Harassing
6. Map Awareness and Ganks
7. Creeps and Towers
8. In-Depth Scenarios
9. Secret Paths and Juking
10. Replays and Other Reading Material

To read the rest of the guide, visit this link. This guide is very helpful. I assure you that it will improve you lane gameplay when you read this guide.

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