Lina Mid

Doom's Advocate Paragraph

Q: What makes you qualified to write us a guide?

A: Nothing. I'm not. Like, at all. I do, however hope that by my writing this guide, we can all learn something.


Q: What is this ****? Making a Carry out of a Support? -1

A: Take a good, hard, long look at Lina and her skills. Okay, not like that, that's gross. Anyway, if you look at her and her skills, something seems a bit off. I'll tell you: She's not a hard support. She has way too much offensive potential to be another babysitter like Lich, Venomancer, or Keeper of the Light. If played as such, you waste a lot of offensive potential, and completely waste her passive, Fiery Soul. It really looks like a carry ability, but of course you can't give it away, like Bloodlust. Therefore she is best played as a position 4-2 as perhaps an offlane support, a semicarry, or in the midlane, which I will be covering.

Q: Why are you not writing your guide like everyone else does? Heh, noob.

A: Because Dota is situational. You should know that. No item will be best 100% of the time. In a game where mistakes are punished like this one punishes, and because everything counters and synergises with SO MANY other things, you can't afford to take those kinds of risks. For example, you should never even pick Lifestealer or Alchemist when you see an Ancient Apparition on the opposing team. I thought a different layout was necessary.



Here's a quote to prove my lina semicarry is good standpoint.

I Say:
This same argument has happened on 95% of the guides that play Lina as a core. Don't start it again now. To clear things up, I'm not saying to play Lina as a carry. That's a bad idea, mostly because you're so squishy with no escape. What I'm actually saying is that if you feel your team is doing fine but that they'll outcarry you, semicarry Lina is viable.

Here's another quote, but this time from the most respected member of the Dota community. That's right, Purge. I you haven't read his guide, Welcome to Dota, You Suck, do so by clicking on the link.

Purge:


That should adequately prove the point.

Pros/Cons

PROS

Has 3 nukes ---> Ludicrous burst
B.S. attack speed
Insane damage at all points of game
A very good pusher, can clear creep waves easily with her combo
"Smokin' hot"

Dragon Slave = Crypt Swarm, but better in all ways.


CONS

EXTREMELY SQUISHY
Mana-hungry
Not enough utility
Item-dependent, no matter what role you play

Skills

Dragon Slave

Type: Targets:

Active Point/Enemy Unit

Lina channels the breath of a dragon, sending out a wave of fire that scorches every enemy in it's path.

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Notes:

• The damage dealt by Dragon Slave is considered Magical damage.
• Unit targeting is often an ineffective method.

Light Strike Array

Type: Targets:

Active Point

Summons a column of flames that damages and stuns enemies.

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Notes:

• A skillshot made easier by Eul's Scepter
• Personally, I can never land it due to lag, but honestly it's mostly that I'm terrible at this skillshot. And yet, I can land Meat Hooks and Split Earths.

Fiery Soul

Type: Targets:

Passive N/A

Grants attack and movement speed whenever Lina casts a spell. Stacks with itself.

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Notes:

• Max sacks: 3
• Benifits given at 3 stacks: 120/165/210/255 AS, 15%/18%/21%/24% MS
• This is ridiculous, and why Battle- Lina is a thing. It also means she can carry, but only sort of, because SQUISHY.
• Max stacks of Fiery Soul at level 4 is equivalent to 4.6 Hyperstones, rounded down.
• The attack speed given by this skill at level 1 with one stack is equivalent to level 3 Bloodlust.

Laguna Blade

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Unit

Lina smites idiots and fools alike with lightning bolts. Nuff said.

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Notes:

• Aghanim's Scepter increases cast range, and changes damage type to "Universal." (Goes through magical immunity and ignores magic immunity)(Universal damage type technically no longer exists, but Laguna Blade behaves just like it.
• Best used to lasthit heroes during solo kills, and while the enemy is at close to full during teamfights. If they're at 90%, and they consider themselves safe in a certain position, how about standing there at 40% HP? Feel safe now? The'll probably die because they're out of position at low health. If their friends try and save them, they too are throwing themselves into danger. This can lead to a rather one-sided teamfight.

6.83 Update:

In the middle of writing this guide, our favorite pyromancer was substantially buffed in the 6.83 update. Pasting Changelog:




[*]Attack projectile speed from 900 to 1000
[*] Dragon Slave damage increased from 100/170/230/280 to 110/180/250/320
[*] Dragon Slave mana cost increased from 90/105/125/140 to 100/115/130/145
[*] Light Strike Array damage rescaled from 90/150/210/280 to 120/160/200/240
[*] Light Strike Array mana cost increased from 90/100/110/125 to 100/110/120/130
[*] Light Strike Array stun duration increased from 1.6/1.8/2/2.2 to 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5
[*] Fiery Soul duration increased from 9 to 10

Looks like Lina just got a whole lot more Lina-Esque. She's now more mana hungry, but that shouldn't matter too much. Mana regen does become even more important, though. Don't worry too much about the Light Strike Array damage nerf, the Dragon Slave buff more than made up for it, especially because we're maxing it by seven. Her damage actually remains the same. What does not is mana and stun duration.

What I'm actually more exited about is the projectile speed buff. That means that Lina will be better at last hitting, meaning a buff to playing as a mid rather than a support.

How Lina Works

As seen in her Pros and Cons, Lina has crazy damage output, in all stages of the game. There are four reasons for that.

Dragon Slave
Light Strike Array
Fiery Soul
Laguna Blade


Yeah. All her skills.

First off, you'll notice that she has 3 nukes. Offensive potential through the roof. At max level she has, overall, 1510 magical damage. That's a lot.

Second, you'll notice her passive. So that, as late game rolls around, she can continue to do ******** amounts of damage if you build the tiniest bit of it. Lina also has the highest attack range in the game, only trumped by skills that give it. ( Impetus with Aghanim's Scepter and Take Aim)

It has it's own section, but let's talk a little about items.

Lina buys items according to what you want her damage type to be:

• Physical- ( Monkey King Bar + Desolator + Daedalus)
• Magical/Pure- ( Aghanim's Scepter + Veil of Discord)
• Mix- ( Orchid Malevolence + Extensions as needed)

When to pick Slayer

Good

[1]You can have mid
[2]You're against a melee hero mid, like Pudge, Juggernaut, or Nyx Assassin
[3]Your opponent has heroes without escape mechanisms
[4]You, you know, already have a support and a hard carry
[5]They have no mana burn or silences

Bad

[1]They have lots of burst, like Zeus or something
[2]They have a Queen of Pain. Your worst enemy. EVER. Buys an Orchid Malevolence, so silence, crazy burst, and has an escape mechanism. You hate her, especially in the wake of her recent buffs.
[3]You have 4 carries already. Just pick Vengeful Spirit and hard support. Synergises well with carries, because of her Vengeance Aura.
[4]You don't like Doom or Silencer either

Friends/Foes/Who Lina Counters

Friends

[*] Crystal Maiden somewhat solves your early mana problems with her global happiness aura.
[*] Vengeful Spirit can give you ***loads of extra dps if you go physical damage build.
[*] Omniknight can give you a free BKB until you get one up. That used to hard-counter QoP, but now Sonic Wave is pure and ignores magical immunity. Almost Universal damage, just like your ult with Aghanim's Scepter.
[*] Treant Protector gives great stuff all around. The Living Armor is really good to keep you alive, and you can just stay back and use your range when it's active with low stacks of the block. It also keeps your towers around, which means you can farm much easier with your stacks. Other than that, his ultimate, Overgrowth makes it easier to leverage your DPS, and to land multi-man spells in a teamfight.
[*] Shadow Demon can Disruption someone, and then you can land an easy combo. Same with Brewmaster's Primal Split Cyclone.
[*]You and a Lion can go around blowing the **** out of people. Lina and Lion are the "Rovin', Rollin' Gankin' Spainkin' Nukers."
[*]I'm kind of proud of that one.

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Foes

[*]Outworld Devourer screws over your last-hitting and makes your spells stupidly expensive.
[*] Doom and Silencer.
[*]SILENCES.
[*]People with lots of burst damage, like Zeus.
[*] Queen of Pain lays down the hurt on you. I kind of already talked about it, but she buys a silence, and has crazy burst, is very ganking-oriented, and has a 50% slow. She can also blink when you try to land a Light Strike Array or harass with Dragon Slave. You also have a mediocre laning stage, whereas she will dominate the laning stage. You'll be reduced to one of these things:

1:Feeding uncontrollably.

2:Sniping lasthits with Dragon Slave, which you can't even harass with.

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Who Lina Counters

[*]Any hero that is squishy without an escape mechanism.
[*]Therefore, Pugna
[*] Phantom Assassin HATES magic damage, and you have 1000+ burst. And a stun. And you can buy an MKB.
[*]Melee Mid heroes, like the ones I mentioned here.
[*]Heroes that have a problem with being kited. They'll die before they reach you. Even the tanky ones, like Ursa. You may even turn them back with just your sheer burst. If they don't they risk going too far out of position to survive when your friends help out.

Items

It first is important that everybody realizes that one item will almost never be inherently better than another. Therefore, technically, almost all items can be situational to most heroes. That being said, there are items that are better in more games than others, and there are items that synergise with the hero better than others. Keep that in mind while buying and choosing items.

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Starting Items:
Usually you'll want to do the standard Bottle rush. That is, unless you know you'll be buying a Veil of Discord or a Dagon. You'll basically have to buy one of those if you're going mostly magical damage. So, Null Talisman and a Tango will also suffice if going magical damage.

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Early Game:
Bottle: You're playing mid and have early game mana problems, so yeah.
Phase Boots: Usually bought on Lina mid instead of Arcane Boots, because of it's synergy with Fiery Soul. With that kind of attack speed, once you add damage, It gets a bit crazy. Another thing is that arcane boots are not actually that efficient as far as mana regen goes. It's better for burst regen, and for helping the team. You don't need to buy it, though. You're a core.
Magic Wand: Burst mana and health regen is good, and it slightly solves your squishiness. Wand is just really good in general, too.
Town Portal Scroll: Always carry a TP scroll either to TP support, to defend split pushes, farm lanes, or to TP onto someone and blow them up.

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Mana Regen Item:
Depending on the game, your choices are:

Orchid Malevolence- Good for when you have a mix of both physical and magical damage, as soul burn amplifies both physical and magical damage. It also does so as magical damage. Remember also that soul burn lasts 5 seconds to the MAGICAL amplification of Veil of Discord's 25, meaning that these two Items are awesome together.

Bloodstone- Good if you want to accelerate your farm, you're looking to snowball, if you can rush it quickly and if you can delay the rest of your core.

Eul's Scepter of Divinity- Good if your team already has enough carries, and your team needs the utility. From this item, you can transition into more of a support role. It also makes Light Strike Array more reliable.

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I don't want to say that after this you should buy whatever strikes your fancy, but after this it's largely situational. I'll just make a list of items and when they're good.


Aghanim's Scepter- When you're going mixed damage, have an Orchid Malevolence, and want the extra burst. Also good with Veil of Discord, and if you have a Veil, then Dagon is good with that. This is, actually a good build.

Blink Dagger- With Lina, positioning is key. Being able to jump into a fight or away from a gank is powerful.

Daedalus- Damage items are insane on Lina. The crit becomes amazing, as well, when you have more damage items. Buy it as your last damage item, probably after Desolator and Monkey King Bar if they have evasion. Or a Phantom Assassin, the most played hero in Dota 2(currently). Hate that lady.

Desolator Good if going for the Physical damage build. Damage remains crazy on Lina.

Ghost Scepter- Buy it when you need to. For example, if they have a Juggernaut. It completely counters Omnislash. If you can get a Juggernaut to jump on you solo, they're going to be awfully disappointed. Then you kill them.

Force Staff- Really good on Lina, especially when behind. Don't forget that it gives you +10 damage. Good also for when you don't want to buy an entire Blink Dagger.

Linken's Sphere- Good on her in general. Stats are survivability, something you painfully lack. Spell Block is great, and mana regen is also. It actually increases your farming speed, and may be viable if jungling a bit.

Monkey King Bar- It's a really big damage item. It may even be worth it even if the opponents don't have evasion. When you have 4.6 Hyperstones wrapped up in a passive, Damage items become ludicrous. With all your attack speed and attack range, minibash also becomes useful. If you see a Crystal Maiden trying to get an ulti off, well, you know. Or a Bane without an Aghanim's Scepter. Or a Warlock trying to get a good cloud, or anything else that is a long channeling ability. Get it when going for physical damage, especially when there's evasion. That is, with the exception of Backtrack. You can be just like Sniper used to be with the old Headshot.

Scythe of Vyse- Sheepstick is good in two situations. When you're going physical damage for the extra damage, survivability and disable, or for when you really want to shut down a carry to disrupt a teamfight, especially if they don't have a Black King Bar.

Eul's Scepter of Divinity- Obviously don't get it if you've already bought it as a mana regen item. You wouldn't believe how many people forget that. (at my trench MMR (FML)) Anyway, It remains good for setting up stuns and stuff, but it can also take their carry out of the action for 2.5 seconds, then let you set up a stun on them. Dat 50 damage tho. Then, your entire team should jump on them. It's also good for the extra regen, because then you have enough mana regen (With Orchid Malevolence or Bloodstone) to spam your spells whenever they're off cooldown to keep yourself at 3 stacks of Fiery Soul. That can be good in some games. Many people forget about this, but it also makes it exceptionally difficult for the enemy team to go high ground for fear of being blown up.

Eye of Skadi- Many people forget, but this item gives the 2nd most HP of all items, topped by only Heart of Terrasque. The slow is also really good for chasing with your attack range, but if you even attack the carry once, the 35% attack speed slow can be devastating. Good in late game for physical damage Lina when you don't have Desolator.

Black King Bar- Really good if you don't want to throw the game.

Boots of Travel- Good, on any hero, for the very late game.

Veil of Discord- You have LOTS of magic damage already, and it synergises well with orchid, because instead of amplifying once, the amplification is amplified too. Also, have you seen the uptime? 83%. Lasts 25 seconds, 30 second cooldown. At this point, just spam the thing.

Dagon- Controversial. Adding burst isn't as efficient as multiplying the load you already have with a Veil of Discord. But, If you already have that and an Orchid Malevolence, and you don't need a Blink Dagger, it's a viable option.

Ethereal Blade- If you've already gone full ****** into Magical damage, then who am I to stop you? It's surprisingly efficient, multiplying all of your damage by 1.4.

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Keep in mind that almost any item can be justified on almost any hero in specific situations, and that if there's something that I haven't mentioned, feel free to comment. Diffusal Blade is a perfect example.

Other Random Important Lina Things

Gonna be a lot of random stuff coming fast:


[*]When running away, feel free to run up high ground and send a Light Strike Array behind you. They basically have to run through it, and it'll slow them down. Also, obviously spam Phase Boots whenever off CD. Realize also that Fiery Soul gives Movement Speed. Therefore, it's also good with Phase Boots, because it's boost is percentage-based and not flat.

[*]If you get Meat Hooked, buy out immediately, because you're 100% going to die. The hook pulls you so far out of position, and you're so squishy, that unless miracles happen, you're going to die.

[*]My god, don't buy back the moment you die. It puts you so far behind. Not only that, but when you do, you cannot gain unreliable gold, meaning that you miss out on the gold per second, you gain nothing but XP from killing creeps, and you have to fight to get gold. Also, If you die again, then you'll be sorry, because now you're dead for an eternity or two.

[*]Play passive-aggressively. Positioning is key. When you see an opening, try and exploit it, but don't die. Diving towers is okay if you understand tower aggro and you can kill them in less than 5 seconds. Remember that Dragon Slave has very large range, far larger than that of it's cast range. You can snipe an enemy running away with it, just like with Meat Hook, Crypt Swarm, and Powershot.

[*]You hard-counter the most played hero in Dota 2, Phantom Assassin. Take pride. You can just blow them up, and it's an excuse to buy a Monkey King Bar. I'm not quite sure if 6-Slotted Lina can win against a 6-Slotted Phantom Assassin, but it would be close. In any case, Lina farms WAY faster than Phantom Assassin, even with a Battle Fury, so you do rather well in a 1v1 against a PA.

[*]You'll notice that in the "Items" section, I did not mention the king of all damage items, the Divine Rapier. The answer is: MY GOD, NO! AAAAUGH! The thing is, you're WAY too squishy. It would be amazing, insane, and even overpowered, but you'll probably end up throwing the game. Therefore, please don't.

[*]The crit from Buriza-Do Kyanon ( Daedalus) is crazy with other damage items in the late game, because crits give you damage as a percentage extra(multiplicatively), rather than additively. That's why you should never put a Crystalys in core items, on any hero. Not even Kunkka.

[*]If the rest of your team won't, buy Observer Wards. Buy Dust of Appearance as well, if someone has a Shadow Blade, or they have one or more invis heroes.

Place a Ward.
Prevent a gank.
Save a life.

(By the way, that dust thing above is a bug. It's actually formatted correctly.)

[*]If you're really behind consider warding up your jungle and just jungling for a while. As you farm really fast, you can get back in the game. Also, try and finish a Force Staff as fast as you can. Perhaps spring for a Drum of Endurance as well.

[*]If you see an enemy hero TPing in, Land a Light Strike Array as they appear. As long as you have mana regen, It's just harass. If you do that, then around 5 sec later feel free to throw a Dragon Slave Their way as well, to get more stacks of Fiery Soul, and do MOAR harass. After this, remember how squishy you are, and just how much damage output you have. You can play fiercely aggressively and strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, but just don't die.

[*]In the laning stage, if you can snipe one or two last hits with Dragon Slave, and also harass them with it, It's worth the mana.

[*]A dual lane with Lina and Lion is actually quite terrifying. Here's the combos:

Levels 2-5:
Earth Spike
Light Strike Array
Hex
Dragon Slave

Level 6:
Finger of Death
Laguna Blade

Is that terrifying, or what? "Yeah, let's just nuke this guy for 1050 damage at level 6." Almost no hero in the game can survive that. It's kind of ludicrous. Following standard skill builds to level 6, this is, in all, 1660 damage and 6.42 seconds of disable. **** bricks now.

Those skill builds, by the way:
Lina: 3/2/0/1
Lion: 3/1/1/1


[*]A big decision is what you want your damage to be. I already explained it, but it WILL affect the course of the game.

[*]If you stack and pull, you can greatly accelerate your farm. you already have crazy AoE, so why not? You can rather easily take stacks. Still though, don't get a Helm of the Dominator unless you don't want to build a Desolator. Also, if you are, build a Satanic and an Eye of Skadi. It's a tankier build, but it kind of hurts your damage output. Not that damage output is really a problem. I've tried the build. It's exiting and boring at the same time. It's hard to explain.

Math

There's a lot of complicated math involving Lina, and in fact most bursty heroes. It gets really complicated as far as math goes as well, because of the amplification from Orchid Malevolence. The thing is, the active from orchid gets crazy. It takes 25% of the damage after amplification from Veil of Discord, and re-deals it as MAGICAL damage, which can be reduced by a hero's natural magical resistance, and also amplified again by veil. That's what you have to calculate. For every spell and item. Also note that with Aghanim's Scepter, your ultimate does pure damage, in the style that Universal damage used to have.

Let's assume that you have these items and all of your skills maxed out. This is maximum burst, save for Ethereal Blade, because I don't even want to deal with that.
Aghanim's Scepter
Orchid Malevolence
Dagon 5
Here's the combo too:

Veil of Discord---> Orchid Malevolence---> Light Strike Array---> Laguna Blade---> Dragon Slave---> Dagon

I'm not going to show all the math, but this is 3,031.875 damage after magic resistance, veil, and orchid. Damage with [Ethereal Blade]] would be, actually, around 40% more, because Laguna Blade with Aghanim's Scepter is pure, and because you're level 25 and Ethereal Blade amplifies itself. You're also getting the stats from the Dagon too.

So, yeah. Math.

Conclusion

Lina Is a viable semicarry, no matter what anybody says. At this point, if you think differintly, you're deluding yourself. It's a well known strategy, and has peen played in numerous pro games. If the pro scene was a little less ganking oriented as far as using Smoke of Deceit to kill their mid, you would see this stuff all the time, in fact. She's actually frankly terrifying. Her DPS melts everybody, and she has the highest attack range in the game. She also hard-counters the most played hero in Dota 2, Phantom Assassin. The late-game support build is good, and these are equally as good, but for a differint role. It's just like playing Lion as a mid. So, if you see a Phantom Assassin picked on the other team, feel free to insta-pick Lina and punish them for their folly. Have fun destroying people with the Slayer.

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No guide should ever be finished, so if there are things you want to see changed, please PM me about them. I'll be happy to fix them. There are probably a lot of spelling errors. I've spent like, the equivalent of 20 hours straight making this guide. I'll be updating this guide after every update with balance changes.

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apaz