Let's learn about some more heroes in DotA 2!
We've covered Gyrocopter, Sand King, Chaos Knight, Sven, and Rubick. Today I'm going to talk about some Hard Carries! Carries are, of course, those heroes that have a weak early game but a very strong late-game - the srongest out of all heroes. They depend on getting a lot of gold and items to become that strong, though.
Anti-mage:
Anti-mage is this dude that really hates magic, and mages. Which is weird, because he has magical abilities himself.
Anti-mage is a bit of a hypocrite.
So, Anti-mage is a melee agility hero without a lot of spells. He only has two active spells, which I'll explain first. They're both good, but aren't going to contribute a whole lot to a team fight either.
The first is Blink. It's a teleport spell, basically the same as a blink dagger but on a 5 second cooldown. It's super useful for escaping, chasing, and farming. This spell is part of why Anti-mage is a great split-pusher and farmer. There's not much more to say about it, you'll want to take your first level in this at level 1.
The other active ability is his ultimate, Mana Void. It's a little complicated, but a decent spell. You target an enemy hero. They take damage proportional to the amount of mana they currently have missing. That damage is then also distributed in a small area around them. Also they get mini-stunned. It's not going to make any big plays, and the effect is kind of boring, but there you go, you might get some kills with it.
This guy's real key abilities are his two passive spells. The first, Mana Break, makes his normal attacks drain the victim's mana on each hit. The amount of mana drained is dealt as bonus damage, too. This ability is insane! At level 4, I believe it's 40 bonus damage and mana drained per hit. 40 bonus damage is nothing to sneeze at, plus draining mana on top of that is fantastic. Max this one as fast as possible after a level in blink.
Anti-Mage's final passive is a spell shield that provides additional magic resistance, up to 50%. That's quite good, it means you take around half of the damage magic spells normally deal. Against heavy nuker lineups, Anti-Mage has almost twice as much effective HP based on this spell! He really only has to fear stuns (Black King Bar and/or Linkens Sphere takes care of this) and physical damage.
Anti-Mage has a pretty standard item build, and you can't really go wrong with it. Start with a quelling blade and some regen, plus optionally a stout shield. Buy brown boots. Get a poor man's shield if you feel it necessary. Then get a Battle Fury. You need to farm and last-hit very well to get it as fast as possible, but it will pay off for sure. A Battle Fury is the best item on Anti-Mage, for a few reasons. Primarily, it distributes the bonus damage from Mana Break into the cleave, making it hit even harder. It also helps him clear waves of creeps in seconds with his exceptional attack speed and Blink. If you get a Magnus on your team, you can even murder multiple dudes at once with a Battle Fury, Mana Break, and Mana Void. It's a good item. After the Battle Fury, finish power treads, the next standard item is Vladamir's Offering, letting you split-push and solo Roshan. After this, Manta Style is next, giving you a way to escape silences, increasing your movespeed and damage, and of course because illusions can drain mana as well! At this point you should be farming insanely fast, so go ahead and grab a Butterfly. The extra armor and evasion will be very useful to help you survive, along with the massive dps increase. Finally, go Heart of Tarrasque for extra survivability. Black King Bar is fine after Heart if you really hate stuns, but is not required.
As a Carry, he performs really well in the late game, but his abilities are so strong he's not bad in the midgame, either. Mana Break even makes his early laning stage ok, because no one wants to get harassed by that. You really want to just farm all the time, but show up to teamfights to gain the exp and gold from kills. Blink makes it easy to get anywhere you want. Heroes he likes to play with include Magnus, Enigma, or any others who stun and bunch up enemies to let your Battlefury go to work. Stuns and slows in general help him out, considering he has none of his own.
I happen to enjoy Anti-Mage a lot. His animation is one of the best and most satisfying in the game for last-hitting, and his blink and flash farming is actually pretty active and fun. He feels very fun to play, and is one of the strongest carries.
Faceless Void
He controls time itself! Faceless Void is a very cool hero, I like his look as well as his spells a lot. He's most famous for his ultimate which stops time in a bubble around him, trapping friendly and enemy heroes alike. Void's friends hate him because of this. So do his enemies. He's also famous for having Backtrack, an evasion that can evade literally anything in the game 25% of the time, and combined with Butterfly gives him a whopping 50% chance to dodge anything, effectively doubling his HP. His main weakness as far as I can tell is his mana pool and his attack speed. Faceless Void is definitely one of the hardest carries, taking a long time to become strong, but becoming one of the strongest in the game once he is online.
Timewalk:
This spell is a little similar to Anti-Mage's Blink ability. Void sort of dashes really fast to the target location. All enemies he passes through are slowed. The downside is it costs more mana and has a longer cooldown than Blink, making it must harder to use frequently. Typically this is an escape, a chase, or an initiation to use Chronosphere, Void's ultimate. Get 1 point at level 1, then don't bother until later.
Timelock:
The first of two incredibly strong passive abilities, this gives Void a chance of doing extra damage on a physical attack and freezing the victim in place, locked in time, for a few seconds. This effect does even more damage under Chronosphere. If you want to be aggressive, max this first, otherwise, just get a point early then leave it for later.
Backtrack:
Also known as the "bullshit!" spell. This is another passive that gives Void a chance to dodge ANYTHING. He can dodge physical attacks, he can dodge spells, he can dodge stun damage. You know he'll dodge that Assassinate or Laguna Blade that was meant to kill him with 50 health left. And, Backtrack is not technically an evasion, meaning Monkey King Bar does not disable it. It's seriously incredible, max this early.
Chronosphere:
Finally, Void's ultimate, Chronosphere. Everyone hates this, no matter what team they are on. It projects a sphere of energy, stopping time completely. Everyone on both teams except for Faceless Void (or units/illusions under his control!) are stopped completely, frozen in place. Void, and teammates lucky enough to stay outside of the Sphere, get a few seconds for free to beat down on anyone underneath it. It's a very strong spell, going through BKB, Linken's, and even disabling evasion. Typically it guarantees at least one kill under the Sphere before the teamfight even begins. Try to use it every time it's off cooldown.
For items, Void really kind of needs it all. He has weak attack speed and average damage, relying mostly on his passives to make him the fearsome carry that he is. Power treads are the standard boots. After that, opinion seems split on getting a Battlefury or a Maelstrom. I personally prefer Maelstrom for the attack speed bonus over Battlefury, but both will allow you to farm faster and clear waves of creeps. Next item is often a Mask of Madness, allowing Faceless Void to increase his attack speed like crazy for a few seconds during Chronosphere. Seems pretty good to me, but it does have risks outside of Chronosphere. Next, you can grab a Manta Style, Butterfly, and/or Mjolnir. All of them are great to have in combination, but Butterfly is the only one of these I'd consider totally core. Butterfly's extra evasion stacks with Void's Backtrack ability to give him 50% chance of dodging anything! You need that. Black King Bar is good if enemies have ranged stunners that can disable you as soon as Chronosphere initiates. Later on, you can keep grabbing items, including Monkey King Bar, Daedelus, Abyssal Blade... Void only gets stronger. Just make sure to prioritize attack speed, to proc Time Lock as often as possible and to take full advantage of the Chronosphere.
Void's ultimate is pretty fun, but works best when your team is almost entirely ranged. Beyond that, his lack of active abilities and his poor ability to farm quickly means Void will be farming for a LONG time, and his playstyle is a little boring.
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