KaidenOZ Guide to Skyrape

hey guys, sorry about the lack of replys. moving house and **** australian ISPs preventing me from getting online for 4 ******** months. need to catch up on patchs and changes and i never got to finish the guide before i lost net activity. cheers for the replys, nets still not 100% so will be back active here soon.

Great guide, +1 from me. However I suggest adding a 'Friends and Foes' section as I find there are many enemies a Skywrath must be aware of due to his low strength gain of 1.5.
Possible combos/friends could include Natures Prophet because of his Sprout ability which most of the time will catch only 1 hero and hence is a guaranteed full damage Mystic Flare.

I rated your guide +1 for the detailed explanation of items and abilities, and the focus on Skywrath Mage as a ROAMING support, not a lane support. I don't like the skill build as presented, though.

Your choice of a 2nd early level in Ancient Seal confuses me. Most other Skywrath Mage guides advocate an earlier max of Arcane Bolt. Could you explain why the 1s extra duration and +5% damage increase (for +10 mana cost) for Ancient Seal is better than a +20 dmg and -1s cooldown on Arcane Bolt?

However, you have a major pubbie-level error in your "Full Core" build by not including space for a Town Portal Scroll. I also think you could get a much earlier Null Talisman by getting a Circlet instead of the second Mantle of Intelligence, which actually benefits you more overall anyway (more hp and almost as much int/mana).

Starting Items could be (610) = Tango, Circlet, Mantle of Intelligence, 3 Iron Branches.

I think the second Null Talisman is excessive. I know you want to get cheap items and snowball, but as a roamer, you're going to need space for a TP, Dust, Smoke, Wards, or even several of the above.

Also, if you forfeit a Rod of Atos, which many players feel is core on Skywrath Mage (because he scales well with the +Int, and suffers from terrible squishy-ness otherwise), you need to explain why or why not. I suspect you feel it's too expensive for a roamer, and comes into effect too late?

I'm not sold on the Urn of Shadows. Granted, he's squishy and needs mana regen, making this seem like a great early item, but I'd prefer to see other items earlier, even a Void Stone, to later become the Eul's, or even a casual Vitality Booster even without a full Rod of Atos, and you could turn your Arcane Boots + Vitality Booster into a Soul Booster later, if the situation called for it.

Why don't I like Urn of Shadows and other small items? Well, I find that Skywrath has such a gigantic mana pool, that small amounts of mana regen don't really give him sustain anyway - it's better to have a larger mana pool to start with, maybe getting an earlier Staff of Wizardry, and then going back to fountain for full regen between 1-2 ganks as needed. Skywrath is NOT going to regen enough mana for another full combo while moving between lanes, until maybe he has his full core with +200% mana regen.

You love using this phrase huh don't you ? One small advice: While completing this build/guide, try some formatting with colored text/pictures/item links in the forum, etc ... They aren't that hard to learn. A guide with full of text doesn't interest me that much to read. So keep that in your mind. By the way, interesting point of view to the hero I have to say. Let's see whether this build will be come useful enough

i have gotten atos a few times and just don't find it cost effective unfortunately. with the Eblade and scythe, they tend toe be late game items which while useful, the idea of the build is to prevent the late game from happening at all. personal preference, keep in mind the guides not complete as i'm reading up on the builder and such to try to get a better handle.
before making a judgment, try it.

as for sitting with a hard carry, your there to create space for your carry, not true support him. when you hate level 4 with lvl 2 bolt, 2 on seal and a slow. make the other lanes hurt.

as for regen. 4 tangoe's is enough to get you through till your Urn, which also gives a small mana regen, HP buff and unlimited heals so long as your killing.

my issue with clarities is while there a cheap mana boost, they take so long to actually get the mana up, a time you have to play very careful not to have it disrupted, this build is geared around aggressive action.

as to the match's i use this build in. i don't solo pub much anymore, have used it in ranked and 5 stack drafts with considerable success.


so thanks for your opinion. i challenge you to give it a try before making a judgment.

The thing is that you said that you go into lane with a hard carry, therefore you are by defenition a support.
As a hero who doesnt get farm priority you cant even be guarunteed to finish your full core if the game goes less then ideal.

Also i really dont like your starting items, not enough regen and no clarities.
I also dislike your choice to get null talismans just for a bit of arcane bolt damage, you spent almost a 1000 gold on items that do very little apart from giving some mana and damage, its much better to get a faster force staff.

Also you are jut giving 1 build without good situational items like atos, ghost sceper/E-blade, and hex which is much better then bloodstone.

The way i see it you are just describing the way you play in low level pubs.

he is not a support, but if your team derps and everyone runs a carry you should buy "some" support items. focus on early core then crush your lane then start crushing the other lanes. once you have your full core you can switch to support items like wards and such since aghs and bloodstone are a lot of gold and not vital to the build.

tri-lanes dilute your XP gain to much to run since if you can level with the enemy you are in a good position, if you start falling behind in levels its really hard to claw back the difference.

this may make you think a solo lane is best, but your such a weak hero HP wise its easy to get zoned out vs a dual lane and possibly killed.

I don't consider Sentries to be a support item, if you are vs a invis carry, its everyone's responsibility to buy them, more so in your case because you are so easy to kill

just played this round this morning, good example of controlling the game early while making there hard carries useless. Match ID 811800178

i dont really get how you describe him, you are either a support or you are not.
and he is perfectly capable of playing one and is good in trilanes.