Crystal Maiden Simple Build

Introduction

This is a guide to Crystal Maiden for beginners. I don't believe it is a standard CM build as I am mainly doing this for my girlfriend who is new to Dota. So I'm giving her a build that should hopefully be easily used with some active items and then built up to use some more advanced items that once learnt will be very useful for a team. It uses mostly items that have good passive effects or ones with easy to use actives that should be helpful for keeping alive and helping out the team without too much thought needing to be put into it. CM in my opinion is one of the best supports and is also relatively easy to play well, her mana aura is so amazing through the whole game, especially for a carry like Sven who never gets much mana and needs it for his skills. So if you get your mana aura and it helps your team get kills as they have mana, you played well. Also if anyone has suggestions to help, please feel free to help me help her!

Also if there are mistakes please advise me, this is my first published guide :)

Skill Order

Focus on getting Frostbite online. Be careful when using this skill as people can still cast spells through your frostbite! Apart from that massive downfall this stun lasts 3 seconds and has decent damage early game. Interchange points of Frostbite and Arcane Aura until both are maxed by level 8. This option is much less mana intensive than trying to get both Frostbite and Crystal Nova up early on. It also will give your whole team full of mana.
After they are maxed you then get your Crystal Nova to have extra slowing power.
Some people may want to pick up an early level of nova possibly at level 4 instead of 1 (this is shown in Alternate skill build 1) level of aura, then max stun level 7, aura 9 and nova 12.
Either option max Q, W and E by 12.

After this get Freezing Field at 13, 14 and 16. CM's ultimate skill is incredibly powerful, but hugely mana intensive which makes your other skills worthless early game as you would run out of mana too often. Also using this skill effectively is very hard early on and you will be killed or stunned too often to make proper use of it. Often it is best to not even use your ultimate and save enough mana for a second Frostbite or Crystal Nova in a team fight. Since this is for newer players sticking with the first 3 skills early game is much more useful and will benefit the team as a whole. Even some advanced players follow similar builds like this.

I included an Alternate skill build 2 which focuses on getting your casting spells up online earlier. Always make sure you have at least one point of Arcane Aura by level 2 as it is so good for the team early on. I would not recommend this as Arcane Aura is far too invaluable for your whole team and i would recommend the first two build 99 times out of 100 for beginners.

Item Build

Starting Items

Courier Always buy this as you are a support and don't need the gold as much as other heroes do and buy it instantly so hopefully no other idiot tries to buy it. If someone rushes to say they will buy the courier you can let them and just add the recipe to Magic Wand to your inventory. Then buy 3x Iron Branch to build into your Magic Wand (you want this as early as possible for the stats and the active health/mana heal). Next get a Ring of Protection to be built into your Tranquil Boots to have a good heal and be able to move faster. Then buy Tangos for healing.

Early Rush Items

(details under Core Items)
Magic Wand
Tranquil Boots
Bracer to build into Drum of Endurance

Core Items

Magic Wand Stats and active hp/mana heal.
Tranquil Boots Armour, health regen, movespeed and active heal.
Drum of Endurance for team attack speed and move speed. Also some good stats.

Extra Early Pickups

Headdress get this early on if you plan to get Mekansm.
Ring of Regen get this if you want a Force Staff later on.

Extensions

Mekansm for team aura heal and also active team heal + armour bonus. Note: do not buy if someone else is already building this. Ask if anyone else is building this before you start making the headdress.
Urn of Shadows this is another active heal that gets charges when an enemy is killed near you. You can use it to heal yourself by double clicking it or you can target allies. Heals 400hp. You can also target enemies to deal 150 damage to them if they are running and no one can get one last hit off on them.

For beginners these are excellent pickups if you can learn how to use them well. The next two are a little more complex, but a little practice and you will be able to use them well enough.

Force Staff or Blink Dagger if you know how to use them well enough. Force staff is probably best for beginners as it gives health regen and a bit more intelligence too. The active isn't as good as blink daggers but you can use it even if you have been damaged recently which should be helpful for beginners. Force Staff active can also be used on allies and enemies to push them around too.

Luxuries

Luxuries will hardly ever be built but if you somehow end up buying them they should stop you from dying as much. These items may look awesome compared to the ones you buy but do not try to get these unless the game is going for way too long and you have so much spare gold. It is most often better to save all your gold for buying back rather than buying these items. These are here just incase you do get masses of gold and want to never die. What you would buy depends on your taste and what you want to do/have

Heart of Tarrasque Over 1k hp bonus plus 2% of health regenerated per second if you haven't been attacked by a hero recently. Excellent for surviving.
Linken's Sphere Spell block every 20 seconds. Good for being able to prolong your ultimate as one stun at least will miss. Also gives health and mana regen and some stats.
Shiva's Guard Lots of intelligence which means more mana and damage and also lots of armor which helps with taking physical damage.
Eye of Skadi 725 health and 575 mana too. Also gives cold attack which means as long as you live and don't get stunned no one can run away from you.

Gameplay

Always choose a sidelane and not with another support. Deny your own creeps and harrass the enemy heroes in lane. Only last hit if your carry has ran away and cannot last hit otherwise leave every last hit for them.

As a support you don't need much gold and you never will. Your core items cost 509+975+1725 which is a grand total of 3209 gold (plus gold spent on courier). Easy to get just with the gold per minute and any tower kills.

Don't stress if you feel like you are doing nothing. With CM as long as you are alive your whole team is getting mana regen from your Arcane Aura and anyone near you will be getting the small but useful buffs from your [{Drum of Endurance]] once it is built and your Mekansm if you choose to build it.

Try to follow your team most of the time and cast off a Frostbite to stop an enemy and have them eaten by your team. Also use Crystal Nova to slow groups of enemies down. Do not in any case steal the kill! You should end up with end game scores of zero Kills, some Deaths and lots of Assists. Kills are allowed if you solo nuke someone down. But in general, don't get kills.

Try not to spend any time alone, you are a prime gank target early game and you could feed the enemy team if you are not careful so try to stick with a team member or your whole team. Also since you have aura's you are most effective with your team.

Around mid game you can start using Crystal Nova to push creep waves, but be cautious because if a gank is coming you don't want to be left with it on cooldown still.

In late game just be nice to your carry and keep them on full health with any healing items you got or just stun/slow your carries target so the carry can kill them easier.

Thanks!

Thanks to anyone who read this. Sorry if it was a bit wordy and lacked any colour and pretty pictures to maintain our childlike interests. Also if you have any suggestions, keeping in mind that this guide is mainly aimed at beginners, please feel free to suggest.

Thanks again!