Lexa by alienonolympus

Lexa is an incredibly tanky and mobile hero with strong teamfight prescence. Phantom Battalion is her signature ability, acting like a 'weaker' version of Haunt at first glance. Her Enervating Blast and Tainted Blade complement her ultimate extremely well, with the former allowing the Phantom Illusions to stick to heroes while the latter dealing massive damage to any enemy heroes caught in range of her ultimate. Her mobility and escape ability, Shadow Dash, allows her to dive the back lines for a good ultimate and allows her to dodge many abilities. Moreover, Shadow Dash synergises well with Tainted Blade, applying 2 stacks immediately on any enemy hero caught in the path.

Lexa is one of the strongest laners at level one, but becomes absolutely useless when enemies receive their Black King Bars, Pipes of Insight, Force Staves and Lotus Orbs. This is because the majority of her damage comes from Tainted Blade. Consequently, Lexa should always try to use her ultimate effectively when it is off cooldown, as her team is on a timer to win the game.

However, if late game comes and BKB timers become shorter, Lexa becomes somewhat relevant again, especially with the level 25 talent 'Tainted Blade Pure Damage'. At this point, she becomes a distraction on the battlefield while her teammates can deal damage to the weakened enemies.

Lexa is one of the strongest heroes at level 1, having 65-75 damage (before reductions), 25 base strength and 6 base armour at level one. If you level Shadow Dash at level one, you would have a 130-150 damage nuke on a 15 seconds cooldown. This allows Lexa to be played incredibly offensively in any lane. Lexa is best played as a position 2 in the mid lane or offlane, as she is an incredibly strong laner and can do very well on her own.

As soon as Lexa hits 6, her team should smoke up and try to teamfight. If the smoke gank is unsuccessful, they need to gain map control through wards and taking down towers as soon as possible. Lexa should be looking to fight constantly, delaying enemy item timings as much as possible. In team fights, Lexa should try to dive the back lines and eliminate squishy enemy cores and supports. This gives her team the number advantage to take on the remaining enemy heroes.

Forcing high ground and taking Roshan are both incredibly difficult for Lexa and would require her team to kill of enemy heroes beforehand. Fortunately, Lexa is incredibly strong around the Roshan Pit, and a good ultimate should allow Lexa's team to easily secure Roshan. If her team is unable to take high ground with aegis and cheese, it's pretty much game over as Lexa is hard countered by many different items.

ABILITY BUILD

In the laning stage, Lexa should start with a 2-1-2 build, getting a value point in Enervating Blast at level 5. A 3-0-2 build or a 2-0-3 build is also acceptable, but this makes it significantly harder to make sure your Phantom Illusions stick onto their targets.

Afterwards, Lexa should look into maxing her abilities in this order: Phantom Battalion, Tainted Blade, Shadow Dash and Enervating Blast.


TALENT CHOICE
For talents, Lexa should take +40% XP Gain, +8 All Stats, -5s Shadow Dash Cooldown and Tainted Blade Pure Damage if the game goes well. However, if for some reason her team is unable to fight with her in the mid game, Lexa would be forced to take +30% Cleave at level 10 in order to scale effectively into the late game.

If damage is not an issue for Lexa's team (if they have an Ursa, Jakiro, Dark Willow, Troll Warlord etc.), she can opt for +20% Enervating Blast Slow, which improves their teamfight ability and ability to chase enemies.

+20% Cooldown Reduction is situationallly useful, especially if both teams are constantly fighting.

Finally, +322 GPM can be selected if Lexa took the +40% XP Gain talent, took every single Tome of Knowledge, failed to get any kills in fights but still managed to soak experience and wants to feed Divine Rapiers to the enemy team.


ITEM BUILD

Power Treads Magic Stick Soul Ring Echo Sabre Sange and Yasha Skull Basher & Abyssal Blade Manta Style Heart of Tarasque Shiva's Guard Assault Cur*** Moon Shard Refresher Orb Scythe of Vyse

: Provides stats, allows Lexa to use more abilities through tread switching and the attack speed is good due to Lexa's terrible agility gain. : Provides decent stats and gives Lexa enough mana to cast her abilities. : With very high strength, soul ring can give Lexa extra mana to cast her abilities. : Echo Sabre can let Lexa immediately apply 2 stacks of Tainted Blade. This lets Shadow Dash apply 3 stacks of Tainted Blade : Maim allows her attacks to slow enemies, making it easier to chase heroes because Lexa has no disable. : Gives Lexa a BKB piercing disable, which she needs very badly. Bashes can also proc on Shadow Dash. : Allows Lexa to dispell some spells. Her illusions also help her stack up Tainted Blade significantly faster. : Makes her Phantom Illusions a lot harder to kill. : More slows and also gives Lexa armour that she lacks later on into the game. : Drastically increases her attack speed and offensive capability. Also provides her with armour she needs. : Lexa really likes attack speed, and Moon Shard provides a lot of it. : Refreshing her ultimate gives her a huge boost in team fight potential, increasing the ult duration to 20 seconds : This item is broken right now, build it on any hero and you can't go wrong.