Elder Titan Offlane 7.09

About me

Hi everyone I'm The Worldsmith, and this is my Elder Titan's Guide. It's been a while that I have been playing Elder Titan and I am very happy to see that IceFrog is continuously buffing him. If you want to give me a chance, I’ll be happy to tell you about what I have learned over those battles, with pubs ranked, solo or among friends. I am French living in Thailand so I play in the South Est Asia region. This is by far the worst place to play a team based hero, but hey ... The in-create always prevails I must add that this guide is based on a Tanky offline Titan, you will see a lot of tips talking about the Blade Mail so don't get mad if you prefer a support ET, move on and write another guide that I would be happy to read!

Pros / Cons

Pros ✔ Initiation every 11 seconds ✔ Damage output ✔ Armor and magic resistance reduction ✔ Tankiness ✔ Versatility ✔ Scalable skills

Cons x Poor early-game x Poor farming ability x No reliable escape mechanism x Low mana pool x Hard to position x Channeling stomp

Pros
Elder Titan is a great pick in almost every situation. While he doesn't have an in-built escape, he can echo stomp] ]+ [[town portal scroll out of many danger.
His damage potential is high thanks to Earth Splitter.
having the effectiveness of stopping the enemy push every 11 seconds with Echo Stomp can save time for your ally to respawn.
ScoUting around with Astral Spirit and surprise the enemy with a deadly combo is the solution to a siege or when the enemy is turtling behind their tower.

Cons
If you end up getting ganked your only escape is a 1.7 channeling Echo Stomp which can seems like an eternity. Once it's cancelled you can KISS good bye to your skill until it reload.
The other problem is his slow farming, only Astral Spirit will help you land those last hits if you are under pressure.

Skills

ECHO STOMP	(Active): Elder Titan and his Astral Spirit both stomp the ground, damaging and knocking nearby enemy units unconscious around their locations. The Elder Titan stomp deals physical damage, while the Spirit stomp deals magical damage.
	CAST TIME: 1.7 RADIUS: 500 SLEEP DURATION: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 STOMP DAMAGE: 70 / 100 / 130 / 160 CAST POINT 0.4s 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 100
	Tips: 1 : - It is not a stunt, it's a sleep, any hero damage received will wake the hero up and cancel the marvelous combo coming. It is essential that you coordinate with your allies, especially that f..ing Tornado. 2 : - Using Blade Mail during the channeling won't work. Assess the situation, if you are focused use the Blade Mail first, than only start to stunt. 3 : - The range of this skill is huge, the reload only 11 seconds at level 4. Abuse it early game, do not hesitate, it will force Black King Bar and escape mechanism. Late game, when fights are short be more cautious you might regret an early stomp when enigma or void are around. 4 : - You need this skill to level 3 to guaranty that the Earth Splitter connects. level it at level 5 so you can use all your potential ASAP. 5 : - There is a small moment just after the echi stomp where you can damage the target without waking it up. If you happened to stomp a hero next to you, hit it once quickly, it's a free hit. 6 : - If you stomp without Astral Spirit you have it as a bonus, it applies even if Astral Spirit is not learned. so yes, try to go for short range Echo Stomp. with the same logic skilling Echo Stomp when your hero is level 1 can damage a lot many heroes. 7 : - Get used to the Echo Stomp timing, you can last hit one or two creeps in front of the sleeper and run back, ET doesn't need a taunt, some actions speak by themselves.. 8 : - Early Bounty Rune can be stolen using the stomp channeling at 1.7 second on the clock, you have 2 full seconds to take the rune and run or/and teleport unless they have a stunt check the lineup before going for an audacious play 9 : - Hear Press the Attack? Slark is after you? Luna is approaching? Pop the blademail first and then, only, proceeds to destroy what's left of them with your combo.

ASTRAL SPIRIT	(Active): Elder Titan sends forth his Astral Spirit, damaging any units it passes through. When the spirit rejoins the Titan, it grants bonus damage and movement speed for each unit it damaged.
	DAMAGE: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 DURATION: 8.0 BUFF DURATION: 9.0 BONUS SPEED (CREEPS): 1% BONUS SPEED (HEROES): 5% BONUS DAMAGE (CREEPS): 6 / 9 / 12 / 15 BONUS DAMAGE(HEROES): 15 / 30 / 45 / 60 CAST POINT 0.4s 16 80/ 90/ 100/ 110
	Tips: 1 : - The cast point is 0.4, which means that once you selected the area for the skill, there is a delay of 0.4 sec. Sometimes it feels strange, you can be surprised by how late it come out, I would recommend you to use this time to cast Echo Stomp it will coordinate perfectly. 2 : - Micro your spirit to make him approach from behind the enemy, you can sometimes stomp out of their vision in the trees. 3 : - harassing the heroes with it isn't a good idea, you don't want to push the lane, unless you can last hit something. 4 : - Use it to scout freely, when an invisible unit is touched you will hear a sound. 5 : - try to position your hero for when the Astral Spirit is called back, manipulation of the Astral Spirit is the key value for a experienced ET. 6 : - On a defensive position send out your spirit to the wave of creeps and further while your hero is walking back aligned to the lane, your Astral Spirit will come back for an Echo Stomp and you will stay out of danger. 7 : - Your spirit can't walk when inside the Chronosphere but it can Echo Stomp!. 8 : - Your spirit carry the Natural Order aura on the magical resistance part, if you don't want to take part in the fight, keep the spirit roaming the battle. 9 : - On an offensive position, send your spirit in the jungle to collect some precious damage, call it back when your hero is in the middle of the creep wave, proceed to right click heroes to death. 10 : - The spirit will return not only damage but also movement speed, that's the reason why some players are tempted to play it as a carry, early game you can chase down a confident safe-laner or escape from dangerous situation. 11 : - The astral spirit do not wake up sleeping units!

NATURAL ORDER	(Aura/passive): Reduces all elements to their basic levels, removing base armor and magic damage resistance from nearby enemy units. The armor reduction is centered on the hero, while the magic armor reduction is centered around Astral Spirit.
	RADIUS: 350 BASE ARMOR REDUCTION: 40% / 60% / 80% / 100% BASE RESIST REDUCTION: 40% / 60% / 80% / 100%
	Tips: 1 : - There is 2 different aura split up between the Titan and his Astral Spirit, Titan get the base armor reduction, the Astral Spirit get the magic resistance reduction. 2 : - If the Astral Spirit is not casted or it is not learnt, the titan will benefit both aura. 3 : - Base armor is the white number on your hero stats. It's based on a fixed number for most heroes, you can't modify it by buying items. The agility heroes gain more agility when they level up, more agility is more armor for them, this armor is base armor, you can consider it gone around the titan. 4 : - Base Magic resistance works the same way, so if you face let's say Slark, you will remove 100% of his base resistance attribute, that kind of heroes will rely on them until they buy additional statistic like Ultimate Orb, Eye of Skadi or Manta Style. 5 : - In my experience, the best item to use with this aura is blademail. I am not going through math on this one, you will have to trust me. Only once your enemy will see what happen, they will be extremely cautious on attacking you. I'll develop more on Items section. 6 : - Leveling up this aura in combination of Astral Spirit without Echo Stomp can let you destroy your direct enemy in any lane, but dota is a team game, you will most of the time, be stopped in your right click frenzy.

EARTH SPLITTER	(Active): Sends forth a jagged crack in front of Elder Titan. After 3 seconds, the crack implodes, slowing movement while dealing damage to each enemy based on their maximum life. Half of the damage dealt is Magical damage, while the other half is Physical damage. Up-gradable by Aghanim's Scepter.
	EXPLODE DELAY: 3.14 CRACK WIDTH: 315 CRACK LENGTH: 2400 MOVEMENT SLOW: 30% / 40% / 50% SLOW DURATION: 3 / 4 / 5 MAX HP AS DAMAGE: 30% / 40% / 50% SCEPTER SLOW/DISARM DURATION: 4 / 5 / 6 CAST POINT 0.4s 100 125 175 225
	Tips: 1 : When having Aghanim's Scepter, the debuff disarms enemies and slows them down even more, if you know how hard it is to land a good ulti, you know that putting all your precious money on it is a big risk. 2 : If chased, use it to create a path to safety, run through it, it helps! 3 : The natural combo Astral Spirit -> Echo Stomp -> Earth Splitter is your main source of damage, but, IF you can twist it this way, Earth Splitter - > wait 5 sec -> Astral Spirit -> Echo Stomp, you are guaranteed a maximum of crowd control. Only it is extremely hard to place, you will need an acolyte to do that Magnus, Enigma or Void ally or enemy is ok :D. 4 : Expect around 25% health gone if you hit someone with it, so if the enemy pop his blademail you better be careful on a Pudge or Centaur Warrunner , I've been instantly killed at multiple occasions. eul's scepter yourself is a good counter. 5 : The damage from this ability do not go through bkb but it can stop channeling through bkb, Enigma's or cristal maiden's ultimate will be stopped ! 6 : If Rubick steal it from you, step in it with blademail, problem solved. 7 : Do not be shy on using it, the cool-down is low and ... it is not the most important skill early game. Late game, Don't use it for nothing you will regret it. 8 : If used straight away without stunt, the surprise is total, the explosion will give your team a big psychological advantage, at many occasion I saw 5 enemy running away from each other for a couple of second, enough for my team to take down one of them .

My personal preference

1 : Wait for the first seconds before select which skill to cast first, the Echo Stomp is an amazing offensive/defensive skill but one point in Astral Spirit could help last hitting and turning an horrible offlane survival on to a casual couch potato game-play. 2 : Make sure that you have 3 points in Echo Stomp by level 5, you need this sleep duration to land your ultimate. 3 : Do not under-estimate the ultimate upgrade by level 12, since a few patch it is now valuable to upgrade.

Items

This item gives you the stats to survive early game, you will face multiple enemies and the activation is a surprise element when you are chased under your tower. If you know how surprising it is, you know it's fabulous against heroes like Bristleback, Undying, Skywrath Mage...

It is not only refilling your mana, it also creates an invisible added one when you are full mana. If you cast without using it, you are doing it wrong, the only excuse possible is that the ring is on cool-down. The Hp Loss will be covered by the next item in the list in seconds.

Can be put in the backpack to avoid having anything on the ground. When you start last hitting take it back from your inventory, you have those 6 seconds before its reactivated. Depending on the difficulty of the lineup you are facing you will have to chose between those boots or Soul Ring first. I, most of the time, go for Soul Ring first, The speed added by the tranquil boots is very significant, during team fight think twice before right clicking you will lose that movement speed.

1 : - The synergy between Natural Order and blademail will execute any right clicker and goes through Black King Bar. 2 : - The right damage reduction will assure you to be taken seriously in team fight, you will return twice the damage received with Natural Order. 3 : - Against AOE damage skills like Freezing Field or Eclipse, it's a massacre. 4 : - Let single target hero like slark, blood seeker or even PA go at you, it's fantastic. 5 : - The blademail timing is extremely important late game but, better activate too early then too late. 6 : - You can play who's faster with Legion Commander, bait the Duel. If you are faster at activating your Blade Mail right before the Duel start, you have all chances to destroy her. 7 : - Slark is my personal favorite hero to counter, when he pounce at you, pop the blad mail, his Dark Pact activated (returned) you can stomp him and ultimate him, he is dead! 8 : - The usual Invoker ******* will use Eul's Scepter of Divinity to setup his maximum damage combo, blade mail won't allow you to survive on it's own, you need a Hood of Defiance. Anyway, he won't do it twice.

Because You never get enough armor reduction, ho and get some more armor, on top of that armor. Only get this when you finished the "Trinity" build.

Added to your AOE combo should be illegal, the slow added will keep the enemy team from flying.

The last talent is +15 armor or +100 Astral spirit damage, both are DAMN good! I'll let you experiment them but if you take Heart of Tarrasque the armor will give you a big amount of effective HP.

Radiance wakes your enemies up! Do you imagine having to deactivate your radiance before every initiation ? no man, not on ET and not on any of his allies. You will hate that item. Shrapnel, Ion Shell and Rot are in the same category of game breaker for ET.

It just doesn't work for me, I had some easy win games and it didn't add up anything, I had some hard one, and it didn't add up neither. I have no further reason, it just doesn't work.

I which I could use this, but the mana cost is too high. So many time I had to die because I chose invisibility over armor or escape item. It just doesn't make sense.

This my friends, this, is the dream, I tried, ho god knows I tried, but the refresher comes at a time where the enemy team is well aware of ET potential, they will rat, never group up, try to disable you, never let you give that piece art of a combo you took one hour to build. But if you can do it, you can die now, in peace.

Survive the fight, stay away from any problems, you are the backup, the last line, the more you live, the more combo you get done. Elder Titan is by far the main focus when it comes to late game, you are big and easy to spot, nobody fear your stomp when everybody got his BKB ready. You have to prepare yourself with escape items. But you need to tank, so i suggest to select only one of those.

The choice between Eul and force staff is always hard. Force Staff gives an obvious advantage against those desperate right clickers Abaddon, Ursa, Riki, and Eul's Scepter of Divinity can disable it for a while. glimmer cap to use on your allies and because it gives magic resistance without using your mana pool.

Ranked Play

Now that we are done with the basics, I'll explain the main way I play ET.

Early game: The suicide lane. This is where you belong for now, offlane is your territory, you will have a hard time and only your experience will keep you alive. place that ward you bought, don't bother buying courriers or giving away you precious Tango. try to keep your ego from behing aggressive and gather the more XP and money as possible. For me to improve, I set a goal, no death before minute 15! This will drive their safelane insane. Last hit with the Astral Spirit and watch out for any missing hero, get the Bounty Rune as soon as you can without missing on creeps waves. Buy another ward if necessary, get a Town Portal Scroll always ready, if they want to kill you, they will have to commit at least 2 stunt chained and a lot of damage to stop you from tp. Spoiler: Click to view Since 7.06 it is even easyer to get some XP out of denies. (70%) (expected TP reminder? GOOD)

Middle game: Teach them respect. So, buy minute 15 you will see something happening, I call it the under-estimation of the Titan. They basicaly assume that the safelane can handle you, that a farmed ET can't be dangerous. Ask for someone to replace you top because their trilane may have already switched position, look for an opportunity to gank their safelane carry if they decide that he is find on his own. If you have your Blade Mail and your Earth Splitter ready to strike, you can bait a gank, and fallow up on your ultimate. Every TP you will do will have huge impact on the lane. If your mid player is smart he will come gank top and earn the kill you had dream of all this time.

Late game: Waiting for the opportunity. Now you have all the armor you need, every ennemy know your power. They won't engage without knowing where is the Titan. The waiting game start. Enigma, Earthshaker, Clinkz, Void, Silencer, Magnus ... they are all after you! They will wait for your move, if you can be more patient, even if 3 of your heroes are down, you can turn off the table! Yyou can destroy a lineup. Getting them rekt brutaly by one ultimate, because You could wait. Stay on the back, buy wards, smoke and TP, your team must know who they are playing with, ELder Titan is made for high level team-play, something that low MMR players don't expect. sadely.

ET lovers please help me

[*] For any comments please help me with this guide, I know I am not the best ET player and I need your contribution. You can upvote for the work done or downvote, but please give me your feedback. Any English mistake, stats mistakes or changes I didn't spot in the new meta. I do this for this hero to be more popular, not for showing off myself.

Thank you!