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Tango
Animal Courier
Observer Ward
Iron BranchIron Branch
Clarity
Flying Courier
Observer Ward
Boots of Speed
Magic Stick
Sentry Ward
Sage's Mask
Tranquil Boots
Magic Wand
Town Portal Scroll
Observer and Sentry Wards
Glimmer Cape
Blink Dagger
Ghost Scepter
Force Staff
Urn of Shadows
Aghanim's Scepter
Black King Bar
Octarine Core
Pipe of Insight
Shiva's Guard
Solar Crest
Removed Item
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4 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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1 | 11 | 12 | 13 |  |
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2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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6 | 14 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
| 1. | Ingame Guide |
| 2. | Pros / Cons |
| 3. | Role |
| 4. | Laning |
| 5. | Skills |
| 6. | Skill Progression |
| 7. | Item Progression |
| 8. | Warding |
| 9. | Stack and Pull |
| 10. | Trivia |
| 11. | Thanks |
Pros:
+ Can farm creeps from hard camp from level 1
+ Low level & item dependency
+ Long lasting disable since first level
+ Zero mana problems
+ Long range AoE nuke/slow
+ Helps the whole team with mana
+ When well used, ultimate can be devastating
Cons:
- VERY squishy
- VERY slow movement speed
- Slow attack animation (hard to deny)
- Disable can be broken by Black King Bar
- Ultimate is hard to use correctly
Due to her frailty and slow movement and attack speed, strong spells, and 0 escape skills, 
Crystal Maiden has to play the support role. She's actually is one of the best at it, with a AoE nuke that slows and deals a good chunk of damage ( Crystal Nova), high-duration semi reliable stun ( Frostbite), an aura that benefits the whole team wherever they are ( Arcane Aura), and a very hard-hitting ultimate that slows ( Freezing Field, unfortunately not very reliable).
A support hero is the one that doesn't benefit as well as others from gold income, and that doesn't have enough survivability/escape to solo a lane. As such, Crystal Maiden should focus on everything that boosts her team instead of herself, and the player should be very selfless. She won't be the one doing triple kills and carrying the game, but she'll be very important in combat and maybe the gamebreaking piece, if you play your cards right.
So, keep in mind that you need to buy stuff like wards, courier, dust and gems, as well as focus your item builds in helping the team, like building a Mekanism or Urn to heal them.
Once games goes late, you can eventually build your "combo" items: Blink Dagger + Glimmer Cape/ Black King Bar ( + aghanin's scepter). These items allow you to blink into the middle of a teamfight, either invisible or magic immune, and cast your ultimate, Freezing Field, to its full duration, which can be gamebreaking, specially since it's unexpected for the support to have such impact.
Crystal Maiden should never solo a lane, since she's so slow, bad at last hitting, and has terrible survivability. She's best served when put together with a Hard Carry in the Easy Lane, roaming around the map to score kills, and, most importantly, controling the jungle with stacks and using her Frostbite to farm.
During laning phase, you one main goal - grab advantage to your team. This looks obvious, but the simply fact that CM doesn't scale well into the lategame means this is vital to be done EARLY. If the scoreboard is 0-0 at around 10 minutes, you are probably doing something wrong.
Now, to find this advantage, there are two main things you need to focus during early game:
- Score your team some kills;
- Manipulate the jungle
The first one looks simple, but is the hardest task. With 280 move speed and but a few items in the bag, you will need to catch your opponent off-guard and pray he doesn't kill you before you do.
The second, although less direct to the point, is what Crystal Maiden excels at. You should be stacking camps all the time, specially the easy one (the one near the lane) to delay the lane creeps and allow your carry to farm. Meanwhile, you should grab runes and kill big neutral creeps using Frostbite, grabbing XP and gold in the process. Crystal Maiden has much more impact in the game when she has her Core Items -> Tranquil Boots and Magic Wand (not a giant core, I'd say).
You should also keep Observer Wards up, and protect the carry. You can even body-block to prevent your carry from dying, even if it costs your death, it may be well worth it for the late game.
Try to Stack 'n' Pull the neutral camps to keep the lane safe for the carry. If you don't know how to do that, we'll get to it. Or, you can scroll down and see "Stack and Pull" chapter. =D
Crystal Nova
Cristal Nova is a AoE nuke that slows both attack and movement speed. It is very strong during team fights because it will cripple multiple enemies at once, slowing and dealing a good amount of damage, but also because it has a HUGE HUGE range. Crystal Nova range is 700 (a little bigger than CM's attack range) and you get 200 extra range from its radius, so it's a 900 range spell. You can safely initiate fights with that without even going into trouble.
Frostbite
Very straigh forward skill, it will keep your enemy on ground. Keep in mind that this doesn't prevent heroes from casting spells, although they cannot flee from it with Blink of Invisibility.
Keeping it on level 1 will make for a more spamable skill that is enough for a kill.
It has a shorter range, so, if needed, cast a Crystal Nova to chase first.
Arcane Aura
Grab this ASAP because it helps your team in the whole map. If not for this reason, it also grants you enough mana regen so that you don't need to waste coins on it, so it's a win-win skill.
Freezing Field
Timing your Freezing Field into a double or triple-kill is really tricky, since it's a channeling spell that WILL be interrupted by stuns. It is NOT like Enigma's ultimate, a initiation skill. Instead, Freezing Field is the last skill to be cast, after the initiation has taken place, and most importantly, the enemies' stun are down.
Other than that, Freezing Field is VERY useful when enemies engage your allies in team fights, because it will slow their attack (protecting your allies), slow their move (preventing them from running away) and increasing your DPS greatly.
This guide suggests the skill progression which is most common in pro-level these days, although many may disagree with it or point games where this was not the case. What IS the case, tho, is that it makes much sense, and here is why:
At level 1, you will ALWAYS grab Frostbite. Is this your best skill? Maybe. Is this the skill to be maximizing? Probably not. So why pick it first?
Here's what frostbite reads:
"Encases an enemy unit in ice, prohibiting movement and attack, while dealing 50 damage every half-second. Lasts 10 seconds on creeps level 6 or lower."
You WILL be using this skill on creeps ALL THE TIME. This is also why you leave base with a clarity potion. You boost your level and gold with it, and then you can play.
At level 2, you will ALWAYS grab Arcane Aura. This skill gives you twice the mana regen, so yeah, you can use Frostbite on creeps as much as you want and still have mana for ganks.
At level 3 you will VERY OFTEN grab second point in Arcane Aura. The exception here is if you are in a huge pressure, so that you need to fight and possibly can't control the jungle as well as you should. In this case, you pick Crystal Nova, since it's the spell you will be wanting to use in every teamfight, be it for the damage, the slow, or simply because you can use it from distance.
At level 4, you finally pick Crystal Nova. If you already have done so on level 3, jump to the next step. As stated above, Crystal Nova is the skill you want to cast every teamfight. The slow is huge and the damage is pretty good for the first point already.
The usual progression is to maximize Arcane Aura. You often run out of mana if you don't, and it allows for picking Freezing Field on level 6. Your teammates also suffer much less mana problems and this allows your team to fight for the early advantage you were looking for when you picked Crystal Maiden.
From then on, the most important skill to maximize is probably Crystal Nova. While a case can be made for Frostbite, Crystal Nova is better at teamfights, will help you push, is decent at de-pushing, and will let you farm the Jungle in order to build your late game items.
Opening
DON'T LEAVE BASE before Animal Courier is bought, if it was not bought, it's your duty to do so. If someone else bought it, buy Observer Wards. If people know their gaming and wards are also bought, buy Sentry Wards to counter-ward the pulling camp (see "Stack and Pull").
Early game
Flying Courier is very important, so try to buy it fast. Boots of Speed makes a lot of difference for you, so aim for it before any other item. Magic Stick is very cost-effective, even if you don't upgrade it into wand.
As the support, your DUTY is to BUY Observer WardS. You NEED to ward the map, and every once in a while you will have to give up that amazing item you wanted just to buy some more wards.
Core
Magic Wand is simply the upgrade for Magic Stick and branches, very effective item.
You are very effective as soon as you have Tranquil and some levels, and this is why your "core" is so small.
A notable option here is to build a Urn of Shadows if noone else has it. It is considered the best support item in the game by many people, and with a reason. For very cheap price tag, it offers STR, mana, regen and some extra damage.
Core Situationals
I call these "Core Situationals" beucase they are not your standard "buy everygame" core items. Instead, they are items which are very good for Crystal Maiden and will almost always take precedence over other options. Keep in mind that CM is a support, and as such, she will only be able to have limited amount of items, and thus, you need to decide which item to go for. Also, even in the case where you can buy all of them, you probably don't want to do so, because then you can progress to something with higher impact.
Glimmer Cape - This is the item I buy the most. It has so much value on Maiden: give you a much needed escape mechanism, the ability to soak magical damage so that you don't go down in a fight too fast, the chance to save your carry in dire situations with invis or spell resistance, and finally, the chance to cast your ultimate for its full duration in a teamfight.
Blink Dagger - The close second, it gives less than Glimmer, but it's something that glimmer doesn't provide. Blinking to initiate a gank, to engage a teamfight faster, or to position your ultimate are all very strong moves that will allow CM to have higher impact in the game. Also, together with Glimmer Cape, you can drop very potent Freezing Fields.
Ghost Scepter - can be bought situationally to specifically counter Right clicking heroes. Usually, you get it to try to last long enough in order to cast a few spells, or if the enemy's best way to interrupt your Freezing Field is by right clicking you down.
Force Staff - Although harder to pull off, force staff can provide much the same engagement as Blink dagger, with the benefits of sometimes saving yourself or your teammates. It's always an option, sometimes even if you already have a blink. I tend to opt to force over dagger when enemy is more kiteable, and we depend much on our carry.
Endgame / Options
These items should be options when you have enough gold, and you need to try to squish all you can from it.
Usually, if you are having good opportunities to use Freezing Field, you will either want a Black King Bar so that it doesn't get interrupted, or Aghanin's Scepter to boost its damage even more.
Scythe of Vise is an item that can't go wrong, and its main objective is to use your Blink Dagger to take down a hero that would otherwise escape from Frostbite using Black King Bar.
If the other team relies too much on magic damage, consider going for a Pipe of Insight.
If noone else did, or if your opponent has much right clickers, Solar Crest is a great item, and will allow for faster Roshans.
In the rare cases (or not so rare in pubs) that noone else bought it, 
Mekansm into 
Guardian Greaves can have some impact even in the lategame.
Finally, Octarine Core is a fine item if you feel you are able to spam your spells during teamfight already, and doesn't need anything else.
As a support, you should ALWAYS ward the map for your team. If you are new to this, I recomend the excelent Ultimate Guide to Warding, but for starters, keep in mind the 2 most important ward positions, which are the Rune spots, which also are the Jungle entrances for the game:
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This is the top rune ward, wich is also entrance to Dire jungle
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This is the bottom rune ward, which is entrance to Radiant jungle and also to Roshan
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If you are Radiant, the priority is to place the bottom rune ward. If you are Dire, the top one.
If you are supporting in the easy lane, it would be very nice if you could stack and pull creeps. To help you understanding and learning how to do this, here's a very good video (credits to XV Rogue Gaming, hope you don't mind the link):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ALVsb6AbcxA#t=242s
This is a very good video about supporting in general, but stacking 'n' pulling is at 04:00, but here is the full video if you want to learn more. (Recomended!)
- Rylai Crestfall, the Crystal Maiden, is one of the oldest heroes in DotA, along with Luna, Sniper and others, but she was called Frost Maiden before (back to when it was Dota 3.6c @ Warcraft 3 - Reign of Chaos)
My thanks to everyone for taking your time and reading this guide. Feel free to drop a comment if there's anything wrong, and don't forget to upvote if you like it. =D
My guides:
A brief guide to jungle Ursa until solo Roshan
Rylai Crestfall, the Support Maiden
LoL w00t Viper
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