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DotA2 Hero: Witch Doctor

Purchase Order

Starting Items

Core

Tranquil Boots

Magic Wand

Aghanim's Scepter

Luxury

Black King Bar

Shadow Blade

Linken's Sphere

Scythe of Vyse

Hero Skills

Talents

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1.	Introduction
2.	Skills
3.	Items
4.	Gameplay
5.	Summary

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Introduction

This guide is for playing an agressive Witch Doctor. Use this guide when you have at least one more hero in the team that can help buying wards, courrier and other support items. But bear in mind that although this guide is for playing more of a ganker role you still gona have to help your team buy wards.

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Skills

Paralising Cask: Early game use the stun to get closer to your target to cast Maledict. Mid to Late game use it to disable the enemy team. The ideal situation is to stun heroes alone with no creeps around, but this isn't always possible, so sometimes you have to hope for good bounces. Just be aware if someone on the enemy team has a Linken's Sphere as it will cancel the whole spell. In that case cast it on someone else that is close by, even a creep if needed.

Voodoo Restoration: It's a very good heal but costs a lot of mana, use it during and/or after teamfights to heal yourself and your team. You are not gonna level this skill until later in the game as all the mana you have are gonna be focused on killing heroes early on.

Maledict: Bread and butter skill for Witch Doctor, the more damage the target(s) take after cursed the more damage Maledict will do. It has a short range and small AoE, but it is perfectly possible to get more then one hero cursed at the same time, aim for that. After the enemy is cursed trow everything you have at them, including but not limited to the kitchen sink. Bear in mind the very long cooldown, so you need to try and land a good Maledic on teamfights because you only gonna have the change to use it once.

Death Ward: Insane DPS ultimate, the drawbacks is that it is channeled and you can't move it so if the enemy gets away from the ward it's not very effective. Still, when maxed out and with Scepter the ward deals an insane 2500 DPS, assuming you get to hit all 5 heroes. That's 20k damage over 8 seconds. You just have to position yourself properly to hit the most possible heroes whitout going into the middle of the teamfight and dying or getting stuned in 2 seconds.

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Items

Start with some basic regen and branches. Get either wards or courrier depending on what your team needs. Usually when playing this build you gonna go to the long lane and not play as a babysitter, so it makes more sense to get wards so that you can block the pull.

Tranquil Boots give you a good move speed so you can roam and gank between lanes, and also has a nice hp regen skill. The other boots can be purchased as well like Arcana for mana, Phase for mobility and Treads for HP, but Witch doctor should not be in the middle of the fight so you are better off buying these cheap boots and saving for that Scepter, just learn to position yourself.

Aghanim's Scepter is THE core item on a killer WD, it boosts the damage on your alredy very scary ultimate and makes it hit the entire enemy team. Get is ASAP, just don't forget to buy wards in between, never let the map go completely dark.

Now you just have to make sure you get a good channel off, positioning is always the key, but if you have the money one of these 3 items will help:

BKB: Standard magic immunity, if the enemy team has a lot of AoE and magical stuns this will keep your channel going. Activating BKB will break your channel though, so always remember to activate it BEFORE ulting.

Shadow Blade: If the enemy has some dangerous phisical stuns that BKB wont stop, get this. They can't hit you while invisible and Shadow Blade doesn't break channels so you can activate it even after having started your ult. Just be aware that AoE stuns will still hit you.

Linken's Sphere: If the enemy team only have a few single target disables, this is a very good item to get. It is specially good if the enemy team has a Silencer as BKB and Shadow Blade won't stop his ult, but Linken's Sphere will.

Sheepstick: Amazing late game item on any caster, get it if you can afford it. It will help keeping your heal on for a long time.

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Gameplay

Early: You are not suposed to mid, try to pick a lane with a strong partner, possibly another stun. Examples: Slardar, Sand King, Earth Shaker, Skeleton King, Sven, or any other hero that can help you dish out some damage at the cursed target. Depending on the enemy line up you may attempt a kill by level 3. Choose the easiest target to kill, wait for him to come a little close and initiate with stun folowed buy Maledict. Your partner then use his spells on said target, bash him a bit and if everything goes fine he will back up with just a hint of hp and Maledict will finish him off. Be sure to ask your lane partner to use his spells AFTER the target is cursed, so that all damage gets amplified. Also you may try to curse both enemy heroes at once, just wait for them to get close to each other then stun/curse. After the fisrt kill things escalate very quickly due to the gold/xp advantage. Just keep killing in your lane untill level 6, or gank mid if you get a good rune on your side of the river and your mid hero is able to help. Due to the nature of Maledict it is very hard for you to kill alone before level 6.

Mid Game: You should have your boots and maybe some parts of your Scepter, keep the map warded and look for lanes where you and your team can kill. You can kill heroes 1v1 very easily with the stun/maledict/ult combo, just make sure that the hero you are ganking can't stun you or blink away. When using this combo on teamfights, try to position yourself inside the trees or up/down a cliff to ult, this is to ensure a longer channel before someone disables you. Sometimes if you can't avoid a stun, wait for them to trow it at you to then ult. Remember to proper place your maledict hitting as many heroes as you can, just don't suicide trying to do that. After Maledict is casted you may have to move back a little in order to ult from a safe position. Remember positioning is key for such a fragile hero.

Late game: You should have your core and maybe parts of the luxury items. You will be mostly participating on team fights by now. You are never to be directly in the center of the fight, wait for someone to initiate, then trow your stun and maledict from the outskirts of the battle and position yourself to ult. After your ult is over turn on the heal and go stand next to your team, you can trow another stun by now. If you can, try to manouver and cut the escape route for the enemy team with your ult, so they have your entire team on one side and a death spilling ward on the other.

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Summary

Witch Doctor is a very fun support to play due to his killer nature. I cannot stress enough how much positioning is crucial on this hero. The position you are when you cast Maledict and Ult may mean the difference between being dead in 2 seconds and a Rampage.