Medusa hardest carry 6.85(Lane, Support & Farming)

Introduction

I'm SiD(same is my nick on dota2)This is my first guide on dotafire and I love medusa as a hero and a character, the lore and the animation is sick!!

Please Note : These are not ranked games(I personally don't like ranked games) and none of the screen shot provided are edited match ID's are provided so you can actually check on dota2 client or any dota website.

This is a set of builds and item progression for Medusa explained below, Medusa is a durable, team-fight/AoE focused hard carry. By hard carry I mean hard, she's often referred as scariest late game hero, with an amazing GPM and DPS along with a one of the best game-breaking/making ultimate. In the current meta it is not one of the more successful hero as Medusa's starting statistics are competitively low in my opinion,it needs a lot of farm to start being effective and current meta is to go like a deathball Asap.

Some of my medusa matches are :




If you're not familiar with the hero , the Lore is posted below.

Lore :

Overview

Medusa is one of the few Agility heroes in dota2 that could be called a tank, a word which applies not only to her durability but also her DPS. Medusa is an makedo lane carry (600 range), though she lacks an escape mechanism before level 6. Mystic Snake crushes poorly positioned dual and trilanes, while Mana Shield allows you to be somewhat durable in lane and scales incredibly lategame. Split Shot does little early but reduce your last hitting power and push the lane, but late game takes your AoE DPS and puts you on Gyrocoptor's level without an attack limit. Her ultimate, Stone Gaze is an amazing skill that makes her difficult to gank without instant disables and makes team fighting into her impossible. She crushes BKB dependent melee heroes and illusion carries alike.

As a hero Medusa is unique in that she benefits from every stat -- strength gives more HP, agility gives armor, damage, and IAS, while intelligence gives her effective HP.

Pros / Cons

Pros

• Great farmer/pusher/teamfighter with Split Shot and Mystic Snake
• Beautiful attack animation and projectile speed.
• 600 Range agility carry.
• Very strong early nuke if the enemy doesn't dodge it.
• Late-game durability unmatched, even by Spectre or Faceless Void.
• Late-game DPS unmatched, even by Phantom Assassin, Chaos Knight or even Sniper.
• Destroys illusion based heroes with gaze or split shot.
• Strong ultimate -- like a Demonic Purge that turns into a Ravage that has Amplify Damage.

• Very bad starting stats (14 base strength) and mediocre stat growth (1.65 strength and 2.5 agility)
• Takes many items to get out of control
• Slow movement-speed
• Gets rekt by Anti-Mage, Silencer and other sources of Mana-burn.
• Her ultimate Stone Gaze deals no damage by itself.
• Mana Shield does not apply damage reductions.

Play Styles

There are no set play style for Medusa, It is a hard carry that takes a lot of care-taking, farming and lot of doing to get out of control. Few things are to be taken care of however

• One of the

  most important!!

  items for you during a game is Observer Ward. As Medusa needs lot of farm, she needs to be aware of the map and taken care of in starting 20 minutes of the game. If your support is not buying wards for you buy them for your self for your sake.

  Optimum places for wards while farming a lane in early game are

  
• Do not pick Medusa if you are the only designated carry in your team and enemy team has a lot of early game and cheap carries like Troll Warlord, Phantom Assassin and Sniper etc.
• Do not pick Medusa if there are no supports in the team who are willing to babysit you for at-least first 10 - 15 mins of the game.
• Always carry a Town Portal Scroll.
• If there is a Meepo in your team do not pick Medusa as Meepo will starve you of level and farm.
• If there is a Meepo in enemy team get Blink Dagger asap to save yourself from getting initated from Earthbind and Poof Combo.
• Eye of Skadi should normally be opted first if there is a tanky ganking hero in game that you can't outrun easily such as Chaos Knight( Reality Rift) and Spirit Breaker, normally I would get a decent Damage Item either Yasha or Daemon Edge or both and then go into Eye of Skadi in such Scenarios.
• Helm of the Dominator can be opted in early game too if you want some survival and easy farming of neutrals it gives decent Armour + lifesteal+ regeneration but it's simply not my cup of tea how ever it has it's moments.
• Be flexible.

Friends or Foes?

Itemisation

* Daedalus is an optional item used where there are too many tanky strength hero's in the game such as Pudge, Sven and Chaos Knight etc.

* Octarine Core is helpful as it solves Medusa's Mana problems and reduces the cooldown of spells significantly all the while healing her ie. Mystic Snake(level 4) every 4.5 seconds!! and Stone Gaze every 67.5 seconds instead of 90 seconds. I still wouldn't recommend it.

* Lotus Orb is one of the best end game item there is as serves the purpose of Linkens Sphere along with the ability to reflect that spell on the caster, imagine if you reflected a Laguna Blade or Omnislash.

* Divine Rapier Medusa is one of the best rapier carries in the game her survival makes her too beastly to just stand in the front line and melt faces of enemy heros

* Mjollnir increases Medusa's godly farming capabilities to new height and give additional attack speed.

* Eul's Scepter of Divinity is one of those occasional items that you make when you are lacking farm helps you survive mostly by dodging spells in addition to giving insane mana regeneration along with additional movement speed

* Manta Style gives a good set of statistics, movement-speed, along with the manta split for free pushing, farming, spell dodging, confusion, and DPS-boosts in a team-fight and scales with every statistics item you get.

* Monkey King Bar I usually Opt for this item as it give a very good boost in DPS and scales you into late game where one of the opponent will eventually get a evasion item enabling you to true-strike them.

* Satanic gives Raw Health Points, life-steal, a well as a great survivability in team-fights while active. Expensive but good in late game.

* Refresher Orb with new patch it gives a good amount of health and mana regeneraton and also refreshes all abilities and items great in a team-fight where you need 2x Stone Gaze

* Black King Bar just gives you magical immunity to tank the magic nukes, how ever it is advisable for you to tank those nukes instead of letting your team take it as your were in AVATAR, although exceptions are always there.

Summary

To summarise,

1) yes it is still one of the hardest and scariest carries in game.

2) Solve Mana troubles and you will Dominate the game more or less.

3) Never pick Medusa if you are the sole carry of the team.

4) the general build I go for :

Lane phase and Mid game

In Lane phase your best friend is Mystic Snake try to use it in such a way that it hits the hero's at last doing upto 600 magic and pure(while in Stone Gaze) Dmg!! while jumping 6 npc., I generally prefer Power Treads so I can switch primary attribute to intelligence and can spam Mystic Snake.

Here is a Screen Shot of Mystic Snake killing Lina for 260 dmg with 3 creeps :





Level Split Shot faster before Mana Shield as in early and mid game you would not have enough Mana pool to tank much damage if you get locked on and still be able to use ultimate Stone Gaze, So only option remains is farm faster and get items fast.

Acknowledgements & Credits

This is my first guild so all criticisms as well as appreciations are welcome, I would very much like to know if I did alright.

Also all questions and recommendations are welcome.

Credit : I took some inspiration from Sp12's Medusa Guide

Regards and have fun.