Hero Discussion #6 Axe

Mogul Khan, the Axe





Axe is one of the most iconic heroes in Dota, up there with Anti-Mage and Rubick. Known for his notorious early game in his starting stats, the damage of his spells, his very quick early game farm rate, and oddly high health regen, Axe is one of the quintessential snowball heroes. He is extremely good against multiple melee drafts, as well as ones that rely heavily on summoned units or illusions.

He is also a symbol of manliness in this game, with one of the more testosterone laced skillsets:

Berserker's Call is a really good AOE BKB piercing disable/survival skill with a really long cast point that synergizes well with both Blade Mail and Counter Helix for damage output.

Battle Hunger is a skill that makes Axe steal movespeed like Grave Chill and burns people while it forces them to kill a creep/tower/Axe in order to make it go away. Is a lot more effective against melee heroes in lane since it forces them to run towards you, but is useful for disabling blinks.

Counter Helix is a passive skill that makes you ballerina with a giant Axe if people strike down upon you with great vengeance and furious anger. It deals pure damage, so Axe is one of the few heroes where stacking camps doesn't the camp unfarmable, rather it will die quicker. It is also really good in lane for its high damage values that stay static without any mana cost.

Culling Blade is an ability that lets you kill people who are low on health, and their weakness is converted into a giant stimpak for your team, so you all become fast. Since Axe is a bit of a Sadist, he will get to cull again if he succeeded the first time. Also works on couriers for funsies.


Questions:

Axe has a lot of item options, but what type of progression of items do you think suits him best? Mobility? Tankability? Auras? Utility? Radiance?????

What are the best combos for Axe, both in lane and in battle? WW, Omni, Tusk?

When do you get Vanguard over Blink first?

What are your favorite and least favorite Axe matchups? (Brood? Lycan? Viper? Silencer? Drow?)

Where should Axe be laned? Safelane Solo? Dual/Tri Offlane? Jungle? Mid against Melee/TA?

Should Axe try to dunk as many people as possible with his ult to snowball or just get the one needed for the speed boost so that others can get the money?

On a scale of one to Leshrac, how enjoyable is Axe's voice acting?

Has Goodkind helped Axe or does it not affect your perception at all?

GOODKIND4LIFE.
As I already started at the bottom I gonna follow that order.

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I actually think Axe beats Charles' voice acting. For me there is nothing better than hearing him dunk someone and scream: Good day sir!

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You just dunk people man. There is no question to it. Did you ever see anyone complaining about Axe dunking someone? There is actually an article of "three lane highway" talking about the phenomena surrounding his ult. His ult doesn't feel like it slows down the game or ends a fight. It feels like you are about to brutally dismember every single coward in the enemy team as you effortlessly break their futile resistance.

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Time for some real talk:
A solo offlane Axe is kind of like a Sand King solo offlane to me.
He punishes melee heroes really hard but is hard to play against ranged enemies although it is definetly possible. But before Blink Dagger I just feel like he is too easy to predict and you can see him coming in the lane.
That's why I love to jungle him. You can actually gank pretty well with a stun from an ally or by smoking and going in. Then you get your Blink Dagger and crush the enemy team's dream of winning.
No idea about other laning ideas though.

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As I don't really have any preferences in the other topics I am just gonna go ahead and say that for me he is built to:
a) snowball
b) tank up and win teamfights
c) tank up and carry auras to win teamfights
So you either snowball or you tank up and get some auras after tanking up but that's just me.

Quite the messy post....

Just to put in my quick two cents before I head to the arena:

Axe has been picked just a HUGE amount in TI. It's honestly really surprising. It's always as a playmaking off-laner too: Mind_Control and Forev were each able to go beyond godlike on the hero by going for super good mobility covered by a little bit of tank: Blink Dagger, Vanguard, Force Staff.

Blade Mail, despite the changes to it that seem to benefit Axe, seems to not be a popular item choice. Possibly because it delays the pick-up of those three listed above, and in the later game you want something better.

Also, I agree with Michi, and have read that same article. There is not 'to dunk or not to dunk' question, because killing an enemy with Culling Blade is never, ever a KS. It a glorious, intense feeling of victory that spreads across your entire team and surges you ahead in the psychological game. Anyone who complains about you taking a kill with it has no soul.

The hero, like necrophos, is designed to steal kills. So no, no one complains that axe stole a kill with Culling Blade.

I don't play Axe regularly, but when I do play axe, I prefer an early force over the vanguard.

Blink > Force > Vanguard > BKB.

Axe should solo lane, no?

As I mentioned before:
I think you could argue for Axe to go jungle instead of laning (a rare case in dota) because he can be easy to read without a Blink Dagger.

Alright, I didn't want to leave my thoughts in the first post, since it makes for poor presentation.

I'm gonna have to disagree with the majority here (as I like to do), not only to the idea of dunking (Sorry Safecyn, I'm about to claim your soulless status), but also to Heart on the hero (since he is most popular heart buyer in the game).

Necrophos KSing wins games. Axe KSing loses them. Axe actually scales rather poorly with farm from what I see. Because of this, not only am I against Axes farming past minute 15, but I'm opposed to Axes dunking a solo gank target unless it's needed to kill them (escape mechanisms or Shallow Grave). I'm also opposed to Axes get triple kills by spamming Culling in fights since you only need one for the 6 seconds of cocaine, especially since there is no popular Axe build that builds mana regen so he goes back to farming while his mana slowly regenerates, so if he empties his mana pool, he's gonna end up stealing more farm from cores that scale way better.

I have this belief that Axe is all about his Call. All his other skills support the Call. It is a 10 second CD stun that pierces magic immunity, and with Force Staff, you can force the opponents into different positions, and more importantly be a lot more likely to cast a second call. I am really sick of people who go Blink Dagger Blade Mail Heart of Tarrasque, cast one call, then are useless for the rest of the fight because they have no force staff and get kited. Blade Mail I don't think you should go for first unless you're playing really far from behind and will die even if you have force. Axe's main job is not to do damage, he is a disabler.

Because of this, my build is Axe tends to be low farm, Blink, Force, Blade Mail, and Lotus/Pipe/BKB in many cases. If an Axe gets farmed, I get very annoyed when I see them with Heart instead of something useful. If they don't need to buy auras or key items like Halberd or Vyse, I think that after Blade Mail, they should pick up Octarine Core to have a 7.5 cd on call and heal back from Blade Mail, and a Hurricane Pike after so that they can have a 10.5 cd force to get more and better calls.

What do you guys think of the puppey build?

When he used to play it a long time ago, he would build Bloodstone...

so like

Boots > Blink > Force > Crimson > Agha > Bloodstone (maybe aghs and bloodstone swapped, not sure)

Not really a common Axe player, but he's an interesting hero.

I'd totally agree about Call - it's almost friggin Reverse Polarity on an ultra low CD. You should build around this heavily.

Much as you make a logical argument about dunking...well it's too fun not to. To play Axe well you need to get into the mindset. Axe doesn't care about scaling. Axe doesn't care about puny carries who can't get kills. Axe will fight them all!

Personally like to see a build something like Tranquil Boots -> Blink Dagger -> AURAS. Crimson Guard is a favourite, or Pipe of Insight might be better in some circumstances. Shiva's Guard is excellent on him.

I'm a fan of the dreaded Axebaddon lane. Anyone else played with or against this? It's traumatic.

You dare to mention it?
Reinvoke my trauma?
How do you think I felt when I was a Lion with a Spectre as my laning partner and tasked to lane against this stuff of nightmares?
I had dreams man, I thought I could do something.
But every resistance was futile as they stormed our lane, massacred our creeps and killed my carry over and over. Their relentless assault was unstoppable, not even one free second they gave us.
We needed like 30 minutes to actually have a proper item on Spectre and turtled for another 30 minutes before we actually managed to push them back.
We were lucky that they didn't bring any siege equipment with them - otherwise they would have crushed us in no time.