DOTA 2 cosmetics

This is the second part of the previous class. We discussed the basic nature of scaling skills and how a hero should be properly skilled. There are some heroes that are inherently difficult to asses the proper skill build either because they had been misplayed from the very beginning or those whose skills are too complex to make sense of scaling...  Skill Points=sp for future reference.


Berserker's call should always be maxed AFTER Counter helix and Battelhunger are maxed. Berserker's Call provides 0.5 seconds of extra disable for every skill point. The reason why disable time scaling is so bad is because its a BKB piercing AOE disable giving you insane armor, meaning its VERY strong skill in lategame. 1.5s would be enough early, if you decide to max it, you will lack dmg output from other skills and u wont have mana anyways to make use of it,

Wild Axes deal composite dmg (its dmg is reduced by enemies armor and mgc resistance) so they deal high dmg early game when heroes have low armor and neglible dmg lategame when enemy carry has bkb+high armor. in most cases max this first.
People mostly skip Call of wild. Its one the BEST skills in whole game. You get free moving observer ward with huge vision and 35% slow that goes through bkb. Max it second.
Only max inner beast early IF you are going for push strategy and start roaming as 5 man very early, because thats where this skill shines most.

Dragon breath: A nice aoe,spammable nuke. Max at lvl 7.
Dragon Tail: One of the most powerful lvl 1 stun. 2.5second and only 9s cooldown. But has worst scaling possible, a pathetic .25s and 25dmg. When a skill has such scaling you know it must be a strong skill. It is one of very few stuns in dota that are instant (fireblast, telekinesis etc) combine it with instant spell casting animation of DK and you got your self the most powerful stun in game (non-ulti skill). Take one skill point at lvl 1 and max it last.
Dragon Blood: Makes you tanky, max it 2nd.

Tiny is usually played correctly. but if you absolutely want to max you dmg output at lvl 7 then take skill points in following order. Avalanche/Toss/Avalanche/Toss/Avalanche/Grow/Toss/Toss/Avalanche . We stop taking points in Avalanche because of its weird scaling after lvl 3. (80 dmg for first 3 lvls then mere 40 for 4th level). Also take Grow whenever possible, the benefit are too good to skip and people in pubs skip ulti in order to max first 2 spells.

Burning Spears: Max them at 7 or max berserker's Blood if you are facing heavy nukes but NEVER skip Spears altogether. people still play huskar like the old version when you got upto 96 free dmg from berserker's blood and made lifesteal. Now if you make lifesteal skipping Burning Spears, huskar will hit like a crystal maiden autoattacks. A single attack of Burning Spear does around 200 dmg. Tell me why this skill is not AWESOME.. and its sad to see people not taking a single point in it.

DO NOT MAX Vengeance Aura early. Its based on base dmg and stat dmg ONLY. so by the time you max it at lvl 7, most heroes have around 70 base dmg, so it barely gives your teammates 25 dmg maximum. So max it later in game when drow ranger got 200 base dmg where you provide her with 72 free dmg. Take early points in Magic Missile and Wave of Terror. Wave gives gud vision+pure dmg+nice armor reduction which is nice for early game and helps alot in pushes.

DO NOT SKIP Shrapnel. Its very underrated spell and frankly his best skill. His skills are flexible and you max the skill based on how your game is going. You have good supports roaming and protecting you? Max headshot first. Game is hard and enemy heroes are scary ganker? Max Take Aim. You got pushing heroes in team? Max shrapnel.
Just make sure you dont ignore shrapnel and your games with sniper will be improved significantly.

Spectre being a melee farming carry get harassed ALOT. Thats why many people make the mistake of maxing Dispersion. Dispersion is a scaling skill and a single point is more than enough early game. Get a shield and get lot of regen, do not make yourself a useless creep for whole early game only because of a little harass.
Max Desolate at lvl 7. You don't even have to join fights, just activate your ultimate and your illusions will hit the enemies for 65 pure dmg each hit. You can deal upto 200 pure dmg to every enemy in map just by pressing a button.

Almost NO ONE builds this hero correctly and I don't know why. Why do people not understand that scaling of 1 sec and 20dmg per level on nightmare is pathetic? Take a single point and leave it at that.
Max Brain Sap. Its pure dmg and it heals you.
Max Enfeeble second. It reduces enemies dmg by 120 with a cd of 10 sec and 20 sec duration, meaning you can apply it on 2 enemies. So it permanently blocks 240 dmg for all of your team and you thought 40 dmg block of vanguard on a single hero is good? It is also not removed by bkb.

Do not ignore Upheaval. Its an amazing spell. Doesn't matter when you max it but just dont skip it in favor of stats. Learn to use it then you will appreciate how OP this spell actually is.




Chilling Touch: The strongest spell this hero has. It gives total of 2400 dmg to your team at lvl 7. Theoritically you can kill the whole enemy team with nothing except this spell and autoattacks. Practically it is still very strong. So either max it first or second depending on situation. Its a very OP spell and surprise surprise.. Majority of people don't even take a single point in it.

Ice Vortex is weak skill. Max it last.



























So this was the list of all the heroes that I feel are built wrongly in pub games. Ofcourse many of the skills still depend on different scenarios (fore example You could max Ice vortex at lvl 7 for Ancient apparition, if you have Pugna and Skywrath mage in team and you 3 start roaming with your mgc dmg amplification skills) so unless you are going for some crazy strat like that, above skillbuilds will give you maximum efficiency in almost every scenarion.

Next post I will start some interesting Advanced Mechanics stuff and some tips that even veteran Dota players could find useful.