Keeper of the Light - Basic Pub Play

Introduction

This guide is intended to give some basic guidelines on how to play a decent pub support KOTL, how to play a fun KOTL if you have mostly melee heroes on your team and one last build for a KOTL carry if you just want to take all the kills.

KOTL is incredibly underrated by most players since he's seen as sort of glass cannon hero that steals all the farm from carries and then just feeds mid to late game. This can be true if he is played by someone who levels illuminate to rank 4 before anything else and rushes towards getting a Desolator or something....

Items

KOTL is great because he isn't really item dependent so get the courier and some wards right off the start. As soon as you get a lane to yourself you can farm like a mad man so don't worry about completing a Mek right off the start. Tell your team you're getting the courier and just do it (you'll feel good about it and you can yell at people even more than usual if they get it killed).

First off. Why not get tangos? Simple. Don't get hit. Stay out of auto-attack range. Your auto-attacks suck, go for soft denies through the use of illuminate to force enemy heroes too far from the creep line to get exp instead of trying to time a deny with god awfully low auto-attack damage. Wards will help see when a gank is coming so you can move back and the ring of regen will help heal when you inevitably get hit with spells or other damage.

Ring of Basilus helps a ton so you aren't waiting around for enough mana to cast another chakra magic. It also helps your laning buddy quite a bit. Mek, is another great item which will help in team fights a ton. Don't be afraid to use it to top your team up before or a team fight because it can be easy to forget / annoying to have to break an illuminate early to do later.

Boots of travel are great for pushing towers (herp derp). Euls gives you good movement speed, enough regen to never really worry about using chakra on yourself, a great way to stop an enemy hero from escaping while your team catches up and an escape if necessary.

Be sure to get wards throughout the mid through to the late game. The extra map awareness will help you avoid getting ganked and it helps your team a ton.

Late late game / luxury gear I would recommend Shiva's Guard for that extra bit of escape and a Bloodstone. You will die to hard carries later really quick and these two items will make it a tiny bit harder for them to do (meaning they'll hit you instead of your carries), you'll lose less of your crazy awesome farmed gold, you'll gain levels while dead and you'll respawn sooner. It's great!

Why not sheepstick? Because between illuminate, chakra magic, mana leak, your ult, euls, shiva's guard, recall and blinding light you have too much to do already. Don't overload yourself!

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Melee Support (Ursa, Broodmother, Phanton Lancer, Lycan)

Get Vlads! It's like a better ring of Basilus for regen but you help them regain health a ton more and they can focus on getting damage items. As soon as you farm it you can run with Ursa or Lycan to do Roshan - by this time they should have a crys or basher or something and Roshan will go down super fast. The only downside is that you're more of a target for your opponents to kill if they realize what is going on. Definitely a lot of fun but really dangerous.

Skills

First off. Make sure you got a clarity or two to use right after you cast your first illuminate.

When do you cast illuminate?

As soon as you can line up a good hit on their creep wave. Everytime you can cast this spell make sure you're using it on something. KOTL has little to no auto attack damage so don't bother trying to deny creeps or hit enemy heroes when you could just use illuminate on them.

Shouldn't I hide in the bushes to hit their heroes?

No, let them see you so they run away. You want to train them to run away from every illuminate. Let them think "Oh man this KOTL is dumb he should be hiding in the trees". What you're doing is a soft deny where they end up out of range for several creep kills here and there and you're giving your carry space to move in and clean up.

If they're by their tower then you can go in the bushes but if you can get by with being further up you'll get more experience from the creep and hero kills you may be getting too.

Anything else I should know about illuminate?

Lots of KOTLs sit there channeling the whole time. You don't have to do that. If you have rank 4 illuminate and only need a rank 2 then hit q again or move at half a charge and it will fire. Doing this will result in 63% of your hero kills. You can break the charge while you have it being channeled by your ult by hitting q again.

...You could say KOTL QQs his way to winning matches... (oh **** all the downvotes inc)

What's next?

Chakra magic twice and keep spamming your illuminate. By this time you probably don't have any clarities left. Make sure to keep an eye on your regen and try to figure out if you need to wait for Chakra before casting your illuminate or if you will have enough mana when the cooldown is up.

What? Level 4 Mana Leak!?

Yes. Stop thinking of mana leak like a stun that never goes off and start thinking ... "Hey this is kinda like bloodseekers' ult except I can use it way more often". You've spent the start of the match training them to run away from you now use mana leak on one then charge up your illuminate. They can either get hit (level 1 doesn't do that much damage but at level 3-4 it still hurts) or lose mana.

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This is the basic idea of this is to use your abilities all the time. If you have an ally that you can sink mana into or who is bugging you for mana then try it out. If they suck (which is likely the case) then just tell them it's on cooldown... then cast it on yourself. If they complain just say it was a lag spike.

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At level 6 you'll want to get your ult and add it to the spam list. Keep an eye on the map and recall in allies who are getting run down in other lanes or bring someone in to gank (make sure you talk to them in case they are afk). Make sure you use your blinding light to juke enemies as much as possible. Even if it doesn't result in a kill freaks them out and lowers their accuracy and it's good to practice moving them around every chance you can get.

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At higher levels your mana leak gets crazy awesome range. Use it every chance you can. It will screw with your opponents and may result in a stun if they don't know what's happening. It's really underrated. Paired with a carry like Anti-mage you basically have a solid stun skill.

Summary

In summary here are a few simple comments:

1. Don't get hit
2. Spam your abilities every chance you get
3. If your team sucks - don't waste your chakra on them