Medusa acient farm guide

Introduction

This guide is for the Medusa players who want to farm the acients. The guide is based on farming on the radiant side, farming on the dire side can work. yet i haven't tested it myself. The idea of farming the acient is to chop down 3 trees and use split arrows to kill the acients, they can't hit you from where your standing. Later jungling and laning are considered options as well.

Items

Quelling Blade
the Quelling Blade is one of the key items early game it's needed to cut down the trees, so you can farm the acients. i would advice just to keep the quelling blade until you're at the point that you can face the acients without getting hurt to much. (if you have like a Mask of Madness). the trees you need to cut down will be placed later in the build.

Observer Ward
The observer wards are needed to provide you vision on the acients. to not interrupt your teams gameplay, the wards are placed so you have full vision and the mid laner has rune control. you can buy these or let a support buy them. Sentry Ward are also an option when the enemy has warded your acient camp, this is either for you or the supports to buy. if the supports say:

buy them yourself. they have to wait for the gold to earn which for a support takes to long. buying them yourself is the fastest option.

Town Portal Scroll
get one of these from the beginning or while farming for the Yasha, if you spot any enemy heros coming close to you(which in higher lvl games will happen). you simply tp out before they spotted you.

Yasha
the yasha is the first item you want to build when farming the acients. it gives damage and the much needed attack speed. this item can be build later into a Manta Style.

Phase Boots
after your yasha go for phase boots, these will give you more damage and more movement speed. the reason i choose to get phase boots and not power threads (which give you attack speed) is because after leaving the acients and going to lanes or in teamfights. you'll notice that Medusa is quite slow, having the Phase Boots will grant you that bit movement speed.

Mask of Madness
this itemw ill help you wreck teamfights, this item will give you enormous attack speed and movement speed. this will help you escape when being chased ( Yasha, Mask of Madness and Phase Boots will grant you max. movement speed). when you activate this item the increased attack speed will work great with your ult Stone Gaze, Split Shot and Manta Style.

tip.
1. to escape use first Mask of Madness then Phase Boots otherwhise the mask of madness will reset the phase boots effect.
2. in teamfight use first: Split Shot, Mask of Madness, Manta Style. this will grant the illusions the effects of as well.
3. Mask of Madness is a unique attack modifier. that is the only bad thing about the item, although an eye of skadii will still work. items like Diffusal Blade and Desolator won't help you.

Manta Style
this core item is what spreads chaos in teamfights.
1 medusa will shoot 1 arrow-> Split Shot -> 1 medusa will shoot 5 arrows -> activating Manta Style -> 3 medusas shoot 15 arrows.

Linken's Sphere
this item is good for almost any hero, it will give you more survivalbility in teamfights or when getting ambushed. the regen from it is much needed as well, Medusa simply doesn't has enough intelligence to support her own Mana Shield

Butterfly & Daedalus
these to items are great, they will give you a nice dps. which item you want first is up to you, if you're getting focused in teamfights build a Butterfly first for the evasion. if you don't build the Daedalus

Skills

Split Shot
split shot is an toggle ability that will grant you 4 more targets, this ability comes with a price. all the targets wil recieve a percentage less damage (50%-60%-70%-80%). in teamfights always turn it on and ensure to activate it before using Manta Style. when chasing 1 or 2 heroes, turn it off. you want to have that little bit extra damage to kill the escaping hero.

Mystic Snake
this is the skill that i haven't talked about a lot in this build. although a good game early-mid game for laning and farming, for this build it's not that usefull. it's small nuke won't have any use when reacing late-game. although it should be used in teamfights. the snake does pure damage on petrified enemies and will steal mana to support your Mana Shield. on it's highest lvl the snake will hit the last target with 610 magical or pure damage, this will only happen on the last target.

Mana Shield
this ability is what makes medusa a tank. if she has enough mana it will double her health(in theory it will, but because you use spells it won't go like that). this is also the reason that any Diffusal Blade is the greatest counter against medusa. the mana shield will absorb any incoming damage, and the lost mana will come back with Mystic Snake or by the regen.

Stone Gaze
this is one of the better teamfight abilities. any hero that will look in medusas direction for 2 seconds will be turned to stone. being turned to stone will simply stun them. heroes that are turned to stone will have 100% magic resistance and recieve extra physical damage. this is the point where medusa can be a horrible allie, most support have teamfight burst damages, like: Witch Doctor, Earthshaker, Lion, Lina. if any of those activate their ults on people turned to stone, it will do 0 damage. more of these friends & enemies will be discussed later. stone gaze will instantly destroy any petrified illusions.

Farming the Acients

this is probably the chapter where people who read this have been waiting for. how to properly jungle with medusa.

to be completly honest, i used a technique from a youtube video Play Video so the honor of having the technique goes to natusvinceretv.
if you follow the method they use the acient farming will be fine.

Friends & Enemies

here is a list of friends and enemies of medusa(inclusing enemy allies and counters).

Friends
friends of medusa will include heroes that will do mostly physical damage in teamfights, or those who will provide extra damage for Medusa
- Drow Ranger with her global extra damage
- Juggernaut with the omnislash
- Sniper being sniper and shooting stuff
- Earthshaker although he should be carefull with his ult, all the stuns are really usefull
- Enigma, etc. the standard big teamfight disables

Enemies
- Phantom Lancer any phantom lancer gets a Diffusal Blade which will drain medusas precious mana.
- anti mage no explanation needed
- Riki, Bounty Hunter and Clinkz, these are invisible heroes that can gank medusa early game. when she's farming the acients.
- Slark, the Essence Shift ability from slark will drain medusas attack damage.
- Bane, a special mention goes to bane. who can drain up to 70% of medusas mana when he has an aghanims scepter and uses fiend's grib on you.

Heroes you shouldn't play with medusa
- Earthshaker, unless you make sure you initiate the teamfight.
- Lina & Lion or anyone who relays on magic damage, any skill won't work agains the petrified enemies.
- Sand King, it will happen that the ult will occur when petrifiing enemies.

Heroes medusa counters
- Chaos Knight, if he pops his ult, you just gotta pop yours.
- Spectre, same idea as chaos knight
- Phantom Lancer, although not the true counter against phantomlancer. medusas ult in combination with Split Shot will destroy his illusions quite rapidly.

The End

i would like to apologize for the grammar and spelling mistakes.

this is my first guide on dotafire.com, if you like it make sure to upvote it. any feedback is welcome to improve the build.

greetings sanlian