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.
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] +
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.
Halberd is good in place of basher when evasion matters, MKB is good when they've got evade too. AC first is funny when they have a LC because people try and manfight Lycan and if you're not ursa you can't do it so LC just feeds you damage with his ulti and gets baffled by the fact that actually you can take him on.
My personal Cheese Lycan (Splitpush / Push) build is this
I have a very similar start as with you, but I rush Vlads first and then I get brown boots. I will start working on Necro 1.
If the offlaners have rotated and I am level 6, I will quickly try to take down the tier one and tier two. After I get my Necrobook I will rarely every jungle again and concentrate on splitpushing.
When attacking a tower I focus on getting as much damage done as possible, and then as soon as an enemy arrives I activate ulti and run away, leaving any summons I have damaging the tower. Lycan can easily take down a tower even if there are one or two supports there. If I am raxing I man up as I will happily trade my life for a rax.
After I get necro three I get BoT, which is core for the splitpush lycan as it allows you to threaten multiple lanes as well as escape quickly. It also allows me to fake a splitpush, and instead tp to my team and push with the team.
The single target damage output of howl + wolves + necro three is immense and can easily solo kill supports. However any time spent attacking supports is time not pushing down towers
6 Slotted for me is Vlads, BoT, Necro 3, AC, Deso, BKB
I also should note that lycan lane should not be underestimated as with his wolves he brings a lot of single target damage. If you bring more defensive supports with a good slow (IE venomancer) you can get an easy first blood
Renamed for Yango, hopefully it'll be acceptable as a discussion topic.
Desol is major noob tier item for lycan. Your slots are insanely valuable and desol doesn't give much, anyone can carry it and usually someone else will. You can't afford to waste slots on that kinda item which is just a utility support armour debuff. Desol is nice midgame but you're gonna sell it for something you actually want like abyssal, AC or heart late game. Even sheepstick is better. Lycan is gold rich, you don't need to settle midgame, go for the big stuff straight off the bat.
Honestly Lycan has always been on my list of heroes that, if I random them, I'm almost definitely going to repick. This changes that, and makes me actually wanna try this.
If you're gonna do it practice the jungle with bots a half dozen times before you go into a game to get the feeling of the timings. First four levels should be in the first four minutes with ease, if you don't have vlads at 8 mins you're doing it wrong.
good tip about a-clicking yourself with your wolves when you pull them off, I knew you could drop aggro from things other than towers that way but I never made the connection in my head to that being my problem when my wolves go back in and just get gibbed lol. That's honestly been one of my worst problems with jungle Lycan since he stopped being fucking beastmode jungler, and now I just feel retarded. Will actually try this now - I might like Lycan more than I thought. I've only really ever played him when I random him lol - I can't think of a time in my life where I've actually picked Lycan.
Maybe it's just because when I first started to actually get decent at Dota he was the most fucking imba hero in the game... and I always hated the idea of picking him ^^
lycan bat 1.5 (ult) base str 22 level 11 str +30.25 base agl 16 lvl 20.9 lycan wolf bat 1.1 damage 43 lycan passive 30% damage 30 as lycan howl 50 to hero 16 to unit vlads 15% damage alpha wolf creep bat 1.35 damage 30 aura damage 30% necrowarrior bat 0.75 damage 75 manaburn 45 necroarcher bat 1.0 damage 120 aura as 9%
Little messy, and I did it a long time ago, but it should still be valid. Long story short: Necro3 is amazing on Lycan, even after the Howl duration runs out. The math includes the option for going Dominator after and bringing an Alpha Wolf, but I'm not necessarily calling it a serious choice (though maybe it could be!).
On December 28 2013 16:07 Russano wrote: Curious about two things.
1) Why basilius over stout shield and hatchet.
2) Why no tangos with the 125 gold.
Are the tangos totally pointless with the suicide, feels like they'd come in handy after the suicide portion but before you get lifesteal.
Because of the armour for your wolves and the mana regen.
Because you're limited by mana far more than hp, you have to suicide at 450 gold anyway, that suicide is hugely important in terms of getting the mana you need. From then on you should be fine to go straight for sages then vlads.
Micro better and you'll be fine. Fountain > tangos cause mana. Mana = wolves tanking for you = hp anyway.
lycan bat 1.5 (ult) base str 22 level 11 str +30.25 base agl 16 lvl 20.9 lycan wolf bat 1.1 damage 43 lycan passive 30% damage 30 as lycan howl 50 to hero 16 to unit vlads 15% damage alpha wolf creep bat 1.35 damage 30 aura damage 30% necrowarrior bat 0.75 damage 75 manaburn 45 necroarcher bat 1.0 damage 120 aura as 9%
Little messy, and I did it a long time ago, but it should still be valid. Long story short: Necro3 is amazing on Lycan, even after the Howl duration runs out. The math includes the option for going Dominator after and bringing an Alpha Wolf, but I'm not necessarily calling it a serious choice (though maybe it could be!).
Dominator is a troll choice. You don't have time or slots for that, you barely have it for necro which is still situationally inferior to bkb and basher as initiation and teamfight choices and abyssal/AC/heart because once you have basher and bkb you might as well just win the game by eating people.
On an unrelated note if someone else has AC and you have aegis as your 5th item (example abyssal, bkb, treads, vlads, aegis, medallion (medallion is sellable at this point)) then rapier is a totally legit choice. Would recommend rebuying bkb before you get it and sticking with the team but with your kind of hp, aegis and a 10 sec bkb rapier is a very strong 50 minute teamfight item.
i should have been more specific, what if someone wards the magic bush and another spot (blocking 3 camps)? or even more obnoxious if a support starts with 2 sents and 2 obs and completly blocks your jungle if radiant?
This build sounds and feels weird. You suicide and get a hatchet..?
Personal build:
I get RoB, 2 clarity and go for easy1. Kill it before .53 and kill easy2 right after that. Finishing easy2 you should have lost your second set of wolves. After that run into Medium1 while popping a clarity. After Medium1 is down, get ring and go easy3. Once that pack is dead you should be level 3 near 4. From here on farm your way to vlads, get brown boots straight after. Build into BKB if they have alot of stuns/snares or SB if they dont. Finish Treads somewhere in between and don't forget about the Deso for extreme pushing.
On December 28 2013 21:03 Taronar wrote: This build sounds and feels weird. You suicide and get a hatchet..?
Personal build:
I get RoB, 2 clarity and go for easy1. Kill it before .53 and kill easy2 right after that. Finishing easy2 you should have lost your second set of wolves. After that run into Medium1 while popping a clarity. After Medium1 is down, get ring and go easy3. Once that pack is dead you should be level 3 near 4. From here on farm your way to vlads, get brown boots straight after. Build into BKB if they have alot of stuns/snares or SB if they dont. Finish Treads somewhere in between and don't forget about the Deso for extreme pushing.
Winning games in 30 minutes or less.
Tried it your way, you get vlads/medallion/rosh way slower. Brown boots first and mana regen items over clarities is just better. Try it vs bots a few times and you'll see.
Building a shadow blade on Lycan makes you literally the worst player ever. Desol, same. Your Lycan is wasting your time and that of everyone on your team, you're gonna end up with desol/bkb/treads/vlads/aegis/shadow blade and finding that actually you can't kill shit because you forgot to go abyssal/ac/heart/necro. Just play bounty hunter if you want to gank people with desol from invis. It's not like Lycan needs a shadow blade to escape from situations he doesn't like.
Shadow blading around the jungle ganking heroes with 4second bkb and crit is not a good use of Lycan, he doesn't need those kills, he needs the gold for the big name items and he needs 6 of them.
Hmm I used to open with ROB but I found this to be better, but if you've tried this then let me know why your version works better, I am keen to know.
Starting with ring of protection, tango, hatchet, clarity then go for medium camp first, then go to next medium camp while getting basi and more tangos from courier. Just keep killing medium camps while getting claries and food until you can go for hard camps. Never go for small camps unless you have to.
Level wolves, howl, wolves, passive, max wolves and howl then passive last. Howl is really low mana cost anyway, and does more early game. Always get ulti level 6 to help out team mates, maxed howl and ulti with vlads is not so bad, I generally get a kill with it.
I'm not that good by any means but I've had a lot of success with it in ranked. After I got it down after the first two losses I basically won all my games except 1 after that.
The reason for RoB start is largely because of the suicide. Stout is a holdover item whose purpose is only to keep you from losing too much HP on early levels. it does't build into anything, loses effectiveness as you gain levels, and gets sold pretty quickly anyway. If you weren't suiciding it would make sense, but the suicide allows you to be really greedy in your initial item selection.
ITT: people with <600 games as Lycan talking about Lycan. goddamn peasants.
my question: what is your worst nightmare? how do you absolutely crush lycan? is it as simple as warding/blocking early? what's the the most effective counterpick?
On December 29 2013 01:42 Kupon3ss wrote: if you're going to sucide and go largely clarityless you should consider bottle
Read the guide, we suicide once before 600 gold. After then you can go pure farming without any downtime with boots and all gold spent on necessary items. There is no way another method can be faster.
On December 28 2013 21:06 Sr18 wrote: Why do you buy a sages mask if you already start with a basilius? Doesn't vlads only need one sages mask?
Second Sobi before Vlad's was actually extremely common when Lycan was OP in 6.72-6.74.
You don't really feel the difference when jungling. It becomes apparent why you get it when you finish Vlad+Medal and have 100+ more mana at that point from the regen you got holding the casual Sobi mask for so long, meaning you don't have to base or Clarity before doing Rosh.
On December 29 2013 01:42 Kupon3ss wrote: if you're going to sucide and go largely clarityless you should consider bottle
Read the guide, we suicide once before 600 gold. After then you can go pure farming without any downtime with boots and all gold spent on necessary items. There is no way another method can be faster.
bottle in place of basi is faster roshan is also doable with just treads vlads bottle
so if your plan is to start with basi and get quelling, starting quelling and grabbing a bottle will lead to marginally faster clear times and the ability to controll runes, and significantly more mana for the first 10 minutes
for early jungle, it's often times actually more efficient to kill the larger creep before the smaller creep, because 1) the creep usually has some benificial aura (like centaur swiftness aura or wildwing armor aura) and 2. creep dps is actually skewed heavily towards the larger creep. This video explains it very well.
On December 29 2013 01:42 Kupon3ss wrote: if you're going to sucide and go largely clarityless you should consider bottle
Read the guide, we suicide once before 600 gold. After then you can go pure farming without any downtime with boots and all gold spent on necessary items. There is no way another method can be faster.
bottle in place of basi is faster roshan is also doable with just treads vlads bottle
so if your plan is to start with basi and get quelling, starting quelling and grabbing a bottle will lead to marginally faster clear times and the ability to controll runes, and significantly more mana for the first 10 minutes
Replay pls?
Also medallion is just a fantastic item to have on Lycan anyway for the early/midgame. Big damage application bonus and the extra mana regen really helps too.
On December 29 2013 06:21 ArchmageKruzer wrote: for early jungle, it's often times actually more efficient to kill the larger creep before the smaller creep, because 1) the creep usually has some benificial aura (like centaur swiftness aura or wildwing armor aura) and 2. creep dps is actually skewed heavily towards the larger creep. This video explains it very well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3mg5CRPXY
Does not require watching a long video! The verdict is, it depends on camp. A notable exception is the harpies easy camp, where it's noticeably better to kill the weak harpies first. But it's good to know these ratios to optimize your jungling target selection.
Int toggle is pretty useful if you're not going straight to necro I guess and treads are just generally nice although a case could be made for necro first I guess.
This is really cool. I've only played against bots so far trying this, but it's working out awesome. I think I'll turn off sound though if I'm solo que.
Necro 3 is pretty much a core for lycan. The synergy from his ult and howl works amazingly. All you do is make the team try to chase you down while they fail to realize your minions are eating away their HP. And there's always rat dota also.
Read your guide, and IMO pushing at level 10-12 is wayyy late. As soon as I turn five with level 3 wolves, I join mid lane and go for that tower.
On December 29 2013 09:30 winterymint wrote: Necro 3 is pretty much a core for lycan. The synergy from his ult and howl works amazingly. All you do is make the team try to chase you down while they fail to realize your minions are eating away their HP. And there's always rat dota also.
Read your guide, and IMO pushing at level 10-12 is wayyy late. As soon as I turn five with level 3 wolves, I join mid lane and go for that tower.
Strongly disagree. What kind of level does that not result in death due to TPs at because it certainly doesn't at mine? You'd have to waste a full 60 seconds going to fountain and then mid to do that anyway which is big early game. You're jungling on like 20% hp and 0 mana, you can't just cruise over to mid, any ranged hero will just right click you and you die and if the wolves die to the tower you're fucked until you go fountain because you can't afford new ones.
Basically that's an awful idea and a good way to end up underleveled and unable to play your part in the mid game.
As for necro 3, howl works whoever gets it, you don't have to hold necro 3 just because it works well with howl. If you're playing hard carry there are frankly much better items you need first and you certainly don't want it late game when you're 6 slotted and every slot counts. Split push only while the real carry gets the real items, sure. They have mirana, sure. But core, not with this style.
You can push a T1 with the safe lane when you get Vlad's provided your safe lane has the right heroes for it, but that's pretty much it. Pre-Vlad it's not worth it to damage your own tempo trying to force a tower too early.
I don't know how you're actually getting mid tower down like that unless the enemy straight-up abandons it or you're playing with a mid who could probably have taken that tower themselves anyway.
there's a happy medium, while you shouldn't be pushing anything at level 5, doing nothing until level 10 and even contemplating delaying ulti is certainly not the way to go. in most safelane it's a simple enough matter to run in, kill whoever, and take a tower or two the instant you hit level 6
On December 29 2013 01:42 Kupon3ss wrote: if you're going to sucide and go largely clarityless you should consider bottle
Read the guide, we suicide once before 600 gold. After then you can go pure farming without any downtime with boots and all gold spent on necessary items. There is no way another method can be faster.
bottle in place of basi is faster roshan is also doable with just treads vlads bottle
so if your plan is to start with basi and get quelling, starting quelling and grabbing a bottle will lead to marginally faster clear times and the ability to controll runes, and significantly more mana for the first 10 minutes
Bottle is overrated on lycan, you pay 600 (now 650) gold for an item that gives you 210 mana. Kill yourself and you get 3 sets of wolves, 145 x 3 = 435 mana. It also takes a lot of time not hitting creeps.
And I'd complete medallion before vlads and boots.
Ogre camps are awful for exp if you're stuck on them early. Small camps give as much exp as ogre camps and don't take nearly as long to kill.
No stout is interesting, it was necessary before 6.79, but now the +armor means your suicide timing is wrong.
On December 29 2013 15:01 igotmyown wrote: And I'd complete medallion before vlads and boots.
Medallion loses the push T1 tower option of level 6 + Vlad's timing. In other aspects, Medal first is fine, but that T1 push option is probably one of the major reasons why Vlad first is favored. You can't take a tower with Medal+Basi, but you can with Vlad's.
Is it weird that I go stout, tango, ROP then finish basi ring to be disassembled for medallion before vlads? Also I get phase boots instead of treads for easier chasing through creeps and damage synergy with medallion. Yes I know your ult gives you max move speed. I still get to Roshan at around 13ish minutes
kwark, how does you method compare to the usual stout+qb+tangos?
I can usually get out of the woods at around 11(+2mins tops, depends on spawns and if the enemy is roaming your jungle) with vlads and midas, I dont even bother with roshan.
The greed eventually pays off in 5-7 minutes, especially if you're given space to take some towers.
Other than that, since the last patch Lycan turned from the most frustrating jungler to an absolute pub stomp hero, got 65% winrate over ~40 games with him. Its just retarded how fast he can push towers and how well he does in team fights
I'm probably shit at lycan, but every time I face the easy camp with the 5 kobolds or whatever, I can never finish it before 1 min. Is this due to me being too slow at running from base, or should I kill them in some special order? Seriously, I've had them spawn first like 5 times now, and the best time I've got a clear at was at like 01:02 ;_;
On December 29 2013 19:57 SKYFISH__ wrote: kwark, how does you method compare to the usual stout+qb+tangos?
I can usually get out of the woods at around 11(+2mins tops, depends on spawns and if the enemy is roaming your jungle) with vlads and midas, I dont even bother with roshan.
The greed eventually pays off in 5-7 minutes, especially if you're given space to take some towers.
Other than that, since the last patch Lycan turned from the most frustrating jungler to an absolute pub stomp hero, got 65% winrate over ~40 games with him. Its just retarded how fast he can push towers and how well he does in team fights
Way, way faster than stout + tango build. You gotta understand that with my build you can keep going in the jungle constantly while spending 0 gold on things that aren't needed. By grabbing two quick mana items you allow yourself to tank with wolves which is huge.
Midas seems like a terrible idea to me. You don't have time to wait for it to payoff, Lycan isn't a PL or an AM, Lycan gets big at 12 minutes and if he doesn't get a lot of shit done then he begins to fall off compared to harder carries. Also your item slots are really valuable, you're gonna have to sell that midas pretty early for something else. Roshan is huge, it lets you be way more aggressive pushing towers, the gold bonus for the team is big and you'll generally get a level and a half from it. If you can take Rosh you must take Rosh imo.
On December 29 2013 20:33 Scalepad wrote: I'm probably shit at lycan, but every time I face the easy camp with the 5 kobolds or whatever, I can never finish it before 1 min. Is this due to me being too slow at running from base, or should I kill them in some special order? Seriously, I've had them spawn first like 5 times now, and the best time I've got a clear at was at like 01:02 ;_;
Just being bad with Lycan. You should get there about 32 if you make sure you don't block it, focus fire with your wolves, and after both are low pull back to make sure all aggro is on Lycan. As long as you switch aggro quickly using the attack move trick you should easily finish in time to have it respawn. The slowest is actually ghosts imo.
On December 29 2013 19:57 SKYFISH__ wrote: kwark, how does you method compare to the usual stout+qb+tangos?
I can usually get out of the woods at around 11(+2mins tops, depends on spawns and if the enemy is roaming your jungle) with vlads and midas, I dont even bother with roshan.
The greed eventually pays off in 5-7 minutes, especially if you're given space to take some towers.
Other than that, since the last patch Lycan turned from the most frustrating jungler to an absolute pub stomp hero, got 65% winrate over ~40 games with him. Its just retarded how fast he can push towers and how well he does in team fights
Way, way faster than stout + tango build. You gotta understand that with my build you can keep going in the jungle constantly while spending 0 gold on things that aren't needed. By grabbing two quick mana items you allow yourself to tank with wolves which is huge.
Midas seems like a terrible idea to me. You don't have time to wait for it to payoff, Lycan isn't a PL or an AM, Lycan gets big at 12 minutes and if he doesn't get a lot of shit done then he begins to fall off compared to harder carries. Also your item slots are really valuable, you're gonna have to sell that midas pretty early for something else. Roshan is huge, it lets you be way more aggressive pushing towers, the gold bonus for the team is big and you'll generally get a level and a half from it. If you can take Rosh you must take Rosh imo.
hmm, I just tried it in a bot match, bot variations. I honestly havent jungled Lycan with basi before, I think I've tried it once and it was super annoying how dependent your jungling was on keeping the wolves alive.
got the same items at the same times (~7 vlads, 11 midas, no boots), but with the stout+qb one i was lvl 9 whereas with the basi build I was 8. which doesnt make sense, maybe it was the camps. I do suspect I may be able to get Vlads earlier with the basi build though,as I did fuck up with the wolves on the small and mid camps, would be nice if anyone can confirm whats the usual time for vlads.
anyways, the midas thing is a personal preference, often times doing Rosh in pubs is just too much of a hassle - gotta buy wards, gotta smoke, the enemy team are camping the Rosh pit constantly around 11, yada yada yada
I'm interested in what kind of CS are you guys getting at 10 min? It's a bit dependent on creep spawns but still, I've seen some people with like ~80 cs at 10 min which seems pretty absurd on a jungle lycan. That's pretty much good enigma level farm.
Spent the last two days playing pretty much just jungle lycan. Everytime I play a a jungle hero I'm always iffy about item choices, whether to go for ss/qb or basi or bottle or some combination of those.
This build is legit, definitely feels the fastest raw farm as long as you hit all your timings. I feel like i'm hogging the courier a bit, but not really much more than a lot of bottle crowing. Usually entering the rosh pit at 10 mins with vlads, boots, medallion, smoke and hatchet. Sometimes about a minute later if my jungle was weaker. It's really difficult to lose if you are sitting on 12 min tower pushes with treads aegis vlads medallion. From there its an easy step to pick up the major item you want to win the game with.
Why do you say that Desolator is a mid-game utility support item but do you retain a vlad's and an AC in your late-game hard carry lycan, both of which are aura items and thus can be gotten by the rest of your team? I can understand Vlad's because that's a neccesary item in the early game, but AC in itself is not a good 1# position item (neither is desolator).
First time I try this, in an unranked match - both camps blocked either by enigma eidolons or by wards and I'm constantly getting ganked by bristleback and enigma. This is just way too risky tbh.
On December 29 2013 23:16 juracule wrote: Why do you say that Desolator is a mid-game utility support item but do you retain a vlad's and an AC in your late-game hard carry lycan, both of which are aura items and thus can be gotten by the rest of your team? I can understand Vlad's because that's a neccesary item in the early game, but AC in itself is not a good 1# position item (neither is desolator).
First time I try this, in an unranked match - both camps blocked either by enigma eidolons or by wards and I'm constantly getting ganked by bristleback and enigma. This is just way too risky tbh.
That attack speed is pretty awesome when combined with basher, the survivability of Lycan is pretty huge for keeping the AC aura up, you want it midgame for the negative armour for pushing and just because you're the richest by far so it's you AC or no AC.
Trading vlads for satanic is an option super late game imo but not one I like. If you have minions the vlads aura is nice, +15% damage isn't low either. Lycan is just so mobile that you kinda want the auras to follow you around.
On December 29 2013 23:16 juracule wrote: Why do you say that Desolator is a mid-game utility support item but do you retain a vlad's and an AC in your late-game hard carry lycan, both of which are aura items and thus can be gotten by the rest of your team? I can understand Vlad's because that's a neccesary item in the early game, but AC in itself is not a good 1# position item (neither is desolator).
First time I try this, in an unranked match - both camps blocked either by enigma eidolons or by wards and I'm constantly getting ganked by bristleback and enigma. This is just way too risky tbh.
Desolator is definitely more of a mid game item, I wouldn't exactly call it a utility support item, but 100% agree with the midgame, and I think lycan shouldn't be getting it if he is playing 1. I think desolator is a very situational item on lycan good for split pushing(and some other niche things) but necrobook fills that roll much better, and regardless of whether you are core carry or not (in my opinon) necrobook is a core item on lycan due to the easy and insane split push capability and huge midgame dps. Thus deso on top of necrobook isn't really worth it and that just makes deso not really worth it at all. Lycan is also a good AC carrier, although I think heart is a easily viable alternative depending on how much you and your team need armor. AC is also undoubtedly a late game item, although i guess the aura could make it utility in a sense. Keep in mind if you are jungling lycan, there is almost certainly another carry on your team in the lane. Thus that makes lycan a very good option for AC if the laning farmer isnt going for it.
I do agree with lycan being a very risky pick in general though. In games around my mmr, if a lycan is picked there is a high probability that supports will ward the jungle camps(or just pick chen/enchant offensive jungle and you are completely shut out of your own jungle), and an even higher probability that mid will pop into the jungle any time he gets an advantage or a rune, and supports will pop into the jungle with smoke or just regular roaming since lycan is a rather slow and weak hero before 6 that is often at low hp because he has to share tanking with his wolves.
Currently exploring going brown boots into rosh then straight to necro 1 following rosh. Then BoTs into split push everywhere into necro 3. Just had a 800 gold/min game doing that. Had vlads, medallion, necro 3, BoTs, aegis and AC 23 minutes in which is quite a combo.
On December 29 2013 23:16 juracule wrote: Why do you say that Desolator is a mid-game utility support item but do you retain a vlad's and an AC in your late-game hard carry lycan, both of which are aura items and thus can be gotten by the rest of your team? I can understand Vlad's because that's a neccesary item in the early game, but AC in itself is not a good 1# position item (neither is desolator).
First time I try this, in an unranked match - both camps blocked either by enigma eidolons or by wards and I'm constantly getting ganked by bristleback and enigma. This is just way too risky tbh.
The thing is, Desolator's timing does not fit a timing that's good for Lycan. Right after Vlad's it's inferior to BKB or Necro, regardless of what you want to do. After BKB or Necro, you simply don't need a pure damage item. You're pretty damage heavy at that point thanks to Vlad's and BKB if you're fighting, and if you're split-pushing an aura item powers up your pushing way more because of the fact that it will also boost Necros. AC gives you Armor and Attack Speed which, after your first major item, are your biggest in-demand stats. Deso gives neither of these, and past 2nd major item, the item becomes far less appealing.
"Can be gotten by the rest of your team" is not really a good argument against AC on Lycan because it's too expensive for lower position heroes to buy and Lycan is typically not picked with carries which are better AC carriers than he is. It usually works out better for Lycan to buy the AC except in drafts involving carries that REALLY want AC more badly than Lycan does (e.g. an LD+Lycan draft might prefer AC on LD rather than Lycan).
On December 29 2013 23:16 juracule wrote: Why do you say that Desolator is a mid-game utility support item but do you retain a vlad's and an AC in your late-game hard carry lycan, both of which are aura items and thus can be gotten by the rest of your team? I can understand Vlad's because that's a neccesary item in the early game, but AC in itself is not a good 1# position item (neither is desolator).
First time I try this, in an unranked match - both camps blocked either by enigma eidolons or by wards and I'm constantly getting ganked by bristleback and enigma. This is just way too risky tbh.
The thing is, Desolator's timing does not fit a timing that's good for Lycan. Right after Vlad's it's inferior to BKB or Necro, regardless of what you want to do. After BKB or Necro, you simply don't need a pure damage item. You're pretty damage heavy at that point thanks to Vlad's and BKB if you're fighting, and if you're split-pushing an aura item powers up your pushing way more because of the fact that it will also boost Necros. AC gives you Armor and Attack Speed which, after your first major item, are your biggest in-demand stats. Deso gives neither of these, and past 2nd major item, the item becomes far less appealing.
"Can be gotten by the rest of your team" is not really a good argument against AC on Lycan because it's too expensive for lower position heroes to buy and Lycan is typically not picked with carries which are better AC carriers than he is. It usually works out better for Lycan to buy the AC except in drafts involving carries that REALLY want AC more badly than Lycan does (e.g. an LD+Lycan draft might prefer AC on LD rather than Lycan).
In what way does Lycan need armor after Medallion + Vlad's? You have something like 19 armor at that point.The main reason you're getting AC is for the -armor against towers and the +atk speed for your minions. Sure the +atk speed is nice but there are better options if you're going to go late-game hard carry Lycan. I feel that if you're going splitpushing lycan you should just end at 30 mins and get probs both AC and Deso for -12 armor on towers.
Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
On December 30 2013 02:50 TheYango wrote: Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
w0t What do you mean Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame? It provides more EHP than AC for an armor level higher than 2 (or 3, whatever), provides more atk speed, and the amount of damage it provides compared to ac is dependent on enemy hero armor. On top of that it counters just about anything ranging from bash to lifesteal.
Armlet is slot-ineffecient? What? Where does this stigma come from that, just because armlet is cheap, it is also slot-inefficient? It synergizes even better with lycan than with most other strength heroes because of his passive (and because of vlad's, whether it's on you or on someone else late-game).
Sure, ac got better after the patch where Vlad's and AC were allowed to stack but its still definitely not an item I'd like to see on my 1# position hard carry.
On December 30 2013 01:01 KwarK wrote: Currently exploring going brown boots into rosh then straight to necro 1 following rosh. Then BoTs into split push everywhere into necro 3. Just had a 800 gold/min game doing that. Had vlads, medallion, necro 3, BoTs, aegis and AC 23 minutes in which is quite a combo.
Yep, brown boots is the way to go. Power treads not worth it especially when your ult is 522 ms.
what were you trying to say with that name, cause that's some next level broken Russian? It sounds even worse in Russian than just "I am going dog in the tree". I can help you with that, if you add some pics to the guide in return edit: and some graphs
собакой в дерево (Dog in tree, "I go" is implied but u can add it if u want same way as in your original name) собакой в джунгли (Dog in jungle) псиной (can use instead of собакой, just sounds funnier to me) псом (same as above, but impies male dog) also лес = forest да, мне скучно - Yes, I am bored
all that work and for nothing If you're making a jungling lycan guide it's imperative that Russians understand from the start what's going on to minimize the chance of sharing the forest. Dat's like the most important part of the guide, give your readers a chance! jk, nice guide, thx
On December 30 2013 02:50 TheYango wrote: Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
w0t What do you mean Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame? It provides more EHP than AC for an armor level higher than 2 (or 3, whatever), provides more atk speed, and the amount of damage it provides compared to ac is dependent on enemy hero armor. On top of that it counters just about anything ranging from bash to lifesteal.
Armlet is slot-ineffecient? What? Where does this stigma come from that, just because armlet is cheap, it is also slot-inefficient? It synergizes even better with lycan than with most other strength heroes because of his passive (and because of vlad's, whether it's on you or on someone else late-game).
Sure, ac got better after the patch where Vlad's and AC were allowed to stack but its still definitely not an item I'd like to see on my 1# position hard carry.
I heard aui say that butterfly is better as a pure carry item on tiny, but I did the calculations and it's not true. 15 armor is a lot of armor, 16 and 2/3 gives you 100% more hp at 0 armor, I'd have to do the calculations for lycan but it's probably going to be close (but butterfly is more expensive).
I used to play lycan a lot, and slots are really at a premium for him. Boots, vlad, tp. Then usually you have medallion (can sell, but selling it for armlet probably reduces your total dps). You often have aegis, and there's still bkb necrobook ac (usually I'd sell the medallion for ac to replace the -armor).
So when ac couldn't stack with basilius type auras, I think deso was viable. You got more a little more -armor, and your team gained no armor benefit (huge), and 60 damage was better than 55 atttack speed when you had feral instinct + treads + nec aura.
If your start went well and you want a more troll followup to this guide I can recommend staying on brown boots and going straight for MoM + Basher after doing Rosh. It costs about the same as an AC for the two items. I don't think I need to explain what it does to people when you also put a medallion on them (or towers without the debuff). I'd recommend going for BoT's afterwards since that saves you 1 item slot for a bigger item and you can also upgrade your basher into abyssal.
It aint the optimal lategame build but it's not really what's it meant for either.
On December 30 2013 02:50 TheYango wrote: Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
w0t What do you mean Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame? It provides more EHP than AC for an armor level higher than 2 (or 3, whatever), provides more atk speed, and the amount of damage it provides compared to ac is dependent on enemy hero armor. On top of that it counters just about anything ranging from bash to lifesteal.
Armlet is slot-ineffecient? What? Where does this stigma come from that, just because armlet is cheap, it is also slot-inefficient? It synergizes even better with lycan than with most other strength heroes because of his passive (and because of vlad's, whether it's on you or on someone else late-game).
Sure, ac got better after the patch where Vlad's and AC were allowed to stack but its still definitely not an item I'd like to see on my 1# position hard carry.
I heard aui say that butterfly is better as a pure carry item on tiny, but I did the calculations and it's not true. 15 armor is a lot of armor, 16 and 2/3 gives you 100% more hp at 0 armor, I'd have to do the calculations for lycan but it's probably going to be close (but butterfly is more expensive).
I used to play lycan a lot, and slots are really at a premium for him. Boots, vlad, tp. Then usually you have medallion (can sell, but selling it for armlet probably reduces your total dps). You often have aegis, and there's still bkb necrobook ac (usually I'd sell the medallion for ac to replace the -armor).
So when ac couldn't stack with basilius type auras, I think deso was viable. You got more a little more -armor, and your team gained no armor benefit (huge), and 60 damage was better than 55 atttack speed when you had feral instinct + treads + nec aura.
I'd like to see your calculations for tiny, as I also believe butterfly is a better item than AC on tiny, especially with how well evasion pairs with craggy.
With 35% evasion you get 54% more EHP (1/(1-0.35) = 1.54,
EHP with butterfly = (1.54)[1+(0.06x(armor+4))](HP) Whereas AC = .9(HP) + (0.06xarmor)HP + HP These formulae should speak for themselves. 15 armor should be about 90% increase in EHP
lvl 16 tiny has about 7.5 armor, w/o items, and he has 1499hp. If we plug this in for the respective items: Butterfly; 3901.2974 ehp Ac: 3522.65 Thus in terms of EHP, butterfly grants more.
However you should probably pm me if you disagree as I don't want to hijack this thread.
I really like the item progression to Vlads and Medallion, it's very efficient. I was always unsure of whether or not Medallion was core but this guide convinced me it is.
Is there a trick to microing the wolves so that they don't get retargeted by the creeps? I always micro them back when they're low on hp but the creeps will sometimes retarget them and I lose wolves.
Lycan is almost exclusively about pushing. Living in fights is tertiary to:
1. Pushing 2. Killing people
AC is clearly superior to butterfly in both respects.
As KwarK said:
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.
I want to emphasize this because in most games, the only reason you should kill people is if you can. In most games as lycan I only kill those who are defending towers when they clearly cannot, or in teamfights/ganks where I happen to be around, have aegis, or after I have TPed in to turn the tide.
Thus building survivability on Lycan IMO should be limited to getting BKB and AC unless absolutely necessary (which it almost never is). So many games as Lycan are won by pushing lanes while your team 4v5s, since you can take a set of rax in under a minute with AC + Necro + vlads.
On December 30 2013 12:51 yyfpulls wrote: I really like the item progression to Vlads and Medallion, it's very efficient. I was always unsure of whether or not Medallion was core but this guide convinced me it is.
Is there a trick to microing the wolves so that they don't get retargeted by the creeps? I always micro them back when they're low on hp but the creeps will sometimes retarget them and I lose wolves.
You can try a-clicking your hero with them-if it's a big camp like the centaurs, sometimes they will purposely aggro the lowest HP unit you have. You can get around this by using that unit and attacking, and running away immediately when you notice the neutral aggros. This has the additional side effect of reducing the amount of damage the neutral does, particularly if you can time it such that the reaggro happens during an attack animation.
Anytime they come and fuck wtih me in the jungle I get absolutely screwed, and BH is the biggest offender. If my team wins their lanes I catch up, but if my team doesn't win lanes we just lose.
On December 30 2013 20:52 Russano wrote: So...Bounty Hunter who wards your jungle and trades lack of farm with you. Whats the best way to deal?
Return to fountain frequently. Trade sage's mask for a ring of health and stay nearish to the safelane support who will carry dust. A Lycan can manfight a BH if it comes to that. But that takes a lot of cohesion. Fortunately the safelane support shouldn't really be needed if BH is off lane and your hard carry will be getting freefarm.
Its really lame having to rely on supports to do their job. So many games the 5 slot wont get sentries even when he knows hes against BH. Is it worth it to get sentries to deward the medium/small camps and let you know when bh is there?
If no-one else will, sure. But you're trying to stay fullish hp anyway to deny him ganks. Honestly I always worry about dewarding camps because I don't know if I'm gonna deward the wrong spot and not get it or accidentally block the camp myself.
I've had a lot of success with this build going necro 1 -> BoT -> necro 3 The necro 1 is usually done after Roshan.
In my last game I got spotted doing Rosh and they had a spectre as well as a Furion, so I had to dash. I managed to survive but rosh went to their Luna.
It was quite a setback compared to the other games where rosh gives me 2 levels and some nice cash. I still continued the build though and we ended up losing.
Do you do anything special if the first Rosh goes their way?
On December 31 2013 02:04 Laurens wrote: How do you deal with a bad first Roshan attempt?
I've had a lot of success with this build going necro 1 -> BoT -> necro 3 The necro 1 is usually done after Roshan.
In my last game I got spotted doing Rosh and they had a spectre as well as a Furion, so I had to dash. I managed to survive but rosh went to their Luna.
It was quite a setback compared to the other games where rosh gives me 2 levels and some nice cash. I still continued the build though and we ended up losing.
Do you do anything special if the first Rosh goes their way?
Ok. It feels like there should be better solutions
This build is very strong though, cheers for sharing.
Difficulties encountered: - I pick lycan and click jungle, other dude randoms NP and shouts at me, claims jungle. So I go safelane, luckily I get a support with me. Also it was against a solo Skywrath. That game went pretty well. - People flip when I suicide and actually start throwing because of rage. I now announce when I'm about to suicide and say it's part of the build xD - No courier to bring hatchet. Side shop is close enough, but it's still annoying. - No rosh. As above, sad lycan
The main problem with the build is that if the other team knows about it and sends 1 support to the jungle at 30-40 seconds you won't clear the small camp and they know what you are doing. From there on out your pretty much easy food if they rotate. If they don't and you get to do what you want in peace it's awesome.
On December 30 2013 02:50 TheYango wrote: Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
w0t What do you mean Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame? It provides more EHP than AC for an armor level higher than 2 (or 3, whatever), provides more atk speed, and the amount of damage it provides compared to ac is dependent on enemy hero armor. On top of that it counters just about anything ranging from bash to lifesteal.
Armlet is slot-ineffecient? What? Where does this stigma come from that, just because armlet is cheap, it is also slot-inefficient? It synergizes even better with lycan than with most other strength heroes because of his passive (and because of vlad's, whether it's on you or on someone else late-game).
Sure, ac got better after the patch where Vlad's and AC were allowed to stack but its still definitely not an item I'd like to see on my 1# position hard carry.
I heard aui say that butterfly is better as a pure carry item on tiny, but I did the calculations and it's not true. 15 armor is a lot of armor, 16 and 2/3 gives you 100% more hp at 0 armor, I'd have to do the calculations for lycan but it's probably going to be close (but butterfly is more expensive).
I used to play lycan a lot, and slots are really at a premium for him. Boots, vlad, tp. Then usually you have medallion (can sell, but selling it for armlet probably reduces your total dps). You often have aegis, and there's still bkb necrobook ac (usually I'd sell the medallion for ac to replace the -armor).
So when ac couldn't stack with basilius type auras, I think deso was viable. You got more a little more -armor, and your team gained no armor benefit (huge), and 60 damage was better than 55 atttack speed when you had feral instinct + treads + nec aura.
I'd like to see your calculations for tiny, as I also believe butterfly is a better item than AC on tiny, especially with how well evasion pairs with craggy.
With 35% evasion you get 54% more EHP (1/(1-0.35) = 1.54,
EHP with butterfly = (1.54)[1+(0.06x(armor+4))](HP) Whereas AC = .9(HP) + (0.06xarmor)HP + HP These formulae should speak for themselves. 15 armor should be about 90% increase in EHP
lvl 16 tiny has about 7.5 armor, w/o items, and he has 1499hp. If we plug this in for the respective items: Butterfly; 3901.2974 ehp Ac: 3522.65 Thus in terms of EHP, butterfly grants more.
However you should probably pm me if you disagree as I don't want to hijack this thread.
hp doesnt matter since it's all multipliers for tiny, the level 16 base multiplier (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) with ac (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) with butterfly (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 (i think i didn't multiply the 30/7 in my other calculation) (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) = 1.615 (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) = 1.809 Not important for comparison per se, but kind of worth knowing the relative hp increase Now we prorate for cost (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) / 5250 = .000307 (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) / 6000 = .000301 So AC is slightly better on tiny, which means butterfly will be in terms of single hero tankiness a somewhat better on lycan (but still awful in comparison because of all his minions).
I counted the 4+armor for butterfly before, but I didn't multiply it with the evasion, and that does make a big difference. But it still works out.
On December 30 2013 02:50 TheYango wrote: Medallion's armor basically doesn't count because there should virtually never be a time in a fight where you don't have that debuff on someone.
And what else would you get for Attack Speed on Lycan at that time? Armlet's too slot-inefficient on a hero that's desperately strapped for slots, Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame, Manta's cute, but not really a good combat item (although it's actually superior to Deso if you're going the "all-out split-push" route), and Mjollnir's just underwhelming altogether. AC is just outright the best attack speed option for you, even if you are 1st position.
If you are going full split-push Vlad+Necro+AC+Manta is actually going to be better than Vlad+Necro+AC+Deso because Manta allows your Necros and creep wave to retain the double aura without you being there.
w0t What do you mean Butterfly isn't more effective till super lategame? It provides more EHP than AC for an armor level higher than 2 (or 3, whatever), provides more atk speed, and the amount of damage it provides compared to ac is dependent on enemy hero armor. On top of that it counters just about anything ranging from bash to lifesteal.
Armlet is slot-ineffecient? What? Where does this stigma come from that, just because armlet is cheap, it is also slot-inefficient? It synergizes even better with lycan than with most other strength heroes because of his passive (and because of vlad's, whether it's on you or on someone else late-game).
Sure, ac got better after the patch where Vlad's and AC were allowed to stack but its still definitely not an item I'd like to see on my 1# position hard carry.
I heard aui say that butterfly is better as a pure carry item on tiny, but I did the calculations and it's not true. 15 armor is a lot of armor, 16 and 2/3 gives you 100% more hp at 0 armor, I'd have to do the calculations for lycan but it's probably going to be close (but butterfly is more expensive).
I used to play lycan a lot, and slots are really at a premium for him. Boots, vlad, tp. Then usually you have medallion (can sell, but selling it for armlet probably reduces your total dps). You often have aegis, and there's still bkb necrobook ac (usually I'd sell the medallion for ac to replace the -armor).
So when ac couldn't stack with basilius type auras, I think deso was viable. You got more a little more -armor, and your team gained no armor benefit (huge), and 60 damage was better than 55 atttack speed when you had feral instinct + treads + nec aura.
I'd like to see your calculations for tiny, as I also believe butterfly is a better item than AC on tiny, especially with how well evasion pairs with craggy.
With 35% evasion you get 54% more EHP (1/(1-0.35) = 1.54,
EHP with butterfly = (1.54)[1+(0.06x(armor+4))](HP) Whereas AC = .9(HP) + (0.06xarmor)HP + HP These formulae should speak for themselves. 15 armor should be about 90% increase in EHP
lvl 16 tiny has about 7.5 armor, w/o items, and he has 1499hp. If we plug this in for the respective items: Butterfly; 3901.2974 ehp Ac: 3522.65 Thus in terms of EHP, butterfly grants more.
However you should probably pm me if you disagree as I don't want to hijack this thread.
hp doesnt matter since it's all multipliers for tiny, the level 16 base multiplier (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) with ac (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) with butterfly (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 (i think i didn't multiply the 30/7 in my other calculation) (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) = 1.615 (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) = 1.809 Not important for comparison per se, but kind of worth knowing the relative hp increase Now we prorate for cost (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+15)) / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) / 5250 = .000307 (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5+30/7))/.65 / (1+.06*(2.43+2/7+5)) / 6000 = .000301 So AC is slightly better on tiny, which means butterfly will be in terms of single hero tankiness a somewhat better on lycan (but still awful in comparison because of all his minions).
I counted the 4+armor for butterfly before, but I didn't multiply it with the evasion, and that does make a big difference. But it still works out.
I'm in the unfortunate position of rapidly gaining MMR which makes my experimentation somewhat harder. It's difficult to know what works and what does not when the stuff that you remember working may have been inferior to the stuff you're doing now which is working less well but against better opponents.
I remember hulksmashing bkb basher AC lycan doing considerably better than necro bots lycan who can't lock down people in a team fight with his bashes.
One thing to consider that can occasionally be beneficial is to check rune at 2 minutes after you've cleared your medium camp (by check I mean look at it not go there). Your at the medium camp (if radiant you are very close to the rune, if dire probably not the medium camp closest but if it's a hard medium it might be beneficial to go to the lower one).
Usually at least 1 rune spot is warded. There is a 10 % chance of a regen rune spawning which totally changes your gameplan, and a 20 % chance that it spawns a DD or an Illusion rune. Depending on your HP these might let you clear an entire medium camp before you suicide, I'm not sure it's worth it to get them. The other runes are useless.
If you can only see the other runespot it's a 20 % of a regen, and a 40 % of something else beneficial so it's kind of a gamble. Also consider that it could be dangerous if you go alone but you could run a wolf ahead of you.
Also I've done the necro1 --> boots of travel. I rarely use the TP before I have a necro 3 either way and when I do it's mostly to go near a tower anyway and you have enough space for a TP which you still want. Lanes are still mostly intact at this point and towers are usually up. Now I go necro 3 with brown boots before I get BoT's.
On January 01 2014 02:05 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: One thing to consider that can occasionally be beneficial is to check rune at 2 minutes after you've cleared your medium camp (by check I mean look at it not go there). Your at the medium camp (if radiant you are very close to the rune, if dire probably not the medium camp closest but if it's a hard medium it might be beneficial to go to the lower one).
Usually at least 1 rune spot is warded. There is a 10 % chance of a regen rune spawning which totally changes your gameplan, and a 20 % chance that it spawns a DD or an Illusion rune. Depending on your HP these might let you clear an entire medium camp before you suicide, I'm not sure it's worth it to get them. The other runes are useless.
If you can only see the other runespot it's a 20 % of a regen, and a 40 % of something else beneficial so it's kind of a gamble. Also consider that it could be dangerous if you go alone but you could run a wolf ahead of you.
Also I've done the necro1 --> boots of travel. I rarely use the TP before I have a necro 3 either way and when I do it's mostly to go near a tower anyway and you have enough space for a TP which you still want. Lanes are still mostly intact at this point and towers are usually up. Now I go necro 3 with brown boots before I get BoT's.
Rune is a good tip, I take if regen or illusion, deny otherwise. I think necro3 first may be better than bots.
I don't think I've ever seen the enemy team be so hell-bent on countering me. I show up at a tower, they 4 man tp out of mid, right in front of my team, sacrificing a tower in the process, just so I can't have one. Were it not for the necro3 my team would be better pusher than me simply because of the global berserker's call.
Still, I had tried the build last night, but the brown boots>necro>BoTs was magic at work. With everything they threw at me I still outfarmed the alchemist. +1 good sir.
Been following this guide for a few pubstomps. Hilariously effective when it works, but holy crap does a single observer ward screw up the jungle for lycan since he really needs that small camp until vlads is up and kicking.
On January 01 2014 07:40 RoyGBiv_13 wrote: Been following this guide for a few pubstomps. Hilariously effective when it works, but holy crap does a single observer ward screw up the jungle for lycan since he really needs that small camp until vlads is up and kicking.
Nah, he doesn't. With strong micro you can go medium, medium, sage, suicide. Or even medium hard if it's satyrs or trolls. You just need practice. The small isn't essential although when you do get it it helps, especially when it's centaurs and bears everywhere.
KwarK have you considered pulling the small camp the second time you kill it (pull at 2:12) instead of summoning new wolves?
It's very easy to kill the camp with a single pull and get all the last hits and it means you get to summon completely fresh wolves for the medium camp which you can then use to kill the respawned small camp again.
This leaves you at lvl 3 with one last summon of lvl 2 wolves, which you can really do work with. Should net you a ring of health (If I can get a full additional item after brown boots I prefer RoH because you get your sages mask before your mana pool runs out either way) before you suacide. Drawback is 12 seconds of wait time and the fact that your respawn takes a bit longer.
Also don't forget you have a quelling blade in time for a possible pull through if your radiant, if you get the right creeps that don't die instantly and require babysitting for lasthitting it's pretty easy.
Edit: Why do mudgolems seem to be total dicks when it comes to retargeting?
On January 01 2014 16:02 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: KwarK have you considered pulling the small camp the second time you kill it (pull at 2:12) instead of summoning new wolves?
Isn't the second time you kill it just after the respawn at 1 minute ? And pulling messes up the lane control unless you double pull, the support already hates you for taking the easy camp, why be more of a dick ?
On January 01 2014 11:22 kuruptt wrote: Why not just play furion if you want to play by yourself? hero is 100X better then this hero in almost every way.
I think the summons, relative tankiness and the maneuverability of lycan mean that it's much easier to split push than NP who gets quite outdone by sentries if he's relying on shadow blade.
On January 01 2014 11:22 kuruptt wrote: Why not just play furion if you want to play by yourself? hero is 100X better then this hero in almost every way.
i can't kill the small camp before 1:00 respawn. focus fire and move dogs back when they get low doesn't do the trick. give me a video show me how you do it.
On January 02 2014 01:44 rei wrote: i can't kill the small camp before 1:00 respawn. focus fire and move dogs back when they get low doesn't do the trick. give me a video show me how you do it.
On January 02 2014 01:44 rei wrote: i can't kill the small camp before 1:00 respawn. focus fire and move dogs back when they get low doesn't do the trick. give me a video show me how you do it.
You have a basilius?
ya strictly following your builds. It's very good, i feel the power of big bad wolf every game i play even when my team was down 1-13 at one point i bought them back from the certain defeat. check replay http://dotabuff.com/matches/450078753
On January 02 2014 01:44 rei wrote: i can't kill the small camp before 1:00 respawn. focus fire and move dogs back when they get low doesn't do the trick. give me a video show me how you do it.
Don't move the dogs to redirect aggro. A-click Lycan to redirect aggro the same way you de-aggro creeps in lane.
On January 02 2014 01:44 rei wrote: i can't kill the small camp before 1:00 respawn. focus fire and move dogs back when they get low doesn't do the trick. give me a video show me how you do it.
Don't move the dogs to redirect aggro. A-click Lycan to redirect aggro the same way you de-aggro creeps in lane.
Moving the dogs wastes time and loses damage.
oh shit, didn't realize i can do that, thanks! ganna be A clicking the lycan with dogs to max the dps
So I've spent some of the day exploring how this guide changes if you pull.
There are 3 scenarios (There could be 4 I have not done this with dire pulling the hard camp).
A) The "classic". The benefits are that this is the fastest method. I find it's much easier to screw up, particularly if you get a hard second camp (god damn ogre maulers) or consecutive hard camps. Typically I finished respawning around 3.00 with boots and 1 extra gg branch which was how I measured success.
B) The single pull. You pull at approx 1.12. The benefits is that the single pull is a lot more fool proof than the classic version. It's much easier to simply last hit the creeps as they die to your wave, you don't have any wolves to micro and you have fresh wolves and almost full hp when you go to the medium camp and if they happen to die you soon have your second resummon. The negative aspect is that it takes quite a bit longer, you respawn at around 3.30-3.40. It will also fuck lane equilibrium. I finished with an average of boots and 4 gg branches with extremly poor michael skillz.
C) The double pull (radiant). You pull at approx 1.12 and then cut a tree to pull the medium camp and pull that as the final creep is about to die. The benefits are similar that you don't need to summon wolves for the small camp. If it's an easy medium camp you don't have to summon wolves here either (which us huge since it gives you 2 lvl 2 wolf summons) but even if you have to summon 1 set of wolves you come out of it with almost full HP, fresh wolves and another resummon. This allows you to fairly easily kill a easier large stack (satyrs, wildkin) or at the very least another medium camp and an easy camp. The negative aspects are that you will on average lose 1 small creep gold bounty because you can't get to it in time while doing the pull. I didn't do this many times but I finished with average boots and 6 gg branches (this is a RoH or your sages mask. Respawned at about 3.45 so it's not that much slower than the single pull either.
Edit: I should also say that this guide is perfectly optimized so it's not particularly game changing if you can get that extra item or not. While playing it out to rosh even good runs only gives you a minute of better time or so.
I'm still not convinced this is the ideal jungle. I don't doubt it's the fastest possible vlads+boots+medallion, but the cost is pretty high in terms of the burden you place on your safelane. You prevent your support from pulling for the crucial first few levels, and you also use a ton of courier time ferrying small items.
Particularly on dire, starting with the mediums just seems safer and less dickish. It is slower - you often need to spend about 150-250g on regen that this build doesn't - but to me it's worth it.
Really, the delay should translate into less than 30 seconds on your rosh, and I'd take that gladly if it meant the enemy offlaner could be zoned and underlevelled, and your mid/offlane did better because they got their items delivered on time.
The ideal all around jungle strategy: 1) medium camp 2) check if they warded, if not. Pull small and make sure you chain it. 3) check rune, ask if mid wants it or not otherwise take it. 4) several more mediums until you are lvl 5. Push mid.
On January 02 2014 11:32 winterymint wrote: The ideal all around jungle strategy: 1) medium camp 2) check if they warded, if not. Pull small and make sure you chain it. 3) check rune, ask if mid wants it or not otherwise take it. 4) several more mediums until you are lvl 5. Push mid.
Push mid on low hp with low hp wolves and no ability to resummon them, or indeed survive vs something like a Puck, QoP, SF, Storm, Kunkka, Pudge or pretty much any other common mid hero?
As something to add, i play my lycan a bit differently and if you have a quelling or tango on radiant side, you can do the triple pull at 30 second to get a fast 3 and then resume jungling.
Unless a kill gives you a timing that you won't get otherwise, it's simply not an effective use of time to try and force a tower until you have Vlad's. The difference in pushing speed between having just Basi vs. having a completed Vlad's is just too big, especially when teammates are involved.
It's quite possible that you'd actually get the tower faster by farming till Vlad's because unless the enemy off-laner died with a huge wave shoving into his tower, it will take several attempts to actually take the tower without Vlad's, and committing Wolves to doing so kills your farming tempo. Vlad's only needs a double wave with a siege creep, and you'll either take the tower or force multiple TPs + Glyph, AND Vlad's can much more easily rotate back into farming even if you took damage or are too low mana to resummon Wolves.
Even when you want to take a tower, the safe lane tower is almost always going to be the one to take, not mid. Unless the enemy mid laner utterly abandons the lane, or your mid laner is a pusher who could take the tower solo anyway, the mid lane tower is actually harder for you to push down. The lane is too short to allow the necessary creep buildup to really force down the tower--while the safe lane can single pull to stack up waves when you want to push making it much easier to get the necessary double wave to take the tower.
On January 02 2014 11:32 winterymint wrote: The ideal all around jungle strategy: 1) medium camp 2) check if they warded, if not. Pull small and make sure you chain it. 3) check rune, ask if mid wants it or not otherwise take it. 4) several more mediums until you are lvl 5. Push mid.
Push mid on low hp with low hp wolves and no ability to resummon them, or indeed survive vs something like a Puck, QoP, SF, Storm, Kunkka, Pudge or pretty much any other common mid hero?
Good plan sir.
look at minimap, use map awareness, if you see key gankable heroes missing, continue jungle. Push mid when you see four on map. Sorry I should have mentioned that as well.
You buy the QB after you have the gold. Having Basi's armor is important for getting through the pre-suicide portion of the jungle--the alternative would be to start regen, which is kind of awkward when you plan on suiciding anyway.
On January 03 2014 02:51 Skyro wrote: I always thought starting with a quelling blade allowed for faster jungling. Is getting a Ring of Bas first really faster?
It's pretty interchangeable but in my experience, yes. You have the quelling in courier to you by about 45 seconds in anyway but the basilius damage bonus and being able to micro your wolves less/use them to tank more works out better than the extra quelling blade damage.
I'm having trouble with the first easy camp tbh. If I summon the wolves at 0.00 I will arrive at the camp way after the creeps spawned, so I started summoning at -0.03.Am I missing something here? Also I wonder what position is closest to the camp but does not actually block them from spawning? I try going through the small gap from the lane close to the t2 but it feels like I waste a couple seconds when I'm not coming in from the side. Unfortunately that way I block the creeps from spawning more often than not.
I tried the clicking wolf on lycan trick to lose agro on my wolf, it works sometimes and not in other times. Is there a reason why it wouldn't work? do i have to keep spaming it till it works?
On January 03 2014 04:40 rei wrote: I tried the clicking wolf on lycan trick to lose agro on my wolf, it works sometimes and not in other times. Is there a reason why it wouldn't work? do i have to keep spaming it till it works?
This.
Also, how worth is it to go BoTs instead of treads? I get the fact that getting it right after roshan means you can do sick split pushing, but after a while I sort of miss the attack speed. Can't always get AC either, since someone else might be getting it before me
On January 03 2014 04:40 rei wrote: I tried the clicking wolf on lycan trick to lose agro on my wolf, it works sometimes and not in other times. Is there a reason why it wouldn't work? do i have to keep spaming it till it works?
Yes, there is a timing element to it. You need to do it between the enemy attack animations. I try to do it directly following one. If you do it during an attack animation then it doesn't switch off of you.
Golems are dicks, they sometimes switch back anyway.
On January 03 2014 05:49 KwarK wrote: Golems are dicks, they sometimes switch back anyway.
Be thankful it's not like DotA 1 where different creeps had weird AI, like the Gnolls always tagging every enemy in range once to refresh poison, Wildkins focus-targeting your hero regardless of other units, or Wolves focus-targeting a low HP unit even if you try to de-aggro.
I want to chime in on this topic: I'm doing the same suicide at lvl 3, but I start 1 clarity stout qb and get RoR and mask before I die. I actually dont get medallion and just go treads after vlads, and I find that I can hit a 7 min vlads and 10 min treads with smoke and a additional clarity pretty consistently. The advantage of this method is that I rarely get below 50 % hp after the suicide and also during roshing, and I only use the courier 3 times: RoP, finished vlads, treads + smoke. I also usually dont run out of mana before my rosh attempt.
I get the idea behind BoT necro 3, but I acually havent experienced that many situations where it is useful. You either hope that a) your enemies are bad and dont react to your split push or b) your team is good enough that they can capitalize on a potential 4v4 or 4v3 when people tp back to defend. Treads give you a lot of stats for just 1k gold.
Eh my interpretation of neutral creep aggro when you a - click yourself is that it is just like tower/rosh aggro and they retarget their closest enemy. I could be wrong...
On January 03 2014 07:37 Firebolt145 wrote: What I'm saying is distance is what dictates its new target.
This is only true if all targets are attacking the tower, otherwise it prioritizes targets attacking it over targets that aren't.
If the Wolf you a-clicked onto yourself is already beginning an attack on the neutral again when it re-selects aggro, it will be a valid target again.
Regarding tower, yes I'm aware of that and just forgot to mention it.
Regarding wolf, yes it is a valid target again, but it has already dropped aggro and the neutral will simply retarget whatever the closest enemy unit is that is attacking it, which is ideally the unit you're trying to gain aggro with.
On January 03 2014 07:27 KwarK wrote: How do you rosh without the medallion?
Rosh without Medallion is doable, it's just really slow and therefore really dangerous.
I usually do it at lvl 9 and can kill rosh within 45 sec. Actually, this is not my main point, I really think getting stout makes jungling more stable and safer and is not slower than RoB first.
You get the RoB for the third wolf summon. You need that mana regen early to get the third set (1st in fountain, second at 1:02, third when using wolves to tank in the medium at like 1:40). Lycan is really mana dependent.
For the record, even if there are finer points of the guide that are being debated, it's quite well written and useful for medium levels pubs like me!
Just played 5 games trying this out, and it worked really well for me! Even with minor harassment I was still able to be a powerhouse each game, and the last game I totally carried a feeder-team to victory.
vlads -> medallion -> rosh -> next item or two -> pushing towers/rax/eating people works well.
On January 03 2014 07:27 KwarK wrote: How do you rosh without the medallion?
Rosh without Medallion is doable, it's just really slow and therefore really dangerous.
I usually do it at lvl 9 and can kill rosh within 45 sec. Actually, this is not my main point, I really think getting stout makes jungling more stable and safer and is not slower than RoB first.
45 seconds is a long time. I wouldn't consider that anything to write home about, especially since Vlad's+Medallion does it in under 30s without using Howl or Ulti (you can't reasonably use Howl because a random Howl with no fights/pushes is a dead giveaway, and using Ult makes it far riskier because you have no outs if you get found out).
On January 03 2014 07:27 KwarK wrote: How do you rosh without the medallion?
Rosh without Medallion is doable, it's just really slow and therefore really dangerous.
I usually do it at lvl 9 and can kill rosh within 45 sec. Actually, this is not my main point, I really think getting stout makes jungling more stable and safer and is not slower than RoB first.
45 seconds is a long time. I wouldn't consider that anything to write home about, especially since Vlad's+Medallion does it in under 30s without using Howl or Ulti (you can't reasonably use Howl because a random Howl with no fights/pushes is a dead giveaway, and using Ult makes it far riskier because you have no outs if you get found out).
Not even that, if they ward your jungle and they don't see you in it, the timing isn't that hard to figure out. It's not like support these days are required to focus 100% on the lane, doesn't take much to peak you and check your item progression before that.
On January 03 2014 07:27 KwarK wrote: How do you rosh without the medallion?
Rosh without Medallion is doable, it's just really slow and therefore really dangerous.
I usually do it at lvl 9 and can kill rosh within 45 sec. Actually, this is not my main point, I really think getting stout makes jungling more stable and safer and is not slower than RoB first.
45 seconds is a long time. I wouldn't consider that anything to write home about, especially since Vlad's+Medallion does it in under 30s without using Howl or Ulti (you can't reasonably use Howl because a random Howl with no fights/pushes is a dead giveaway, and using Ult makes it far riskier because you have no outs if you get found out).
First off thanks to the OP for starting such a bitchin lycan jungle discussion, I've always wanted to learn to jungle properly with him but it's hard to find discussion as useful as this one has been.
I was just watching replays from OP's dotabuff, it takes ~40 seconds to kill rosh with vlads, brown boots, and medallion (and he used howl). An extra 5 seconds doesn't seem like a huge deal. If medallion only make rosh ~5 seconds faster I can see it being worth skipping for treads, but that kind of messes with the brown boots - necro - BoT build.
At least in the replays i just watched, even without being harassed in jungle, your hp is really low almost the entire time until you finish vlads. Seems kinda risky to me. At my lowly MMR most people don't harass me in the jungle too much so I can see this build stomping, but a set of tangos (after suicide ofc) would probably go a long way to making this build a lot safer from what i've seen in replays so far.
Edit: good god, I'm terrible at jungling lycan. I fuck up the micro every time lol. This is going to take some practice...
Roshan has 3 armor and Medallion reduces him to -3. Having Medallion is under all circumstances going to mean you finish Rosh 30% quicker, which is going to be a little less than 15 seconds saved on a 45 second Rosh with just Vlad's.
If you're seeing Kwark finish in longer than that, then either he's attempting Rosh at lower level than Chaosquo, didn't top off on mana to have a Wolf resummon, or got super unlucky with bashes. In all circumstances Medallion means you solo Rosh 30% quicker, there's absolutely no way for this to not be the case.
On January 03 2014 13:24 TheYango wrote: Roshan has 3 armor and Medallion reduces him to -3. Having Medallion is under all circumstances going to mean you finish Rosh 30% quicker, which is going to be a little less than 15 seconds saved on a 45 second Rosh with just Vlad's.
If you're seeing Kwark finish in longer than that, then either he's attempting Rosh at lower level than Chaosquo, didn't top off on mana to have a Wolf resummon, or got super unlucky with bashes. In all circumstances Medallion means you solo Rosh 30% quicker, there's absolutely no way for this to not be the case.
There are many ways for that not to be the case, if he has treads instead of medallion for example, the gap is halved
On January 03 2014 08:11 KwarK wrote: You get the RoB for the third wolf summon. You need that mana regen early to get the third set (1st in fountain, second at 1:02, third when using wolves to tank in the medium at like 1:40). Lycan is really mana dependent.
Thats why I get 1 clarity at the start to get the mana for this third summon, and I dont need any clarities afterwards until my rosh attempt.
On January 03 2014 13:36 TheYango wrote: I meant having Medallion all other things being equal obviously. If it was Treads Vlad's vs. Vlad's Medallion, sure.
EDIT: It seems I misinterpreted Chaosquo's original statement, for some reason I thought he was doing Rosh before he finished his Treads. My mistake.
Yeah, Kwark gets brown boots, so he spends 1k on medallion on I spent 1k on boots upgrade. I just really didnt have a good experience with Necro 3 BoT, as your fighting power is quite weak and I couldnt avoid all fights. Maybe Medallion avoids that problem ..
On January 03 2014 08:11 KwarK wrote: You get the RoB for the third wolf summon. You need that mana regen early to get the third set (1st in fountain, second at 1:02, third when using wolves to tank in the medium at like 1:40). Lycan is really mana dependent.
Thats why I get 1 clarity at the start to get the mana for this third summon, and I dont need any clarities afterwards until my rosh attempt.
On January 03 2014 13:36 TheYango wrote: I meant having Medallion all other things being equal obviously. If it was Treads Vlad's vs. Vlad's Medallion, sure.
EDIT: It seems I misinterpreted Chaosquo's original statement, for some reason I thought he was doing Rosh before he finished his Treads. My mistake.
Yeah, Kwark gets brown boots, so he spends 1k on medallion on I spent 1k on boots upgrade. I just really didnt have a good experience with Necro 3 BoT, as your fighting power is quite weak and I couldnt avoid all fights. Maybe Medallion avoids that problem ..
Fight power quite weak? Well yeah Medallion helps a ton, so that could be the issue. And I was the one suggesting the brown boots over power treads.
after some initial successes about 10 or so games, I have drop like 5 in a row doing this. Every game my team gets rape before I can even kill roshan/first tower. leaving the team 4vs5 is not working out and I can't deal with the snowball effect when the score is like 15-0 in the other team's favor. This doesn't happen just once, but all 5 games in a row leads me to rethink the validity of this style.
Im not sure that its possible to make lycan in to a significant early game force at all. he has no nukes and no stun (or any disable at all unless you count body blocking with wolves), so farming is pretty much the only way to go with him lol.
when you pick lycan your team just kind of has to play around the fact that they will be playing with four people until lycan hits his stride.
I think the problem your running into isnt the "style" but rather the nature of the hero.
On January 03 2014 08:11 KwarK wrote: You get the RoB for the third wolf summon. You need that mana regen early to get the third set (1st in fountain, second at 1:02, third when using wolves to tank in the medium at like 1:40). Lycan is really mana dependent.
Thats why I get 1 clarity at the start to get the mana for this third summon, and I dont need any clarities afterwards until my rosh attempt.
On January 03 2014 13:36 TheYango wrote: I meant having Medallion all other things being equal obviously. If it was Treads Vlad's vs. Vlad's Medallion, sure.
EDIT: It seems I misinterpreted Chaosquo's original statement, for some reason I thought he was doing Rosh before he finished his Treads. My mistake.
Yeah, Kwark gets brown boots, so he spends 1k on medallion on I spent 1k on boots upgrade. I just really didnt have a good experience with Necro 3 BoT, as your fighting power is quite weak and I couldnt avoid all fights. Maybe Medallion avoids that problem ..
Can you please link your dotabuff so I can see how jungling with QB/stout/clarity start works out? I have a feeling it will be easier to learn with that method, I'm just horrible with micro lol learning to jungle lycan is kicking my ass.
Ok I went and spent hours upon hours practicing against bots and while in a perfect situation (or with perfect micro) the basi method is superior the quelling/ring/tango/2clarity is so much easier to execute. And since playing some ranked solo q it seems like no matter what every game my jungle is interfered with and I have to play careful anyhow I am just going with that. Am 5-1 but I am exclusively transitioning into the splitpush necro3 bot style after jungle phase. ~8 min brown boots/vlads is the best I can manage even against bot but it seems to be good enough at <4k mmr. I should probably decide within each game whether to go carry or split push route, but I have just been practicing the one. For one thing, I never EVER seem to be on a team short of carries, and 2 people are awful at defending split push.
The best thing about these Lycan shenanigans as mentioned is that for solo q you pretty much just get to do your own thing, and once you start actually killing towers your team seems to be cool about it and let you be without too much rage. Particpating in fights when necessary of course. Most importantly it is possible to have fun in games where you lose, VERY IMPORTANT IN DOTA. lol
Thanks for great guide and great discussion that prompted me to try a lot of stuff out by myself and learn and get better at dota!
Edit: Also small camp gets blocked a LOT so it is another advantage of using a method where you plan on doing medium
Can you please link your dotabuff so I can see how jungling with QB/stout/clarity start works out? I have a feeling it will be easier to learn with that method, I'm just horrible with micro lol learning to jungle lycan is kicking my ass.
In the second link you can also see why I stopped doing BoTs Necro 3
You still have to make sure you tank the right things with the right target, such as all piercing damage with your main hero.
On January 05 2014 16:13 Atreides wrote: Ok I went and spent hours upon hours practicing against bots and while in a perfect situation (or with perfect micro) the basi method is superior the quelling/ring/tango/2clarity is so much easier to execute. And since playing some ranked solo q it seems like no matter what every game my jungle is interfered with and I have to play careful anyhow I am just going with that. Am 5-1 but I am exclusively transitioning into the splitpush necro3 bot style after jungle phase. ~8 min brown boots/vlads is the best I can manage even against bot but it seems to be good enough at <4k mmr. I should probably decide within each game whether to go carry or split push route, but I have just been practicing the one. For one thing, I never EVER seem to be on a team short of carries, and 2 people are awful at defending split push.
The best thing about these Lycan shenanigans as mentioned is that for solo q you pretty much just get to do your own thing, and once you start actually killing towers your team seems to be cool about it and let you be without too much rage. Particpating in fights when necessary of course. Most importantly it is possible to have fun in games where you lose, VERY IMPORTANT IN DOTA. lol
Thanks for great guide and great discussion that prompted me to try a lot of stuff out by myself and learn and get better at dota!
Edit: Also small camp gets blocked a LOT so it is another advantage of using a method where you plan on doing medium
quelling/ring/tango/2clarity is a terrible build imo, you could try qb/stout/clarity also with suicide at 3.
I love this build, just won my very first DOTA (2) game ever following this lol (after 2 losses) obviously it doesn't mean anything but since I don't plan to get into dota really it's still nice to to play with my friend once in a while and have at least some kind of Idea wtf to do :D
On January 06 2014 04:42 DKN wrote: One of the better discussions I have read on here.
Here is a question for everyone, and would love Kwarks opinion.
How would you start your items and build of you had the luxary of a KOTL supplys you mana in the safe lane.
We have tried a few different ways, quelling and 2 salves. Basis and tangle, then rush lifesteal.
Sometimes he will start at medium camp and I will stack ez, then blast it once and let him clear.
Having free mana really changes the dynamic quite a bit. Thoughts?
Easy, skip sages for a ring. Same with a CM who gets passive. You should be able to never leave jungle after first suicide. ring before morbid just gives you more hp, boots first gives you more farm per second and you still need the same items.
I found if you get perfect timing, you can kill the easy camp with no items and still get the respawn. Meaning you can get sobi mask as your first item after clearing the easy camp a second time.
Vlads is still roughly same timing in the end, but you're safer against harass because you're never low on hp.
Also I've being working on a MoM/Armlet build using the sobi rush vs bots and seems like it would be pretty good for roaming wolf shenanigans (also unfair bots harass jungle more than pub so its good practice), once I head to a lan cafe I'm gonna try it out (no internet at home :<).
Having a timing where you rush MoM with ult and then ganking mid or easy lane might be powerful, or terrible I don't know. I guess just check the lanes first to make sure they don't have dumb amounts of burst.
It obviously has less overall pushing power, although you can still burst down towers pretty hard, and I like being online early and being able to help out teammates. Maybe its retarded, but its more fun.
Can you please link your dotabuff so I can see how jungling with QB/stout/clarity start works out? I have a feeling it will be easier to learn with that method, I'm just horrible with micro lol learning to jungle lycan is kicking my ass.
In the second link you can also see why I stopped doing BoTs Necro 3
You still have to make sure you tank the right things with the right target, such as all piercing damage with your main hero.
Thanks for linking those . I definitely think the qb/stout/clarity is easier to jungle, I'm gonna stick with that until I get better at keeping my wolves alive.
I'm still not sure if I like getting medallion or not. I tend to suck at remembering to use it vs heroes, but every time I skip it, I miss the mana regen. If you skip the stout shield, the armor is nice for healing faster vs creeps. Definitely helps with roshan too, ~ten seconds faster than treads from what I've seen in my limited testing.
If any English speaking players on US East would like to duo Que with me, please send me a message. Keeper is one of my favorite hero's (going back to when his ult was wisp). I usually play between 8 - 12pm throughout the week.
Adding recall to the toolbox of a split pushing Lycan is very powerfull.
Easy, skip sages for a ring. Same with a CM who gets passive. You should be able to never leave jungle after first suicide. ring before morbid just gives you more hp, boots first gives you more farm per second and you still need the same items.
You think boots first helps a lot with farm? I've been doing the qb/stout/clarity start (because I'm bad and it's easier than starting basi lol) and just straight rushing vlads with no boots. I'll try getting boots earlier and see if it helps.
I definitely notice mana problems without the extra 50% from medallion. I've been leaving my treads on int and that helps a bit but it's still not enough to spam as much as I'd like.
I tried this lycanguide with eventually some shortcuts, but its really really potent. I just won a game singlehandedly 24-64 kills for them and doom was 16-1-20 or something, but i backdoored all all tier 1, tier 2 and rax, geegee and ragequit! Its funny u can win games with lycan that seem unwinable.
I do have some problems on level 1, so for now i just stay inlane+smallcamp till lvl3. Im only 2500mmr so thats gotta something to do with it. Still the more u practise microing the dogs the easier it gets. U can really win games singlehandedly with this
On January 06 2014 06:02 KwarK wrote: Medallion is necessary for mana reasons alone. You can't howl the way you should when you have it at 4 without it.
I can agree with this on my mmr level. I tried rosh with and without. Without mediallon u dont have enough mana for jungling efficiently and the roshattempt with boots but without mediallon didnt work out for me.
Easy, skip sages for a ring. Same with a CM who gets passive. You should be able to never leave jungle after first suicide. ring before morbid just gives you more hp, boots first gives you more farm per second and you still need the same items.
You think boots first helps a lot with farm? I've been doing the qb/stout/clarity start (because I'm bad and it's easier than starting basi lol) and just straight rushing vlads with no boots. I'll try getting boots earlier and see if it helps.
I definitely notice mana problems without the extra 50% from medallion. I've been leaving my treads on int and that helps a bit but it's still not enough to spam as much as I'd like.
Significant reduction in time spent between camps and walking from fountain in instances in which you should need to (someone comes into the jungle, bh goes missing etc). Boots matter.
The good thing with this guide is that if you random lycan it's a very potent pocketstrat to have.
I bought QB with the basi and cleared enough to get an extra stout shield and a set of tangoes. In hindsight more consumables would have been better than the shield but oh well. Why didn't I go even more greedy? Because it gives you perhaps 60 seconds better rosh times which is insignificant and the ability to be near 100 % hp in jungle is a lot more important because competent opponents will try to gank you.
Great guide to jungling lycan. A good pocket strat to keep in the case the team still wants a jungler core, without the usual junglers Enchantress, Chen, Enigma. It's still hard to pull off against better teams that will try to mess up your timings.
Lycan lane is great with the passive and quelling blade. You do really great damage at the early lvls which makes the opponents think twice about engaging, with some luck and a lot of skill get that 1st blood! With 3/0/2 lvls and basi + boots you can already start jungling and give lane experience to your team mates, although I would highly recommend getting that morbid mask asap to tank the creeps while crit wolves help out. Take the ulti at lvl 6 or 7 , because this is the lvl where everyone is itching for a fight. If a fight breaks out, the max movement speed can help you get there faster, chase down and retreat. Personally i don't see howl as important until mid-game, so i'll skill 4/0/4/1, unless its some kind of push strat.
After vlads, jungling is too easy with lycan and imho prolly one of the best heros to do so. So its really important to start using your skills to take towers or kills, and then retreat into the jungle to heal up and get further ahead.
the ideal item build would be (in order) quelling blade, vlads, boots, medallion... then BKB or Necrobook depending on your team strat. You still might need a BKB later even if you did get Necrobook. So i almost always prefer the straight up bkb into damage. Basher into abyssal is probably your best choice here. That leaves that one important slot for Aegis (you'll sell your Quelling blade eventually i hope). Can't think of other items that would really make an impact. Maybe AC or another damage but at this stage, the game is already won or lost. A gem pick-up would be really good on Lycan as those pesky invis heros can't outrun a big bad fking wolf.
On January 06 2014 17:25 winterymint wrote: Why bkb. The whole purpose of lycan is using your familiars to deal the damage while you bait them to chase after you.
Because typically you want to split push a lot with Lycan and without a BKB you don't have the escape capability for split push. Your ridiculous mobility in wolf form means nothing if they can just chain-stun.
Anyway, only just seen this discussion thing now and I like it. Lycan is one of those heroes I'm never usually that comfortable with. I'll play literally anything but I never really got a decent hold on lycan's jungling so I tended to be really slow. Going to have a play around with this when I get my computer fixed I think.
I have a question : Most of the time when i get the aegis/medaillon/vlads/PT my team is allready behind in kills. Which next item and strat gets them back in the game the fastest? It feels like i'm best off staying solo and try to get some towergold for them. So tier 1 and 2, atleast 2 lanes most of the time 1 set of rax too. Or should i try to teamfight, which i feel lycan isnt at his best anyway and after the fight push them towers? im in doubt, if i go solo i am garantueed towers (approx AC+basher) and them towergold, if i teamfight and go for a bkb, chances are likely that i could die or we loose anyway.
I typically go for towers. Make sure you hold a TP, if the enemy dive too hard you can appear and turn a teamfight and if they respond to you going for towers you can TP to the opposite lane while creating space for your team to farm up. But the most important thing in my experience is just not to die, to keep that farming going, always pushing lanes, getting exp and gold and regening in the jungle. Teamfighting risks slowing that process.
Tried the build in a pub game, MMR ~4000, and it worked OK. We were behind in kills the whole time and we couldn't teamfight at all but I was able to split push, trading raxes at one point, and then when we managed to make some pick-offs I was able to Travels into their base and solo their Ancient for the win. However the game brought up two problems:
1) This build gets screwed hard if they ward the small camp. My small camp was warded and it delayed my rosh by nearly 3 minutes (I also had to deal with the enemy Slardar zooming around the jungle trying to annoy me). I think it would be better to do a more conservative build that is better capable of starting on the medium camp. Haven't tested any suggested in this thread yet, though.
2) Was it worth it? The enemy team didn't seem all that great and yet we almost lost. If I had just picked, say, Lifestealer, would we have won the game outright without down-to-the-wire split pushing shenanigans?
So what you're saying is that you can get fewer items in less time. Well done but that is, in itself, ineffective because I have a build that will let me get boots in 2 minutes. That's 4 minutes quicker than you get vlads.
I like how the video cuts off when he's half-done with Rosh so he doesn't show how long that Rosh takes.
A no-ult no-boots no-Medallion Rosh is so absurdly risky as to be completely unreliable in a game with decent opponents. Vlad's before Boots can be situationally justifiable, but attempting a Rosh without ult/boots/Medallion is basically just gambling.
video cuts off because program can only record up to 10 minutes, i had mana for new wolves so roshan was killed in 8-8:10.
Yes, my 8 min rosh is unreliable but his 12 min rosh is fucking unexpected, i can get medallion in minute and a half and kill roshan then but this is better to start making impact earlier. Any builds that don't include stout do not work, they don't. You cannot kill any hard camp and you can only kill half of medium camps. It doesn't matter if you start with qb or without it, stout cannot be skipped. I got vlads stout and quelling in 6 mins on radiant side and can probably get sub 6 min on dire, im the king of effectiveness with playing lycan.
Regardless of how well you play or think you play Lycan, stomping into a thread and declaring that everything mentioned is ineffective and that you're the king of lycan effectiveness is massively douchey. You'll probably get further trying to actually contribute, instead of diving into the thread and trying to conquer it.
On January 09 2014 09:30 Staboteur wrote: Regardless of how well you play or think you play Lycan, stomping into a thread and declaring that everything mentioned is ineffective and that you're the king of lycan effectiveness is massively douchey. You'll probably get further trying to actually contribute, instead of diving into the thread and trying to conquer it.
i post a video where you can clearly see whats happening with 100% proof and 2 next replies are it's risky, it's shit and that op is getting some kind of boots in 2 mins, or something. didnt really understand what he said
you see before ranked introduced i'd very often be on first page http://dotabuff.com/matches/400920928 but now i have to get there with these points i guess...
His point, I think, is that you'd have to pick a convergence and compare that, and "Killed rosh at x time" or "got first item at x time" are not points of convergence, because you skip boots and medallion in order to blind rush the rosh, which is just... a thing you do as part of a build, and isn't clearly better than a 12 minute rosh with more items.
You'd have to look at "Where are we, on average, at 15 minutes" or some other comparable thing to actually get any sort of insight into the merits of either build. And all you really add are that stout shields are good because then you can take large camps, and that you -can- vlads / stout / qb rush and do rosh really early... neither of which are earthshattering revelations.
earlier you get to kill rosh=better why would you need boots? smoke and go into rosh pit, i didnt do it because it's practice vs bots but it's pretty obvious you smoke in serious games
nobody expects/counters a 8 min roshan. People don't even belive it's possible with lycan anymore, 12 min however, there will be constant scouts because it's obvious lycan can do it at this point
On January 09 2014 09:58 Mlcrosoft1 wrote: 12 min however, there will be constant scouts because it's obvious lycan can do it at this point
Not true in my experience at my level.
The issue is yours is without any context whereas my build is what I've come up with from actually playing vs opponents. Things like skipping medallion may be fine with no opponents but your lack of mana is going to get you killed by a gank when you can't ulti away etc and unless you build medallion immediately afterwards you'll have no mana to do shit all game, you need that mana regen medallion gives you as a Lycan. Jungling with no boots is insanely risky generally and in practice you'll often have to back off or go fountain when people come to gank you which boots are great for. Go play some games and test yours vs mine, if you still think yours is better after that then come back.
1) You go to the hardcamp first, you get trolls, which are basically the best camp for lycan as long as you dont let skeletons spawn. What happens if this is a different camp? Do you just burn more tango's? What if its something like the 2 bears, do you skip it and go to medium? What happens if the medium is centaurs. Seems like that would delay a bunch.
2) Going to the hardcamp first keeps you away from lane which I like.
3) You never use the courier until vlads. Stops you from being slowed down because an item isn't coming or hogging the courier for yourself.
4) Are you slowed by roamers? Anytime you are running without the early sage's mask if you have to stop farming and lose wolves, you are lacking mana regen to summon a 2nd set. How do you address this, and how does it affect the vlads/rosh timing.
5) You went no ult and no boots, this makes you a sitting duck for ganks.
6)Stylistically I like stout just because I tank with lycan so much. I also like faster rosh timings, because the only games I tend to lose are ones where I wasn't able to complete roshan, which typically happens if I attempt it too late due to farming delays.
7) Seems a little less weak against small warded camp, although that might only be true at first glance. Not sure how the lack of a small camp would stall your timing pre-suicide.
8) I notice you are a little crimped on mana at the end there, if you farmed up a medallion instead of going straight for rosh, would you be mana strapped?
edit- 9) Going to the hardcamp gives your pre-game wolves more time to scout, especially the 0:0 runes.
basically i prefer camp which gives me lv 2 for killing it trolls, big satyrs, small satyrs and wolves. You can kill ogre's, centaurs, mud golems, thats okay too but doesn't give lv 2, still much more gold than small camp.
i can summon wolves a lot later because im heading to big camp and not small, i don't take much damage from big camp due to stout and i make sure i use wolves(kill them) before expiring
I don't find centaurs that disasterous but they will take 2-3 tangoes if you try to kill them lv 1, killing them on lv 2 is much more effective. Avoid ursa's till lv 5 at least. I have yet to confirm in latest dota2 patch i think they made it that you cannot dodge ursa clap again(might be bug)
I can get vlads medallion in 8 mins and head to roshan then but as i said i prefer to kill roshan as fast as possible to get it uncontested.
Usually it goes like this: hard game, lanes losing: go roshan as fast as possible, game is even: go roshan fast as possible, you're winning: farm medallion and then go roshan.
I don't pick up ulti because i don't have mana to support it anyway, any lycan build except soul ring and bottle won't have mana to use ulti and escape gank. Thats something i take care with wards and watching map for missing heroes because there's plenty of time to do that since ur jungling. Take note that 1 solo support cannot kill you in jungle anyway and you should notice whole 2 lane heroes missing...
kwark did you even bother to check my dotabuff, i play this hero, would you belive that
bounty hunter problem: do not try to jungle when bounty is messing with you, sharing exp isn't worth it. Abandon your jungle and hug tower for a while or head to enemy jungle, it's risky but it's your only choice. Once you think hes had enough of sitting like an idiot and comes back to lane you can come back
Stop taunting pls microsoft1. Just because your style works for u, doesnt mean it works for everybody. Sometimes questions can have mutiple good answers within a certain bandwith. There is no need to try to make people feel bad or try to make them feel insecure, just because u have different experiences within your games, stack and/or level.
Honestly I'd like to see these builds tested in CM.
I think the main issue would be dealing with harassment and keeping your HP topped up to not die instantly. Starting on the medium camp can be really dangerous, and also you can't rely on rosh.
Starting on the small camp poses problems as well in that you are taking away the pull opportunity.
Isn't the rare lycan pick in CM almost always ran as some pocket safelane farm that only gets picked when that farm is 100 percent secured based on picks?
I think if you are going to post this hard camp first strategy, you should post more than one video, to show how you deal with bad spawns. Say you get ursas in the first hard camp spawn, do you just skip it and go to the medium camp? Doesn't this mess with your timings before suiciding? What if the first camp is ursas and the second camp is centaurs, skip them both? Etc.
I'm not just shit talking the build, I'm actually curious how you deal with a "bad" start. You need to make a flow chart or something lol . I like the idea of this build because it would seem to make it easier to deal with a warded small camp, and lets your support pull if they want to.
Kwark's build works regardless of what spawns in the easy camp, so as a guide it's a lot easier to follow.
I've been doing the qb + rop and save 225 gold start. I'm happy with the early farming, generally I'll have vlads at 6:30-7:00. Once I come out of the jungle with boots, medallion and whatever I feel a bit shaky.
The problem I have is that I can't ever turn around a game that's gone bad in the first 10 minutes.
If I'm jungling naix and my team's feeding, I can show up to the occasional fight with open wounds and infest tricks to staunch the bleeding, farm armlet asap then try for some heroics with that.
If I'm jungling doom and my team's feeding, I can rush a platemail, wait for a push from the enemy team, doom someone key and tank their hits. This often wins a teamfight.
If I'm jungling lycan and my team's feeding, any split push attempts by me can be held off by a single overlevelled 2-0-1 support, and I have no teamfight power. All I can do is chase and kill individual heroes who are overextended but I usually don't see big throws from enemy teams who are ahead early.
Getting invaded isn't the end of the world. You can run the invaders around the jungle while your team farms, you can end the invasion with a suicide to neuts. There are situational tricks you can do like buying your own sentries for gondar or blocking mirana arrows with low HP wolves. But what the hell do you do if the enemy team ignores you and fucks your teammates in the ass instead?
My only issue is that if you bring the quelling out after your first camp kill you're gonna delay your mid's bottle. I would only do this guilt free if my mid got a stout shield, or went null talisman first
I find it very hard to cancel the aggro, the proper way to do it is to a-click lycan with your low hp wolf between two creep's attack animations? I can't do it consistently
Thanks a lot for the guide, I will most definetely (ab)use it when i'll get the 12 first minutes perfect =)
i've only played this in unranked so far, but it's amazing to me how consistent this method is. even when i get messed with or warded in jungle, i'm basically unstoppable after roshan.
i have been going vlads -> bots -> necro/bkb in all my games and split pushing like a madman post-rosh. you go from 100% jungle pre-rosh to 100% lane push post-rosh. pretty fun.
the only thing i haven't run into yet is being contested on the first roshan - i imagine that's one of the best ways to stop this aside from strong counterjungling
I was going to say I like Kwark's build but I'm going to try 'microsoft's' version, until i watched the video where he has no boots or smoke. Even at my level that is laughable. Thanks for sharing.
Played lycan after not using him for a long while in CM. Got a bounty on my ass that was dualaning top, i did not manage to handle himthat was frustrating
I've been trying out this build for a few games and it's pretty solid. The only thing I've noticed is that I usually have to to back once in-between getting my regen ring and my mask. Not sure if it's inherent to the jungle route or if it's just a sign of my bad wolf micro though.
After the suicide I take the hard camp, since the wolves will die soon anyway, but afterwards I prefer sticking to small/med camps until I hit 6 or get mask.
On January 16 2014 18:29 HollowLord wrote: I've been trying out this build for a few games and it's pretty solid. The only thing I've noticed is that I usually have to to back once in-between getting my regen ring and my mask. Not sure if it's inherent to the jungle route or if it's just a sign of my bad wolf micro though.
yeah i've noticed this too, but that period is often mitigated by being able to take over mid for a wave or two or get a rune. still, i don't notice a huge slowdown even if i have to go back to base once.
On January 16 2014 19:14 Laurens wrote: Maybe you try to kill too many hard camps?
After the suicide I take the hard camp, since the wolves will die soon anyway, but afterwards I prefer sticking to small/med camps until I hit 6 or get mask.
But the Large Satyr camps are just so delicious looking...
On January 16 2014 03:27 ChaZzza wrote: I was going to say I like Kwark's build but I'm going to try 'microsoft's' version, until i watched the video where he has no boots or smoke. Even at my level that is laughable. Thanks for sharing.
rofl, dude you do realise that this was a demonstration video in practice with bots not a real game. I'm a 5-5.1k mmr solo player , i end up on first page every 4-5 games, sometimes 2 games in a row and ofc you use smoke but i still do not use boots untill i kill roshan. And ofc i skill ulti on 6 in these serious games.
On January 17 2014 23:20 KwarK wrote: And you didn't think it might help people to do the things they'll need in a real game in your demonstration?
demonstration had emphasis on how to do it, you using smoke or not is your call, not mine. I focused on implying people to buy stout shield, because any lycan jungling strategies without stout shield are sub optimal. Hero is forced to tank and you cannot even kill a single hard camp without it taking 3/4 of your hp or more depending on spawn
On January 17 2014 23:54 ChunderBoy wrote: well im 6k and im gonna tell u going to the jungle with lycan is a sure way to lose in better games.
if you were 6k maybe i'd care about what you said.
if you were 6k maybe i'd care about what you said.
but i am
good for you, implying you know more about the game than i do because you have 6k. Pretty much only way to get that rating was to 5 stack before ranked introduced or mass picking earth spirit, or we can name it abusing the system, because that's what it is.
You don't play the hero to know it's potential, it's like me saying distuptor doesn't work in 5-6k bracket when i never play him.
if you were 6k maybe i'd care about what you said.
but i am
good for you, implying you know more about the game than i do because you have 6k. Pretty much only way to get that rating was to 5 stack before ranked introduced or mass picking earth spirit, or we can name it abusing the system, because that's what it is.
You don't play the hero to know it's potential, it's like me saying distuptor doesn't work in 5-6k bracket when i never play him.
Everything else aside I can vouch that he indeed is 6k solo rated, and isn't an Earth Spirit picker.
Hi sorry to interrupt this conversation but I'm a 7.234k-7.235k (on average of course) MMR ranked Solo Player. I have over seven thousand Lycan games played and have been personally invited by Valve on several occasions to give lectures on the proper execution of jungle builds and on solo-ranked play. I am on the first page of games 100% of the time and taught Dendi everything he knows. (He's a pretty good player now, but I keep telling him to work on his fundamentals.)
Given these extensive credentials, I would like to assert that my particular opinion on how to play a videogame is the only one that should be accepted by all players. Likewise, those who disagree with me are 'lucker noobs'.
aye it's impossible to convince people my build is better as you will get:
a) you got lucky spawns b) your mmr isn't high enough c) someone who doesn't play the hero telling me Lycan doesn't work in 5k+ d)trolls that don't even care about the thread but the arguments about mmr etc.
i didn't come here to tell i have 5k mmr, i came here to tell you how to be a really good lycan player, not the one that builds vlads and medallion for 12 mins and then goes roshan with huge risk of getting ganked because at 12 mins it's bloody obvious you can do it at that point, but one that takes roshan in 8 mins and start pushing every lane with his level advantage that early.
On January 18 2014 02:21 Mlcrosoft1 wrote: aye it's impossible to convince people my build is better as you will get:
a) you got lucky spawns b) your mmr isn't high enough c) someone who doesn't play the hero telling me Lycan doesn't work in 5k+ d)trolls that don't even care about the thread but the arguments about mmr etc.
i didn't come here to tell i have 5k mmr, i came here to tell you how to be a really good lycan player, not the one that builds vlads and medallion for 12 mins and then goes roshan with huge risk of getting ganked because at 12 mins it's bloody obvious you can do it at that point, but one that takes roshan in 8* mins and start pushing every lane with his level advantage that early.
*8 mins if you take shortcuts like being gankable by everyone because no boots, farming faster by skipping ult, getting no mana regen items so I can't save myself vs ganks even with ult, no mana so I can't do shit post rosh and getting lucky spawns, none of which are reliable techniques in real games
You think I can't rosh faster than 12 vs bots? You don't have some magic technique only you know about, you just changed the order in which you get things from mine in a game vs bots and then concluded that because the bots didn't take advantage of that it was better. Make youtube videos of it working under realistic conditions or none at all.
To be honest, which one works the best isnt really important to me. I tried this guide because it seemed pretty safe and not to hard at my level. The lycanbuild worked, i had nice games and felt good about my performance after (many have stated the same). Good job well done Kwark. Kwark rocks! and deserves credit for having the balls the post it and stick his neck out. Alot of mediocre players will benefit (or eventually becaause they start to think about dotamicro and efficiency and stuff like that).
It could well be that microsoft can play a better lycanhero. If he thinks he can and wants to contribute, he should make his own guide to playing lycantrope with competitive examples. It has no meaning to highjack this thread in a offensive manner (or thats how i read his posts).
I lost a game while jungling lycan eventhough i had a kotl feeding me mana and even a treant giving me armor.. I don't know how it was even possible, my teamates died a lot but still i feel i should have been able to bring it back , now 0-3 with lycan in ranked . I went necro because they were 5 manning around, i thought i would need to split push but that was not enough my teamates kept dying to their 5 man.
On January 18 2014 05:21 Jetaap wrote: I lost a game while jungling lycan eventhough i had a kotl feeding me mana and even a treant giving me armor.. I don't know how it was even possible, my teamates died a lot but still i feel i should have been able to bring it back , now 0-3 with lycan in ranked . I went necro before they were 5 manning around, i thought i would need to split push but that was not enough my teamates kept dying to their 5 man.
If you linked a replay we could take a look and give you advice.
i was struck by a thought today: a benefit to playing lycan and splitpush heroes in general is avoiding the accumulation of the massive killstreak bounties that were introduced by 6.79
On January 18 2014 03:02 govie wrote: To be honest, which one works the best isnt really important to me. I tried this guide because it seemed pretty safe and not to hard at my level. The lycanbuild worked, i had nice games and felt good about my performance after (many have stated the same). Good job well done Kwark. Kwark rocks! and deserves credit for having the balls the post it and stick his neck out. Alot of mediocre players will benefit (or eventually becaause they start to think about dotamicro and efficiency and stuff like that).
It could well be that microsoft can play a better lycanhero. If he thinks he can and wants to contribute, he should make his own guide to playing lycantrope with competitive examples. It has no meaning to highjack this thread in a offensive manner (or thats how i read his posts).
And then when the one of the higher pubstars who posts on TL on occasion comes into thread microsoft decide to bash on him too. lol
I found that most humorous of all!
This guide also made me play lycan a bunch and Ive enjoyed it immensely, but I think the argument about jungle routes and starting builds is kind of silly because 75% of games you have to back to fountain and such because of harassment in jungle anyways... So idealized runs vs bots are kind of meh.
On January 18 2014 05:21 Jetaap wrote: I lost a game while jungling lycan eventhough i had a kotl feeding me mana and even a treant giving me armor.. I don't know how it was even possible, my teamates died a lot but still i feel i should have been able to bring it back , now 0-3 with lycan in ranked . I went necro before they were 5 manning around, i thought i would need to split push but that was not enough my teamates kept dying to their 5 man.
If you linked a replay we could take a look and give you advice.
Here is the link to the match profile: http://dotabuff.com/matches/472300784 In hindsight I think i know what went wrong for the most part, first I was not able to get a quick roshan (they were camping the river and my smoke got revealed), then i got my necro 3 delayed by 3 min because I got the courrier killed. I should have probably farmed more but my teamates were dying so much i felt i had to do something but in the end it meant that I was not able to snowball and bring the game back... Maybe i should have gone for carry items as well because the split push clearly didnt work. AC may have been a good choice since they had high hp heroes with low armor. All i all i definitely feel like I should have farmed way faster earlier with the help i got but they were extremely agressive in the midgame and did not leave me enough space.
It's just so much better than normal solo queue dota.
Laning issues early? Fuck you guys I'm dog in tree. Team feeding early? Fuck that, I get my farm elsewhere, brb roshing and highest level in game. Can't win teamfights? Fuck you guys, I'm split pushing. Teamfight went awfully? Fuck you guys, I'm max move speed. Got caught split pushing? Fuck those guys, I'm going home.
On January 19 2014 08:52 KwarK wrote: It's just so much better than normal solo queue dota.
Laning issues early? Fuck you guys I'm dog in tree. Team feeding early? Fuck that, I get my farm elsewhere, brb roshing and highest level in game. Can't win teamfights? Fuck you guys, I'm split pushing. Teamfight went awfully? Fuck you guys, I'm max move speed. Got caught split pushing? Fuck those guys, I'm going home.
On January 19 2014 08:52 KwarK wrote: It's just so much better than normal solo queue dota.
Laning issues early? Fuck you guys I'm dog in tree. Team feeding early? Fuck that, I get my farm elsewhere, brb roshing and highest level in game. Can't win teamfights? Fuck you guys, I'm split pushing. Teamfight went awfully? Fuck you guys, I'm max move speed. Got caught split pushing? Fuck those guys, I'm going home.
Supports trading lack of farm with you in jungle? Fuck you guys, afk in well. This hero is so much less fun, when supports fuck with you.
On January 20 2014 23:50 Jetaap wrote: So what do you do if the ennemy team has a clock? It's going to be very hard to get your rosh solo with rocket scouting the pit
with most known solo rosh heroes, like ursa and lycan. you have to smoke there & hope that ur team keeps the enemy busy. stuff like antimage/morphling get a more subtle rosh. antimage can have a 15min treads/fury/vlads/pms/quelling in a free farm lane, and he merely blinks into the pit. morphling only rly needs something like a wraithband/treads/hotd and around level 9 he can solo rosh, he can wave into the pit. drow can solo rosh too with just max frost arrows / treads I believe, you have to smoke there tho, but most of the times enemies wont expect u to be solo roshing anyway.
My MMR sucks, I'm, not claiming that I'm great or the most efficient nor do I want to compare how fast I can kill rosh with 2 regen runes against bots. I think the takeaway here is that as long as you do something quasi efficient in the jungle, at most <5000 MMRs, you'll have an advantage vs your opponents.
I spawn wolves ASAP after denying any runes that my teammates won't take. I start with the Medium camp, and a lot of the time I'm able to kill it before 1:00, which gives me a nice start. I rarely use the small camp unless no mediums are spawned (i've killed them both) and I can't yet kill the hard camps.
Using your wolves to tank when they are about to time out is key.
I have recently been playing with Basi first, before that I was going QB/RoP/Tango -> Basi -> Vlad -> Medallion. Finding a good time to die is important, but its really camp dependent, I often do it after I get regen ring & the vlads recipe, just depends on when things make sense. If you've got a non-bottle mid and a regen rune spawns near your jungle, you just got ton of help.
Don't be scared to take the mid lane if you have a ganking mid.
If the other team screws you over in the jungle more than 1 time, I hope you have a team composition which allows you to lane.
Was surprised by the Deso hatred in this thread. I obviously think it's really good, the buildup is useful, and its a good choice if you aren't sure if you'll be split pushing or team fighting.
Axe, Briste, Omni, Bloodseeker, and Bane are the worst enemies.
The problem with Deso is that for roughly the same -Armor as AC, there's never a point where you'd want to buy an item that's only damage, whereas attack speed and Armor are much higher-demand stats for Lycan because all the other items you'll usually get (BKB, Abyssal, Heart, etc.) tend to give you damage or HP, which means you need attack speed/armor to give you balanced stats.
It's 40% more -Armor than AC, but of course requires that you hit them. You make some good points... time to experiment some more. AC probably helps the team more.. and as you can see, I'm not reliant on BKB very much at all. Maybe Necro for Pushing or AC for fighting would be the best for my playstyle.
idk if this has already been mentioned, but Stout+QB+Tango is superior to Basi start, and you can rosh with QB+Vlads at min 8~9
Quelling Blade is 100% core on jungling Lycan, it speeds up things too much to not get it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqIFmUGKacs (video not mine, it was posted in pd)
On January 21 2014 05:07 ThrownChair wrote: It's 40% more -Armor than AC, but of course requires that you hit them. You make some good points... time to experiment some more. AC probably helps the team more.. and as you can see, I'm not reliant on BKB very much at all. Maybe Necro for Pushing or AC for fighting would be the best for my playstyle.
Tried this yesterday 5k mmr solo. Had a totally retarded Team, but still managed to win the game by telling them to just be on the other side of the map. I took tower plus whole set off racks at 20 min i think. As soon as I was able to push my team got some items as well and in the End we were able to manfight them and win the game. They simply cant kill lycan, unless they are min. 4 heroes, and everybody is dieying within 3 hits. Great guide, was my first time without training with Bots or smth and it worked.
I think my favorite part about this Lycan build is that you can end the game 30 minutes in.
Edit: Here's a page of Lycan games I played following the Dog In Tree strategy. It really is nice to be able to end the game reliably around the 30 minute mark. http://dotabuff.com/players/50155406/matches?page=3
I was on a very bad losing streak (lost 300 mmr compared to my maxium), decided to give a serious shot to the dog in the tree strat, and i've finally been able make the necronomicon build work reliably (i used to find it a bit underwhelming). 10/10 would lycan again.
I actually found that it's very difficult to get a roshan around the 10-12 min mark because at this point the opponent was extremely agressive and going in my jungle/ desmoking me etc. I settled for a slightly later one and it worked out quite well in the end. Bounty hunter is really annoying to deal with though.
edit: 6 game winstreak now with some nice comeback yeah!
Good guide but I would disagree with you on some one thing. You say that this is a good build for playing solo and if you play it correctly you can rest easy knowing that your opponents messed up. But if your allies feed early that is likely to be your fault. Putting a passive farmer in the jungle that doesnt contribute makes the game a 4v5 for the first 15 minutes and that makes any kind of competent opponents have free farm in lane. Since free farm lanes give much more gold and xp than the jungle can (unless you stack and cyclone farm with doom or chen). You're basically sacrificing your lanes to get a relatively late farmed core hero. You're also completely banking on there being no roaming supports/tri lanes to contest you and no sentry/obs at roshan. It's equivalent to putting a natures prophet in the jungle and letting him afk farm. Only he gets online faster and can flip the scales of an early gank attempt.
I think you nailed it for how to play the hero but I just think it's way too weak in the laning phase to be viable in any kind of competent game. I'm even lower ranked than you but I lose games all the time becuase we have an AFK jungler that gives away free farm to an important core lane. Then comes out of the jungle 2 levels lower than everyone else and with slightly less gold and tries to capitalize on mistakes. There's a good reason why pro teams always use junglers that either farm the jungle super effectively (like doom, chen, enigma) or can come out to lane at lvl 1-4 to create ganks (Enchantress, Chen, Enigma).
If in soloqeue u have a chance at facing roaming supports, then there is also a chance that they are playing on your team, so u could benefit from these great supports also.
On January 23 2014 03:32 StarBrift wrote: I think you nailed it for how to play the hero but I just think it's way too weak in the laning phase to be viable in any kind of competent game. I'm even lower ranked than you but I lose games all the time becuase we have an AFK jungler that gives away free farm to an important core lane. Then comes out of the jungle 2 levels lower than everyone else and with slightly less gold and tries to capitalize on mistakes. There's a good reason why pro teams always use junglers that either farm the jungle super effectively (like doom, chen, enigma) or can come out to lane at lvl 1-4 to create ganks (Enchantress, Chen, Enigma).
I don't see how Lycan is a slow jungler by any means. Getting Vlads when playing safe is a matter of 8-9 minutes, and from this point you not only farm faster than all heroes mentioned above, but also become very useful for your team (you gain ability to push T1s real fast, become a counter gank threat AND you can do rosh). I'd rather have a jungle ricing Lycan in my game than an Enchantress who may get a tower and pull off a gank, but survives 2 seconds every teamfight.
KwarK, I'd really like to see a video demo of your jungle clears, all of your Lycan replays have expired so I can't see how it's done and I'm just struggling so much to pull off the camps in time.
On January 23 2014 03:32 StarBrift wrote: I think you nailed it for how to play the hero but I just think it's way too weak in the laning phase to be viable in any kind of competent game. I'm even lower ranked than you but I lose games all the time becuase we have an AFK jungler that gives away free farm to an important core lane. Then comes out of the jungle 2 levels lower than everyone else and with slightly less gold and tries to capitalize on mistakes. There's a good reason why pro teams always use junglers that either farm the jungle super effectively (like doom, chen, enigma) or can come out to lane at lvl 1-4 to create ganks (Enchantress, Chen, Enigma).
I don't see how Lycan is a slow jungler by any means. Getting Vlads when playing safe is a matter of 8-9 minutes, and from this point you not only farm faster than all heroes mentioned above, but also become very useful for your team (you gain ability to push T1s real fast, become a counter gank threat AND you can do rosh). I'd rather have a jungle ricing Lycan in my game than an Enchantress who may get a tower and pull off a gank, but survives 2 seconds every teamfight.
My entire argument is based on the fact that during those 8 minutes you are leaving your team to play 4v5. Unless you have some seriously good lanes your team will lose the laning phase because of you. About the speed of the farming. Doom and Enigma are the two fastest farmers.
A doom can get lvl 6 by 6 minutes if left alone to stack and he doesn't get unlucky (you need a wildwing big camp atleast one out of 5 spawns). Enigma can stack camps with eidolons and farms way faster than Lycan too. Also he is very good at popping out in lane for a gank. Even if the gank fails he can then start pushing the tower with some of the strongest early game pushing thanks to eidolons.
Enchantress can smoke gank with 2 creeps (prefferably troll and centaur or double troll) at lvl 1. She can actually just come out of the jungle less than a minute after she entered it and have one of the strongest ganking abilities in the game. With a skilled player she is also one of the best / most flexible supports because she heals really well, can deal huge damage and pushes better than almost anyone.
I absolutely agree with the statement that if you survive the early game a lycan is an easy hero to wreck frace with. I also understand the need to play such a hero in pubs because honestly random dudes in solo queue doesn't know shit about smoke ganking or lane control. Playing Enchantress in pubs is a nightmare. But so is any support. Like always the game result is 80% up to your team.
As heroes where you don't rely on others go. Jungle Lycan is for sure one of the top picks. One of the few solo heroes that is not affected that much by the game flow. I wouldn't agree that Lycan is an especially good pusher though. He's great at split pushing but as soon as there are players in the lane the only thing he brings to a push is the vlads and the threat of a dive. This is assuming the opposing team has spammable magic aoe to clear up creeps / wolves.
The moment the opponents are in your lane, you split push somewhere else; you do not stay where the enemy tempo is flowing. The purpose of this style is to constantly ruin enemy momentum down a lane by forcing them to defend what is being pushed on their side. If they decide to race, a 1v0 lycan will push faster than a 5v4 lane, all your team has to do is stay alive. As stated in the guide the opposing team has to expend a non-significant amount of manpower to stop lycan from pushing a lane, 1 tp and lycan will be able to eat the person coming in, 2 tps and the opposing team has a disadvantage in a team fight against the rest of your team and/or their pushing power significantly drops in the other lanes.
On January 23 2014 09:11 Vikeif wrote: The moment the opponents are in your lane, you split push somewhere else; you do not stay where the enemy tempo is flowing. The purpose of this style is to constantly ruin enemy momentum down a lane by forcing them to defend what is being pushed on their side. If they decide to race, a 1v0 lycan will push faster than a 5v4 lane, all your team has to do is stay alive. As stated in the guide the opposing team has to expend a non-significant amount of manpower to stop lycan from pushing a lane, 1 tp and lycan will be able to eat the person coming in, 2 tps and the opposing team has a disadvantage in a team fight against the rest of your team and/or their pushing power significantly drops in the other lanes.
That is just classic counter split push tactics. There are several other heroes that work the same way like antimage and furion etc. But there are numerous ways to stop split pushing. The 4v5 defense depends entirely on a good antipush lineup and a weak push lineup on the opposing team. If you're running something like a veno/Dk/enchantress you will push towers faster than a solo lycan ever could. Also there are chances to find pick offs on the Lycan with heroes like Puck, Storm, Nyx, Bat etc. You can smoke 3 people while showing 2 in others lanes and get Lycan down even with the ulti run speed and there is no chance to predict the smoke 100%. Once you picked the Lycan off you can take 1-2 towers free or a rosh or whatever you need.
Split push is good and Lycan has tons of damage and creep wave clear speed with his wolves. But only low level players will get yoyo'ed around the map without knowing how to deal with it. Also trading towers is acceptable in certain situations. Like trading t2 top for a t2 mid or bot as dire. Mid and bot is way more important for buybacks into rosh fights. Top vs bot is a worthwhile trade if you're looking to take a contested rosh.
But yes I agree. The fact that a lot of players don't know these anti push tactics make them panic and that makes Lycan even better against mid to low level players. I'm just saying that when you get a team that knows how to trade and take objectives effectively, he falls off quick.
On January 19 2014 08:52 KwarK wrote: It's just so much better than normal solo queue dota.
Laning issues early? Fuck you guys I'm dog in tree. Team feeding early? Fuck that, I get my farm elsewhere, brb roshing and highest level in game. Can't win teamfights? Fuck you guys, I'm split pushing. Teamfight went awfully? Fuck you guys, I'm max move speed. Got caught split pushing? Fuck those guys, I'm going home.
It's not solo queue dota, it's single player dota :D
On January 23 2014 07:55 Dr. ROCKZO wrote: KwarK, I'd really like to see a video demo of your jungle clears, all of your Lycan replays have expired so I can't see how it's done and I'm just struggling so much to pull off the camps in time.
Would that be possible?
You could probably search for his recent games through dota and find them that way.
On January 23 2014 07:55 Dr. ROCKZO wrote: KwarK, I'd really like to see a video demo of your jungle clears, all of your Lycan replays have expired so I can't see how it's done and I'm just struggling so much to pull off the camps in time.
Would that be possible?
I will make a newer replay in 2 weeks when my internet works again. I'm having huge ping issues stopping me playing dota atm. There aren't any recent replays of me unfortunately.
On January 23 2014 07:55 Dr. ROCKZO wrote: KwarK, I'd really like to see a video demo of your jungle clears, all of your Lycan replays have expired so I can't see how it's done and I'm just struggling so much to pull off the camps in time.
Would that be possible?
I will make a newer replay in 2 weeks when my internet works again. I'm having huge ping issues stopping me playing dota atm. There aren't any recent replays of me unfortunately.
You could do a local lobby (0 ping), download the replay and upload its file somewhere, if you could be bothered going through all that effort.
I'm not in any rush though. I hope your internet issues are resolved with haste, 2 weeks without dota must suck!
After playing lycan a lot more recently (7/3) i think one thing that is extremely important late game is to scout with your wolves, it's so usefull to be able to keep vision on an important target at all time.
After playing a couple games of this, this strat is definitely more viable when there's a passive jungler like doom or furion on their team. If they run a dual lane in the offlane, one unfortunate rotation when you're on your second camp can really fuck you
Smart play and wards will let you do your job even in a 2-1-2 situation. I think agressive trilanes are the ultimate counter to Lycan, thats why i never would bother drafting him in CM.
Lycan Wolves Fade Time decreased from 3 to 1.7 Level 3 Lycan Wolves now have Invisibility Level 4 Lycan Wolves now have a passive ability that gives them 15 HP regen
Roshan no longer stops upgrading his hp/damage/armor at 45 minutes Roshan upgrade rate increased by 20% Roshan bounty rescaled from 105-600 to 150-400
Necronomicon Necronomicon units bounty increased from 100/125/150 to 100/150/200 Necronomicon units armor reduced from 6/8/10 to 4 Necronomicon cooldown increased from 80 to 95
Smoke of Deceit Duration decreased from 40 to 35
Very happy with the 15 HP regen. It makes a lvl 7 rosh with Microsoft's build a lot easier. It wasn't very hard to begin with but sometimes unlucky bashes could kill your wolves quickly, now it seems hilariously easy to take him down.
Does the bounty rescaling mean that an early rosh will now give more money or do I read that wrong?
Upgrade rate shouldn't matter much, smoke nerf is not a problem either.
Necro nerf though :'( Cooldown increase makes me sad.
I mean do you attempt to splitpush and have all towers down by +- 25 min or do you try to force teamfights when you're a bit more farmed than the enemy?
I've always gone necro 3 so far, I think I will continue to do so after the patch, see how it goes.
I cant seem to have enough for sages mask. I get both easy camps, then the medium camp. get boots and die, seem to about 2:40ish, then i run out and get the hard and medium camps. and I always seem to end up with around 310, 315 without mana to resummon or gold for the mask..not sure why? also what do I do after? do I suicide again to get the mask or run back?
On January 30 2014 13:48 Darpa wrote: I cant seem to have enough for sages mask. I get both easy camps, then the medium camp. get boots and die, seem to about 2:40ish, then i run out and get the hard and medium camps. and I always seem to end up with around 310, 315 without mana to resummon or gold for the mask..not sure why? also what do I do after? do I suicide again to get the mask or run back?
Are you summoning wolves in fountain after the death for the hard camp? You should be getting them low at the hard, losing them at the medium and resummoning your first there. Then sage's get courier + sages while you do hard again. Your suicide/wait for courier decisions depend upon your hp, whether the courier is flying and in use. If you're being cautious in the jungle you might wish to just get low and suicide again rather than risk wandering around low although if you're doing that I favour a ring of regen before sage's because once you're 5 or so the wolves won't be dying to the creeps so your full mana from fountain will last you much longer.
On January 29 2014 23:40 Laurens wrote: Anything you do different when you go that build?
I mean do you attempt to splitpush and have all towers down by +- 25 min or do you try to force teamfights when you're a bit more farmed than the enemy?
I've always gone necro 3 so far, I think I will continue to do so after the patch, see how it goes.
Still splitpush, just dive harder whenever 1-2 people try and stop you because it's gonna take more than that to kill you and medallion + a bash means they're dead.
On January 30 2014 13:48 Darpa wrote: I cant seem to have enough for sages mask. I get both easy camps, then the medium camp. get boots and die, seem to about 2:40ish, then i run out and get the hard and medium camps. and I always seem to end up with around 310, 315 without mana to resummon or gold for the mask..not sure why? also what do I do after? do I suicide again to get the mask or run back?
Are you summoning wolves in fountain after the death for the hard camp? You should be getting them low at the hard, losing them at the medium and resummoning your first there. Then sage's get courier + sages while you do hard again. Your suicide/wait for courier decisions depend upon your hp, whether the courier is flying and in use. If you're being cautious in the jungle you might wish to just get low and suicide again rather than risk wandering around low although if you're doing that I favour a ring of regen before sage's because once you're 5 or so the wolves won't be dying to the creeps so your full mana from fountain will last you much longer.
ok thanks, seem to be getting it to work now. Finished rosh at 12:28 and level 12. Although Im finding in actual games the time is later because the courier is being used and/or people harass you in the jungle.
Holy god.... I cant believe how well that worked, just had a game where everyone left me alone. finished the game 12-3, got 3 roshans, level 24, next highest was level 18. By the end could stand and man fight whole team with bkb, AC, Abysall, treads, and Rapier.
Was able to smash pudge 6 times with medallion, never really realized how good that item is.
edit. Had my first loss, team fed alot, but also Ursa took Rosh faster than me, threw me off. I was still almost able to take the game back but 2 members of my team went afk
I just had a game where the enemy warded small camp AND one of the medium camps. What the fuck are you supposed to do then? Give up and lane? lol
Edit: with 15 hp/sec on the wolves, roshan is really easy to kill at level 7 with just vlads. Waiting until you have medallion might be overkill. Thoughts?
On January 31 2014 12:25 xSJx wrote: I just had a game where the enemy warded small camp AND one of the medium camps. What the fuck are you supposed to do then? Give up and lane? lol
Edit: with 15 hp/sec on the wolves, roshan is really easy to kill at level 7 with just vlads. Waiting until you have medallion might be overkill. Thoughts?
Medallion helps you killing roshan faster, whereas the regen just helps you sustain the damage but doesn't make it faster, do you might get discovered because you took too long :o
On January 31 2014 12:25 xSJx wrote: I just had a game where the enemy warded small camp AND one of the medium camps. What the fuck are you supposed to do then? Give up and lane? lol
Called a magic bush ward when they block two camps with one ward. One of the easier locations to deward imo. Ask a support to help you with a sentry ward. Make sure they don't block another camp with it though. In the meantime, you can either work on the other camps or lane I guess. + Show Spoiler [ward location] +
On January 31 2014 12:25 xSJx wrote: I just had a game where the enemy warded small camp AND one of the medium camps. What the fuck are you supposed to do then? Give up and lane? lol
Called a magic bush ward when they block two camps with one ward. One of the easier locations to deward imo. Ask a support to help you with a sentry ward. Make sure they don't block another camp with it though. In the meantime, you can either work on the other camps or lane I guess. + Show Spoiler [ward location] +
i think it's really stupid that that spot blocks those two camps. makes no sense imo.
one of the things I've noticed is that when I immediately pick Lycan in all pick is the enemies will choose bloodseeker. since you can get a bit low in the early game jungle, if the bloodseeker goes to the lane where all your camps are, he can use thirst to hunt you down and kill your face, screwing up your early game. I've had to be more aware of where the enemy BS is at all times...
On January 31 2014 12:25 xSJx wrote: I just had a game where the enemy warded small camp AND one of the medium camps. What the fuck are you supposed to do then? Give up and lane? lol
Called a magic bush ward when they block two camps with one ward. One of the easier locations to deward imo. Ask a support to help you with a sentry ward. Make sure they don't block another camp with it though. In the meantime, you can either work on the other camps or lane I guess. + Show Spoiler [ward location] +
i think it's really stupid that that spot blocks those two camps. makes no sense imo.
one of the things I've noticed is that when I immediately pick Lycan in all pick is the enemies will choose bloodseeker. since you can get a bit low in the early game jungle, if the bloodseeker goes to the lane where all your camps are, he can use thirst to hunt you down and kill your face, screwing up your early game. I've had to be more aware of where the enemy BS is at all times...
Yeah, the spawn box on the large camp is just ridiculously big, it's so easy to block by mistake. It really sucks since there is no such weakness in the dire jungle (though the dire jungle obviously have the problematic radiant pull on the top lane).
The dire hard camp near the lane is huge as well. The offlane can block it and place a legitimate vision ward at the same time. I do think Dire jungle is a bit better, especially with the convenient 2x med + hard cycle for junglers, but there are tradeoffs.
In other news, I just witnessed a brown-boots->blink->aghs Lycan. I have no idea what his plan was, but it didn't work. Lycan's ult doesn't even upgrade with aghs afaik.
One thing I have trouble with as lycan is in team fights. The enemy constantly tries to kite you. Generally it isn't nearly as bad if you have allies on your team who are also strength/melee, but most allies these days play heroes like invoker/weaver/mirana etc and they want to run as soon as they break a nail.
My issue is, with the constant kiting and me often taking constant damage, I find I want to keep eating stuff to keep my vlads regen going, and also since lycan attacks really fast with AC + inner beast, I want to just stay put and keep fighting whoever comes to the front. This also happens when im pushing towers in particular, they run up to so they can pull aggro from you and the creeps, i can chase or I keep hitting tower. Usually I keep hitting tower since lycan rips through it.
This issue prompts me to want to change into a wolf so to chase down targets but through experience I have learned that generally its not a good idea to use wolf form if A) its near the start of a fight and not the end or B) you still have Aegis.
I guess abyssal is a good idea for the simple reason that you can lock them in place to eat them, rather than rely on lucky bashes. My problem with Abyssal is its expensive and either I want bkb or AC and usually both. Basher I have discovered is my favourite lycan item (apart from vlads). My question is therefore, should I get Abyssal before AC? So go basher + BKB (70% of the time) + Relic?
Recently I have been going vlads > smoke + boots > Rosh @lvl 7 > Treads + tp > start pushing towers > Hyperstone > bkb if needed otherwise delay it till after basher and if bkb not needed at all, then finish AC after Basher. The quick hyperstone works nicely with the treads+inner beast+wolf base attack time/crits early on.
On February 14 2014 22:13 SgtSlick wrote: One thing I have trouble with as lycan is in team fights. The enemy constantly tries to kite you. Generally it isn't nearly as bad if you have allies on your team who are also strength/melee, but most allies these days play heroes like invoker/weaver/mirana etc and they want to run as soon as they break a nail.
My issue is, with the constant kiting and me often taking constant damage, I find I want to keep eating stuff to keep my vlads regen going, and also since lycan attacks really fast with AC + inner beast, I want to just stay put and keep fighting whoever comes to the front. This also happens when im pushing towers in particular, they run up to so they can pull aggro from you and the creeps, i can chase or I keep hitting tower. Usually I keep hitting tower since lycan rips through it.
This issue prompts me to want to change into a wolf so to chase down targets but through experience I have learned that generally its not a good idea to use wolf form if A) its near the start of a fight and not the end or B) you still have Aegis.
I guess abyssal is a good idea for the simple reason that you can lock them in place to eat them, rather than rely on lucky bashes. My problem with Abyssal is its expensive and either I want bkb or AC and usually both. Basher I have discovered is my favourite lycan item (apart from vlads). My question is therefore, should I get Abyssal before AC? So go basher + BKB (70% of the time) + Relic?
Recently I have been going vlads > smoke + boots > Rosh @lvl 7 > Treads + tp > start pushing towers > Hyperstone > bkb if needed otherwise delay it till after basher and if bkb not needed at all, then finish AC after Basher. The quick hyperstone works nicely with the treads+inner beast+wolf base attack time/crits early on.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. An enemy who is kiting you is an enemy not doing any damage to anyone, so as long as it's not a support who has no impact on the teamfight anyway, keeping them running is probably not too bad. Focus on their most impactful hero and let the rest of your team clean the rest while you chase the problematic hero.
On February 16 2014 01:37 Darpa wrote: Almost any time I do this now, I almost always get my camps warded and end up on lane, because supports wont deward ><
Supports in plural? If you are jungling a core like lycan in a pub you have ensured that your team only has one support and between observers, chicken and flying chicken chances of him being able to afford to spend even more gold on sentries are slim.
On February 16 2014 06:16 KwarK wrote: Don't be afraid to deward yourself if you have to, but equally you should always have camps available to you.
Its more the first few minutes that matter tho. I mean if they ward a camp at level 5 who cares. But when they come in and ward at level 1 and they block your easy camp, makes it real tough to get the levels and farm you need as fast as normal. And you wont have the money to buy a sentry ward at level 1
Just have to say, Lycan is indeed ridiculously powerful in pubs. Unless the enemy absolutely devotes effort into the early game towards stopping my jungling, usually the outcome is a victory. Even then, sometimes because they've spent so much time and resources on their heroes to stop me from farming, my other teammates as a result benefit. I've won games against enemies who were leaps ahead of our team in terms of exp and gold simply by ratting them to death.
Thanks to the regen buff lycans wolves got, he can take rosh before finishing his vlads. If you go straight morbid after the 2nd sages mask you can take rosh.
If you really want a quicker rosh I'd look into MIcrosoft's build from one of the early pages in this thread. With a good jungle I can quite consistently get aegis at 8:30. Even annoying jungles with lots of centaurs and ursas get aegis before 10. The tradeoff is bad mana regen and no ult in the pit.
Correction, the invoker on the other team showed my trying to rosh at 7:30 doesnt work :c EDIT: Died trying to rosh, invoker walks in to finish him and take aegis. GG : D
Is it just me or do wolves consistently aggro jungle camps, even when I pull them back? It always feels like I micro them back and 2 seconds later they are being attacked again...
On February 19 2014 22:47 Ryder. wrote: Is it just me or do wolves consistently aggro jungle camps, even when I pull them back? It always feels like I micro them back and 2 seconds later they are being attacked again...
tell them to attack your hero then queue them onto the creeps
He probably does that, but some creeps just switch back. Mud golems in particular just hate my wolves. They change back aggro every single time. I don't think it's an issue with proximity I think it's just the golems. I can toggle aggro fine on most other camps.
You have to move Lycan closer to the creeps, not just attack move. Put him practically on top of golems and sometimes ogres otherwise they turn on wolves.
This must be one of the most misunderstood heroes in dota. Anytime anyone picks/randoms Lycan it seems that they think they are supposed to not fight a single fight (well, save from the obvious 3v1 kills or similar) and just run around the map killing towers.
Yea, I'm not saying you shouldnt splitpush when its available as an option, but people do it without considering why they do it or considering what pros and cons there are to dooing it. And definitely not considering the rest of the team and how they will fare 4v5. I mean, its not like Lycan doesnt have one of the sickest self-steriod-skills in the game and shits on so many heroes with only slows and no stuns... Oh wait lets only use it as escape when people come to defend the towers Im trying to take down!!
Last Lycan I had ended the ~28min game as they were taking our rax at 0-X-0 KDA proclaiming that this is how the hero is supposed to be played (and obviously that the 4 of us were noobs for losing him the game). At almost 5k rating.
On March 06 2014 18:25 Kreb wrote: Last Lycan I had ended the ~28min game as they were taking our rax at 0-X-0 KDA proclaiming that this is how the hero is supposed to be played (and obviously that the 4 of us were noobs for losing him the game). At almost 5k rating.
On March 06 2014 18:25 Kreb wrote: This must be one of the most misunderstood heroes in dota. Anytime anyone picks/randoms Lycan it seems that they think they are supposed to not fight a single fight (well, save from the obvious 3v1 kills or similar) and just run around the map killing towers.
Yea, I'm not saying you shouldnt splitpush when its available as an option, but people do it without considering why they do it or considering what pros and cons there are to dooing it. And definitely not considering the rest of the team and how they will fare 4v5. I mean, its not like Lycan doesnt have one of the sickest self-steriod-skills in the game and shits on so many heroes with only slows and no stuns... Oh wait lets only use it as escape when people come to defend the towers Im trying to take down!!
Last Lycan I had ended the ~28min game as they were taking our rax at 0-X-0 KDA proclaiming that this is how the hero is supposed to be played (and obviously that the 4 of us were noobs for losing him the game). At almost 5k rating.
To be fair, the "ideal" Lycan game, in my opinion, is one where you get the early rosh uncontested before 10 mins, and take 3 towers in the next 2-3 minutes. At that point you've given your team enough money to be able to 4v5, and you can splitpush incredibly fast with Necro to get the remaining towers down. The enemy team is always torn between TPing to deal with Lycan or trying to dominate the 5v4 fight and do their own push. In solo queue they usually do something in between and end up getting wrecked.
It's like the ultimate solo queue hero ^^
Everything is situational of course, if the other 4 heroes are incredibly bad at teamfighting you better go help I suppose.
On March 06 2014 18:25 Kreb wrote: Last Lycan I had ended the ~28min game as they were taking our rax at 0-X-0 KDA proclaiming that this is how the hero is supposed to be played (and obviously that the 4 of us were noobs for losing him the game). At almost 5k rating.
Was it Kwark?
Dont remember but probably not. :p Its not like that way of thinking is rare when it comes to various splitpush heroes. It happens all the time. Im just a bit more puzzled about it when it comes to Lycan. I mean as I said, look at his Ulti. Its. So. Fucking. Good. You put that on many other heroes and they enter godmode. Or you play ability draft, that shit is first pick material for carry heroes. But people actually dont use it. It makes more sense for something like a Furion to not join fights because his teamfight contribution is like sprout on one guy and auto attacks while being pretty easily killed himself. But Lycan...
On March 06 2014 18:25 Kreb wrote: Last Lycan I had ended the ~28min game as they were taking our rax at 0-X-0 KDA proclaiming that this is how the hero is supposed to be played (and obviously that the 4 of us were noobs for losing him the game). At almost 5k rating.
Was it Kwark?
Dont remember but probably not. :p Its not like that way of thinking is rare when it comes to various splitpush heroes. It happens all the time. Im just a bit more puzzled about it when it comes to Lycan. I mean as I said, look at his Ulti. Its. So. Fucking. Good. You put that on many other heroes and they enter godmode. Or you play ability draft, that shit is first pick material for carry heroes. But people actually dont use it. It makes more sense for something like a Furion to not join fights because his teamfight contribution is like sprout on one guy and auto attacks while being pretty easily killed himself. But Lycan...
unless the enemy heroes dont have stun (multiple) or you already have bkb or just plain stupid not to focus you or you have reliable teammates with disables
thats just 4 reasons I can think on top of my head, 4 simple scenarios but then you can take the safe bet of just pushing towers instead of contimplating whether to fight them and commit or waste your time with your team with no one else tanking or exchanging disables.
4:1 ration is not hard to decide unless you are sure to win that fight( even with BKB)
I've been experimenting with some stout shield hatchet openings since the lycan buff that makes rosh easier at lower levels. 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.
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.
No tangos? What you listed is basically MIcrosoft's build but without starting tangos, which will result in more suicides. He gets away with only 1 suicide at lvl 4 (3 if jungle is bad). I've been doing that build for a while and it's pretty great.
Has anyone tried qblade, RoP, salve and clarity for starting items recently? I read it in a thread here on TL some patches ago and it worked really good, but i think that was even before the big jungle changes.
So, I'm 7-3 on Lycan so far and I really enjoy playing him. However, I'm having issues clearing easy camp #1 quickly enough. I usually have to pull the last creep out of the camp at ~56 seconds and then when I go back, I have that creep plus a whole new camp to deal with. And usually it's too much. So it REALLY throws everything off. Any advice? Do I just need to get myself and the wolves there slightly faster? Also, your initial item build works great, but I'm not really sure how to read the game and make a decision about what to get next. I have pretty much been defaulting to Basher in every game because the stats and stun are excellent. Then I usually do a maelstron (is this even good?), crystalis/daedalus, and bkb. In no particular order. I don't think I've even gotten a necrobook but one time. I feel like there are so many decent/good items I can buy for him, that I'm not sure which to prioritize. Help! <3
EDIT: My first and only suicide is usually at level 2 because I fucked up the camps. Or at level 3 because I don't have any HP or MP left. This seems like it's kind of early. Yes? No?
I'm really not sure why you're having problems with the first easy camp. Cast your wolves at 0:00 in the fountain and immediately run there, you should get there around 0:28 and wait to ensure you don't block the spawn. Focus one creep down at a time, try to avoid letting wolves dying, and you should never have a problem killing them around 0:55ish.
First item bash is decent if you need the lockdown because your team doesn't have enough or you're against super mobile heroes, and you actually need to be present at every teamfight to help your team. Otherwise I always default to necro3 since it's just so damn good. Maelstrom is bad, don't ever go for it. Daedalus is kinda meh. BKB is good if you need it.
In most of my games I end up with Vlads/Medallion/Treads/Necro3/AC/Abyssal, in that order, but throw in a BKB or get an earlier basher if necessary.
Hmm ok. I'll just have to make sure I'm popping wolves at 0:00 to avoid wasted time. And I guess my wolf micro needs to be perfect. As far as items, it sounds like I need to get in the habit of necro being a core item. Is there any reason to sell the medallion at any point? Or does it just help too much to get rid of? I'll follow your build and report back. Thank you sir!
On the other side I just had a game where lycan was lvl 1 after 4 minutes because BH blocked 2 camps with sentries and one with himself and rotated once into the jungle. Granted the lycan made some pretty stupid choices but bh got 3 3/4 of a levels in lane and plenty of gold before he even started to harass the lycan with rotating. Lycan was completely ineffective and was food the rest of the game.
Granted bh is the perfect hero to fuck with lycan but on lower level play just ward 2 sentries and rotate early a few times and lycan is 100 % shut down and this works with virtually any supports and many offlaners.
On March 08 2014 03:53 Ayaz2810 wrote: Hmm ok. I'll just have to make sure I'm popping wolves at 0:00 to avoid wasted time. And I guess my wolf micro needs to be perfect. As far as items, it sounds like I need to get in the habit of necro being a core item. Is there any reason to sell the medallion at any point? Or does it just help too much to get rid of? I'll follow your build and report back. Thank you sir!
start a game with cheats and practice the micro. you need to tank that first set of wolves taking no dmg yourself really. after that you really need to look after them.
it isnt really really easy. Its actually tricky imo - especially if you try to get boots before dying. mistakes add up quick. showed me how bad i was at managing agro in this game. Some camp spawns are annoying
in really bad cases i dont get boots but get sages and die just spend up (smoke is 100) - if your micro is bad then you wont get full value out of boots anyway. I also skipped hatchet a bit when really tight Even in this situation you can have vlads medallion and smoke by 11 mins every time. solo rosh is then a piece of piss if you keep medallion on cd.
If you can kill that medium camp after the easy with same set of wolves you are doing better than me. i always get raped by the ogres - which amuses me because most junglers love them. once you get lvl 3 wolves everything is a piece of piss though.
makes me wonder if instead of just killing easy second time its worth killing medium, spend rest of those wolves on the hard, stack the easy and using creep wave to kill it. Then use wolves again to finish hard and the medium.
but i imagine that is way under the optimal that kwark had in op. They are talking about 8 min roshes ... the above would still be 11 mins ish
I feel like I've tried everything. I still am like 2-3 hit away from clearing easy #1 before it wants to respawn. And medium camps? Forget it. Not until I do the easy like 3 times and maybe go leech from the lane. Sigh.... I'm so bad. On the plus side, everyone at,my level is bad too so I still wreck face mid-late. I want to suck less!
On March 15 2014 02:18 Noya wrote: rtz has shown that you can win a LAN deciding game by skipping boots until Necro3, why would you delay your must-have-asap Vlads for boots...
stout+RoP/QB start is mathematically superior to a Basi start.
Boots help with survivability against random roamers running into your jungle while you are weak and low in hp/mp in the beginning. Just because rtz pulls it off in one game when he's probably confident about his supports protecting him, with a low chance of the enemy ganking him, doesn't make it automatically better.
On March 15 2014 02:18 Noya wrote: rtz has shown that you can win a LAN deciding game by skipping boots until Necro3, why would you delay your must-have-asap Vlads for boots...
stout+RoP/QB start is mathematically superior to a Basi start.
Boots help with survivability against random roamers running into your jungle while you are weak and low in hp/mp in the beginning. Just because rtz pulls it off in one game when he's probably confident about his supports protecting him, with a low chance of the enemy ganking him, doesn't make it automatically better.
Delaying Vlads by 450 gold so you might survive in the case that a BH might come into your jungle without boots himself?
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
On March 15 2014 02:44 Firebolt145 wrote: It won't always be only a BH.
In which case you are dead regardless, and now you have 1 death and 450 gold invested in boots instead of a 2 min faster vlads.
Boots can be a situational pickup depending on which level of ganks do you expect, but it shouldn't be the default build if you are just farming free in the jungle for the first 6 minutes.
On March 07 2014 13:08 KwarK wrote: I've been experimenting with some stout shield hatchet openings since the lycan buff that makes rosh easier at lower levels. 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.
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.
I just read this and it's exactly what I'm doing except for the boots part no need to touch the easy camp at all, and clarity is an absolute must
On March 15 2014 02:44 Firebolt145 wrote: It won't always be only a BH.
In which case you are dead regardless, and now you have 1 death and 450 gold invested in boots instead of a 2 min faster vlads.
Boots can be a situational pickup depending on which level of ganks do you expect, but it shouldn't be the default build if you are just farming free in the jungle for the first 6 minutes.
On March 07 2014 13:08 KwarK wrote: I've been experimenting with some stout shield hatchet openings since the lycan buff that makes rosh easier at lower levels. 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.
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.
I just read this and it's exactly what I'm doing except for the boots part no need to touch the easy camp at all, and clarity is an absolute must
I would REALLY love to see some of you guys post a few vids showing how this is done properly (all the methods discussed here). I feel like I can visualize it, but confirmation would be nice. Plus, some folks will be really grateful. And that's what DoTA is about. Getting that Lycan-Peen stroked. Well... maybe that was a bad fucking word choice, but you get it.
On March 15 2014 02:51 hariooo wrote: Right. That was an example.
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
(KwarK on wife's account): Several big elements to the boots decision. If you're suiciding or returning to the fountain regularly, which you will be if not bottle crowing which is likely in random pub games because the team and particularly the mid will get mad if you bottle crow as lycan, the boots shave a lot of time off of that. If random supports roam into the woods you will generally have boots when they don't which makes a huge difference in terms of how cautious you need to be. Again it comes down to the difference between pub games and pro games, if your supports are ready to roll in and protect you then you can be more aggressive with the jungling but I'm gonna keep buying my boots.
On March 15 2014 02:51 hariooo wrote: Right. That was an example.
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
(KwarK on wife's account): Several big elements to the boots decision. If you're suiciding or returning to the fountain regularly, which you will be if not bottle crowing which is likely in random pub games because the team and particularly the mid will get mad if you bottle crow as lycan, the boots shave a lot of time off of that. If random supports roam into the woods you will generally have boots when they don't which makes a huge difference in terms of how cautious you need to be. Again it comes down to the difference between pub games and pro games, if your supports are ready to roll in and protect you then you can be more aggressive with the jungling but I'm gonna keep buying my boots.
you dont really need boots if enemy supports roam on you, you can just body block with the wolves and get away
Maybe you can, I like to have boots. In the game I just played (see below) crow wasn't bought at 3 mins and I didn't get my mask or regen in time so I had to suicide/back to fountain more than I'd have liked and boots really help there as well. It's important to understand that there is a difference between progamers optimising together and solo queue.
Just played a game that was kinda textbook although my team would not get the concept of "you 4 top, I take rax on bottom" no matter how much I wrote it or pinged or spammed there was always one guy, usually the nyx, who wanted to try and chill out on my lane to make sure we couldn't really threaten top or get space bottom.
Match ID is 562487732
I skipped ult at 6 because they were really passive about letting me jungle, even after their storm got 6, so I honestly felt I didn't really need it. Came out of the jungle, roshed and then towers fell, necros got bought and rax came soon after. Textbook lycan win.
On March 15 2014 02:51 hariooo wrote: Right. That was an example.
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
(KwarK on wife's account): Several big elements to the boots decision. If you're suiciding or returning to the fountain regularly, which you will be if not bottle crowing which is likely in random pub games because the team and particularly the mid will get mad if you bottle crow as lycan, the boots shave a lot of time off of that. If random supports roam into the woods you will generally have boots when they don't which makes a huge difference in terms of how cautious you need to be. Again it comes down to the difference between pub games and pro games, if your supports are ready to roll in and protect you then you can be more aggressive with the jungling but I'm gonna keep buying my boots.
Well you mentioned "several" big elements but I'm seeing you mention just two, one of which I already talked about.
And now you're considering buying boots and a bottle to delay Vlads by 1075 gold? I'm not seeing the thinking here at all.
On March 15 2014 02:51 hariooo wrote: Right. That was an example.
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
(KwarK on wife's account): Several big elements to the boots decision. If you're suiciding or returning to the fountain regularly, which you will be if not bottle crowing which is likely in random pub games because the team and particularly the mid will get mad if you bottle crow as lycan, the boots shave a lot of time off of that. If random supports roam into the woods you will generally have boots when they don't which makes a huge difference in terms of how cautious you need to be. Again it comes down to the difference between pub games and pro games, if your supports are ready to roll in and protect you then you can be more aggressive with the jungling but I'm gonna keep buying my boots.
Well you mentioned "several" big elements but I'm seeing you mention just two, one of which I already talked about.
And now you're considering buying boots and a bottle to delay Vlads by 1075 gold? I'm not seeing the thinking here at all.
"if not bottle crowing" is a way of saying that I'm talking about a situation when bottle crowing is not happening so we're not buying a bottle, not sure why you read that into it. The reason that got brought up is cause someone went nec3 before boots in a progame recently.
1) You can't bottle crow rtz style cause no reliable courier access 2) You need to return to the fountain all the fucking time rather than relying on getting items seconds after you have the gold for them because flying courier at 3 minutes isn't common and priority usage of it is even less common, you may wanna buy the ring at 3 minutes but you're not gonna get it until later.
It costs 450 gold but it represents an increase in gpm because you spend way less time fucking around when shit doesn't work out perfectly, when the camps are difficult or people hunt you or you can't get your items. Also level 7 and vlads after boots generally come around the same time for me, I don't want to be roshing any earlier, I'm not sure I'll be doing it any faster anyway. Even if you argue that it's gold you'd spend elsewhere you can't disagree that you get more done in X amount of time with the faster boots, the faster vlads doesn't get you faster farm because you're able to smash through the camps by level 3 onward anyway vlads or not. Your limiting factor on your exp/minute is not how close to vlads you are but how fast you can move, boots increases your exp/minute and therefore gets you to that crucial 7 faster.
Watch the game I linked earlier, the courier with morbid mask, recipe for vlads, smoke and clarity all arrived as I was level 6 and I had to knock out another camp to get 7 and rosh, getting them all 450 gold earlier would have amounted a slower rosh than I achieved because I wouldn't have the level to do it at the time and it'd actually take me longer to get the 7 because far more time would be spent wandering around with no boots.
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.
Great attitude man. Someone is playing shit so I might play shit as well.
Do us a favour and just uninstall.exe
User was banned for this post and pretty much every other post being like it + multiple priors for the same shit.
On March 15 2014 02:51 hariooo wrote: Right. That was an example.
On the balance of probability, how frequently is buying boots going to:
1. Save you from a gank before level 6? This is worth it.
2. Delay your Vlads by 1-2 minutes for no reason? Not worth it.
Any of the usual suspects that come into the jungle usually don't have trouble finishing off a Lycan <50% hp. Like I said, I don't really see how the few times boots saves a kill in jungle outweighs delaying Rosh the extra minute or two every single game.
(KwarK on wife's account): Several big elements to the boots decision. If you're suiciding or returning to the fountain regularly, which you will be if not bottle crowing which is likely in random pub games because the team and particularly the mid will get mad if you bottle crow as lycan, the boots shave a lot of time off of that. If random supports roam into the woods you will generally have boots when they don't which makes a huge difference in terms of how cautious you need to be. Again it comes down to the difference between pub games and pro games, if your supports are ready to roll in and protect you then you can be more aggressive with the jungling but I'm gonna keep buying my boots.
Well you mentioned "several" big elements but I'm seeing you mention just two, one of which I already talked about.
And now you're considering buying boots and a bottle to delay Vlads by 1075 gold? I'm not seeing the thinking here at all.
"if not bottle crowing" is a way of saying that I'm talking about a situation when bottle crowing is not happening so we're not buying a bottle, not sure why you read that into it. The reason that got brought up is cause someone went nec3 before boots in a progame recently.
1) You can't bottle crow rtz style cause no reliable courier access 2) You need to return to the fountain all the fucking time rather than relying on getting items seconds after you have the gold for them because flying courier at 3 minutes isn't common and priority usage of it is even less common, you may wanna buy the ring at 3 minutes but you're not gonna get it until later.
It costs 450 gold but it represents an increase in gpm because you spend way less time fucking around when shit doesn't work out perfectly, when the camps are difficult or people hunt you or you can't get your items. Also level 7 and vlads after boots generally come around the same time for me, I don't want to be roshing any earlier, I'm not sure I'll be doing it any faster anyway. Even if you argue that it's gold you'd spend elsewhere you can't disagree that you get more done in X amount of time with the faster boots, the faster vlads doesn't get you faster farm because you're able to smash through the camps by level 3 onward anyway vlads or not. Your limiting factor on your exp/minute is not how close to vlads you are but how fast you can move, boots increases your exp/minute and therefore gets you to that crucial 7 faster.
Watch the game I linked earlier, the courier with morbid mask, recipe for vlads, smoke and clarity all arrived as I was level 6 and I had to knock out another camp to get 7 and rosh, getting them all 450 gold earlier would have amounted a slower rosh than I achieved because I wouldn't have the level to do it at the time and it'd actually take me longer to get the 7 because far more time would be spent wandering around with no boots.
My MMR hasn't changed notably since switching from easy camps + medallion + later rosh to hatchet + hard camps + faster rosh. Nor has my level timings, I'm still generally level 11 by 12 or so minutes in. However the earlier lane presence and pushing probably is better for the team as a whole and I'm currently favouring the faster necro without the medallion.
So I was thinking with the buff to Lycan's wolves would it be OK to go hotd on lycan?
The wolf regen allows you to still use wolves to tank rosh allowing you to get an extra creep from a neutral camp. Alpha wolf seems like it would be best because it gives you the 30% bonus damage (instead of vlads 15%). Going hotd also allows you to go satanic later maybe?
On March 19 2014 14:20 jbui wrote: So I was thinking with the buff to Lycan's wolves would it be OK to go hotd on lycan?
The wolf regen allows you to still use wolves to tank rosh allowing you to get an extra creep from a neutral camp. Alpha wolf seems like it would be best because it gives you the 30% bonus damage (instead of vlads 15%). Going hotd also allows you to go satanic later maybe?
maybe it could be good in certain situations, but it seems like the lifesteal on your wolves is very important for doing a fast rosh...
Oh I didn't notice you updated your original post.
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.
Can someone help me? Need some advice. I've had trouble finishing off games. The first 20 mins tend to go well enough. I get the T3 towers down but then my team tends to stall and we lose 20 mins later....
I read this yesterday, and tried it at night. 5 games 4 wins, and the lost game was impossible anyway, really great guide.
@ShmeeZZy If you had a nice 12-13 mins, you should able to win 80%. The key thing is to choose between farming,pushing and taking fights. Here is what i do; after killing roshan ( level 9, vlads/stout shield/qb) go farm ancients, couple of nc camps and get quick power treads.I try to avoid fights. This is where i start putting pressure on Tier 1 towers, just look for an opening and push. If you die when pushing it is no problem. I happily trade an aegis for a tower at that stage of the game. Use you ulti after you die with aegis to finish off tower and run. In my opinion, the best way to prevent a bad team from stalling is to get towers quickly. Gold advantage helps a lot.
So what is hands down the best pushing build? I don't think it matters all that much past travels since my games tend to end quickly, but my usual build is vlads > brown boots > necro 3 > travels > manta > refresher > necro 3 > AC
haven't needed bkb in any games yet. but id assume you want one against some heroes before manta.
I'd preferably go for AC earlier since the attack speed + minus-armor auras actually really help with pushing. Also, while I guess Manta is situationally useful, I think you're going far too overboard with the whole Manta + Refresher + second Necro 3.
My ideal build is Vlads > brown boots > Necro 3 > AC > Travels > Abyssal > game-has-never-lasted-this-long-for-me-according-to-Dotabuff.
On April 16 2014 12:06 NeoRussia wrote: necrobook 3 > travels > manta > refresher
I'm pretty sure Necrobook + AC with Howl is much better and more cost effective. Your builds are like from Japan or something, I know the idea behind it but there's not much reason behind it compared to alternatives (which are considered standard? idk i'd like to have a combination of AC/Abyssal) and it's just seems weird to call it your usual build, y'know?
On March 15 2014 02:18 Noya wrote: rtz has shown that you can win a LAN deciding game by skipping boots until Necro3, why would you delay your must-have-asap Vlads for boots...
stout+RoP/QB start is mathematically superior to a Basi start.
Boots help with survivability against random roamers running into your jungle while you are weak and low in hp/mp in the beginning. Just because rtz pulls it off in one game when he's probably confident about his supports protecting him, with a low chance of the enemy ganking him, doesn't make it automatically better.
You could also accomplish this and save the 450 gold by just paying attention to the map and getting missing calls from teammates. This doesn't always work at high levels but the idea is the same
I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
A lot of jungling people skip ultimate if they can't get a sidelane kill (or no fear of being ganked in jungle/rosh) because level 3 feral is a bit good and mana problems are kinda lame on wolfman. If you solo Rosh at level 7 without hiccups you'll gain level 9 with the kill iirc so you get to max feral and have a point in ult regardless. You really do not need that courage medalion or at all with the new method with new level 4 wolves, it's about as micro intensive as putting your arm out to stop your absent minded kid from crossing the road while cars are coming when they're low on HP, you just drag back and optionally wait for regen this ain't courage medalion shit anymore with regen wolves.
I still think boots before/after Rosh should be your main thing because you can't rely on having your ult to escape all the time vs the mobility flair in the game lately, but instead of medalion or belt of strength consider saving up for that staff of wizardry or something. If you're gonna delay boots because you should have the money to buy that bigger necrobook component or soon to buy it even if you've got boots beforehand, becuz fuck them mana problems. Besides boots are generally something to look out for because when you get higher no competent team will attempt to let you jungle Lycan at all, it hasn't been in your experience except for boot carriers but you're like a fat kid who cries when he's poked and normally have your side of the jungle warded for the offlaners or the average roaming support to steal your candy. Lycan is generally one of the easiest heroes to kill in jungle that aren't fringe junglers.
edit: On the other hand try not to do the mistake at attempting before level 7 despite having an earlyish vlads. Biggest mistake of my Lycan games in general was when I didn't get to level 7 and went to Rosh pit and it took me 2 minutes to get back to fountain and go back to the jungle just to kill a creep for lvl 7. Fuck my life.
On April 17 2014 06:24 NeoRussia wrote: I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
What MMR are you in? I found it pretty easy to rosh at 8 minutes consistently without boots until I hit around 4800. Since then it has been significantly harder to roshan early, because people are much more aware of what is happening. Lately Ive been finding I simply need to go push and help my teammates for a bit first. Roshing when it is safer and not just asap.
On April 17 2014 06:24 NeoRussia wrote: I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
What MMR are you in? I found it pretty easy to rosh at 8 minutes consistently without boots until I hit around 4800. Since then it has been significantly harder to roshan early, because people are much more aware of what is happening. Lately Ive been finding I simply need to go push and help my teammates for a bit first. Roshing when it is safer and not just asap.
Im <3k and at my level roshtimings are almost allways gaurded especially against ursa and lycan by multiple teamm8's.
On April 17 2014 06:24 NeoRussia wrote: I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
What MMR are you in? I found it pretty easy to rosh at 8 minutes consistently without boots until I hit around 4800. Since then it has been significantly harder to roshan early, because people are much more aware of what is happening. Lately Ive been finding I simply need to go push and help my teammates for a bit first. Roshing when it is safer and not just asap.
Im <3k and at my level roshtimings are almost allways gaurded especially against ursa and lycan by multiple teamm8's.
On April 17 2014 06:24 NeoRussia wrote: I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
What MMR are you in? I found it pretty easy to rosh at 8 minutes consistently without boots until I hit around 4800. Since then it has been significantly harder to roshan early, because people are much more aware of what is happening. Lately Ive been finding I simply need to go push and help my teammates for a bit first. Roshing when it is safer and not just asap.
Im <3k and at my level roshtimings are almost allways gaurded especially against ursa and lycan by multiple teamm8's.
I really doubt this.
The thrench is really bad but inceptedly bad aswell. In AP rosh is not allways warded as most people tend to pick there favorite hero's (famous 5 carry strat). But alot of people do ping rosh when they are missing an ursa or lycan.
On April 17 2014 06:24 NeoRussia wrote: I've only had trouble with enemies roaming on me when they have a good rune. Otherwise I quelling blade out, block with wolves, deny myself to neutrals, or just fight them. I've never had to get boots before first roshan, or even level my ultimate before level 4 wolves. Generally I buy a medallion or if I'm capable of doing roshan without one then a belt of strength before I get boots.
What MMR are you in? I found it pretty easy to rosh at 8 minutes consistently without boots until I hit around 4800. Since then it has been significantly harder to roshan early, because people are much more aware of what is happening. Lately Ive been finding I simply need to go push and help my teammates for a bit first. Roshing when it is safer and not just asap.
Im <3k and at my level roshtimings are almost allways gaurded especially against ursa and lycan by multiple teamm8's.
I really doubt this.
The thrench is really bad but inceptedly bad aswell. In AP rosh is not allways warded as most people tend to pick there favorite hero's (famous 5 carry strat). But alot of people do ping rosh when they are missing an ursa or lycan.
I'm 3.4k and often queue with 3900-4200 teammates, and I still see Rosh fall uncontested to Lycan/Ursa all of the time. I would even say more often than not...
i've read this guide, and also read M1crosoft's one as well. Both are good, but because people tend to ward the easy camp, starting on the hard seems better. practised a bit of jungling and generally i can finish roshan in around 8 mins plus if nothing goes too wrong. i'm pretty new to the hero though, and have some issues. recently i've been going the BoT necro splitpush with AC build which generally goes very well. it tends to have some issues against some stunners/tankers when the other side counterpicks---mainly axe, bristle, tiny. to a lesser extent ES. basically once i see them on the minimap i have to run away, if not i get caught in the blink and stun=back to fountain again.
should i be trying some other build against such heroes like basher/bkb?
Thanks a lot to both KwerK and Mlcrsoft1. It is truely a winning guide, my latest win rate was around 81% with lycan.
For the below 4000 mmr players: there is even a better way to start. Below 4000, easy camp is usully not blocked and supports doesnt need to pull it in the first wave anyway. So basically if you summon wolf at -00:03 and go to easy camp, clear the camp back off let it respawn and kill it again, at 01:10 you are level 2 guarenteed. After this point go to a mid camp or a hard camp depending on spawns, and continue farming as usual. If you start like this, there is no way you could die without having mask of death. I tried it 30+ times, even in the worst case of jungle ( full of centaurs,ursas) still you can get 900 gold before you suicide. And it is much easier to go hard/mid camps with 1 level feral, if you are not so good at microing wolfs.
So basically, for not so high bracket players out there, start with 2 easy camps, it is mathematically superior.
I gave up trying to figure out a way for aggro to work consistantly. Every time I try to switch it between wolf to hero or vice-versa creeps would randomly switch targets a second later. Most of the time when I try to move the hero closer nothing happens so the neutrals end up chasing after my units and I end up in a worse off situation since I end up moving more than attacking. No matter how hard I try or how easy the first camp is I end up losing 2 sets of wolves usually a creep or two before I can level up, and having to suicide before level 2 wolves. I find that in these cases you shouldnt even have tangos because their effectiveness is so small when solo with level 1 feral or even without.
Someone pointed it out in this thread, you have to move Lycan on top of the neutrals, then he will get the aggro. So don't a-click, but right-click him 'through' the creeps and a-click when you're right on top of them. This mostly applies to golems and ogres.
On April 22 2014 15:16 MushkulPesent wrote: For the below 4000 mmr players: there is even a better way to start. Below 4000, easy camp is usully not blocked and supports doesnt need to pull it in the first wave anyway. So basically if you summon wolf at -00:03 and go to easy camp, clear the camp back off let it respawn and kill it again, at 01:10 you are level 2 guarenteed.
So basically, for not so high bracket players out there, start with 2 easy camps, it is mathematically superior.
I really disagree with this post, especially this part. In-experienced players should be pushed to learn 'advanced' techniques and apply it to their daily play to improve and get another trick above players of their equal skill.
Not to mention it's just as easy to kill hard Trolls Satyr or medium Satyr Wolf camps for a quick level 2. RNG might fuck you over, but no matter the MMR please leave your easy camp to safe lane to use. It isn't hard to jungle Lycan at all, it's only hard if there's RNG and experienced players on the other team so please don't gimp people and their team to go for the easy camps because even if you get good easy camp RNG, you will likely fuck over your team's safelane. Not to mention the camp would likely be blocked at most levels of play, even at 2k. Yes, people who are bad at the game do know about techniques because they often see other people do it and incorporate it into their play. Even for Centaur stomp and Ursa clap 'micro' it should be easy enough for a player to understand that he should try to agro with all 3 units at the same time then run back and re-adjust agro.
Also becuz easy camp imba too much DPS nerf ghost camp.
On April 22 2014 17:51 Laurens wrote: Someone pointed it out in this thread, you have to move Lycan on top of the neutrals, then he will get the aggro. So don't a-click, but right-click him 'through' the creeps and a-click when you're right on top of them. This mostly applies to golems and ogres.
Yeh, most of the time you move click, attack then send wolves in. If wolves likely to expire during the camp farming, just use them to tank. But it's just as easy to go ballistic on them by just right clicking then quickly send wolves in at any camp, especially at lvl 5.
Just want to share something I saw from playdota. It's a Lycan build by GodlyKha (the one who invented SoF Chains Ember, like seriously it was him). Basically, it's a jungle Lycan where you get SR into straight Necro 3. He totally skips Vlad's on Lycan. Personally I never really understood why I build Vlad's. I always got it because it's a standard build, and it's not an item that you will dismiss intuitively. Anyway here are some of my thoughts of the build:
1. SR = 100% wolves usage I think there's not a single argument that can dispute this. Wolves are 145 mana every 30s. SR gives you 150 mana every 30s, not counting the 50% mana regen. There is no doubt that SR can sustain the usage of wolves.
On the other hand, you cannot do the same with just Vlad's until you get your Necro. Medallion would help, but that's additional gold. Either way, I wouldn't say which is superior. The only point is that SR is a valid item for mana regen purposes.
2. Early fighting prowess + pushing Some arguments for Vlad's is that you need it to actually fight heroes or to push. I'm not really convinced by it yet, because I don't see what it gives that an early Necro 1 doesn't. Do you deal more DPS to heroes with Vlads than with a Necro 1?
I do not feel the argument that Vlad's boost your allies' DPS is strong too, because realistically Lycan doesn't participate in fights that early except for skirmishes to clean up heroes. While the argument may be true, I don't think it's that significantly better as compared to an early Necro 1.
Similarly, do you actually push much better with Vlad's than a Necro 1? Do you push better with Vlad's + Necro 1 than Necro 3? I think from math that it isn't the case, as you have more EHP/DPS with the latter for both cases.
3. Roshan Some have argued that you need Vlad's (+ Medallion?) to do Roshan. I think you are able to do it with just a straight Necro 1 as well, and I don't think the time difference is that great either. I don't see how Vlad's + Medallion is that much superior to SR + Necro 1 for this purpose.
4. HP regen I think this point is debatable. For jungling, you don't need lifesteal at all as level 7 Wolves can tank for you. The wolves also don't need the lifesteal aura because of their 15HP regen. As for fights, I don't think anyone can handle Lycan's DPS anyway in a manfight. If nukes are the one killing you, then Vlad's will not help either way.
I suppose it could be argued that if after a fight you are at low HP, you could lifesteal the HP back. If that is really a concern though, I think HotD would be better for this purpose. You build towards a future Satanic that is much better for fighting. You also have an extra creep. Either way, I see most Lycan players would just head back to base since they are probably low on mana anyway. While still a plausible point, I don't see much benefits in getting Vlad's.
5. Mid late game fighting prowess + pushing Well everyone will definitely have their Necro 3. The question is whether they will have Vlad's along with it. Is there any math on how much Vlad's increase EHP and DPS? Is the DPS/EHP boost that crucial in fighting/pushing? I personally think that with just the zoo, your pushing and fighting ability is already quite strong. I'm not too sure if Vlad's will up it into a whole new level.
Up to now, I have not seen a single convincing argument on why Vlad's is essential to Lycan. I don't see why I should get it before Necro 1. I get that it is an item that helps to push no doubt, but is it superior to getting over other items instead after your Necro 3? Do note that I'm not saying which build is better. It's just a discussion, and I'm opened to being convinced.
I know at level 7 wolves can tank for you, but how does going for (and using) SR change how you lane/jungle? Are you advocating this build specifically for a laning Lycan or does it work in jungle as well?
I can certainly buy the wisdom of skipping Vlads and would like to see it in action. Almost every other hero tends to get Vlads later on when the % dmg increases and life steal become more noticable so it always seemed odd to me for Lycan to grab it so early.
You've kind of answered your own question in your post lol. You already listed everything that's good about vlads (lifesteal, better necro creeps and wolves, better push, quicker rosh).
I don't think soul ring is necessary. As soon as you have the staff of wizardry for necro, your mana is sufficient in my experience. Before then thread switching can help too, I rarely find the lack of mana a problem. And that's without medaillon.
On April 24 2014 03:20 Logo wrote: I know at level 7 wolves can tank for you, but how does going for (and using) SR change how you lane/jungle? Are you advocating this build specifically for a laning Lycan or does it work in jungle as well?
I can certainly buy the wisdom of skipping Vlads and would like to see it in action. Almost every other hero tends to get Vlads later on when the % dmg increases and life steal become more noticable so it always seemed odd to me for Lycan to grab it so early.
It's a pure jungle build. I suppose SR was to dispute the notion that you need Vlad's for mana regen purpose. There's a very legitimate alternative in SR, and it's definitely much better in the early jungling portion for your wolves usage.
Even if it is for laning, wouldn't it be better to rush a Necro rather than delay it by Vlad's. And after your Necro, is Vlad's really that important that you should get it over other items?
The main thought provoking point is why are you getting your Vlad's. It makes perfect sense to get BF on AM, because no other item can replicate its effect. But for Vlad's? If you want additional EHP/DPS, Vlad's isn't the only option. Like you said, why do all Lycan grab Vlad's so early?
On April 24 2014 03:29 Laurens wrote: You've kind of answered your own question in your post lol. You already listed everything that's good about vlads (lifesteal, better necro creeps and wolves, better push, quicker rosh).
I don't think soul ring is necessary. As soon as you have the staff of wizardry for necro, your mana is sufficient in my experience. Before then thread switching can help too, I rarely find the lack of mana a problem. And that's without medaillon.
What makes getting Vlad's first better than getting Necro first. And after that, what makes Vlad's that much better over the bigger extensions.
The point I'm disputing is whether Vlad's is NECESSARY at all. A lot of people get Vlad's because everyone does it. It feels standard. But do you really need it?
I think SR is a really good fit timing/manawise and if you can jungle well enough a 3.5k earlier necro3 (no boots) is huge deal. Timing completely shifts and will take alot of people by surprise.
1. how late do you go rosh? 2. How late do you have necro 3? 3. What items do you transition in and in what order? Without vlads i'd say bkb is important right?
Similarly, do you actually push much better with Vlad's than a Necro 1? Do you push better with Vlad's + Necro 1 than Necro 3? I think from math that it isn't the case, as you have more EHP/DPS with the latter for both cases.
The Vlad's completes at a time suitable for the safe lane push to break the T1. From there, you can extend your pushing tempo easily into the other lanes.
SR + Necro 1 is 1500 gold more than Vlad's (making it somewhat disingenuous to compare their pushing power timing-wise), and is far later when we're talking about early laning--possibly late enough for the enemy team to have taken the initiative in breaking your towers first. I could see it being better for an extended laning phase, or if you have another strong tower-pushing jungler that makes the T1 going down early a given anyway (e.g. Enchantress), but Lycan wants T1s to start dropping by the time he's Rosh capable because those T1s being gone drastically increases his Rosh threat.
To me it makes as much sense to go vlads on lycan than to go bf on AM tbh.
Lycan has 3 skills that buff his minions, and a 4th skill that gives him minions. It's easy to see why necro is a great item on him -> more buffed minions. It's equally easy to see (in my opinion) why vlads is a great item on him -> minions get buffed even more.
Also, the vlad first build, with an average jungle, allows me to get vlads by 6:xx, rosh killed by 8:30, and necro 1 shortly afterwards. Usually Rosh boosts me from lvl 7 to lvl 9, gives me enough money to buy 2 of the 3 components for treads, and I can almost always take a T1 since I am one of the highest levels in the game and I have aegis + ult. It's the start of a powerful snowballing Lycan.
Going Soul ring -> necro 1 costs 1500 more, so it won't be done at 6:xx for sure. You also jungle slower without lifesteal and the dmg buffs from vlads. You'll take rosh a lot later and it'll be a bit trickier (no lifesteal, and necro 1 units aren't that great yet) and your snowballing will be less noticeable. I actually wouldn't be surprised if the vlads first Lycan can get necro 3 at roughly the same time as your SR -> necro build because of Rosh and tower money.
This is all theorycrafting of course. I cba to make a lobby and check the necro 1/rosh timings.
The discussion of whether Vlad's first is worth it predates this idea. Going back two years even, people debated Medallion-first vs. Vlad's first and tons of math was thrown around about how Medallion-first jungles faster and makes you Rosh-capable faster, which are moot points because the strength of Vlad's is that a freefarm Vlad's turns into an unstoppable T1 (and possibly T2 if the enemy team does not respond correctly) push that only certain other junglers are capable of (Enchantress, Chen if he got lucky with camps and leveled fast enough). Lycan needs to make use of this, as it is one of his major strengths as a hero. Not utilizing in favor of just farming jungle does indeed make him better off delaying or skipping Vlad's entirely.
Similarly, do you actually push much better with Vlad's than a Necro 1? Do you push better with Vlad's + Necro 1 than Necro 3? I think from math that it isn't the case, as you have more EHP/DPS with the latter for both cases.
The Vlad's completes at a time suitable for the safe lane push to break the T1. From there, you can extend your pushing tempo easily into the other lanes.
SR + Necro 1 is 1500 gold more than Vlad's (making it somewhat disingenuous to compare their pushing power timing-wise), and is far later when we're talking about early laning--possibly late enough for the enemy team to have taken the initiative in breaking your towers first. I could see it being better for an extended laning phase, or if you have another strong tower-pushing jungler that makes the T1 going down early a given anyway (e.g. Enchantress), but Lycan wants T1s to start dropping by the time he's Rosh capable because those T1s being gone drastically increases his Rosh threat.
Your reasoning sounds valid. Although as you said, this benefit is dependent on it being a necessity for you to push the T1 in the first place.
Another point to moot about is that given a free farm scenario (as with most competitive Lycan), is Vlad's first better than Necro 1? You don't need SR yet because you barely use Wolves, so it's just 700 gold more.
Whether or not Vlads is neccessary every game is a completely different debate now that wolves have 15 hp regen. Its still very much core, but probably not necessary, esp for radiant lycan.
On April 24 2014 04:20 Kupon3ss wrote: Whether or not Vlads is neccessary every game is a completely different debate now that wolves have 15 hp regen. Its still very much core, but probably not necessary, esp for radiant lycan.
Everyone gets it as though it is necessary though.
I don't think vlads contributes much to pushing at all. Creep/wolf lifesteal is irrelevant as is the armour and regen component of the item. It adds about a bracer's worth of damage when farming and 2 bracers when using howl and pushing which is arguably worth less than a faster necrobook when you also take having more hp when jungling into consideration, so its mostly a farming and not a pushing item. You don't lifesteal off towers anyway. The window of time where you are weaker than a vlads lycan is irrelevant because you simply rush necro 1 from jungle and push right away which is definitely better than pushing without a necrobook after taking roshan. Speaking of Roshan, its slower but its possible (its actually a lot faster if you choose to use your necro units to kill him then going medallion + vlads) after expanding most of your mana pool without using soul ring. You also lose a lot more hp but in all of my 34 lycan games this patch I've only been ganked in Roshan TWICE. One of the times I managed to suicide to Roshan and the other time I died but came back to take aegis with my team and that's at 4.2k+ mmr and skipping the ultimate. The most sensible thing would be to ward jungle then when lycan is missing past the 8~ min mark you group smoke into roshan but I've never ever seen this happen.
the 5 armour is possibly enough to save one melee creep when pushing through waves, but that's too much theorycrafting. It's good if you have a chen or enchantress or any of the creep summoning heroes but otherwise its irrelevant. its compared to a bracer since that's how much damage each of your wolves get (with howl). By the time the % of your own damage becomes better than a faster necrobook you should be building an AC or whatever item after necrobook. Lifesteal does absolutely nothing for creeps or wolves, and most of the time you do not need it when farming jungle between pushes. Your hp might be a bit lower but when its low enough you have to go to base anyway even when you have vlad's, but once again this is a trade-off for getting a faster necronomicon which is your real core item that pushes towers down and does a lot more than vlad's even with level 1 necrobook.
What do you mean it's "possibly enough to save one melee creep"?
Vlad's +5 armor means that any full HP creep takes 1 more tower hit to kill. When pushing a tower, this means you get ~20% longer to hit the tower before the creep wave thins out, in addition to you, your wolves, and all melee creeps doing 15% more damage.
Vlads % gives more damage to Lycan than necro 1 at all times. Necro 1 gives only 8 damage ..
If you were including the creeps: The necro 1 melee does 25 damage, 2 more than lane creeps, albeit with 0.25 lower BAT. The necro 1 range does 40 damage, 15 more than lane creeps, same BAT.
Rushing necro 1 seems utterly pointless. The stats your hero gets are minimal for a 2700 cost. Every 95 seconds you can get 2 glorified lane creeps, woop.
The only argument you could make is that it gets you quicker to Necro 3 (which is the good stuff), but as I mentioned earlier I wouldn't be surprised if vlads first gets necro 3 at the same time due to towers and rosh ..
Well you wouldn't consider the bonus damage to necro minions from vlads because you wouldn't have a necrobook by the time you pushed if you didn't build vlads. Necro units still do more than a hero at that point of the game even at level 1, especially when enemies try to contest your push and eat the mana burn and pure damage from the melee dude. TheYango I didn't count the tower hits because T1 towers will fall to level 1 necrobook regardless, and with those towers gone you can't really compare the amount of gold you get that adds to getting more necrobook levels to pushing down the T2 towers. It's just too much theorycrafting to find out at what small point in the game you will have a vlads and not another 1250 gold for another level of necronomicon, but the point is you get a faster necrobook level 1 which is more pushing power than a just a vlads by itself albeit on a cooldown.
Anyway my point is not that vlads is bad, but is that its not a core item on lycan, necronomicon is your core pushing item. The weakness of vladimir's offering is that its no longer required since wolves have regen and you are only delaying your core by getting it. It is still good because of its synergy with necronomicon units, jungling, and pushing as a team so in some situations it would be ok to get, but a faster necronomicon will allow you to take towers faster than if you just had a vlad's and use that tower gold to get an earlier advantage than if you would have delayed your core.
Tried the Soul Ring build on a jungle lycan. In general, it felt pretty similar to playing playing with Vlads. Rosh was a lot harder though. I used my necros but just barely got him even though I howled twice (I normally don't howl at all). Ancients are also harder to take, I think you need double wolf summons to take the dragon camp. Can't remember if I used howl or not though so perhaps they are easier than I remember. It was a short game so I only killed one ancient camp.
The cost difference between vlads and soul ring is exactly one necro recipe. Dunno if its worth it, gonna experiment some more.
Similarly, do you actually push much better with Vlad's than a Necro 1? Do you push better with Vlad's + Necro 1 than Necro 3? I think from math that it isn't the case, as you have more EHP/DPS with the latter for both cases.
The Vlad's completes at a time suitable for the safe lane push to break the T1. From there, you can extend your pushing tempo easily into the other lanes.
SR + Necro 1 is 1500 gold more than Vlad's (making it somewhat disingenuous to compare their pushing power timing-wise), and is far later when we're talking about early laning--possibly late enough for the enemy team to have taken the initiative in breaking your towers first. I could see it being better for an extended laning phase, or if you have another strong tower-pushing jungler that makes the T1 going down early a given anyway (e.g. Enchantress), but Lycan wants T1s to start dropping by the time he's Rosh capable because those T1s being gone drastically increases his Rosh threat.
Your reasoning sounds valid. Although as you said, this benefit is dependent on it being a necessity for you to push the T1 in the first place.
Another point to moot about is that given a free farm scenario (as with most competitive Lycan), is Vlad's first better than Necro 1? You don't need SR yet because you barely use Wolves, so it's just 700 gold more.
It's "just" 700 gold more, but the thing is Lycan wants to rosh and take t1s asap. Farming up that 700 gold in the early game even if it is in the jungle takes time away from a Lycan that wants to take objectives as soon as possible and put the gold advantage in his team's favor. For this reason I shy away from rushing necro 1.
I think the only situation where I would consider rushing necro 1 is if lycan is radiant and got the best camps of all time to jungle with, as in only satyrs, wolves, and trolls good. Even then, I'm not convinced it's better than vlad's.
Well glad no one is outright dismissing this idea yet.
On April 24 2014 05:07 Laurens wrote: Vlads % gives more damage to Lycan than necro 1 at all times. Necro 1 gives only 8 damage ..
If you were including the creeps: The necro 1 melee does 25 damage, 2 more than lane creeps, albeit with 0.25 lower BAT. The necro 1 range does 40 damage, 15 more than lane creeps, same BAT.
Rushing necro 1 seems utterly pointless. The stats your hero gets are minimal for a 2700 cost. Every 95 seconds you can get 2 glorified lane creeps, woop.
The only argument you could make is that it gets you quicker to Necro 3 (which is the good stuff), but as I mentioned earlier I wouldn't be surprised if vlads first gets necro 3 at the same time due to towers and rosh ..
Well mathematically speaking, if Necro 1 is 'pointless', then you are worse off with Vlad's when you want to push/fight. If you refer to this link, the numbers show Necro 1 to be superior. I'm not certain of the accuracy of these numbers, but he is quite known for doing such calculations.
Similarly, do you actually push much better with Vlad's than a Necro 1? Do you push better with Vlad's + Necro 1 than Necro 3? I think from math that it isn't the case, as you have more EHP/DPS with the latter for both cases.
The Vlad's completes at a time suitable for the safe lane push to break the T1. From there, you can extend your pushing tempo easily into the other lanes.
SR + Necro 1 is 1500 gold more than Vlad's (making it somewhat disingenuous to compare their pushing power timing-wise), and is far later when we're talking about early laning--possibly late enough for the enemy team to have taken the initiative in breaking your towers first. I could see it being better for an extended laning phase, or if you have another strong tower-pushing jungler that makes the T1 going down early a given anyway (e.g. Enchantress), but Lycan wants T1s to start dropping by the time he's Rosh capable because those T1s being gone drastically increases his Rosh threat.
Your reasoning sounds valid. Although as you said, this benefit is dependent on it being a necessity for you to push the T1 in the first place.
Another point to moot about is that given a free farm scenario (as with most competitive Lycan), is Vlad's first better than Necro 1? You don't need SR yet because you barely use Wolves, so it's just 700 gold more.
It's "just" 700 gold more, but the thing is Lycan wants to rosh and take t1s asap. Farming up that 700 gold in the early game even if it is in the jungle takes time away from a Lycan that wants to take objectives as soon as possible and put the gold advantage in his team's favor. For this reason I shy away from rushing necro 1.
I think the only situation where I would consider rushing necro 1 is if lycan is radiant and got the best camps of all time to jungle with, as in only satyrs, wolves, and trolls good. Even then, I'm not convinced it's better than vlad's.
Well the thing about Rosh which I do not quite like as an argument is getting it asap. I mean if there was a laning Lycan, and at ~8-10 minutes mark he is missing from the map, anybody would smell a rosh attempt.
As for safelane T1 towers, it's not like Vlad's is a major criteria to push it down.
On April 24 2014 07:01 DucK- wrote: As for safelane T1 towers, it's not like Vlad's is a major criteria to push it down.
It depends on teamcomps, though in pubgames it's pretty easy to shove down the T1 regardless because the off-laner randomly got killed or went to dick around in their jungle with a huge creep wave pushing.
Though again, with Vlad's you have the potential to snowball that big T1 push into a T2 tower--which can get your team a huge advantage if the enemy responds poorly, either by not coordinating to stop it, OR over-committing, resulting in them losing a T1 elsewhere or someone else getting caught.
I just had a game where I went soul ring lycan, Rosh was doable at 8 minutes still just like with vlads, then I pushed bot with my necro1 and several teammates and when they tried to stop us we just won because at that point in the game necrobook minions do so much that you can take down any hero with howl and ultimate, and the enemy never expects you to have a necrobook complete at this time. Right after that fight was over, we went to heal and bam necrobook was back up and we took 2 more towers with it. If we had more people in that first fight we would have snowballed to push T2 regardless of whether we had a vlads or not, although it would have been easier since we had Furion and his treants that would have benefited from the armour bonus against towers.
I went for a clowny manta build
soul ring > necro 1 > necro 2 > necro 3 > brown boots + travels at the same time from the tower gold > manta when the throne was exposed
Isnt it possible to draft in CM a team where someone else farms an early vlads. In that way you could time everything around the early necro3+SR+bootless timing. Because the timing of the necro3 seems really nice and could certainly have a big impact.
E: like abbadon support, he stays alive longer then a lycan would so it would make him a good vladscarrier or am i wrong? Or beastmaster offlane (howl awesome), something like that.
a meknsm is usually a much better item to rush for pushing. abbadon/chen/beastmaster would be better off going mekansm than vlads. Arcane boots would be ideal as well. The timing of mekansm is much later than if you lane lycan and he rushes necrobook so the plan would be to rush arcanes on a support and mekansm on your utility hero, so ideally you would take a tower with necro 1 and then use the gold from that + roshan to get mek and arcanes from which you 5 man middle and attempt to take all of their towers.
No, that guide is not updated. if you're not playing with necronomicon as a core item then you're not playing lycan. Also howl is very good and the only reason you don't get levels in it early is because you will have mana problems in jungle if you intend on using it and jungling.
Not convinced, I'd rather take more points in feral for consistency if I was jungling unless I used something like Bottle or as discussed previously, Soul Ring.
edit: Unless you're talking something like 4-0/1-1/2/3 into 4-4-1/2/3, I don't get you or how you see howl being better than the consistency of Feral during that buff's downtime if you're farming jungle and are tight on mana.
Hey DucK what's the item progression for the Soul Ring build from starting items anyway?
On April 24 2014 18:56 Surprise.820 wrote: Not convinced, I'd rather take more points in feral if I was jungling unless I used something like Bottle or Soul Ring.
Hey DucK what's the item progression the Soul Ring build from starting items anyway?
Something like Quelling Stout Tango -> SR -> Necro
You probably need to suicide as per normal. You also probably need to buy 1 more set of Tango to last you. Once your Wolves are rank 3 or 4, HP/jungling should not be a problem,
After Necro 3, he really likes BoT into Manta. But then again, what you get after Necro 3 is up to you.
Just finished a bot game testing it blind except for DucK's comment, thanks for the link tho!
I've got some thoughts on what I did: Wow, that was smooth as hell and how early I got Necrobook surprised me. Soul Ring is extremely easy to pull off and I had mana for everything. The quick necrobook owns and delivers a lot when activated for such an early period, is the main method to just push ASAP with this build? Also, is the Necrobook necessary? It seems you could even rush a combat (why? idk) Lycan very quickly, but it's hard to argue against quick pushing shit. Not to mention Necro1 allows Lycan to be strong for fighting at that stage esp. versus very low mobility heroes.
This is just a 1 game sample but I found it hard to beat Roshan solo with a Necro1 and no Vlads, wolves died awfully quickly even with micro and re-agro and the lifesteal aura normally helped quicker recoveries. But Necro1, lvl 2/3 (I forgot) Howl and Lvl 4 Wolves took off around 40% of his health before I couldn't prevent my units from dying. Of course, that was Solo Roshan, in a real game it is likely I will not be doing Roshan solo with Lycan anyway because you know, enemies won't let me. If I had my team helping me I wouldn't see any problem at all with taking Roshan down quickly.
This is where I deviated because Manta still sounds weird on him. I tried for a Helm of the Dominator because why not? Got a Troll, managed to get myself a sick net disable on a bot (rofl) and push with skeletons, wolves and Necro3. Seems really funny to go for this item quickly over the AC and Basher/Abyssal, but meh, I needed some sort of E-HP quickly.
Overall I like it a lot, I think it's great that there's some alternative to Vlads but I'm not going to drop Vlads if there's a melee/stat heavy core on my team or if I want to 'cheese' an early Roshan, but I do see this build as stronger for earlier pushing out of the jungle which is what people truly want anyway.
edit: Also the Manta Style build frustrates and confuses me further, isn't this basically the same as doing RTZ bottle and/or getting illusion runes? It just annoys me as I previous stated a week ago that you're probs better off getting even more stuff like the aura granting Assault Cuirass and just getting illusions from elsewhere if you're so bothered about this long distance pushing method.
On April 24 2014 19:57 Surprise.820 wrote: Just finished a bot game testing it blind except for DucK's comment, thanks for the link tho!
I've got some thoughts on what I did: Wow, that was smooth as hell and how early I got Necrobook surprised me. Soul Ring is extremely easy to pull off and I had mana for everything. The quick necrobook owns and delivers a lot when activated for such an early period, is the main method to just push ASAP with this build? Also, is the Necrobook necessary? It seems you could even rush a combat (why? idk) Lycan very quickly, but it's hard to argue against quick pushing shit. Not to mention Necro1 allows Lycan to be strong for fighting at that stage esp. versus very low mobility heroes.
This is just a 1 game sample but I found it hard to beat Roshan solo with a Necro1 and no Vlads, wolves died awfully quickly even with micro and re-agro and the lifesteal aura normally helped quicker recoveries. But Necro1, lvl 2/3 (I forgot) Howl and Lvl 4 Wolves took off around 40% of his health before I couldn't prevent my units from dying. Of course, that was Solo Roshan, in a real game it is likely I will not be doing Roshan solo with Lycan anyway because you know, enemies won't let me. If I had my team helping me I wouldn't see any problem at all with taking Roshan down quickly.
This is where I deviated because Manta still sounds weird on him. I tried for a Helm of the Dominator because why not? Got a Troll, managed to get myself a sick net disable on a bot (rofl) and push with skeletons, wolves and Necro3. Seems really funny to go for this item quickly over the AC and Basher/Abyssal, but meh, I needed some sort of E-HP quickly.
Overall I like it a lot, I think it's great that there's some alternative to Vlads but I'm not going to drop Vlads if there's a melee/stat heavy core on my team or if I want to 'cheese' an early Roshan, but I do see this build as stronger for earlier pushing out of the jungle which is what people truly want anyway.
edit: Also the Manta Style build frustrates and confuses me further, isn't this basically the same as doing RTZ bottle and/or getting illusion runes? It just annoys me as I previous stated a week ago that you're probs better off getting even more stuff like the aura granting Assault Cuirass and just getting illusions from elsewhere if you're so bothered about this long distance pushing method.
He had a whole debate on why he prefers manta over ac. Personally I don't care and get what I think is needed. Only thing I care is my necro3
Manta vs. AC is situational, and I can definitely see the comparison favoring Manta if you're not choosing to get BKB first. AC only really comes out way ahead if you're going BKB+AC and are interested in actual fights to break high ground. If you're just purely trying to rat the game out, Manta is not bad to have.
On April 25 2014 00:51 TheYango wrote: Manta vs. AC is situational, and I can definitely see the comparison favoring Manta if you're not choosing to get BKB first. AC only really comes out way ahead if you're going BKB+AC and are interested in actual fights to break high ground. If you're just purely trying to rat the game out, Manta is not bad to have.
How about illusion rune or shadow demon's disruption? Sure the former isn't on the fly, but the latter practically is.
On April 25 2014 00:51 TheYango wrote: Manta vs. AC is situational, and I can definitely see the comparison favoring Manta if you're not choosing to get BKB first. AC only really comes out way ahead if you're going BKB+AC and are interested in actual fights to break high ground. If you're just purely trying to rat the game out, Manta is not bad to have.
How about illusion rune or shadow demon's disruption? Sure the former isn't on the fly, but the latter practically is.
SD is not in every lycan game babysitting him in opponents jungle, you know. Also, manta does give you certain benefits, even though they are minor.
SD is not [...] babysitting him in opponents jungle, you know.
Nothing is stopping a Lycan and SD's team from just launching wolves and necro book with illusion from lycan to keep the aura on for like 8 seconds and stand at a safe distance for 8 seconds and try it again as long as wolves are up. Not as good as Luna like, but still viable surely. You do enough damage to buildings with necro 3 and wolves without keeping your auras on at tier 3 anyway lol.
I'd honestly get manta if I can feel it's worth it for dispelling, but I really wouldn't consider manta-style push over AC or Abyssal and I seriously would only do it in pure niche rat games.
The whole point of going Necro+Manta is that it makes the Lycan split-push self-sufficient so the rest of the team can do what they want when the enemy team has to manage Lycan.
SD works when you're trying to 5 man siege towers, yes. But if that's the case, you'd rather have BKB regardless because a 5v5 siege is likely to break out into a 5v5 teamfight.
I understand that it enhances the burst of pushing power when you're there or not, but it's just I argue that Lycan is already self-sufficient without it in a lot of situations. He already does a lot of damage to the Tier 3 with just summons and can run elsewhere with lvl 16 ult when you've overstayed your welcome to buy time for a team, Manta-Style just seems like an extra to what he was already good at if the enemy team was occupied or not, maybe it's time to get some combat centric items or something to shut down TPing people.
On April 25 2014 01:38 Surprise.820 wrote: I understand that it enhances the burst of pushing power when you're there or not, but it's just I argue that Lycan is already self-sufficient without it in a lot of situations. He already does a lot of damage to the Tier 3 with just summons and can run elsewhere with lvl 16 ult when you've overstayed your welcome to buy time for a team, Manta-Style just seems like an extra to what he was already good at if the enemy team was occupied or not, maybe it's time to get some combat centric items or something to shut down TPing people.
He has quite a rigid view of Lycan. He firmly believes in a split pushing Lycan, and hence doesn't invest in fighting items. His main rationale is that Lycan is crazily strong in split pushing. You can't just send anybody to deal with a Lycan at your T3. You need to invest quite a lot to deal with the threat. There's hardly a need to go fight with Lycan. If the enemy goes 5v4, they lose a rax. If they fight 4v4, they still can't stop you. Will they fight 3v4 then?
So theres plenty of credit to be given to BKB here, its a reasonable item, but usually not ideal. If you're manfighting in a 5 man deathball its a must-have, but if you're playing lycan to his fullest and most obnoxious potential by split pushing in every fight, you're better off with the manta. And thats the better comparison you bring up, manta against AC. Those items fill largely the same niche, being methods to boost your dps to a tower. The AC gives more direct dps than a manta, maybe not as much EHP, not that its relevant at that point, but AC is only the smallest bit more statistical bonus of DPS compared to manta, while manta has GIGANTIC, I stress, gigantic amounts of utility to give you from its illusions- whether it is using manta to fool an enemy while split pushing (send a manta up one lane while you teleport to another) or make it hard for an enemy to right click you or cast single target spells on you, or purge debuffs, or so on. More important than anything else is simply the concept of having disposable secondary units that are separate from your hero. A manta allows you to throw a sizeable army at a tower that even if your hero can't commit to a fight or has to back down, those manta illusions will help tear through it- and those manta illusions grant feral impulse to units when your hero isn't around. Heck, I die in pushes and still take down objectives just as easily with 2 wolves, 2 illusions and 2 necrocreeps.
Personally I don't like his style. I can see his logic, but I rather be able to manfight. I think for split pushing, just the standard items are sufficient enough to do the job. The Manta/RFO may be a little overkill. As such, I rather have AC + Basher over Manta Refresher.
I feel like that style doesn't utilize the fact that Lycan actually does have insane damage potential and man-fighting ability even in an up-front teamfight. While his fighting power is somewhat reliant on his BKB duration, going high ground 5-man with with a 10s BKB timing is definitely legit and I heavily disagree with him calling it "usually not ideal". In many cases it's the most straightforward way for you to break a lane, especially with pubs.
On April 25 2014 02:47 TheYango wrote: I feel like that style doesn't utilize the fact that Lycan actually does have insane damage potential and man-fighting ability even in an up-front teamfight. While his fighting power is somewhat reliant on his BKB duration, going high ground 5-man with with a 10s BKB timing is definitely legit and I heavily disagree with him calling it "usually not ideal". In many cases it's the most straightforward way for you to break a lane, especially with pubs.
It's not that he skips it though. In the earlier part of the post, he said he probably would get it as a 4th/5th item. I suppose that's what he meant by 'not ideal', in that he feels that there's no need to get it earlier.
On April 25 2014 01:07 TheYango wrote: Refresher Manta requires 2 Mantas to get 4 illusions
this doesn't work the same way it does for some other items. A hero can only have 2 manta illusions no matter how many mantas or refreshing mechanics you have. Manta is good if there's no way you can make a direct attack at the throne but have to continuously send waves of your summons at them while they are turtleing, AC is good if you threaten a base race if they try to throne you. Either way you get both eventually.
On April 25 2014 03:19 NeoRussia wrote: this doesn't work the same way it does for some other items. A hero can only have 2 manta illusions no matter how many mantas or refreshing mechanics you have.
It's supposed to work, I forgot they hadn't fixed it in DotA 2 yet.
If you have 2 sets of Mantas even though they share CD, a CD refresh via item or skill is supposed to allow you to get an additional set of illusions.
On April 25 2014 02:52 DucK- wrote: It's not that he skips it though. In the earlier part of the post, he said he probably would get it as a 4th/5th item. I suppose that's what he meant by 'not ideal', in that he feels that there's no need to get it earlier.
That depends a lot on your teamcomp and the game. I wouldn't say it's uncommon to get pub Lycan games where you're ready to break base by 2nd major item.
On April 24 2014 19:57 Surprise.820 wrote: Just finished a bot game testing it blind except for DucK's comment, thanks for the link tho!
I've got some thoughts on what I did: Wow, that was smooth as hell and how early I got Necrobook surprised me. Soul Ring is extremely easy to pull off and I had mana for everything. The quick necrobook owns and delivers a lot when activated for such an early period, is the main method to just push ASAP with this build? Also, is the Necrobook necessary? It seems you could even rush a combat (why? idk) Lycan very quickly, but it's hard to argue against quick pushing shit. Not to mention Necro1 allows Lycan to be strong for fighting at that stage esp. versus very low mobility heroes.
This is just a 1 game sample but I found it hard to beat Roshan solo with a Necro1 and no Vlads, wolves died awfully quickly even with micro and re-agro and the lifesteal aura normally helped quicker recoveries. But Necro1, lvl 2/3 (I forgot) Howl and Lvl 4 Wolves took off around 40% of his health before I couldn't prevent my units from dying. Of course, that was Solo Roshan, in a real game it is likely I will not be doing Roshan solo with Lycan anyway because you know, enemies won't let me. If I had my team helping me I wouldn't see any problem at all with taking Roshan down quickly.
This is where I deviated because Manta still sounds weird on him. I tried for a Helm of the Dominator because why not? Got a Troll, managed to get myself a sick net disable on a bot (rofl) and push with skeletons, wolves and Necro3. Seems really funny to go for this item quickly over the AC and Basher/Abyssal, but meh, I needed some sort of E-HP quickly.
Overall I like it a lot, I think it's great that there's some alternative to Vlads but I'm not going to drop Vlads if there's a melee/stat heavy core on my team or if I want to 'cheese' an early Roshan, but I do see this build as stronger for earlier pushing out of the jungle which is what people truly want anyway.
edit: Also the Manta Style build frustrates and confuses me further, isn't this basically the same as doing RTZ bottle and/or getting illusion runes? It just annoys me as I previous stated a week ago that you're probs better off getting even more stuff like the aura granting Assault Cuirass and just getting illusions from elsewhere if you're so bothered about this long distance pushing method.
He had a whole debate on why he prefers manta over ac. Personally I don't care and get what I think is needed. Only thing I care is my necro3
Soul ring seems a bit redundant if your rushing for necro books since you will get a+10 intel quite early and lycan doesn't have intense mana problems.
An advice for everyone, dont be tunnel visioned considering item choices, if your rushing an item that gives mana dont buy a soul ring. if your going for all damage getting early bracer for an hp buffer to help you live, your rushing linkens, probably dont have to worry for mana since the item will substain you later etc...
Hi, is it ok to clear medium/small camps before going for big camps in pubs?
I followed the OP's new guide but the centaurs are really fucked up shit.. I can't evade the stomp and If I tried to, the centaur would simply normal attack and kill a wolf. It's so annoying.
On April 25 2014 12:09 Discarder wrote: Hi, is it ok to clear medium/small camps before going for big camps in pubs?
I followed the OP's new guide but the centaurs are really fucked up shit.. I can't evade the stomp and If I tried to, the centaur would simply normal attack and kill a wolf. It's so annoying.
2x small will give you level 2, centaurs are pretty hard until level 3, you can do them if you go in with a full mana pool and know how to dodge the stomp but they're still not easy. If it's not warded and your support doesn't mind then opening 2x small isn't the worst thing ever (as long as you can clear it in time to not block the respawn) but opening with mediums (satyrs and wolves both give enough exp for a level 2 I think) is better than smalls. Wildwings suck balls, they give less than most mediums.
On April 25 2014 12:09 Discarder wrote: Hi, is it ok to clear medium/small camps before going for big camps in pubs?
I followed the OP's new guide but the centaurs are really fucked up shit.. I can't evade the stomp and If I tried to, the centaur would simply normal attack and kill a wolf. It's so annoying.
As i play more and more lycan games ( currently 83% win rate / 40+ games) and making some calculations, it shows that starting with big camp is sub optimal. Here is why ; There are 5 types of spawns at big camp and 2 of them doesnt give you level 2, -centaurs and wildwing- which are also likely to consume all of your regeneration. So 40% chance you screw up if you go straight to big camp. I know if you kill satyrs or trolls it is a nice start but probabilitywise going directly to big camp will make your jungle lycan more dependent on jungle luck. What about medium camp ? This is also the same. 3 out of 5 spawns doesnt give you level 2. And you wont be able to clear the spawn before 01:00. If you go directly to small camp tho, regardless of the 6 possible spawns, at 01:10 you are level 2 guarenteed + with more gold if you would have killed trolls or satyrs at big camp. Support couldnt pull the neutrals at 00:53, so what? It will not have any kind of impact whatsoever to the game since you are the most important piece of the team even if your safelane carry has zero farm, it is likely that you will carry the game starting from 15:00 min mark when your n3 is completed.
If this does not make sense to you, i recommend you to look up the gold/exp that neutral camps give, and divide those by effective HPs of the neutrals. The highest value average, tho the most efficient is small camp. Or to put it differently, with unlimited spawn a lycan farming small camp will be richer and higher level than lycan farming big or medium camp continously.
@Kwark
Your lycan guide is really great, but i suggest that it can be better. At least it can be better for below 4,5k MMR matchs, by starting with 2x easy camps.It is mathematically superior compared to any other start. I never ever suicide without having mask of death regardless of the spawn luck of the jungle. To me, buying RoB and RoR before suicide is unacceptable and that means you are doing something wrong. The only downside is, you need to scout with wolves to block any attempt to ward the camp and below 4,5k there are hardly any attempt at all.
On April 24 2014 19:57 Surprise.820 wrote: Just finished a bot game testing it blind except for DucK's comment, thanks for the link tho!
I've got some thoughts on what I did: Wow, that was smooth as hell and how early I got Necrobook surprised me. Soul Ring is extremely easy to pull off and I had mana for everything. The quick necrobook owns and delivers a lot when activated for such an early period, is the main method to just push ASAP with this build? Also, is the Necrobook necessary? It seems you could even rush a combat (why? idk) Lycan very quickly, but it's hard to argue against quick pushing shit. Not to mention Necro1 allows Lycan to be strong for fighting at that stage esp. versus very low mobility heroes.
This is just a 1 game sample but I found it hard to beat Roshan solo with a Necro1 and no Vlads, wolves died awfully quickly even with micro and re-agro and the lifesteal aura normally helped quicker recoveries. But Necro1, lvl 2/3 (I forgot) Howl and Lvl 4 Wolves took off around 40% of his health before I couldn't prevent my units from dying. Of course, that was Solo Roshan, in a real game it is likely I will not be doing Roshan solo with Lycan anyway because you know, enemies won't let me. If I had my team helping me I wouldn't see any problem at all with taking Roshan down quickly.
This is where I deviated because Manta still sounds weird on him. I tried for a Helm of the Dominator because why not? Got a Troll, managed to get myself a sick net disable on a bot (rofl) and push with skeletons, wolves and Necro3. Seems really funny to go for this item quickly over the AC and Basher/Abyssal, but meh, I needed some sort of E-HP quickly.
Overall I like it a lot, I think it's great that there's some alternative to Vlads but I'm not going to drop Vlads if there's a melee/stat heavy core on my team or if I want to 'cheese' an early Roshan, but I do see this build as stronger for earlier pushing out of the jungle which is what people truly want anyway.
edit: Also the Manta Style build frustrates and confuses me further, isn't this basically the same as doing RTZ bottle and/or getting illusion runes? It just annoys me as I previous stated a week ago that you're probs better off getting even more stuff like the aura granting Assault Cuirass and just getting illusions from elsewhere if you're so bothered about this long distance pushing method.
He had a whole debate on why he prefers manta over ac. Personally I don't care and get what I think is needed. Only thing I care is my necro3
Soul ring seems a bit redundant if your rushing for necro books since you will get a+10 intel quite early and lycan doesn't have intense mana problems.
An advice for everyone, dont be tunnel visioned considering item choices, if your rushing an item that gives mana dont buy a soul ring. if your going for all damage getting early bracer for an hp buffer to help you live, your rushing linkens, probably dont have to worry for mana since the item will substain you later etc...
The whole rationale is to have 100% wolves usage. Mana pool doesn't give you that. Its especially important when you are jungling, since wolves are your bread and butter.
On April 24 2014 19:57 Surprise.820 wrote: Just finished a bot game testing it blind except for DucK's comment, thanks for the link tho!
I've got some thoughts on what I did: Wow, that was smooth as hell and how early I got Necrobook surprised me. Soul Ring is extremely easy to pull off and I had mana for everything. The quick necrobook owns and delivers a lot when activated for such an early period, is the main method to just push ASAP with this build? Also, is the Necrobook necessary? It seems you could even rush a combat (why? idk) Lycan very quickly, but it's hard to argue against quick pushing shit. Not to mention Necro1 allows Lycan to be strong for fighting at that stage esp. versus very low mobility heroes.
This is just a 1 game sample but I found it hard to beat Roshan solo with a Necro1 and no Vlads, wolves died awfully quickly even with micro and re-agro and the lifesteal aura normally helped quicker recoveries. But Necro1, lvl 2/3 (I forgot) Howl and Lvl 4 Wolves took off around 40% of his health before I couldn't prevent my units from dying. Of course, that was Solo Roshan, in a real game it is likely I will not be doing Roshan solo with Lycan anyway because you know, enemies won't let me. If I had my team helping me I wouldn't see any problem at all with taking Roshan down quickly.
This is where I deviated because Manta still sounds weird on him. I tried for a Helm of the Dominator because why not? Got a Troll, managed to get myself a sick net disable on a bot (rofl) and push with skeletons, wolves and Necro3. Seems really funny to go for this item quickly over the AC and Basher/Abyssal, but meh, I needed some sort of E-HP quickly.
Overall I like it a lot, I think it's great that there's some alternative to Vlads but I'm not going to drop Vlads if there's a melee/stat heavy core on my team or if I want to 'cheese' an early Roshan, but I do see this build as stronger for earlier pushing out of the jungle which is what people truly want anyway.
edit: Also the Manta Style build frustrates and confuses me further, isn't this basically the same as doing RTZ bottle and/or getting illusion runes? It just annoys me as I previous stated a week ago that you're probs better off getting even more stuff like the aura granting Assault Cuirass and just getting illusions from elsewhere if you're so bothered about this long distance pushing method.
He had a whole debate on why he prefers manta over ac. Personally I don't care and get what I think is needed. Only thing I care is my necro3
Soul ring seems a bit redundant if your rushing for necro books since you will get a+10 intel quite early and lycan doesn't have intense mana problems.
An advice for everyone, dont be tunnel visioned considering item choices, if your rushing an item that gives mana dont buy a soul ring. if your going for all damage getting early bracer for an hp buffer to help you live, your rushing linkens, probably dont have to worry for mana since the item will substain you later etc...
The whole rationale is to have 100% wolves usage. Mana pool doesn't give you that. Its especially important when you are jungling, since wolves are your bread and butter.
I read the whole soul ring build tread what i dont understand is why do you even go jungle in first place if you dont kill roshan and find it dangerous to solo ? The ONLY reason lycan goes jungle is to get level 7 fast enough to kill solo roshan. If you skip roshan and try to rush n3, go to safelane and farm n3 even faster because you are not level dependent anymore.
Stop farming the easy camps over hard or medium, medium and hard that give you 1 quick level are better, faster to rotate and easier than 2x easy, I'd rather risk RNG of 3/4 camps vs blocked easy camp and all. Again, see http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=21235123
Honestly, the math part makes me laugh becuz I swear I can do lvl 7 and Vlads if I suicide once or twice before you can do your usual on average. Mainly becuz the route and how no camp is too hard at lvl 3. Also because I've got a phobia over Ghost Camp, the hardest camp in the game.
On April 25 2014 16:31 MushkulPesent wrote: I read the whole soul ring build tread what i dont understand is why do you even go jungle in first place if you dont kill roshan and find it dangerous to solo ? The ONLY reason lycan goes jungle is to get level 7 fast enough to kill solo roshan. If you skip roshan and try to rush n3, go to safelane and farm n3 even faster because you are not level dependent anymore.
- Pub games. - Jungle is an extra slot that can be taken. Then again, Lycan gets bullied in jungle lol - What if safe lane is taken? - GL getting away with soloing Roshan without your team when you get higher. Game is hard. This build still does a lot of damage to Rosh and with your team it will go down quick. - Necro vs Vlads, Necro1 seems to be a lot better for pushing in my 2 (!!!) game experience with the SR build. Nothing wrong with coming out of the jungle with Necro1 and being like hey guys gonna take ur mid/offlane tower
On April 25 2014 18:16 Surprise.820 wrote: Stop farming the easy camps over hard or medium, medium and hard that give you 1 quick level are better, faster to rotate and easier than 2x easy, I'd rather risk RNG of 3/4 camps vs blocked easy camp and all. Again, see http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=21235123
On April 25 2014 16:31 MushkulPesent wrote: I read the whole soul ring build tread what i dont understand is why do you even go jungle in first place if you dont kill roshan and find it dangerous to solo ? The ONLY reason lycan goes jungle is to get level 7 fast enough to kill solo roshan. If you skip roshan and try to rush n3, go to safelane and farm n3 even faster because you are not level dependent anymore.
- Pub games. - Jungle is an extra slot that can be taken. Then again, Lycan gets bullied in jungle lol - What if safe lane is taken? - GL getting away with soloing Roshan without your team when you get higher. Game is hard. This build still does a lot of damage to Rosh and with your team it will go down quick. - Necro vs Vlads, Necro1 seems to be a lot better for pushing in my 2 (!!!) game experience with the SR build. Nothing wrong with coming out of the jungle with Necro1 and being like hey guys gonna take ur mid/offlane tower
Nothing is easier than 2x easy camp. Besides it is not about the difficulty at all, 2x easy = more exp more gold than any other thing you can do at jungle in that certain amount of time. Why would i skip this while i can ? Every lycan jungler here probably concerns at the beginning of the game if he/she can make it to 900 gold before suicide, while i am not. Im 100% sure that i will get mask of death even if the jungle is filled with centaurs and ursa camps, even in the worst possible jungle. My point is, there is no need to take a risk when there is a more viable option.
If the maths make you laugh, do it and see yourself. Most efficient camp overall is small camp. (Exp and gold / EHP wise) You suicide twice?? and you think you can beat my average? Lol clearly you are doing something wrong. There is no need to suicide twice and there is no need to get anything less than mask of death before the suicide.
About the soul ring build, What if safe lane is taken ? Really? What if jungle is taken ? Atacking an idea just to disprove it randomly does not make any sense. I have a simple question, why lycan goes to jungle instead of safelane? He is better than most of the carries at lane + he maybe the hardest to zone out because of wolves. So why ? The answer is if you lane , you can not be level 7 in time to kill roshan. This is the only reason. So if the guy who started that discussion says that lycan shouldnt do roshan at all because it is too risky, instead of convincing people soulring is better than vlads, he should first question about going to jungle at first place. In his point of view, a necro rush is faster in safe lane anyway. If you skip vlads but still do roshan than it is ok maybe its better. But if its not the case i still go with the Mlcrosoft1's build. ( Actually i dont prefer treads, travel is way better that might be the only small difference in that build)
Because Lycan can do 1v1 against the right heroes, he has no real lane presence other than last hitting and pushing but he does those last hits really well.
For example, EG run solo Lycan a lot often with the intention to put him in the solo lanes, if they get countered they just put him safelane or jungle, where RTZ just bottlecrows lol. Versatile picks are often favored in this meta.
Eh it isn't un-heard of in pubs, and I'd still do mid or offlane 1v1 over jungle if I had the chance. It's probs easier to pull off than jungle. lol I repeat that it's another good thing about Lycan, you can put him in a lot of places depending on enemy team.
Satyr/troll hard camp dies around 1:03 (sadly it is impossible to finish it off before the new one spawns), I'll be halfway through my med camp while you are still killing off the second easy camp, you are ignoring that in your maths.
You also mention "the support can't pull at 0:53 so what". Since you kill the camp a second time, the support also cannot pull at 1:11, 1:41, or 1:53. You are hurting the xp of your carry, and both the xp/gold of your support, by doing easy camp twice.
Also "Every lycan jungler here probably concerns at the beginning of the game if he/she can make it to 900 gold before suicide". I don't think so, I think every lycan jungler goes basi and RoR before getting the mask, since the wolves get so much better with the basi. It is perfectly timed with the suicide too, you finish the gold for RoR + basi just when your 3rd set of wolves die and you're out of mana, so you suicide and then come back for the remaining 1200. No second suicide is required.
How do you even manage to farm up 900 gold with just 3 sets of wolves and easy camp first? Your first set (the one you summon in spawn) will time out during the 2nd easy camp, so then you have just 2 sets of wolves left to farm the remainder of the gold, this seems to depend on jungle luck quite a lot more than you are making it sound. Or do you start with clarities?
The only reason you jungle lycan is because you picked lycan, and there are no lanes for you to go. Simple as that. Roshan is not at all a factor of whether you jungle or not. Heck if I had a choice of safe lane and jungle, I would always prefer the safelane. Its a no brainer.
Now in this regard, I'm really struggling to understand the point your are driving mushkul. Could you clarify.
Satyr/troll hard camp dies around 1:03 (sadly it is impossible to finish it off before the new one spawns), I'll be halfway through my med camp while you are still killing off the second easy camp, you are ignoring that in your maths.
You also mention "the support can't pull at 0:53 so what". Since you kill the camp a second time, the support also cannot pull at 1:11, 1:41, or 1:53. You are hurting the xp of your carry, and both the xp/gold of your support, by doing easy camp twice.
Also "Every lycan jungler here probably concerns at the beginning of the game if he/she can make it to 900 gold before suicide". I don't think so, I think every lycan jungler goes basi and RoR before getting the mask, since the wolves get so much better with the basi. It is perfectly timed with the suicide too, you finish the gold for RoR + basi just when your 3rd set of wolves die and you're out of mana, so you suicide and then come back for the remaining 1200. No second suicide is required.
How do you even manage to farm up 900 gold with just 3 sets of wolves and easy camp first? Your first set (the one you summon in spawn) will time out during the 2nd easy camp, so then you have just 2 sets of wolves left to farm the remainder of the gold, this seems to depend on jungle luck quite a lot more than you are making it sound. Or do you start with clarities?
1)This is exactly my point, how can you be sure the first hard camp you go is satyr/troll ?That probabilty is worse than a coin toss(only 40% chance). Thats why if you start with hard camp you are praying to dota gods not to give you ursas centaurs or wildwings. This is not a risk that i want to take at level 1. But i admit that if you get a big camp troll + satyr at medium, you could be better than 2x easy camp but it is only 3% chance to get those camps consecutively!!!
2)I really doubt that ror + basi is better than mask. Once you get the mask jungle is a piece of cake for lycan and you really get level 7 and other vlad components so fast it is really not a topic to discuss imo. So my point is if you cant get mask before you suicide probably you are doing something wrong or it is an extremly hard jungle with offlane harrassment.
3) Wolves at -00:03> kill first camp > 01:01 spawn second set > kill second camp > kill medium before 2:00, > kill medium again now you are level 3 with 500 gold and you can spawn 1 set of level 2 wolves. This is time to go hard camp now, it is much faster much easier. With those last set of wolves clear 2 camps that you want and your mask is ready.
Regarding the safelane farm, guys come on! with that early pushing power who needs that safelane carry? It is really irrelevant. You could lose all the lanes, your carry could not farm anything at all but with lycan starts pushing those towers, game is still yours. Or to put it another way, do you want the easy camp exp at the begining with 80ish gold or do you want 600-700 gold around 9-10-11 min for each and every member of the team with T1s going down?
Note: currently standing 80.43% win rate with lycan at 46 games with this method.
On April 25 2014 22:41 DucK- wrote: The only reason you jungle lycan is because you picked lycan, and there are no lanes for you to go. Simple as that. Roshan is not at all a factor of whether you jungle or not. Heck if I had a choice of safe lane and jungle, I would always prefer the safelane. Its a no brainer.
Now in this regard, I'm really struggling to understand the point your are driving mushkul. Could you clarify.
This is really not correct Duck. Let me explain my point and im sure more experienced players like microsoft1 will back me up on this. Suppose that both safelane and jungle is open for you. If you chose to go safelane and say free farm, at min 7 you will be richer than you would have at jungle. But since you sharing the exp with you support you wont be able to get level 7 on time. This is exactly why lycan is going to jungle. To get level 7 before 7-8 min mark. And why do we need level 7? To kill roshan. (Remember it is not the vlad that lycan needs to kill roshan, it is level 7)
So my point is, the guy who invented soulring build is going jungle with SR claims that he is doing better ( which can be true) but than he says he skips roshan,its dangerous, rushes Necro1 and starts pushing towers. And i ask this, why are you even going to jungle in the first place since you are not limited by level 7 anymore? Go for safelane and skip soulring as well, rush necro1 and start pushing even faster.
You will only share exp with a support if the lane is heavily contested or the support is bad. In a high level game you will generally get solo experience as a safelane farmer. The only reasons to jungle is to let someone else get farm on the safelane or to avoid certain bad lanes, like a Lich.
I don't know if MushkulPesent is defending low level games or criticising higher level usage of Lycan anymore. I think jungle SR is just an alternative and soloing Rosh isn't a nessercery component of why the hero is put into jungle, it's a laning phase strategy to take the jungle slot and come out with necrobook 1. That is all, really.
On April 25 2014 23:08 zezamer wrote: if you do 2x easy camp in a game where im supporting, ill follow you in the jungle till i get my xp lol
I'm more than happy that I can be ignorant to pub-player co-ordination. Most of the time I think you'd still be able to rat and gloat that you can't disable what you can't chase. Meta will still does a lot of damage even without the health boost from ult though, it's just nice that there's some easier way to deal with ulted Lycan if you catch him out. Because really, fuck this hero.
Still totally fine for destroying pub games and stealing mmr. Ult still gets him out of any rat situation. Wolves are still obnoxious in lane. Necro exp nerf hurts more at coordinated levels.
On April 25 2014 22:41 DucK- wrote: The only reason you jungle lycan is because you picked lycan, and there are no lanes for you to go. Simple as that. Roshan is not at all a factor of whether you jungle or not. Heck if I had a choice of safe lane and jungle, I would always prefer the safelane. Its a no brainer.
Now in this regard, I'm really struggling to understand the point your are driving mushkul. Could you clarify.
This is really not correct Duck. Let me explain my point and im sure more experienced players like microsoft1 will back me up on this. Suppose that both safelane and jungle is open for you. If you chose to go safelane and say free farm, at min 7 you will be richer than you would have at jungle. But since you sharing the exp with you support you wont be able to get level 7 on time. This is exactly why lycan is going to jungle. To get level 7 before 7-8 min mark. And why do we need level 7? To kill roshan. (Remember it is not the vlad that lycan needs to kill roshan, it is level 7)
So my point is, the guy who invented soulring build is going jungle with SR claims that he is doing better ( which can be true) but than he says he skips roshan,its dangerous, rushes Necro1 and starts pushing towers. And i ask this, why are you even going to jungle in the first place since you are not limited by level 7 anymore? Go for safelane and skip soulring as well, rush necro1 and start pushing even faster.
In competitive or better games, it is expected that lycan goes lane. I have no issues with it, and I see little reason to day micro with sr there.
But in most pub games, lycan is forced to go jungle because someone else picked carry. Its just that simple. It has nothing to do with getting fast level 7. It has nothing to do with roshan.
Are you saying you can rosh at level 7 without either necro or Vlad? I won't criticise you for this, but I don't think it is possible.
Anyway again the only reason the guy goes for sr in jungle and skips roshan etc is because he either has no lane to go, or the safe lane is likely to be facing aggressive enemies lane, or he just prefer the 'guarantee' of having uninterrupted farm in the jungle just because it is pub.
On April 25 2014 22:41 DucK- wrote: The only reason you jungle lycan is because you picked lycan, and there are no lanes for you to go. Simple as that. Roshan is not at all a factor of whether you jungle or not. Heck if I had a choice of safe lane and jungle, I would always prefer the safelane. Its a no brainer.
Now in this regard, I'm really struggling to understand the point your are driving mushkul. Could you clarify.
This is really not correct Duck. Let me explain my point and im sure more experienced players like microsoft1 will back me up on this. Suppose that both safelane and jungle is open for you. If you chose to go safelane and say free farm, at min 7 you will be richer than you would have at jungle. But since you sharing the exp with you support you wont be able to get level 7 on time. This is exactly why lycan is going to jungle. To get level 7 before 7-8 min mark. And why do we need level 7? To kill roshan. (Remember it is not the vlad that lycan needs to kill roshan, it is level 7)
So my point is, the guy who invented soulring build is going jungle with SR claims that he is doing better ( which can be true) but than he says he skips roshan,its dangerous, rushes Necro1 and starts pushing towers. And i ask this, why are you even going to jungle in the first place since you are not limited by level 7 anymore? Go for safelane and skip soulring as well, rush necro1 and start pushing even faster.
In competitive or better games, it is expected that lycan goes lane. I have no issues with it, and I see little reason to day micro with sr there.
But in most pub games, lycan is forced to go jungle because someone else picked carry. Its just that simple. It has nothing to do with getting fast level 7. It has nothing to do with roshan.
Are you saying you can rosh at level 7 without either necro or Vlad? I won't criticise you for this, but I don't think it is possible.
Anyway again the only reason the guy goes for sr in jungle and skips roshan etc is because he either has no lane to go, or the safe lane is likely to be facing aggressive enemies lane, or he just prefer the 'guarantee' of having uninterrupted farm in the jungle just because it is pub.
Actually Lycan can solo roshan at lvl7 without item since the 15 HP regen wolves buff. But it takes so long, that you will probably be noticed way before.
I'm sad I'm just now wanting to learn him and he's been nerfed really hard . Oh well I'm still gonna try and learn him and see how it goes. I tried without a guide just going in there rambo and other players make it look so easy, but I've learned it takes some jungle knowledge to jungle safely.
I dont think it was a huge nerf either. 7 wins out of 7 games currently in this patch still as imba as it was. What could have done in my opinion is to remove 522 ms buff to minions. That is the most imbalanced feature of the hero.
What do you guys think about skipping vlads for an earlier necro 1? You can't rosh as easily and keeping your hp up is more of a problem, but I think getting necro at ten mins is pretty good, easy to take a tower right after you get it.
Rush bottle or soul ring before you suicide, straight into necro 1. Brown boots after necro 1, upgrade to necro 3, then BoT.
The last few pages of this thread has more info on the non-vlads build. There is also a lot of info about jungle camps and efficiency, which is pretty useful even if you think skipping vlads is stupid .
So Lycan was the most banned hero at TI4 and still gets banned in nearly every ranked CM game I play. I'm not a Lycan player by any means but I just wanted to see what the big deal was so I went full scumbag jungle Lycan picker in some AP games. His raw efficiency once he gets past the early useless phase is definitely strong but I'm still surprised teams don't try to just deal with him instead of first banning every time. I don't follow the pro scene that closely except the top tier tournaments, so can someone enlighten me on what lineup styles counter Lycan and why nobody wants to even try playing against him?
People normally put him in a farming lane position or even risk mid. Jungle Lycan is easy to shut down and people only attempt it if they have bottle crow as Lycan.
Mid isn't much of a risk... howl and a good animation, bottle crow, and wolves to harass\deny runes is the makings of a good mid hero, at least nowadays. Plus he is very hard to gank at lv 6.
As for why nobody wants to deal with him -- he's a really strong laner, wolves at lv 4 are the worst thing in the game to deal with as a support, he punishes greedy lineups pretty hard by taking fast towers and he can trade well against deathball pushes.
On July 31 2014 05:42 ahw wrote: Mid isn't much of a risk... howl and a good animation, bottle crow, and wolves to harass\deny runes is the makings of a good mid hero, at least nowadays. Plus he is very hard to gank at lv 6.
As for why nobody wants to deal with him -- he's a really strong laner, wolves at lv 4 are the worst thing in the game to deal with as a support, he punishes greedy lineups pretty hard by taking fast towers and he can trade well against deathball pushes.
I think nobody wants to deal with him because he's essentially broken. His two wolves mean map hack in the hands of a good player (look at some pro chinese lycans, holy shit), which is a huge deal in a meta that revolves a lot around ganking mid. He has creeps for rune control, good laning and every lost teamfight means you loose an objective unless you kill lycan, which is pretty hard thanks to his ult. He rats not just faster, but also safer than every other hero in the game (mb except for clinkz), just as a cherrytop. I think the rest of the skillset is so strong that the hero would be fine even if you took his ult away.
He also solo eats every single support that doesnt have a reliable stun, and even then they often need tp support when lycan uses his ult.
Just watch how Luo plays Lycan and you'll understand. There are no true counters (Axe isn't that good of a counter because he still lacks the raw mobility of the Lycan). You can safelane, mid, offlane, jungle the hero. You threaten Roshan after 6 minutes. You threaten every tower after 8 minutes (with no guarantee that you can get caught before dealing significant damage to the tower). Your DPS in fights from early-midgame is insane (and you don't fall off too badly lategame either). You can rat, 5-man, deathball push with the hero. You can scout your opponents easily pre-gem, and decently after the gem, without any threat to your hero whatsoever. You can transition from push to fight with a few purchases (bkb, basher, necro, etc).
It's too powerful a hero in terms of what you're capable of doing in any game. Too versatile. Honestly, I'd like a nerf to his tower killing abilities and a buff to his teamfight abilities - make him a hardcarry. Like, his ult should last longer but if he's in ult form he shouldn't be able to get his wolves (or something like that), and he shouldn't be able to howl while in regular human form. Something like that.
reason why lycan is so strong is one thing simple, and they should have solved it AGES! AGES! ago and i just dont get get it look what fervor, its hillariously broken how strong it is.
there is no other passive that gives that much dps(damage per second)
combine that with howl.
there is where the issue lies also it gives to minions such as howl, wich makes necrounit hits like nuts.
the problem i have with lycan is he has everything, crit(check) attackspeed(check) damage buff x2 Check! haste buff check! BAT Buff Check.
its like you can talk about void also here, he aint that insane but his ult makes up for it plenty.
i dont see how ppl cannot se some heroes just got everything.
Just look at some heroes that are not that very often played.
there is a reason for it, check what they inherit by their kit itself compared to others they are just worse in most scenario except för the ult, thats often the case they pick it.
everyone knows this, its better now than ever ofcourse! but there is still some issues i have, one of the biggest concerns i have right now, it is Doom,silencer(especially silencer) and void.
I dont think i need to adress the issues, becuse if you are well experienced dota player you bloddy know the reason for it :D
void and sven are the 2 heroes that consistently cause me trouble when i play lycan. Void because chrono is pretty good spell, and sven because he is one of the few heroes that can man fight lycan on even ground and can make it hard to pick off key targets because of warcry.
On November 03 2014 10:16 ChunderBoy wrote: after his 650 ms meme, this hero is quite possibly the best hero in the game (atleast i think so) rtz showed us what he can do now
Stating that after 3 games and used by one of the best teams in the world is as valid as me explaining how imba ember spirit is because Hao is 80% with that hero and is yet to lose a game with him since TI...
On November 03 2014 10:16 ChunderBoy wrote: after his 650 ms meme, this hero is quite possibly the best hero in the game (atleast i think so) rtz showed us what he can do now
Which game/tournament was this? I've been away from watching tournaments for a number of months...
On November 03 2014 10:16 ChunderBoy wrote: after his 650 ms meme, this hero is quite possibly the best hero in the game (atleast i think so) rtz showed us what he can do now
Which game/tournament was this? I've been away from watching tournaments for a number of months...
Tried ducks old post again in a sololane against a duallane: lots o tangos+soulring+naked boot+necro3+bots. Roshan, t1&t2 towers melt so fast that a medaillon build feels inferiour when i dont have had as much farm as i hoped for (which tend to be most games like everyone else). Sneaking a rosh is faster, easier and feels alot safer. Skipping vlads has potential in pubs thats for sure.
Maybe follow it up with a bkb+halberd/hot/ac+refresher+double necro3.
is this a thing now? just watched SL XI, VG vs Lai gaming. Black goes fast midas into medallion vlads, no boots. His slot is maxed from midas, medal, vlads, bkb, tp (later AC), and a blank for getting rosh, just relying on his wolf form for max movement speed. Gets BoTs like 1 hour into the game.
On November 18 2014 12:38 ncsix wrote: is this a thing now? just watched SL XI, VG vs Lai gaming. Black goes fast midas into medallion vlads, no boots. His slot is maxed from midas, medal, vlads, bkb, tp (later AC), and a blank for getting rosh, just relying on his wolf form for max movement speed. Gets BoTs like 1 hour into the game.
rtz did it when playing lycan on mid, he changed back to boots tho.
it will slow down your farm rotation too much to make it viable. I know that pros are doing it, and I'd have to see the game..but its not like boot-less weaver where you have a short cooldown at max movement speed.
I'm surprised to hear that pro players are trying it so maybe it has some merits. dunno.
I've found decent success playing this hero against the Snipers and Juggs that are inevitably picked every game. Even MoM won't let sniper run away from your ult. Pretty terrible vs troll though.
That sounds like a pretty cool build to be honest. I've never actually seen it in action though. My preferred build for Lycan is lane and sometimes jungle. If I go lane, I usually don't skill Wolves first, I buy a Quelling Blade and get the third skill (sorry, sitting in bed right now and forgot what the name was 😅). This gives you a lot of CS potential, which means more farm for you. I would usually then get pooled some tangoes, if not I'll buy my own. I've won all my games using this lane build except one.
On March 26 2015 02:47 Vikeif wrote: I still go for the solo ratting strat and while its effectiveness seems to have dropped slightly it still is pretty dang reliable
I did that when the Year Beast was up, when YB was up, I'd just rat.
I built Solar Crest on him and it's absolutly amazing. Its utility fits well Lycan's role. it grants him evasion that he doesn't get all the time with a regular build (unless he decides to get halberd but this is so arre) and increases his farming speed and his pushing speed (giving evasion and armor to creeps). And the armor reduction cannot be forgotten as well as the 30% miss chance which ruins most of the right clickers.
I think this item is core on Lycan and will be core on other heroes (venge, visage). Rest is like before: vlads, bkb... What do you think?
I built Solar Crest on him and it's absolutly amazing. Its utility fits well Lycan's role. it grants him evasion that he doesn't get all the time with a regular build (unless he decides to get halberd but this is so arre) and increases his farming speed and his pushing speed (giving evasion and armor to creeps). And the armor reduction cannot be forgotten as well as the 30% miss chance which ruins most of the right clickers.
I think this item is core on Lycan and will be core on other heroes (venge, visage). Rest is like before: vlads, bkb... What do you think?
i really dont like delaying necro 3 after a medallion with vlads treads
I built Solar Crest on him and it's absolutly amazing. Its utility fits well Lycan's role. it grants him evasion that he doesn't get all the time with a regular build (unless he decides to get halberd but this is so arre) and increases his farming speed and his pushing speed (giving evasion and armor to creeps). And the armor reduction cannot be forgotten as well as the 30% miss chance which ruins most of the right clickers.
I think this item is core on Lycan and will be core on other heroes (venge, visage). Rest is like before: vlads, bkb... What do you think?
i really dont like delaying necro 3 after a medallion with vlads treads
I don't like delaying necro at all. Soul ring solves all mana problems. You don't need vlads or treads or medallion.
So I played several games using the guide from the OP and it seems pretty strong (four wins, one loss so far, normal skill bracket). It seems that after the nerf to the jungle you hit the timings about 60-90 second later (although it may be caused by my shitty farming skills), but you can still get necro3 before the 20 minute mark with a decent game.
The one game I lost was when enemy team picked Riki who completely fucked up my jungling. Is there an effective way to deal with such play, or is it an instaloss? Buying sentries fucks up the timings and will not guarantee complete safety, especially at level 1-4 I feel.
Its the same as vs gondar thats one issue you can always go lane, yes you can fuck up the team but this is considering riki was last pick so the team cant adjust lanes and picks
I have always thought jungle lycan is ineffective, has there been any recent buff that has changed that? Because honestly all my life I have played only safe lane lycan and internally flamed everyone who took lycan into the jungle.
On June 30 2015 19:02 manicmessiah wrote: I have always thought jungle lycan is ineffective, has there been any recent buff that has changed that? Because honestly all my life I have played only safe lane lycan and internally flamed everyone who took lycan into the jungle.
This thread was initially a Jungle Lycan build proposed by Kwark, the first 20 or so pages discuss it, have a read
I used the build for a while, brought my MMR up by 1K (on an account that was initially a A-Z smurf to be fair)
As I wrote, the jungle nerfs seems to have delayed his timings by a significant margin, but in lower level pubs he still feels quite strong, especially if you are able to get the solo rosh without trouble and then splitpush effectively. With just treads, vlads and necro3 at level 16 you have like 2000hp and a small army at your disposal.
When I see lycan woods vs me I know we are 90% sure to win. This is a hero that needs a lane mid/safe whatever just a LANE and to use wolfs and not be afk 20 min. You can always farm woods in between spawns of creeps for few sec but you dont need anything more than 200 gold axe you have passive and vladi they give bonus dmg enough.
On January 05 2016 21:17 Laurens wrote: A good Lycan jungle takes a solo rosh before 8 mins and then your 3 T1s with Aegis. Not sure which junglers you face that are afk 20 min.
In what universe you are 4k+ and people let lycan farm woods safe 8 min AND in the same time not lose 4v5 on the entire map. I dont know about you i have fairly good knowledge of the hero and stopped playing him woods almost 2 years ago because as soon as people understood that if you are lycan woods they can abuse the shit out of you and your weak team composition first 10 min before you go and get rosh and take towers. I dont care how good a pusher you are if vs you there are 2 good supports or one roamer and one support you look at fed Mid and Fed safelaner and probably in great shape Offlaner IF they decide not to touch you.To back my words up there is one game from my recent memory standard ranked MMR game avg 4500 mmr http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2023097048 lycan went woods made items but we abused all his lanes non stop.
i have to agree - if ur high enough skill to know how to effectively jungle lycan, ur enemies are also going to be high enough skill to play against that
this hero is trending in 7k pubs prolly coz invoker/sylla and other stuff are picked in every game u only jungle if ur lane is bad and u have to retreat to jungle and only then do u get an iron talon
On January 05 2016 21:17 Laurens wrote: A good Lycan jungle takes a solo rosh before 8 mins and then your 3 T1s with Aegis. Not sure which junglers you face that are afk 20 min.
In what universe you are 4k+ and people let lycan farm woods safe 8 min AND in the same time not lose 4v5 on the entire map. I dont know about you i have fairly good knowledge of the hero and stopped playing him woods almost 2 years ago because as soon as people understood that if you are lycan woods they can abuse the shit out of you and your weak team composition first 10 min before you go and get rosh and take towers. I dont care how good a pusher you are if vs you there are 2 good supports or one roamer and one support you look at fed Mid and Fed safelaner and probably in great shape Offlaner IF they decide not to touch you.To back my words up there is one game from my recent memory standard ranked MMR game avg 4500 mmr http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2023097048 lycan went woods made items but we abused all his lanes non stop.
I got from 3600 to 4800 solo mmr with jungle lycan. Exclusively jungle lycan. It was a smurf a-z account, hence the low starting mmr.
dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/122917966 200+ games, 75%+ winrate. It works. As with all things, you need practice to get good at it. You can't just walk into the jungle one day and expect to instantly be good at it.
In response to your general point, either the enemy dedicates 1 person to stopping/slowing your jungle, at which point the lanes are 4v4 and the issue is resolved. Or they don't do this and I become unstoppable, at the cost of having a somewhat weaker carry. The bane of my strategy were BH following me in the jungle, or aggressive trilanes (VERY aggressive trilanes, following me to the closest camps).
But aggressive tri in solo q almost never happened so it's w/e.
Various other players had similar success, read the initial 20 pages of this thread to find out, it was initially a thread about jungle Lycan (Kwark's build, as I call it). Pay attention to MIcrosoft's post in particular, he did this at 5200+ solo MMR, with no problems.
e: the keyword here really is SOLO queue. Whenever I play team and I expect to face a 5stack, it's lane.
I've not played jungle Lycan in the latest patch yet, but I wouldn't go for Talon. Afaik you can't disassemble it to re-use the ring in vlad's, and I like my stout shield too much.
On January 05 2016 21:17 Laurens wrote: A good Lycan jungle takes a solo rosh before 8 mins and then your 3 T1s with Aegis. Not sure which junglers you face that are afk 20 min.
In what universe you are 4k+ and people let lycan farm woods safe 8 min AND in the same time not lose 4v5 on the entire map. I dont know about you i have fairly good knowledge of the hero and stopped playing him woods almost 2 years ago because as soon as people understood that if you are lycan woods they can abuse the shit out of you and your weak team composition first 10 min before you go and get rosh and take towers. I dont care how good a pusher you are if vs you there are 2 good supports or one roamer and one support you look at fed Mid and Fed safelaner and probably in great shape Offlaner IF they decide not to touch you.To back my words up there is one game from my recent memory standard ranked MMR game avg 4500 mmr http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2023097048 lycan went woods made items but we abused all his lanes non stop.
I got from 3600 to 4800 solo mmr with jungle lycan. Exclusively jungle lycan. It was a smurf a-z account, hence the low starting mmr.
dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/122917966 200+ games, 75%+ winrate. It works. As with all things, you need practice to get good at it. You can't just walk into the jungle one day and expect to instantly be good at it.
In response to your general point, either the enemy dedicates 1 person to stopping/slowing your jungle, at which point the lanes are 4v4 and the issue is resolved. Or they don't do this and I become unstoppable, at the cost of having a somewhat weaker carry. The bane of my strategy were BH following me in the jungle, or aggressive trilanes (VERY aggressive trilanes, following me to the closest camps).
But aggressive tri in solo q almost never happened so it's w/e.
Various other players had similar success, read the initial 20 pages of this thread to find out, it was initially a thread about jungle Lycan (Kwark's build, as I call it). Pay attention to MIcrosoft's post in particular, he did this at 5200+ solo MMR, with no problems.
e: the keyword here really is SOLO queue. Whenever I play team and I expect to face a 5stack, it's lane.
Are you for real? Quoting build from 8! months dude the Map is different the meta is different i cant stress enough how many holes in your explanation you have. One IF they dedicate a hero to stop you from jungling they WILL do so with a hero that can kill and/or make your life unreal and your timings will go twice at least. Two im 80% winrate top 30 Lycan from VARIOUS patches hence I think adapting to strategy is needed if you want to succeed with a hero.Three as ChunderBoy explained the only time you go woods now days is if your lane is really bad and we talk about people who know you are lycan and you are woods not semi trowing 5-6 games. Four giving example with person 20 pages behind is AGAIN 3-4 patches ago on different map. But at the end people like to AFK jungle and think the team sucks and Reddit and other forums are FULL of people complaining of afk junglers so who am I to judge do whatever you like. But i promise you if I meet you in ranked you wont farm your timings with lycan and you most probably be getting -25 mmr!
two: your winrate with the hero is irrelevant for the topic at hand (my build). Not to mention you don't even have half my games and play at lower MMR but w/e, like I said it's completely irrelevant.
three: Beesa would have said the exact same thing 2 years ago, does not change the fact that it works like a charm in solo queue. 2K below Beesa's MMR, of course.
Why don't you go in solo queue right now, pick jungle lycan, buy quelling, stout, tangos, and give it a go? Arguing here is so pointless.
On January 06 2016 02:20 Laurens wrote: one: doesn't happen in solo queue
two: your winrate with the hero is irrelevant for the topic at hand (my build). Not to mention you don't even have half my games and play at lower MMR but w/e, like I said it's completely irrelevant.
three: Beesa would have said the exact same thing 2 years ago, does not change the fact that it works like a charm in solo queue. 2K below Beesa's MMR, of course.
Why don't you go in solo queue right now, pick jungle lycan, buy quelling, stout, tangos, and give it a go? Arguing here is so pointless.
So I should try strategy that is not for solo queue in solo queue. Whatever man I wont explain myself anymore. Whoever do whatever.
Appreciate the insight Laurens! I'm below 2k MMR and haven't played Lycan in some time. I usually play support, and I want to try something different where I'm a little more in control of my own destiny so to speak.
Since I'm not 5k, jungle Lycan sounds worth giving a spin. However, is Iron Talon/tangoes a good start if I can expect to be left to afk jungle in the low 2k bracket?
Haha that's what this thread was all about. Not caring about your teammates and still winning Do read Kwark's post in the spoiler of the OP, it was quite funny.
And yeah try Talon. I totally missed the Chop active when I read it earlier, that sounds pretty amazing xD
A greedy jungler sounds like disaster on paper, but is actually not that bad in solo queue. Opponents are generally not organised enough to screw your jungling. The problem is only when your safelane and solo support are shit laners like say spec + es in which it gets run over by any off lane + 1. Then they can easily crush your safelane tower and invade jungle with ease. But if your safelane is strong like gyro + bane or something, then the opponent can't do much to your safelane, and it won't be easy dominating the jungle as well.
Imo if you called jungle early, I'd place the blame more on the shit safelane pick and support, then your decision to jungle. Of course we're ignoring the cases of bounty to counter your jungle.
You don't even need bounty. I see a greedy jungler, all I do is pick good tanking heroes strong at lvl 1. Ie spirit breaker, ogre bane. And I fuck with the jungler enough or leech lvl 2 and when he cries himself back to base I gank mid. Jungle ruined lane won ez pz. Some heroes like ogre or bara if you go boots first you can outright kill them straight lol. 5.5k here
Jungling IS better than it was thanks to new wolves and iron talon makes it so that it makes u hit timings faster. But is it good or help you win games vs pole that know how to abuse the fact that you are jungling . Clearly no. This patch only helps him jungle faster not safer. Unless you have a super gay offlaner that makes lots of space top like brood or ds that has to be dealt with or they just dominate the lane you are best not jungling and picking supports that make things happen like helping your mid win his lane or your offlaner have an easier time or GANKING THEIR OFF.
a while back, but still in current patch i tuned into ppd's stream where at around 3mins he checked the heros tab and saw a lvl 5 lycan (jungle). Seems super damn fast for lvl 5, anyone know what the lycan did?
And whoever mentioned that vlads and solo roshan before 8 mins with lycan is clearly on cracks. The fastest vlads timing u can get from the jungle going just iron talon is before 7 mins. Even with vlads it takes a good 1 1/2 min at least to kill roshan. If you can get roshan. I would love to see a replay where you can consistently get roshan + vlads within 8 mins, because that is simply impossible.
Page 9, bottom post. The vid times out cause it's a 10 min limit, but Roshan is quite obviously about to die around the 8 min mark.
I'll see if I have time to make a new vid this weekend. Iron talon must've made the timings even quicker. Though as said above, there's an element of luck in the jungle, so no the pre-8 min timing is not "consistent".
edit: and page 13 has a 7:20 kill including smoke and a point in ulti instead of the riskier (but better) 4 0 3 0
good joke mate. I am 100% sure that you have never done jungle lycan this patch or the last 2 patches at least. The increase in vlads cost, the 20% decrease in jungle bounty in the recent patches. In fact having a Vlads before 7 mins is highly dependent on you having good spawns. The most average timing would be close to 7 10-20, which includes one suicide, unless u get super duper lucky, like getting a regen rune or some shit, then you dont need to suicide. Not to mention the countless buffs they gave roshan, makes it impossible to clear RS within a min solo unless ur ursa. Trust me, if you can get vlads + rs within 10 mins, it is the most realistic timing.
On January 08 2016 19:38 Kaj wrote: And whoever mentioned that vlads and solo roshan before 8 mins with lycan is clearly on cracks. The fastest vlads timing u can get from the jungle going just iron talon is before 7 mins. Even with vlads it takes a good 1 1/2 min at least to kill roshan. If you can get roshan. I would love to see a replay where you can consistently get roshan + vlads within 8 mins, because that is simply impossible.
Dude just dont! The person who did this treat made it to show a jungle in the most optimal way, then the Mods made it Lycan treat. The same person is the one I tried to explain that the jungle thing is more over than the Reign of Troll/Sniper meta but he insist im too low mmr or that its team effort strat that is for solo Queue or whatever you like to pull of just to sound that you are not losing ground based on 1 year old strategy. Just save your time leave people to play jungle Lycan and feed mmr and whine that the team is stupid and stuff like that. I haven't lost to Lycan woods for 1 year now and watching Icefrog's approach this wont change any time soon...
It was a pretty bad jungle tbh. lvl 1 hard camp was Centaurs. the 2:00 hard spawn was Ursas. And as you can see in screenshot 1 I was 1 creep short from getting lvl 7 without having to go all the way to the ez camp. Too bad.
This time can still be improved by a ton with luck and practice. Iron Talon is amazing. You can kill the 0:30 hard camp in time to also kill the 1:00 respawn now. That's an incredible buff to his jungle potential. Previously you had to kite the camp at 0:53 if you wanted to stack it, which meant extra hits on your units and it was generally pretty shit.
20% decrease in jungle bounty
Afaik this only applies to 3 jungle creeps: Big Satyr (104 -> 84), Small Hellbear (65 -> 50, but also 200 less HP so it balances out), and frost ogre (52 -> 40). All the other creeps are unaffected?
countless buffs they gave roshan
What? All I can find is the recent armor buff.
There is also:
6.84b: Increased armor bonus per 8 minutes from 1 to 1.4.
But this is pretty irrelevant since we kill him before 8 mins anyway
Before that I have to go back to 6.81 already.
Fyi, Rosh can be killed in less than 1 minute. Idk why you say 1:30 lol. Do you let your wolves die? Do you even play Lycan? I'd love to see your Dotabuff to confirm that you actally have experience with the hero, some of your claims are pretty weird for someone who would play Lycan.
but he insist im too low mmr or that its team effort strat that is for solo Queue or whatever you like to pull of just to sound that you are not losing ground based on 1 year old strategy.
IMO those saying jungle lycan is free MMR etc are just elitist. In a solo queue where you have no control of how your team would play or pick, more often than not the lycan (or other junglers) can get away with it.
Of course lane would be better, but greed works sometimes too.
im not worried about my own speed and ability to jungle as a lycan im worried about having only 1 support or roamer on team u can easily start off in safelane and then disappear to jungle at lvl 3 or w.e if 1) u think giving ur supports xp is better than just farming in safelane 2) lane is too hard and u need to farm elsewhere but starting out in jungle ur team will pick another carry and only 1 support 1 support rly isnt enough in todays meta where 1 support is always required to roam primarily between mid and top OR bot depending on which part of the map needs more help and wut ur other support is capable of
something i learned back when bloodseeker was meta was that first picking bloodseeker and telling ur teammates to last pick a carry turned out way better drafting-wise coz all the enemies expect a first pick bloodseeker to be safelaning and hence less stuff to mess with him in the jungle are picked. so if they cant mess with u in jungle u jungle... if they pick stuff to mess with u then u just safelane and tell other person in team to not pick carry and go support
edit: also lycan has the ability to kill almost anyone as soon as he hits 6 its more cumbersome to do from the jungle also early roshes dont matter coz they dont give u worthwhile objectives like every t2 or t3s. so taking a rosh before it allows u to do those is pretty not good
I understand all your points, I want to reiterate that the jungle strat will/should never work in CM or in team games. But in Solo queue all pick it's a nice cheese strat to get some wins. It's also a strat that relies 0% on your team so if you often get frustrated with teammates it's a possibility to make your games more fun.
What I did was instantly hover over Lycan and click jungle, communicating to my team that I will play Lycan jungle whether they like it or not (usually they don't), and then wait with actually picking him until the very last second. It prevents too many hardcounters. If it's looking like the jungle will be impossible or your team is throwing a major temper tantrum, you can still pick a support instead.
The early rosh is just to minimize the time in the game that you are 'useless' or off the map. If you get Rosh at 8 mins, your team only has to survive 4v5 for 8 minutes. It usually allowed me to take at least 2 towers and a good teamfight with aegis too. For some reason they always underestime the power of a lvl 9 Lycan at 8 minutes. Supports die in 3 hits lol. The next Rosh at ~18 mins can give you one of those worthwhile objectives you talk about.
You should give it a try on one of your accounts Beesa, i'd like to see the results in higher mmr zones For me it worked up to ~4.8k solo without issues. I assume in higher MMR zones the supports become much more active and this strategy will suffer.
Seeing how Iron Talon has been getting pretty core in offlane builds lately, I have to wonder how long it'll be until we see an offlane Lycan. Probably gonna show up as some kind of pocket draft eventually: Lycan offlane->jungle with the other cores being playmakers and lane flash farmers with a moderate ricing 4 position and a sacrificial 5 position, or something like that. Forces supports to commit extra attention to safelane so that the Lycan doesn't get crazy, grants a strong midgame with four adequately farmed heroes, and after that point you have a Lycan.
On January 11 2016 21:24 Acritter wrote: Seeing how Iron Talon has been getting pretty core in offlane builds lately, I have to wonder how long it'll be until we see an offlane Lycan. Probably gonna show up as some kind of pocket draft eventually: Lycan offlane->jungle with the other cores being playmakers and lane flash farmers with a moderate ricing 4 position and a sacrificial 5 position, or something like that. Forces supports to commit extra attention to safelane so that the Lycan doesn't get crazy, grants a strong midgame with four adequately farmed heroes, and after that point you have a Lycan.
I see the logic but lycan needs levels ASAP and in the offlane in now days meta I cant see him doing that. He has avg ms and no escape or tank skills before 6 ofc. The good thing is if you run 2-1-2 you have a shot if you are not vs offensive 3 lane. But hey 1 year ago people were skeptical at offlane Slardar so who know what can be made to work
I think it's far more likely to see solo safelane lycans (either aggro tri or a support helping mid) than offlane Lycan.
In theory Lycan could work like a Nature's Prophet offlane (be annoying with wolves early then go to jungle), but I think without the teleport it doesn't really work correctly. NP works well offlane because he can teleport back easily if the enemy safelane goes to push the lane, but lycan can't do that as well.
Also NP is a hero that can help other lanes from the offlane. That's also a big part where the Slardar comparison completely fails. Slardar is a hero that even if zoned out is often seen join in skirmishes mid or on runes and he can give a decent contribution even if he is level 2. Lycan wont be doing anything other than casting howl.
I am also not seeing how putting Lycan there would somehow force supports to commit extra attention to the lane. It doesn't seem to me that Lycan is all that threatening. He can be zoned out or killed with relative ease at lvl 1 and when he falls behind he isn't that annoying even if the supports leave. And if Lycan just leaves the offlane and straight up jungles then I would hardly call it an offlane Lycan.
Having a Lycan jungle from quite early on is something we will probably see if the hero gains popularity. He farms the jungle pretty efficiently and if the game is somewhat slow then having a support farm the lane and putting Lycan to the woods is the most efficient way to go about things.
Lycan is actually a fairly strong laner if you control him properly, enough so that he can do things like win midlane. He's not enough to beat the actual lane dominators, but having him in the right matchup can limit the enemy a lot. Furthermore, once he gets farmed he's a major threat. This makes him hard to just ignore. The biggest problem for offlane Lycan, at present, is that he's stupidly weak for the first couple of levels. Iron Talon fixes that. Once he has his levels, he can jungle/push while leaving lanes primarily to supports and the 1-2 pos heroes. Running offlane Lycan lets you get a farming Lycan while also being able to give two other heroes good lanes to themselves early. I seriously doubt it's something we'll see as a top strategy, because of things like Gyro being able to just destroy him with zero support help, but there are certainly benefits to it as a pocket strat.
the simple fact that you can teleport to other lanes to be useful makes NP the stronger offlaner
i haven't seen too much lycan this patch, but i think i'd rather have NP as the game progresses, again, due to the fact that he can be anywhere at a given time.
On January 06 2016 00:36 ChunderBoy wrote: this hero is trending in 7k pubs prolly coz invoker/sylla and other stuff are picked in every game u only jungle if ur lane is bad and u have to retreat to jungle and only then do u get an iron talon
If you can tell from picks that you're up against an impossible 2v2 you start tangos talon, head straight for jungle and tell your team you aren't going to walk into an impossible lane matchup. If you have a jungler already you start at the new camp near ancients.
If you want to play lycan right now you have to know how to level 1 jungle him, even if your plan isn't to spam it every single game. Sometimes lane just can't be done.
On January 06 2016 00:36 ChunderBoy wrote: this hero is trending in 7k pubs prolly coz invoker/sylla and other stuff are picked in every game u only jungle if ur lane is bad and u have to retreat to jungle and only then do u get an iron talon
If you can tell from picks that you're up against an impossible 2v2 you start tangos talon, head straight for jungle and tell your team you aren't going to walk into an impossible lane matchup. If you have a jungler already you start at the new camp near ancients.
If you want to play lycan right now you have to know how to level 1 jungle him, even if your plan isn't to spam it every single game. Sometimes lane just can't be done.
...and then they just invade your jungle because your safelane is some useless support trying to 1v2 and can't stop them.
Level 1 jungle is just tossing a coin. "Is the other team smart enough to invade or not?" Tails, we lose from the moment I buy a talon. Heads, and the team survives 4v5 for the entire earlygame... maybe we do alright.
On January 06 2016 00:36 ChunderBoy wrote: this hero is trending in 7k pubs prolly coz invoker/sylla and other stuff are picked in every game u only jungle if ur lane is bad and u have to retreat to jungle and only then do u get an iron talon
If you can tell from picks that you're up against an impossible 2v2 you start tangos talon, head straight for jungle and tell your team you aren't going to walk into an impossible lane matchup. If you have a jungler already you start at the new camp near ancients.
If you want to play lycan right now you have to know how to level 1 jungle him, even if your plan isn't to spam it every single game. Sometimes lane just can't be done.
...and then they just invade your jungle because your safelane is some useless support trying to 1v2 and can't stop them.
Level 1 jungle is just tossing a coin. "Is the other team smart enough to invade or not?" Tails, we lose from the moment I buy a talon. Heads, and the team survives 4v5 for the entire earlygame... maybe we do alright.
That is such a terrible plan.
Pubs are so disorganized, so honestly it's a terrible plan but if you stay on top of securing runes and if you're efficient enough, many times you can probably get away with it.
At the 5-6k range I'm sure this isn't true but iron talon is pretty damn good.
This hero is ridiculously strong right now. Sitting at about 65% winrate over 30 games at 4k ranked.
Item build is always treads -> armlet -> echo sabre > vlads. (not entirely sure about order of items and components yet, but definitely armlet first).
Then assault cuirass, desolator, abyssal blade or bkb as you need it. Later you want to replace vlads with satanic and probably pick up a heart.
Any items with strength are amazing damage on lycan since his passive gives him 1.5 damage per strength (1.65 with vlads). This is also why armlet is by far and large the best item for lycan. Its a 2k gold item that gives you 80 damage, 9 armor and 25 attack speed. As well as the power of armlet toggling. When toggled off armlet and your passive gives you 20hp regen which means you will never have to go back to base.
I feel like necrobook is outdated and the pure carry rightclicker is much much stronger right now. His wolves and passive make him a really strong laner and he comes online incredibly quickly with just his 4 basic items. He can lane everywhere but safelane is definitely the best I feel. You can pick up your bread and butter (treads, armlet, echo, vlads) at 20min and just destroy the game from there.
I'm gunna play some Lycan soon but I'd be surprised if armlet/echo was better than necrobook.
I'd imagine vlads/hotd/book3 (maybe not vlads anymore), pop all ur spells and right click and erase heroes / towers. Th book dumpsters team fights because you get objectives immediately after fights, and there's so much fighting in dots now.
I also like the late game summons + ult pushing out lanes.
Helm of the Dominator is Just not as good now, I rarely see anyone buy it. It does not give you much anymore. +2 Stats is pretty much nothing. +8HP Regen is pretty decent, the 20 Attackspeed is really good for lycan. I think it just its cost. Its almost 2k gold just to get regen and some attack speed and a creep.
On May 07 2017 07:01 DazzleEnthusiast wrote: is it viable to skip wolves until ~8? envy's been doing that in some games with relative success, but it's also envy, so. . .
I dont really know why you would. Wolves give you a lot of kill potential through blocking and they do a ton of dmg and slow attack speed.
I believe the trend is more points into passive than wolves at the start for better laning so you can free up your supports to do whatever they want. I didn't realise how broken the passive is until I lane against him as an offlaner lol. It's like 150 damage autoattacks with free 10 hp regen.
The trendy item build is armlet and mom which boost main hero's dps, so might as well just add points into passive early. And I guess less mana to spam wolves too with no vlads or necro.
EPT
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