Semi-Carry Earthshaker

Why? Why?! ES is better as a support!!

Yes. I know that. I play support ES alot. But I always loved Earthshaker because he has great stun locks AND a super damage move. So, I decided to make a build around this.

Basically, this build prioritizes removing Earthshaker's limitations (movement, mana, attack speed) first and then synergizing with enchant totem. This is not a build that you can play all the time. You can try this out, if enemy team has some squishy heroes and/or your team is already out-drafting them.

Before you start telling me this is bad and not the way to play ES, hear me out and try it out once :)

Pros / Cons

With this build,

Pros Great multiple target stunlocks Decent single target damage Very nice initiation capability Good movement speed Good attack speed

Cons Mana could still be a problem Black King Bar on enemy heroes will cause problems Lots of Armoured heroes will diminish your power.

Items

Starting Items:

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Starting items are straight forward. Tango for initial healing, Quelling Blade for easier last hits, and finally, Recipe for Soul Ring so that you can finish it up from side shop without having to come back to fountain.

Laning Phase:

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When starting out, your main aim is to getting your CS (creep score) up to get your basic core items: Power Treads and Blink Dagger.

Get Power Treads from side shop first, and then depending on how well you're doing in lane,
If you're doing bad, get Blink Dagger first. Otherwise Finish up Soul Ring first from side shop and then go for Blink Dagger. Finish up your Blink Dagger because this is the item that will get you solo kills and early gold.

Finally, focus on getting Yasha first instead of Sange, since your damage would already be decent by now. Yasha will help greatly with your movement speed (I have around 419 usually) and attack speed (yasha gives 15 + 16 = 31 attack speed for earthshaker which is very good). This will also help in catching running heroes after you've expended your Blink Dagger for initiation when you start ganking.

Then try to get atleast 1 lane hero kill with Enchant Totem/ Fissure/ Enchant Totem combo. This can be tough if faced against tanks/disablers in the lane; go gank some other lane if this is the case.
Realistically, assuming you're at level 4 and have around 60 right click damage, you will do 110 + 180 + 180 + 100 = 570 damage (or lesser because of armour).
So you might need a little help. Use this to work your way towards getting Power Treads.


Mid-game Phase:

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Total Cost: 8550 gold

You can go for Sange for Sange and Yasha now to get more movement speed, maim and damage.

Now you can start ganking heroes and help out your hard carry. You can get a Soul Ring or a Magic Wand for our mana issues. Use Soul Ring/ Magic Wand for those quick mana bursts; (similar to Arcane Boots except it is single target with lesser cooldown; and we need Power Treads for attack speed and life). you should have enough life regen by now to quickly regenerate the 150 hp loss.

I personally prefer Soul Ring but you can go for Magic Wand if you're having gold issues. You should be able to rack up quite a few kills after this.

Late-game Phase:

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Total Cost: 25700 gold

In late game, you should be participating in almost every fight that happens on the map.
Use the Initiation combo as much as you can to setup team fights.

Learning to blink at right time is an important skill for an earthshaker, so practice it well. This will enable a lot of kills that weren't possible previously.

Get Crystalys first to get that crit damage rolling. This will help immensely while ganking.

Go for Heart of Tarrasque after this for pure damage and tankiness. This is a no-brainer, heart is perfect item for this hero.

Now, depending on the situation, you might have to buy different things.

You can go for:

Octarine Core:
For spell life steal (it works for fissure and echo slam) and lower cooldowns. Sell off your Soul Ring if you're going for this.

Shadow Blade/ Silver Edge:
If your team is doing really bad, you might want to go for Shadow Blade-> Heart of Tarrasque-> Silver Edge. This will help you get those awesome surprise Echo Slam for initiation combos and also get some solo kills.

Black King Bar:
which will help in getting off a perfect combo. It will also help you actually finish your combo because earthshaker has slow attack animations for Fissure and Enchant Totem. Since, you're the initiator, it is fairly common to be focused down by lots of stuns. It will also take up a slot but it is worth it.

Blade Mail:
Same thing as Black King Bar, this will help you survive more after initiation but still prone to stuns. Get this if the enemy team has lots of physical damage and little stuns.

Shiva's Guard:
This is a great item if not a bit costly and needing secret shop. Get this if you've game advantage. This item goes well with your initiation combo, pop it after echo slamming for extra 200 magical damage! And the slow it causes will help you and your team mates catch running enemy heroes.

Assault Cuirass:
This is another powerful situational item. It reduces armour (more totem damage!). It gives armour and attack speed to you and your team mates. However, it doesn't stack, so only get it if no one in your team is getting it. I doubt this would be the case but just mentioning this item here in any case.

What is that?

Enchant Totem/ Fissure/ Enchant Totem combo :

Enchant Totem has a very low cooldown (5 seconds) and longer duration (14 seconds).
This requires lots of mana (around 200 on average) so make sure you have that much first.
So, you enchant totem once and then wait for it to cooldown, Initiate with Fissure to stun (best if enemy hero is near you so that Aftershock also procs), and then enchant totem again and finish the job. :)

Initiation Combo:

This is like the bread n' butter combo for earthshaker; learn this now!
1. Enchant Totem
2. wait for cooldown
3. use Black King Bar (if you have it)
4. blink in
5. Echo Slam it
6. right click hit someone
7. Enchant Totem again
8. right click hit someone
9. shadow blade out (if you have it and need to) and run
10. finish up with fissure

Friends and Foes [WIP]

Friends

Vengeful Spirit - Decrease armour, Increased physical damage, stun and nether swap. Hell yeah.


Foes

Vengeful Spirit - Because that damage reduction will actually hurt us a lot since our damage scales very high when enchanted and Nether Swap is dangerous for initiator heroes.

Tiny - Lots of health and Craggy Exterior makes him a tough opponent.