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How to play Lone Druid... The pro way.

August 3, 2012 by Mukl
Comments: 4    |    Views: 5279    |   

Build 1
Build 2

Build 1: Jungle build

DotA2 Hero: Lone Druid

Offense

Damage 46-50

Defense

Armor 3.36

Other

Movement Speed 315

Attributes

Strength 69.5
Agility 91.5
Intelligence 48

Basic Stats

Health 1803
Mana 858

Purchase Order

Jungle starting items

Jungle earlygame items

Core items for Druid

Core items for bear

Luxury for either



Hero Skills

Summon Spirit Bear

1 3 5 7

Rabid

9 12 13 14

Synergy

2 4 8 10

True Form

6 11 16

True Form Return

6 11 16

Stats

15 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25


How to play Lone Druid... The pro way.

Mukl
August 3, 2012


Spell descriptions

Summon spirit bear:
Summons a bear which can fight for you, equip items, and gains passives the more you level this skill up.
Rabid:
Increases the attack and movement speed of you and your bear.
Synergy:
Upgrades attributes and abilities:
Increased Spirit Bear Damage: 10/20/30/40
Increased Spirit Bear Movement Speed: 10/20/30/40
Increased Rabid Duration: 10/20/30/40
Increased True Form Health: 100/200/300/400

Battle cry:
Increases the damage and armour of the spirit bear and lone druid
True form:
Lone Druid morphs himself into a raging bear, losing his ranged advantage and some base movement speed, but gaining melee power as well as the Battle Cry ability. He can morph freely between druid and bear form. Synergy increases the druids health in his true form.

Introduction

Throughout my games as Lone druid, i have always prefered to start in the jungle, but it is entirly optional. the reason i say this is because you can pick up an aegis of immortals from roshan with your vlads. The vlads is also a great help because it not only give you lifesteal, it is an aura, therefore giving your meatshield (bear) lifesteal too. With a vlad, jungling can never go wrong. Laning is a useful start because it gives the opportunity of first blood, and the opportunity to get a few kills in the bag. unfortunaly laning can be quite dangerous because lone druid is a little weak earlygame, until the bear has the entangle spell. once he has that, the real game begins for lone druid.

Pros/Cons

Pros:

Powerful ganker
can kill most enemies in a 1:1 fight
can solo roshan
High DPS
Ranged/Melee attacks


Cons:
Low first blood chance
Quite item dependant
Requires some getting used to

Earlygame - Midgame

It is important if you are jungling that you pick up a vlads as soon as possible. once you have the vlad, farming goes very fast. you get faster kills and gold and a good sum of exp. as soon as you have your vlads, rush a skull basher on both you and your bear. why? hehe because you get 75% chance to stun your enemy! 25% from your skullbasher, 25% from the bears and 25% from the bear's entangle spell. this means that once you and your bear are attacking an enemy they are done for. Please take note, this only works with you in beast form, which i reccomend staying in from level 6 until the end.

When starting in a lane, it is important, as with any hero, to get some boots. this is why i go for power treads. after getting that, rush your skull basher, and once you have that get a skullbasher for the bear. after getting those, get yourself an MKB for that 0.01 second stun and the damage. you will now be full of stuns and disables. (pro). go to roshan once you have the 2 skullbashers and he will be stunned to heaven high. use the bear as a meatshield to protect you from damage, and when you are done, simply summon another one.

Lategame

By now you should be the centre of attention. the reason being is that you have 3 dissables, with a 25% chance on each. You should be raking in the kills with minimal deaths and your aegis to save you. Kill roshan every 10 minutes. by this stage in the game you should only buy damage boosting items such as an MKB and a Battle fury. keep those only for yourself, dont worry about your bear, use him only for the stuns. In my history ive had k/ds such as 16:2 and even 33:1. this is because i got some kills earlygame, and the most important dota 2 formula: kills earlygame = kills lategame.

Be sure to stay in beast form, as you get the skullbasher chance from yourself too (25%) whereas if you stay as druid your chance is only 10% to stun. This is why it is important to level synergy too, as you and your bear's attackspeed rockets like crazy. you need damaging items so that you deal maximum damage during your stun time and so the enemy get killed before they get away. This is why a blinkdagger may come in handy for chases.

Gameplay

Playing lone druid is quite simple, you just select both your bear and yourself and attack someone (preferably from behind to stop running away). Make sure that you STAY IN BEAST FORM to maximise damage and stuns. only try to pick off lone enemies because in teamfights he often doesnt last long, like most heroes. this is why a shadow blade might come in handy for escapes. In earlygame laning use your bear upfront to kill creeps while you ranged them with your ranged attacks. if you have difficult lane enemies stay in druid form to avoid harassment. when your bear gets low on HP, summon another one to avoid the backslash damage. this can come in dangerous when you are on low health as it can deal 400 health as damage.

Guide Discussion
Quote | PM | +Rep by jaslam » August 3, 2012 2:11am | Report
hmm.. I'm a fan of druid - I'm also a fan of the jungle build - I like your items, and content of the guide, but a couple of things to consider.

if your rushing vladz - why get boots? why not just get a ring of regen and ring of protection, and give both to the bear (as he is tanking neuts)? that's a 500 gold faster vladz.

Also - if you're jungling - you don't need to level your spirit form straight away. becuase your jungling anyway. If you're getting ganked a lot of course level it. but other than that, getting another level of synergy or rabid at 6, will make your bear stronger, if you have vladz already you don't need the life steal anyway as the bear is doing all the work. your MS drops from 315 to 280, so take that in to consideration when you don't have rabid skill yet.

SNY could also be an option for Druid - maim added to the mix almost guarantees a kill on a hero who can't get away. you also forgot a BKB..

From the looks of your luxury items - it would seem you never get passed a basher for both before the game is over (which is fair, as long as you won!) but in my experience with junglers, time is an issue (especially around level 4-10) - which is why early levels of rabid help. the faster you can clear the creep camps, gank - wait for respawn, clear camps, gank - etc the greater your gold per second. a quick 6-8 min midas may also resolve that, and help you level faster.

but +1 for content and bash build (also a personal fav!!)

jaslam


Unremarkable (17)
Posts: 298
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Quote | PM | +Rep by Sefi » August 3, 2012 2:34am | Report
I feel like this guide is much too cut and dry and doesn't give enough explanation on how to play the hero. How about info on micro-managing the bear as you farm? How long to jungle until emerging and at what levels can you take which creep camps? When can you start farming ancients? I think a guide should assume that the person knows nothing at all about the capabilities of the hero and they should be fully elaborated on for a successful guide.

I also don't agree with your item choices, or rather your lack of item choices. A quick vlads is desired on any druid, but you mention nothing about boots after basic boots except on the second build, and for Sylla only. Where's the Phase Boots on Bear so you don't accidentally block him while he's chasing? Or even any boots at all? What about Hand of Midas for quick farm? A quelling blade on the bear to make farming easier? No upgrade to Abyssal for on-command stun from your already-core Skull Basher? How about his capabilities as a pusher immediately after jungling?

There's a lot of item options I feel are very basic on Sylla that aren't mentioned at all, and this combined with the general lack of information makes this guide very underwhelming.

Sefi


Unremarkable (3)
Posts: 68
Quote | PM | +Rep by Jonathan Hancock » August 16, 2012 7:30am | Report
Boots and Tango, already a bad guide.
Shadow Blade hue hue hue, have you even tried this build in pubs, I am sure you would get the same feedback.

Battlefury guys guys please inform him why you do not get battlefury on just any hero.

Jonathan Hancock


Unremarkable (2)
Posts: 50
Quote | PM | +Rep by Mukl » August 19, 2012 3:20am | Report
when starting in the jungle, getting boots is important because it helps you get from camp A to camp B faster. tangoes are a quick heal incase something goes wrong. shadow blade is situational, and this guide is for pubs. battle fury isnt nessacary, but is also situational. the regen it provides is helpful, and the damage helps alot.

Mukl


Posts: 14
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/m

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