Drafting Lich

Now Lich is a hero that did not see much of the competitive scene. Yesterday I pwned with this guy and I wanna ask you guys, when should I draft Lich? Why hasn't he see much of the competitive scene? Was he ever been a popular pick in the past? He is a good babysitter right? sacrifice controls your lane and would a value point in ice armor be good for laning phase? Was he kicked out of the competitive scene because roamers are the best heroes?

Also guys, Chain Frost has only 60 seconds CD at level 3. Broken?
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1394926535

ehhh

lich is a very strong dual laner

he allows heroes that otherwise would require two babysitters to go another lane other then safe.

for example a mid CK with a lich or an offlane Jugg with a lich

i personally draft him when i see the following things

- 3+ melee
- low core BKB buyers
- i need a certain hero but cant put them in a lane since it is taken.
- i will draft a AoE stun/group/slow

basically a good team can disengage well from a chain frost and a bad team will not know how too.
chain frost is very strong but his laning stage is way stronger.

say your running a jungler? dual lane safe with a lich and maybe a bristle or jugg and you have high kill potential and a very strong lane all the while depriving xp from there offlaner.

the current meta favours heavy cc and single target control and as good as lich is, he doesnt have a reliable disable and a KBK makes him useless.

since we are in the meta of melee high dps physical carries the ability to kite a carry is more preferable then what he offers.

hope that helps

All of what smuggler said is true but the big thing lich does is screw up timings. Let's say you have a hero that needs to hit a certain timing like... i draft viper for our mid. You draft an evasive carry that can't be chased easily or can man fight him (maybe qop or razor for each example) and a lich to dual lane. If lich gets his E at 1 and 3 my viper will not hit his Mek timing. Maybe I draft specter so you can draft something more aggressive to also control tempo like undying/lich off lane. Spec will never... Ever hit her radiance timing. She is basically forced to go into urn and be more active against that lane. So... When there's a hero and you know "that hero needs item X by Y minutes" lich is a good pick (anti Mage and BF is also an obvious one). The only problem is that lich offers little outside of that. He's great versus aggressive teams that commit with space (like razor, tide, earthshaker) because once they dive into your team, and the opponents follow up, chain frost will make them back. Few spells match the DPS of a full chain frost at an equal level.

But yeah... Mostly just screw up the opponents item timings. He weakens your draft in almost every other way since he can't gank well, and can't save mid from ganks with a TP. His job is to use E whenever it's up. Use Q if you can remember, and press R sometimes. Complicated hero. Kappa.

Edit: Don't put lich in the safe lane unless you are VERY knowledgable on drafting. Experience lost from denies can be made up with stacks and leeching. The gold cannot be made up. The map flows a consistent amount of gold with time. Your team being ahead in gold is big. Experience is much easier to make up. All it takes is a successful gank on a core and their off lane will be caught up, and your lich pick will be nullified since you put him against an off laner (who doesn't care about lost gold. Only lost experience, which is very easy to gain back. Gold is not)

Edit #2: I have to keep editing because I still don't have Internet and my phone crashes from large posts. Look at that game you posted unscathed: you were winning in exp until the 18 minute mark. Probably a lost team fight. The longer the game is, the longer it takes the opponents to get six slotted. Or even get their first item. Watch a pro game and how they split gold and exp. When the mis ganks, the safe lane plays careful and the support leeches mid. When protecting mid, the support stacks for the mid. Everything is efficient. Lich messes that up. If my off lane LC is racing your safe lane AM (let's say blink vs BF) LC can actually get her blink really quickly, and AM can't jungle without BF. Duel is insane vs AM, so you can just keep picking on him and force him to jungle without a BF, which sucks for him. Also, I'm not saying smuggles isn't a good drafter with my "good at drafting" remark. I'm just saying that lich isn't drafted in competitive because he's situational. You can only pick him with certain line ups, against certain heroes.

basically that plus this

drafting lich to his fullest potential requires you to be playing with people that have exceptional knowledge of the game or amazing communcation.

stacking is hardly done by most pub supports up to and including 4k+ players.

when playing in a team everything is about efficiency.

double wave lane is communicated to supports who are already moving for stack timing.

a forced out offlaner is communicated to lanes and allows supports to rotate and stack.

you hardly ever see a support in pro games sitting idly by.

supporting WELL is incredibly hard to do.

"i support i ward" no no no

supporting is a bazillion more things then that. hence why lich is good for a dual lane mid.

i prefer CK lich or Jugg lich doe to their synergy.

also something angelo didnt mention is that by laning a hero with lich you can put them in a lane they wouldn't usually be in e.g. mid or offlane.

Something that nobody mentioned is that you can wombo combo him up with Chronosphere or Reverse Polarity. So he's pretty good for that matter as well.

I really like Lich as a solo offlaner, he's great against lanes which are basically "unwinnable", as all he needs to do is destroy a good portion of their gold/xp, and not die. It does free their supports to roam somewhat, but not many heroes go do well 1v1 with a well levelled Lich.

Obviously he's weak against push line ups (not exactly a problem these days), but the main issue is he lacks CC of any kind. Very strong laner/harasser though, and can add a lot of teamfight. Frost Armor is also super-useful late.

For these reasons i like him in duel offlanes. Especially with an Axe. You can absolutely boss the lane with these 2 and the kill potential is really good. Not to mention the Axe can go into their jungle and farm up giving you the lane for a bit to get a level advantage.
And, you know, Berserker's Call + Chain Frost is lovely.

dont forget the Lich Morphling duallane mid.

I think the dual lane setup can work (in fact, it's one of relatively few offlane duals that's genuinely competitive), but my personal experience of them hasn't been great.

Yes, having the right ally with really strong laning/killing potential against a misguided or unbalanced trilane is great...yes you can maybe help get farm on a hero who would otherwise be completely unable to function there otherwise....but...

I find Lich works so well with early levels, he's extremely farm-independent if he needs to be, but early levels make him far more effective. His best time is the laning phase - after that Sacrifice is just a way of refilling your mana, and Frost Blast is just a so-so small AOE nuke. During the laning phase, your opponents feel the full force of both.

Sacrifice scaling is really all about the cooldown for me (yeah the mana is nice and fuels Frost Blast) - you go from being able to nom 0.75 friendly creeps every wave, to 1.5 every wave (and get XP, while removing any xp and gold from opposition, and pulling lane back).

If we do some rough averages, each wave is worth:

~177 gold
~227 xp

So, level 1 sacrifice makes this approx 19% loss:

~144 gold
~184 xp

Level 4 snacking results in approx 37% loss:

~111 gold
~142 xp

That's a hell of a lot of lost farm/xp if Lich plays correctly, and doesn't feed. Obviously exact gold/xp loss depends on snacking on ranged or melee creeps (melee more XP and mana, ranged more gold and lane drag). Think the approx overall loss is 19/25/31/37%, if fully utilised correctly, little lower real world.

Obviously it also funds Frost Blast, which makes it pretty uncomfortable for opponents, or allows you to last hit (possibly both if they're melee :)). I'll change my skilling depending on what's in front of me, a value point in Frost Armor can be handy, or you can go for the right mix of Frost Blast and Sacrifice depending on how much regen the opposition have.

Early on, it does free their supports to either stack efficiently or roam (possibly both), but once Lich has a few levels they need to maintain a credible threat and constant lane management to get their carry farm, else they'll be spending a lot of time eating Frost Blasts and getting nothing.

Hell, I've outlaned a Viper easily after his supports hung round for a few levels then left temporarily - they had to come back after he died to a Frost Blast / Chain Frost combo.

I don't think he's very good at threatening towers or ganking however, but you can basically make that lane uninhabitable for them unless they commit multiple heroes.

After your small core, you can easily pick up a fast Mek, Veil or whatever. Quite often I'll pick him when we have a greedy jungler, as you can help out a lot on support items as a pseudo #4. Personally, I'd rather other heroes turn up to gank/roam the offlane than lane with me directly, it just slows your levels so much.

Few examples, as I remember:

Dotabuff 1
Dotabuff 2