Antimage, game ruiner number 1. Fucks all the fun.

At first I wanted to make a whiny thread about how "op anti mage is please volvo nerf" but they never seem to go anywhere but arguments. So let's try to be constructive. Even though I keep thinking that a little nerf would be more than welcome.

I have a problem with antimage. A huge one. I have not crunched the numbers, but i'm having like a 75% defeat rate when against him (and like a less than 50% win rate when one of my teammates plays him, because dota is dota).
Even though many heroes bother me beyond infinity (**** you Bristleback, **** you Viper and **** you Slark), I don't think I have such a defeat rate with any of them. At least, not as consistent.

Many heroes have a precise, specific and ideal counter to their strengths. It is ghost scepter against Bristleback, it is bkb against Zeus, it is Antimage (again) against Wraith King (bye bye resurrection), it is mkb against phantom assassin, and i could go on. But for Magina ? I can't even begin to think of any counters, save for situational and temporary ones that merely delay the inevitable or save your *** momentarily : invis, Kotl blinding light, stuff like that. But those are mere band aids against the guy, and won't prevent his late game.

Cause yeah, that is the problem. I genuinely feel that in any game confronting an anti mage, I have a time bomb above my screen, ticking, and when it reaches 40-45-50 minutes (depends on the game), game over, too late, gg wp, ez life. I really wish dota wouldn't work like that; but hey. Anyway, doesn't matter how good you did, how fed your carries are, how big of a lead kill you have. He'll step out of the woods, and rekt. Your. ****. Ultra kill feast, gg.

Now please don't give me the "he's a carry, to counter him don't let him farm" ****. Or if you want to go there, please be a little more detailed than that. I know that you shouldn't ever let hard carries farm, and prevent them from farming as much as you can. I can do that with void, as he's really weak in the early stages of the game. I can do that with junglers like Doom, with the proper team coordination. But with Antimage, good luck with that. He's always in the safelane, comfy under his tower, farming like a pig. Any gank tentative will more than likely result in blink in the trees, then tp home. Then he's at it again, last hit after last hit.

This guy has too much mobility. Really, I can't see anyone catching up with him early, save for a very few heroes (Storm Spirit, maybe, but he'll consume all his mana to catch up and take a goold old Mana Void in the face. 6 sec blink that's not interrupted by damage ? Have a fun time chasing him. Standard blink dagger has twice as long a cooldown. And even if you do gank him, big deal. He'll rekt you @ the 52 minute mark instead of the 50. That is how I feel towards him : everything you do to him is just a minor setback.

So what ? Doom to shut him down (that is, if you don't waste your ult on a mana illu, of course) ? Bloodseeker to chase him efficiently ? This guy ruins the fun in every of my game, even when I somehow manage to win against him, I end just as angry.

Advice please !

And by the way, ever noticed that by shuffling the letters in Anti-Mage, you get Anti-Game ? Coincidence ? I think not.

And on the matter of nerf, what about a small increase in the cooldown of his blink (like 8 seconds instead of 6), or an increase in mana cost (what does he care, he has only two active abilities) ? Would it do him that much harm ?

Try heroes with crowd control abilities like stuns or silences. Lion, Riki comes to mind. Be sure to pair it with heavy single target burst. Bloodseeker is also very good as you said, he can kill him in lane and gank his jungle.

Shut him down. Gank him. Trilane. Deathball. Group up. Take Rosh.

Really nothing OP about Anti-Mage. His winrate is way below 50% in pubs, and at every skill level. The hero doesn't need a nerf. He's balanced in competitive, which incidentally makes him slightly *under*powered in pubs because a lot of the things AM relies on to win (good support in lane, good team coordination for split pushing, having a team with a brain that doesn't take 4v5 fights)...are easy in competitive but almost inexistent in pubs. AM loses pubs...a lot.

So yeah :

- AM is extremely easy to shut down in lane. Play a dual lane or trilane in the offlane with good laning heroes, preferably ranged heroes because they don't care about Mana Break. Windranger, Weaver, Phoenix, Queen of Pain etc plus one or plus two, you get the idea.

- If you shut down AM in lane, he can't come back from it. AM has item timings. If he can't get a Battle Fury before 20 minutes, the hero is essentially out of the game because he has no way to farm. That's extremely different from other bad laning carries, because most caries can come back from a terrible lane and low early farm. AM can't. Delay his BF.

- You need catch to play against AM. If you have no catch you lose, because you get ratted to death. Don't bother with silences that are not Smoke Screen or Static Storm, they are useless because he can purge them with manta. Go for instant disables like Blink Dagger + Hex. You need heroes that can gank single targets and disable them.

- The only real counter to mobility in dota is...more mobility (nice game volvo). If you can't catch up to AM with e.g Juggernaut, Troll Warlord, Dragon Knight or something, buy your own Blink Dagger, and blink after him. Then you have 5 seconds to wreck his face with right clicks before his next blink comes up. That's more than enough. Blink Dagger is situational on every hero in the game and is really good against AM.

- AM is not *that* scary in the late-late game and is *definitely* not a ticking time bomb that you can't deal with after a point. There are lots of heroes that deal with AM in the late game. Just because the game goes late doesn't mean you lost. The big strength of AM is that he gets 6-slotted extremely fast, around 40 minutes. 6-slotted AM is not that scary. 6-slotted AM at 35 minutes is what's scary. To prevent him from getting 6-slotted early, delay his Bfury. If he gets 6-slotted late, he's not a major issue.

- Doom and Bloodseeker are definitely good against him but there are *tons* of other heroes that deal well with AM. Any single target ganker or initiator with a hard disable is good against him. Beastmaster. Legion Commander. Riki and Disruptor (unpurgeable silences). Lion. Winter Wyvern. Phantom Assassin. Windranger (wrecks him both in lane and later in the game). Clinkz (just for the love of God go for sheep/MKB or blink/MKB and not orchid, killing him like twice before 25 mins changes nothing). Broodmother (*destroys* him in lane). Meepo (infinite net that prevents blink = OP). Puck (if he blinks out he gets stunned for 4.5 seconds through BKB). Lina (counters every hero in the game). Shadow Shaman (blink-sheep + massive push). Bane. Lone Druid. Anything that deals pure damage. Silver Edge. And the list goes on and on...

AM is anti-fun? You mean, with a Lina/Storm/Qop/PL/Lesh/BS/Gyro/whatever spammed in literally every game these days, AM is your problem? Lucky you :)

pick undying win lane win game

As they said, AM was made with a strict timing window. Stick to it and you have a 800 gpm. But if you don't, he doesn't do much.


Whats more he is not the hardest carry there. So if in your bracket, the problem arises that your games invariably go late, pick a harder carry.

If you really want to end game early, then nukers are good options with the fact that AM has bad str gain with less than 1k hp pool with no heart and before he reaches manta.
What this means, if the AM rightfully does not skill Spell Shield, he is an easy target for Nukes.

Further, given the timings, you can go for specific heroes that require a specific itemization to counter. Am wont be farming an MKB versus a PA when she would have his face for breakfast. That too when she ganks the jungle has ****ty int gain of 1.0 per level so no Mana void is ever gonna kill her while manfighting AM.


Riki: Oh, you really went over to buy a BKB on anti mage? Suck to be you mate. Miss your manta/heart timings and riki has smoke screen that hard disables him. Not to mention, Blink strike and backtrack go thru Spell Immunity.


Chaos Knight: A well initiated CK ulti and some luck will alow you to kill him in 3 seconds or less, if have an armlet and a Heaven halberd


Bloodseeker: Seriously, if your bracket AM players don't repack after seeing this nightmare of a counter, please don't even try hiding him. Rupture is pure damage. He has nothing on him early game.Literally. He disables his blink and heart of tarrasque for 12 seconds. Why not learn to play him?

Omniknight: Physical damage immunity for the whole team. So, does AM buy diffusal blade?


Lina: Currently(and I do mean currently), her combo can kill him early and after she gets aghs, its more than enough.

Agree with Kyphoid, although it's more "pick a carry that deals well with a farmed AM" than "pick a harder carry". Actually a lot of hard carries like Medusa, Spectre, Faceless Void, Morphling, Phantom Lancer etc are notoriously *terrible* against AM for different reasons. No, you need a carry with good lockdown that excels at hunting rats, that's it :)
Legion Commander really stands out here IMO.

Except she's not that great as a carry in general. Pick her, sure, but also have a good carry to back her up. PA is solid, as she out-manfights AM in general. Lone Druid may also work. If you're really sadistic, and I'm talking 'picking-Naga-against-Terrorblade*' sadistic, a Morphling-Legion combo is pretty good, and you can also rat just as hard!








*I do the inverse of this. Constantly.

The only true hard carry I'd pick into an AM is CK. Because despite the cleave against illusions CK has massive amounts of physical burst which is good against AM. Plus, you can fight into AM with a gold disadvantage which is important.

Otherwise if you aren't willing to go aggresive to shut him down, either picking solid lockdown that can catch him out easily, a hero like Lina is fabulous against him despite enabling Mana Void. Because AM can never be that tanky (He caps out at like 2.5k HP even with a Heart) and he can't build Satanic so hitting him with 950 pure damage is huuuuge.

The Lina just positions herself so that the Mana Void doesn't do much against other people and your golden.

Plus Lina is really good at chasing down rats thanks to perma 522 movespeed, and the ability to Blink Dagger, Eul's and combo people (Also buying time for other TP's). And she has suprising amounts of physical damage thanks to the free Hyperstones from her passive.

And she can just rotate and punish the AM once she hits 6 repeatedly thanks to the low cooldown nuke.

In effect, Lina is insanely good against AM, and she almost never loses lane, so it's a win win. Especially if you have a line-up that can technically force AM into BKB.

How you beat AM.

You wreck him in lane.

Gank him. Trilane against him. 5 man down his lane.

Then you ward his jungle.

And Gank him.

Over.

And over.

Like any other hard carry, you just wreck his early game and he has no comeback.

If you want specific counters, Shadow Demon is good, Bloodseeker is good, Lion is good, and Lina is good because she's broken.

Aside from the things that have been said already, pick a hero that pushes early and your team can rally around. My personal favorite pick to do that with is dragon knight.

Also a counter that i havent seen in here. Windranger. Long disable against a hero that spends a lot of his time around trees and if your farmed enough can always kill him during the shackle duration.