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The new Blade Mail, discussion and usage on Crystal Maiden

Hello guys I'm presenting you may thaughts about Blade Mail. I will give a closer look on using the item on Crystal Maiden. To start off, I will explain how the item works and what changed during this patch, which made it in my eyes a legit pick up for Crystal Maiden and many more heroes.

Blade mail

So what the item does is rather simple. It returns damage. It has always been an item that returned damage and it still is. Traditionally this item was bought by tanky heroes and especially tanky heroes who force to fight against them. Those heroes were , and . Other heroes where a was sometimes spotted on were , , and . Sometimes other heroes would purchase the item as well but tend to lose or get reported by teammates. I think we can say that blademail was a rare item which was countered by bkb.

However a little buff changed a lot for this item. Now the damage is reflected before reduction and not blocked by spell resistance as long the initial damage wouldn't be blocked by spell resistance. This means that the item isn't countered anymore by rightclick carries with a bkb, like every carry has.

Effects from the buff

Initially this means that the item is better on heroes like and . Since they have a lot of damage block, they will reflect all the initial damage but take almost no damage because of their high damageblock. Also in general this means that heroes who purchase a can actually profit from the item since bkb doesn't counter the item like crazy as it did before. However I think we can extend our " audience". Now we can purchase blademail on any hero who is likely to take damage and does damage. And as exemple I will use the lovely

Why Crystal Maiden?

So at first you may think, Frosto you are an idiot, and probably I am. But when we take a closer look on cm and blademail we see a nice combination. often dies when she channels her ultimate. You simply get rightclicked down or nuked down. Some people buy , which isn't a great item on a poor support, or people tend to buy , which is a great item but if there is detection you die as easy as usual. For hence I introduce to you guys.

When you start channeling people will try to kill you. Unless you are somewhere hidden, people will try to kill you and mostly succeed in doing so. What I do is not trying to survive but trying to punish the enemy as hard as possible for killing me. And which item can do that better than . If you have 1000 hp you will do 1000 damage to enemies plus damage plus other spells used by you. I think that this is really faire as if the enemy misses 1000 hp your team can easily kill him. Trying to survive is nice but punishing people while getting killed is mostly better especially as a support. If your actions, activating blad mail and ult, killed or almost killed the enemy carry or mid and you did some damage to the rest of the enemy team, than you did the best you can do on a support. You assisted your team and you were able to sacrifice yourself when neccesary.

Conclusion

is legit on most heroes these days and it is an amazing strong item on the heroes where was always core. I think the new blade mail is the strongest item on at this moment for well-knowed reasons. Buying the item on is for me totally fine for the simple reason that it allows you to do extra damage while you get focussed during . Nonetheless it scares people, so maybe they don't attack you and you will get a free off. I think we should all by s on almost every hero since the item provides next to a great active also 6 armor, 10 int and 22 damage. This is actually 32 damage on or other int heroes like .

I hope that the new Blade Mail tactic is legit and I'm curious to your opinion about blade mail crystal maiden.

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i u get this item on this hero over real items like force staffs glimmer capes, solarcrests etc than you're an idiot

also u will never be able to farm this u need other stuff liek ghost scepter way more

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(14) |

Rushing this item is indeed stupid. A mobility item is almost always core on but after that you can get a . However there is no universal dota code that says "get a ghost scepter on cm". To be honest I almost never ever bought a on crystal maiden even before this patch. is situational good this patch and I mostly go , , now. Of course it depends on the game.

Saying that you will never be able to farm it isn't really true since you don't need every item that is good on crystal maiden in one game. Also you can opt that on is bad because you need to be 6 slotted yourself before it is viable for you to start making aghs for others. There are games you can have enough farm on aswel to start building a .

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(14) |

I recently played a game against a weaver and a bloodseeker. I went and than bought the . The enemy had a gem and a so the invis was most of the time not that usefull later in the game but the blade mail had really good impact. Also if you get initiated you can just cast the blademail and walk away. Maybe you die but you did 1000 damage or more to the enemy. If you could survive than the blade mail was also usefull since it prevented the enemy from attacking you. So it isn't only for the it is actually a decent escape. Especially combined with another escape item as .

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(13) |

I conclude BM is now poor mans Lotus Orb

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(89) |

AFTER is perfectly fine. Of course you want to stun the CM and not necessarily kill her, but if she has BKB up the only option you have is to right-click her to death.

Blademail without BKB however is completely worthless.

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(47) |

That's an exaggeration, because as I mentioned before you team might need the specific limited disables it has for more priority targets such as an , so if you're a good CM you can still channel your ultimate enough in most cases by positioning/entering after. Anyway yea, it's so situational it's still behind the usual purchases like , and , and only if the enemy team is so heavy in physical damage that the extra armor can help a bit. Veeeery situational.

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(43) |

How does prevent enemies from just throwing a stun at you and ignoring you for the duration?

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(47) |

That's precisily why it isn't a good option always, only very situationally. In a game where they don't have stuns to get to you though, it can be the difference between diying or killing. Imagine a trying to rick click to death a CM under her ulti, for instance; CM has more armor to withstand the attacks and weaver gets doubly damaged.

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(43) |

If you don't have anything to stop with why'd you want to fight under it in the first place? In a game where you are CM and your enemies don't have stun you've pretty much won anyway.

Seems like "I've already won but want to win harder"-tier item on CM.

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(47) |

That doesn't even make sense xD

CM is just a #5 with exclusively magical damage and disables. Any core right clicker with a BKB can fight under her ultimate and right click her to death - and that's what you are supposed to do. I wish you could just pick CM into no stuns and won automatically ahah

You don't build on a winning CM, because you don't need it if you're ahead and you can get other stuff that's much more expensive and useful to kill more; you build it if you're toe to toe and the person charged of you in teamfights has no disables but high right click damage (the armor it gives you is nice) and doesn't want to see that damage returned. An example: if you're a PA in the mid game, maybe you don't want to go on that CM in the back if she has blade mail and you will lose half of your own HP if you crit. Think it as an offensive form of , only possible because of the change to pierce BKB. Before GS was better in 90% of cases.

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(43) |

What kind of spell immune carry would rightclick CM with damage return activated when he can just ignore it since it is blocked by BKB completely?

GS and Glimmer are still better in 90% cases because they are cheaper and bring more utility.

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(47) |

wrote:

GS and Glimmer are still better in 90% cases because they are cheaper and bring more utility.

Yea, that's for sure.

But as for your question: most of the times cores such as the PA or Weaver mentioned try to kill the backlines or just begin with the squishiest heroes, specially one that is killing his teammates that don't have a BKB. This happens constantly. What you do is buy items to counter this situation, like the GS as you said; but in some cases a can be fatal and so unexpected that it turns a fight around. So a good item in very situational situations? Yes, like you said, in maybe less than 10% of games.

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(43) |

Also CM with blademail has like, what, 10 armor I think? Carries usually have way more, even STR now that Armlet gives ****load of armor. It's not like it would be a problem for a 2k hp 15+ armor carry to pummel 10 armor CM to death if they were forced to.

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(47) |

PA level 16 has 11 armor with no armor items, maybe 16 armor with an . CM level 16 has 4 armor, which plus 3 from and 6 from means 13 armor. If this PA crits this CM, she will lose almost the same HP - you started the fight full HP and went for that easy CM, what do you think happens if you're suddenly reduced to a third of it just killing her?

I'm not even theorizing this: it has happened in some of my games before this patch, when it was still blocked by BKB. Unfortunatally yasp doesn't have all games recorded and dotabuff doesn't allow me to search by items purchased (and I'm not gonna read pages of 400 games worth to find it), otherwise I would show it. It has worked even in games against a that kept trying to ult me, only for me to buy a and survive while she killed herself sometimes, and proceeded to have to stop ultying me + buying BKB.

It's just a legit bold idea, that requires you be wise enough to see when it's useful or not.

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(47) |

I don't think you're crazy, it was legit before, very situationally, and it is more now indeed because of the bkb piercing. Also on CM it can be interesting because of her very low armor. It still doesn't fullfill the same needs as the BKB or other items such as , but it's an option. I had it on my guide before it was cool :)

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The new Blade mail, discussion and usage on Crystal Maiden

The new Blade Mail, discussion and usage on Crystal Maiden

Blade mail

Effects from the buff

Why Crystal Maiden?

Conclusion

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