On September 21 2012 04:16 wcLLg wrote: If you go force staff your mobility is greater. End of discussion. There is no benefit in going drums that force won't give you in heaps and bounds. Plus, after you get force you get sheep which gives more stats than drums. If you get drums first you delay force and your ganking potential is much hindered and your survivability as well. The active of force more than makes up for strength you would gain from drums which mostly go to waste when you are aiming at dominating the mid game...not tanking right clicks.
In the last StarLadder 3 game played moments ago, EG 007 RC went phase, wand, force, ulti orb and it was gg. This is now the standard build for the time being.
If you consider yourself super high level then feel free to skip them and go straight for force. I won't shout at you. But for people reading this guide, I'll continue to tell them to get drums.
You'll probably lambast me even more when I tell you I always get Aghanims before sheep. Fortunately I'm not telling people to do that in this guide.
Well, aghs before sheep can work (if you get off to a bad start or something)...but, if you get it too early it is a complete waste of gold. Just my .02. If people didn't try different things we would all be hunting Lions and eating berries.
And, I must say that since this guide is directed at pubs, why would you reject Midas when in pubs it is effective and considering a 5-6 minute Midas is doable. Never mind me...
Aghs before sheep is better for QE Invoker because you still have a use for the lower-ranked W-based spells. For QW its less useful because underleveled E-based spells (Sun Strike, Chaos Meteor) aren't that outstanding compared to Hex.
People that are supposed to try new things and "innovate the metagame" are probally not basing their play on a TeamLiquid strategy guide. People need to be less picky about this kind of stuff when it's purpose is mostly to show how a hero that they don't know works in broad terms. Things that would make you whine about in a QQ thread are issues. So many of the complaints you see in guides are basically meaningless, things that you wouldn't even notice in a pub game and only exist to create a 2 page discussion on the General thread about wether Phases or Threads are better for X hero.
People will put a little bit off their personal touch in guides because quite often they play the hero that way. If Aui wrote a guide recommending Maelstrom on Sylla I wouldn't jump on his throat because most pro players would go for Radiance on the same situation. If a player starts off going Maelstrom because he read that guide and learns to play that way, it's fine. It's a good enough build for that purpose (which should be the purpose of a guide). After he knows more about the hero he will probally try out diferent things and decide for himself what he feels is better for his play style.
A good guide lasts for years, it doesn't have to change each time a new way to play the hero is popular. It just covers the basics and gives you enough information not to do something completelly stupid. "That was the right way to play a week ago, now the pros are doing it this way." is a shitty complaing for this kind of stuff.
On September 21 2012 04:45 SKC wrote: People that are supposed to try new things and "innovate the metagame" are probally not basing their play on a TeamLiquid strategy guide. People need to be less picky about this kind of stuff when it's purpose is mostly to show how a hero that they don't know works in broad terms. Things that would make you whine about in a QQ thread are issues. So many of the complaints you see in guides are basically meaningless, things that you wouldn't even notice in a pub game and only exist to create a 2 page discussion on the General thread about wether Phases or Threads are better for X hero.
People will put a little bit off their personal touch in guides because quite often they play the hero that way. If Aui wrote a guide recommending Maelstrom on Sylla I wouldn't jump on his throat because most pro players would go for Radiance on the same situation. If a player starts off going Maelstrom because he read that guide and learns to play that way, it's fine. It's a good enough build for that purpose (which should be the purpose of a guide). After he knows more about the hero he will probally try out diferent things and decide for himself what he feels is better for his play style.
A good guide lasts for years, it doesn't have to change each time a new way to play the hero is popular. It just covers the basics and gives you enough information not to do something completelly stupid. "That was the right way to play a week ago, now the pros are doing it this way." is a shitty complaing for this kind of stuff.
Beautifully put, quoted you in the FAQ. Much appreciated.
On September 21 2012 04:45 SKC wrote: People that are supposed to try new things and "innovate the metagame" are probally not basing their play on a TeamLiquid strategy guide. People need to be less picky about this kind of stuff when it's purpose is mostly to show how a hero that they don't know works in broad terms. Things that would make you whine about in a QQ thread are issues. So many of the complaints you see in guides are basically meaningless, things that you wouldn't even notice in a pub game and only exist to create a 2 page discussion on the General thread about wether Phases or Threads are better for X hero.
People will put a little bit off their personal touch in guides because quite often they play the hero that way. If Aui wrote a guide recommending Maelstrom on Sylla I wouldn't jump on his throat because most pro players would go for Radiance on the same situation. If a player starts off going Maelstrom because he read that guide and learns to play that way, it's fine. It's a good enough build for that purpose (which should be the purpose of a guide). After he knows more about the hero he will probally try out diferent things and decide for himself what he feels is better for his play style.
A good guide lasts for years, it doesn't have to change each time a new way to play the hero is popular. It just covers the basics and gives you enough information not to do something completelly stupid. "That was the right way to play a week ago, now the pros are doing it this way." is a shitty complaing for this kind of stuff.
Nice guide. Pretty much exactly how I play my Invoker as well (altough I'm obviously not a progamer, so those words means little). But as QE invoker, I notice you take sunstrike first, while I always get 2 points in Quas. Obviously an earlier sunstrike will let you help out the sidelanes, but very rarely do the sidelanes get a chance to gank someone that early (obviously there are exceptions), while Quas will let you dominate your lane a lot easier with high regen (you can easily trade hits, go back and regen for a few seconds, and come back to trade hits again) and coldsnap, which being low on manacost lets you throw it at him almost whenever you see fit. While it might not get you a kill, it should let you get close to freefarm against most enemy mid heroes.
On September 23 2012 21:38 Excludos wrote: Nice guide. Pretty much exactly how I play my Invoker as well (altough I'm obviously not a progamer, so those words means little). But as QE invoker, I notice you take sunstrike first, while I always get 2 points in Quas. Obviously an earlier sunstrike will let you help out the sidelanes, but very rarely do the sidelanes get a chance to gank someone that early (obviously there are exceptions), while Quas will let you dominate your lane a lot easier with high regen (you can easily trade hits, go back and regen for a few seconds, and come back to trade hits again) and coldsnap, which being low on manacost lets you throw it at him almost whenever you see fit. While it might not get you a kill, it should let you get close to freefarm against most enemy mid heroes.
Any thoughts?
This is definitely a valid way of approaching it. I personally prefer going exort first because I find that a sunstrike at level 2 is much more likely to nab a kill on the sidelanes than cold snap in your own lane. I also find that the exort points already allow me to dominate my lane anyway with superior attack damage, but winning the lane with superior regen instead will certainly work too.
The other benefit of doing this your way is that you delay your commitment to QW or QE until level 4, giving you time to judge the situation. If you're freefarming mid without taking any flak, go QE. If the enemy team constantly have 1 or 2 supports missing hanging around mid lane trying to gank you, go QW for the extra survivability/mobility.
I will probably add this to my guide the next time I update it ^^
On September 21 2012 04:43 TheYango wrote: Aghs before sheep is better for QE Invoker because you still have a use for the lower-ranked W-based spells. For QW its less useful because underleveled E-based spells (Sun Strike, Chaos Meteor) aren't that outstanding compared to Hex.
dunno. imo QW needs more spells since you want to use tornado/emp combo,snap,wall,blast atleast. while as QE you can precast spirits and then use snap,ss/meteor,wall infight.
also at the time i get aghs on QW the E spells should be ~ mid lvl already so they are worth casting aswell.
also my build on QW is quite straight forward: phase stick force drums aghs. rarely switch up unless we NEED a sheep, 3+ more spells in a fight > sheep in general. earlier aghs is quite useless since you need lvl4 invoke for it to really do its thing.
but in the end the beauty of invoker is that you can adapt so much and have so many options.
I'd like to throw a pitch for an alternative (and very fun) way of playing the exort Invoker - maxing exort as early as possible. The basic skill combo is Sunstrike->Meteor->Deafning Blast, I normally set it up by rushing an Eul's but in some teams it won't be necessary. By the time Exort is maxed out you can kill anyone with less than 900 hp and when Quas is maxed out as well you can kill anyone with less than 1300 hp (this is ignoring your auto attacks, which will add some additional damage). This is as powerful as a shotgun, but you can start killing people as early as 10 minutes into the game if you farm decently. Of course you can still throw the standard Tornado/Meteor/Deafening combo during 5-man fights and use Euls as a regular disable. Euls will also solve all your mana problems and give some much needed movement speed. I'm not quite sure yet how forgiving the the Euls/Deafening combo is, but it's definitely possible to land it so that they can't blink away.
Another powerful early game combo for an Exort Invoker is Meteor/Cold Snap. Meteor will trigger Cold Snap making it very hard to walk out of the Meteor. Often this will net you a sure surprise kill at level 7 (so you can Invoke Sunstrike after casting the combo) against non-blinkers.
One thing I'd like to hear/talk more about is the most efficient way to play against a dual lane. When picking Invoker in very high public cm:s I often find myself up against something like lesh/crix or lesh/sd which really shuts down Invoker's early game and I feel that Invoker is a very momentum based hero that lose much of his use when dominated during early game.
On September 23 2012 23:51 ZerG~LegenD wrote: I'd like to throw a pitch for an alternative (and very fun) way of playing the exort Invoker - maxing exort as early as possible. The basic skill combo is Sunstrike->Meteor->Deafning Blast, I normally set it up by rushing an Eul's but in some teams it won't be necessary. By the time Exort is maxed out you can kill anyone with less than 900 hp and when Quas is maxed out as well you can kill anyone with less than 1300 hp. This is as powerful as a shotgun, but you can start killing people as early as 10 minutes into the game if you farm decently. Of course you can still throw the standard Tornado/Meteor/Deafening combo during 5-man fights and use Euls as a regular disable. Euls will also solve all your mana problems and give some much needed movement speed. I'm not quite sure yet how forgiving the the Euls/Deafening combo is, but it's definitely possible to land it so that they can't blink away.
Another powerful early game combo for an Exort Invoker is Meteor/Cold Snap. Meteor will trigger Cold Snap making it very hard to walk out of the Meteor. Often this will net you a sure surprise kill at level 7 (so you can Invoke Sunstrike after casting the combo) against non-blinkers.
One thing I'd like to hear/talk more about is the most efficient way to play against a dual lane. When picking Invoker in very high public cm:s I often find myself up against something like lesh/crix or lesh/sd which really shuts down Invoker's early game and I feel that Invoker is a very momentum based hero that lose much of his use when dominated during early game.
Just regarding the first point, I have mentioned that build in the QE section, as the 'second' QE build.
Regarding the last point, focus on getting more Quas and an earlier point in Wex for Ghost walk. If these options are still not sufficient to allow you to stay in XP range at the very least, the best thing to do is to ask for a lane switch. Considering you are typically the team's #2 hero, the team should definitely take this into consideration and try to make way for you. edit: this is more focused on QE. If you're going QW (and you should be against a dual mid) then you should be fine. Just stay back and safe and hope your teammates can win the other lanes.
On September 23 2012 23:51 ZerG~LegenD wrote: One thing I'd like to hear/talk more about is the most efficient way to play against a dual lane. When picking Invoker in very high public cm:s I often find myself up against something like lesh/crix or lesh/sd which really shuts down Invoker's early game and I feel that Invoker is a very momentum based hero that lose much of his use when dominated during early game.
Are you going mid against a dual lane? You basically have to go qw invoker and just get levels as best you can without dying, like all 2v1 lanes. If you are qw invoker (qe will just die over and over) you aren't even focused on the super early game, so you just get levels and your team should be winning the other lanes with the numbers advantage.
I do not feel it deserves being called 'core', but it certainly is a very strong Optional item. For QE Invokers I feel it's a little unnecessary and they should just rush getting their Sheepstick/Aghanim's.
On September 24 2012 01:38 Gyro_SC2 wrote: I do not feel it deserves being called 'core', but it certainly is a very strong Optional item. For QE Invokers I feel it's a little unnecessary and they should just rush getting their Sheepstick/Aghanim's.
I will continue to call it core for the majority of people that will be needing an Invoker guide. I will probably add a note in my next update about skipping it if you're very confident though, given the amount of feedback here about it.
On September 21 2012 04:16 wcLLg wrote: If you go force staff your mobility is greater. End of discussion. There is no benefit in going drums that force won't give you in heaps and bounds. Plus, after you get force you get sheep which gives more stats than drums. If you get drums first you delay force and your ganking potential is much hindered and your survivability as well. The active of force more than makes up for strength you would gain from drums which mostly go to waste when you are aiming at dominating the mid game...not tanking right clicks.
In the last StarLadder 3 game played moments ago, EG 007 RC went phase, wand, force, ulti orb and it was gg. This is now the standard build for the time being.
Managing your mana + trying to ensure you aren't an idiot with your positioning is pretty difficult for some semi-pros let alone a pub. It's better to get Drums/Euls as a core when you first start playing Invoker since the constant MS allows you to re-position easier. Forcestaff rush is only better if you're just at a level where you can actually manage your mana pool/positioning/etc. with minimal HP, of which pretty much no one on this board is at except maybe aui/blitz/mikey who rarely post here.
In any semi-decent game Invoker is a primary target. You not going Drums is going to hurt you big time unless you're really on top of your game the entire time. And seriously, no one trys that hard in pubs because the game isn't fun at that point.
Thoughts on tranquil boots for QE build? QE Invoker loses to QW in str and agi gain as well as move speed. Tranquil boots seem to be a good cheap way to fix that.
Also +1 to going Quas first for QE. Cold snap at level 2 is great for lane control and there's the added bonus of the enemy team not knowing whether you're going QE or QW at the start.
On September 26 2012 23:14 Kishin2 wrote: Thoughts on tranquil boots for QE build? QE Invoker loses to QW in str and agi gain as well as move speed. Tranquil boots seem to be a good cheap way to fix that.
Also +1 to going Quas first for QE. Cold snap at level 2 is great for lane control and there's the added bonus of the enemy team not knowing whether you're going QE or QW at the start.
QE only loses to QW in agi and movespeed. The dual Forge spirit rush build for QE in fact has 4 points in Q by level 10 while QW has a maximum of 3 in Q, meaning QE has more str and more regen. As such, tranquil boots is just unnecessary. And although tranquil boots give you some extra movespeed on paper, they don't give it to you when you need it most since they revert back to normal boots after being hit a few times in fights.
Definitely agree with the Quas first being an option for QE, I'll make a little note of that whenever I update it next.
i didn't see this in your guide, This is dendi essentially so what a great invoke can do once you have all the spells memorized and a solid rotation figured out. :D
On September 26 2012 23:39 doner0 wrote: i didn't see this in your guide, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE9ecc0eQC0 This is dendi essentially so what a great invoke can do once you have all the spells memorized and a solid rotation figured out. :D
He did that in wtf mode (no cooldown on spell, no mana cost), you can't spam all your spell like that even with aghanim . But yeah better know all the spells with invo ^^
EPT
. But yeah better know all the spells with invo ^^
