Deep in the Archive of Ultimyr, shelved between scholarly treatises on dragon cladistics and books of untranslatable spells, there is an ancient tome of entomological curiosities. Compiled by scholars, the book describes the telepathic talents of the zealot scarab, a strange species of social insect with abilities unique to all the seven planes.
Unlike most grubs of his colony, Nyx Assassin did not arise from metamorphosis with the plodding thoughts and blunted appendages common to the worker caste of his kind. For his was a special transformation, guided by the grace of Nyx. He was the chosen one, selected from the many and anointed with an extract of the queen goddess herself. Not all survive the dark blessing of the queen's chamber, but he emerged with a penetrating mind, and dagger-like claws—his razor sharp mandibles raking the air while his thoughts projected directly into the minds of those around him. Of all zealot scarabs, he alone was selected for the highest calling. After his metamorphosis, he was reborn, by grace of Nyx, with abilities which shaped him for one thing and one thing only: to kill in the name of his goddess.
Nyx Assassin, also known as Nerubian Assassin from Dota 1 and shortened NA, is a melee agility ganker hero who can play either as a support, offlaner or mid. His stats gain (average strenght and int gain, poor agi gain for an agi hero) would make him scale pretty badly if it wasn't for a very good and versatile skillset. Mostly known for his very strong 1v1 ganking potential due to both his ultimate, vendetta, and his spiked carapace that can reflect any damage dealt to him, Nyx Assassin is feared amongst CM games and pubs alike. Let's have a look at that armored bug:
Stats
18+2.00
19+2.2
18+2.1
300 ms
3.66 armor
30-34 base dmg (49-53 with agi bonus @level1)
When should I pick Nyx Assassin? Pick Nyx whenever you want a strong ganker, when you need an offlaner or a support with a stun, against squishy lineups made of intelligence heroes and if your ennemies pick Nature's Prophet or Tinker.
When should I not pick Nyx Assassin? Avoid picking Nyx if you are not confident on using Impale, already have an offlaner and a mid and the enemy has picked no int or mana-dependent hero, you have too much melee and/or invis heroes in your team; if you want to play him as a support with another melee support, or you're afraid of bugs. Nyx is still a very versatile hero with a lot of disables and damage, so he'll always be useful, but in these conditions there will be other heroes more suited for your team and against your enemies' team.
Advantages - Decent strength gain; - Insane 2.5 base hp regen that allows him to offlane; - Two long disabling skills, Impale (2,77 maxed) and Spiked Carapace (2.4); - Arguably the best invis skill ingame (on par with Slark and Riki); - Very good survivability with Spiked Carapace; - Mostly item independent; - Nyyyyyx nyx nyx nyx nyxnyxnyx.
Disadvantages - Very mana intensive; - Hard to aim Impale on moving target; - Spiked Carapace may sometimes requires psychic reflexes; - Poor farming/anti-pushing; - Low agi gain, which means low damage and armor; - Level dependent.
Hero Synergy Good Allies
Notable allies are good gankers with blink abilities like Storm or QoP; heroes with global skills that will allow you to get kills easier, most notably AA and Quas-Exort Invoker; Lifestealer, who can Infest you for a good gank. Anything that can increase his ganking threat to the point no enemy hero will wander alone.
Bad Enemies
Heroes with skills that deal damage over a continuous period of time, on whom you can't reflect a lot of damage; any silence is very bad, so beware of orchid carriers. Na'ix is fairly dangerous because you can't Carapace him when raged. Slardar and Bounty Hunter give vision of you and both deal mostly physical damage, to which you're pretty susceptible. Silencer may cause some problems if you're not careful. Most of his weaknesses can be addressed with a force staff, a ghost scepter, or even a bkb in the worst cases though, so it's mostly a question of execution and good itemisation.
Items That Kill You:
Sentries, dust and gem are the bane of any Nyx relying on Vendetta to either initiate or run. Against sentries, Blink or Force staff is your best weapon. Against dust, Blink/Force staff or Euls into Vendetta if they use it prematurely (don't rely on it though as the enemy can wait for you to use it if they chase in most cases, so don't buy Euls for this reason alone). Against Gem... kill the gem carrier with friends. There is not much else to do, sadly. Orchid is an item you reaaaaally hate as Nyx because all your abilities are active. Blink with fast reflexes before taken damage (unreliable), Force staff to run away, Linkens to prevent it altogether, BKB or Ghost Scepter depending on the kind of damage you have to evade, Euls or Manta to dispel silence... But don't buy any of these two only to prevent silence though, there's a reason they are situational. Scythe of Vyse, as for any other hero, gets you killed. Desolator/Medallion of Courage/Assault Cuirass: You have poor agi gain and won't probably buy any armor item. You are thus prone to suffer from physical damage. Ghost scepter, Force staff, or a well-timed carapace with the amplified damage will help you against this. Necro 3: as much as it helps you, it kills you. It burns your mana very quickly, turning you into a big creep; the multiple sources of damage negate the importance of carapace; they give truesight and you can't escape with Vendetta. Blink before taking damage, Force staff, or Ghost Scepter (which won't really get you out of trouble but prevent damage for some time).
Impale Legacy:E Rock spikes burst from the earth along a straight path. Enemy units are hurled into the air, then are stunned and take damage when they fall. Mana cost: 95/115/135/155 Cooldown: 13 Range: 700 Radius: 125 Stun duration: 1.27/1.77/2.27/2.77 Damage: 80/140/200/260 Impale is a very strong AoE stun that was nerfed recently so that you can't target it on heroes directly, which makes it a lot harder to use in a 1v1.Its strong points are the low cooldown (11 seconds) and a good disabled time (0.52 air time + 2.77 maxxed with a lovely 0.5 second scaling time). Its damage is rather low though, but it's a nice bonus to the stun. Use it to initiate, stop tps/channeling spells, save people from certain death, to farm when the game gets very passive, and generally to annoy the enemy team to no end. It is very important you know how to stop-cancel the animation so that you can bait a juke without using your skill, allowing you to actually land it once your enemy is forced a certain path. If you can't, or if the enemy heroes are too mobile, ask for a set-up stun first. As of 6.81, impale's CD is increased by 2 seconds but goes through Linkens (at least!). It makes it more important not to miss impales, and nerfs Nyx's power in long skirmishes, but should be hardly noticeable in short engagements. Overall, I'd say it's more a buff than a nerf, as linkens is a popular item nowadays, and it makes Impale more reliable in the late game against Linkens carries/teams.
Mana Burn Legacy: R Destroys the target hero's mana equal to a multiplier of its Intelligence, and deals damage equal to the mana burned. Mana cost: 100 Cooldown: 28/20/12/4 Range: 600 Intelligence multiplier: 3.5×/4×/4.5×/5× Mana Burn is a very nice spell that will make all squishy intelligence supports fear you, and makes your damage relevant throughout the whole game even when behind. Its cd is very long at low levels but you don't have the mana to sustain constant spam of it then so it's not important; it does a multiplier of your victim's intelligence as damage and mana burn, so it gets stronger the stronger your enemy gets. OD, Pugna, Silencer despise this skill, any hero with limited mana pool hates it, Use it as burst in short fights and to limit the number of spells your enemies can cast in long skirmishes. It's also the skill that allows you to counter very effectively both NP and Tinker when they split push, although if they have a huge farm advantage over you they'll still kill you 1v1.
Spiked Carapace Legacy:D When activated, Spiked Carapace reflects and negates damage dealt to Nyx Assassin (max once from each source), as well as stunning the source of the damage. Mana cost: 40 Cooldown 23/20/17/14 Duration: 2.25 Damage returned: 100% of negated damage Stun duration: 0.6/1.2/1.8/2.4 Your main survivability skill, it allows you to wander proudly where no bug has ever been before, by which i mean the middle of a fight. Prevents most heroes from retaliating against you in a 1v1 gank for 2.25 seconds for fear of having you kill them even easier. Very good against slow projectile-base bursts, can be devastating with fast reflexes against any other kind. Still, requires good reaction time, and a good read of your opponent who can try to bait the carapace with a cancelable animation. Against dots heroes, forget about the damage and use it for the stun.
Vendetta Legacy:V Allows Nyx Assassin to become invisible and gain a speed bonus. If Nyx Assassin attacks to break the invisibility, massive bonus damage is dealt with the attack. Mana cost: 160/210/260 Cooldown 70/60/50 Fade time: 0 Duration: 20/35/50 Bonus movement speed: 16%/18%/20% Bonus damage: 250/400/550 This is the skill that defines you as a ganker. 0 second fade time, invisibility breaks only if the attack lands (so not if dodged), gives a good bonus speed and doesn't break tp channeling. The CD is low, the damage is high: what else? Well, you kinda need the second level for it to be really useful, because the first one gives invis only for 20 seconds, and if you really want to fish for enemies in their jungle you may need more than 20. Once you're level 11 though, you're good to go. Use it as an escape, as an initiating tool, as a chasing skill...use it to scout and kill, but don't go and try to force kills when your enemies are playing too passive, as you will probably fail to find them and get behind on both levels and farm. Don't be afraid to break invisibility with impale vs highly mobile heroes (Puck, Storm, QoP) if you know you have backup, otherwise, try to find easier targets, as these guys are likely to dodge your follow-up impale.
Starting Items Depending on your role and preferences; my preference goes to the following builds:
Offlane Nyx:
Stout shield
Tango
Salve/Tango
Iron Branch/Clarity
Iron Branch.
Support Nyx:
Courrier
Observer Wards (As you have no range, leave the sentries to the second support)
Tango
Clarity
Iron Branches/Clarities
Mid Nyx:
or Into
Situational:
Either 2xBranches and a tango for bottle rush against easy matchups or if confident, or same as offlane. If playing against a passive melee, you can change the stout shield and the two branches for either slippers of agility or a mantle and a circlet. Some matchups may call for boots first, like playing vs Pudge or Razor, but these matchups aren't the ones you want to go for as a Nyx...
Early game
Boots and Magic Stick. If doing well, either accelerate your Arcanes or go for Null Talisman - Urn of Shadows, which together serve the same role of expanding your mana pool while giving you mana regen, and giving you further advantage with each kill. You can also go for this build if you're doing very poorly and can't gather the 1000gold you need for the mana booster.
Urns+Nulls
Reasoning behind the Nulls-Urn is that if you're doing really well, the urn gives you mana and hp sustain while the nulls gives you some mana pool while also accelerating Dagon. However, as we will see later, Dagon is not your most important item; go for this only if you can get a very fast Dagon to hunt down valuable targets, like an SF, a Storm, or any core you couldn't kill otherwise. And if you're behind, Nulls-Urn is mostly there for the cheap cost-efficient stats with some utility; your main goal would still be to reach mana boots, but it's better to have Nulls-Urn at the 20th minute than having simple boots and dying every time you reach 500 gold. Remember though, buying Urn delays your Dagon in the first case, so it might be better to go straight for it if snowballing.
!Note! The best choice is almost always to quicken mana boots, go for these builds at your own peril!
Boots
Mana boots are the best choice in most cases; they give you a mana pool high enough to use all of your spells once and then some, and give you a good mana sustain while roaming. The most standart boots on Nyx.
As a mid, you can argue that phase give you better last hits while bottle solves your mana problem. You can also use a Soul Ring then to supplement your mana and burst mana pool, or go for one of the situational items that provide you with mana.
Power threads on Agility can also be used in the same fashion while also providing mana with thread switching and can be considered as a middle ground.
!Note! Remember, both these boots choices are situational and you should take them only if you are sure you can manage your mana correctly!
Do not buy tranquils, as you already have pretty high base regen, and you are more in need of mana and damage than hp regen and armor. Lategame or vs split pushers, you might want Boots of Travel, as they give you great mobility to setup ganks and counterganks, and free one of your inventory spots, which are very limited. Remember to watch your mana usage then!
Core
Mana Boots is the only item I consider "core" on Nyx Assassin, as they solve most of his mana issues and allow him to roam the map. There is however the debate between Dagon Nyx and Blink Nyx: which one is a better first item?
Blink or Dagon?
If you have to chose between Blink or Dagon, you have to examine what these items allow you to do. Blink is very versatile: it gives you mobility, which allows you to engage or flee from battles. It has no mana cost anymore, so your mana isn't drained by it. It allows you to chase fleeing enemies, so you can get off more bugslaps, and maybe one more Mana Burn or Impale. It's also cheaper than Dagon. The only weaknesses of Dagger is that it only gives mobility, no stats nor regen nor survivability, it gets disabled by any hero damage which prevents you from blinking out and restrains the angles in which you blink in against aoe dots (I'm mostly thinking of radiance). All in all, it's still a very good item that allows you to get kills you shouldn't be able to, setup kills with your allies, initiate fights, and survive ganks. It helps negate the use of sentries to prevent your initiation with Vendetta too, but enemy supports will still have to buy them to prevent you from doing it, or from escaping after a blink-stun initiation.
Dagon, on the other hand, provides you with a 400 magical damage single target nuke, It gives you some intel, which helps with the added mana cost of the active. It's main use is to finish heroes you wouldn't be able to kill with your usual damage, which may scare the enemy team and make them play more conservatively, but if you get no pickoffs, it's mostly wasted. If you only get low profile pickups (starved supports), it's mostly wasted. Its main utility is then to have you kill enemy cores that are too tanky for you to kill otherwise and on which you can still initiate with or out of Vendetta: a lot more situational. It's also more expansive than Dagger, which gives a further reason to prefer Blink over it. Only a Nyx Core (mid or crushing offlance) item.
Force staff is also a very good pickup on Nyx if you can't seem to gather 2150 gold before dying. It gives good intel, some regen, and another form to initiate/escape. It can also help you save your teammates and is always a safe pickup on Nyx. Can be a Nyx Support first item, and should be considered as a second item after blink.
Lastly, Urn of Shadows is a very good, cheap item on Nyx that has a lot of utility for his team. However, if you're going the Blink route, it's very important to get a fast one, which Urn will delay quite a bit. Mostly a support Nyx item.
Late game
-Scythe of Vyse
Late game items for Nyx include a wide variety of utility luxuries. The most classic one is the Scythe of Vyse, which gives good stats, good mana regen, and a very good disable to initiate on bkb carries which can be followed with an easy Impale.
-Ethereal Blade
Another choice would be the Ethereal Blade, which greatly improves your solo kill potential, your survivability against physical dpsers and gives you good stats for good damage; your slaps will actually tickle some heroes with it.
-Dagon (upgraded)
If you didn't get it earlier, you can go for Dagon and upgrade it, as the later the game goes on the lower bkb time there will be left for carries and it will be relevant again.
-Necronomicon
Necrobook is also a very good item for Nyx and his team: good stats, more manaburn makes your enemies cry, you add another reason not to spam aoe spells with the necro warrior, you help your team's push, you can spot invis... a great item overall.
-Black King Bar
Finally, if you have to face a lot of magic damage and disable, get yourself a bkb, carapace only works once every 14 seconds.
Optional Items
Optional items for Nyx are mostly very situational, as any combination of the previous ones will usually suffice against any kind of game. However, there is always the odd one...
-Ghost Scepter The least situational item here is ghost scepter. It gives you good survivability against right clicks and some stats; however, you'll find you don't need it some times, and other times you'd rather have a force staff that can also help you chase and/or save your allies. Still, it can be upgraded later to be an Ethereal Blade, so it's not entirely useless to your team.
-Eul's Scepter Another situational item is Eul's Scepter, which gives you very good mana regen, speed, and a nice setup for Impale if you have trouble aiming it. It also doubles as a poor man's Scythe, as it allows you to take one enemy out of the fight for its 2.5 second duration. If you go for it, then you shouldn't need mana boots, as Eul's is enough mana and mana pool by itself for most of your needs. You can then either skip them, using only plain boots, or go for either threads or phase.
-Orchid Malevolence I have been told Orchid can be good on Nyx, but while I agree its active is very useful against certain heroes and it helps a ton with Nyx's mana problems, I wouldn't advise it in any other case than against an Anti-Mage, Faceless Void, or Ember and with a quick timing; basically before manta or bkb. Most of the time though, you'd prefer to save just a little bit more and get a Scythe.
-Shiva's Guard Since Nyx often finds himself in the midst of his enemies, a Shiva's Guard can be a good pickup lategame, solving his mana pool issues, giving him some nice armor and allowing him to have a stronger teamfight presence. Not a must-have, but still nice.
-Mekansm While Nyx already has some mana troubles, he also lacks armor while he finds himself very often in the midst of battles; if noone else on your team is building it and you can afford it when it is still usefull, you can build a mek. It goes against everything Nyx stands for, but when times are tough you might have to make sacrifices for your team. And hey, free armor*. (*and by "free" I mean "It's cheaper than shivas, get over it")
-Desolator An item that I never used myself and made me feel all dirty inside when I heard about it is Desolator. While I understand the urge to go and one-shot squishies with vendetta, and am myself fairly frustrated by how soft Nyx's caress is to his enemies when not jumping out of ultimate, I'd rather have any other kind of ranged magic burst or utility than an orb I can only use once or twice in battle without fear of dying. Still, I can understand the thought process behind it, and I guess it can be usefull against low-armor carries like an ember spirit, or if you already have Ethereal Blade and thus quite good attack speed and survivability, so it's very situational at best.
-Medallion Never tested it myself, but as a follow-up to blink, blink->stun->medallion->vendetta, it can be an alternative to this horrible Desolator idea. Would help with Rosh and farming too, some armor, some mana regen... still situational
-Manta Style: Very unconventionnal, allows you to be noticed by ennemies when tickling them, chase faster, but more importantly, dispel silences while helping pushes. Confuses enemies in teamfights when they don't know which one already used carapace, gives you some stats... very, very situational.
-Linkens Sphere: A defensive item, takes your mana troubles away, gives you stats... but no agressive power. Get it for your carry, but you shouldn't need it too much yourself with Carapace.
-Vlads: Not a bad aura, helps a little with mana issues, a nice pickup for your carry when you're a support I guess. Buy it if noone else does, you're a support and your team is built around pushing/it's lategame.
-Rod of Atos, Skadi, Pipe, Drums, Aquilas, Veil, Heaven's Halberd, (support) Diffusal Blade: Any of these items can prove to be useful on Nyx, be it for the slow, the magic damage prevention, the stats, the active aura, the push, the increased magic damage, increased survivability and evasion, disarm, and purging ghost scepters for carry... but they're not specific to Nyx at all, and while they're not harming him, they don't play his strenghts or help against his weaknesses...
Rejected Items
-Daedalus/Crystallis Vendetta is flat bonus damage that doesn't transfer to crits, you will never get that beautiful 2k oneshot with it.
-Assault Cuirass I already hate the idea of spending 4100 gold on desolator, why waste even more on another minus armor item? Also you're not a carry and wouldn't get to use that sweet bonus attack speed with your gentle soft bughands.
-Radiance SURE, GO AHEAD, TELL THEM YOU'VE COME FOR THEM.
-Shadow Blade The enemy team is already buying sentries to prevent you from initiating on them if they're not dumb...yet you want them to have a return on their investment when you try to run from them?
-Butterfly Silly bug trying to find a mate. Also you're not a carry and attack speed is mostly wasted on you..
-Heart of Tarrasque There may be games where you'll think "boy, I wish I had more HP". And then you remember that bkb-force staff solves most of these problems, and if that fails, you still have Carapace...
-Battlefury Best item. Please get 6 of them as a Nyx and send me a replay of how you one-shotted everyone with a single vendetta. #proskills #roadtoSL9
As was mentionned before, Nyx is a very versatile hero; not only because of his skillset, which has little to no weaknesses, but also because of the way he can be skilled. Most of the time, you'll want to max Impale first, as the 3.29 disable time (0.52 air time +2.77 stun afterwards) is gamechanging. You'll also want to have at least one point in both Mana Burn and Spiked Carapace, so your skillbuild will often begin this way:
Nyx's early levels 1. Impale (Spiked Carapace/Mana burn) 2. Spiked Carapace/Mana Burn (Impale) 3. Impale (Spiked Carapace/Mana Burn) 4. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace (Impale if it's on level 1 still) 5. Impale 6. Vendetta 7. Impale
There are some variations: if you play mid against an OD, you'll more often than not take Mana Burn at level 1, to try and prevent him from becoming the monster laner he is with mana later on; if you get caught in the jungle at level one, you might wanna take a Spiked Carapace to save yourself from the Soul Assumption killing blow a Visage happily sent you, same if you have a hard offlane matchup. Most of the time though, at level 7, you'll have maxed Impale and there are very few situations you'll regret this choice; but remember that Dota is a dynamic game with nothing set in stone. You have to make decisions based on what is happening in-game and what you want to do. The following to Nyx's skill build is one exemple of this: depending on whether you want to be more agressive, and how,
Mana Burn is a skill that is most effective against high intelligence heroes for damage and mana-intensive heroes to transform them into big creeps. An Ember Spirit without mana is useless; same as a Storm. Most of intelligence supports fall into both of these categories, and make excellent targets for a vendetta-impale-mana burn combo. If you want to get support kills, and render the mana-intensive useless in teamfights, level it up. If you prefer jumping with blink into the enemy team to play tidehunter with ravage-takular impale, you might want to get carapace to survive half a second longer. if done right, you can have 3 heroes stunned for 2+seconds, more than enough for any coordinated team to jump on the occasion. So, according to how the game flows, how you want it to flow, depending on your allies and the ridiculous Mana Burn - EMP - Mana Void combo your captain drafted, you'll want to skill either one of those.
Guidelines:
Squishy int supports;
Mana-intensive(/dependent) heroes;
A sufficient mana pool;
Quick, bursty skirmishes:
==> Prioritize leveling up Mana Burn.
Buff, mana independent enemies;
Low mana pool;
Long, drawn out fights:
==> Prioritize Spiked Carapace.
Note: Even then, there may be exceptions. Use your own judgement and experience. This guide, as most guides, aims only to give you an idea of how the hero works, but you'll still have to do the thinking yourself. I can't imagine each and every possible situation on a game that has more than a hundred characters, most of which can be played in different manners, but you should be able to identify what is happening and make decisions on your skill leveling depending on the situation.
With that in mind, here comes the rest of Nyx's Skillbuild:
Nyx's "Skill build" after level 7 8. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 9. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 10. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 11. Vendetta 12. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 13. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 14. Mana Burn/Spiked Carapace 15. Stats 16. Vendetta 17.Stats 18.Moar Stats 19.Moar Moar Stats 20.Yet Another Point In Stats 21.Wow! Free Ultimate Orb! 22.Hey! Free Circlet! 23.If I do enough of these jokes, someone will laugh eventually. 24.Eventually. 25.I am so alone
Jungling with Nyx is very simple: don't do it. After level 7 and mana boots you can actually farm some neutral camps inbetween ganks, if only to make pressure by being off the map and giving a false sense of security after a minute or so of farming. However, you shouldn't farm creeps, but heroes.
Laning Be it mid, offlane or support, your main goal is to get levels and a way to support your mana use. Mana boots and a magic wand, a bottle if you're mid. if the enemies are playing very defensively and you don't feel safe diving them or going for ganks, get a tp for counterganks and continue farming/disrupting enemies farm/getting levels. However, once you have your second level of vendetta, you shouldn't lane at all any more, and even then it's pretty late.
Ganking
Your main role. If you're mid, or if you got a bottle for roaming, go for as much runes as you can. Your favourite ones are invis, DD, and haste. Invis because you can initiate with impale (so no impale jukes), dd because you'll deal actual damage with these skinny arms of yours while your target is stunned (although it doesn't double vendetta's damage, don't forget), and haste because it makes chasing so much easier, and chasing means hitting, and maybe landing a second impale. Illu can be useful to lure enemies into feeling safe if you're microing the illus and regen is always nice to have.
Once you get either blink or dagon, get more agressive with your roaming. Go for isolated enemies in the jungle, tp to anyone that is alone and doesn't look like a bait (hint: if it's the only hero on the map and their main carry, it's a bait). Try to go for core heroes more than supports, as killing a support will use most of your mana pool all the same and guarantee some safe farm time for their cores. Level 11 gets you a 35 seconds invis with 18% faster movement speed. Also, 400 physical damage. Use it as much as you can. Scout. Burst. Leave with a blink/force staff while cackling "Nyyyyx nyxnyxnynyx" maniacally and getting on the nerves of your enemies. The more they hate you, the better you're doing. Be proud of being a prick.
Easy Ganking Targets Anything that has more int than strenght or low hp, that has limited mobility, that has predictable damage patterns on which to abuse carapace, high damaging slow projectiles. Examples would include early-midgame SF (low hp, low mobility, mostly predictable damage), early-midgame PA (limited mobility when alone, low hp, projectile nuke), Tinker (high Int, low HP, low mobility if damaged, predictable damage from march, projectile-based rocket). On these, you can usually proc Vendetta before going for the follow-up Impale, and you should be able to solo them if they don't have a huge farm and/or level advantage over you.
Hard Ganking Targets Anything that has low int or high hp, that doesn't rely on mana, that has mobility skills, silences, instant nukes or disables. Some of these would be a post-6 Storm (very good mobility with mana), Bristleback (high tankability, low int, good speed->mobility), post-6 Ember Spirit (high mobiliy, tanks magic damage with flame guard, can evade stun with sleight of fist). Whereas tanks shouldn't be engaged unless very low on hp and alone, high mobility enemies can be targeted but it's safer to do so with the stun than with Vandetta, and most of them can't be soloed without an advantage and a Dagon, so bring friends under a smoke.
!Note!
Your ganking combo is usually Vendetta->Impale->Mana Burn then spam as much mana burn inbetween attacks and use carapace whenever needed. Against mobile enemies, Impale out of Vendetta then same course of action. Against heroes that deal constant damage around them or in a certain area (Radi carriers,Tinker, Batrider, Ion Shelled Dark Seer, etc) you can go for Vendetta->Carapace->Mana Burn->Impale->Manaburn/Bugslaps, as you have a guaranteed way of stunning them with carapace which sets up your stun. NP has a specific combo designed for him that is described later on in the "Specific situations to look out for" section.
Mid Game Mid game is the moment you shine: Nyx is a good teamfighter with Blink or Force Staff, he can do nice initiations with vendetta, get pickoffs to force fights and towers. If people are trying to split push, it's your job to stop them; however, don't forget to bring some friends, as there are times when even a Nyx can't win 1v1 (Orchid Broodmother, Phantom Lancer with diffusal...). Don't forget to get some farm and xp still. It's very easy to get caught up in a ganking danse and end up behind on farm and levels because one kill a minute is only ~300gpm. You're not very gold dependent, but more items is always nice.
Late Game You don't fall off as much as other heroes lategame but your dynamics change. Impale becomes useful mainly for the stun, your most damaging spell is a gatling 4second cd manaburn that can deal upwards to 750 magical damage, Dagon has become mostly overrated, then comes back as bkb time fades and you get an ethereal blade; or you bought necro 3 and you're waiting on that one carry pickoff without buyback to end the game. Depending on your items, your role is now bursting down the supports and disabling the teamfight-sensitive targets and carries, with an emphasis on either of those. As your main way of dealing damage is magical and single-target however, you don't do well with raxes down, so try to prevent it as much as possible by killing these pesky heroes.
Teamfights
Either you initiate the teamfights, you have a stronger initiator in your team do it for you and you follow him, or your team gets initiated on. You, however, shouldn't be initiated on, except when trying to scout for enemies under the cover of vendetta if they have sentries or just bought gem. And if for some reason you happen to cross the path of an enemy wandering with his smoked team inside your jungle, blink, vendetta, and force staff are your friends. That said, againt instant disables, if the enemies have faster reflexes, there's not much you can do in these situations.
When initiating teamfight, go for Blink>Impale or Impale out of Vendetta, as getting multiple heroes damaged and stunned is more important than inflicting a burst of physical damage that tells your presence to the other team and prevents you from stunning these people. Your role is to disable the heroes that have a huge impact on teamfights while bursting the paperthin int supports or preventing mana-intensive enemies from casting their spells through lack of mana. Although your cds may be low, they're not low enough so you can stay in battle while they're cooling down, so more often than not you'll find yourself darting in and out of the fight. Get Vendetta, get Impale, Mana Burn, then turn tail with Spiked Carapace if someone retaliates. If there is a particular spell you want to reflect, try to save it for it, but don't take unnecessary damage. If you're fast enough, redirect Lina's Laguna Blade (I sure can't though). Find the most valuable targets and make them hate you. When people hate you, they hit you. And as my old buddhist friends say, every pain you inflict, even on tiny bugs, will come back to you. This is especially true for Nyx's enemies.
Specific situations to look out for
People who are alone, especially int sup... I think i'm repeating myself
Any split pushing NP that wanders alone should be food for you if you're not behind by a lot and have forcestaff/dust. Go for the regular Vendetta->Impale->Manaburn->bugslap->Manaburn if he has low hp. If you think he'll survive, go for Vendetta->Manaburn->Bugslap->Manaburn until he tries to tp away, then stun him like the rat he is and feast on his rotten corpse. The only fear you may have is either an orchid that silences you before you used carapace or a Scythe of Vyse, but if he uses it only to escape that's ok, just remember to bring a friend next time. If he gets too much farm, you might want to get a ghost scepter, and if he has a shadow blade, get necrobook for vision and manaburn so he can't run anymore. In any case, if he manages to kill you 1v1, something's wrong, and that may be because you falled behind not farming enough.
I haven't yet met an NP split pushing with necrobooks as a Nyx, so if anyone would get any advice on how to deal with such an NP I would be glad to add it. For as far as I can imagine, Necro will drain your mana very fast, deal a lot of damage, and there are very few things you can do about it. You should still burst NP faster than he does yourself, except maybe with maxed necro, or with a sizeable advantage, so just be sure to have a way to run from them after the fight and you should be ok. (Any NP that has scythe AND necro should be dealt with extreme caution and probably not 1v1'ed without linkens or bkb)
Tinker works pretty similarly, except he's easier to kill if he's not carefully blinked inside the trees.: vendetta, spike carapace (stuns him with the march), mana burn, bugslap, impale, bugslap, manaburn... if he's still alive after that and you have no other burst damage, you're pretty much screwed because you have lost a lot of hp to the marches, but any tinker that survives such a combo deserves to kill you anyway.
As Nyx you can counter Batrider in some ways (or, at least, force him to try to initiate on you). If he jumps on one of your allies with his firefly on, blink or run into the flames with carapace to prevent him from taking your ally too far. The higher his farm, the higher his mobility, and the quicker you have to react, but you should also have a blink dagger that allows you to react faster.
Well, here goes, this is my first Dota guide, and my first thread on TL. I didn't do it because I think I'm awesome (I actually wish I was though), but for other people to come and give me their own insight on Nyx, as there was a current lack of Nyx Guides on TL, which was quite unbearable to say the least. I tried to uphold the values of TL and provide the quality of content that is expected of us, yet I'm pretty sure there will be disagreements, criticism, all of which are welcome as long as they are reasonable and polite. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes, and I'll be pretty happy to get them straight as soon as they're pointed out to me. I hope you enjoyed my guide, and with any luck, that you actually found it useful.
Why is Blink not given as a core? In my opinion, Blink is one of the best items Nyx can have, and should be a core on Offlane and Mid Nyx regardless of what is your first item. However, as a support Nyx, you may not have the time to farm it, and you most probably wont be initiating for your team.
Why are you calling Nyx's hits "bugslaps"? They're fierce, damaging scythes!" Nyx is an agi hero that builds for mobility and magic burst. Except for ethereal blade, no item gives any bonus to his damage. So even if he has decent base damage and if its growth is comparable naturally to a lot of high-hitting heroes, he has none of their physical damage amplifying skills, nor should he have any kind of item to get his hits any higher. His fearsome Prey Mantis-like sword-for-arms will thusly gently press against their victim's skins, then bend because for some reason flesh is stronger than exoskeleton in the dotaverse.
Why didn't you mention x/y? X/Y is the most important thing about playing Nyx! I really tried to be exhaustive while writing this build; however, if I missed something specific to Nyx's play that is very important, please write about it on the thread or send me a PM and I'll get it added. However, chances are that if something is missing, it's more about general game sense and playing experience, which, even if very important and certainly useful, isn't specific to the hero. I still try to mention some of these though, so feel free to write about them on the thread, but don't necessarily expect them to be added to this guide.
Why is this guide so long? Because I worked even longer on it. It's part of plan "become the Nyx": in order to apply Mana-Burn on Int-heavy TLers, I give them an offer they can't resist: a long write-up filled with useless jokes, with the occasional helpful information to get them hooked.
Date - changes 29 of april: added a lot of images for item builds, corrected some typos, updated skills to 6.81, got rid of the double hero image/bio introduced with the standard "Hero:X" thread-type. 25 of march: linked a video, updated skillbuild with early level variations, corrected some english, used a nicer formatting. Also, lists. Added the "Items that kill you" section and some help on how to identify easy gank targets and hard ones. Gave some precision on what to do in ganks and teamfights. 24th of march: first draft of the guide.
TO-DO LIST -Make the guide more enjoyable to read. -Upload images of all the important items mentionned e: AND the important heroes mentionned, and the skills/stats in the skillbuild... -Find some MOAR neat video guides for Nyx, -Stop drinking tea nonstop, -Skydive an empty swimming pool.
Special thanks: Everyone who contributed to this thread so far, TheYango for helping me understand when to actually buy Dagon first, Sn0_Man, Baggage, Belisarius and hariooo for pointing out some things that needed to be completed, and everyone else that took the time to read. People from my home turf on Aeriesguard, who reminded me I have written a guide and should update it and keep my to-do list up to date (bastards )
A few thoughts: I'd dedicate a whole section to "When is dagon good?" since that seems to be the biggest thing most pub nyx players don't get. Since there are definitely times when a dagon is excellent, but its absolutely not a "get every game" item.
Also, emphasize somewhere that vendetta damage is awesome but sometimes you really just need to stun and not bother with the vendetta hit. Especially vs heroes with BKB's etc, if you have allies around a guaranteed ~3 second stun is worth way more than a paltry 500 damage or whatever. Also hitting 3 people with stun is more valuable than hitting 1 with vendetta plus stun in a lot of situations.
PS: I'd really advise avoiding a null talisman in essentially every situation. It's just 500g that could have been part of your mana boots. Yes, the stats are cute but they can't compare to arcanes at all and you don't need the right click damage at all. Urn, however, is a great item.
I'll do that when I won't be exhausted after 6 hours spent writing a Nyx guide haha :D and thanks a lot !
While I agree that you shouldn't build a null talisman in most situations, I think that when you're falling behind and can't get arcane boots because you have no room to farm, it can be very useful for increased mana pool. Urn is a very nice item in conjunction, because it provides you the mana regen you need, is made of cheap parts, and has a lot of utility for your team which may be doing better than you. So I basically advised the nulls only on two situations: if you're really ahead, because with nulls+urn you already have a lot of mana sustain to continue pressure while getting dagon, or when you're so starved for gold you can't buy anything else.
I'll probably rewrite it so that it is clearer though, as indeed most people only build Dagon Nyx without thinking of the reasoning behind it
EDIT: Yeah, I think i'm not clear enough. I mean, the idea behind getting the nulls+urn (urn always being a good item on Nyx of course) is that it quickens your dagon while maintaining mana regen and thus pressure on the map. This is only as an alternative for a Mana boots/ blink/ (urn) which is generally better, but if you're snowballing, you might as well go for dagon first.
On March 25 2014 02:32 TheYango wrote: If you're buying Dagon just to one-shot supports, you're simply unlikely to get that much value out of the item. On a support Nyx it's very rare that a Dagon will come out fast enough for it to really be useful, and it's not really an item you should buy that often.
On a mid Nyx, an early level/gold advantage from laning or ganking can warrant a Dagon depending on the game. The key point here is you have to have a sense of what it lets you do. Specifically--a Dagon is good if your level and item advantage mean that a Dagon allow you to threaten solo kills on IMPORTANT heroes (carries, item-dependent cores like Storm Spirit). If this is the case, the pressure you put on the enemy team to play tight and protect those heroes creates a lot of space for your team that can outweigh how the item becomes much less useful once enemy heroes move beyond solo kill range.
EDIT: Also, while fairly rare, Phase+Soul Ring has some situational utility as an alternative Boots option.
On March 25 2014 02:32 TheYango wrote: If you're buying Dagon just to one-shot supports, you're simply unlikely to get that much value out of the item. On a support Nyx it's very rare that a Dagon will come out fast enough for it to really be useful, and it's not really an item you should buy that often.
On a mid Nyx, an early level/gold advantage from laning or ganking can warrant a Dagon depending on the game. The key point here is you have to have a sense of what it lets you do. Specifically--a Dagon is good if your level and item advantage mean that a Dagon allow you to threaten solo kills on IMPORTANT heroes (carries, item-dependent cores like Storm Spirit). If this is the case, the pressure you put on the enemy team to play tight and protect those heroes creates a lot of space for your team that can outweigh how the item becomes much less useful once enemy heroes move beyond solo kill range.
I find it kinda saddening all the great bug-like heroes like Nyx Assassin and Sand King (yes I know he's a scorpian) have such pathetic animations. Nyx's animation looks so powerful and aggressive until he actually touches the target, and then you just hear a soft tap. Sand King's animation just looks sad from start to finish. He just kinda pokes them...
It's worth pointing out that carapace's stun scales fantastically well, and there are certain DoT/AoE heroes on whom it's essentially a guaranteed 2.4s stun at level 4. Batrider is the primary example, and hates nyx with a burning passion as a result.
Often this is the primary factor for maxing carapace second. Blinking into the middle of them and hoping they're stupid enough to ravage themselves is not reliable, nor would I advocate maxing carapace with that outcome in mind.
Nyx's skills are also very flexible from levels 1-3 depending on what lane you're in. Carapace first seems common in harder offlanes, as does manaburn first in easier ones. However, my offlane Nyx is awful so I'd hope someone else can provide insight there...
On March 25 2014 09:56 GtC wrote: I find it kinda saddening all the great bug-like heroes like Nyx Assassin and Sand King (yes I know he's a scorpian) have such pathetic animations. Nyx's animation looks so powerful and aggressive until he actually touches the target, and then you just hear a soft tap. Sand King's animation just looks sad from start to finish. He just kinda pokes them...
In Sand King's case I like that a lot because he pokes things a few times then everything explodes.
Hello boys, I'm bumping this because I want to discuss something. Why is this hero ignored in this meta?
I feel like he can still be effective in the offlane or mid, granting good presence with vendetta on other lanes if not shut down, a great initiator if you can land impale, etc... And he's tanky for an initiator, with that carapace and the base armor he has.
What do you think of Nyx actually? Maybe a small buff could get him back in the meta?
I don't think Nyx needs a buff, he's a strong ganker as it is. What happened (I think, but I'm no authority on the subject) is that the offlaners in this TI were mainly teamfighters: void, tidehunter, even venomancer, which fill a niche Nyx doesn't: the 5v5.
I could go and try to analyse right now but I just saw this before going to sleep so here's my quick answer
Just wondering, is mana burn cast time instant? I'm wondering about it since I can't dodge via blinking with a blink dagger when a nyx blinks in and manaburn me first.
On January 24 2015 01:04 LennX wrote: Just wondering, is mana burn cast time instant? I'm wondering about it since I can't dodge via blinking with a blink dagger when a nyx blinks in and manaburn me first.
Nyx' cast point is 0.4. Blink is instant. You do the math
On January 24 2015 01:04 LennX wrote: Just wondering, is mana burn cast time instant? I'm wondering about it since I can't dodge via blinking with a blink dagger when a nyx blinks in and manaburn me first.
Nyx' cast point is 0.4. Blink is instant. You do the math
You have to face the direction you are going to blink though. You need to blink in the direction you are facing if you want it to be instant.
For something like nyx blinking in on you, since you have a reaction time & possibly putting your mouse in an appropriate place it's probably not going to go well if you have to turn at all. It should be possible to dodge it, especially if you can quickly blink in the direction your hero is facing, but it's not going to be a sure thing.
On January 24 2015 03:52 Skyro wrote: Nyx's Mana Burn isn't a projectile though? Are you guys saying it is disjointable with Blink?
No, they're talking about the delay between giving the order to cast, and the spell casting (not counting lag). It's the time during which the hero plays the casting animation.
With the new patch I wanted to update the guide but apparently the Edit button is in hiding.
So here's the update on Nyx and maybe someone will be as kind as to edit it into the original post.
With patch 6.84 Nyx Assassin gains the ability to use spiked carapace while under Vendetta, which can be invaluable when ganking heroes that jungle with aoe spells and dots. One that comes to mind is ember spirit, since it allows nyx to stun him, then hit him, then stun him again,get a hit, take away his mana, and get another hit (if solo, if with allies, he's dead). That's neat, and it's a great change, but it's most likely not the most interesting change.
Nyx has gained an interesting Aghs upgrade: he gains the ability to burrow (like a lurker), which makes him invisible (like a lurker), allows him to cast spells on enemies while invis, with increased range, decreased cooldown on impale, and allows spiked carapace to stun in a 300 area around him even if he's not damage (unlike any kind of lurker I've ever seen).
Oh, and did I mention that he gets 40% damage reduction AND regens 1.5% of health/mana per second when he's burrowed? Note that shit. He's like a roach. And like a lurker. He's like... a Roachlurker.
The only downside to being burrowed is the inability to move, which makes it fairly dangerous to use outside of base defense (or, if you're in a pub, makes it usefull anywhere). However, you can cast tps, and use force staff on yourself while you're burrowed (as of today at least, we'll see how long it lasts). You can't blink when you're burrowed, so you can't become the new tidehunter (with a very, very small aoe).
Aghs upgrade for Nyx allows him to become an even better teamfighter, and a good base defender. Although it isn't a core item on Nyx, it's a nice luxury I'd expect everyone to build on him lategame.
As far as other items go, the Mango is a neat consumable for a hero that already has a ton of regen, and later in the game or for skirmishes can allow you to use one more spell. Buying one already gives you a total of 4hp regen at the beginning of the game, but I wouldn't recommand buying more as an early consumable, since it is so expansive, and you still need your stout shield, which, by the way, has been a little nerfed.
Other interesting items:
Lotus Orb: fine, but Nyx doesn't get anything more than anyone else. The armor and mana regen are good, and the active is extremely interesting, but it's nothing more than on other heroes.
Glimmer Cape is not needed, you already have your own invis skill. Maybe for other supports? (As of note, if you burrow while glimmered, you don't get revealed while burrowing, so there's that).
If noone else on your team has made a mech, you can go for Guardian Greeves, but that shouldn't occur too often.
Moonshard/Silver Edge: No, you're not a carry, and you have an invis. Maybe Moonshard if the game goes 120+ and you're too rich to live.
Solar Crest: very interesting item that I would recommend to try, has offensive and defensive abilities, allows for a support Nyx with Medallion of Courage with late/midgame options. Has to be tested though.
Octarine Core: No. Spell lifesteal is not for you, and you don't suffer from your spells cooldowns. And it's too expansive.
Other than that, the only "notable" upgrades are the better necro 1, which makes it a little more interesting to get; the cost decrease on ghost scepter and Eaglesong which make ethereal blade cheaper, force staff allows for more regen, mana boots don't cost mana and are a little cheaper... all around, upgrades for the little killer bug.
I'd say that there is a chance for Nyx to be played a little more now, although since wards now stack together, supports are more likely to have observers with them... which isn't even a problem after he gets blink.
After E-Blade Dagon 5 on pub stomp Nyx i have started to go bloodstone on him as oftentimes we are pushing into base and with the old Dagon 5 mana cost nerv of 6.83 you use mana up quick with your lowish cooldowns. Also you can deny the enemy team all the good tehy would get from ending your killing spree and Nyx always could use the HP.
blink/forcestaff/euls, dagon, eth blade, and now aghs. two out of those three utility items should be enough, then you get the rest. sheep/orchid situationally if you are rich.
dagon rush is fine if you get a good start, but against smart opponents you will need dagger asap to get much done.
On May 01 2015 17:11 l3loodraven wrote: please do not ever build bloodstone on this hero.
blink/forcestaff/euls, dagon, eth blade, and now aghs. two out of those three utility items should be enough, then you get the rest. sheep/orchid situationally if you are rich.
dagon rush is fine if you get a good start, but against smart opponents you will need dagger asap to get much done.
oct core is pretty good as a luxury. the cd reduction is pretty sick and the regen is obviously great with the extra mana pool. 33% more spells is a big deal for all of his skills, barring ulti. 3 second mana burn and 10 second stuns that do around 2.5s each is a lot of control late game, plus it helps his blink euls fs cd as well.
honestly unless you're the blink sheep initiator, i like it over sheep by a lot.
aghs is pretty fun lol. It has really high skill cap imo. The simplest way to utilise it is for initiation where you blink stun, immediately burrow and cast carapace for full 5s AOE stun.
On May 04 2015 15:25 hariooo wrote: oct core is pretty good as a luxury. the cd reduction is pretty sick and the regen is obviously great with the extra mana pool. 33% more spells is a big deal for all of his skills, barring ulti. 3 second mana burn and 10 second stuns that do around 2.5s each is a lot of control late game, plus it helps his blink euls fs cd as well.
honestly unless you're the blink sheep initiator, i like it over sheep by a lot.
To be frank, except if you are 100% positive you can't kill the enemy carry with your team within the disable time that scythe+impale provide, i'd rather have a scythe.
Comparing octarine core vs scythe on nyx (assuming they are comparable, since scythe is a disable item and octarine is more a survivability lategame item for magic damage dealers):
Scythe of vyse gives you 10 strenght, 10 agility, 35 intelligence which convert to 190 life, ~1,4 armor, 455 mana pool. It also gives 10 damage, 10 attack speed, 0.3 health regen, and 1.4 mana regen before the 150% mana regen bonus, which is all pretty negligible compared to the 3.5 disable it gives on a 35 cooldown (so it should always be up for fights) which mutes, slows and disarms the enemy.
Octarine core gives 25 intelligence, 450 health, 400 mana pool which added with the intel amounts to 735 mana in the end. 100% mana regen bonus, 1 mana regen. Now, it has the added benefit of reducing all your cd's by 25%, and lifestealing from your spells for 25% from heroes and 5% for creeps, improving your survivability, which is pretty nice.
Both are very expensive items with expansive parts; Scythe of Vyse is a little cheaper but has two very expansive parts for a hero that can't farm really well, so as far as building them i'd say they're pretty equal. Their cost and the needed utility on Nyx makes them very late-game items, so we'll look at that first.
Stat-wise, Octarine core gives you the better lategame stats: health and mana pool. Mana regen can be nice in extended fights, but with 280 more mana pool I still think Octarine wins the stat comparison.However, Nyx isn't really a fighter lategame, and 200 life means pretty much half a second against any farmed carry.
As far as effect goes, let's suppose a perfect 5-man impale: 260*5 = 1300 : total damage before reduction 1300*0.75 = 975 : total damage after reduction 975*0.25= 243.75 ~244
So assuming perfect 5-man impales every 9.75 seconds you'd regen as much as if you had 25 health regen per second, which isn't really that impressive lategame, especially given Nyx's armor, and is pretty unlikely, since you have to get perfect 5-man impales.
Now, as Mana Burn goes: if you assume a very good scenario, for instance a level 25 OD with Scythe, Shiva's, Aghs, Octarine core ( Yes, you can lifesteal from arcane orb apparently, according to this reddit post, I don't know its worth so take it with a grain of salt though; fun fact, if it's true, then it lifesteals from vendetta too), Power Threads on Intel, and for some reason he went orchid instead of refresher. Since he has aghs, let's suppose him 5 active astral imprisonement buffs - for fun.
This dude has the monstrosity that is 35+30+10+25+9+25 (items in the give order) + 65 (five times astral) + 125(.2, but i don't really think that counts, from his base level 25 stats) intelligence, which is 324 intelligence (that alones gives him 12.96 mana regen, which is in itself pretty funny).
Now let's say you can focus all your mana burn perfectly on him and only on him during a fight: every three second, you'd deal 324*5=1620 damage before reduction, and 1215 damage after, every 3 second, which would regen 303(.75) health. Which is about 100 health per second, which begins to be impressive except that even on alch we see that it's not enough.
As far as damage goes, reducing the cooldowns by 25% is an increase by 33% in the long run. However, even long fights usually don't last more than 30 seconds, so it's safe to say that most of the time it will only be relevant on mana burn, especially since mana burn takes away enemie's mana which makes them big creeps faster. However, the cd reduction isn't gonna be relevent on your other skills, except in some fringe cases.
As far as disable goes, i think that most of the time, lategame you'd rather have 6+ seconds of continuous disable (0.52 air time from impale, 2.77 stun, and 3.5 from scythe) than 3.29 disable on possibly multiple targets every 3.29, especially since we're talking about bkb territory, which makes scythe all the more important. Maybe with aghs, as it makes your impale cd become 6.75, which can become relevent?
All in all, the only case I would pick Octarine core on Nyx would be against a 3+ intel lineup and after an aghs for more disable. Even then, i'm not sure i wouldn't rather build Ethereal+Dagon before just to kill them faster, or scythe of vyse to prevent them from casting alltogether.
Final point being: yes, Octarine has its uses on Nyx, like Butterfly has its uses on Nyx, but these items don't fit his roles or his team's needs as much as the others.
How about silver edge? Disabling passives is really strong, and I think it's probably a situational lategame item now right next to scythe against heroes with innate damage reduction/evasion/crit/bash/etc. Probably situational, but then again that's basically all lategame items.
On May 04 2015 15:25 hariooo wrote: oct core is pretty good as a luxury. the cd reduction is pretty sick and the regen is obviously great with the extra mana pool. 33% more spells is a big deal for all of his skills, barring ulti. 3 second mana burn and 10 second stuns that do around 2.5s each is a lot of control late game, plus it helps his blink euls fs cd as well.
honestly unless you're the blink sheep initiator, i like it over sheep by a lot.
To be frank, except if you are 100% positive you can't kill the enemy carry with your team within the disable time that scythe+impale provide, i'd rather have a scythe.
Comparing octarine core vs scythe on nyx (assuming they are comparable, since scythe is a disable item and octarine is more a survivability lategame item for magic damage dealers):
Scythe of vyse gives you 10 strenght, 10 agility, 35 intelligence which convert to 190 life, ~1,4 armor, 455 mana pool. It also gives 10 damage, 10 attack speed, 0.3 health regen, and 1.4 mana regen before the 150% mana regen bonus, which is all pretty negligible compared to the 3.5 disable it gives on a 35 cooldown (so it should always be up for fights) which mutes, slows and disarms the enemy.
Octarine core gives 25 intelligence, 450 health, 400 mana pool which added with the intel amounts to 735 mana in the end. 100% mana regen bonus, 1 mana regen. Now, it has the added benefit of reducing all your cd's by 25%, and lifestealing from your spells for 25% from heroes and 5% for creeps, improving your survivability, which is pretty nice.
Both are very expensive items with expansive parts; Scythe of Vyse is a little cheaper but has two very expansive parts for a hero that can't farm really well, so as far as building them i'd say they're pretty equal. Their cost and the needed utility on Nyx makes them very late-game items, so we'll look at that first.
Stat-wise, Octarine core gives you the better lategame stats: health and mana pool. Mana regen can be nice in extended fights, but with 280 more mana pool I still think Octarine wins the stat comparison.However, Nyx isn't really a fighter lategame, and 200 life means pretty much half a second against any farmed carry.
As far as effect goes, let's suppose a perfect 5-man impale: 260*5 = 1300 : total damage before reduction 1300*0.75 = 975 : total damage after reduction 975*0.25= 243.75 ~244
So assuming perfect 5-man impales every 9.75 seconds you'd regen as much as if you had 25 health regen per second, which isn't really that impressive lategame, especially given Nyx's armor, and is pretty unlikely, since you have to get perfect 5-man impales.
Now, as Mana Burn goes: if you assume a very good scenario, for instance a level 25 OD with Scythe, Shiva's, Aghs, Octarine core ( Yes, you can lifesteal from arcane orb apparently, according to this reddit post, I don't know its worth so take it with a grain of salt though; fun fact, if it's true, then it lifesteals from vendetta too), Power Threads on Intel, and for some reason he went orchid instead of refresher. Since he has aghs, let's suppose him 5 active astral imprisonement buffs - for fun.
This dude has the monstrosity that is 35+30+10+25+9+25 (items in the give order) + 65 (five times astral) + 125(.2, but i don't really think that counts, from his base level 25 stats) intelligence, which is 324 intelligence (that alones gives him 12.96 mana regen, which is in itself pretty funny).
Now let's say you can focus all your mana burn perfectly on him and only on him during a fight: every three second, you'd deal 324*5=1620 damage before reduction, and 1215 damage after, every 3 second, which would regen 303(.75) health. Which is about 100 health per second, which begins to be impressive except that even on alch we see that it's not enough.
As far as damage goes, reducing the cooldowns by 25% is an increase by 33% in the long run. However, even long fights usually don't last more than 30 seconds, so it's safe to say that most of the time it will only be relevant on mana burn, especially since mana burn takes away enemie's mana which makes them big creeps faster. However, the cd reduction isn't gonna be relevent on your other skills, except in some fringe cases.
As far as disable goes, i think that most of the time, lategame you'd rather have 6+ seconds of continuous disable (0.52 air time from impale, 2.77 stun, and 3.5 from scythe) than 3.29 disable on possibly multiple targets every 3.29, especially since we're talking about bkb territory, which makes scythe all the more important. Maybe with aghs, as it makes your impale cd become 6.75, which can become relevent?
All in all, the only case I would pick Octarine core on Nyx would be against a 3+ intel lineup and after an aghs for more disable. Even then, i'm not sure i wouldn't rather build Ethereal+Dagon before just to kill them faster, or scythe of vyse to prevent them from casting alltogether.
Final point being: yes, Octarine has its uses on Nyx, like Butterfly has its uses on Nyx, but these items don't fit his roles or his team's needs as much as the others.
Yeah this is way more analysis (meaningless at that) than necessary. Oct Core is in no way comparable in effectiveness to a Butterfly. OctCore vs Scythe is purely a matter of a teamfight/siege item vs a pickoff item. Do you need sustainable control or is the result of the fight over within a a single sheep? Because if a sheep doesn't guarantee a 100-0 on an enemy core then it's basically useless.
To be honest the bulk of my answer was in the first sentence I said, the analysis was only because I wanted to check how effective octarine core would really be.
The only comparison I made between octcore and butterfly was that they both give nyx something useful but that I don't think he needs. I may be wrong, maybe octcore is the go-to lategame item on nyx, but I doubt it.
It's more than possible you can't 100-0 an enemy core, especially now that sheep has no break mechanic. Just imagine AM/Void/Bristle/Spec/basically a lot of cores. Sustained control is more useful most of the time now.
Your analysis concluded with shit like the enemy team needs 3+ int heroes for this to be worthwhile. That's such a specific conclusion based on really flimsy and specious reasoning.
Butterfly is so irrelevant to this discussion it's absurd. Blink Sheep is the only scenario where Scythe wins out. Any other likely scenario (t3 high ground defence) and Oct Core is so obviously better I can't take you seriously when you say something like "it's as useful as butterfly".
Completely out of theorycrafting, do you think there are situational cases where you'd want to go midas on nyx in some games? Nyx isn't exactly a good farming hero, but both Aghs and OctCore seem pretty decent uses for extra gold floating around.
Basically can you skip some of the utility items you sometimes build, remain relevant while midasing around and then spend the extra gold to keep yourself strong late game?
On May 11 2015 04:08 hariooo wrote: It's more than possible you can't 100-0 an enemy core, especially now that sheep has no break mechanic. Just imagine AM/Void/Bristle/Spec/basically a lot of cores. Sustained control is more useful most of the time now.
Your analysis concluded with shit like the enemy team needs 3+ int heroes for this to be worthwhile. That's such a specific conclusion based on really flimsy and specious reasoning.
Butterfly is so irrelevant to this discussion it's absurd. Blink Sheep is the only scenario where Scythe wins out. Any other likely scenario (t3 high ground defence) and Oct Core is so obviously better I can't take you seriously when you say something like "it's as useful as butterfly".
If you want sustained control, you can buy a cheaper aghs that gives you a similar cd to impale with longer range, why go for octcore then? Especially since you're talking about base defense/siege.
My analysis concluded with my opinion. Read as much into it as you want, I don't pretend to have definitive knowledge and would gladly admit to being wrong if proven so.
Why are you so focused on the comparison with butterfly? I believe both items aren't fit for Nyx, they have similar costs and can be tempting, octcore since nyx has four actives and butterfly because he's an agi hero. Comparison ends here. And why'd you missquote me saying octcore is as useful as butterfly, when i said they can have uses on him without qualifying how useful they'd be?
On May 11 2015 05:06 Bacillus wrote: Completely out of theorycrafting, do you think there are situational cases where you'd want to go midas on nyx in some games? Nyx isn't exactly a good farming hero, but both Aghs and OctCore seem pretty decent uses for extra gold floating around.
Basically can you skip some of the utility items you sometimes build, remain relevant while midasing around and then spend the extra gold to keep yourself strong late game?
I don't know, since the golden rule of dota is "everything is situational" I'd say "probably?" but I wouldn't know in which cases. Probably very slow games where you and your team can't push highground yet but you have a big advantage and want to guarantee the lategame?
buying aghs does not prevent you from buy oct core afterwards. it's not relevant we're talking about late-game scythe vs oct core
you're expecting people to buy into the premise that people think butterfly is ever viable on nyx to support the argument that oct core is similarly useless. you're comparing the usefulness of butterfly on a hero that never autoattacks to the usefulness of having 3 active skills that can control fights up 33% more often. either you're really bad or you think the rest of the thread is bad enough to humour that stupid comparison
A shorter cd line stun, reflect stun, and mana nuke seems good, but at the same time instant hex from invis/blink is pretty good too if you want to pick someone off, and it means that even if you're silenced in a fight you can still be useful with hex as opposed to octarine core which leaves you useless for the duration of the silence.
I think both can be good depending on the situation.
On May 11 2015 12:37 hariooo wrote: buying aghs does not prevent you from buy oct core afterwards. it's not relevant we're talking about late-game scythe vs oct core
you're expecting people to buy into the premise that people think butterfly is ever viable on nyx to support the argument that oct core is similarly useless. you're comparing the usefulness of butterfly on a hero that never autoattacks to the usefulness of having 3 active skills that can control fights up 33% more often. either you're really bad or you think the rest of the thread is bad enough to humour that stupid comparison
If you're talking about a 6-slotted nyx, then yeah, go buy it, compare to scythe, see how it goes. Sincerely since you can't argue without telling me that i'm bad, stupid, and that what I say is shit, I don't want to answer you. I don't even want to consider your arguments, which I already adressed in my previous answers. Still, have a nice day
Umm is it that hard? It depends on each game. Sometimes you want sheep for the instant disable. Doesn't matter if you can't go 100-0 from the disable. As long as you can put the hero in a compromised situation, it's probably worth it.
I generally don't like Core on heroes such as nyx. I don't think the shortened CD on his skills are superior over Dagon/eblade/hex most of the time despite the usefulness. So it depends on whether you really need the other items.
I do agree though that the analysis is pretty useless. It is not so much about justifying Core quantitatively, but to do so qualitatively.
On May 11 2015 17:06 hariooo wrote: of course it's situational. but that was the point the entire time. how can someone say it's as useless as butterfly though?
the "i know it's tempting just like buying butterfly on Nyx because he's agi" is like i said just disingenuous or plain stupid
I agree that no comparisons should be made with butterfly in the context of nyx. That item has no place on that hero. Even if we ignore the CDR of Core, the fact that it contains Soul Booster worth of stats make it way more useful than Butterfly.
Duck: quote me where I said butterfly was as useful as octarine core on Nyx, because I'm certain I didn't say these words. I've seen people build butterfly on him multiple times, so from experience I say that it's a tempting item for people, but were I given the choice between the two of them there's no doubt I'd choose octarine. The fact remains that octarine core is not an item I would consider on Nyx for a majority of games.
Sincerely though hariooo, drop it with that judgmental attitude, you can have your opinions about my ideas but you don't need to attack me personally. Did I say you were a fool for considering octcore? Did I tell you that your fixation with the comparison I made was close to retardedness? I didn't, and I wouldn't do it not only because it's wrong to do so but also because you're not the subject of the discussion. I wasn't the subject of our discussion. Why'd you feel the need to constantly call me names?
I mean ur free to believe whatever u want, don't let me get in the way of u being wrong.
keep in mind refresher is as many stuns in that circumstance, plus extra item uses and other spells. O-core only outperforms refresher once you've cast the spell 4 times on-CD etc
On May 12 2015 03:35 hariooo wrote: "Final point being: yes, Octarine has its uses on Nyx, like Butterfly has its uses on Nyx"
I'm not sure of any alternative interpretation of that sentence.
Having uses is not the same as having equal usefulness.
As I said higher,
On May 11 2015 11:42 Verrou wrote: why'd you missquote me saying octcore is as useful as butterfly, when i said they can have uses on him without qualifying how useful they'd be?
Basically, you interpreted my words in a way that was never intended by me so you could discuss them. That's not how discussions work. There's even a name for that logical fallacy, although it's so common I won't bother mentioning it.
"Octarine has its uses on Nyx like Butterfly has its uses on Nyx."
Butterfly has literally zero uses on Nyx. Therefore the above statement implies that Octarine has zero uses. If you intended a different meaning then it just means your English isn't great.
Well vs an Ursa you're not going to be saved by glimmer, or save teammates, so I think force seems more reliable vs melee carries at least, other than maybe PL.
Vs Skywrath mage or something maybe it works. But force still works really really well against that hero, maybe vs a Lion or something idk.
On May 11 2015 05:06 Bacillus wrote: Completely out of theorycrafting, do you think there are situational cases where you'd want to go midas on nyx in some games? Nyx isn't exactly a good farming hero, but both Aghs and OctCore seem pretty decent uses for extra gold floating around.
Basically can you skip some of the utility items you sometimes build, remain relevant while midasing around and then spend the extra gold to keep yourself strong late game?
Sure why not. Levels are amazing on nyx and his farming sucks. If you are offlaning think of him as something similar to a phoenix. I'd imagine its situational though. I wouldn't go it every game, but if I find myself with a huge sum of money after a team fight like 1500 I will probably buy the recipe for midas, if I end up jumping from like 1k to 2.3k I'd think if my teams needs my blink initiation this moment, or if I can get a midas and delay my blink by 5 minutes.
On May 11 2015 12:37 hariooo wrote: buying aghs does not prevent you from buy oct core afterwards. it's not relevant we're talking about late-game scythe vs oct core
you're expecting people to buy into the premise that people think butterfly is ever viable on nyx to support the argument that oct core is similarly useless. you're comparing the usefulness of butterfly on a hero that never autoattacks to the usefulness of having 3 active skills that can control fights up 33% more often. either you're really bad or you think the rest of the thread is bad enough to humour that stupid comparison
The Oct core is retarded on nyx. Blink hex into impale is 6 seconds of disable. Getting a sheep lets you kill the enemy carry before they can bkb respond because it has a 0 cast point.
And get off his bfly comparison. He was simply saying that he thinks its about as useful as bfly for a bit of hyperbole to illustrate that he thinks its vastly inferior to sheep, which he is right about.
On May 12 2015 06:45 Fencar wrote: Well vs an Ursa you're not going to be saved by glimmer, or save teammates, so I think force seems more reliable vs melee carries at least, other than maybe PL.
Vs Skywrath mage or something maybe it works. But force still works really really well against that hero, maybe vs a Lion or something idk.
Glimmer is great to save because most cores aren't carrying around dust, and it stresses the support. Yeah, glimmer won't save you IF the ursa can see you, but that's a big if.
On May 12 2015 05:36 hariooo wrote: "Octarine has its uses on Nyx like Butterfly has its uses on Nyx."
Butterfly has literally zero uses on Nyx. Therefore the above statement implies that Octarine has zero uses. If you intended a different meaning then it just means your English isn't great.
He's an agi hero, you get to right click people and get more survivability. It just doesn't work the way you usually play nyx, but if you felt like building him like an agi carry I'm sure he would carry about as hard as a venge can, in a sub optimal, but possible way.
With zero steroid, being melee, mediocre strength and agi gain. Yea.....
How can anyone defend butterfly on nyx. DPS nyx? There is no reason to attempt DPS nyx unless you're trolling. Even if my team desperately need a carry, I would never go that route.
I don't think I would ever go butterfly nyx. That being said I think the discussion about butterfly nyx has gone on far longer than it deserves. Whatever point is being made about Verrou's exact wording is utterly irrelevant to how good octcore actually is.
Octcore I could conceivably build but it would be in the same super-situational bucket as stuff like linkens, lotus, bloodstone (for the team heal on death and lower respawn), abyssal (if I really, really badly needed bkb-piercing disable), diffusal (for omni/warlock or something), necrobook or AC for push, etc. I see next to no circumstances in which I would prefer octcore to hex, and very few nyx games in which I would accumulate another 5k gold and not have something better to do with it.
(EDIT: I don't claim all of the above items are of anything like equal value, or even that they're all better in general than octcore. I don't even claim they're all viable, I don't see myself going Assault Cuirass Nyx any time soon.)
Even if you get off another stun, another burn or two, etc. which you wouldn't have got otherwise in a long fight, many fights are decided by who gets blown up in the first few moments and a sheep is far better in that circumstance.
Of course the decision is made between burst and sustain... I'm not saying buy Oct Core against Weaver/Storm/whatever.
But if you're facing a Medusa and your own core is a Luna or something with no mobility to follow up, I'm not sure why you would take that 6 second disable, maybe 3 of which will actually facilitate damage, over a 3s Mana Burn which is insane support dps against a stacked Medusa.
And lol you're going to suggest Nyx can carry as hard as Venge? She has a ranged attack, a steroid, -armor, and a pseudo blink. Congrats on a worse comparison than OctCore Butterfly.
The better comparison is Broodmother, who is also a melee Agi hero that has equally poor Agi growth and lack of engagement skills beyond invisibility. However, Broodmother has Insatiable Hunter to back up her lategame DPS ability as well as a powerful manfighting passive and VASTLY better farming ability--and her physical damage lategame is STILL highly suspect in comparison to specialized item selection toward other goals.
The only use I can see for Butterfly is that if you went Dagon5 EBlade, it's probably the best way to add EBlade damage while rolling in an auxiliary lategame stat (Evasion)--and that's still largely a joke usage because getting an item to add EBlade damage over one that actually does something is only for when you're really ahead. Making any sort of DPS transition on Nyx is just playing around.
On May 12 2015 06:35 hariooo wrote: Glimmer cape over force staff? At least for now people really underrate the MR. Seems a more reliable save
The biggest issue with Glimmer is that until quite late, Nyx's mana is really tight, especially if you really want to make full use of Mana Burn's low CD (it's somewhat more sustainable if you're in a Carapace-second game). 130 mana is really hard to use without running out of mana.
Also, IIRC you can Force Staff yourself while burrowed to reposition without leaving burrow--at least I don't recall that being fixed yet.
On May 12 2015 23:13 TheYango wrote: The better comparison is Broodmother, who is also a melee Agi hero that has equally poor Agi growth and lack of engagement skills beyond invisibility. However, Broodmother has Insatiable Hunter to back up her lategame DPS ability as well as a powerful manfighting passive and VASTLY better farming ability--and her physical damage lategame is STILL highly suspect in comparison to specialized item selection toward other goals.
The only use I can see for Butterfly is that if you went Dagon5 EBlade, it's probably the best way to add EBlade damage while rolling in an auxiliary lategame stat (Evasion)--and that's still largely a joke usage because getting an item to add EBlade damage over one that actually does something is only for when you're really ahead. Making any sort of DPS transition on Nyx is just playing around.
On May 12 2015 06:35 hariooo wrote: Glimmer cape over force staff? At least for now people really underrate the MR. Seems a more reliable save
The biggest issue with Glimmer is that until quite late, Nyx's mana is really tight, especially if you really want to make full use of Mana Burn's low CD (it's somewhat more sustainable if you're in a Carapace-second game). 130 mana is really hard to use without running out of mana.
Also, IIRC you can Force Staff yourself while burrowed to reposition without leaving burrow--at least I don't recall that being fixed yet.
Nyx burrow is considered a ensnare so being able to force staff is correct
On May 12 2015 22:45 hariooo wrote: Of course the decision is made between burst and sustain... I'm not saying buy Oct Core against Weaver/Storm/whatever.
But if you're facing a Medusa and your own core is a Luna or something with no mobility to follow up, I'm not sure why you would take that 6 second disable, maybe 3 of which will actually facilitate damage, over a 3s Mana Burn which is insane support dps against a stacked Medusa.
...
Like I said, in a very specific situation (in this case, where sustain is all that matters) maybe I'd consider it. On the other hand, I'm not sure how as a Nyx Assassin I'm going to consistently stay in range of a many-slotted Medusa, and I still get a 4s Mana Burn even if I don't buy Octcore. I think I'd still be going sheep first for the supports or other cores in most situations. (I'm sure there's some combination of supports and cores where sheep won't help me against them as well... but that's starting to become a really narrow use case.)
Basically if you have a team without huge burst or who can't buy blink. Just think of all the heroes who can't buy blink to go with you. I'm not saying it's even a majority of cases but blinking past a bristle back or Medusa to go on a back line support is not always possible and losing break lowers sheep's value by so much.
What do you guys think of Euls on this hero? I know people consider it a situational thing but I really think it should be core on the hero - it just has a lot of synergy with what the hero does.
The main thing is that you can use it to set up your stun, like on Jakiro, sf or Lina. It's really not that hard to dodge the nyx's stun if there is no setup - you just see where the nyx is facing when he starts the animation and juke away from that line. And unlike on those heroes nyx has an inbuilt deterrent from people disrupting the combo in spiked carapace. This also takes away that trade off you have to make when you're vendetta'd - either the damage or the stun. You can just hit the vendetta - Euls, and then stun every time.
The mana regen is also pretty nice on the hero. Nyx generally has a hard time farming because he does not want to show on the map but also does not have the mana to use impale in the jungle. This makes using impale to farm a bit more doable. Euls also has good synergy with blink and there are the other cool things that you can do with the item
I also think that there is a pretty significant amount of untapped potential with the aghs upgrade. Euls can be used to set up a burrow into the carapace, for example. Force staff also works on the burrowed nyx so in really clowny situations you can burrow and be force staffed into the enemy team for an aoe carapace stun. The regen while burrowed makes the hero surprisingly tanky so just focusing him while carapace is down is not as simple as it may seem
I think this hero, if people can find a way to lane it that actually works, can be pretty good, especially against the current cast of popular heroes with latent aoe abilities like gyro, Lesh, and ember. He also does pretty well against Lina because he can always just tank her stun with carapace. Overall i think the old style of Dagon etc is pretty gimmicky and utility builds with blink/Euls/force/aghs/hex are very effective
Dagon builds are best in pubs though, since you can feed of the squishy heroes. However what's important is that you don't neglect your blink. I've see many upgrade their Dagon so much and become useless once enemy groups up or sentry everywhere.
Personally I don't see a need for eul to setup stun, because both vendetta and blink are pretty reliable in landing your stun.
On September 07 2015 11:07 DucK- wrote: Dagon builds are best in pubs though, since you can feed of the squishy heroes. However what's important is that you don't neglect your blink. I've see many upgrade their Dagon so much and become useless once enemy groups up or sentry everywhere.
Personally I don't see a need for eul to setup stun, because both vendetta and blink are pretty reliable in landing your stun.
blink aghs is actually pretty good in pubs too because noone has a clue on what to do against it
On September 07 2015 11:07 DucK- wrote: Dagon builds are best in pubs though, since you can feed of the squishy heroes. However what's important is that you don't neglect your blink. I've see many upgrade their Dagon so much and become useless once enemy groups up or sentry everywhere.
Personally I don't see a need for eul to setup stun, because both vendetta and blink are pretty reliable in landing your stun.
blink aghs is actually pretty good in pubs too because noone has a clue on what to do against it
No, but you can blink burrow carapace and stun, unburrow blink away and blink's obviously just a good item on Nyx in general. I guess you could go aghs without blink (or like a force instead), but idk, aghs without blink just feels a bit sluggish.
wait so you'd blink in and channel your 1 second burrow then stun? Woudln't it be kind of like a static field where it's not clear if you can actually nail it? I'd have to try, it seems like it could work but maybe someone can hex and pop u.
It's definitely not reliable initiation, but it's really strong as a followup. Carapace + impale to follow up is a ~5 second aoe stun. Hitting a burrow impale from further away also sets up a reliable unburrow blink burrow carapace followup stun.
Now that you've all had months to play with Nyx Aghs what's your thoughts?
I'm fairly confident at this point it's a core item if and only if you get to the point in the game where you can farm it (usually you still need blink). It's so incredibly strong the invisibility part doesn't even matter. If you don't have sustained DPS you cannot break through 1.5% hp regen so if their core isn't hitting you then you get to sit there and throw out retarded range impales and mana burns the entire fight with no recourse. It's one of the top gamechanging items for high ground situations. And yes Oct Core for the cd reduction is 100% the ideal luxury to pair with Aghs super late-game lol.
I don't know how you farm it as a 4 though, maybe if we end up seeing more Nyx offlane.
On January 13 2016 01:20 hariooo wrote: Now that you've all had months to play with Nyx Aghs what's your thoughts?
I'm fairly confident at this point it's a core item if and only if you get to the point in the game where you can farm it (usually you still need blink). It's so incredibly strong the invisibility part doesn't even matter. If you don't have sustained DPS you cannot break through 1.5% hp regen so if their core isn't hitting you then you get to sit there and throw out retarded range impales and mana burns the entire fight with no recourse. It's one of the top gamechanging items for high ground situations. And yes Oct Core for the cd reduction is 100% the ideal luxury to pair with Aghs super late-game lol.
I don't know how you farm it as a 4 though, maybe if we end up seeing more Nyx offlane.
Usually yes though in some situations I found there wasn't enough teamfights to justify the aghs instead of an e-blade to snipe carries with a Dagon E-blade combo. Versuses tanky cores you cant snipe however aghs is definitely an amazing item.
On January 27 2016 19:20 DucK- wrote: I'm still a dagon guy because I like to have strong solo kill potential in pubs
Me too if I still get to play Nyx mid.
Aghs Oct Core was a very foreseeable build though. That sort of sustained cc and dps at siege range is ridiculous. Still surprised it saw so much resistance here.
I didn't watch the game, but this sounds legit. the agha upgrade on nyx was already absurdly good, and like hariooo said, it was the natural progression and inevitable I think.
regarding the farm issue: i've always considered nyx a strong candidate for midas since it can help supplement income and exp gain without forcing you to actually spend extra time hitting creeps
usually as the item after the first big item (blink/dagon/euls) but sometimes you can fit in in before
On January 30 2016 08:24 SpiritoftheTunA wrote: regarding the farm issue: i've always considered nyx a strong candidate for midas since it can help supplement income and exp gain without forcing you to actually spend extra time hitting creeps
usually as the item after the first big item (blink/dagon/euls) but sometimes you can fit in in before
I always liked midas after your first essential item like blink for heroes that do well with farm, but really need that blink to be online. Puck for example.
4pos nyx shouldn't be getting Midas unless you're completely stomping, and won't even be thinking about dagon, especially not after Midas when it's like 25 minutes in by that point.
He needs blink and probably aether and then you pray for aghs. More realistically you end up getting force and ghost/glimmer instead.
Depends on what level you are playing. At the lower levels, Dagon gets more important. So many free kills available. At higher levels, Dagon first is generally bad and you should be prioritising blink/force.
For midas its the opposite. You don't need it at lower levels, but you should hope for it at higher levels.
When I go Dagon first, I tend to go force/blink next. Mobility is important because if they have their gems or sentries, you can't do anything even with Dagon 5.
For agh, again the higher level you play, the more important it is because solo kills don't come by as often anymore.
If memory serves the game in question was around 5.6k avg which is why - as you write - Dagon allowed me to punish awful players with their awful team game plan and awful individual decision-making. That said the way the stars aligned the way my game played out I honestly think Dagon first made sense even against decent players but on the other hand had they been decent players the game would've played out in a different way with different circumstances any way in which case I doubt Dagon first would've been what I would've bought because against decent players I would've been significantly poorer.
Dagon seems fine if you can threaten to solokill cores with it that you can't without. Midas seems fine if you can get it safely while still doing your job in the 10min or so where it puts you behind.
Neither of those are likely to be the case when you're playing 4pos nyx, compared to offlane/mid.
Neither seems particularly dependent on the level you're playing at, though. And let's be clear, unless things have changed dramatically, the highest level duck has experience with is 3k SEA pubs so anything about "higher levels" should be taken with several grains of salt.
EPT![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/c4/Nyx_Assassin_Large.png)
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/c6/Strength_Icon.png)
18+2.00![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/2/23/Agility_Icon_Main.png)
19+2.2 ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/b/b0/Intelligence_Icon.png)
18+2.1![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/2/2f/Movespeed_Icon.png)
300 ms ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/c8/Armor_Icon.png)
3.66 armor![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/4/42/Damage_Icon.png)
30-34 base dmg (49-53 with agi bonus @level1)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WY7hzKv.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MFaIeEl.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SipYiww.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/d0hGQut.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xAtUKdx.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NoIyTqW.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lfKy4ii.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GBm7gB4.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KEkZc9R.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/TV1Btjv.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cqsSgJD.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uEph5e9.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jyLNgSx.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oMWEpJN.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OCPHyzB.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/seZn6dZ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Kvlhz1E.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EdIrEsk.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SmfKkBU.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1iojNd1.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qhPNm3o.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BRvaVDT.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tlKsqU9.png)
Blink or Dagon?![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/h5mwl5j.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/OcEOrJK.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MTNcOeZ.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/IiHAyV5.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f0yJUMt.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iEamLIO.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SQiTJoS.png)
)
