Aoe's comprehensive guide to Lone Druid (updated)

Introduction

In this guide I will focus on laning and show two of my builds - one for easy/mid and the other one for offlane. This is not a guide for noobs nor introduction to the hero, I won't discuss skills

Pros Extremely versatile Strong pusher in mid/late-game Can shutdown enemy carry in teamfight via Bears Entangle and/or Skull Basher 12 inventory slots

Cons Very steep learning curve Loss of bear renders LD useless for long period of time No reliable escape mechanism nor Disable Gets outcarried in extreme late-game

Build justification

Stout Shield on bear allows him to take early damage and harras. Since death yields 300g bounty, this is a must.

Tranquil Boots are standard for laning LD as these allow you to take damage and regenerate outside ultimate form. Brown boots ard even travels will do fine.

Unless you are in freefarm mode, always get an early Orb of Venom, it will help you chase and get safer entangles, it's also great for defensive uses.

Hand of Midas is worth to get in almost every game and allows you to keep up with other flash farming carries. Use on main, transfer to bear when off CD.

Relic from the past, for quite some time now it drains hp on toggle. Don't.

Sylla (main) needs almost no items, basic boot will do until late game. For your bear, Phase Boots are preffered. Many players opt for Tranquil Boots on Sylla, however after nerf, this is not an option because boots loose all tehir bonuses when you are under attack (an you will be). Since you can TP on your bear with Boots of Travel, consider this in late game.

Core item. Useful for splitpushing/farming during rotations etc. Even when defending base, you can use bear for pushing. Optimal time to get these is <20 minutes, but as farming item these are noticeable throughout the game.

Situational

If you face a lot of magic damage, it's a good idea to get Hood of Defiance in midgame, in combination with your ultimate you will be nearly impossible to nuke down.

Skull Basher on bear is situational, but often needed to take down enemy carries. Please note that you can build double basher and permastun enemy (melee) carry - do this when there is fed slark (or other melee) on opposing team.

Ghost scepter fills similar role as Hood, but works against heavy right click damagers like Drow Ranger or Chaos Knight.

Late Game

Rest of your build is situational, you can't go wrong with hyperstone on bear though and make it into Assault Cuirass or Mjollnir. Remeber, your bear does NOT benefit from stats in any way. Vladmir's Offering can make a lot of sense but there are generally better items (unless there is other melee carry on the team).

Skill justification

Rule of thumb is:

> synergy > > rabid

You pretty much always want to have level 3 Summon Spirit Bear by level 5 as it gives proc-based entangle dissable. If you need every bit of lasthitting power, you can opt to skill synergy first as it gives among other things extra +10 dmg on each level.

Synergy is prefered oven rabid due to short duration of rabid without points in synergy.

True Form should be skilled by level 6 (in lane) or 9 (in jungle). If you intend to push towers at lvl7, get it by level 6.

Hero interaction

One of the most fun heroes to play against, on one hand, you can use ultimate trick to dodge both missiles (easy) or Laser/dagon (hard) or even whole shebang (good tinkers often shift queue all 3 abilities so one ultimate transformation can render whole combo useles). One big problem of tinker is that his laser doesn't work correctly on bear, it last twice as long on him as on heroes (6 seconds, yeah, I complained at dev.dota2.com).

Bloodlust/ Empower/Ice Armor is absolutely beastly on bear, 5/5 LD players recommends. Lich's ultimate, Chain Frost can wreck you and your bear unless you have good micro and anticipation.

Bane is bane of LD's existence, his Enfeeble renders bear useles, while his ultimate, Fiends Grip cannot be dodged by ultimate trick (unlike in original dota).

AA's ultimate, Ice Blast can seriously ruin your day if caught outside True Form, since it deals a lot of damage to your main (who will likely have only brown boots on him most of the time) and you _CAN'T_ switch to True Form, since it will not give you any HP (only lower your current hp percentage making it more likely you get killed).

Offlane tips

Radiant offlane
Abuse the fact that enemies are stacking&pulling, farm hard camp near river. You can send bear to tank and deal damage and farm it from relative safety of the RIVER.

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Dire offlane
There is no safe spot to farm in this case, on low levels you should use your bear for scouting and main for trying to lasthit. Bear can help you with lasthits but make sure to periodically check your rear, every few seconds.
If you are doing it right, you get some farm and waste time supports in jungle, else you are ****ed (and dead).
See also section 'Panic rooms' to save your *** from ganks.

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Double wave pulling

PATCH: 300g reward means this is risky and getting bear killed will likely loose you the lane. NOT RECOMMENDED [unless you 'GOT THIS'].

Early in the game (before creeps spawn) send your bear behind enemy tier 2 and intercept not one, but two waves of creeps that spawn at 0:00 and 0:30, then steadily pull them into gap between your tier 1 and tier 2.
With double wave, you should be able to pop level2 safely, deny one entire wave of creeps (if your timing is right) and force their 3rd wave to push under your tower.

RadientDire

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Note 1: Failing here means that triple wave will push (best case) or that wave will get intercepted by support and denied in forest (worst case).
Note2: You absolutely need Stout Shield on bear to do this, he is going to be tanking wave for long time and if enemy support commits, your bear is dead.

Micro management tips

I get these 3 control groups (1-2-3 for toggle, ctrl+N to set)


Ctrl+1 - LD
Ctrl+2 - Bear
Ctrl+3 - LD + Bear

Make sure your bear isn't blocking you during chasing/retreating. Phase Boots can help when chasing, you should have them on your quick inventory shortcut.

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Consider using following macros to control bear when chasing/harrasing (google 'dota autoexec console'):
edit: magicmerl, the guy who came up with macro above wrote a guide here. Mea culpa for (unintentional) stealing.

If you pushed all 3 sets of raxes and have 6-7k, you can get aditional macro for ultimate dagon bear (execute soulring -> dagon lvl3+) ^^.

Panic rooms

You control two units, abuse it!
Trap yourself in trees and block path with bear. Then either tp away (best case) or wait for rescue (make sure not to autoattack with Sylla unless you fight melees ofcourse).

Some of these chokepoints can be seen on map bellow (in gay pink color)/color]:

Ultimate dodge (target spell deflection)

You can use your ultimate to dodge incoming projectile-spells (in fact most targeted spells). Caveat is though that shape-shifting takes considerable time (2 secs) so this is not to be used for ministuns like failed Shackleshot.

You should start transforming in very last moment before impact as invulnerability lasts only splitsecond (0.25s or so).

Laning

Untill you get your level 5 play passively and safely, try to get as many lasthits as you can by using combined lasthit of Sylla and your bear.
Don't waste your time trying to gank but if there is chance of teamfight near your lane, make sure to be there.
Once you are lvl5 and your bear got Orb of Venom, you can go agressive and take down pretty much any hero 1v1.

If you are 'alone' on lane and fear gank, send your bear to nearest chokepoint and lasthit with Sylla. Downside is that bear can't see smoked enemies but then you are probably ****ed anyway.

After laning phase you can either join teamfights or kill roshan, on level 9 you can down him with ease, be ready to ressumon bear though.

Jungling tips

Jungling is pretty standard and straight-forward:
Pick your Stout Shield and Quelling Blade along with tangoes.
Summon your bear as soon as possible for early resummon!
Head for easy camp, farm it, make sure it can spawn at 1:00 by pulling unless you can get it fast enough. That should give you level 2, get synergy and head for medium/hard camp.
By the time you finish either camp, you should have resummon - you bear will be quite low.
Untill level 5, farm easy and medium camps, hard camp would damage bear too much.
Once you are level 5 and have entangle, go for hard camp. Most efficient way to farm hard camp is to go after strongest creep and after procing entangle, recalling bear and focusing the other creeps while entangle does most of the job for you - there is no need to tank entangled creep!
Itemwise, rush midas ASAP. Ideal time for midas is 7-8min, get glove via courier (don't mess with middars bottle ofc) and place it on you. Once you have Hand of Midas, use it on main and then transfer to Bear which at this time has more damage than main (also can proc entangle).
Where to go next is entirely up to you, if you aren't required on lanes, farm your *** off in jungle and modify your skill build - max bear and synergy first, while omitting ultimate untill level 9.
With uncontested jungle you should have your Radiance by 13-19. minute mark (depending on wheather you go for naked radiance or safer route of midas into double boots into radiance).

Role in teamfights

You generally want to shut down enemy carry. In your True Form you are tanky - so don't be afraid to close in on enemy.
Mostly you can just ignore enemy supports, your damage output is often worse then the one of enemy carry and if you focus supports, you often end up alone against enemy carry or two.

Patch 6.78

Bear gives 300 gold reward
Armlet now drains HP when active


Extremely high gold reward makes bear endangered specie and put's him on to-kill list right bellow your main. If your bear is low, go for ressumon, when chased, try to get a deny on bear.

This also means that you should do defensive items on bear and since this patch also 'fixed' armlet, AC is way to go.

Patch 6.79

Base movement speed increased from 315 to 325 (still 280 in True Form)
Spirit Bear XP bounty increased from 196 to 300
Jungle gives far les XP from big creeps
Ranged Heroes now get the same denied experience as melee heroes (instead of less)
Non-Ancient Neutrals now split XP with all heroes in the AoE instead of just the team that killed them

These changes basically make jungle less viable and offlane much more viable (even when considering changes to night vision, smoke etc).

Offlane LD needs XP a lot and that is why wave pulls are crucial early game, he needs lvl3 to easily recall bear, orb of venom to increase survivability, level 5 to increase killing potential with Entangle and last but not least lvl6 to be able to tank ganks and hide into trees/tp or run away.

Starting gold increase now arguably makes it possibilty to buy very early Orb of Venom which definitely increases survivability and decreases harass that low-hp supports can dish out on you.

End notes

Thanks for reading the guide, atm it's still work in progress and suggestions/corrections are welcome.

Most of the tricks here are 'stolen' from AdmiralBulldog whose understanding of Lone Druid is just amazing and has no match in pro scene (he has hundreds of games on this hero).

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Changelog

27.03.13 Published the guide
31.03.13 Many formatting changes
02.04.13 Added links section and Changelog
02.04.13 Added link to Admiral Bulldog's stream
02.04.13 Credited magicmerl for his macro that I borrowed (ehm, ehm, stole).
12.07.13 NERFED.
09.08.13 F&F section, updated macro a bit
21.09.13 Added jungling section. <-- CURRENT VERSION
00.00.00 <-- missed something? Lemme know in comment section!

Links

dota2wiki Lone druid

DotaCinema's basic YT guide

DotaBUFF Lone Druid statistics

Admiral Bulldog's stream VODs

Reddit's LD hero tricks