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5 Votes

Warlock - Babysitting

August 9, 2012 by NotSureIf
Comments: 10    |    Views: 6636    |   


Lane Support

DotA2 Hero: Warlock




Hero Skills

Eldritch Summoning (Innate)

Fatal Bonds

10 12 13 14

Shadow Word

1 3 5 7

Upheaval

2 4 8 9

Chaotic Offering

6 11 16

Talents

15 17 18

Introduction

Warlock is a great support hero capable of babysitting and keeping your carry in lane to maximise their farm for late game. This guide will focus on maxing Upheaval and Shadow Word to unlock Warlock's powerful slow and healing potential.

Pros and Cons

Pros
-Easy to master
-Powerful AoE slow and stun
-Possesses a great heal spell
-Does not require a whole lot of items to be successful

Cons
-Relatively squishy
-No escape mechanism
-AoE slow is channelled so it can leave you vulnerable

Justifying Skill Build

By maxing Upheaval and Shadow Word, it unlocks the supporting potential of Warlock. This is because of the following:

Maxing Upheaval:
-Increases slow rate so the enemy heroes don't have to be in the AoE as long to be slowed to crawling speed
-Beneficial as it will lessen the likelihood of escapes by enemy heroes so your carry can get the kill

Maxing Shadow Word:
-Increases Heal and Damage rate of the spell
-Beneficial for babysitting in lane as it is a very mana-friendly heal for its cast cost

Issues with having Fatal Bonds early game will cause the lane to be pushed and obviously as a Babysitter, you want to ensure the carry or hero you're looking after gets the last hits without being endangered from tower hits and harrassment

Items. What and Why?

I'll break it down now. Simply put, as a support you are responsible for buying the courier and for placing wards around the map. Generally placing wards to provide sight of the Runes and/or anti-ganking wards inside the Jungle near your lane.

Ring of Bascilius: Provides you with mana regeneration and an armor aura for your lane partner and yourself. REMEMBER to turn the aura to heroes only to avoid the creeps pushing your lane

Arcane Boots: A core item for Warlock. Provides a boost to your mana pool and allows you to replenish mana to nearby allies. Incredibly useful.

Mekanism: Provides another heal that can be used to heal multiple allies in a teamfight. Also provides a HP regeneration aura.

Sight Wards/Sentry Wards: Use it to gain map vision advantage. Also use Sentry Wards every now and then to shut off the enemy team's wards, causing them to be disadvantaged.

Pipe of Insight: Some would say it is situational. However a large number of heroes deal magic damage so this, by all means, is a necessary item. Provides a barrier that will protect your team against magic damage temporarily.

Situational:

To be brief....

Dust/Sentry Wards/Gem: When there's enemy heroes that use invisibility and are difficult to fight against because of it for example Phantom Lancer's Dopplewalk

Sceptre: Provides your ultimate with 2 golems that have reduced bounty from dying. Use if your good at micro managing.

Refresher: Allows you to use your slow and ultimate stun twice over. To maximise the effectiveness of this item, wait for the first stun to end and cast again to maximise the stun time.

Force Staff: To provide an escape method for yourself and to aid your team in escaping. Also can be used to force an enemy hero to over extend.

Scythe/Eul's Sceptre: To provide an additional disable, mana regeneration and to increase mana pool.

Conclusion

An easy way to play Warlock as a Babysitter. Feel free to comment. Constructive criticism is welcome. Thanks guys. Happy supporting!

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