Xin the Ember Spirit - A Guide From a Noob for Noobs (WIP)

Introduction

Hey Everyone,

This is my first guide on DOTAFire so I'm hoping that you guys won't be too critical and will provide some good feedback. Hopefully you find it useful and it isn't too boring.

I am a 2k MMR player with about 1000 hours in Dota 2 at time of writing. My most played hero is Xin the ember spirit. After playing the hero for about 50 games and watching many professional games with the hero I decided that I would like to give something back to the community that helped me learn Dota 2. My decision was that I would write a guide for my favourite hero to help new players learn a fairly hard hero and also for more experienced players to maybe learn a new trick or two. Anyway, here it is and I hope you get something out of it however experienced or inexperienced in Dota 2 you are.

About Xin

Xin the ember spirit is an agility carry who is quite squishy and excels at early to midgame pickoffs before scaling very hard into the lategame as an AoE damage dealer.

He is normally played mid however some players/teams prefer to run him safelane to guarantee a good start if it would be against a strong laner in mid. Xin is a hero who if given a good start can snowball out of control and stomp the game from there on. However if shut down early he has a lot of trouble coming back into the game until either he is given lots of space to farm by his team or he gets to the eventual lategame where his damage output is insane.

Xin is great because he can work in a variety of strategies whether it be pushing early with his magic damage and strong early game or to go lategame with his huge AoE damage with Sleight of Fist behind another hard carry.

Pros / Cons

When to Pick Xin

Searing Chains

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Ember Spirit unleashes two fiery bolas that wrap around enemy nearby enemies, anchoring them in place and dealing damage.

• Targets are chosen randomly around Ember Spirit.
• Does not affect magic immune or invisible units (nor visible but out of sight, eg. behind a tree).
• Interrupts channelling spells.
• Deals damage every 1 second.

• You can activate Searing Chains while in Sleight of Fist being able to root people at a much larger range than normal.
• Try not to use Searing Chains in the middle of a creep wave as it is then quite likely you will not hit the enemy hero but just hit creeps.
• This in combination with Flame Guard is what allows you to dominate most melee mid match-ups, with Flame Guard and Searing Chains you can spam the two abilities to harass your opponent and secure rune control. You simply need to walk towards your opponent, if they walk away then leave it you have bullied them out. If they stand their ground then turn on Flame Guard and use Searing Chains when you are close enough, this will do a lot of damage to them and can often net you a kill with just a small tower dive (be careful not to dive unless you can kill them without being counter-ganked).
• Searing Chains is both a strong early game nuke as well as a hard disable. It is a very versatile ability in that you can use it very aggressively to set up kills in lane as well as saving yourself while being chased down by a Pudge with Rot on etc.
• Don't forget that if you get the possibility of hitting 2 heroes this Searing Chains you should try and do this as it can sometimes get you a second kill where you would have only got one. Using Searing Chains is all about awareness of which heroes are the most important to bind in skirmishes and when to cast it in lane to maximise mana use.

Sleight of Fist

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Ember Spirit dashes around with blazing speed, attacking all enemies in the targeted area of effect, then returning to his start location. Deals bonus damage to heroes, and less damage to creeps.

• Targets are determined when the ability is cast.
• Abilities and items can be used while Sleight of Fist is active.
• A regular attack is done to each target every 0.2 seconds.
• Any attack modifier that Ember Spirit has (critical strike, bash, cleave, Unique Attack Modifiers) will be applied normally to each target.d.
• Hits enemies/neutrals in the AoE, even if they're in fog.
• Hits enemies that are targeted, even if they leave the AoE (by teleport, blink, etc.)
• Does not target invisible units and becoming invisible while marked will remove it and prevent being hit.
• Attempting to activate Fire Remnant, teleport, blink or use Force Staff while the ability is still active will not cancel the ability. Ember Spirit will still return to his original casting position once the ability ends.
• Miss chance from abilities such as Brewmaster's Drunken Haze or the target's evasion apply normally.
• It is possible to grab dropped items during Sleight of Fist.

• While using Sleight of Fist remember that you can use items and abilities, e.g. you can Abyssal Blade to stun someone or Bottle for some free regen if you are low.
• A big part of using Ember Spirit that separates the good from the bad players is dodging spells with Sleight of Fist. In lane it is quite easy to dodge a Magic Missile or something similar but when you get into team fights it can be quite difficult to keep track of everything and what spells to try and dodge. I myself am not great at this but it is certainly something to think about once you have a grasp on the hero.
• You can send a Fire Remnant out while in Sleight of Fist so that by the time you have finished you can immediately Activate Fire Remnant to get out of a sticky situation. However if you use Activate Fire Remnant too early during Sleight of Fist you will be brought back to your starting point.

Flame Guard

Type: Targets:

Active Self

Ember Spirit surrounds himself with a ring of fire that consumes incoming magic damage, leaving him unharmed. Flame Guard deals damage per second in an area around Ember Spirit while Flame Guard is active. If the shield is broken, the damage is also lost.

• The amount of magic damage absorbed is calculated before any reductions.
• Can deal up to 240/480/800/1200 possible damage for the whole duration.
• Deals damage every 0.2 second. 6/8/10/12 damage per tick.

• Because of Ember Spirit's instant cast abilities you can cast just as the spell is about to hit you and it will activate instantly. This is great considering with most heroes it will take a bit of an animation.
• If for example Sniper is Assassinateing you and you are low health you can activate Flame Guard and it will absorb the damage leaving you unharmed.
• See Searing Chains tips on how to dominate your lane with this ability.

Fire Remnant

Type: Targets:

Active Ground

Ember Spirit generates Fire Remnant charges every 35 seconds, with a max of 3 charges. Releasing a charge sends a Fire Remnant that runs to the target location at 2.5x Ember Spirit's speed. Using Activate Fire Remnant, Ember Spirit can dash out to his Remnants, exploding them for area of effect damage. The targeted Remnant will be arrived at last.

Level 1 2 3

Mana 0 (Remnant)/ 150 (Activate Remnant) 0 (Remnant)/ 150 (Activate Remnant) 0 (Remnant)/ 150 (Activate Remnant)

Cooldown 35 (Replenish) 35 (Replenish) 35 (Replenish)

Range 1500 1500 1500

AoE 400 400 400

Duration 45 45 45

Effect Places a remnant that you can jump to with the sub ability Activate Fire Remnant, deals 100 damage in an AoE around the remnant when activated. Places a remnant that you can jump to with the sub ability Activate Fire Remnant, deals 150 damage in an AoE around the remnant when activated. Places a remnant that you can jump to with the sub ability Activate Fire Remnant, deals 200 damage in an AoE around the remnant when activated.

• Starts with 3 charges (the maximum), and replenishes a charge every 35 seconds.
• Fire Remnants move to their targeted location at 2.5 � Ember Spirit's speed.
• Fire Remnants last 45 seconds or until they are fused with.
• Fire Remnants have 400 night/day vision.

• Remember that you will pass through each remnant out destroying each one as you pass through it. This means that you cant jump to one Fire Remnant with another behind you for a quick escape, you will have to drop one back after you jump to the first one if you want.
• ALWAYS keep a Fire Remnant in a safe spot when farming so you can jump back if needed.
• Keep an eye on your HUD so you know when Fire Remnants are going to time out.
• Try to save at least 1 Fire Remnant when chasing so you can back off if needed, most of the time it isn't worth using it to get the kill if you die too (especially if you are the safelane carry).
• Normally you won't level these up past level 1 because the damage is not very useful for the skill point it costs, however when you hit level 6 300 burst magic damage is quite good so you can throw all 3 down in combination with your other spells and often net an easy kill. I would only recommend doing this once or twice though as normally you should save them for mobility.
• This ability takes a bit of getting used to so I would jump into a lobby just to work the ability out before you go into your first Ember Spirit game.

Skill Builds

Ember Spirit has such versatility in his item builds that there is no real standard build. Depending on what heroes you are matched up against and what you want to do that game can completely change you build. For this guide I will put down a few sample builds that the newer players can try out while learning the hero. I would recommend however that you look at each game by itself and modify your build for the situation as there is no set build that will work every game.

Oh, and always hold skill points. This has netted me so many kills before when the ability I would normally skill would not have helped me and a different has done a lot more. Sometimes I don't level a skill until even level 3 or 4 simply because I don't need to. It is a good habit to get into and can certainly give yourself an edge over that enemy who skills something before he leaves fountain.

Builds:

• Mid lane against low nuke opponent
• Mid lane against high nuke opponent
• Safe lane with good kill pressure support/s
• Safe lane with no kill pressure
• Off lane

Conclusion

I know this guide has a long way to go before being finished but I thought I would publish it and hopefully get some feedback on the bits I have done. I'll do my best to reply to all the comments.


Just to let you guys know I have just gone back to school so unfortunately I will not be able to do as much work on the guide, I will be working on it but it might be a bit longer before I finish it.

Thanks and happy stomping
Sembwag