Getting heart before diffusal is much safer. The added hp allows you to deal much more damage through radiance and dispersion anyway. If you can get away with getting a diffusal after radiance then the game was already decided and it barely mattered what you'd get. Getting Radiance and a Heart on Spectre is almost unstopable up to medium to high pubs if your decision making is good. I have often won games where we lost our first set of raxes just as I was getting my radiance in the 22-25 minute neighbourhood by just playing this kind of stable and methodical Spectre. The risk is however if you a) have poor decision-making and die too much during midgame or b) your team morale drops too much as they're getting pounded while you're trying to farm a relic the game might be over. Even more so if they have a Shadow Demon.
On June 24 2012 08:22 Klonere wrote: No matter how hard I carry with Anti-Mage, place that perfect ravage, get a mega on first night with NS, place wards with Lich or hit that broken shackle with Windrunner all I want to do is to play Spectre well. Its a really weird compulsion I have. People have been telling me to skip Radiance in pubs and go vanguard (or even just vit booster) > boots > diffu > treads > radiance.
Any advice to give a terrible player?
tranquill boots + vitality booster into radiance. Vanguard is bad, just keep vitality booster for hearth after you got diffusal :D
What is the reason for the shift to Tranquil boots+vit booster over Vanguard exactly? The item went from being extremely popular to people saying it isn't worth it at all.
Vanguard's received multiple nerfs in past versions. Before v6.68, you got a +50HP bonus (250HP -> 300HP) from completing it instead of leaving it as Vit Booster and individual components, but now it still gives 250HP even after you complete it, so there's really no point completing it anymore other than for the damage block, which PMS provides at a much lower price. Or to save slots, which shouldn't matter to Spectre early on. For regen, you can use the new item Tranquil Boots like rabidch mentioned (which actually provides slightly more HP regen than Vanguard's 6HP/s < 3HP/s passive + 170HP/40s active). The mvt speed bonus is the icing on the cake. You can pick up a casual Vit Booster if you're afraid of getting ganked.
PMS+Tranquil+Vit Booster costs 1000 less gold than Vanguard+upgraded boots, which you can put towards your Radiance and you can reuse 1100 gold from it to complete Heart later on, which is a good item on many agi melee carries.
Let's be fair, if you compare it to unupgraded boots, it's about even. So you basically get the extra movespeed outside of battles that Tranquil gives you, a diferent form of regen (smaller overall) and the extra agility from PMS. In battles, tranquil will likely break fairly fast, but even if it doesnt, you should add the extra damage/survivability the other boots give you to the equation. The biggest diference is later on, as you can complete your heart faster, but you will lose the extra health of the vanguard (which is as relevant at that point) and will have to buy another set of boots.
It's not as big of a diference as some people imply, if you can use the extra block of the vanguard for things like Krob's ult or jungling early on, it's still decent. It's just not core on every hero that needs to tank some damage like it used to be. Tranquil is also very easy to build, which could be better if you are in a hard lane and can't get a fast RoH.
Krob's ult isn't affected by vanguard anymore, I don't think?
On Spectre, it in my opinion doesn't make a lot of sense to get Diffusal at all unless it's before Radiance. Also I wouldn't get a Diffusal before Radiance unless I wanted to play a more gank-oriented Spectre by utilizing his ultimate. Might also be a good idea if your team comps don't allow you to afk farm a relic in peace, the Diffusal would make it a lot easier to get up to the Radiance. Still you need the Diffusal rather fast or it's a waste, and if you can get it fast you can get a relic fast....
Though if you are getting pounded on it's better to go Diffusal instead of like a 40min relic and then you'll just skip the Radiance completely.
On June 24 2012 08:22 Klonere wrote: No matter how hard I carry with Anti-Mage, place that perfect ravage, get a mega on first night with NS, place wards with Lich or hit that broken shackle with Windrunner all I want to do is to play Spectre well. Its a really weird compulsion I have. People have been telling me to skip Radiance in pubs and go vanguard (or even just vit booster) > boots > diffu > treads > radiance.
Any advice to give a terrible player?
tranquill boots + vitality booster into radiance. Vanguard is bad, just keep vitality booster for hearth after you got diffusal :D
What is the reason for the shift to Tranquil boots+vit booster over Vanguard exactly? The item went from being extremely popular to people saying it isn't worth it at all.
Vanguard's received multiple nerfs in past versions. Before v6.68, you got a +50HP bonus (250HP -> 300HP) from completing it instead of leaving it as Vit Booster and individual components, but now it still gives 250HP even after you complete it, so there's really no point completing it anymore other than for the damage block, which PMS provides at a much lower price. Or to save slots, which shouldn't matter to Spectre early on. For regen, you can use the new item Tranquil Boots like rabidch mentioned (which actually provides slightly more HP regen than Vanguard's 6HP/s < 3HP/s passive + 170HP/40s active). The mvt speed bonus is the icing on the cake. You can pick up a casual Vit Booster if you're afraid of getting ganked.
PMS+Tranquil+Vit Booster costs 1000 less gold than Vanguard+upgraded boots, which you can put towards your Radiance and you can reuse 1100 gold from it to complete Heart later on, which is a good item on many agi melee carries.
Let's be fair, if you compare it to unupgraded boots, it's about even. So you basically get the extra movespeed outside of battles that Tranquil gives you, a diferent form of regen (smaller overall) and the extra agility from PMS. In battles, tranquil will likely break fairly fast, but even if it doesnt, you should add the extra damage/survivability the other boots give you to the equation. The biggest diference is later on, as you can complete your heart faster, but you will lose the extra health of the vanguard (which is as relevant at that point) and will have to buy another set of boots.
It's not as big of a diference as some people imply, if you can use the extra block of the vanguard for things like Krob's ult or jungling early on, it's still decent. It's just not core on every hero that needs to tank some damage like it used to be. Tranquil is also very easy to build, which could be better if you are in a hard lane and can't get a fast RoH.
Krob's ult isn't affected by vanguard anymore, I don't think?
It's not, and I don't think it was affected in Dota 1 either. I think that because it was based off Locust Swarm, something to do with the programming in WC3 meant it was not affected by damage block.
On the Spectre build, Phase/Vanguard still has it's advantages over tranquil/vitality even though it delays the radiance/heart a lot more. You can take waves/neutrals freely with vanguard and phase gives killing power & better last hitting. And the build allows you to be a bit more useful early.
if ur "forced" to go diffusal instead of radi you're losing really bad diffusal first certainly can work, but radi is just so much better cus it wins teamfights ez unless you're really far behind
usually u only pick up diffusal once you have no issue surviving just for the chasing power and raw damage so generally after heart and often after manta
On June 24 2012 22:20 Yoshi- wrote: You go diffusal if you are winning early game and want to win before game goes late.
Why would you want to end the game early if you're playing Spectre? That doesn't make sense.
If you winning why wait until later to win and not just win at that moment. I think people make the mistake of thinking because they have spec they can win late game regardless of the situation.
The only scenario where early Diffusal seems like a solid choice is where there's a chance of you losing the game during the additional 4-7 minutes you would need to finish your radiance. This is rather difficult to predict though and you be missing out on the build-up of the blades to avoid making the investment to an inferior item progression early on. If they're knocking on the door to your barracks with an Omni and/or Warlock it might be what turns the tide at that point of the game though. There's pretty much no pub games that you'll end faster by getting Diffusal over Radiance unless the game was pretty much already decided at the time you're making the decision.
If you're not in any danger of being burst down, going diffusal + manta after radiance instead of heart can be a valid alternative, if you find yourself being ignored in teamfights and given low speed and relatively low dmg having your teammates randomly die, more chaos/dps might be a good idea. diffusal also allows you to pick solo heroes in pubs whenever u want with ult i guess
in other news, iG is actually playing like a cohesive, conservative team instead of 5 really good pubs
team doing well: PMS+tran+vit --> radi --> heart/manta
Freefarm + team doing ok but need help soon: PMS+vit+tran --> radi --> diff+phase Freefarm + team losing bad: Phase+van-->diff, skill desolate over dispersion.
Poor farm + team doing ok but not good: PMS+vit(+tran if you got them for laning)-->phase+diff Poor farm + team losing: RAPIER RUSH 'cause rapier beats all. Follow up with eth blade, MoM, basher, lothars, and buriza. This build is completely unbeatable, so should only be used when you know you would lose otherwise. Note: boots are for pussies, no dust/sentries/gem allowed if they have an invis hero.
Wow thanks for all the advice and discussion guys, gives me a lot to think about. I am not very confident going for Radi first as its just really hard sometimes to get the space and babysitting to farm that much early game and I certainly am no Chinese ricer.
On June 24 2012 22:27 cilinder007 wrote: why is everyone saying like diffusal is a early game item on spectre, you can get it as a 3rd, 4th item....
Diffusal is an early game item on Spectre if you're building it without Radiance.
Urn/Aquila/Janggo+Diffusal->Manta is a perfectly reasonable way to play Spectre in pubs, particularly if you don't expect your team to be capable of making space for you to farm until your Radiance.
On June 24 2012 23:16 Corr wrote: The only scenario where early Diffusal seems like a solid choice is where there's a chance of you losing the game during the additional 4-7 minutes you would need to finish your radiance. This is rather difficult to predict though and you be missing out on the build-up of the blades to avoid making the investment to an inferior item progression early on. If they're knocking on the door to your barracks with an Omni and/or Warlock it might be what turns the tide at that point of the game though. There's pretty much no pub games that you'll end faster by getting Diffusal over Radiance unless the game was pretty much already decided at the time you're making the decision.
You're underestimating how strong of a gank tempo Spectre can attain with Urn+Aquila+Diffusal.
Radiance is the standard in competitive play because it's the safest way to play. But that doesn't mean it's necessarly better suited to pub play than other builds. On the contrary, at many levels, Radiance builds stall the tempo of the game too long in pubs.
Also, Diffusal after Radiance is perfectly acceptable. There was some discussion about this by 820 in his Spectre guide. He considers that Heart after Radiance to not really be all that much more stable than Diffusal because, while you're tankier--the increasing prevalence of team supportive defense items like Mekansm and Pipe means that the Radiance burn isn't reliable as your primary form of damage in a fight (which is what Radi->Heart Spec is expecting to do). It's quite often that even in a normal game that you would need damage after your Radiance.
On June 24 2012 23:44 LAN-f34r wrote: [...]This is how I think of it: Freefarm + team losing bad: Phase+van-->diff, skill desolate over dispersion.[...] .
Desolate does nothing for you 5vs5 which tends to be the point where you can determine you're losing bad. Furthermore you're making this decision at level 4/8/9/10 which again is too early for you to know that desolate will have significant impact.
My input is again based on playing sub-high level pubs given that a) Klonere implies he's playing at such a level and b) Players that play a sufficiently high level usually don't need outside advice on how to build a hero. I know very well what kind of gank potential a Diffu spectre has but in that scenario you rely on a) fairly reliable team members and b) fairly decent decision-making (i.e. not dying every or even half the times you go for a gank.) Radiance -> Heart spectre doesn't work at higher level pubs because people pick or know how to evade you and kill the majority of your team first. The way I see it you're balancing the risk of losing early while you're trying to get your radiance and then get into tempo or lose later because you don't have the inventory you need when you need it. Different skill levels/players play with different tempo. In sub-high skill NA pubs you tend to have more time before the opposing side puts pressure on you compared to when playing with not-absolutely-trash russians.
On June 24 2012 23:16 Corr wrote: The only scenario where early Diffusal seems like a solid choice is where there's a chance of you losing the game during the additional 4-7 minutes you would need to finish your radiance. This is rather difficult to predict though and you be missing out on the build-up of the blades to avoid making the investment to an inferior item progression early on. If they're knocking on the door to your barracks with an Omni and/or Warlock it might be what turns the tide at that point of the game though. There's pretty much no pub games that you'll end faster by getting Diffusal over Radiance unless the game was pretty much already decided at the time you're making the decision.
EPT
