EPT
![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/images/c/ca/Lycan_Large.png)
Lycan
Banehallow was noble-born to the house of Ambry, the greatest of the landed castes in the old kingdom of Slom. Before the Fall, as the King's wants grew strange, and his court grew crowded with sorcerers and charlatans, the house of Ambry was the first to rise against the avarice of the throne. No longer willing to pay homage and fealty, they instead sent six-thousand swords into the capital, where they were wiped out in the Massacre of the Apostates. And then came the teeth behind the old truth: When you strike a king's neck, you had better take his head. Enraged by the betrayal, the king exterminated the vast Ambry bloodline, sparing only the lord of the house and his youngest son, Banehallow. Before all the royal court, with the disgraced lord chained to the ornate marble floor, the King bade his magicians transform the boy into a wolf so that he might tear out his own father's throat. "Do this," the king said, "so that Lord Ambry will understand the bite of betrayal." Powerful magic was invoked, and the child was transformed. But though his body was changed, his spirit remained intact, and instead of biting the exposed neck of his father, he attacked his handlers, tearing them to pieces. A dozen of the King's knights perished under the wolf's teeth before they managed to drive it off into the night. Lord Ambry laughed from his chains even as the King ran him through with a sword. Now the heir to the lost house of Ambry, Banehallow wanders the trail as the Lycan, part warrior, part wolf, in search of justice for all that he lost.
For abilities, stats, and other information, visit this hero's Liquipedia page here: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Lycan
+ Show Spoiler [Guide by Kwarkiepoo] +
Newer version
I've been experimenting with some stout shield hatchet openings since the lycan buff that makes rosh easier at lower levels cause of tanking with wolves. There are still some pretty severe mana issues and if you don't get the rosh you can't do much until you fix them but this is what I've been doing.
Starting
Stout Shield
Hatchet
Following
Ring of Protection
then any of these in whatever order it takes to make sure when you suicide you have as little gold as possible although I'm listing them in a loose order of priority
Sage's Mask
Boots
Ring of Regen
Morbid
Receipe
Smoke
Clarity
Summon wolves at -40 seconds. Use them to scout/deny runes. Summon wolves at +5 seconds in fountain. Leave fountain at 10 seconds to go to closest hard. If satyr's/trolls you win, gg game is easy, if birds game is moderate, if bears game is hard, if centaurs then fuck this shit it's hard and I won't get level 2 from doing it. If dire keep rolling hard, medium, medium making sure you hit that hard every minute on the dot. If radiant then hard, medium, hard.
edit: so, wildwings are super hard and don't give you level 2. If you get wildwings take a look at the medium, if wolves then do that because wolves do give you level 2. Honestly it's probably worth looking at the medium first anyway just because you can't clear the hard before the 60 second mark (insanely close with good micro, if you summon wolves at 4 seconds so they die and unblock and back the right way it may be doable but basically no) so you derive no benefit from doing it first over doing it second. Anyway, wolves > wildwings/centaurs in exp and >>> bears in difficulty.
You need to suicide all the time. Mid disappeared? Slash those wrists. Someone got an unknown rune? Life isn't worth living anymore. Offlaner disappeared? Time to write a note. You ought to waste very little gold each time if you have the mental maths to work out how to zero that gold first. Also at 1 and 2 you can buy anything and then sell it when you respawn with no loss if you get the timing right.
You should have your shopping list complete around the 8 minute mark at level 7 or 8 if things have gone well. Down the clarity, smoke up and run into rosh. You need the clarity to make sure you have enough mana to resummon wolves because without the medallion you will have mana issues and if your wolves expire and you have 120 mana you're pretty much fucked and running out of the rosh pit unsmoked when he's on 10% hp and you're near death is literally Hitler. You should go wolves/feral until after rosh imo because you basically can't ult anyway due to the mana issues. If you feel you'll have the mana for it due to a recent suicide then by all means take it but I generally try to skip it until the post rosh level.
Next item is necro 1-3 to solve your mana issues, before even treads. Split push like crazy, avoid teamfights and keep farming as in the OP. I generally follow that with AC if I want to keep taking towers and they don't have mass disables or bkb if I need a teamfight presence because the hard carry is underfarmed. After AC/bkb I pick up a basher/abby if the game goes that late but you should have won by then.
It's worth it to sometimes go back to fountain if you don't die often to top up mana until nec3 simply because your mana regen is sufficient to keep wolves going and sometimes ult but it's not reliable so you can't do whatever you want or ult as much as you like at level 11. I typically choose to farm over doing this and then regret it.
If the first hard is bears you can still do it but it's not as easy so take a look at the medium nearby first, especially if dire. If centaurs you can dodge the stun, basically run in with two wolves, then straight back out, then attack after the stomp. Easier with boots.
If you get many bears/wildwings/centaurs early then you can actually buy items then resell for full gold up to level 3 if you get the timing right so do that to minimise gold loss from suiciding.
AC after treads for split pushing, bkb for teamfighting, basher after whichever you picked.
If your team won't give you space to push a lane and take towers and keep pulling the enemy hero to block you on that lane then switch lanes or go back to the woods. You absolutely cannot afford to stop farming gold and levels by hanging around in a lane missing last hits and sharing exp, you're looking to get nec3 done by 15 on a good run, 20 on a bad run and be level 16 about 20 minutes in at the latest. If they don't give you space to get big then explain to them that they need to, if they still don't then just go wherever there is space.
Regarding the eternal "why boots before rosh" question, things don't always go perfectly in solo queue. Often 10 mins in you don't have a flying courier, or the courier is dead. Often there are no missing calls and no wards near your jungle. Often you have to run back to fountain to play safe because supports won't roll in and support you when their bh goes missing, often you have to suicide more than you ought to because you can't get any items because mid is bottle crowing with a non upgraded donkey. All of these mean more time spent walking, less time spent farming, which amounts to lost gold and exp. You can offset that 450 gold spent against the faster level 7 (needed for rosh) and the additional gold income. Furthermore on a perfect run you will often have the gold for vlads before you get your level 7 which means you have to keep farming anyway and end up getting boots after vlads but before roshing. In that situation you gain no advantage by delaying boots, the limiting factor on your rosh timing was your exp, not your gold, and by getting faster movement while not delaying your jungle camp clearing time (from level 3 onwards any camp is easy) you get the exp you need to rosh faster and get more gold. Maybe pros can justify not getting it, I strongly disagree for solo queue.
When pushing towers feel free to just leave minions attacking them while you ult the fuck out, as long as you're wearing them down that's fine. A lot of the time when I split push and take rax the rax themselves are taken by minions as 4 of the enemy team who TPed back try and run me down. As with the rest of the build, the priority is that you just don't die. You have huge minion damage output, particularly with howl, and your ult gives the minions max move speed. You can exploit this to gank structures quickly. Against towers when they attack a wolf pull that wolf back immediately. It'll take one hit before you notice but it can survive three if you pull it back so the delay gives it healing time. Once it's out of tower sight range the invis kicks in and two more following shots from the tower will be wasted while the wolf will be back to full hp.
+ Show Spoiler [old OP] +
I've been experimenting with some stout shield hatchet openings since the lycan buff that makes rosh easier at lower levels cause of tanking with wolves. There are still some pretty severe mana issues and if you don't get the rosh you can't do much until you fix them but this is what I've been doing.
Starting
Stout Shield
Hatchet
Following
Ring of Protection
then any of these in whatever order it takes to make sure when you suicide you have as little gold as possible although I'm listing them in a loose order of priority
Sage's Mask
Boots
Ring of Regen
Morbid
Receipe
Smoke
Clarity
Summon wolves at -40 seconds. Use them to scout/deny runes. Summon wolves at +5 seconds in fountain. Leave fountain at 10 seconds to go to closest hard. If satyr's/trolls you win, gg game is easy, if birds game is moderate, if bears game is hard, if centaurs then fuck this shit it's hard and I won't get level 2 from doing it. If dire keep rolling hard, medium, medium making sure you hit that hard every minute on the dot. If radiant then hard, medium, hard.
edit: so, wildwings are super hard and don't give you level 2. If you get wildwings take a look at the medium, if wolves then do that because wolves do give you level 2. Honestly it's probably worth looking at the medium first anyway just because you can't clear the hard before the 60 second mark (insanely close with good micro, if you summon wolves at 4 seconds so they die and unblock and back the right way it may be doable but basically no) so you derive no benefit from doing it first over doing it second. Anyway, wolves > wildwings/centaurs in exp and >>> bears in difficulty.
You need to suicide all the time. Mid disappeared? Slash those wrists. Someone got an unknown rune? Life isn't worth living anymore. Offlaner disappeared? Time to write a note. You ought to waste very little gold each time if you have the mental maths to work out how to zero that gold first. Also at 1 and 2 you can buy anything and then sell it when you respawn with no loss if you get the timing right.
You should have your shopping list complete around the 8 minute mark at level 7 or 8 if things have gone well. Down the clarity, smoke up and run into rosh. You need the clarity to make sure you have enough mana to resummon wolves because without the medallion you will have mana issues and if your wolves expire and you have 120 mana you're pretty much fucked and running out of the rosh pit unsmoked when he's on 10% hp and you're near death is literally Hitler. You should go wolves/feral until after rosh imo because you basically can't ult anyway due to the mana issues. If you feel you'll have the mana for it due to a recent suicide then by all means take it but I generally try to skip it until the post rosh level.
Next item is necro 1-3 to solve your mana issues, before even treads. Split push like crazy, avoid teamfights and keep farming as in the OP. I generally follow that with AC if I want to keep taking towers and they don't have mass disables or bkb if I need a teamfight presence because the hard carry is underfarmed. After AC/bkb I pick up a basher/abby if the game goes that late but you should have won by then.
It's worth it to sometimes go back to fountain if you don't die often to top up mana until nec3 simply because your mana regen is sufficient to keep wolves going and sometimes ult but it's not reliable so you can't do whatever you want or ult as much as you like at level 11. I typically choose to farm over doing this and then regret it.
If the first hard is bears you can still do it but it's not as easy so take a look at the medium nearby first, especially if dire. If centaurs you can dodge the stun, basically run in with two wolves, then straight back out, then attack after the stomp. Easier with boots.
If you get many bears/wildwings/centaurs early then you can actually buy items then resell for full gold up to level 3 if you get the timing right so do that to minimise gold loss from suiciding.
AC after treads for split pushing, bkb for teamfighting, basher after whichever you picked.
If your team won't give you space to push a lane and take towers and keep pulling the enemy hero to block you on that lane then switch lanes or go back to the woods. You absolutely cannot afford to stop farming gold and levels by hanging around in a lane missing last hits and sharing exp, you're looking to get nec3 done by 15 on a good run, 20 on a bad run and be level 16 about 20 minutes in at the latest. If they don't give you space to get big then explain to them that they need to, if they still don't then just go wherever there is space.
Regarding the eternal "why boots before rosh" question, things don't always go perfectly in solo queue. Often 10 mins in you don't have a flying courier, or the courier is dead. Often there are no missing calls and no wards near your jungle. Often you have to run back to fountain to play safe because supports won't roll in and support you when their bh goes missing, often you have to suicide more than you ought to because you can't get any items because mid is bottle crowing with a non upgraded donkey. All of these mean more time spent walking, less time spent farming, which amounts to lost gold and exp. You can offset that 450 gold spent against the faster level 7 (needed for rosh) and the additional gold income. Furthermore on a perfect run you will often have the gold for vlads before you get your level 7 which means you have to keep farming anyway and end up getting boots after vlads but before roshing. In that situation you gain no advantage by delaying boots, the limiting factor on your rosh timing was your exp, not your gold, and by getting faster movement while not delaying your jungle camp clearing time (from level 3 onwards any camp is easy) you get the exp you need to rosh faster and get more gold. Maybe pros can justify not getting it, I strongly disagree for solo queue.
When pushing towers feel free to just leave minions attacking them while you ult the fuck out, as long as you're wearing them down that's fine. A lot of the time when I split push and take rax the rax themselves are taken by minions as 4 of the enemy team who TPed back try and run me down. As with the rest of the build, the priority is that you just don't die. You have huge minion damage output, particularly with howl, and your ult gives the minions max move speed. You can exploit this to gank structures quickly. Against towers when they attack a wolf pull that wolf back immediately. It'll take one hit before you notice but it can survive three if you pull it back so the delay gives it healing time. Once it's out of tower sight range the invis kicks in and two more following shots from the tower will be wasted while the wolf will be back to full hp.
+ Show Spoiler [old OP] +
Okay, first, my qualifications.
http://dotabuff.com/players/12807161
625 games as Lycan, 62% winrate, 4600 MRR and rising fast.
Now, as the name suggests in broken Russian this is a jungle Lycan guide. If you want to lane Lycan then that's just not dog in tree so you're in the wrong topic. The reason you pick Lycan is because he's an incredibly fun pubstomp hero that is actually pretty autonomous. I only solo queue because I hate having to interact with the droolers that play this game, dota is a rage filled experience and I like to keep it impersonal to limit my anger towards them and theirs towards me. The beauty of solo queue Lycan is that if you do your job correctly in the early game and they don't feed too hard you can basically just win the game solo. You just get completely out of control without the enemy team actually having to feed you, they need to actively deal with the Lycan threat to prevent it which takes planning, co-ordination and knowing wtf is going on. If they're just doing their own thing then suddenly they'll hear Rosh die 12 minutes in and it'll be too late because you're an avalanche gaining momentum. There's only so much your team can do to lose it in the first 12 minutes so most games you'll come out in great shape and then win it which is a good feeling. It's as close to single player dota you can get, you're by yourself jungling and then you're by yourself split pushing and if you do your job correctly then you don't really rely on anyone else to not be a retard. There's very few "wtf were you thinking why would you do that?" moments because you just don't give a shit what they do because whatever it is they decide to do you're still gonna turn into a wolf and eat some dude. You'll still sometimes lose games and it'll still be their fault but you'll have the safe knowledge that every game you won was entirely down to you and that a lot of those would otherwise have been lost if the game had been in any way dependent upon the competence of your allies. By picking Lycan you remove them from the equation, if you win the team wins.
Instapick Lycan and call jungle. If you want to be really pro have it be your name, that way people know and will instantly cede you the jungle because you called it before they even loaded. If they don't let you jungle then feed or something, it's actually not happened in like 30 games or so for me, generally people are fine if you call it first at my level.
Starting
Ring of Basilius
Wolves at level 1
Sit in fountain until 0 seconds.
At 0 summon wolves. The reason you do this is for the free mana regen, mana is very tight as lycan and you need all you can get. You should be able to get to the easy camp as it spawns (don't let your wolves block it, they're faster than you). Open with the easy (I'll address warded camps later). Do the easy, if you need to switch them off a low wolf then move it back for a half second then attack move it onto yourself. Spread damage between the wolves so they're both very low as the camp finishes. If you fuck up and lose wolves and won't finish it before the respawn then summon more, you must finish it before the respawn. After the first or second kill you can call the courier with a hatchet. You can generally get courier access in the first minute and the hatchet helps a lot.
Do the respawned easy with new wolves, that'll get you your level 2. Put it in your passive.
Then go do a medium camp, your resummoned wolves from easy2 will have wiped out your mana but it should get back to 145 about 1:40 which means if you mess up the micro on the medium1 then you can resummon although it'll zero your mana which means no more wolves for tanking/damage so no more jungling. You ought to be able to do any medium, if centaurs then group up your wolves, right click all 3 of you on it, dart back to dodge the stomp and then kill the small one first, then the larger.
That'll take you to 2 minutes and easy3. Easy 3 will get you up to 450 gold and you'll be out of mana by then. Make a judgement call based on your hp and that of your wolves (depends on what camps you've got), either buy boots and suicide to the nearest camp or do half the nearest camp, buy boots and anything else you can afford and suicide.
Respawn at fountain (about 2:30 now) with level 3 and boots. Sell any other items you could afford before you died. Insta summon level 2 wolves, your mana will regen as you run back out and you're wearing boots now which will help a fuckload. You can take a look at the hard as you go (your support will appreciate you leaving him the pull if you can), if it's not bears you can do it. Feel free to let your wolves tank a lot, you're on full mana from the fountain and can easily resummon. You want to do the hard and a medium (although you can do whatever really) to grab gold for a sages mask.
The sages mask is pretty huge because that's what gets you wolf stable. Until now we've been relying on the mana from the fountain and a free set of starting wolves from the fountain to get by but with the sages mask you should be able to resummon every time they expire. You still have to babysit them, micro is really important, but you don't have downtime between farming waiting on mana and you can use them to tank a lot which they can do well when you get wolves to 3. Keep farming.
Your item order is this.
- Basilius
- Hatchet
- Boots
- Sage's
- Ring of Regen
- Mask
- Vlads
- Medallion + smoke
- Treads
In some cases you can justify skipping ult at 6 and waiting until 8 (if you aren't gonna 4 wolves at 7 then it's not worth waiting the ult, ult is either 6 or 8). Mana is always going to be really tight and generally even if you have the ult you can't use it. With that in mind it's important to recognise that you cannot help on lane. You must not get involved (very few exceptions, you'll pick them up). Your wolves and yourself will always be very low, you have no real way of actually engaging shit, you carry no regen items or tanking items and you can't afford the mana costs of using your ult and resummoning wolves. All you can do on lane is feed, if they ping you, if they flame you, if they rage at you,. just ignore it. You know better, it won't do anything but fuel them if you try and help and die. Once you get medallion assess the situation. It ought to be around the 9-10 minute mark, either go straight for rosh if it's convenient and secure or farm for treads and more levels and do it nearer 12. At this point you should also be able to help on lane.
Your level order ought to be
- Wolves
- Feral
- Wolves
- Feral
- Wolves
- Ult (if you are totally safe then maybe Feral but honestly more often than not I wish I'd gotten ult when I go Feral here)
- Wolves
If your team is teamfighting a lot, if you have a Broodmother, if you have a Crystal Maiden or a Nature's Prophet or if you're feeling mana rich then they will love you for leveling howl. Howl both gets more powerful per level and gets a shorter cooldown which means you can stop saving it for teamfights and start using it whenever anyone is clearing creep waves, pushing towers or generally doing less damage than they'd like. One thing to keep in mind though is that you're still tight on mana, especially if you lose wolves, so spamming howl every time it's off cooldown is generally reserved for games with Crystal Maiden or when you start going towards necro.
Otherwise 4ing Feral and then going Howl 10, 12-14 is fine too.
Roshing is easy enough, especially if you have treads. Micro back wolves/yourself and keep medallion on him. You may lose wolves to chained stuns so if you have treads you can toggle them to get mana for new wolves as needed.
After rosh
Post rosh you should be level 11 or 12 and it should be at most 13 mins into the game. Start pushing towers and buying your next big item. Four choices here imo which I'll get to. You're still in bear mode and should be trying to find gaps rather than go for the teamfights because teamfights involve a lot of shadow boxing before they start which is downtime you can't afford. Find a lane with a bunch of creeps, push it to the tower, start killing the tower with wolves + howl and if contested by something you can't deal with ult and gtfo. Toggling boots for mana to ult helps here too. Once you gtfo go jungle, grab more gold and levels and either go back to the lane a minute later or pick another. Make sure your ulti is back up by the time you get to the tower again, at 11 it should be. If one guy TPs in or you catch people alone feel free to howl, medallion them and eat them. Supports don't tend to realise than being level 7 isn't going to cut it against a level 13 lycan and you can often kill one and leave before they know wtf is going on. It's not worth risking dying for though, the main thing is that you keep farming. Unlike most heroes early you can wander into any neutral camp and clear it in seconds without any hp or mana, in fact it regens your hp, and can move quickly through the jungle. You will be accelerating away from the rest of the pack and any death is time they can catch up with, if two TP in to the tower and you ult back to the jungle then that's an EXP and gold win for your team and space created elsewhere. Save aegis for the teamfights, if you get caught on lane then it's because they have enough to kill you and given that you're three clear levels above the highest on their team that means they're all there, aegis respawning you without ulti won't help unless it's a teamfight and the enemy can't just chain stun you as you respawn.
4th item
Regarding items it's somewhat situational after treads between the following 4.
- Necro 3 (good for midgame pushes, good for howl spamming (so if troll warlord/brood/furion/midgame pushes to end) and good for mana issues (invoker, KOTL, AM, PL) and good for invis (mirana/bh/anyone with shadow blades). Going straight for necro 3 is a legit choice following treads although it's less "fuck off in your face imma wolf" and more split push ganky supporty.
- BKB. If you're trying to teamfight early and they have big disable heroes in teamfights then a quick bkb will get you the rax you need. That 10s is huge early game. If they have shit like Earthshaker and a bunch of really hard carries then grab a BKB, push down mid and initiate teamfights with no fucks given. By the time bkb is down to 4s they'll have no rax left. Otherwise I often like saving bkb for later, it depends on the game flow and what you're fighting. I don't like it early for split pushing because you end up wasting charges and then don't have it for later when you need it, there are other better items. You ought to get a bkb in most games but definitely not always after treads.
- Basher. Good for damage/killing towers/ganking heroes/stopping tps/making people call you lucky. Legitimate choice if you're just testing towers, still farming a lot or if you want to build a quick abyssal because abyssal is hilarious.
- AC. I like AC as the next big item situationally. If your team has a lot of physical damage but nobody is anywhere near as rich as you then AC is a crazy strong multiplier and you can get it really early with good farm, like 17 minutes kinda early. Basically you take advantage of just how rich you are from slaughtering lanes, last hitting towers and jungling like crazy to buy the big item the team wants but can't afford. Lycan should always have an AC near, either being held by him or another, it gives his summons and the entire team +10 armour (5 from vlads, 5 from AC) and helps you knock down towers or heroes really quickly. It's my split push item of choice if I don't need a necro or a bkb.
Thoughts about the midgame
You shouldn't actually be getting many kills in this phase tbh. You should be wherever the action isn't because you can wreck shit up like no other hero (literally no other hero is as crazy destructive to buildings as lycan) and you can draw heroes to stop you and if there are too few you can just gank them then run. As long as you keep the farm going, the towers falling and the items being bought you're good. If they 5 man it up have your team try to avoid feeding and just play defensive, buying time/farming and holding high while you go kill rax. What you want to be able to do is TP in at the last second, turn into a giant wolf and bkb their entire team out of nowhere. If you picture what an AM does at 50 minutes, that's you at 25, but you should try and avoid having to do that because the longer you put it off for the more destructive it gets. The nightmare scenario for you is that you're doing your split push perfectly but one of your team gets caught out and the other 3 pile into 5 of them without you and all feed, if they can avoid that then you should be good. If you don't think that can be avoided then get them to follow you in and just teamfight because you're a lycan and you just find their most critical hero and eat him.
Other
6 slotted late game you typically want to end up something like abyssal, bkb, AC, treads, vlads and either aegis or heart. If you have gold to spare at this point buy new bkbs. In fact buy a new bkb before you get heart imo. If you went necro3 then you shouldn't be in the late game because you already won.
If they have a cloaky offlaner pray for a good safelane support hero. Sentry wards on lane and missing calls make your life so much easier. Sometimes a bounty hunter will just make his life about dicking you over and you kinda have to accept that he will trade no farm with you. As long as he's not getting levels you just keep going back to fountain or suiciding to creeps more than you normally would, keep that hp high and if he goes for you just manfight him til he runs. Just remember that you're giving space to the safelane carry through your sacrifice.
If the easy camp is warded then do the following order. Find a medium camp with golems/wolves/ogres. Use your first wolves to take all the damage and die because they're expiring anyway. You won't be able to clear it before the respawn so just summon second wolves, finish it off and go check out the other med camp. You'll still be level 1 which sucks but you can summon new wolves after 30 seconds more so the second med camp should be doable, even if you lose wolves to do it. If you can't get 450 gold by the time you're low and out of mana (after the third summon including the first at the fountain) then 325 and sage's mask will do. As long as you're not standing around waiting on regen you're fine. It's somewhat down to the luck of the draw in terms of medium camp spawns but if you dodge the centaur stomp it's not too bad and satyrs/trolls in the hard camp are easily doable too. When doing trolls kill the big one first to avoid the skeletons until you have vlads cause they kill low hp wolves very quickly.
Any other questions, ask below.
http://dotabuff.com/players/12807161
625 games as Lycan, 62% winrate, 4600 MRR and rising fast.
Now, as the name suggests in broken Russian this is a jungle Lycan guide. If you want to lane Lycan then that's just not dog in tree so you're in the wrong topic. The reason you pick Lycan is because he's an incredibly fun pubstomp hero that is actually pretty autonomous. I only solo queue because I hate having to interact with the droolers that play this game, dota is a rage filled experience and I like to keep it impersonal to limit my anger towards them and theirs towards me. The beauty of solo queue Lycan is that if you do your job correctly in the early game and they don't feed too hard you can basically just win the game solo. You just get completely out of control without the enemy team actually having to feed you, they need to actively deal with the Lycan threat to prevent it which takes planning, co-ordination and knowing wtf is going on. If they're just doing their own thing then suddenly they'll hear Rosh die 12 minutes in and it'll be too late because you're an avalanche gaining momentum. There's only so much your team can do to lose it in the first 12 minutes so most games you'll come out in great shape and then win it which is a good feeling. It's as close to single player dota you can get, you're by yourself jungling and then you're by yourself split pushing and if you do your job correctly then you don't really rely on anyone else to not be a retard. There's very few "wtf were you thinking why would you do that?" moments because you just don't give a shit what they do because whatever it is they decide to do you're still gonna turn into a wolf and eat some dude. You'll still sometimes lose games and it'll still be their fault but you'll have the safe knowledge that every game you won was entirely down to you and that a lot of those would otherwise have been lost if the game had been in any way dependent upon the competence of your allies. By picking Lycan you remove them from the equation, if you win the team wins.
Instapick Lycan and call jungle. If you want to be really pro have it be your name, that way people know and will instantly cede you the jungle because you called it before they even loaded. If they don't let you jungle then feed or something, it's actually not happened in like 30 games or so for me, generally people are fine if you call it first at my level.
Starting
Ring of Basilius
Wolves at level 1
Sit in fountain until 0 seconds.
At 0 summon wolves. The reason you do this is for the free mana regen, mana is very tight as lycan and you need all you can get. You should be able to get to the easy camp as it spawns (don't let your wolves block it, they're faster than you). Open with the easy (I'll address warded camps later). Do the easy, if you need to switch them off a low wolf then move it back for a half second then attack move it onto yourself. Spread damage between the wolves so they're both very low as the camp finishes. If you fuck up and lose wolves and won't finish it before the respawn then summon more, you must finish it before the respawn. After the first or second kill you can call the courier with a hatchet. You can generally get courier access in the first minute and the hatchet helps a lot.
Do the respawned easy with new wolves, that'll get you your level 2. Put it in your passive.
Then go do a medium camp, your resummoned wolves from easy2 will have wiped out your mana but it should get back to 145 about 1:40 which means if you mess up the micro on the medium1 then you can resummon although it'll zero your mana which means no more wolves for tanking/damage so no more jungling. You ought to be able to do any medium, if centaurs then group up your wolves, right click all 3 of you on it, dart back to dodge the stomp and then kill the small one first, then the larger.
That'll take you to 2 minutes and easy3. Easy 3 will get you up to 450 gold and you'll be out of mana by then. Make a judgement call based on your hp and that of your wolves (depends on what camps you've got), either buy boots and suicide to the nearest camp or do half the nearest camp, buy boots and anything else you can afford and suicide.
Respawn at fountain (about 2:30 now) with level 3 and boots. Sell any other items you could afford before you died. Insta summon level 2 wolves, your mana will regen as you run back out and you're wearing boots now which will help a fuckload. You can take a look at the hard as you go (your support will appreciate you leaving him the pull if you can), if it's not bears you can do it. Feel free to let your wolves tank a lot, you're on full mana from the fountain and can easily resummon. You want to do the hard and a medium (although you can do whatever really) to grab gold for a sages mask.
The sages mask is pretty huge because that's what gets you wolf stable. Until now we've been relying on the mana from the fountain and a free set of starting wolves from the fountain to get by but with the sages mask you should be able to resummon every time they expire. You still have to babysit them, micro is really important, but you don't have downtime between farming waiting on mana and you can use them to tank a lot which they can do well when you get wolves to 3. Keep farming.
Your item order is this.
- Basilius
- Hatchet
- Boots
- Sage's
- Ring of Regen
- Mask
- Vlads
- Medallion + smoke
- Treads
In some cases you can justify skipping ult at 6 and waiting until 8 (if you aren't gonna 4 wolves at 7 then it's not worth waiting the ult, ult is either 6 or 8). Mana is always going to be really tight and generally even if you have the ult you can't use it. With that in mind it's important to recognise that you cannot help on lane. You must not get involved (very few exceptions, you'll pick them up). Your wolves and yourself will always be very low, you have no real way of actually engaging shit, you carry no regen items or tanking items and you can't afford the mana costs of using your ult and resummoning wolves. All you can do on lane is feed, if they ping you, if they flame you, if they rage at you,. just ignore it. You know better, it won't do anything but fuel them if you try and help and die. Once you get medallion assess the situation. It ought to be around the 9-10 minute mark, either go straight for rosh if it's convenient and secure or farm for treads and more levels and do it nearer 12. At this point you should also be able to help on lane.
Your level order ought to be
- Wolves
- Feral
- Wolves
- Feral
- Wolves
- Ult (if you are totally safe then maybe Feral but honestly more often than not I wish I'd gotten ult when I go Feral here)
- Wolves
If your team is teamfighting a lot, if you have a Broodmother, if you have a Crystal Maiden or a Nature's Prophet or if you're feeling mana rich then they will love you for leveling howl. Howl both gets more powerful per level and gets a shorter cooldown which means you can stop saving it for teamfights and start using it whenever anyone is clearing creep waves, pushing towers or generally doing less damage than they'd like. One thing to keep in mind though is that you're still tight on mana, especially if you lose wolves, so spamming howl every time it's off cooldown is generally reserved for games with Crystal Maiden or when you start going towards necro.
Otherwise 4ing Feral and then going Howl 10, 12-14 is fine too.
Roshing is easy enough, especially if you have treads. Micro back wolves/yourself and keep medallion on him. You may lose wolves to chained stuns so if you have treads you can toggle them to get mana for new wolves as needed.
After rosh
Post rosh you should be level 11 or 12 and it should be at most 13 mins into the game. Start pushing towers and buying your next big item. Four choices here imo which I'll get to. You're still in bear mode and should be trying to find gaps rather than go for the teamfights because teamfights involve a lot of shadow boxing before they start which is downtime you can't afford. Find a lane with a bunch of creeps, push it to the tower, start killing the tower with wolves + howl and if contested by something you can't deal with ult and gtfo. Toggling boots for mana to ult helps here too. Once you gtfo go jungle, grab more gold and levels and either go back to the lane a minute later or pick another. Make sure your ulti is back up by the time you get to the tower again, at 11 it should be. If one guy TPs in or you catch people alone feel free to howl, medallion them and eat them. Supports don't tend to realise than being level 7 isn't going to cut it against a level 13 lycan and you can often kill one and leave before they know wtf is going on. It's not worth risking dying for though, the main thing is that you keep farming. Unlike most heroes early you can wander into any neutral camp and clear it in seconds without any hp or mana, in fact it regens your hp, and can move quickly through the jungle. You will be accelerating away from the rest of the pack and any death is time they can catch up with, if two TP in to the tower and you ult back to the jungle then that's an EXP and gold win for your team and space created elsewhere. Save aegis for the teamfights, if you get caught on lane then it's because they have enough to kill you and given that you're three clear levels above the highest on their team that means they're all there, aegis respawning you without ulti won't help unless it's a teamfight and the enemy can't just chain stun you as you respawn.
4th item
Regarding items it's somewhat situational after treads between the following 4.
- Necro 3 (good for midgame pushes, good for howl spamming (so if troll warlord/brood/furion/midgame pushes to end) and good for mana issues (invoker, KOTL, AM, PL) and good for invis (mirana/bh/anyone with shadow blades). Going straight for necro 3 is a legit choice following treads although it's less "fuck off in your face imma wolf" and more split push ganky supporty.
- BKB. If you're trying to teamfight early and they have big disable heroes in teamfights then a quick bkb will get you the rax you need. That 10s is huge early game. If they have shit like Earthshaker and a bunch of really hard carries then grab a BKB, push down mid and initiate teamfights with no fucks given. By the time bkb is down to 4s they'll have no rax left. Otherwise I often like saving bkb for later, it depends on the game flow and what you're fighting. I don't like it early for split pushing because you end up wasting charges and then don't have it for later when you need it, there are other better items. You ought to get a bkb in most games but definitely not always after treads.
- Basher. Good for damage/killing towers/ganking heroes/stopping tps/making people call you lucky. Legitimate choice if you're just testing towers, still farming a lot or if you want to build a quick abyssal because abyssal is hilarious.
- AC. I like AC as the next big item situationally. If your team has a lot of physical damage but nobody is anywhere near as rich as you then AC is a crazy strong multiplier and you can get it really early with good farm, like 17 minutes kinda early. Basically you take advantage of just how rich you are from slaughtering lanes, last hitting towers and jungling like crazy to buy the big item the team wants but can't afford. Lycan should always have an AC near, either being held by him or another, it gives his summons and the entire team +10 armour (5 from vlads, 5 from AC) and helps you knock down towers or heroes really quickly. It's my split push item of choice if I don't need a necro or a bkb.
Thoughts about the midgame
You shouldn't actually be getting many kills in this phase tbh. You should be wherever the action isn't because you can wreck shit up like no other hero (literally no other hero is as crazy destructive to buildings as lycan) and you can draw heroes to stop you and if there are too few you can just gank them then run. As long as you keep the farm going, the towers falling and the items being bought you're good. If they 5 man it up have your team try to avoid feeding and just play defensive, buying time/farming and holding high while you go kill rax. What you want to be able to do is TP in at the last second, turn into a giant wolf and bkb their entire team out of nowhere. If you picture what an AM does at 50 minutes, that's you at 25, but you should try and avoid having to do that because the longer you put it off for the more destructive it gets. The nightmare scenario for you is that you're doing your split push perfectly but one of your team gets caught out and the other 3 pile into 5 of them without you and all feed, if they can avoid that then you should be good. If you don't think that can be avoided then get them to follow you in and just teamfight because you're a lycan and you just find their most critical hero and eat him.
Other
6 slotted late game you typically want to end up something like abyssal, bkb, AC, treads, vlads and either aegis or heart. If you have gold to spare at this point buy new bkbs. In fact buy a new bkb before you get heart imo. If you went necro3 then you shouldn't be in the late game because you already won.
If they have a cloaky offlaner pray for a good safelane support hero. Sentry wards on lane and missing calls make your life so much easier. Sometimes a bounty hunter will just make his life about dicking you over and you kinda have to accept that he will trade no farm with you. As long as he's not getting levels you just keep going back to fountain or suiciding to creeps more than you normally would, keep that hp high and if he goes for you just manfight him til he runs. Just remember that you're giving space to the safelane carry through your sacrifice.
If the easy camp is warded then do the following order. Find a medium camp with golems/wolves/ogres. Use your first wolves to take all the damage and die because they're expiring anyway. You won't be able to clear it before the respawn so just summon second wolves, finish it off and go check out the other med camp. You'll still be level 1 which sucks but you can summon new wolves after 30 seconds more so the second med camp should be doable, even if you lose wolves to do it. If you can't get 450 gold by the time you're low and out of mana (after the third summon including the first at the fountain) then 325 and sage's mask will do. As long as you're not standing around waiting on regen you're fine. It's somewhat down to the luck of the draw in terms of medium camp spawns but if you dodge the centaur stomp it's not too bad and satyrs/trolls in the hard camp are easily doable too. When doing trolls kill the big one first to avoid the skeletons until you have vlads cause they kill low hp wolves very quickly.
Any other questions, ask below.
