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7 Votes

ITEMS - A Closer LOOK

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ITEMS - A Closer LOOK

1.	Introduction
2.	BOOTS
3.	Unique Attack Modifiers/ ORB Effects
4.	ITEMS
5.	Log

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Introduction

Hello everybody, my name is EEON and I am writing this guide for those of you who started playing DOTA, know the items but are having some difficulties with the item choice, or just don't know all their perks and how to properly use them.

Keep in mind that in order to be an above medium player you have to ADAPT! You can't always build the suggested items and then when you lose tell yourself that there was nothing more you could have done.
I remember the first time I played I didn't even knew what items were, my roommate told me "dude, what the hell? buy some tangos and some ironwood branches" and I was: "whaat? man, I m killing creeps here, leave me alone" and you know the rest, I'm sure most of you went through this phase.

AAAAAnyway, I hope you will enjoy reading and find this guide useful.

* I have decided to add a "When I Was A Noob" section to some items, just for fun.
* CTRL + F to find an item faster - I didn't think this would become such a large wall of text when I've started.

//it is not a complete guide, still a work in progress so PLEASE let me know if I made any mistakes or if I forgot something. TY

LEGEND:
- STR AGI INT - hero primary attribute (strength agility intelligence)
- AS - attack speed
- MS - movement speed
- HP - hit points
- UAM - unique attack modifier or ORB effect
- TP - refers to teleport or Town Portal Scroll
- DpS - damage per second
- AoE - area of effect

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BOOTS

BOOTS, the most bought item in DOTA, yes speed is essential. The naked Boots of Speed will give you a standard +50 Movement Speed, this should be your first item bought, after your start-up items of course. The standard movement speed of heroes is usually around 300, so adding 50 will increase your MS with about 17%, not much you say? well every point counts when you are running for your life and there is Lucifer after you. What you need to know is that buying two pair of boots will not increase further more your speed, it will only take into account the one with higher MS for example if you have both Boots of Travel and Phase Boots, you will only get +100 MS from travel and lose the 50 from phase, but the active still works though..so as a rule of thumb, a boot is enough.

Power Treads
+50 Movement Speed
+8 Selected Attribute
+30 Attack Speed

Active: Switch Attribute - Switches the selected attribute from Strength to Intelligence, Intelligence to Agility, and Agility to Strength.

Power Treads are the most purchased boots in the history, they give you the standard +50 MS, +30 attack speed aaand on top of that +8 to an attribute of your choice - this is really useful if you know how to properly use it.
A, you can build Power Treads using either a Robe of the Magi or Band of Elvenskin instead of the standard Belt of Strength.

Back to tread switching.. very important. 8 STR means 152HP and small amount of HP regen, 8 INT means 104 mana and some mana regen, 8 AGI means about 1 armor and some AS and +8 damage if your hero is STR INT AGI.

It is important to keep your treads on STR when taking damage or when running away from a teamfight like the chicken that you are. Keep your treads on INT when casting a spell so that the total mana you consume is a smaller percentage of your mana pool..it s kinda mathy so here s an example. Let s say that you are a Wraith King with 20 INT so about 260 mana. If you cast Wraithfire Blast -140 mana you will remain with 120 mana, not enough for another stun. If you tread switch to INT before you cast, you will have around 360 mana, stun -140 you will remain with 220 mana which is around 60% of your mana pool. When you put your treads back on STR, you will return to our initial mana pool of 260, but your total mana will be 60% of that which is 156 mana! tadaaa!!! not much, I know, but in this situation you have another stun or Reincarnation, it could save your life - not actually because Reincarnation costs 160 mana now (died once because of this), but you get the idea. I don't know if I m doing the math right but you get the point.

The same principle applies when you are regenerating from a Healing Salve or Bottle, switch your treads to AGI (lose 152 HP or 104 mana) so the total amount of HP/MANA that you heal is a higher percentage of your current HP/MANA, after that switch back to your attribute of choice.

Heroes that get Power Treads are usually carries that require attack speed, not much more to say, any right clicker that prefers AS over the bonus movement speed from the Phase Boots.

Phase Boots
+50 Movement Speed
+24 Damage

Active: Phase - Increases your movement speed by 16% for 4 seconds and lets you move through other units. Using items or abilities will cause the effect to end prematurely.

Phase Boots gives you the same +50 MS as Power Treads, but when active, for 4 seconds you get a 16% movement boost (so around 56 if your hero has 350 MS) AND you can move through units! Think of how many times you were running away for your life and you've died because your own creeps blocked you? Yes, happened to me too. Or trying to kill an enemy low on HP and get ****blocked by his friends. Phase Boots helps in these type of situations.
Also it gives you +24 damage, this helps A LOT with the last hitting in the early game.
If you use any items or spells during the 4 second phase time, you will end the bonus movement speed, so when you are running, run forest run, don t stop to stun unless you are certain you will get a kill or something.

Usually Phase Boots are picked up by heroes that want a lot of movement speed to chase the enemy down or escape easier like Bounty Hunter, Juggernaut, Phantom Assassin, Lifestealer, Death Prophet and the list continues.

Arcane Boots
+55 Movement Speed
+250 Mana

Active: Replenish Mana - Restores 135 Mana to all allies within 600 AoE of the carrier.

Arcane Boots are the boots of choice for INT heroes with high mana costs or that spam their spells like Bane, Zeus, Lina, Omniknight.. or for STR heroes that have a low INT gain Earthshaker, Timbersaw, Magnus, I even saw them on a support Sven. And there is Nyx Assassin, always wondered why he is AGI.

The Active will replenish 135 mana to your surrounding allies, really good in the eraly game, helps your team a lot. The problem is that it costs 35 mana to activate, so you need mana to give mana and actually you get only 100 while your team gets 135, sacrifice yourself for the team. The carrier also receives +250 mana and +55 MS, a little more than treads.

Tranquil Boots
+90 Movement Speed
+12 HP/sec Regeneration
+4 Armor

Passive: Break - Whenever you attack or get attacked you lose the HP regeneration and 30 Movement Speed for 13 seconds.

Tranquil Boots used to be the best boots there were, but not any more. It sounds really good right? +90 MS, 12 HP regeneration and 4 armor on top of that with only 975 GOLD. I mean it gives you 90 MS, it s like having two boots and massive 12 regeneration in the early game is huge.. BUT, but there is a catch, of course: if you attack or get attacked you LOSE 30 movement speed and the precious 12 HP regen for 13 seconds, so 60 MS and 4 armor is still pretty good.

Nowadays, the only heroes that get Tranquil Boots are support heroes or heavy casters, that don't attack too much Crystal Maiden, Lion, Lich, Phoenix. Before the 6.79 patch it was a common purchase on tanky heroes that rely on armor in the eraly stages of the game like Axe or Centaur Warrunner , a cool trick now is to put your boots on the ground while you are killing creeps and then pick them up when going from one camp to another.

Boots of Travel
+100 Movement Speed

Active: Teleport - Teleports you to an allied non-hero unit or structure after 3 seconds. While channeling, you gain 200 AoE vision on the target and a visible ping will appear on your allies' minimaps.

Boots of Travel are the ultimate boots, +100 MS and a free Town Portal Scroll every 50 seconds. You can teleport to an allied creep, this includes dominated/summoned or Necronomicon units. Boots of Travel are the end-game boots, where it is important to TP to the enemy base and back home to defend. I saw one replay of a base trade situation where they used a Batrider made his way through the trees with blink and Firefly to the enemy base and used Necronomicon and then the whole team TP to them and took the ancient. Another cool trick is to smoke a dominated creep and send it to the enemy base and TP.

The most important aspect of Boots of Travel is the "TRAVEL" part. It acts like a TP scroll, but you can teleport anywhere there is a creep, not just buildings. The same rules applies:
- double clicking it will send you to the fountain
- it destroys the trees around the area where you teleport
- shares cooldown and mana cost (75) with Town Portal Scroll
- you get 200 AoE vision where you are teleporting
- using some abilities like Shadow Walk, Skeleton Walk or a Shadow Blade will not interrupt the channeling of the TP
- will not remove Ghost Scepter unlike Town Portal Scroll
- standard channeling time is 3 seconds, but it increases if you teleport to a building (NOT the fountain) and other allied heroes have TPed within 1100 AoE of that building in the last 25 seconds - we will elaborate in the Town Portal Scroll section
Boots of Travel is an item that any hero can carry in the late game, the only exception being Tinker, that uses them in his annoying pushing strategies and is usually rushed.

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Unique Attack Modifiers/ ORB Effects

Unique attack modifiers (or orb effects) are a special buff added to your standard right click attack (armor reduction, lifesteal, slows) and generally do not stack. The ORB or UAM is either given by a spell (or passive) that your hero has or from items. Here is a list of UAM from the specific skill set of heroes:

Anti-Mage - Mana Break
Broodmother - Incapacitating Bite
Drow Ranger - Frost Arrows
Enchantress - Impetus
Invoker - Forge Spirit's attack
outworld devourer - Arcane Orb
Sand King - Caustic Finale
Silencer - Glaives of Wisdom
Viper - Poison Attack
Weaver - Geminate Attack - the second hit

No longer orbs:)
Huskar - Burning Spear
Ursa - Fury Swipes
Clinkz - Searing Arrows
Diffusal Blade

I think these are all.. anyway, a cool trick to use is called ORB Walking. You just move orb attack, move, orb attack and so on; by doing so you will sneak in a few more hits. This works very well with spell that slow like Frost Arrows or Poison Attack.

Also, very important, the orb attack will NOT attract creep aggro - so if you attack an enemy hero with Glaives of Wisdom, the creeps will not respond by attacking you back, that's why heroes like Drow Ranger, Viper or Clinkz are such great harassers in the lane.

Note that ORB Walking only works with arrow effect orbs, on manual cast; you WILL attract creep aggro if you have Lifesteal or Desolator and attack an enemy hero.

Here are the ITEMS that give you UAM:

Desolator
Eye of Skadi
Maelstrom
Mjollnir
Orb of Venom
Morbid Mask
Mask of Madness
Helm of th Dominator
Satanic

We will speak about each of them later on. Now, like I have said before, the ORBs DO NOT STACK..well most of them, there are a few exceptions. If you get more than ONE orb, here is how they are prioritized:

1. Conditional Modifiers - Modifiers that only occur on some attacks and are not controlled by the player, such as Maelstrom and Mjollnir (chance-based) - so this means that Mjollnir cand work with a Desolator, but it overrides it when chain lightning occurs.

2. Ability Modifiers - Modifiers granted by Hero abilities. Of course there are exceptions - arrow ORB effects Arcane Orb, Frost Arrows, Poison Attack, will be overridden by other UAM, like a Helm of the Dominator on Drow Ranger, IF they are set on AUTOCAST. If you MANUALLY cast, the arrow effect will occur.

3. Standard Modifiers - Modifiers granted by items, with the oldest one in a Hero's inventory taking priority (priority can be shifted by dropping an item and picking it up again).

More exceptions: Eye of Skadi or Orb of Venom, and Lifesteal can be active at the same time. Eye of Skadi will also stack with Clinkz Searing Arrows, though only if autocast (not manually cast). So the max number of worknig UAMs you can have on a hero are for example Eye of Skadi, Satanic, Mjollnir.

When I Was A Noob: I used to buy more ORBs on the same hero, actually I did this a few weeks ago, build Diffusal Blade on a Juggernaut (don't normally do) because the enemy carry was a Wraith King and after a few kills I thought to myself..Hmm they have tanky heroes, I should buy a Desolator and that I did.. It was ok, we won, but at the end I saw the NOOBNES - HA! Joke's on you because now Diffusal Blade is not an UAM anymore. Back to the items.

Desolator
+60 Damage

Passive: Corruption - Your attacks reduce the target's armor by 7 for 15 seconds. This effect works on buildings. Additional attacks on the same target will renew the effect timer rather than stacking.

Desolator is the most picked Unique attack modifier out of all the items. It gives you a good +60 Damage, but most important, it places a debuff on the target - it decreases the armor by 7 for 15 seconds. This makes the item good all throughout the game, so actually the +60 damage is much much more.

To better understand why this is important we need to take a closer look at how armor works in DOTA. Armor is an attribute that REDUCES the PHYSICAL damage, simple enough. With the help of some math the formula is:

Damage reduction = ((0.06 armor)/(1 + 0.06 armor))

Some example values for simplification:
1 armor means 5.7% damage reduction
5 armor means 23.1% damage reduction
12 armor means 41.9% damage reduction
20 armor means 54.5% damage reduction

As you can see it is not a linear equation - for more details check ARMOR
Okay, so the enemy hero has 12 armor and you deal let's say 200 damage, after damage reduction the enemy hero will lose 116 HP, 84 will be reduced. If you have a Desolator, and again deal 200 damage, the enemy hero will now have 5 armor (-7 armor reduction) so, now he will lose 154HP so in this situation the item actually gives you +98 damage and the actual value scales with the amount of damage that you do, that's why Desolator is good in any stage of the game.

Other cool things about Desolator:
- the armor reduction works on building and Roshan
- it stacks with other armor debuffs like Medallion of Courage, Assault Cuirass or spells that reduces armor like amplify damage, Gush, Wave of Terror, Meld, Presence of the Dark Lord
- it does not stack with other Desolators so there is no point in getting more than one per team
- the debuff is placed when attacking the enemy, NOT when you hit him

Desolator is an item made for carries, but is very useful in pushing, as the armor reduction works on buildings. You may see it purchased by heroes like Sniper, Mirana, Weaver, Wraith King, Lifestealer, Templar Assassin or Nature's Prophet, lycanthrope, Windranger. Works really well with other armor reduction skills and critical hits or Daedalus - the damage output is insane.

Eye of Skadi
+25 All Attributes
+250 HP
+250 Mana

Passive: Cold Attack - Your attacks slow the movement speed of the target by 45% and the attack speed of the target by 45%. Lasts 5 seconds if the wielder is melee, and 3 seconds if the wielder is ranged.

Eye of Skadi gives you everything that you need, +25 to all attributes in a single item? And extra HP and MANA. If you sum it up you get around 725 HP 575 mana 3,5 armor +25 damage +25 attack speed and mana and HP regen - it makes you A LOT more survivable.

Now, for the Unique Attack Modifier - cold attack - it slows the target's MOVEMENT and ATTACK speed by a whopping 45%. A simple item overall.

Anyone can purchase Eye of Skadi, if they have the cash, it is quite expensive 5750 Gold, but usually those who use it are AGI or INT heroes that require more tankyness and the mega SLOW of course: Slark, Medusa, Terrorblade, Death Prophet, Queen of Pain, Invoker are the most common.
Remember Eye of Skadi and Orb of Venom are UAM that STACK with LIFESTEAL.

Orb of Venom

Passive: Poison Attack - Your attacks poison the target, dealing 12 damage over 4 seconds (3 damage per second) while slowing the target's movement speed.

Movement Slow: 12% (melee) / 4% (ranged)

I wanted to talk a bit about this very underestimated item. Orb of Venom cost only 275 Gold and it gives the carrier 12% slow (if melee) (almost like taking away the enemy's boots). This is huge in the early-mid game. Not many people realize how cost efficient this slow is. And it deals a devastating 3 damage per second for 4 seconds.

It is a good pick-up on chasing MELEE heroes like Slark, Lifestealer, Riki, Bounty Hunter even Omniknight as it stacks with his Degen Aura. Do not underestimate the chasing power of this item.

Mjollnir
+80 Attack Speed
+24 Damage

Passive: Chain Lightning - Your attacks have a 25% chance to release a Chain Lightning that bounces to 4 targets for 160 Magical damage each.

Active: Static Charge - Places a charged shield on a target unit that lasts for 20 seconds. When that unit is damaged, there is a 20% chance to release a Chain Lightning that strikes the source of the damage and 2 nearby enemies for 200 Magical damage each. This effect cannot trigger more than once per second.

Hammer of the Gods, Mjollnir, grants the carrier MASSIVE attack speed and a litle AOE presence with chain lightning. It shares it's PASSIVE with Maelstrom, its precursor. When you attach, there is a 25% chance to release a chain lightning that damages 4 targets for 160 magic damage - really helps with farming and getting rid of those pesky Phantom Lancer illusions.

The ACTIVE is a shield that lasts for 20 seconds and has a 20% chance to hit the source of the damage and 2 other enemies for 200 damage magical in a 900 cone shaped AoE.
What you need to know:
- you can cast it on an ally
- magic immune units are not affected by the magical damage
- cannot trigger more than once per second
- it overrides other UAM when activates so it does stack in a way with orbs

It is a common pick-up for STR heroes that require a lot of attack speed and a little AoE presence like: Alchemist, Lifestealer, Dragon Knight or AGI heroes that want to melt everything faster like Faceless Void or Sniper.

AAA, LIFESTEAL! The base item for heroes that want to leech the life out of the enemy is

Morbid Mask

It gives you 15% of the damage back as HP, more damage, more HP, easy enough. You can upgrade the into 3 different items: Mask of Madness, Helm of the Dominator and Vladmir's Offering - which strangely enough IS NOT an Unique Attack Modifier but we will talk about this later.

Mask of Madness

Passive: Lifesteal - Your attacks heal you for 20% of the damage dealt.

Active: Berserk - Gives +100 Attack Speed and +25% Movement Speed but causes you to take 30% extra damage for 12 seconds.

Cool name, Mask of Madness gives you 20% lifesteal so for every 100 damage dealt you get back 20 HP, pretty ok I guess, but why buy this and not something else? Yep, it has an ACTIVE.

When you activate Mask of Madness you receive +100 AS and +25% MS but you will take 30% extra damage - much like Slardar's sprint so it takes some skill to know when to activate it.

Heroes that buy Mask of Madness are those that have a good disable to kill the enemy really fast like Faceless Void, Sven, Slardar or a good escape mechanism so they can profit tot the maximum from using the item like Slark, Riki, Mirana.
Very rewarding yet risky item, handle it with care!

Helm of the Dominator
+20 Damage
+5 Armor
+3 HP regeneration

Passive: Lifesteal - Your attacks heal you for 15% of the damage dealt.

Active: Dominate - Gives you control of a target non-hero enemy unit. The Dominated unit cannot block units, lasts 20 minutes, and is treated as a hero for certain spells

Again some lifesteal, not much, just 15%. You also get 5 armor and +20 damage which really help in the lane stage.

Its ACTIVE dominates a creep and make it your own, much like Enchant and it also gives it an extra 500 HP (since 6.83 patch). There are a lot of cool things you can do with a creep:
- you can stack neutral camps or ancients
- you can get bonus aura from jungle creeps like Wolfpack aura from the Alpha Wolf
- you can use your creep to initiate(for example with a Centaur Stun or with a Troll Net)
- you cannot steal Necronomicon units
- you cannot block with your creep
- you can dominate a creep so your allies can Boots of Travel TP to it

Helm of the Dominator is a common choice on squishy AGI heroes that require the extra armor and are later planning to upgrade it into Satanic.

Satanic
+25 Strength
+20 Damage
+5 Armor

Passive: Lifesteal - Your attacks heal you for 25% of the damage dealt.

Active: Unholy Rage - Increases Lifesteal by 175% for 3.5 seconds

Satanic is an end-game item - 6150 GOLD is not cheap. It upgrades from Helm of the Dominator and it has the same +20 damage and +5 armor, but on top of that you get 25% lifesteal, so 10% more than HotD and +25 STR - that is 475 HP.

Its ACTIVE is called Unholy Rage and it will increase the lifesteal to 175% for 3.5 seconds, this is huge! So if you deal 200 damage you will heal for 350 HP. When you are low on health, just activate Satanic and watch as your return to full HP.
Very important: you need to have a Black King Bar so you do not get stunned or disabled while you leech away at your enemy.

Satanic is a carry item, the most common heroes that buy it are Luna, Phantom Assassin, Troll Warlord, Gyrocopter, Dragon Knight and the list goes on.

Keep in mind that all of the above are Unique Attack Modifiers and do not stack, except for Eye of Skadi and lifesteal so choose carefully depending on the situation you are in, again ADAPT!

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ITEMS

I will present you almost all of the items, except a few that don t really need explanation (in almost alphabetical order). Here we go!

Abyssal Blade
+10 Strength
+100 Damage

Passive: Bash - Gives a 25% chance for melee heroes, and a 10% chance for ranged heroes, to stun the target for 1.4 seconds on attack. This ability has a 2 second cooldown, and does not stack with other Abyssal Blades, Skull Basher, Slardar's Bash, Troll Warlord's Bash, or Faceless Void's Time Lock. Stun is physical.

Active: Overwhelm - Stuns a target unit for 2 seconds. Goes through Magic Immunity.

It is the most expensive item in the game and for a good reason. First of all it gives you an enormous +100 damage and +10 STR - that is 190HP and another 10 damage if you hero is STR based.

It shares the PASSIVE with the Skull Basher, which is a non reliable, 25% stun chance for 1,4 seconds for MELEE heroes.
Does not stack with other bashes, so it is almost useless on Slardar or Troll Warlord for example. It stacks with the ministun from Monkey King Bar
Illusions do not bash, so if you are playing a Phantom Lancer don't even think about basher or abyssal.

Its ACTIVE (Overwhelm) is a RELIABLE - very important - 2 seconds stun. You can use this to disable key enemy heroes so they can't initiate, you can use it to interrupt dangerous channeling spells like Black Hole or town portal scroll escapes or just simply stun the enemy carry and kill him quickly before he can Chronosphere your entire team.
The stun is PHYSICAL so it goes through magic immunity like Black King Bar or Omniknight's Repel.

Abyssal Blade is a carry item and it is picked mostly either by STR heroes that have no disable, or just want another stun like Lifestealer, Night Stalker, Legion Commander, Dragon Knight, Lycanthrope etc, or AGI carries that have high attack speed and can proc the 25% bash passive and also need a disable like Ursa, Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Bloodseeker, Slark etc. You can also use it on heroes that have high attack speed due to their set of skills like Lina's Fiery Soul or Windranger's Focus Fire, even though they are ranged and have only 10% stun chance .
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Aegis of the Immortal

Passive: Reincarnation - Brings you to life with full health and mana 5 seconds after you die, at the location where you died.

Sound easy, doesn't it? It is, you kill Roshan, the big bad monster by the river, and he drops the almighty Aegis! When you kill him, your team receves GOLD and XP if they are in range. If you pick up the Aegis of the Immortal you basically get another life, when you die, after 5 seconds, you will respawn with full HP and mana, much like Wraith King's Reincarnation.

Keep in mind that Roshan is really really hard to defeat and most of the time requires the whole team to defeat him, not to mention that he gets stronger every 4 minutes as the game progresses. He respawns (since 6.79) at a RANDOM time between 8-11 minutes after he had been killed, just to make things interesting so you keep checking the pit and maybe start some skirmishes with the enemy team. There are a few heroes though that can 1v1 him like Ursa or Lycanthrope and any well farmed carry with lifesteal and maybe a stun or armor reduction. Roshan has a lot of armor and a Linken's Sphere so if you want to stun or hex him, you have to disable his linken first with another spell.

Back to the Aegis. IT EXPIRES! Really, 6 minutes after you pick it up it will disappear from your inventory and heal you for full life and mana. You have to be careful and remember when it will end so you don t go into a fight thinking you are immortal and then..you know: dead! The easiest way to remember is typing in the chat the time when Rosh was killed, and check your inventory once in a while.

IT CANNOT BE DROPPED! Yes, if you pick the Aegis of the Immortal it is yours FOREVER!! Forever being until you die or 6 minutes pass.
When I Was a Noob: I picked up the Aegis quickly because the enemy team had an invisible Riki. I was Disruptor and picked it up for my friend the Lifestealer who wasn't there yet, the only thing that was typed in the chat was: WHYYY? It was fun. Don't.
The Aegis is usually picked by the carry or initiator, never by the support. If Wraith King dies and he has Aegis of the Immortal the ultimate Reincarnation will be consumed first (if he has mana) and then the aegis.

Not much else to say, if you go for the Roshan be sure to have enough damage to kill him, some lifesteal and some armor reduction. You will need Observer Wards on the high ground so you can see the enemy team coming and Sentry Wards or Dust of Appearance if they have invisible heroes. You cannot put wards in the pit. You cannot attack Roshan outside the pit.

Almost forgot, if Roshan gets killed 3 times, he will drop the Cheese next to the Aegis of the Immortal. The Cheese will instantly restore 2500 HP and 1000 mana when used, pretty useful. Also if you don't think it will be useful, you can sell it for 500 gold, you cheap bastard, it will save your life!
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Aghanim's Scepter
+10 All Attributes
+200 Health
+150 Mana

Passive: Ultimate Upgrade - Upgrades the ultimate of certain heroes when acquired.

All-round good item, one of the most used item in the game (after boots), it gives you +10 to all attributes (that is 190HP 130mana 1.4 armor some attack speed, HP and mana regen) and another 200HP and 150mana, but the best part: it upgrades the ultimates (like damage, number of hits, duration, cooldown etc) of some heroes.. a lot of heroes actually, the most annoying in my book are Lina Zeus Warlock Lich Earthshaker Juggernaut and many more, you can see if your hero's ultimate is Aghanim's upgradable by clicking it, you will know, don't worry.

Interesting Aghanim's Scepter users:
Night Stalker - Aghanim does not upgrade your ultimate, it just gives you FLYING vision over the area, WTF??? You see over cliffs, in the woods, EVERYTHING! Really, really cool.
Doom bringer - soo, you know Doom, total silence and a sure death? well, with Aghanim's Scepter the 16 seconds timer doesn't count down if Lucifer is near so you are doomed forever! I saw this in combination with Shadow Blade, he Doomes someone and go invis after him, you cannot escape.
Lion - now, Finger of Death becomes a 1025 nuke in a 200 AOE , so if your team is clumped up in a Black Hole Lion can basically insta-kill you all! Always, ALWAYS get a Pipe of Insight against a hard nuker like him.
Tiny - it's pretty fun, improves your Toss damage and you can pick up a tree for even more damage; a TREE!
Dark Seer - the illusions from Wall of Replica actually do MORE damage than the heroes themselves, 140%. I did see a Dark Seer get a triple kill with a Sniper illusion soo, not cool..not cool.
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Armlet of Mordiggian
+9 Damage
+15 Attack Speed
+5 Armor
+7 HP/sec Regeneration

Active: Unholy Strength - Gives +31 Damage, +10 Attack Speed, and +25 Strength while active, but drains 40 HP per second. Strength gain is provided over 0.7 seconds.

Armlet of Mordiggian is a very cost efficient item, but it has a downside. It gives you 15 attack speed, 5 armor 7 HP regen/sec, but when you activate it all hell brakes loose: +31 damage, +25 STR and +10 attack speed, buuuuut it DRAINS 40HP per second, bad, very bad. So in total, when active you have:
+5 armor
+7 HP regen
+25 attack speed
+65 damage (if you are STR hero)
+475HP over 0.7 seconds
This is HUGE for only 2500 GOLD.
*BUT, again, it drains 40 HP per second - 4HP per 0.1 seconds actually, but you cannot DIE from health loss, you remain at 1HP.

It is usually picked by hard hitting STR carries have some sort of lifesteal or have a LOT of HP like Wraith King, Lifestealer, Slardar, Huskar, legion etc. You can toggle the armlet ON and OFF so you don t lose HP when you are not hitting/ regenerating. If you buy a Heart of Tarrasque you can leave the Armlet of Mordiggian on all the time.

Toggle-ing the armlet On and Off can save your life, so if you have 10 HP and are running for your life, you can activate your armlet and you get 475Hp in .7 seconds (before the 6.79 patch the HP was INSTANT so if you were fast, basically you could never die, if you weren't stunned) so it is a good idea to learn this trick.

Since patch 6.83 the recipe cost decreased to 500 GOLD, I know, not much but "every coin helps. HIHIHI" - quote from fckin Windrunner.

When I Was A Noob:(I still do this) I play too much with the toggle and usually a creep or the tower kills me so practice the toggle.
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Assault Cuirass
+10 Armor
+35 Attack Speed

Passive: Assault Aura - Grants attack speed and armor to nearby allied units, and decreases armor for nearby enemies.

Radius: 900
Bonus Attack Speed: 20
Bonus Armor: 5
Armor Reduction: 5

Armor, aawww yeeess! The Assault Cuirass carrier gets +15 armor and +55 attack speed..meh. BUT there is an aura, for all you friends and enemies, for everyone, even BUILDINGS and ROSHAN. Your team mates receive +20 attack speed and +5 armor, but your enemies get -5 armor. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but armor is a big deal in dota, so putting a 10 armor DIFFERENCE between your team and the enemy is a good thing. Also, the aura now does stack with other armor auras given form items like Vladmir's Offering. Stacks with Desolator and other armor debuff spells. The bonus from two Assault Cuirasses do not stack so let your team know if you are intending to buy one so no one else does

Assault Cuirass is a great counter to tanky teams and heroes that rely on armor reduction like Shadow Fiend's Presence of the Dark Lord, Slardar's ultimate, Naga Siren's Rip Tide etc. You also need to pick armor items when going against hard hitting rightclickers like Phantom Assassin, Ursa, Phantom Lancer, Juggernaut... or Desolator/ Assault Cuirass carriers.

It is usually picked by carries or initiators that need massive armor to survive or the attack speed for, you know, killing stuff. Assault Cuirass is core on STR heroes that lack both the armor and attack speed (doom bringer, Dragon Knight, Lifestealer, Alchemist, Slardar) but can also be picked up by AGI carries in some situations.
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Battle Fury
+65 Damage
+6 HP/sec Regeneration
+150% Mana Regeneration

Passive: Cleave - Deals 35% of your attack damage in a 250 AoE around the target.

Not much to say about Battle Fury, it gives you damage, HP and mana regen, but most importantly: CLEAVE. Yep, 35% of your damage is spread in a 250 Area of Effect as PURE DAMAGE, actually almost pure, it ignores armor but takes into consideration armor type, but mechanics are not that important in this particular case. Cleave only works on MELEE heroes and fully stacks with other Battle Furys or cleaves like Sven's Great Cleave or Kunkka's Tidebringer. Cleave also works with critical hits from a passive or Daedalus and goes through magic immunity. So if you crit for 1000 damage, 350 will be dealt as PURE damage to the surrounding enemy units.

Battle Fury is usually purchased by heroes that require HP and Mana regeneration an massive amounts of farm, the cleave really helps clearing the creep waves and the jungle. So you may see this item on Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Juggernaut, Faceless Void etc. It can also be picked as a situational item against illusion based heroes like Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren, soul keeper or Broodmother's spiderlings or Nature's Prophet little annoying trees.
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Black King Bar
Black King Bar
+10 Strength
+24 Damage

Active: Avatar - Gives Magic Immunity. Duration and cooldown decrease with each use.

Duration: 10/9/8/7/6/5

Black King Bar is one of the most used items in the game, it gives you +10 STR and +24 damage so 190 HP and +34 damage if you hero is STR based. But most importantly it grants you MAGIC IMMUNITY for a small duration that decreases every time you use it (from 10 to 5 seconds), as does the cooldown. Since the 6.82 patch, you cannot buy a new BKB to refresh the duration, so in the end you will always have only 5 seconds of magic immunity.

Magic immunity is an over-generalization, because there are many spells that go through BKB and many that are blocked, you will learn them by playing but here are some that ignore BKB:
Black Hole, Doom, Primal Roar, Chronosphere, Fiend's Grip, Culling Blade, Flaming Lasso, Rupture, Omnislash, Entangling Claws from the druid's bear, Eye of the Storm, Nether Swap and some others I believe..

Then why buy BKB? It blocks ALL OTHER disables stuns and nukes like Hex, dagon, Blade Mail return damage and mana burn from Diffusal Blade (core if you go against a Phantom Lancer or Anti-Mage with mana burn), silences and so many much more. If you are caught in a bad spot you can BKB and teleport home. BKB initiations are almost unstoppable like Enigma's Black Hole or a Slardar blink BKB. Overall a very good item, choose it if the enemy team has a lot of disablers and nukers like Lina, Tinker, Lion, Shadow Shaman.. or even hard magic damage like outworld devourer or Morphling.

Magic immunity has it's downside, for example if a Naga Siren initiates with Song of the Siren and you have your BKB on, you will be the only one not sleeping and you will be focused down. You can also remove positive buffs from runes or your allies like Empower so be very careful when you activate Black King Bar.

The heroes that usually get Black King Bar are heroes that need to NOT get disabled like hard carries, initiators and chasers (the range is so wide that there is no point in giving examples). Let's say that heroes that do not need BKB (but can be bought in some situations) are Lifestealer with Rage, Juggernaut with Blade Fury and the team that has an Omniknight that knows when to use Repel.
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Blade Mail
+22 Damage
+6 Armor
+10 Intelligence

Active: Damage Return - Returns any damage you take (after reductions) to the unit that dealt the damage as pure damage. Does not return damage that was caused by another Blade Mail.

A simple item overall, when you activate it, you will return the damage you take back to it's source, after your own armor or magic reduction (so for example if you are an Axe and have the 40 armor from Berserker's Call the damage you will return will be minimal). So for 4 seconds you will return ALL the damage, PHYSICAL and MAGICAL. The damage returned is PURE which means that WILL IGNORE the armor of the one that attacked you, but it will not work on magic immune units - this is one of the reasons why Phantom Assassin and Luna will almost always get Black King Bar.

It is a good pickup against squishy heroes that deal a lot of magic damage like: Lina, Zeus, Invoker, Luna or physical like: Phantom Assassin, Riki, Sniper and so on. Usually it is picked up by heroes that have a lot of HP and can withstand a lot of damage Centaur Warrunner , Axe, Clockwerk, Timbersaw. Almost forgot, Blade Mail gives you +10 INT, that is 130 mana which helps a lot since the carrier is usually a STR hero.
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Blink Dagger

Active: Blink - Teleport the caster to a target point up to 1200 units away. Cannot be used if the carrier was damaged by an enemy player-controlled unit, Roshan, or magical self-damage in the last 3 seconds.

If the target point is more than 1200 units away, the caster will only blink 4/5 of the maximum distance. Double clicking on Blink Dagger will blink the player in the direction of their fountain.

Blink Dagger is a very underrated item, kind of hard to use. It teleports you up to 1200 units in a direction bla bla. What you need to know:
- if you try to blink more than 1200 units, you will only travel 4/5 of the distance, 960
- double clicking it will teleport you 960 units towards the fountain (NOT the direction you are facing)
- if you take damage from hero/hero controlled unit/roshan/self damage it will go on cooldown for 3 seconds, Radiance will mess you up
- you can use it dodge spells like Magic Missile or Wraithfire Blast
- you can use it as an escape mechanism - blink into trees and TP out or as an initiation device
- it has 12 seconds cooldown and NO MANA COST

Heroes who carry a Blink Dagger are usually initiators like: Axe, Slardar, Ursa, Batrider or those who need a good positioning to cast spells: Enigma, Magnus, Legion Commander, Lion, Tinker, Pudge basically any hero can buy Blink Dagger except maybe Queen of Pain and Anti-Mage.
For a more detailed view at Blink Dagger you can read A guide to blink dagger, the best item in the game..
When I Was A Noob: I never bought Blink, always considered Shadow Blade is so much better for initiation or escape, but no. After you learn how to use it properly you will see that Blink Dagger has a more Surprise madaaffffaaaacaaaa!!!! effect and cannot really be countered, unlike Lothar's.

Since it is such a great item, from 6.82 it costs 2250 instead of 2150.
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Bloodstone
+500 HP
+400 Mana
+9 HP/sec Regeneration
+200% Mana Regeneration

Passive: Bloodpact - Starts with 8 charges. Bloodstone gains an additional charge each time an enemy hero dies within a 1675 AoE. Each charge gives 1 Mana/sec Regeneration, reduces gold lost on death by 25, and reduces respawn time by 4 seconds.

Active: Pocket Suicide - Instantly commits suicide.

Pff..this is going to be a long one. Bloodstone I think is the item with the most complex mechanics in Dota. I don't even know where to start. In the beggining, the item gives the bearer MASSIVE amounts of HP, MANA and Regeneration...and 10 damage.
It has a PASSIVE that gains 1 charge every time that an enemy hero dies around you (1675AoE). Each charge will:
- increases mana regen +1
- reduces gold lost on death by 25
- reduces respawn time by 4 sec
When you die:
- you will lose 1/3 of your Bloodstone charges
- you will HEAL all units in 1675AoE for 400 HP +30 HP per charge
- while dead, you gain EXPERIENCE in an 1000 AoE and 1800 VISION
- if you level is less than the number of charges, you will respawn instantly

And there's the ACTIVE, it will kill yourself instantly, not much to say here, you are in a bad spot and want to deny the enemy team some gold and XP? Bang, gun to the head, exclamation mark ! Timbersaw has committed suicide.

Since 6.82 patch, the Bloodstone is made with a Soul Ring and a 800 gold recipe instead of Perseverance.

Heroes that buy Bloodstone are those who use a lot of spells and require a ton of HP regen, usually INT heroes like Death Prophet, Storm Spirit, Necrophos, Puck or STR heroes that cast a lot of spells: Timbersaw, Omniknight even Pudge.
When I Was A Noob: I have searched for an hour to understand how a Storm Spirit kept killing himself, read everything about his skills, but nothing. A friend told me later that you can kill yourself with it.. know your items.
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Bottle

Active: Regenerate - Starts with 3 charges. Using a charge will restore 135 HP and 70 Mana over 3 seconds. If the user takes any damage, the effect will end prematurely. Charges will automatically be refilled when you are near your fountain.

Active: Rune Capture - Right click on a rune to store it in the Bottle. Stored runes can then be used by activating the Bottle. When a stored rune is activated, the Bottle is automatically refilled. While a rune is stored in the Bottle, the Bottle cannot be dropped. Stored runes are automatically used after 2 minutes.

Bottle is a rather strange item, it stores holy water or something from the fountain and you can drink from it 3 times to restore 135 HP and 70 mana over 3 seconds. If you take damage (higher than 20) in those 3 seconds, you will lose the charge. It will refill automatically when you are near the fountain or you can use a courier to take it to the fountain and fill it for you - bottle crow. A, by the way, the courier is slower when carrying your Bottle.

Another cool thing is that you can keep the RUNES stored in the Bottle for 2 minutes, after that they will activate automatically. When you activate a rune, you bottle will regain 3 charges..so theoretically, every 2 minutes you can get a rune (Illusion, Haste, Double damage, Invisibility, Regeneration) and 405 HP and 210 MANA. Be sure to consume your Bottle charges before taking the rune.

You can share a charge with an ally by holding CONTROL key and clicking the Bottle in your inventory and then clicking your allied hero.

The Bottle now costs 700 gold instead of 650, because since the 6.82 patch 2 runes spawn in both locations so it is more likely to refill it and more heroes can get it, not just mid and possibly a mana hungry offlaner.

Bottle is a mid hero item ( Puck, Storm Spirit, Tinker, Zeus, Queen of Pain, Magnus..basically any mid hero) and it is usually rushed. The only problem is the RUNE CONTROL - you need to have wards to see where the rune spawns (bottom or top) so you don't have to bottle-crow. Sometimes an offlaner like Clockwerk or Bounty Hunter may get a Bottle but usually there is one per team.
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Butterfly
+30 Agility
+30 Damage
+35% Evasion
+30 Attack Speed

Yep, it s just a sword..great AGILITY and right-click! Butterfly is the supreme AGI carry item, it gives the bearer +30 damage, agility, attack speed and 35% evasion, that is +60 damage, +60 attack speed, +4.2 armor and again 35% evasion meaning 1/3 of incoming hits will miss. I want to say more about this but really, that's it..insane DPS and survivability.

Butterfly has an ACTIVE ability named Flutter, that will allow you to get +20% movement for 8 seconds, but you lose the evasion for that time so it s a bit tricky.. maybe use this when running away.

You can get 2 or more Butterflyes as the evasion stacks diminishingly, or you can get it on Phantom Assassin. What does that mean?? Let me explain: I have no idea, but the internet is always so helpful, so here is an example:
Phantom Assassin has 50% evasion from lvl4 Blur. If you get a Butterfly you WILL NOT have 85% evasion, you will have 50% + 35% out of the other 50% chance to get hit so 50+17,5 =67,5%. If you get another one, you add 35% of the 32,5% chance remaining to get hit so + 11,3% so a total of 78,8% evasion with 2 butterflies.. The more evasion you get the less it matters. I don't think I did this right, probabilities are not my strongest math, but you get the point.

Heroes that might get Butterfly are AGI carries: Faceless Void - yes, it stacks with his backtrack, Luna, Anti-Mage, Gyrocopter, Juggernaut, Medusa and so on.
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Daedalus
+81 Damage

Passive: Critical Strike - Gives a 25% chance to deal 2.7x normal damage on an attack.

I think it is a crossbow or something like that.. Again, not much to say, high damage and most important: CRITICAL STRIKE! Right-clicker's heaven. Theoretically, one out of 4 hits will be amplified by 2.7. It amplifies ALL the damage, including those you get from items, and the CLEAVE gets amped too, that's why it is such a popular pick-up for heroes like Kunkka or Sven.

No doubt about it, Daedalus is a carry item so you will see it on heroes like Sniper, Weaver, Drow Ranger, Faceless Void, Ember Spirit. I saw a carry Lina once with a Daedalus her DPS output with Fiery Soul is unbelievable, but you still shouldn't try it.

The critical strike stacks diminishingly with itself (NOT the crit damage but the chance to proc) and other passive crits like Coup de Grace, Blade Dance but usually heroes that already have crits go for other damage or tanky items.

So if you have a Daedalus you get 25% chance to crit, if you have another Daedalus you will not have 50% chance to crit, nor will you have double crit damage..It works somewhat like Butterfly evasion: the second Daedalus will give 25% chance to crit out of the 75% so 18,75%, giving a total of 47,75% chance. The third Daedalus will have 25% chance to proc out of the 52,25% remaining and so on.

Crystalys does the same thing, only worse.

If a hero buys both a Crystalys and a Daedalus, on every hit the hero has a 25% chance of proccing a critical attack from Daedalus, a 20% chance from Crystalys, and a 5% chance of proccing both. Unlike the independent stacking, Daedalus overrides the Crystalys in the last case, because it has a higher critical damage multiplier and only one critical can proc on one hit. Math...gotta love it!
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dagon
Dagon
+13/16/19/22/25 Intelligence
+3 Strength
+3 Agility
+9 Damage

Active: Energy Burst - Releases a burst of Magical damage to the target enemy unit. Upgradeable.

Damage: 400/500/600/700/800
Range: 600/650/700/750/800

Dagon is a burst damage item that scales UP from level 1 to 5 every time you buy a receipe. It s active acts like a Laguna Blade if you will so it gets blocked by magic immunity. From level 1 dagon to level 5
- the damage scales from 400 to 800
- the range increases from 600 to 800
- cooldown decreased from 35 seconds to 15
- mana cost is fixed at 180
- works extremely well with Ethereal Blade, Decrepify or Veil of Discord

Heroes that buy dagon are those who rely on burst damage to instantly kill an opponent like Nyx Assassin, Tinker, Puck, Lion, but you can get it on any hero if you really want someone dead fast.
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Diffusal blade
+20/35 Agility
+6/10 Intelligence

Passive: Feedback - Your attacks burn the target's mana and deal bonus physical damage equal to the amount of mana burned.
Mana Burned: 25

Active: Purge - Starts with 8 charges. Using a charge will Purge the target unit, removing all buffs and slowing the unit's movement speed 4 seconds. Non-hero units will be paused for the first 3 seconds instead of slowed. Summoned units and Illusions are instantly killed. Upgrading Diffusal Blade will reset the number of charges back to 8.

Diffusal Blade is somewhat a very situational item, it can be upgraded to level 2 for more AGI and INT. Its PASSIVE acts like Mana Break, it burns 25 mana of the targeted unit and deals that amount as PHYSICAL damage but it does not stack with other sources of mana burn.

Note that Diffusal Blade is NO longer an unique attack modifier since patch 6.83 so you can get it with lifesteal or Desolator.

Its ACTIVE is somewhat similar to Shadow Demon's Demonic Purge, without the damage. It removes all buffs (positive and negative) from the targeted unit and applies a 4 seconds slow.
- you can use it to remove debuffs or purge yourself from spells like Track or Dust of Appearance
- you can use it on an ally that is in trouble
- you can use it on an enemy that is Repeled for example or to slow him
- you can purge RUNES, a single click and HASTE is gone
- you can insta-kill illusions or SUMMONED UNITS like Forge Spirit or necro units.

Diffusal Blade's purge has a lot of uses and it takes a lot of skill to use it properly, if you are not careful you can remove positive buffs from your allies or negative buffs from the enemy. The charges are restored to 8 once you buy the recipe and you should not rush buying lvl 2 Diffusal Blade until you have consumed at least a part of your charges.

Its active is also a great counter to Omniknight's Repel and Guardian Angel, windrunner's Windrun or any of Oracle's spells.

Heroes that carry a Diffusal Blade are usually AGI heroes that use illusions because they deal the full 25 mana burn as damage so it is a must on Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren, Spectre even Chaos Knight; heroes that have an innate high attack speed like Slark, Juggernaut, Mirana or heroes that rely on the SLOW to get kills like Riki or Bounty Hunter.
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Divine Rapier
+300 Damage

Yeea.. Divine Rapier, the most risky and rewarding item there is. Simple enough, you get + 300 damage. The problem is that if you DIE, the rapier drops on the ground for anyone to pick-up. If a teammate picks it up, you are safe, you will get it back and start killing again, but if the enemy Gyrocopter gets it, you are so fffcked, congrats, you just lost the game. There are only TWO reasons to get the Divine Rapier:
1. Your team is so far ahead that there is no way you can lose the game and want to finish as fast as possible
2. You are in a terrible spot and losing one teamfight after another and this might be your only shot.. it usually doesn't work but hey, you got a rapier.

Just a damage item and it used only by a carry, a hard to kill carry preferably like Wraith King, Dragon Knight, Sven or fckin Faceless Void. A, almost forgot, if you have the Divine Rapier you will be focused in fights! you must die, yes, yes..
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Drum of Endurance
+9 All Attributes
+3 Damage

Passive: Swiftness Aura - Gives bonus attack and movement speed to surrounding allies. Multiple instances of Swiftness Aura do not stack.
Active: Endurance - Starts with 6 charges. Using a charge gives bonus attack and movement speed to surrounding allies. Charges can be refreshed by purchasing the recipe for Drum of Endurance again.

I feel I need to talk about this item because it is very very underestimated. Drum of Endurance is in my opinion one of the best items in the game (considering its cost of course). For only 1800 Gold you get +9 to all attributes and 3 damage that is: 171 HP, 117 mana, + 13 damage, some AS, some mana and HP regen and 1.2 armor.
On top of all that you have +5% MS and AS aura for you and your teammates. You can activate it for an extra 10% MS and AS when trying to catch an enemy or need just a little more attack speed for roshan or a tower. Drum of Endurance is a good item guys, really. An Ultimate Orb gives you +10 attribute points only and it costs 2100.

6.83 patch - Drum now gets one extra charge, from 5 to 6, useful if you remember to use it.

Anyone can get a drum, seriously, anyone, but check your team's inventory so you don't build more than ONE because the aura does not stack.
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Ethereal Blade
+40 Agility
+10 Strength
+10 Intelligence

Active: Ether Blast - Converts you and your target into Ethereal Form. Target unit is slowed by 80% for 3(4 if allied) seconds, and takes 75 + 2x your Primary Attribute as magical damage. If you target yourself, you won't be slowed nor damaged.

Ethereal Blade is usually picked up by heroes that have high damage nukes and/or need to not take a lot of damage, it s pretty versatile. You get +40 AGI which is, well 40 attack speed and +5.6 armor and +10 STR and INT. When you cast it on a hero, both of you enter Ghost Form (same as Ghost Scepter) and the enemy is slowed and takes some damage depending on your heroes primary attribute and both take +40% extra magic damage.
For example if you have 100 AGI, you will deal 75+ 2 x 100= 275 damage, ad this to your nuke's damage and instakill. Actually it is a bit more because the ACTIVE is applied BEFORE the actual damage so that too is amplified by 40% so in our example that would be 275 x 1,4=385 - without taking into consideration the enemy's magic resistance.
Other cool stuff:
- You guys cannot attack or be attacked so it is useful against a hard hitter like Lifestealer or Sniper.
- If you target an allied hero, he won't get slowed or take damage.
- You can use items like dagon for example and you can use spells
- TP will interrupt Ghost Form

Ether blast is now a projectile that moves at 1100 speed and you go ethereal only if you target yourself.

Morphling is the first hero that comes to mind when buying Ethereal Blade. Nyx Assassin also works really well with EB. I even saw it on Tinker and Shadow Fiend, but it is usually an AGI hero as you get +40 damage too.
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Eul's Scepter of Divinity
+10 Intelligence
+150% Mana Regeneration
+40 Movement Speed

Active: Cyclone - Sweeps the target unit up in a cyclone, rendering it invulnerable but unable to act for 2.5 seconds.Deals 50 damage to enemies after landing.

Another scepter, easy to build, cheap. You get +40 MS so basically another pair of boots and 150% mana regeneration so it works really well if you already have high mana pool and regen. The ACTIVE is the most important part though. You cast a cyclone that lifts the target unit (you or enemy) into the air for 2,5 seconds and deals a devastating 50 damage on landing - didn't manage to kill anyone with just the cyclone but there is time - * just realized that the 50 damage is so that the enemy can't shift blink away.

Since 6.83 patch the recipe has increased from 500 to 650 GOLD, it was too cheap anyway.

Cool stuff about Eul's:
- you are invulnerable when in air (buy yourself some time if Ruptured for example)
- can be used to dodge certain projectiles or stuns
- purges certain debuffs like Dust of Appearance and most silences
- Pudge can hook you out of safety without taking any damage

You can use it to help cast harder to land stuns like Lina's Light Strike Array, Ancient Apparition's Cold Feet, Jakiro's Ice Path or any of Invoker's spells. Picked up by INT heroes that requires some extra movement speed like Crystal Maiden, Death Prophet... Unusual picks: I saw it on Ursa once, he cycloned the enemy, walked to him and BAM, dead; and on a Bounty Hunter he used it for mana regen, extra movement speed and to escape dust.
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Force Staff
+10 Intelligence
+3 HP Regen

Active: Force - Pushes your target 600 units in the direction that it is facing over 0.4 seconds. This can include crossing impassable terrain. Force does not interrupt the target. Can be used on any unit except those caught in the effect of Chronosphere or Black Hole.

Force Staff requires a little bit of skill, but it is easy to use, think of it like a Slark Pounce. A great escape and initiation mechanism if used correctly, but be careful about the direction you are facing when using it on yourself as you can get stranded on cliffs or in bad spots. Gives the bearer 10 INT and +3HP regen and it is very easy to build. It is useful throughout the whole game, you can use it on your allies to help them escape from a bad situation or on an enemy hero to put him out of position.

It does not interrupt channeled spells and you cannot use it to help a friend in Black Hole Chronosphere or Duel. You cannot escape from Pounce or Kinetic Field, you can escape Sprout though because Force Staff destroys trees in your path.

It is usually picked up by INT heroes that requires high mobility, an escape mechanism or an initiation method like Outworld Devourer Batrider Lion Windranger, but can be used by STR and AGI heroes as it works well with their set of skills like Bloodseeker, Pudge, Vengeful Spirit.
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Hand of Midas
+30 Attack Speed

Active: Transmute - Kills a target non-hero enemy unit, causing it to grant 2.5x normal experience and 190 reliable gold.

Hand of Midas, Greek mythology, king that turned everything he touched to gold, very well picked name. It is a farmer's item, kinda like a plow or whatever is used for farming. This item MUST BE RUSHED as soon as possible. Every 100 seconds you can instantly kill a creep, not ancients or Necronomicon units, and you get 190 GOLD, reliable, like Devour.

DON'T FORGET: use it each time is on cooldown; as a rule of thumb, eat the BIG Creeps in the jungle in the beginning because you also get 2,5 x EXPERIENCE and you will gain levels faster this way. Later, eat small creeps for the extra GOLD and kill the big ones manually.
You can instakill Forge Spirits or Beastmaster's pig and owl or whatever they are.

The item pays for itself in 20 minutes if you use it every 100 sec so it's risky to get it if you passed 8-9 minutes into the game. On the other hand (lol), you get +30 AS and extra XP which is nice. Grab it when the enemy team doesn't have any push potential and the game will drag on for longer than 30 min.

Heroes that get Hand of Midas are hardcore farmers, mostly junglers because it helps them grow faster, like Nature's Prophet, doom bringer, Lifestealer, Faceless Void and basically anyone that gets freefarm for 10 minutes.
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Heart of Tarrasque
+40 Strength
+300 HP

Passive: Health Regeneration - Regenerates 2% of the bearer's maximum health per second. If the bearer takes damage from a player or Roshan, this effect is disabled for a short amount of time. Does not stack with Health Regeneration from any other Heart of Tarrasque.

Aaa, heart, the beast of all items, gives the bearer +300 HP and +40 STR so +1060 HP. And alos 2% HP regen per second so if you have 3000HP, you will heal 60 HP per second, if, IF you don't take damage from an enemy hero or Roshan - it stops for 4/6 seconds, you can tank towers without any problems.

If you are a STR hero, Heart of Tarrasque is your goal because it gives you +40 damage too and it turns you into a monster. Usual pickers are tanks Axe, Centaur Warrunner , Bristleback, doom bringer or heroes that have skills that require a lot of HP Death Prophet, Spectre, Ursa, Chaos Knight, Phantom Lancer.
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Linken's Sphere
+15 All Attributes
+6 HP/sec Regeneration
+150% Mana Regeneration
+10 Damage

Passive: Spell Block - Blocks most targeted spells once every 17 seconds. Can be cast on allies.

Linken's Sphere is somehow an elaborate item. It gives you all-around STATS, +15 to all attributes, mana regen, HP regen, wow! much survivability! But most importantly: IT BLOCKS most SINGLE target spells once every 17 seconds.
Here is a LIST OF BLOCKED SPELLS. You will learn them with practice.

Usually, if the spell targets you specifically IT IS BLOCKED, but not all, there are exceptions like Culling Blade Meat Hook Sacred Arrow.

Area of effect (AoE) spells WILL NOT trigger Linken's Sphere like..pff, there are so many!

Here are some high impact ones:
Chronosphere Black Hole Call Down ghost ship Global Silence Sonic Wave Epicenter Death Ward Thundergod's Wrath Chaotic Offering Overgrowth Slithereen Crush Sanity's Eclipse Song of the Siren Eclipse Pulse Nova Echo Slam Ice Blast Omnislash - only the first instance of damage, almost all of Invoker's skills and many many more.
Also, arrow effect spells will not dispel your Linken's Sphere

Then you ask yourself, why would I buy this?
Well, for all the stuns, disables, devastating spells and the single target spells that go through Black King Bar :
Doom
Fiend's Grip
Primal Roar
Reaper's Scythe
Laguna Blade
Hex...

To block certain items like:
Abyssal Blade - the active stun
dagon
Diffusal Blade - the purge
Force Staff
Ethereal Blade - the blast
Eul's Scepter of Divinity - the cyclone
Heaven's Halberd - the disarm
Orchid Malevolence - the silence
Rod of Atos - the slow
Scythe of Vyse - the hex

Maelstrom and Mjollnir will NO longer trigger your Linken's (6.82 patch) which is nice.

Another big problem with this item is the enemy experienced player: if they know you have Linken's Sphere they will cast a low impact spell to disable it like LVL? Death or Brain Sap and then cast the Doom or Fiend's Grip to kill you.

Heroes that get Linken's Sphere are those that need the +15 stats and need to not get disabled so.. EVERYONE! But a few come to mind: Weaver, Morphling, Medusa, Bounty Hunter, Queen of Pain.
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Mekansm
+5 All Attributes
+5 Armor

Passive: Mekansm Aura - Grants +4 HP/sec Regeneration to nearby allied units within a 750 AoE.

Active: Restore - Heals 250 HP and gives a +2 Armor bonus to all allies in a 750 AoE for 25 seconds. Does not affect any units that have been healed by Restore in the last 25 seconds.

An allaround good guy, team helper, support item. It gives you +5 to all attributes and a solid +5 armor and +4HP regen aura for all your allies. When you activate it, it heals 250 HP to all allied units around you and +2armor. As it does not scale well into the late game where the 250HP doesn't mean that much, Mekansm should be rushed.
The aura fully stacks with other HP regen auras like Pipe of Insight or Headdress, but does not stack with other mek auras, so only one per team. Please DO NOT use it after Ancient Apparition ultied your entire team, it does not work. Use it during a teamfight or when pushing towers, try to get as many allied units within 750 AOE before using it.

Take care because since 6.82, the restore mana cost increased drastically to 225, this means that mostly INT heroes will get it and you will see it less and less on Viper or Razor for example.

Heroes that usually get Mekansm are support heroes that can really use the extra armor and stats, but you can also find it on carries that need burst heal like Viper, Razor Meepo or outworld devourer. Your team should have one in EVERY GAME.
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Monkey King Bar
+88 Damage
+15 Attack Speed

Passive: True Strike - Prevents your attacks from missing.

Passive: Mini-Bash - Gives a 35% chance to stun the target for 0.01 seconds and deal 100 bonus Magical damage on attack.

Monkey King Bar is one of my personal favorite carry item, ever. It is somewhat a situational item in most cases as it is counter for Phantom Assassin's Blur and items that grant evasion like Butterfly or Heaven's Halberd. Your hits will never miss if you have this, well almost never, Faceless Void's backtrack can evade this because.. you know, Void.

You must get this to counter heroes that have an innate dodge or a spell that will make you miss like:
Brewmaster - Drunken Brawler and drunken haze
Troll Warlord - Whirling Axes (Melee)
Tinker - Laser
Broodmother - Incapacitating Bite
Keeper of the Light - Blinding Light
and Phantom Assassin.

Monkey King Bar gives you, besides true strike, +88 damage and +15 AS, but more importantly 35% chance to ministun for 0.1 seconds and to deal +100 MAGICAL damage so if you think about it you get a medium of 88+35=123 damage, not taking into consideration armor and magic resistance..so more that the Abyssal Blade.

The ministun is really useful because you can stop channeling spells and TP by just attacking. It works on both MELEE and RANGED heroes and it fully stacks with Skull Basher or other bashes from passives - really fun item on Troll Warlord and Sniper.

Carry only item, though I've seen it on a Lina once.
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Necronomicon
+15/21/24 Intelligence
+8/12/16 Strength

Active: Demonic Summoning - Summons a Necronomicon Warrior and a Necronomicon Archer to fight for you for 40 seconds. Their strength and abilities increase as Necronomicon increases in level.

Necronomicon or Necrobook is mainly a pushing item, but you can use it to escape certain uncommon situations like Juggernaut's Omnislash, Clockwerk's Battery Assault in a cagefight, soul catcher or other pseudo-random AOE target spells that don't come to mind right now. At lvl3, the Necronomicon summoned units have true sight, so it is useful against a Riki or Clinkz, but we wil get to that part later.

It gives you +15/21/24 INT and +8/12/16 STR and it costs a total of 5200 GOLD. And now the best part: every 95 seconds you can summon TWO units, a Necro Warrior and Necro Archer - their level and ability scale every time you upgrade the Necronomicon. The units cannot be destroyed by Hand of Midas or Devour (I think?? never saw Doom with mana burn), but Enchantress and Chen cand take them.
The hero that kills them receives 100/150/200 XP and 100/150/200 GOLD per unit, so a lot of gold an xp - take care of them if they are your pets, kill them quickly if they are not yours. They have a standard 350 MS and a 40 seconds life expectancy.

Necro Warrior

It is MELEE and has Mana Break, it steals 25/50/75 mana per hit and turns it into 15/30/45 damage, much like Anti-Mage.

Last Will is a revenge skill that the melee warrior has: when he is killed, he hits the unit that killed him with 400/500/600 pure damage, like a dagon hit so don't kill him if you are low on HP, even though they give you ton of XP and GOLD.

And on level 3 it gets True Sight to spot invisible units, wards and so on, very very useful.

Necro Archer

It is RANGED and also has Mana Burn 125/175/225 per hit and this is turned into damage, all of it. With good micro the Necronomicon units can count a lot in a fight.

It also has an Aura that increases the AS and MS of surrounding units by 3%/6%/9%, not much but it still counts, like a Drum of Endurance.

Necronomicon is usually built by INT heroes that need a bit more HP like Invoker, Bane, Chen(just in case you feel the need for more units to control), by pushers like Nature's Prophet, Shadow Shaman, Keeper of the Light, lycanthrope or STR heroes that have mana issues like Beastmaster, Treant Protector, Undying.
Because of the mana burn, Necronomicon is a great counter to mana hungry heroes like Wraith King, Earthshaker or Slardar.

When I Was a Noob: I've always forgotten about the units after they were summoned and just stood around the map until an enemy collected the bounty. MEGA PRO TIP: take care of you unit guys, not just them but Golems and Pigs and Wolves or whatever animal you have around.
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Orchid Malevolence
+25 Intelligence
+30 Attack Speed
+30 Damage
+150% Mana Regeneration

Active: Soul Burn - Silences a target unit for 5 seconds and amplifies the damage that it takes by 30%. Amplified damage is dealt at the end of the duration as magical damage.

Orchid Malevolence is an item that combines the advantages of INT (+25 INT and +150% Mana regen) with a little DPS (+30 damage and +30AS), this makes it compatible with many heroes, not just INT based.

Its active is a single target, 5 second SILENCE and a 30% damage increase bonus that is applied after the 5 sec silence, so so if you silence an enemy and deal 1000 damage and he escapes with low HP, after 5 seconds he will receive an extra 300 damage and you will possibly get a kill.
Use the active on high priority enemies that can instantly turn a fight with just a spell like Enigma, Faceless Void, Lich.. or to prevent the escape of heroes like Anti-Mage, Bounty Hunter, Queen of Pain.

Orchid Malevolence is can be picked by any INT based hero that really wants a silence ( Storm Spirit, Queen of Pain, outworld devourer, Nature's Prophet, Silencer - daaaa), but also by hard hitting heroes that want to get a fast kill and not get stunned, hexed or disturbed in any way like Clinkz, Bounty Hunter, Slark or even Lifestealer.
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Pipe of Insight
+9 HP/sec Regeneration
+30% Magic Resistance

Passive: Insight Aura - Provides 4 health regeneration to nearby allied units.
Active: Barrier - Places a shield on all friendly units in a 900 AoE that blocks 400 Magical damage and lasts for 12 seconds. Does not affect units that have been affected by Barrier in the past 50 seconds.

Pipe of Insight is an all-round good item against a high magic damage enemy team. It increases your magic resistance by 30% and +9 HP regen.

It is a team fighting item, as its PASSIVE is an aura thar grants nearby allies +4 HP regen. If you activate it, it creates a barrier on all allied units in 900 AoE and will block 400 Magical damage so really useful in a fight against Zeus or Lich or any high damage nukes that can affect your friends. You can use it to save someone against a delayed nuke like Assassinate or Demonic Purge, I think it even absorbs damage from Doom.

What you need to know: the aura stacks with other HP regen auras like Mekansm, the barrier cannot be purged or dispelled and you should have one Pipe in every game.

To encourage this, since 6.83 patch, the recipe cost has been reduced from 900 to 800 gold and the duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.

Pipe of Insight is a common pickup on heroes that have self-inflicting damage spells like Pudge' Rot, Centaur Warrunner 's Double Edge or Abaddon's Mist Coil or by tanky heroes that require some magic resistance like Axe, Undying, Necrophos or Bristle. Or if you are just a really nice support like a Dazzle or something, a great item to have.

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Radiance
+65 Damage

Toggle: Burn Damage - Deals 50 Magical damage per second to all enemies in a 700 AoE.

Radiance is one very hard to build item as it consists of the 3800 Gold Sacred Relic + the recipe. It gives you a solid +65 Damage and has a burning aura damaging all enemies with 50 per second in a 700 AoE which is pretty much. The sooner you get it, the better, because the 50 aura damage is devastating in the early stage of the game.

You can toggle the aura on and off if you are invisible or don't want to push the lanes or something. Multiple auras do not stack so there is no point in getting 2 Radiances per team.

There are many ways to use this beautiful glowing item:

- farming tool - hard carries like Spectre or Weaver usually pick it up because it melts jungle camps and creep waves
- pushing tool - heroes like Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Broodmother Terrorblade have a huge impact with their annoying split pushing, especially if they have illusions because the burning aura works on them too
- team fighting - tanky or hard to kill heroes like Centaur Warrunner , non supportive Abaddon or doom bringer that have a big impact in teamfights
- just because - it works well with the hero's set of skill Bloodseeker can heal himself by killing creeps due to blood bath {- not anymore:( RIP good old BS} and the same goes for Necrophos with his sadist.
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Refresher Orb
+6 Intelligence
+5 HP/sec Regeneration
+200% Mana Regeneration
+40 Damage
+10 Attack Speed

Active: Reset Cooldowns - Resets the cooldowns of all your abilities and items, except Refresher Orb.

Refresher Orb is an item made for team fighting turnarounds, long cooldown spells. It gives you a little bit of everything: +6 INT +5HP regen, +200% mana regen (this is better if you have a large mana pool and high INT), 40 damage and +10 AS. The recipe price will make you think twice before buying it - 1800 GOLD is the most costly recipe in the game, but it's worth it.

And it has a HUGE cooldown, that has increased even more since 6.83 patch: 195 seconds!

Its ACTIVE resets cooldown on ALL your spells and items including dagon, Scythe of Vyse, Boots of Travel and so on. But it doesn t reset cooldown of another Refresher Orb so one is enough.

This item is the peak of evolution for heroes with great ultimates like Enigma's Black Hole, Earthshaker's Echo Slam, Magnus's RP, Doom, Tidehunter's Ravage and the most annoying of them in my opinion Zeus and Warlock. If you get it on Razor you will get two instances of Eye of the Storm, I have seen it in some games but I don't recommend it. Oh, almost forgot about OD.. Sanity's Eclipse times two will absolutely destroy a whole team.
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Rod of Atos
+25 Intelligence
+350 HP

Active: Cripple - Slows the target's movement speed by 60% for 4 seconds.

Rod of Atos is a very, very underestimated item, I don't really know why people don't buy it on every INT hero. Let's do some math: it s made of 2x Staff of Wizardry so +20 INT for 2000 GOLD and 1x Vitality Booster 250HP for 1100 GOLD. So the total cost is 3100 GOLD and you get+25 INT that is 325 MANA and +25 Damage if your hero is INT based aaaand +350 HP. So you pay for 20 INT and 250 HP and you receive 25 INT and 350HP - come on!!

And on top of that it has a great ACTIVE that slows the target's MS by 60% for 4 seconds(not much) think of it as Lifestealer's Open Wounds. The best part is that it has a HUGE 1200 cast range - you can cast it from across the map (not really), but remember that the tower range is 700 and Sniper's max range is 950, aand it has only 10 seconds cooldown. Just buy the damn thing!

Rod of Atos is mostly an initiation itam and it is used to help harder to land spells like Light Strike Array, Mystic Flare, Meat Hook, Cold Feet or you just want to slow someone to right-click them down. Usually it is picked up by INT heroes that want some more HP like Skywrath Mage, outworld devourer, Silencer, Lina, Ancient Apparition and then there is Pudge.
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Scythe of Vyse
+35 Intelligence
+10 Strength
+10 Agility
+150% Mana Regeneration

Active: Hex - Turns the target unit into a harmless critter for 3.5 seconds. If the target is an illusion, it is instantly destroyed.

Also known as Sheepstick or plain Hex, Scythe of Vyse is an excellent item to have: great stats +35INT and 150%mana regen, +10STR, +10AGI, expensive as hell and kind of hard to farm that 2700 GOLD Mystic Staff.

Of course it has an active ability named, imagine that, HEX. It acts like Lion's Hex, it turns the enemy target into a pig for 3.5 seconds (sheepstick sounds better than pigstick doesn't it?). The poor animal is silenced fully (cannot use any items or spells), has the movement speed reduced to a next to nothing 140MS (except if he has a HASTE rune) and most importantly it disables:

- damage block like Vanguard or Bristleback
- evasion, therefore a great counter to Phantom Assassin and those that are predisposed to get Butterfly or
-blinking, so good against heroes with escape mechanisms like Anti mage, Queen of Pain or Puck. Actually Scythe of Vyse is a great counter to anyone.

Keep in mind that the targeted hero keeps his primary stats (STR AGI INT) and ARMOR so don't target the enemy Axe unless you are absolutely certain that you will finish him in 3.5 seconds. Usually you want to target an enemy that has high impact spells like Enigma or Faceless Void or a Dueling Legion Commander for example.

Oh, and the target does not receive any experience while hexed, but come on, how much EXP can someone miss in 3.5 seconds.

Scythe of Vyse can be used to stop channeling spells - it has a decent 800 range so you can disrupt a Black Hole. It does not go through Black King Bar and it breaks Linken's Sphere since is a single target spell. You can use it on Roshan, either to dispel his Linken's or to disable him for 3.5 sec.

If you target an ilusion it will destroy it instantly, much like Purge, the active from Diffusal Blade, remember?

The disable from Scythe of Vyse is so powerful that there is no point in naming those who usually buy it, mostly INT heroes. Unusual ones: Meepo - helps him land his Earthbind better and gives him more time to Poof and wreck the poor guy. I have also seen it on a Razor as it helps with the Static Link damage stealing process and gives some good stats and mana regen.

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Log

-15.06.2014 - guide published
-23.06.2014 - added some items, corrected some mistakes
-15.11.2014 - modified items accordingly to 6.82 patch
-03.12.2014 - added some items
-29.12.2014 - updated to 6.83 patch