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Iron Branch
Ring of Protection
Ring of Regen
Tranquil Boots
Sage's Mask
Headdress
Mekansm
Power Treads
Vladmir's Offering
Aghanim's Scepter
Ethereal Blade
Ethereal Blade
Boots of Travel
Ethereal Blade
Ethereal Blade
Aghanim's Scepter
Eye of Skadi
Heart of Tarrasque
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1 | 4 | 13 | 14 |  |
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2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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8 | 9 | 10 | 12 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Meepo is a complex character, one that many fail to understand the dynamics of completely. This guide should serve to enlighten at least one person as to just what makes Meepo so different from other heroes.
To understand Meepo, one must understand the math involved in Meepo. One must understand how items function on Meepo, and why many items are useless on him that would be considered perfect picks on most other carries.
Meepo must look carefully at the values that items give him. A player seeking to build the perfect Meepo must know what items work, and what items MUST be avoided at all costs.
Meepo rule #1: Never touch an item that has a flat +damage bonus.
Meepo rule #2: Never touch an item that gives no +ability bonus after level 6 unless it is a component of another item.
Meepo rule #3: Vladimir's Offering is the only exception to rule #2.
Meepo rule #4: NEVER build a Butterfly.
Meepo rule #5: Auras are great early, but lose utility later as they become less effective. The only exceptions are Vladimir's Offering and Assault Cuirass. Have someone else buy the Cuirass if possible. It helps, but you do not have the room.
Meepo must build to his strengths and to cover his weaknesses. Agility is Meepo's primary stat. Late-game will see Meepo becoming an engine of destruction, breaking anything in his path.
Early on, Meepo's primary weakness is his low HP pool, bolstered slightly by his decent innate armor. Unlike most heroes where you buy tango or salve, you want to give Meepo a boost into his early build from the start. This is why you buy the components of Tranquil Boots as your starting items, and one GG branch. You only have one Meepo, and tranquils will be your lifeline in the early jungling stage.
You will be aiming for a Vladimir's Offering as quick as possible and should easily be able to grab a Sage's mask before you hit 6, but grab a headdress as well so that you have additional regen before you get that lifesteal aura.
The order in which you build your early core is determined by the actions of the enemy team. If they are trying to force early teamfights, build mek first so that you can support your team and heal yourself while everyone is squishy. If they are holding back and allowing farm time, build your vlads and go to town in the jungle.
When building Vladimir, be sure to disassemble your Tranquils and use the rings to make vlad. This will save some time and money as well as allow you to transform your boots into Treads.
Once you hit level 11, I hope you were able to get your early core completed before this, begin working on your Transitioning items. Start with Scepter. This grants an additional Meepo as well as transforming the clones into a true army. They now share 100% of your stats from items instead of just 30%. I should not need to tell you why this is a good and necessary thing. After that, start saving up for an eaglesong as your first component of your first Ethereal Blade.
A well-played game SHOULD be able to be ended before you are able to finish your second E.Blade...but if your enemy is strong enough to be able to prolong the game you have the ability to transform into a powerhouse of stats.
First, replace power treads with boots of travel. Double-clicking the boots will provide you with an instant escape to fountain for the injured Meepo. The stat points lost will be more than made up for with other items and you become even more of a global threat, able to be anywhere at any time.
Your next step is to begin constructing an Eye of Skadi to replace Mekanism as part of your late-game build against this delightfully robust enemy team. You will lose the passive regen boost and spike heal, but you will quintuple the stat points granted by that item slot. At this point, the spike heal is all but useless anyways, but the extra 475 health per Meepo from the +25 Strength will prove useful for some extra time to BoT to the fountain.
If that is somehow not enough to beat the enemy down, you can replace Vladimir's Offering with a Heart of Terrasque and instantly add over 1000 hp to all Meepos. Your primary Meepo will have over 4000 health, and all secondaries will have about 3300...roughly double their standard level 25 health. The +2% regen per second is only going to affect the primary Meepo, but are you really going to turn down an extra 1000 health per unit?
If the game lasts long enough for you to do this, most everyone should be level 25 and your only worries will be teammates not doing their job to support you and the push in teamfights.
I will spare you a dry run down of what the skills do. if you're looking at this guide, you know by now the basics of how Meepo should be played and what his skills do. If not, you can read about it in the skill build order section to see what each skill does individually.
Instead, I am going to talk about why we build the way we build.
First of all, waiting on geostrike. Early on, Geostrike is not an optimal skill to take. It's a 5% slow and some DoT, but that does nothing for you early game except MAYBE getting that last bit of damage for a last hit. Save this for when you have a second Meepo.
Earthbind is skilled first simply to allow some freedom to escape in the early stages of the match. Two points gives some range to it beyond 'the enemy is already up in your face, RUN!' two points is all that is needed until your other skills are maxxed out unless you're running a ganking build, in which case you may feel free to hold off on Geostrike 4 until level 14 and instead max Earthbind at 12 and 13.
Poof is your nuke and primary damage dealer from 6-11. Even after 11, Poof is still very useful until your Transitioning items are complete. the key is to remember that Poof deals magic damage, and while the potential 1400 damage nuke is good on paper, your enemy heroes will ignore at least 25% of that damage. You'll really do maybe 1050.
Divided we Stand is the linchpin for Meepo, both the best and worst part of the hero. The mechanics of this skill make +damage items useless and +stat items GOD. You level this up every chance that you get and go for the Scepter as soon as it is feasible. As soon as you have a scepter you start building items that give massive stat boosts because you can now make full use of those stats on all Meepos rather than seeing reduced stats on the clones.
1-5: You will start in the safe lane, with a ranged babysitter. Early-game communication is a must, and extreme caution is advised. Do not be afraid to go in for last hits, these will help you get those expensive early items built before you jungle. the second the enemy starts advancing on you or you see the babysitter back away, retreat. You cannot afford early deaths.
6-10: You will move both Meepos to the jungle and keep them together. The 'superboosting' of XP gains by having meepos in separate locations is eclipsed by the need to nuke the jungle camps down as fast and as safe as possible. With both Meepos poof-nuking a single creep camp, you will kill it twice as fast and thus clear the jungle twice as fast, earning the same net XP as if you had one Meepo laning and one jungling while being safer since your attention need not be split. This is where you max poof and start putting points in geostrike, mostly to help kill Mud Golems faster.
11-15: After you get a third Meepo you have a choice. Keep two in jungle and one in lane, or keep two in jungle and one in roaming ganker mode. Whatever you do, do not keep all three together unless the enemy team is being fed by your teammates. If the enemy team is getting fed, there is little you can do until late game, but if you keep all three together you waste the opportunity to get XP much faster. even if you send all three to different jungle camps instead of laning, that's better than keeping them all together at this point.
Oh, and you can solo Roshan at this time if you do want to do something with all 3 at once.
16-24: Your build is incomplete, but you should still focus less on farming at this point. Unless you have great defenders on your team, your towers are probably hurting. This is when it's time to take the fight to the enemy...as long as you have your Scepter. Without the scepter, full-scale teamfights are nearly suicidal due to the lower stats on clones. Let the others initiate, and you come in in the middle to target those with the least amount of health to secure your kills. You are not a carry yet, you need your super items to do that.
25: You should have at least one Ethereal blade at this point, or an eaglesong and close to enough gold to buy the ghost staff. You can take down any tower that still stands, even without creeps nearby. Your slots are full, or maybe you have one empty for an Aegis. Play how you like, but keep in mind that the enemy can manage to prolong the match and force you into your full potential build.
This is important. TALK before the match begins. Explain that you are going to play Meepo, and that the team will need at least one good support. Explain how you will be going Jungle at level 6, so Prophet and Lifestealer might not be good picks for teammates.
Communication is the key to winning and having a good match. Do not neglect to call missing and pay attention for others to do the same.
Pros:
-High agility build means you will do massive damage while being relatively safe.
-Ethereal blade's active ability has synergy with Poof for dealing massive magical damage to a single target, also disables a nasty autoattacker.
Cons:
-You NEED your core, there are no options. If the game goes too long, you MUST get these items to be viable, and they are EXPENSIVE.
-You are squishy until you get Eye and Heart, and they are the last items you will likely build since your aim is to end the game before they are needed.
Meepo is falsely considered to be a midgame-only hero and to be useless once everyone hits 25. This build makes him a viable threat from level 11 onward, and provides for end-game core to replace early core if the game is dragged out long enough to get them.
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