Bringing Medusa on-line faster in Pubs

I really like the new hero Medusa but found that by the time I'd built her classic core my team was always severely behind, partially due to my lack of team fight participation in the early/mid game. (Disclamer : this is pub game orientated and I don't claim to be good/ overly knowledgeable I just want opinions)

Now I'm not a particularly pro player by any stretch of the imagination but I'd say I'm at least averagely skilled and thought I'd play around with her build and try and get her dps / farming abilities on-line a bit quicker. At the same time I'd be able to contribute more to team fights.

Traditionally Medusa is a late game tank / AOE damage dealer. Now the way I build her your sacrificing some of her mid game tankiness for dps but in exchange your able to actually get to the late game because your contributing more in the way of damage output in the midgame.

First up is the skill build (which is still fairly traditional) taking early stats whilst levelling your Mystic snake for lane harass and last hitting.

I try to solo lane with someone in the jungle but being a pub player - it can end up being anywhere.

Starting items are 3 x branches 2 x tangos 2x clarities and 2x wards for the jungle.
(this isn't great for last hitting at my skill level but the early stats do help out alot)

Next I pick up a blade of attack to help with last hitting and build my magic wand.
I try to have phase boots built at about the same time and get these made first if my laning opponents don't spam spells. This is fairly standard except I don't build a RoB / Aquila instead I pick up a Robe of Magi and bracer as early as I can after completing my wand/Phase boots building towards a drums of endurance.

I use clarities to help with my mana regen but by the time I have phase/wand/drums I'm usually okay provided I'm making good use of snake and not taking much dmg through my mana shield. I'd rather spend money on consumables (200g maybe) for lane sustain than build a preservance and if I rely on my phase boots for good position I don't take much dmg in early game skirmishes.

With phase/Magic wand/drums built I rush for a maelstrom picking up a gloves of speed first. At this point my survivability isnt too bad. I have speed and enough EHP with the early drums/wand and stats. My dps isnt too bad either with maelstrom / phase boots which also get my aoe farming online faster with the maelstrom proc (split arrow isn't usually skilled yet even if I had enough dmg to justify it) At this point I concentrate on jungling / clearing creap waves and throwing in some fairly respectable dps in mid game skirmishes whilst always trying to play it safe using phase boots to maintain positioning.

This is where the build diverges : I either pick up an ultimate orb for building into Medusas more traditional core or pick up a quick crystalis if I'm not being focused. Its at this stage in the game that people start getting the big hp pools and to really contribute some meaningful single target dps the crit really helps.

So you have phase boots + Magic Wand + drums + maelstrom + (ultimate orb or crystalis)

The thing I like about this is the flexibility - every addition you make tends to be no more than a 2.1k gold investment going into either a multistat tank item or building upon your dps base items which have everything you need dmg/attack speed. You have excellent farming ability and if you pick up some mid game kills its fairly easy to snowball from here.

Late game I tank up - which is all the easier due to my early investment in dps items to help with my farm / KS from heroes. I like to build my ultimate orb into a skadi usually finishing my deadalus right after the second ultimate orb. If needs be go straight to linkens depending on the team line up.

I often finish with phase treads + drums + Mjollnir + Daedalus + Skadi / linkens / Manta (things built with Ulimate orbs)

If your other hard carry is a Void - the earlier dps in team fights means you can really become a team fight machine and the style of play really suits the tower push meta game better than going straight for linkens/manta which take too long for someone at my level to contribute anything but a meat shield.

I'd love comments on improving the build and its viability. The big question is should I be improving my last hitting/early play and going the traditional tank up first then get carry dps items like butterfly ( which I feel takes too long to get going and is a harder build up)

Thanks for reading my wall of text :)

match id : 102593960 (just an example of how this works out)

The issue you are coming up with is inevitable; Medusa is indeeed, a hard carry, with a satanical need to farm. It's very difficult to avoid this fact, but it's the nature of the hero.

Two hard carries on one team is a bad idea most of the times, since they both need to farm and thus will make it a 3v5 for most teamfights.

your right ofc....

I guess I'm trying to 'soften' Medusa's carrying and my mentioning Void was really just a note where by an earlier investment in DPS items can be more useful to the team. I always pick Medusa immediately giving my team a chance to build around her but it doesnt stop pubs from picking too many other carries. Even if Voids farm is sub par as long as he has the levels and the skill to land a good bubble - ur in a good spot being able to rain in more damage from outside .... not needing to tank as much.

Alot of my problem is I'm trying to theorise around sloppy team builds and pub play. I loose alot of my arguments as soon as you assume competence in the team line up. The tried and tested traditional builds then apply as you'll automaticly get shut down by the opposing team if your not tanking up first for the ultra late game.

Still, do you think there is some merit to building

Magic Wand
Phase
Drums
Maelstrom

in the early mid game ? it costs 6284g as opposed to 6525g that just linkens and phase boots cost.
The build up is easier and provides more, earlier in the game with regards to team fights (provided your good with your positioning and the linkens passive doesn't make a huge difference)

I do not agree with skati or dateless. The reason why manta is so good is not only do your illusions have spell shield to make them incredibly tanky but they also get split shot. This makes it so your damage is like normal just split throughout the entire enemy team. The thing about split shot is crits and skati slow only work on the first target. Drum is a good item, but a wast of an item slot since a semi cary could pick it up instead. However since you play pubs no one on your team will probably get a drum so better the cary or nothing.

You need butterfly. First it is the only reliable way to increase your attack other than a monkey king bar. Second it gives you 200% effective health. With that you have to take your health points and times it by 2. Lastly you might be getting the parts in the wrong order. you get talisman since the evetion is the most important part of a butter fly them the eagle song them staff.

You could build Medusa as a semi cary but if you did that why not just pick a semi cary that does the role better?

Actually a great way to increase your DPS is Mjollnir, and Butterfly can be subbed out for Halberd depending on the situation, you disarm a FV before he Chronos and essentially you just cut the enemies teamfight potential to an estimated 30% less effectiveness.

A good way to have her come online is HotD and Maelstrom before your tanking items, and to make sure you have early mobility like a Drum or Phase boots, a Jango will give great stats / mobility / DPS.

I don't have much playtime with medusa, but I tried going ring of aquila > power treads > orchid > yasha > hotd > manta.
It also helped that my team was probably pushing and ganking most of the time. or that my teammates was morphling, bloodseeker, lion and chaos knight. Against windrunner, lina, sniper, naga and bounty hunter. I'm not really sure.

My thoughts was just, treads coz i get mana from ring of aquila and my snake if skilled properly. then orchid could give me IAS and more mana regen, piece by piece so I wouldn't need to farm for a long time to get one big item. Then I bought yasha for movespeed, damage and additional IAS, which later I could build into manta.
Then later when we were pushing I seem to have no problems in having sufficient mana during small skirmishes, but my hp is mostly almost half. so since i have a bit of damage, i could benefit from lifesteal as well as armor and additional damage from hotd.
i was able to build manta but courier was always busy since we were winning and my teammates are getting their items so the recipe was stuck at my stash.

This are just my situational picks for that specific match though, but you could get some ideas from it.

My skill build would always be alternating snake and mana shield. splitshot would be last.
I only use the snakes whenever the heroes in my lane and the ranged creep is near with each other so I always steal mana 3 times. Also, being a ranged hero, I feel the necessity to harass the enemy using my attacks.

I completely agree with Mjollnir, The two Items I did not agree with were Skati and Daedalus

I was talking about base power is most effectively raised with butterfly

Daedalus is a waste, since she's one of the few viable Divine Rapier holders, and it doesn't apply to other targets. Skadi on the other hand is great, not for DPS, but because it stacks with Helm of the Dominator and provides everything that Linken's does with a better passive.

Good input guys .... I disagree that Daedalus is a waste due to it not working with split shot.
There's always (or almost) a priority target that I want to drop first (usually the enemy carry) and the extra crit really helps with this (plus the +81 dmg it gives isn't too shaby and does stack with split shot).

As far as orchid goes - sure the silence is great but you really need to increase your mana pool for synergy with mana shield. the mana regen is meaningless when every member of the opposing team is unloading on you in the 5-10 seconds that a team fight is decided.

I do agree with the merits of butterfly ofc - its just that after I've got some + all stat items (be is an ultimate orb or drums) I then want the fastest most cost effective dps. That tends to be Maelstrom. After I have this I tank up to skadi/linkens. Building a butterfly with my available slots is difficult if I want to have a slot free for a TP scroll. In a way I've argued myself out of building drums, as mid to late game its less the cash flow being a problem its building what I need without having to leave expensive components in my stash for too long.

Going to try :
Phase boots > Magic WAnd > Ultimate Orb > Talisman of evasion > Eagle Song > Quarterstaff > Skadi

I can only see this being viable if the enemy team is relying on right click carries and damage output is coming online later than what I'd like. If there's alot of magic dmg there isn't enough EHP. If there is significant Magic dmg I'd go :

Phase boots > Magic wand > Ultimate Orb > Maelstrom > Ultimate orb/Point booster > Mjollnir > finish Skadi > (dps item of choice probably Daedalus for me)

My dps/farming power comes online faster with a more gradual increase in EHP .....

For me an effective way to bring medusa online fast is jungle the ancients at lvl 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLuq7hyBXh8