Leshrac in Post 6.84 Era

Leshrac has probably been the only Meta hero I've liked, I guess it's because in many ways, he's like a solid sustained damage core version of Sand King, my favorite hero to play. I don't like to play most meta heroes, since it feels like cheating and playing the game on easy mode (seriously, you should not have been able to autowin the lane by spamming Lightning Storm on creeps, just like you should not be able to be super deadly and unkillable at level 5 as Doom).

Many people are still playing him in the old way, mid, Bloodstone, max lightning and earth. But it seems like he's gotten really severe hit there to the point where it seems like it might be worth it to try something else.

I've been experimenting with the hero after his nerfs, mainly with the old skill build of Split Earth and Edict, skipping lightning since the damage nerf cuts like 24% of it's power and Leshrac is distractingly squishy. I've been going for Eul's Scepter (to set up split earths and to move at over 400 movespeed, 460 with travels) into either Rod of Atos (since those 2 items provide a ton of mana with the added INT, and also, enemy mobility? Pfft) or Aghs Scepter (if you're snowballing), with Octarine and Shivas later. He seems weaker in mid laning now, though he contests runes like a god with Edict build. I've been running him in dual lanes, especially ones that have a hero to setup Split Earth ( Bane, Crystal Maiden), and it's seen good success, especially since I try to skip Bottle to try to get arcanes and euls asap. This build is very good for aggression and taking that early tower, then snowballing off Euls kills.

Some games:
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1924089107
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1910614162

How do you think Leshrac should be played in 6.85?

Unrelated: Spectre's rotten tomato score is only 4% higher than Spectre's winrate.

Euls has honestly been nerfed far, far harder than Bloodstone was.

Bloodstone, only the imba respawn time reduction was reduced. This is a perfectly fair and necessary nerf, and it only changes anything if you're a Storm with 30 Bloodstone charges in a late game situation. Other than that it's the same item.

Euls...when you reduce the cast range on something, generally it's a massive nerf. Just compare Scythe of Vyse and Shadow Shaman's Hex for example, which one is a billion times better than the other?

For me this patch really means "stop going euls on every hero". For the first time...euls got an *actual* nerf.

I used to go Euls/Atos on Timbersaw...but seriously with that euls change I don't like this build anymore. Reducing initiation range is a massive nerf and blink is always better now.

Same thing with Invokers going euls these days...makes me facepalm every time, blink+aghs is just better since euls is no longer a valid positionning tool (and for the love of god please learn to do the Tornado- Sun Strike- Chaos Meteor- Deafening Blast combo, better than the euls combo in every way with triple the initiation range)

You can't do a 4 spell combo early. You'd have to sacrifice a lot of damage to put extra points in invoke and even then the cd is too long.

Eul's is still a viable option on exort invoker, because it gives needed movespeed boost and mana regen as well as a reliable setup for solokills. The peak of a euls build is much earlier than a aghs build. If you focus on a early game strategy euls is better than aghs.

Euls on Invoker is there to make the famous combo. And this combo is definetley not only for showing off. It means you can kill any hero you may face.
And Tornado initiation can be seen from miles away.

Can Leshrac be good in a deathball strat as a side laner?
I mean Diabolic Edict gives a good push.
Or you go full aids dual offlane and pick him with someone like Kotl to push without end.
Does this work?

Problem with euls on invoker is that you need blink *and* euls to do that. With euls alone you're just too slow to catch anything. And by the time you have blink and euls you're probably not far from lvl 17. Essentially it's only useful for like 6-7 minutes of game time...and that's if you're ahead.
And even then that's comparing a slightly higher damage combo to having 4 second cooldown on Invoke, because that's what early aghs gives you. So maybe Tornado- Chaos Meteor- Deafening Blast deals less single target damage than the euls combo, but then you can position yourself next to the target and cast your other spells afterwards...while with the euls build you have nothing after the combo for like 20 seconds.

Also yes maxing Diabolic Edict on Leshrac sounds like the better option now. After all playing Lesh mid and having the enemy T1 tower still standing was really a shame. No more lightining abuse :)

What about use Atos in the Exort invoker ? You could land all those spells easily

That's a [Leshrac]] thread. Let's not go overboard with the Invoker theorycrafting.

leshrac as pushing support viable: yes

Atos is good to slow heroes you're chasing but not that good to set up delayed skillshots. Even if slowed, enemies will just walk on the side to juke. That's why most of the heroes who buy atos are right-click oriented (OD, Silencer...). On guys like Skywrath or Timber it's a bit different because they're not technically delayed skills, more like skills that require you to disable enemies to stay in them.

I find Euls is still good, as it's the only other mana regen item Leshrac can build besides Bloodstone, I tried Octarine first, but it didn't provide nearly enough mana and was hard to build, and Scythe is even harder. Despite the cast range nerf on Euls, Leshrac feels it a lot less than most heroes, since he's naturally really fast so he can often catch his targets, and also because his 2 damage over time spells stay active as he cyclones himself to remove annoying armor debuffs and silences.

Atos is actually fairly effective on Leshrac as well as the right clicker INT heroes, since he needs you to be pretty close to him to deal his heavy damage.

Bloodstone, it feels like it's too easy to lose your lead now, so I find it's better off going utility space creator items instead of that for farming, since Leshrac is not as powerful late game as Storm or Timbersaw, who I think are the only ones who still need to buy it.