EPTLately I've been trying to work on figuring out late-game Refresher Orb combos. I want your input! I want advice! I want to start a discussion about these combos because the resources on this stuff are few and far between as far as I can tell.
Here is a video demonstrating a couple of the combos I have figured out:
Basically, a Refresher allows you to cast 6 spells more or less instantly, as in Sunstrike -> Deafening Blast -> Invoke Meteor -> Meteor -> Refresher -> Meteor -> Sunstrike -> Invoke Deafening Blast -> Deafening Blast.
When I say "instantly" I mean "as fast as you can hit the buttons," which probably means 1 or 1.5 seconds. These near-instant 6 spells are what I refer to as the "6 spell core" of any Refresher combo.
Assuming you have an Aghs Scepter, you can also cast 2 additional spells, one 2 seconds before the 6 spell core and one 2 seconds afterwards. That gives you a total of 8 spells to use in roughly 5 seconds.
Usually it seems to me that you would want to use Tornado as your first spell in one of these instances. The pickup duration of Tornado at maxed out levels is long enough for your Invoke to come back off cooldown, preparing you for the 6 spell core.
Obviously there is no single "best" combo, but rather combos that are most appropriate for different situations. Cold Snap/Sunstrike/Meteor/Sunstrike/Meteor/Deafening Blast would be one of the most effective 6 spell combos against a single beefy target caught in Cogs, for instance, while Ice Wall/Meteor/EMP/Meteor/EMP/Blast might be better to follow up a big Reverse Polarity on 3 or 4 heroes.
The other thing that plays into these combos is item usage. I've been playing around with BKB + Shivas. You can turn a 4 second BKB into an 8 second one and deal the Shivas damage twice in a single combo without slowing anything down.
Anybody have more ideas? Tips on learning these combos? I've been sitting in custom games typing "-refresh" over and over.
Shameless plug: + Show Spoiler +
I stream pretty much every night playing only Invoker games at a magnificently mediocre 3500 MMR if you're interested, and this afternoon at least I'll be continuing to work a lot on these combos, so feel free to drop by and tune in or talk to me there: http://www.twitch.tv/clever_us
