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Observer Ward
Animal Courier
Wind Lace
Tango
Boots of Speed
Drum of Endurance
Blink Dagger
Aghanim's Scepter
Black King Bar
Ethereal Blade
Animal Courier
Observer Ward
Tango
Wind Lace
Boots of Speed
Hand of Midas
Blink Dagger
Aghanim's Scepter
Black King Bar
Ethereal Blade
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3 | 4 | 5 | 7 |  |
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1 | 8 | 9 | 11 |  |
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2 | 13 | 14 | 16 |  |
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6 | 12 | 18 |  |
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10 | 15 |
So, you're starting out as a fresh, new, innocent dota player, looking for a hero or two that will fit well into any lineup, and is always welcome. You do a little research, ask some friends, and they almost certainly tell you to play Crystal Maiden. Great, but now you need to learn how to play, and how to avoid common traps new players fall into playing this hero. That's where this guide comes in.
Not only will I be going over skill and item builds, but I will be discussing many strategies important to new players, such as ward placement, rotation timing, and how to deal with your teammates.
Crystal Maiden, hereafter referred to as CM, is a support hero. It's a role that gets a lot of flak, is usually underappreciated, but is fundamental to securing your team's victory.
She excels at this role because she needs no items to start on the important job of Killing Enemy Heroes, and all of her skills are useful with only a few points, meaning she also needs few levels. This means she can get into the action right away, and should do so, selecting proper items and early skills to enable this.
We'll walk you through the right early item and skill choices.
You have three objectives in the laning phase:
First, and most importantly, you want to Kill Enemy Heroes.
Second, you want to ensure that your laning partner, who is probably a carry, Does Not Die. Dead carries, usually unaware of the critical role you play, and the many pressures on you, think this should be the top priority. While they are wrong, it is worth at least prioritizing this second to keep them from distracting you with angry pings or team chat.
Third, you need to ensure that you get the precious resources you need to remain effective in the rest of the game. You can certainly try to help your teammates, but remember that you only control your own play, and if you do not play the early game with a mind towards being effective later, you will lose the ability to make big plays later which will help your team win. Thus, remember to Find Time to Farm
Fourth, and always important to remember, is to give the rest of your team enough support to keep them from flaming you too much. As such, you should always assume that you will have to Upgrade the Courier. Additionally, always Spend money as fast as you earn it, so that when your team asks why you have not been warding, you may accurately inform them that you do not have enough money for wards. To do this, drag a ward into your quickbuy bar, if it isn't there already, and alt+click it. This will inform the team that you do not have enough money for wards, and just how far short you are. It is unlikely that your team will recognize the difference between "I cannot buy wards now" and "I could never have bought those wards, I'm really poor". This works to your advantage.
To this end, we recommend that you buy one ward and the courier. This will satisfy the team for at least 5-7 minutes that you are doing the things they think are important, freeing up valuable time for you to pursue the four objectives above.
You should additionally buy some tangoes to restore your health when you get low, and a wind lace, to compensate for your bad base move speed. This will make it easier to chase enemy heroes and kill them (first objective).
You should put your first skill point into frostbite. This will stun enemy heroes for 1.5 seconds, cancel tps, and deal 150 damage. Easily your best 1 point skill for killing. It also helps you jungle for gold to secure progression, because creeps hit by this spell are rooted for 10 seconds and take 1000 damage, even at level 1. No more points should be put into this early, since more points only add 50 points of damage each, and do not improve the efficiency of your jungling, because creep duration is always 10 seconds.
Your second point should go into your passive, Arcane Aura. This is mainly to ensure that you regenerate mana rapidly, even with no items to help. This in turn makes you much better at all of your objectives. It additionally keeps your team from yelling at you, because they will see the aura at level 2 and assume that you are leveling it up as a priority. It is unlikely afterwards that they will check to see if you are continuing to put more points in, so long as they can see the icon that indicates they are getting your aura. One point is sufficient until other skills are maxed however, since that is sufficient to sustain your own modest mana needs, and give the team visual indication that you are, indeed, helping them with mana.
Your third point should go into crystal nova, and after this point, you should max this skill first. It is the primary way for you to handle the valuable task of wave clear, to remove hostile creeps from areas near your towers. It scales better than frostbite, adding not just 50 damage per rank, but a stronger slow too. This in turn helps you both secure progression from the gold you get clearing creep waves, and kill enemy heroes. Admirable efficiency, young CM!
Once the long journey to 6 is over, take a point in your ultimate. This skill does massive AoE damage, but can be interrupted if you are stunned while casting it. Still if you wait until the end of a fight to use it, or if the enemy team has few stuns, this surprisingly strong spell can often net multiple kills per cast, securing your team a valuable advantage in income, and time the enemy is forced to spend respawning.
You should look for opportunities to visit a lane that has either squishy enemies for easy kills, or strong allies who can make use of your stun and your slow to secure more difficult skills. If there are no good targets available for the moment, drop into the jungle and frostbite a creep or two for money and XP, which you will need.
As you get money, buy boots for more move speed, and thus easier kills.
Great! The laning phase went well. You're level 6 (or even more, you daring CM you!) and have several kills. You probably have boots and a lot of money left over. At this point, you need to ask yourself if the two teams are fighting a lot, or if the game is quiet, with teams playing safe and farming. This will inform you on the first major decision of the game: how to spend your first 2k gold after boots.
If there is a lot of fighting, drum of endurance comes recommended. It helps with your regeneration of mana, for more frequent fighting, helps you tank up some, for more fighting, and helps give you more move speed, which is helpful in fights.
If fighting is scarce, buy a Hand of Midas instead. This item helps you keep your farm up into the late game, and even more importantly gives you a significant XP boost, helping you level your valuable spells up faster, and thus be more helpful in supporting the team.
For skills, follow this prioirty: Level ult when possible, then max Crystal Nova, Frostbite, and Arcane Aura in that order.
As teamfights get bigger and longer, it is wise to stay out of sight of the enemy team until they have used several major spells, and then to move into the middle of the fight to use your Freezing Field to net as many kills as possible.
Continue following the skill progression outlined, and get the late game items blink dagger, aghanim's scepter, black king bar, and ethereal blade as you have money. This is the right order to get them in.
Blink dagger makes you very mobile, and helps you secure the maximum number of kills with your ultimate ability.
Aghanim's Scepter makes your ultimate ability even more deadly. More damage means more kills.
Black King Bar prevents most stuns from effecting you, which can end your ultimate early and cost you precious kills.
Ethereal blade provides a very strong single target nuke which further amplifies the damage of all your other spells on that target. As a bonus, if you use it on the enemy carry, he cannot auto attack you, keeping you alive longer to secure more kills.
A new element to dota, it is now time to explain Talents.
Your first talent is fairly straightforward: the damage talent is your choice. While it might seem helpful to have extra magic resistance for more survivability, remember that your job in fights will be to stay out of it until your tankier friends can soak most of the enemy team's spells. Not only does extra attack damage help you secure last hits for good progression, it helps you kill enemy heroes with greater efficiency.
Your second talent should always go into added cast range. As with magic resistance, more health assumes your team wants you to tank spells for them. This is not a CM's role, and you should avoid falling into that trap.
Your third talent might seem like a difficult choice. Surely faster respawns are good? WRONG. Reduced respawn time is a submissive choice, that preemptively surrenders to the eventuality of your multiple deaths. That's coward talk, and a strong, independent CM permits no cowardice. Take the extra GPM talent, which allows you to acquire items faster.
Both of your fourth talents are worthy of consideration for the extra damage, however, the 1.5 s frostbite duration buff adds only 150 damage to 1 target, while the other talent adds 200 in an AoE. This is a clear winner.
But wait, what about wards!
Lots of people think this is hard. It's not, though. The most important thing to do with wards is to get them out on the map, but to hide them carefully from the enemy team. This all your wards (and you should only buy them to get your team to be quiet), should be planted in the middle of lots of trees, where they can be safe from detection by the enemy.
The game helpfully highlights good areas to look for trees, using yellow boxes to do so. So go into the neutral parts of the map, and plant those wards in the trees inside the yellow boxes on your side of the map.
Don't cross the river to ward. It's dangerous, and you will die.
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