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137 Votes

Storm warning! STILL WORKS IN 6.82c (OPA)

November 14, 2014 by Whated
Comments: 74    |    Views: 860029    |   


Build 1
Build 2

Storm Spirit

DotA2 Hero: Storm Spirit




Hero Skills

Static Remnant

1 12 13 14

Electric Vortex

3 4 5 7

Overload

2 8 9 10

Ball Lightning

6 11 16

Talents

15 17 18

Introduction

Hello!



and welcome to my Storm Spirit guide. Here I'm going to explain a bit how I play Storm. I recommend you to at least read the items & gameplay section before giving up your vote. Sadly, some people will not even read this small Introduction.

Anyways, enjoy.

Pros / Cons

Pros

  • Pretty strong at all stages of the game (early, mid, late game)

  • Strong 1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds disable (on levels 1,2,3,4 of Electric Vortex).

  • High mobility.

  • Good pushing/anti pushing abilities.

  • Good nuking damage provided by Static Remnant and Overload (Sometimes even Ball Lightning).

  • Decent initiator (you have to be careful though).

  • High snowball potential with early Bloodstone.

Cons

  • Is squishy at early and mid game.

  • Very vulnerable to disables.

  • To play well, you need good mana management.

  • The ultimate sometimes makes you play cocky, you jump in and suddenly you are in a bad position and out of mana.

  • Kind of gold dependant.

Items & Gameplay

Starting items & Early game




It's good to take Tangos and a Healing Salve for good hp regeneration on the lane. Few stats helps you to take last hits on creeps. Later on you make them into a Magic Wand and to a Null Talisman.

Why not to use all gold for start?

The answer is fairly simple. The extra 150 gold you save for the

faster Bottle. Rune control gives you a fairly good advantage over the enemy mid. Also runes help you a lot in ganks.

Also in public games it is important to have an Animal Courier which costs 150 gold. Usually it is your supports job to buy one, but in pubs EVERYTHING is possible.


At the lane

you should try to deny and last hit as much as possible until your level 6 where ganking usually comes in. Sometimes you can harass your laning opponent with Overload powered auto attacks. And sometimes even with Static Remnant.

You should always push the lane with Overload and Static Remnant a bit before runes spawn -they spawn every 2 minutes- so you can run to runes and pick them up.



Early/Mid game items




The only reason you make Arcane Boots is, that you will later on disassemble it and make the Energy Booster into Soul Booster which you make into a Bloodstone. Arcane Boots provides good mana pool and the active is good for early/mid game Storm Spirit.

The other items are fairly basic. Bottle is for HP and mana regeneration. Null Talisman is for stats. Magic Wand is for stats and the active is good.


At early/mid game

you try to gank and push early towers to make gold advantage to your team. Ganking with storm will be explained later. You basicly try to get your Bloodstone as fast as possible, and then gain stacks for it.



Mid/Late game items




Boots of Travel You make these to replacement your Arcane Boots which went for Bloodstone. Boots of Travel gives you some nice movement speed (highest amount in the game). Also the main thing in these boots is, that you can teleport to a creep or structure of yours every 60 seconds. Also in late game, if you happen to die in team fight, you can buy back and teleport next to the fight (if creeps or structure of yours are near).

I think what Bloodstone gives have been explained a few times already, but I explain it one more time in a nutshell. It gives great regeneration, has great snowball potential and gives you pretty much nice amount of HP and MANA pool. Very strong item, that will keep advantage you claim at early/mid game.


Black King Bar gives you strength and pure damage. Also the main reason it is built is, that active is so great. A magic immunity, which goes down by use. It starts with 10 seconds and goes down with each use. Caps at 5 seconds. This great item allows you to initiate fights and survive them, because most of the magic can't be cast on you.

Bottle and Magic Wand has been explained already. Usually you sell these items when you can claim some of the Luxury items.


At mid/late game

You basicly try to do same things as at early/mid game. Maybe less ganking, because everyone is going to be more in groups. But it is great thing to your team, if you can kill one of them by catching them out of position with your Ball Lightning. That can be really risky sometimes. They can bait you to jump in, and then throw disables at you and get you killed. You must have good map awareness whole game, but especially late game.


Luxury/Situational items




Eye of Skadi is A SUPER LUXURY ITEM. It could even be called luxury luxury item. It is really expensive but it really gives a lot of nice stats and a good orb effect.


Black King Bar vs Linken's Sphere

Linken's Sphere is a good item on storm. And also fairly common too. Some people prefer it over Black King Bar because it blocks 1 spell even though it would go through Black King Bar. And it gives good stats and nice regeneration. I would say it is not as powerful as Black King Bar, but I suggest grabbing it instead of it, when enemy team has a lot of disables that go through Black King Bar. For example Pudge's ult goes through Black King Bar, so does Beastmaster's and Bane's. And trust me, they will definitely save them for you.


Orchid Malevolence gives nice amount of intelligence, attack speed, damage and mana regeneration. But the best part of it is the active. A silence that lasts 5 seconds and the silenced target also takes 25% more damage. A very good item to grab later on.


Scythe of Vyse also known as sheep stick and guinsoo's. What can I say? Good amount of intelligence, some strength and agility. Great amount of mana regeneration. And amazing active; Hex, that turns the target to a sheep for 3.5 seconds. The target can basicly do nothing, but run away at a very slow phase.


Shiva's Guard gives you nice amount of intelligence and armor to tank up with. Also the aura and the active is great in team fights. Because you are basicly in the middle of fight with your Black King Bar on as Storm Spirit.


Power Treads, you take these when you want to deal more damage than with Boots of Travel. The pros of this is that they are cheaper by 1000 gold, and the earlier mentioned more damage. But the cons of Power Treads is that you need to always buy and carry Town Portal Scroll's. And you have slightly less movement speed.

Skill builds

Build 1's or build 2's skill build and why?



The only difference in between these two builds is, that in build 1 you max out Electric Vortex to level 4 before going for other skills. In build 2 you leave it at level 3.

I could say, that build 1 is for a bit more disable. Which is really good in ganks. But has a slightly less damage.

Build 2 is for more damage, and is more useful in solo situations, where you are the one dealing the damage and not the disabler one. Also you need to notice, that level 3 Electric Vortex is enough to get your pull to hit your Static Remnant.

Why skill Overload over Static Remnant?

It is fairly simple. With overload you deal more damage with less mana usage. Basicly you use your Ball Lightning -> hit with Overload -> Electric Vortex -> Overload -> Static Remnant -> Overload.

So there is 3 overloads. With every level Storm Spirit gains +15 damage to Overload
So basicly you deal 3 x 15 = 45 damage more with each level. And with Static Remnant you only gain +40 damage every level + it costs more mana!, which you really have problems with at early/mid game.

Friends and Foes

Friends

A lot of heroes go well with Storm Spirit. But I want to mention especially that heroes that can follow up Storm Spirit's initiation well works well with him. For example Tidehunter and Sand King. Also lanes that have some crowd control are easy to gank, so they are also friends of Storm Spirit.

Foes

The two most annoying heroes to play againts as Storm Spirit must be doom bringer and Silencer. Both basicly because of their ultimates. But I really would like to mention Silencer's passive, that makes you unable to jump in and use your Electric Vortex, because you get silenced after using a single skill. I could say EVERY silence and stun is crucial to Storm Spirit

Also I would like to mention anti mage, but it is really up to you will he become a problem or not. Because Storm Spirit can gank anti mage early with Ball Lightning and shut him down.

Tips & Tricks

A few tips & tricks with Storm Spirit



- You can spam your Bottle at base to provide faster regeneration and by that get back faster.

- You can dodge skills for example stuns with your Ball Lightning. This needs really nice timing, practice and knowing other heroes skills.

- You can shoot your auto attack, and make it into an Overloaded auto attack in mid air by using a skill, for example Static Remnant.

- You can use your Static Remnant while in Ball Lightning.

- You can reveal sight around you with Static Remnant. Down there is few examples of how to use it to check Roshan and reveal juking enemies. Thanks to Atlas and Hades for helping me with these pictures.







Ending words

If you really bothered to read this guide, thank you. I wrote it in around 3 hours. It isn't much detailed but I tried to at least give you some vision of the awesome lovely hero Storm Spirit.

I would really like to hear your opinion in comment sections. And if you vote, I would like to hear why. In both +1 and -1 votes.

So yeah, have fun playing Storm Spirit.

FUN FACT: Dotacinema released their Storm Spirit guide 20 minutes after this one. It has almost the same items, and I really prefer you watching it. But it has in my opinion wrong skill build.

Click here to see it.

-Whated

New section about Storm's versatilety

So yeah Storm is extremely versatile, at least I say so after hours of dota experience. He can skill himself almost any way and you can't really say the best build for him because many of them work with different play styles of course. Also the situations have to be taken in mind. To be frank many items work on storm. I can't name a bad item for storm, only fact that matters is that the item has to be for INT heroes.

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