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4 Votes

A really good guide on Juggernaut (updated)

October 24, 2012 by lord_of_utopia
Comments: 6    |    Views: 18916    |   


Hero Build

DotA2 Hero: Juggernaut




Hero Skills

Blade Fury

1 3 5 7

Healing Ward

12 13 14 15

Blade Dance

2 8 9 10

Omnislash

6 11 16

Talents

4 17 18


A really good guide on Juggernaut (updated)

lord_of_utopia
October 24, 2012


Welcome :)

Hi, all, thank you for reading my first guide.

I'm writing this guide based on my 4-year experience on Dota and Dota2. I have played Dota2 for months and have a win rate of 58.8% over 250 games. Most of the 250 games are solo queue. I'm not trying to say how good I am. I just want to prove that I have enough experience for this guide. In fact I hesitate for a while before starting this guide as I have no knowledge of how to make my guide fancy and attractive and my English is kind of poor. But I have long been thinking about writing a useful guide in memory of my Dota career and the time I spent on Dota. So I make up my mind to write this.

I read several guides here which teach you that build and play like this, and you will win the game!", but little of them will explain why you should build like this and play like that. Dota is not easy because it's a 10-player game. The match situation changes every second. If you only follow one or two builds other than adjusting it according to the current situation, you will quite likely lose the game. This is the other reason why I write this guide,I hope that you all can learn something from it.
Ok, let's begin.

Basic concept

Why Juggernaut? Because he's cool and powerful. He is also capable of carrying through the whole game. Talking about carrying, I remember a question: what's a carry, what's a semi carry? Everyone of you can give a huge list of carries and semi carries here. Then what make them carries or semi carries?

Let's start with the fist question.

What's a carry? For my own understanding, a carry is a hero who can output large amount of physical damage with several big items. All of the heroes can generate large amount of physical damage with full set of big items, but a carry only needs one or two before he can give tons of physical damage. Put in other way, a carry can use gold in most efficient way. That's is also the reason why we should create a good farming environment for carries. They can easily change the game with limited amount of gold.

What's make a carry? Let me use some example to better explain this. Phantom assassin (pa) void, naga, phantom lancer (pl) are all typical "hard core" carries. What's make them so cool? Their passive abilities such as stun and critical strike, good active abilities which allow them to slow, stun, create illusions, collect gold and escape. One needs two or more good passive and active abilities to be a good carry. But most people will neglect one thing, base attack time (BAT). A carry must have a relatively low BAT so that he can maximize the effects of the damage and attack speed from the items. That's the reason why Alchmist (BAT 1.0 after lv3 ulti) can be so dominate in late game while we usually won't play crystal maiden (BAT 1.7) as late game carry.

What's make a semi carry? Well there is no clear line between a carry and a semi carry. But generally, a semi carry doesn't have a good passive but can collect gold quite fast (have good AOE abilities) and usually they are agile heroes. For them, items provide agility can increase their damage and attack speed at the same time. Some typical examples, shadow fiend and Mirana.

Go back to juggernaut, magical immunity and AOE damage from blade fury, critical strike from blade dance and short time invulnerability and large physical and magical damage from omnislash, all of these enable him to carry from early game to late game. That' the reason why Juggernaut is so cool.

Skills

I will just simply explain here.
lv 1,3,5,7, no doubt, blade fury.
lv 2, blade dance. You can have critical strike while using omnislash. That's the reason I have Blade Dance point at lv2.
lv 4, stat point. This will make you have enough mana for blade fury and omnislash combo at lv7.
lv 8, depending on your current health, you can choose healing ward or blade dance.
lv 9, 10, blade dance, makes your basic attack and omnislash more powerful.

Some simple tips:
Blade fury: You can attack and use items while using it. So if the tower need one or two more hits and enemies are tp to save this tower, you can use blade fury and attack the tower and then use tp to leave. Using blade fury and tp at the same time are quite useful if enemies don't have stun which neglects magical immunity such as the ultimate of beast master.
Don't use it to initiate a fight. Enemies can kill you before it ends. Don't use it at late game to fight, unless you are using it to avoid some control. You physical attack can deal much more damage than it.
Healing ward:Remember to place the wards behind you before you run to fight with enemies. You can select the ward and right click on you so that it can follow you. It will help a lot even if enemies want to destroy the ward. At least it saves you some time during the fight.
Omnislash:While using it, in fact you are still using physical attack against the target which is affected by you attack speed. Don't save it for a kill, you can use it even if they are all full hp and there's no minion around the enemy heroes. Don't use it against someone who get ghost scepter.

Build

Juggernaut doesn't have stun or slow. It would be very hard for Juggernaut to keep attacking enemies. So your build should allow you to keep close with enemies.

Starting items: tango, healing salve and stout shield.
My starting items would contain the listed items no matter I random, directly select or repick Juggernaut. Stout shield is really helpful while laning against ranged heroes. If I random Juggernaut, I will add quelling blade(better last hit) and two branches(more attributes).

After laning some time, a boot would always be the first priority.
Believe me, a magic stick is so useful. A magic stick with 10 charges allows you to have two blade fury and a omnislash. Really helpful.

Mid game item: Phase boot, drum, yasha, battle fury, magic wand, mask of madness, bkb.
The items list above fit for different situations.
Phase boot is the only boot I will choose for Juggernaut. It will be easy for you to catch up with enemies which is helpful for your blade fury and it allows your omnislash have higher damage.
Drum: Highly recommended. You will not need to worry about your mana with drum and magic wand. Bonus hp, bonus attack speed, bonus damage, bonus mana, bonus movement speed. None of them are useless to Juggernaut.
Yasha: Help a lot with your attack speed and movement speed. You don't need to upgrade it to Sange and Yasha. You can upgrade it into Manta in the late game.
Battle fury: Always helpful for you to collect gold efficiently. 60 bonus damage, really good.
Mask of madness: I mentioned above that omnislash contains several physical attack which is affected by attack speed. Use mask of madness before you use omnislash. Well, just try it. Anyway, I love it. But you also need to notice when to use mom. Use it when you are chasing, running away or before using omnislash. Don't use it when using blade fury or during an even team fight. It will only make you die faster.
Image a juggernaut with mom, drum and phase boot and yasha, you can easily catch up with anyone.
bkb: Really useful for any carry. Remember, don't use blade fury at late game to initial a fight or during the fight unless to avoid a control. If you want magical immunity, get bkb.

Late game items: MKB, butterfly, abyssal blade, manta, satanic.
MKB, high damage, some attack speed, neglect evasion. Cool against PA, void, wr or anyone who gets butterfly.
Butterfly: Cool
Manta: Useful to kill the tower.
Satanic: Life steal, you can change it to Vladmir's offering.

I listed those items which I use quite often. But item selection always changes depending on which heroes you are fight against. If you fight against am, qop or Mirana (they can all escape your ulti using their blinks), it would be good for you to get a orchid if your team don't have a lot of control abilities. If you die too often, get a vanguard or bkb first. A tanky carry is somehow better than dead carry.

Some items that I don't quite recommend:
Sange and Yasha: I will not recommend this item for most heroes and most of the situation. Comparing to its cost, relatively low damage and attack speed bonus, relatively low health bonus make it not that useful. Well, I admit that its movement speed bonus is really attractive. But, if you make it your first big item, it will give you less damage boost comparing to other items.
Desolator:It's powerful, it works against tower. But it doesn't stack with MOM, HOM or Satanic. You can benefit a lot with it in early game, but kind of useless when in late game as most of the enemies will have much higher armor. So I usually will not add Deso into my build.

Game play

Game play contains lots of aspects, such as laning, team fight, build selection according to current situation. Simply put, do right thing at right time. An example, what skill will you choose when you play as a lv1 Mirana and just leave the base? You can have your own option, but my answer is: save the skill point until you make sure who's laning against you or until you become lv2. Why? If you choose arrow, you may die of a hero who gets haste rune and you may die of a lv1 gank. If you choose jump, you may miss your first blood when you notice someone is also check the rune or your team needs a 1 second stun. So the correct option would always be save the skill point until you make sure what's going on right now. That's the story of making correct option according to the current situation.

Move back to Jugg.

Game start: Well, for Jugg, you don't need to save you skill point. Blade fury combines escape and damage. I think it's the only option for lv1 Jugg.

Laning: Jugg loves teammates who can slow or stun. Some simple tips: use you basic attack first when the target is slowed or stunned. Usually you can have time for 2 or more basic attack. But don't be too greedy. You may get stunned or enemy may run away from you range of blade fury. An example, when your teammates lich uses nova on 2/3 hp enemy slardar who is trying to get last hit. What should you do? I will have 1 basic attack first and put my finger on f (blade fury). If he is trying to stun you, use your blade fury to avoid it.
Use blade fury more wisely, it's not too hard to avoid a stun from vengeful spirit, slardar or sven.
If you are laning against melee, try to harass them when they are trying to get last hit. If you are laning against ranged, learn to use the tip of drawing minion's hatred. It will interrupt enemy's last hit.
If you are winning while laning, don't pull the monsters to attack your minion. It will only make you lose control of the lane. Enemy can easily get exp and gold under tower. Just try to control the lane as much as possible. Be more aggressive when you are laning 2v1.
If you are losing, pull the monsters if your jungle is not blocked. If it is blocked, use sentry to remove enemy's ward. Also you can try for a gank for middle lane.

Mid Game:

The most important thing is that you should have a tp ready whenever you go to farm a lane. If you die, try not tp out unless there is a fight going on.
Don't try to engage in every fight. Try to observe carefully if there is a fight going on: If your teammates can definitely get the kill, you don't need tp to join the fight. If your teammates will definitely get killed and all the enemies are still full hp. Don't try to save your teammates. The best thing you can do as a Jugg, is pushing the lane and wait until your teammates resurrect.
Trying to join a gank when you have your ulti ready. You can get lots more exp and gold if your team gets some kills. But Jugg will be really ineffective in a gank when his ulti is in cd, try to get more farm when omnislash is in cd. Balance the time of gank and farming. Remember you are a semi carry. You have no stun or slow, most of your damage comes from you ulti. If you want to win a game against a void or pa, usually you have to end it at mid game or have one or two more big items than them.
Mid game is also the time you should begin to think about what you should choose as your first big item. Battle fury, if there's not lots of ganks going on and you have more time more space for farming. Yasha and MOM combination, if more ganks. Orchid, if you are fighting against qop, Mirana or am when your team doesn't have lots off control skill. You can even choose the unrecommended Desolator to fight against fed Alchemist, enchant or Doom. As all of them have really low base armor. I watched a pro game in which a shadow fiend helped his team won that game with a build of vanguard and blade mail. He chose the build because he got too much focus in that game. Using shadow fiend doesn't mean you have to get dagger or manta when you keep dying. If your team lacks support, you can also buy some wards and build vanguard as a Jugg. All I want to say here is that try to think a step further based on current situation. Make the right decision. Don't limit your build and limit your idea.

Late game: Nothing special. As I mentioned in mid game part, If you want to win a game against a void or pa, usually you have to end it at mid game or have one or two more big items than them. Have more ganks on their carries or get more gold. One more thing would be worth mentioning, in late game, change your phase boot into boot of travel. It will sometimes magically change a game. Use it wisely. Anyway, most of the game would not last to late game in current patch of Dota2.

Thanks

Thank you for reading this guide which is full of grammar mistakes. I really feel I still have a lot to write but I don't have lots of time right now. Simply hope all of you who read this guide can get something from it.

Thank you for the comments and votes! Thank you.

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