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Born in a temperate realm, raised with her fiery older sister Lina, Rylai the Crystal Maiden soon found that her innate elemental affinity to ice created trouble for all those around her. Wellsprings and mountain rivers froze in moments if she stopped to rest nearby; ripening crops were bitten by frost, and fruiting orchards turned to mazes of ice and came crashing down, spoiled. When their exasperated parents packed Lina off to the equator, Rylai found herself banished to the cold northern realm of Icewrack, where she was taken in by an Ice Wizard who had carved himself a hermitage at the crown of the Blueheart Glacier. After long study, the wizard pronounced her ready for solitary practice and left her to take his place, descending into the glacier to hibernate for a thousand years. Her mastery of the Frozen Arts has only deepened since that time, and now her skills are unmatched.
This guide will outline my favourite way of playing Crystal Maiden. I have never seen anyone else do some of it, and despite how strange it is, it always results in my best Crystal Maiden games.
I'd like to make a nod though to HP stack Crystal Maiden which is my second favourite Crystal Maiden build (Check out Nubtrain's guide if you're interested in that).
Allow me to stress once again if it wasn't clear that this build and style is really just for fun. And it is a ton of fun.
That aside, it's actually much better than you might think it is. Crystal Maiden is an excellent hero for setting up kills, but suffers from problems with durability, and movement speed/positioning.
This build focuses on solving those issues. It uses mostly low cost component items ensuring that you won't be neglecting your support duties during the match, and turns Crystal Maiden into a roaming and ganking beast. To make use of it though, your mechanics need to be on point. You're going to be zipping around much faster than you're used to and doing ALL THE THINGS.
We're going to be maxing Crystal Nova first as it is Crystal Maiden's greatest teamfight contribution outside of her ultimate. It can also be used for pushing, and has little of the vulnerabilities inherent in her ultimate that can otherwise necessitate items like Black King Bar, Glimmer Cape, etc.
In fact I don't think you need more than one point in Freezing Field. I only recommend putting three points in it if you're planning on a different build entirely (Blink, Aghs, BKB/Glimmer, etc. something like that). Others have created enough guides on that kind of a playstyle that I'm not going to get into it here.
The rest of the time we are alternating between Frostbite and Arcane Aura. We're doing this to balance your offensive and defensive capabilities with your general contribution to your team.
If you have a very mana hungry team, consider maxing Arcane Aura before putting the second point in Frostbite. I like doing this when we have a Wraith King, Medusa, Storm Spirit, etc. Heroes that are mana hungry, or who have an ability or abilities that are extremely dependent on mana pool.
We're going to start with pretty standard support items. A quick Bracer is going to give you some extra durability. I'll generally proceed from there to Tranquil Boots although Phase Boots are also an option. Both make you go fast, and that's what's really important.
Blink Dagger is often considered a fairly core item, however I find it is often difficult to get one early in the game unless you are getting a lot of kills, or are neglecting support duties. If you are getting a lot of kills, get a Blink Dagger as soon as you generally can. If not, save it for later.
All of these items are meant to do the same things. Make you faster. They also happen to give you a lot of utility and survivability.
I always get hate on the Sange and Yasha. After all how often do you see it on a support? I don't build it on any other support, and not really on a huge number of other heroes in general. But, we're here to have fun. S&Y is going to make you more durable, slow enemy heroes, and put ACME rockets on your ****.
Replace your boots with Boots of Travel once you have all of your other general mobility items.
True, Mask of Madness and Butterfly can both make you go faster, however Mask of Madness is going to also cut into your durability if you get caught, and Butterfly is mad money - you need to keep supporting properly or people are going to report you for doing this build. Shadow Blade I think is just not as good as some other items. While you are faster while invisible, and can use it to set up kills, it doesn't give you general utility the way that most of these other items do. That being said, what the hell; go nuts.
Shiva's Guard, Scythe of Vyse, and Rod of Atos can serve some of the same function except in the inverse. Slowing everyone else is kind of like making yourself fast. I pretty much never get these though.
Try it out. Come back and tell me what an awesome time you had outrunning Bloodseeker and Slark and whoever else thought they could take on a Crystal Maiden by themselves.
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