No shadowblade Furion / burst Furion

I'm making this thread to discuss ways to build Nature's Prophet without Shadow Blade.

More specifically on ways to burst down towers as quickly as possible and then escape safely.

I've never been a fan personally of Shadow Blade on Furion because Shadow Blade was always designed to be a ganking item, and not an escape item. You build Shadow Blade on Slark, Gyrocopter, Alchemist, Tusk or Spirit Breaker because it helps you with ganking. You build Shadow Blade on Shadow Fiend or Kunkka because it helps you initiate teamfights. However using Shadow Blade as an escape item is really inefficient, because it is easily countered by Dust of Appearance, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to avoid getting dusted.

What prevents every enemy hero from buying dust? Lack of inventory slots perhaps, but that's it. And even that isn't a big problem : whenever I play hard carry against invisible heroes I always have Dust of Appearance ready and the kills I get with it largely make up for the inventory slot. The worst part is, usual Nature's Prophet players have absolutely no escape mechanism except invisibility. So any hero with dust can kill them easily. Whenever I play against Furion I always turn into "Furion-farming" mode where all I do is wait for Furion's next pushes, dust him, and solo kill him. In any serious match Furion should be ready to face Blink Dagger initiation, Dust of Appearance, and invisible gankers like Nyx Assassin. Shadow Blade does absolutely nothing to help escape against this.

So I thought about alternatives to Shadow Blade to fulfill Furion's role:
- keep the lanes pushed
- burst down towers as quickly as possible before the enemy team TPs in, and
- escape ganks

Here are the items I considered:

- Force Staff. Forcestaff is the only reliable escape item in the game, and I have no idea why it's not a common item on Furion. I build it almost every game on him and it saved my life on Furion way more than it saved my life on Crystal Maiden.

- Phase Boots. I have no idea why people build Power Treads on Furion when there's a pair of boots out there that gives you as much movement speed as Sange and Yasha. A cheap and reliable escape mechanism.

- Mask of Madness. Alright, I've said it, let's be SingSing. Obviously you're not building it for the lifesteal. You're building it for the burst damage and mobility : +100 attack speed and +30% movement speed for 12 seconds. The active allows you to burst down towers extremely quickly and THEN escape with superior movement speed. Sure it's an orb effect but we don't want the lifesteal anyways so you can still get Desolator if you want. The active used with Phase Boots gives you maximum movement speed. Having a haste rune at will *is* a reliable escape mechanism and is infinitely better than invisibility :)

Note : Phase Boots + Force Staff + Mask of Madness essentially turns you into Windranger, one of the best escape heroes in the game.

- Manta Style. Generally seen for a carry Furion, it's still amazing for split pushing with the burst damage from the illusions and the additional movement speed for escape. Even Sange and Yasha could be considered if you really want a racecar build.

- Linken's Sphere. The whole point of Linkens is to avoid enemy initiation, and that's exactly what Furion wants : preventing the enemy Sand King/ Pudge/ Batrider/whatever from disabling you with Blink Dagger initiation. Also a good stat/survivability item.

- Armlet of Mordiggian. Well this one may sound really crazy, but it's still a very cheap item that gives a lot of burst damage and survivability for the short period of time when you are attacking the tower (that's all you need). Besides, armlet toggling is also a good escape mechanism, especially when you combine it with superior movement speed.

I still have to make a reliable build with those items but I've been using them in ranked for a while (except armlet), and apart from people flaming me like "noob furion no shadowblade" (^^) I've found them to be pretty successful. Obviously we still pick up "standard" Furion items like Scythe of Vyse or Necronomicon.

Your thoughts?

Shadow Blade does kinda work on Furion, the bonus attack speed/damage isn't wasted, and it works as an escape PROVIDED he uses it to exit the area BEFORE enemies get in range. But yes, it's certainly not reliable, and some heroes can quickly initiate on you and/or stop it working correctly.

I do completely agree people seem to have some very stuck ideas about how Furion should be built or played. Hand of Midas junglers, carry builds, Dagon only cliff junglers...he's one of the most flexible heroes in the game:

Mid/Offlaner/Jungler/Safe Solo - YUP

Carry/Utility/Pusher/Ganker - YUP

It's just a case of picking the style most suitable for what your team needs in the game at hand.

On your builds, Treads tend to be preferred for the flexibility/late game potential, but Phase Boots could work for earlier pushing, and part of a speed based escape. Again, escaping this way depends which heroes you're up against.

Mask of Madness - see where you're going with this, could work. You'd have to make sure you dropped and picked it up after buying a Desolator.

Force Staff - yeah, kinda. Thing is, if Sprout and Teleportation aren't enough to save you, how much difference will Force Staff make? Kinda situational.

Sange and Yasha - nope on this one, all those strength and agility stats are somewhat wasted on an Intelligence hero. A very expensive Drum of Endurance.

Linken's Sphere - it's ok, but it tends to work better on those evasive heroes who can duck and weave out of trouble using other abilities. Probably fails the "Would I rather have a Sheepstick?" test.

Manta Style - extra late late ratting potential, yes. Again agility stats aren't ideal, and Prophet tends to build damage rather than primary stat, so the illusion damage isn't that strong.

Shadow Blade is usually nice for Nature's Prophet and is a solid pickup in a lot of games, but it is by no means a core item. It has never been.

I can see that you're putting a huge emphasis on escaping ganks, but that shouldn't really be a huge priority in selecting your items - a good Furion knows when to back off and let treants poke the tower so he can escape. And when split pushing, at least 3 of the enemy team should be within vision, AWAY from the lane you're going to split push.

I wouldn't really consider the choices here besides Force Staff and Phase Boots, because most are unconventional. Mask of Madness? Maybe. Linken's Sphere is an ok item but there's usually a better choice, and tbh getting protection from a single target spell isn't really needed. If they're ganking a furion, they shouldn't be going solo. Manta Style is ok, but Shadow Blade kind of seems better anyway, especially when considering the cost.

Imo what you should do if you don't need/want Shadow Blade is either:
-Get a Necronomicon faster than you would if you got a SB
-Get a Scythe of Vyse faster than you would if you got a SB
-Get Maelstrom, upgrading to Mjollnir later on (I think you missed this, it's a really good item for him

This has been done by Pajkatt recently. They ran an Aggressive Tri-Lane bot with...something Mid and Pajkatt on a Safe-Lane Nature's Prophet. He rushed a Mask of Madness and a Dagon, since they had 3 Heros Bot, it was easy for him to farm it quickly enough that he could simply Teleportation in and zap someone instantly, they had no chance to fight back when he went in, and it resulted in a very fast and easy victory.

I'm not too sure about this one, simply because Nature's Prophet's Illusions are under-whelming, not much HP, not much Damage. Maybe later in the game as a Situational Item, but not early on imo. Oddly enough, this would synergise with a Shadow Blade since you can Purge Dust of Appearance and then Shadow Blade out.

I've used this as a Spirit Breaker Breaker 8{D certainly works if they rely on 1 Targetted Disable to stop your Split-Push, otherwise if they bring 2 or something that goes though Linken's, it provides next to nothing. Situational but effective imo.

Omlette, like Blink Dagger is Core on a few Heroes, and Situational on almost all the rest, I see it being countered easily by a single Ranged Stun with a decent Duration, but depending on the other Team's lineup, this isn;t always an issue. Situational but effective imo.

Personally, I would just rush a Necronomicon and Travel Boots in most Situations, and simply never go anywhere the other Team. Teleportation/TP in, summon your Sprouts, push the Lane a little bit and back off no more than 10 seconds after you got there, unless there's a big enough distraction / amount of dead Heroes on the other side.

Necronomicon gives you all the pushing power you'll ever need.

Shadow Blade is bad. If they really want to kill you, SB won't stop them. If they don't, it's a 3000 gold paperweight. Escapes in general aren't necessary since there's rarely a reason for you to actually be there with your treants/necro minions. Just summon them and GTFO unless you see the whole enemy team across the map with no TP.

After Necro you should be getting items that will help you not be a liability in teamfights.

People who still get shadow blade all the time are just like midas alchemists, they think it still is 6.78
The initial buffs to Necronicom really replaced shadow blade hard. It just offers much more in pushingpower and the manaburn and last will are great.

I really like the idea of a mask of madness actually, it improves his farmspeed even more and lets you really hurt towers.
You could go something like necrobook, MoM, then follow it up with either mjollnir or hex, dependant on what your team needs more right now.

I usually go Necro 3 into Deso. Usually swap out my treads to BoT. So I would port in with his global tp, usually in the woods. Pop my necros and trees. Push the lane till it hits the tower. Pop a few hits on the tower and then port out with BoT.

Makes the enemies mad as hell.

Haven't tried MoM due to the fact that it and Deso don't get along. But might give it a shot.

Generally I don't like leaving my units alone to push and standing back, because it is easily countered by simply TPing to the tower and farming the wave. Necros feed 400 (!!) gold whenever they are killed, it's more than a hero kill, more than a Lone Druid bear kill, about as much as clearing a 2-stack of ancients, and so on. Standing back and sending your treants to push is fine, but necros? No way. Getting a T1/T2 tower isn't worth a feed like that. That's why I like to always commit to pushes because you really need to push fast, your timing window for pushing before the enemy team comes is extremely small, just look at TI3 where Bulldog had only the duration of a Dream Coil to push.

Manta Style : I like it because it's essentially like Necronomicon...except that the cooldown is much shorter and you don't feed gold, so you can really spam it like there's no tomorrow. In terms of illusion damage output, I checked it, in the mid game it's about equivalent to a "Necro 1.5" : more damage than Necro 1 and less than Necro 2 with similar attack speed. Actually Furion *does* boost his base stat with Necronomicon and Scythe of Vyse, so late-game Manta Style illusions have the same damage output as a Necro 2 (I checked). Also, the movement speed boost and being able to dispel silences is always nice. Manta is essentially the "safe" version of Necro, less damage but no feed.
Sadly Manta is actually useless against Dust of Appearance because they will simply wait for you to pop Shadow Blade and then dust you, and you can't deal with that.

Linken's Sphere : not core by any means, I only get it about 20% of the games. It's really strong against several of Furion's counters, for example Spirit Breaker, Legion Commander, Pudge, Alchemist or Batrider, or against stunners like Earthshaker.

Force Staff : The more I play Furion, the more I love this item on him. It makes you able to deal with most of your counters extremely efficiently. With it you can escape those annoying gankers like Sand King, Viper, Slark, Queen of Pain, Clockwerk, Riki, Spirit Breaker, Ursa, Spectre, Phantom Assassin or Pudge, among others. It also allows you to juke in the trees pretty efficiently..

Speaking of counters, I'm still having trouble dealing with Bounty Hunter, Nyx Assassin, Storm Spirit and Faceless Void. Any tips on how to counter them as Furion?



I don't get it, how did necro become a better choice? Hasn't Necro been nerfed extremely hard recently? Necros are now walking sacks of gold and XP for the enemy team and the 95 second cooldown is a real pain.



No, no, my point is that Mask of Madness and Desolator actually *do* get along, very well even. MOM gives you the attack speed, and deso gives you the damage. There's no problem with having multiple orb effect items as long as you only need one of the orbs : we don't need the lifesteal anyways!



Currently I rush the Mask of Madness because it is extremely good to have it early. Generally I go Hand of Midas Phase Boots into Mask of Madness, and then I get necro and hex. MoM is very strong for early farming (especially for stacking ancients with treants and then clearing ancient stacks), and for taking down early towers very quickly. For example when the enemy mid is missing 10 minutes into the game then it's time to burst down the mid tower. Mjollnir isn't needed because you already have all the attack speed you need with MoM, so deso/necro/hex is better.

In 6.79 the patch after TI3 they changed it so you cant use midas or dominator on necrobooks, becouse of that necrobook came back.
The result was a massive pushing meta, i remember a game where DK massed necrobooks and summons, and every push an enormous army of more then 20 units stormed the barracs. I guess icefrog was watching that game and cried, so necro has been nefed ever since. :P

BTW, monkey king bar removes uphill misses against units, but it DOESNT against TOWERS.
I believe this is intended but it still is kind of weird.

I just noticed and corrected for MKB, actually that rule was always really confusing for me so sorry for that.

Yeah I guess that Helm/Midas was a pretty imbalanced counter to Necro back then. But for the Necro push meta I have no idea why Icefrog hasn't ever nerfed last will to counter 5-necrobook strats. For example instead of nerfing the cooldown or the gold feed you could simply make last will un-stackable just like Mek : like if you get hit by it then you can't get hit by it again for the next 20 seconds.