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Magic Stick
Healing SalveHealing Salve
ClarityClarityClarityClarity
Bracer
Boots of Speed
Magic Wand
Void Stone
Perseverance
Drum of Endurance
Arcane Boots
Staff of Wizardry
Point Booster
Aghanim's Scepter
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Refresher Orb
Orchid Malevolence
Scythe of Vyse
Bloodstone
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1 | 3 | 5 | 9 |  |
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2 | 4 | 7 | 8 |  |
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10 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
This guide is intended as a starting point for newish players who want to get a jump start with a powerful newbie friendly character.
Full discloure: I'm a relatively new DOTA player, and this guide is based on the couple of months I've been playing. If you're looking for competition level advice, this is not the place to look. There are a host of far, far better people to listen to, however when I started trying to learn I felt pretty lost in a forest of jargon and complex terminology. This is an attempt to spell out some simple lessons in plain English. Hope it helps somebody.
Firstly a little about Lina: Lina is a high damage, low endurance ranged character who excels at sitting behind other players or creeps and raining down devastation. She is the perfect glass cannon character. If an enemy gets on top of her she will melt in seconds, however if you can keep your distance you can inflict huge amounts of damage. I am not exaggerating about the glass part. If you forget how vulnerable she is, you will die over and over.
Lina has a range of potential roles, but as a new player your safest bet is to use your range to control your lane, grab easy ganks and not take any risks while you build up the set of items that turn her into a fire spewing monster later in the game.
Pros
High damage ranged attack
Great cheap stun spell
Very useful wide damage attack spell
Sensational Ultimate attack
Cons
Extremely vulnerable to attack
No easy escape method
Now I'm likely to get a little criticism (or a lot, who knows) over the starting items I've listed. Most guides recommend buying items like 
Iron Branch which give you a great small attribute boost. If however you are a genuinely new player, that small attribute boost is likely to mean very little compared to your desperate need for mana and hp replenishment.
Most builds will also recommend 
Tango as your heal source. This is perhaps a matter of taste, but early in your DOTA life the time spent waiting for your health to creep back up from each Tango use can often keep you off lane or kill you. Salves are fast and very easy to use. If you want a top up heal then switch a salve for a Tango as suits.
As you get used to how the game plays, that would be a good time to start working out a decent starting build that suits your play. Personally I'd swap a Salve and a couple of Clarity for a 
Circlet (which transitions nicely into your Bracer) but each to their own.
Remember: it is vitally important for you to stay on lane as much as possible at the start of the game. If you start getting left behind on levels, it can be extremely difficult to catch back up. While you are getting used to how people attack you, you are likely to be taking hits, so don't be afraid to use your spells liberally and use the Salve and Clarity to try and stay on the front line for as long as possible.
While you are on lane (and hopefully earning money from those last hits) you can build up your basic item set: Bracer, Boots of Speed and Magic Wand. Those 3 items will give you the boost you need to keep up with the action and hopefully survive a little longer. Once you have these basics, my best advice is to sit and grind the 875 gold for Void Stone. This wonderful item will give you a huge mana regeneration boost, so you can sit and happily throw out spells to your hearts content. It is also one half of your most important early game item, a little ring called Perseverance. This adds a lovely hp regeneration boost, which should keep you nicely in shape throughout the mid game.
Once Perseverance is safely in your pocket, my recommended next step is the Drum of Endurance followed by upgrading your Boots of Speed to Arcane Boots. Alongside the personal boost these give you, they also allow you to help out your teammates with a couple of handy active AOE effects.
Now you've got all those things? Ok, now it's time for the single most important item Lina can possess, Aghanim's Scepter. We grab the other items first, because Aghanim's Scepter only really comes into it's own at level 16. At this point it acts as a final upgrade for your most powerful spell, which along with its nice boost to your mana, hp and attributes makes it a truly wonderful thing.
If you manage to get this far, then you can basically start cherry picking nice luxury items. Eul's Scepter of Divinity is a nice thing to have, but basically so are the other options listed. Just assess the game and go for whatever you feel you need at the time.
Lina is blessed with a superb trio of spells that make her a genuinely terrifying gank character.
Dragon Slave
Dragon Slave is a cone shaped fire spell with a nice range and decent damage. As your first spell choice, it allows you to inflict early damage on the enemy hero's in your lane, and weaken/finish the creeps easily. It can be a superb spell for swiftly weakening a group of enemy hero's, and when used wisely can swing the course of a battle.
Warning Note: Dragon Slave's mana cost rises with each level. If you start spraying it around wildly early in the game, you will quickly find yourself mana dry and easy to pick off.
Light Strike Array
Light Strike Array serves as perhaps the most important spell in your armory, and also provides you with the closest thing you have to an escape mechanism. Light Strike Array creates a blast of fire on your chosen target, stunning it in place for 1.6 seconds and damaging it. This stun provides you and your teammates with the time you need to lay down the serious damage, prevent enemies from running, and occasionally finishing off vulnerable enemies.
One of the most vital advantages LSA gives you is the ability to escape a fight you cannot win. By casting LSA at your feet as you are being rushed, it can give you the valuable head start you need to run away. Watch your enemies closely, and if you are feeling vulnerable always be ready to use this.
Warning Note: Light Strike Array is a slow spell to cast. The delay means that enemies will often have left the target area by the time it lands, making it important to carefully watch how people are moving. Enemy hero's are usually quite predictable, wait until they are about to rush in, or aim ahead of them as they run and you will soon be landing this spell with frightening accuracy.
Fiery Soul
Fiery Soul is a passive spell that provides you with a welcome boost to your attack speed and movement as you cast spells. It helps increase Lina's potency, however you should only be upgrading this spell when the other three are unavailable.
Laguna Blade
Laguna Blade is quite simply the most powerful single attack spell in the game. With a long range and huge damage, Laguna Blade can reach out and obliterate enemy hero's with impunity. With a high mana cost and a long cooldown however, it is important to chose your moments carefully.
Laguna Blade's final upgrade comes when you purchase Aghanim's Spectre.
Lina has a reputation as a strong mid lane character. As such you will frequently be bombarded with calls from your teammates to 'Go Mid!'. In the hands of an experienced Lina the mid lane can indeed be a good position, where you can dominate play with your wise spell usage and careful reading of the game. However..
As a new player, the middle lane is perhaps the last place you want to find yourself. Right in the middle of the map, you will be attacked from either side at very short notice. Passing hero's will stop off regularly to gank you, and once your tower falls, the middle lane can be a very lonely place to find yourself.
As such, try where possible to (politely) get yourself onto one of the other lanes. My personal favourite (as either Dire or Radiant) is the top lane. As Radiant it gives you easy access to the secret shop (which you'll need regularly) and provides you with some fun options, but it does leave you quite vulnerable to being flanked by the forest path and the river. As Dire it takes you away from the shop but allows you to cheekily flank people from the forest path and the river.
If you want a little more safety while you get used to your new character however, your safest bet is probably top as Dire and bottom as Radiant. Call where you want to be in the chat window during character select to avoid arguments.
One final note, if you do find yourself on middle lane as a new player, then watch out for times when you find yourself facing 
Sniper. He is your enemy and in the hands of a good player he will hurt you. He out-ranges you and can drive you back with near impunity. If you find yourself alone in mid with him in your first games, request a lane change.
Lina has a variety of roles, but here are a few nice and effective tactics to get you started. Remember however, the key with Lina is to watch your mana. If you ensure you have enough mana left to carry out your full range of attacks, you can become instant death to many hero's. Let your mana fall too low, and you become nothing more than a cheap kill.
The Harass
When you start the game you have the potential to harass your opposing hero's mightily. Your Dragon Slave allows you to blast them with a nice chunk of damage, however the real trick with Lina is to target hero's that come forward to attack the creeps with your normal attack.
At the start of the game even the strongest melee characters are weak, and a few hits from Lina will usually send them scurrying back. Everyone wants to stay on lane at the start to earn invaluable xp and gold, and you can often prevent them from getting the latter. Hit them whenever you can, wear them down, force them to use their healing items and hopefully eventually make them run back to the spawn to regenerate.
Despite this, try not to take crazy risks. If you see both hero's heading towards you then retreat a little, but equally don't run at the slightest shadow. DOTA players pick up very quickly on which opponents are to be feared and which will provide easy kills. You need to send a message that you are a force to be contended with, and you will find yourself having a much easier game as a result.
The Gank
Throughout a game as Lina there are several points where she becomes an extremely efficient ganker. The first of these comes as early as level 2, when Lina gains Light Strike Array to combine with Dragon Slave. This is your first opportunity to practice stunning your opponent, and when an enemy has already taken damage (or your teammate is ready to jump in) you can be claiming kills very early. Try and wait for them to come as far forward as possible, then hit them with the Light Strike Array, follow up with the Dragon Slave and be ready to start firing normal attacks at them to finish them off if necessary. Just remember to watch where you are going if you are pursuing a nearly dead enemy. It is very easy to get caught up in the excitement of a potential kill and find yourself running straight into the range of an enemy tower. Early in the game this rarely ends well..
The second stage of gank for Lina comes at Level 6 when she finally gains her wonder spell Laguna Blade. At this point, Lina is capable of solo'ing a majority of enemy hero's in the early-mid game. The attack order is simply Light Strike Array (stun), Laguna Blade (blast) and then Dragon Slave (finish) if necessary. As before, be ready to follow up with normal attacks in case your enemy somehow narrowly survives your torrent of damage.
By mastering this triple combination of spells you can very quickly start building up decent kill scores, however you should never forget how vulnerable Lina is to open attack. As you become more used to the character you will find she is surprisingly capable of standing up to attack from even multiple hero's at once due to the benefits of both Light Strike Array and Dragon Slave being Area of Effect spells. Until you gain experience however you need to be careful and try and pick ganks that will allow you to target an enemy with overwhelming force and escape before reinforcements arrive.
As you get more practice, be bold. Enemy hero's expect Lina to hide at the back and shoot from safety. Do the unexpected from time to time, pop up in the last place they expect to see you and snatch kills. The first defense your opponents have against a mana filled Lina is to run away. When you appear behind them, they rarely have time to think about a new escape route.
Support
There comes a sad time in every Lina's life when she is expected to chip in and help support the team. Though far less exciting and fun than solo ganking, it does offer tremendous potential for lots of kills and to help your team come out victorious from group fights. Dragon Slave and Light Strike Array can both help swing the course of any group encounter, with DS helping to weaken groups of enemies, finish off running enemies and generally add to the carnage. LSA meanwhile gives that wonderful group stun which can buy your teammates valuable seconds to lay down damage, stop running enemies in their tracks and buy your teammates time to escape themselves. If you want to really make a new friend in DOTA, drop an LSA on a friend as he's about to be ganked by a melee enemy, and buy him the time to run. People really, really appreciate that kind of help.
As I said in the introduction, this guide is intended to help the very new players who find themselves wanting to jump into the confusing maze that is DOTA with a decent character. I remember reading many guides and finding it all quite perplexing, so please forgive quite how basic some of it may sound.
If you are a newbie and you find yourself getting fond of Lina, please go and read some of the much more professional guides available on this site. I just hope this one gives you a few pointers to make your learning curve a little less steep.
Happy ganking!
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