Advanced Bird Guide

STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Hi, I am still writing this guide. It is not complete.

Introduction

How to use this guide

Sections
1) Item advice - briefly running through the item build
2) Skill comparison - why you should quit if you have a phoenix who maxes sunray before level 6.
3) Individual skill tips - when to fly, when to fire spirits and when to SS.
4) How to deal with certain heroes
5) Laning (because you can do any lane)

Phoenix is all about positioning.
If youre in a great position you give very high dps.
If youre in a bad position (eg stunned while diving in the middle of enemies) you will receive very high dps. Usually you will know this very quickly. You will not need a guide.
Main role: Disable AGI hitters with (eg, faceless void, PA), Shred STR tanks and heal allies (eg. pudge / legion commander), out position INT supports (intel heroes trying to autoattack supernova are cute)

Items

Phoenix is a level dependent hero (not farm dependent).
After you have built tranquil boots, you need minimum farm to deal your damage. Get to level 7 with max fire spirits ASAP and give your farm to the carries.

All you need
Tranq boots - THIS IS ALL YOU NEED
Urn - Allows you to be aggressive on AGI / INTEL enemies. for every one you kill, you get a new charge! [refer Key Combo below] FYI, urn works with your HP removal from sunray / fire spirits.
Halberd - Dodge for your Supernova and disarm an autoattack hero. GET THE TALISMAN FIRST.
Shivas - As above, the slow helps you a lot. The nuke is nice to follow up with sunray

Team stuff -- because your team is a ***** and complaining youre not a support.
Mek - great to help your team (dive and heal) but note if you heal with mek after fire spirits, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SS (before level 9). Decide when you want to use it.
Pipe - Frankly you dont need this. Tranq gives you enough heal and unless youre getting global nuked by Zues and AA every fight. Its expensive. Get a halberd.
Veil vs Rod of Atos - Veil is a better choice because of the damage buff. It will screw up your manapool though so I would pick this > Level 16. Refer damage scaling below.
Wards - Again because your team is a ***** and farming with fire spirits is too easy.

Luxury
Heart / Radiance- Because if everyone is level 25. Why not!
Scepter - Only for special effects and if youre really bored. Do not forget your other hero is disabled for 6 seconds while in the sun with you.
Bloodstone - heals your allies if you finally do die
Dagon - for trolling

Main problems:
Life life life. Mana mana mana.
Learning 2 skills is about the maximum phoenix can work on for early game.


Key Combo (if you cannot do this, play sniper)
Keep 300 mana for level 6 / 310 mana at level 7 so you can do the combo attack (fire spirits, dive, (urn if you have), ss, repeat). Its a total of above 1500 damage even if you land only 3 spirits.

Detailed Combo
a) Shoot a Fire Spirit at the enemy (or 2). Wait 3 seconds
** a1) If you are higher level use sunray as well. Do not use sunray if you are level 8-9 according to this build, you will not be able to use the Supernova.
b) Dive in and auto attack as you fly (refer below Heroes for where to stop your dive). You are so close to them so: land another Fire Spirit.
c) Decide if you want to urn / stop your dive (Hero Section refer below)
d) Use Supernova. (Supernova section refer below)
e) They are usually dead. If there are more than one hero, use some sense and dive appropriately. If they arent dead, be reborn and repeat.


*** Where you stop is the most important

Key combo done wrong : Clear signs the dude doesnt know what hes doing!
1) Shoots all 4 spirits at one point while diving. (even in teamfights, lay back and shoot 2 spirits on the main carries then dive in for more action.) ALWAYS space out spirits.
2) Supernova in the middle of a bunch of ranged heroes. (no damage + shredded especially early game - 5 hits in 6 seconds is easy to land.)
3) Sunray healing at level 1 is very. very. sad. If he turns it on instead of harassing enemies, leave the game.

Early Skill Choice

I am lazy to explain the mechanics of each of the skills. The following is based on life / damage tradeoffs and comparison among the 3 skills. For a more in depth look at the skills please refer to Dota 2 Wiki or other guides.

Dive
Has a huge range -- is great for escaping and chasing after using fire spirits. It is a great support and mobility spell. Can be used to harass as you get a free attack in.
36 second cooldown for all levels. Please leave this at level 2 till the other 2 skills are complete.
Why level 2? 40/120/200/280 damage scaling. 3x more damage than level 1 and it scales badly after that.

Fire Spirits
Can deal up to 40/120/200/280 damage to a single unit (before reductions per fire spirit). 80/100/120/140 AS slow. Land all 4 to deal up to 1120 raw damage at level 4. 50% hit rate is not bad, you still end up with 500+ damage.
[refer tips on hitting below]

Sunray
Maximum damage : 135/180/225/270 + 9/18/27/36% Max Health
Maximum healing : 67.5/90/112.5/135 + 4.5/9/13.5/18% Max Health
Problem early game: low mobility, if you are stunned or solo laning there is no way you can get the full damage from this skill.


Comparison
Total Damage Dealt (early game up to level 7): Firespirits , Sunray, Dive
Total Damage Dealt (lategame): Sunray, Firespirits, Dive (inclsive of teamfight support)

Why Sunray is weaker at Low Levels
1) damage scaling is great but the best damage occurs at the 4-6 second mark.
2) takes forever to kill creeps initially and gives away your position. Channelling results in 24% life loss (scaled)
3) More mana for less damage and less mobility is not a good tradeoff.
4) Does not disable AGI carries.

Why Sunray is better at High Levels
1) Teamfights occur more often. Sunray heals and damages units. Together with fire spirits it is great for keeping your team alive in ganks. Eg. Legion commander duelling your team.
2) MAX HP does not matter. Shred through immobile tanks like Pudge (and all str heroes).
3) Looks great when Pudge is biting your carry but losing life faster than your carry.

More on individual skill guides below.

Icarus Dive

DIVING 101 if you only read this.
1) Stopping Near Enemy: Only when you are sure of a kill in early game
2) When you need to escape. Being silenced means you cannot stop your dive.
3) I cannot stress more that you need to calculate Tower and Hero Auto Attacks. You are NOT invulnerable in Dive.
4) Always learn this at level 2. Decide whether you need an escape mechanism.
5) You have one free auto attack in dive. be sure to click.



Ganking Guide
Middle lane - Use it to grab / deny runes. While a bottle is a good to have, tranquil boots early on will give you a better survival rate. (Tranquil boots is still active through your spells). When fighting ranged intel heroes -- you may use this constantly to annoy them (beware OD banishing you midflight) Or prime with Key Combo. 2 level 3 spirits and an urn is enough to take out most INT/AGI heroes.
Hard lane - Gank with your fire spirits and when you retreat, fly past the terrain toward the river. Grab a rune if you want. If needed, use a tango / urn as you fly off. Make sure you fly PAST the radiant / dire creeps so they attack enemies chasing you. REMEMBER TO STOP THE DIVE.


Warding
When attacking enemy highground at Tier 3 Towers, fly in and put a ward. The highground vision will help you. By the time you are at Tier 3, the HP regen should do its work.

Fire Spirits

Splash damage, good damage per tick, and ASPD slow.
1100 range.

Farming with fire spirits is great. Early or late game.

Early Game Laning
Level 1 - 2 Fire spirits -- Aim to harass the heroes in lane. This is especially effective for DPS/Autoattack AGI heroes (eg. sniper, pa, spec, faceless). The attack speed slow cripples their farming and could open up for ganks.

This has 45/40 second CD (inclusive of when the spirits are around you)
DO NOT WAIT. As soon as the cooldown is done, pop the next set of 4 and take your time (within 16 seconds) to fire away.

Where to shoot from?
If you are in midlane, get high ground, block creeps if you have to. If you are on offlanes, make use of the trees. Landing spirits is extremely important. Spirits travel at 900 speed, nothing can outrun a well placed shot. It is instinctive to run away when the fire spirit is flying toward a hero. So ALWAYS, shot behind the hero. Try to get some creeps too. Because they are good farm for your early boots.

Melee heroes -- as they hesitate for the last hit, be aware of when the are moving. It is always a good idea to make sure you shoot about 100-200 dotameters behind the hero.
Ranged heroes -- wait for their attack animation to start, that way they are immobile and will be hit. Same theory, shoot about 100 dotameters behind the hero.

Additional tips :
Pulling creeps on Radiant hard lane (top lane). Eat the tree beside the large camp. Launch a spirit into the forest of the large camp as your creeps are behind your tier 1 tower. The large camp will come out and pull your creeps. This is great when they are pulling creeps as well and you need farm. 106 Gold from the big bird is good money early game. If you are aware they are pulling creeps, be sure to send a fire spirit into the fog.

For specific hero guides, refer below

The enemy has run away! I am tower seiged What should I do?
Continue to use them at good intervals on creeps. Just aim to slow attack speed and keep your tower alive. Hit incoming heroes then disappear into bushes. In a dire emergency.. fly away.

TRY TO FARM A SOBI MASK by level 6. It will help after that clarity you bought earlier is gone

Level 5-7
Level 3 - 4 Fire spirits -- You can now kill faceless and most of his AGI friends in 2 good fire spirits. Be sure to engage carries like Phantom Assassin. They often underestimate how much ASPD slow each spirit gives. Do the key combo on low hp heroes.

With level 3 fire spirits, you can farm the small and medium camps

Creep camps:
Stack camps if you have time. Te following is how you can farm creep camps very fast.
Small Camps - One level 4 fire spirit / last hits on level 3 fire spirits
Medium Camps - Last hit on big creep for level 4 fire spirits.
Large Camps - Just use 2 fire spirits each camp (remember to space them out to let the damage set in).

For Radiant: Dive past the small camp into the middle of the 2 larger camps. Use fire spirits on each of the camps. As all the creeps consolidate to you, launch remainder fire spirits on the large creeps and catch the small camp in your blast radius. Congratulations, you have farmed 3 camps in 12 seconds. If youre slow. 16 seconds.
Dire: This is a bit harder because of the terrain. But still possible. Farm the large camp and medium camps with the alpha wolf and stayr families.