Shielded (6.88 dated)

Prologue

In this guide I will explain how to play Medusa in a safe way. Please note that compromises in terms of damage dealing are made to ensure survivability. This guide is best played with another one or two semi carries and early pushing, to compromise for medusas lack of presence until mid to late game. The hero is partially online at ~15-20 minutes: You could participate in teamfights without high risk of dying and have enough mana to cast your spells at this point, given your laning phase was okay. Every match is different, so there's no fixed build that's best for every single match. The build - aside from the core items - is kept very vague, and many choices are possible. Choose items depending on the current situation, and not following a plan that was made before the game even started. This plan you might have thought of before the match is purely hypothetical and based on assumptions that might prove to be false in the match. As soon as you notice the plan was wrong, don't hesitate to re-think your next item choices. I received criticism about this build because others think it's not focusing on offensive items enough, and it's true, this build ensures you will live through almost all thinkable ganks, so that you don't lose any farm by dying. If you are looking for a more aggressive build, you should look into other guides available on this site. If you're looking for more of a cautious build, then you've found what you were looking for.

Introduction

This is my first guide on DOTAFire. Criticism about the style is welcome!
This guide is based on me experimenting and is not widely tested yet. If you play using this guide, I would appreciate if you left some criticism. Check this build from time to time as I might improve it.

Medusa is a suitable hard carry because

• She can become extremely durable due to Mana Shield.
• She can deal up to 400% of her normal damage distributed to up to 5 targets due to Split Shot.
• She can disable an entire area of enemies around her (ignoring Black King Bar!) due to her ultimate ( Stone Gaze).
• She has a good nuke that becomes more effective the more targets it is used on and even steals back mana ( Mystic Snake). This even enables her to go against trilanes.

Medusas weaknesses are

• She has a poor base movement speed of 290.
• She has no attack modifier (critical, bash) abilities.
• She has a bad base damage of 44-50. This means it is hard to harrass enemies or last hit in the early laning phase.
• She depends on her mana pool. Her signature ability, Mana Shield, uses her mana to reduce incoming damage. But her other spells are very expensive, so she can end up without mana for her abilities, or without shield after casting her ultimate and nuke.
• She highly depends on her items. Without health / mana pool or damage items, she is beyond useless.
• Her base armour is poor (1.8). This makes her extremely squishy early game.

Item choices

Starting items

These are the items you buy at the beginning of the game. I wanted to focus on surviving more than on doing last hit damage here, so the first last hits might not be the easiest, but at least you won't die or get harassed out of lane that easily.

• Ring of Protection: Addresses her lacking base armour in the laning phase. This will later be combined into a Ring of Basilius to give more attack damage and mana regeneration.
• Iron Branch x 3: cheap stats improvement.
• Tango: Medusa is squishy, so she will need tangos for regeneration.
• Healing Salve: In case you get low HP, you should be able to heal up quickly.

Early laning phase

In the early laning phase, I tried focusing on both last hit damage and survivability items. After you have a Ring of Basilius, last hitting shouldn't be a problem anymore. Here the preparations for getting a Bloodstone are made, and I put the Helm of Iron Will here because it will give you more durability.

• Ring of Basilius: You need more damage and mana regeneration, so buy a Sage's Mask to combine with your Ring of Protection. Remember to turn the ring off, if you don't want to push the lane. If you don't last hit well in your lane, consider not disassembling it for a Soul Ring, but buying an additional Sage's Mask to not lose your damage bonus. If you feel that your Ring of Basilius is not enough, consider building a Ring of Aquila.
• Helm of Iron Will: Gives nice durability and health regeneration. This will later be built into either Helm of the Dominator.
• Soul Ring: You are a mana hungry hero, so we will get Soul Ring and build it into a Bloodstone later. You should disassemble the Ring of Basilius and use its Sage's Mask for combining. Keep the Ring of Protection until you need to replace it with a better item.
• Boots of Speed: You are so slow that you have a hard time escaping even with boots, so we didn't bother getting them yet, but focused on improving your tankiness. Now that you should withstand most ganks, you have the spare time to farm boots.

Early game situational items

• Magic Wand: You can build your Iron Branches into a Magic Wand. It is exceptionally good agains heroes that cast many spells in the laning phase, since it restores both HP and mana, you get even more effective HP out of it, as your Mana Shield uses mana to protect your HP.
• Stout Shield: Because you are squishy, you may want to get a damage blocking item. You combine it into a Poor Man's Shield if you feel you need it for more damage or higher block chance, but I think that in the general case it's wasted money. If you have much farm, you could build it into a Vanguard, but that is only viable if you have lots of time until you have to come online.
• Drum of Endurance: Either your lane is going bad, and you need more HP / Mana, or you are doing really good and want to expend a little of your farm to solidify your advantage. This item is quite good on Medusa, but loses its effectivity in the later mid game. It addresses your low movement speed and gives you quite a bit of effective HP and mana, so it's a valid consideration for the early and mid game.
• Bottle: This item is not really viable on the side lanes, but you might want to get it if you are on the middle lane. It gives you nice regeneration and can enable you to stay on the lane for longer.
• Ring of Aquila: If you feel that building a Ring of Basilius was not enough, and you can't quite get the last hits, buy it. It is actually cheap, and gives you a solid damage boost.
• Vanguard: Combined with your Mana Shield, Vanguard blocks 40 (16 / 40%) damage, which is then reduced by your armour. It makes you especially tanky, but note that it doesn't reduce mana cost of your Mana Shield. Only get it if you are really ahead and want to solidify your advantage. Could later be built into Abyssal Blade, which can lock down heroes like huskar and force them to be petrefied by Stone Gaze.

Mid game

In the mid game, you focus on farming your tank items, and after finishing the Soul Booster, you should participate in a few team fights. At that point you're quite tanky, but haven't contributed to the game yet, so you should make up for that buy helping your team out a bit.

• Power Treads: You need the attack speed, and the attributes are nice as well. You should switch your treads to intelligence before casting Mystic Snake, and after casting, while the snake is still flying, switch back to strength/agility. This will reduce the mana cost and maximise the mana gains of your Mystic Snake.
• Soul Booster: Now you are more than half way on your road to buying a Bloodstone. It increases your HP and mana quite nicely, and gives you a bit of regeneration. If you are at this stage in your item progression, you can get into team fights without a worry, because they cannot kill you in the middle of the fight.

Core items

These are the most important items in the build. After you got these, you should get pure damage items and attack speed items.

• Power Treads: See above for justification.
• Bloodstone: From my experience, your mana always runs out before you die, so if you have more mana, you can live longer. A nice extra is that it reduces your respawn time, and can be a game saver in the late game.
• Helm of the Dominator: Life steal can keep you alive and this can be built into a Satanic, which will be stronger than the armlet, but is much more expensive. You can also dominate a creep and make it stack ancients for you (if your micro management ability allows it). This is preferred over armlet if you plan on going into the late game.

Damage items / extensions

These items will boost your damage output, after you farmed your core items.

• Butterfly: If the enemy carry doesn't have a Monkey King Bar, then this will make you more tanky by a third (disregarding magical damage). This also reduces the strain on your mana pool. In addition to the armour bonus, the attack speed and damage bonus are quite formidable. You will usually want to get this as the first damage item. Also remember its active ability, Flutter. This converts your evasion to movement speed for a little while, allowing you to escape (for example from Cold Feet) or to chase heroes.
• Monkey King Bar: If your enemy has either evasion, Radiance, or Solar Crest, or other blinding / miss chance abilities, such as Laser or Drunken Haze (you get the idea), you should get Monkey King Bar, preferrably even before Butterfly, since it gives you a better chance at killing the enemy carry. Also note that True Strike also works from lower ground to higher ground, so if you are sieging the tier 3 towers, it will also help you quite a bit. Note: True Strike actually works on all targets of Split Shot, except buildings, but the Mini-Bash attack modifier only works on the primary target of Split Shot, except buildings.
• Divine Rapier: Really strong damage output, but with the risk of throwing the game. I am not trying to discourage you from buying this item, but once you get it, never expose yourself to any potential ganks where you could lose it. If you are not confident in your judgment, prefer the safer choice in any given situation. Try to get an Aegis of the Immortal as soon or even before you buy the Divine Rapier. Once you have both of these, wait for your team to respawn and group up for a mega creep push (ideally). If you cannot handle the stress and responsibility of not keeping the rapier safe, don't buy it.
• Daedalus: If you don't need to get a Monkey King Bar, and feel that Divine Rapier isn't an option either, get a Daedalus. It grants a decent damage bonus, and the critical strike (statistically) boosts your damage output by another 66% (as of patch 6.88). Critical Strike is an attack modifier, and only applies to the primary target of Split Shot, excluding buildings.
• Assault Cuirass: I usually buy this as my last item, after I sell my boots. It gives your team a good attack speed and armour boost, and decreases the enemy team's armour, which makes it work well with Split Shot. The only downside is that it does not add any plain damage, which is why i use it as a boot replacement. At this moment you are fully equipped, and don't need your boots anymore. A nice addition is that the armour reduction also works on buildings, but that's just a minor thing.
• Satanic: Obvious upgrade of Helm of the Dominator. The 200% Lifesteal gained by its active skill, Unholy Rage, gives you lots of health back, and coupled with your (hopefully) large mana regeneration granted to you by your Bloodstone, your leeched HP will turn into even more effective HP.

Situational items

• Black King Bar: Buy when you get chain stunned in team fights, and if this prevents you from surviving. Otherwise, you should just tank through it.
• Refresher Orb: When the enemy team is petrefied, activate Refresher Orb, wait a second, so that of the 3 seconds stone duration, 2 seconds remain, and use Stone Gaze once more. This will actually petrefy the enemies directly after the first petrefication ends, and if timed correctly doubles the petrefication time to 6 seconds.
• Abyssal Blade: If you bought a Vanguard in the early game, you could build an Abyssal Blade. Its active ability, Overwhelm, is nice, as it allows you to stun enemy carries (in melee range) for 2 seconds, which is coincidentally the same duration needed to petrefy them. Also note that the damage block blocks 50 damage, if your Mana Shield is up. The additional bash chance is not really worth mentioning though, because 10% rarely triggers, except if you have very much attack speed.

Items not included

I excluded some items that are commonly built on Medusa. Here you can find why.

• Linken's Sphere: It is actually a good item, and also gives nice stats, but in this build I preferred Bloodstone over this. It does have Spell Block, true, but other than blocking 1, maximum 2 spells in a team fight, it won't do much else. The mana regeneration is neglible in a team fight, and by far surpassed by the Bloodstone. Remember: mana equates to blocked damage. And if you have, say, 20 charges in your Bloodstone, you will have more damage blocked and more mana to cast spells than if you didnt have them, and only had 1-2 spells blocked.
• Manta Style: Actually a good item as well, but not in this build. This is because we decided to get a Bloodstone instead of a Linken's Sphere, meaning we have almost no stats, but raw health / mana pool. For the illusions to do damage, they need base damage, as opposed to the pure damage we build in this build. And once we lost the aspect of the illusions dealing great damage, the whole item lost its favour.
• Eye of Skadi: Since the Bloodstone is already doing all the survivability work, the Eye of Skadi becomes superfluous. The slow effect is nice, but not so good that you should spend another 10 minutes of farm on it. And chasing heroes is not the objective of this build, but rather surviving through a team fight. If heroes escape, let them escape, and just continue pushing towards objectives. Also, in case you bought a Butterfly, Flutter is your way to chase fleeing foes.