Ember and Magnus : How To ?

Ok so ive been trying to finish off my heroes that i at least have 25 games with and this month is ember and Magnus. but im finding some small problems.

Ember Spirit.

Match ID: 734851463

probably the best ember game i've had so far the KDA seems bad but that was more due to Clinkz then anything else he seemed to hate me, Logic/10 aim the ember instead of the Meepo who's rampaging your team.

1.) either i go for damage items and i find that im really squishy and easily burst down or i build sustain and i have no damage. how do you combat this?

i build bottle drums phase into deso/crystlis or bf/maelstrom then usually finish into a bkb if i get the gold. i go e-w-e-w-q-r-q-e-w-e-r-w-q-q-s-r

2.) i find that when i gank they are about 90% successful but with a good rotation from other lanes i seem to get picked off afterwards close to 70% of the time because early game i dont have the mana after a combo to defend against a rotation. how do i rectify this ?

3. when to pick ember? laning? positioning?

Magnus:

Match ID: 721070905

i find i play a decent magnus but i think my positioning is pretty terrible. i always seem to get 3-5 man RP's and my combo afterwards but i find i die right after. i seem to do fine for ganks even getting solo double or triple kills. but i seem to have bad positioning right after which gets me killed. im trying to figure out where and when he should be positioned.

1.) how are you supposed to position him in game, is he first in ? or second?
2.) after your combo wombo where should your shift points be?
3.) i build drums arcanes (if mid bottle) then i either go blademail/Shivas into refresher. thoughts?

Ember is a hero I can play, so I will try to help you there.
Personally, I go mid, get Bottle--> Boots of Speed--> Magic Wand--> Drum of Endurance--> Phase Boots--> Maelstrom.
Now I feel that the storm hammer pickup is 100% vital to ember, it is easier to farm, and lets you push creep waves, also it does more damage than a BF will in the early game. However, i think BFs and a deso and daedalus are good end game items.

If you are getting bursted down, I would get a BKB or a heart or both.

when dieing to rotations, place a remnant a way from the fight, let your team go in, and then you walk in do your combo, then remnant out.

You get the Searing Chains way too late. Early game, you only need 1 point into Sleight of Fist.

You need really good positioning in fights as ember, if you autoattack an enemy more then twice in a row in a teamfight then you re probably doing things wrong.

Drums is a combat item that wont help at all in a bit slower paced game so you can opt to skip it.
Desolator is good if you manage to win the teamfights after you got it and end the game, but falls off REALLY hard later in the game, if you suspect that the game might go kind of late get a battle fury, its not only for farming but provides rediculous damage in teamfights.
Get BKB or linkens if needed but the ideal build has as many battlefuries and crits, (maybe 1 rapier =D) as possible.


As magnus, look out if you want to skewer after you have used RP. Your allies first instict is ofcourse to follow up in the position that they are grouped, so dont **** it up by skewering their team out of the wombo combo just becouse you want dat skewer damage. If your allies are out of range then sure, bring them closer.

If you have problems staying alive, get a BKB if it is becouse of croud controll or get a force staff, between blink, skewer and force you can jump around the fight 3 times, that should be enough to survive, becouse you shouldnt be commiting so hard after RP that you die, your biggest contribution is the RP and the empower on your allied carry

The way to play ember is to go for damage items as you shouldn't be taking all that much damage, you basically play him like puck that is to say dancing around the edge of fights and being a nuisance, only as ember you kill everyone at the same time. As for magnus an an initiator its not that bad if you are being killed, I'm not an amazing magnus player myself so that's all I can really say

About your ember:
Itembuild is kinda ok, never go for Maelstrom **** - there's a reason why you don't see it in competitive. Soul Booster at the end wasn't a good item, better to get Linken's Sphere for stats and regen. Your skillbuild is totally ****ad up, especially after small nerfs to Q and W, if you build ember this way you will be useless until lvl 14. Anyway, you shouldn't be bothered too much about this match, because Clinkz is very strong counter to imber.
More about builds and skillz

PS. FleetAU said very important thing - when you max your W by level 10 (I max it even earlier with my Q), all you have to do when fighting is to stay at max range of your W and use it on enemies every 6 seconds, never allow anyone to come close to you. As long as you stay outside of the fight and throw W and Q every cooldown, you're doing good job. You can go in only when some enemies died or started retreating. Also, when you're in teamfight don't waste all your spirits to nuke enemies, always throw 1 spirit away from the fight so that you can dash to it when needed.

Don't play ember so I won't try to talk about that.

Magnus I do play a lot of. First thing is that nearly all of the time BKB should be the first item after arcane+blink. Especially against instant disables i.e. Lion, because RP does have a cast delay and strong players will interrupt your initiation. Even slower disables will often prevent you skewering back, and that puts you in a bad spot rather than your targets.

The way I see Mag's role is essentially the same as Bat - forcing enemies into bad positions. As soon as you have vision on one high priority target, or any 2 enemy heroes, go in right then, and bring them back to your team. You always want to skewer back because it's a noticeable advantage forcing the enemy team to come to you rather than going to them (just be sure your team is on the same page).

3+ man RP's are great but in my experience after the first one you won't get another chance, and it's better to take what you can get rather than wait and give enemies a chance to pop your blink.

A good strategy with Magnus is to blink in behind the target, forcing them to turn around before they can react. So you just blink, RP, and since you're behind them you can easily skewer them toward your team or under a tower, forcing them to think defensively rather than offensively for a few seconds.

Basically Magnus is just the setup. You want to bunch up and misplace the enemies so that your nukers or fatter carries can destroy them easily.

For Ember I think everything has been addressed. Definitely take a point of Searing Chains or whatever it is so you have a disable. It can save your life or even turn around a fight if they dive your tower. But yeah, you aren't really about autoattacking/manfighting directly. Just spam Sleight over and over from away from the battle and you're good.