The Indomitable Dragon [6.88]

Introduction

So, Davion the Dragon Knight. He is my favorite hero in Dota 2 simply because I like the fact that he turns into a dragon. Over time, I figured out what to do and what not to do with him, and I believe I have a few builds that work well for him. He isn't the hardest carry in the game, but he is still extremely powerful if played correctly. He has great laning with natural regen from Dragon Blood and a powerful nuke from Breathe Fire. He also has the longest guaranteed stun at Lvl 1 from Dragon Tail. His Ultimate, Elder Dragon Form turns him into a dragon(woah man) with increased move speed, a lethal DoT buff, increased range on his stun, and turns him into a ranged hero. He has the strong stat growth of a melee hero, but is a ranged hero when it comes to fights.


Be aware that these guides work for me and my play style, but might not be suited for your own play style.

Skill Analysis

Breathe Fire is a vanilla AoE cone nuke, probably one of the simplest in the game. Use this to easily last hit, but try to hit the other mid laner at the same time. It reduces base damage, so it will throw off their last hits.
Dragon Tail is an extremely good stun at all levels of the game. It is somewhat unique, as most carries do not have such a long stun. At level 1, Dragon Tail is the longest guaranteed early game stun at 2.5 seconds. At level 4, it is still a good stun with 3.25 seconds. Use it to easily secure a rune or kill, or maybe make an escape.
Dragon Blood is a very good early game passive for laning. It gives 3 bonus regen at level 1 along with 3 armor. At least 2 levels in this skill will be enough to keep your HP high and will allow you to last hit without much fear of harassment. Patch 6.86 brought a pretty significant buff to Dragon Knight. At max level, Dragon Blood now gives a bonus of 12 hp regen per second, compared to the previous 5 hp regen. With that buff Dragon Blood is now much more relevant later on in the game.
Elder Dragon Form is what gives Dragon Knight his carry potential. At level 1, it gives you increased attack range, increased range on Dragon Tail and a lethal DoT buff(It can kill an enemy. Pre 6.84, it could not). Elder Dragon Form allows you to easily push down towers. If the enemy mid laner is off ganking, immediately push to their tower and damage/destroy it. At level 2, it provides a strong range cleave along with the previous buffs. Finally, at level 3, you place a slow debuff on enemies you autoattack, allowing you to get more hits in and keeping them from escaping.

Skill Point Allocation

Dragon Knight's skill build is very adaptable depending on how your lane is going. If you know you will face heavy harassment, just switch leveling Breathe Fire with Dragon Blood. This will lower your ability to harass the enemy and secure easy last hits, but it is somewhat offset by the fact that you have more armor and can regen any damage you take faster.

Some guides recommend leveling stats over Dragon Tail due to the fact that it scales poorly. In my own experience, it doesn't seem to be beneficial, and at times it was detrimental. Go for this skill build if you feel that you don't need as much lock down.

Finally, take a level in Elder Dragon Form whenever you can. It is recommended in some outdated guides to skip leveling Elder Dragon Form at level 11 because you lose the Corrosive Breath buff. Those guides are no longer correct, and the corrosive breath buff transfers across all levels.

Quick Tutorial on how to Stack Camps

Helm of the Dominator is a very good item to get in the early to mid game. Dominate(HotD's active) will let you control a creep of your choice. When I build Helm of the Dominator I use that creep to stack ancients for me. If you want to do this, it is best to dominate a ranged mage creep because they can regen health. In case you don't know how to stack, here's a quick tutorial:

1. Place your dominated creep near a creep camp.
2. A new creep camp spawns every minute if the current camp is not occupied. So every time the timer reaches around the 53 second mark, have your ranged creep attack a creep in the camp.
3. Make the creep run away. The creeps in the camp should follow. They chase for 7 seconds before returning to their camp.
4. Once you go back there should be a new group of creeps. The camp is now stacked.

*Note: The ancient Thunderhide creep (the one that looks like a yellow dinosaur) has an ability called Frenzy that has a cast time. It will cause it to stay behind in the camp, ruining the stack. To avoid this, just move your creep near the camp till they aggro, or hit one of the smaller Thunderhides.

*Note 2: It is very hard to stack camps more than 4 times. Your best way of doing this is having an ally who can create unpassable terrain such as Clockwerk Earthshaker or Tusk.

To buy, or not to buy

Black King Bar:
It will allow DK to stand in team fights, but will delay your other items a lot, making DK less effective overall.

Cases in which not to buy a Black King Bar:
Enemy has no major magic damage or CC.
Enemy has many BKB piercing spells (making BKB irrelevant).
Your team has someone to keep you alive or remove stuns, i.e Abbadon.

If you are not sure whether or not to buy a BKB, buy one anyways. It is almost never a bad choice.

Blink Dagger:
In recent patches, it has become very popular to buy Blink Dagger on Dragon Knight. It is very good for initiation. It helps with mobility and positioning, which Dragon Knight desperately needs. But if you buy it early on (such as right after boots) you are going to be doing negligible damage. The only benefit you gain is you become an initiator. Buy it later on, or if your team has no initiators.

Hand of Midas: This item is good if you are in the safelane. It gives you everything you need. But if you are going mid, DO NOT GET IT. The only reason you should consider getting this mid is if you get both starting bounty runes, first blood, and two or more kills right after that. It puts you at too much of a disadvantage. It will get you more gold and experience, but by the time you start getting a significant benefit it will most likely already be too late to do anything with it.

Dragonnade!

Starting Off

Now, I always play Dragon Knight mid with this build. Starting off with a set of Tangoes and Quelling Blade/ Stout Shield (depending on your lane, it might be beneficial to get both) gives you a really solid start to the lane. It is optimal to get 2 Tango (Shared) from someone to more easily rush Bottle, but this might not be the case very often.

First thing you get is a Bottle. Mana is one of Dragon Knight's problems, so rune control is essential to success in lane. From there, go into Power Treads and then Helm of the Dominator.

Items to buy instead of HotD include:
Armlet of Mordiggian: Makes Dragon Knight an absolute nightmare in mid game. You get a huge damage and health boost. The HP drain is somewhat negated by your high HP regen from Dragon Blood. In some cases, you can get both the Helm of the Dominator and Armlet of Mordiggian. These two items combined make you extremely powerful in mid game, but Armlet falls of later on. You can get the most benefit if you are good at Armlet Toggling.

Maelstrom: Buying this item will help you boost your farm and deal more damage. Getting this item after Power Treads is best if you are going to get it in place of Helm of the Dominator. Maelstrom gives you hybrid damage, which can be useful when you are against a hero weak to magic damage. It also builds into Mjollnir, which is a very good item for Dragon Knight in the late game.

Aether Lens: The extra mana pool is a huge benefit to DK, and the extra regen helps as well. Secondly, the extended spell range is really good. Breathe Fire will reach out longer distances to poke an enemy if they are staying back, and Dragon Tail has a really nice range increase. And if you are in Elder Dragon Form the range on your stun is actually ridiculous. This item is only viable as a position 3 DK.

Shadow Blade: Get this if you are ganking frequently. A Dragon Tail out of the darkness is very good. Remember that Dragon Knight spells are casted instantaneously, so you can get the bonus damage attack off first, then quickly stun.
Can later be built into a Silver Edge which can also be good for turning off passives.

Blink Dagger: Refer to chapter "To buy or not to buy" above.

At all times, try to analyze the situation in other lanes, and if you get a good rune such as DD or haste, go for a gank. With level 6, success is almost guaranteed.

---

Mid Game

The main focus of this guide is to become a late-game carry. To achieve that, you will need lots of gold. DK is very item dependent. Stack ancient camps which you can farm later at level 11 (once you get splash attack). Your Sange and Yasha provide good stats and some chase, allowing you to gank effectively along with Dragon Tail. Finally, get a Black King Bar IF YOU NEED IT (again, refer to "To buy or not to buy" chapter). Always be aware of the enemy mid laner's movements. If they leave lane, activate Elder Dragon Form and start hitting their tower. If they aren't moving from lane, go top or bottom and apply pressure on one of those towers. Towers will be your main source of gold in mid game, so take them with your Dragon Form whenever you can.

---

Late Game

Now, at this point you should have everything you need to easily transition into a late game monster. Your Sange and Yasha will still provide some good stats and some chase, which once paired with lvl 3 Dragon Form, will amount to a lot. From there, choose a late-game item or two. My usual items are Assault Cuirass and Daedalus, and then Satanic. I will assume that you people have enough game sense to know what items to get to fit the situation. But I will mention 5 choices.

Radiance+ Octarine Core: If you get one of these items, there is no reason for you to not eventually get the other. These two items combined with DK's naturally high durability makes you have extreme sustain.

If you have enough farm, replace your Sange and Yasha with a Eye of Skadi. Sange and Yasha is often called the poor man's Skadi, so you might as well live like a rich DK if you can. It has better stats and a slow. Once the slow is paired with your lvl 3 Dragon Form, the bad guys aren't going anywhere.

Finally, if you do not need to be uber-tanky, replace the Assault Cuirass with a Mjollnir. You get more attack speed and chain lightning (The active is also useful on you due to your natural tankiness), resulting in huge AOE damage. If the game goes late and you have the gold to spare, you can purchase a Moon Shard. Whether or not you want to replace your Assault Cuirass/ Mjollnir with the Moon Shard or just consume it is your choice. Personally I would consume the Moon Shard rather than replace an item with it.

---

Conclusion

So that marks the end of this guide. I will probably keep coming back and improving this guide over time and adding new builds for different scenarios such as safelane or offlane. So be sure to check back every now and then. Feel free to leave criticism(hopefully constructive criticism) and tips in the comments. Thanks!