EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5A958.jpg)
Before reading:
I am not a pro-gamer or don't consider me to be one of the best invokers.
This guide is intended for people thinking about learning invoker or are in the process of learning. I'm just a decent invoker sharing my thoughts and strategies around this amazing hero.
Intro:
Yes invoker, this beast of a hero got one of the highest skill-cap in the world of dota due to it's versatility. When I played my first game as invoker about 4-5 months ago I played horrible, I ruined games and got flamed and so on. But I saw the potential in the hero and started focusing on him. I have now play around 300 games with him.
Do not be afraid to be bad in the beginning in the learning process.
In this guide I will go through three off my strategies you can choose depending on your team setup and enemy setup. All to benefit your team as much as possible.
But in the beginning I recommend that you choose one build depending on your play style then play that build over and over again until you are satisfied.
The Nuker(exort)
(Damage dealer, ganker, carry).
Exort have resently got very popular both in competitive and public due to some buffs that sunstrike and meteor got a few months ago. This requires great map control and timing of spells. If you look at your team, and you see a “killer lane” with atleast one reliable stun then this build can have a devastating effect on the game. It also is very good if your enemy heroes a very squishy.
Early game:
Depending on the hero mid you should either put one in exort or one in quas.
If you for example is playing against a Shadow Fiend, exort is great in the beginning to not let him soul up and win the last-hit fight.
If you are up against a melee hero or a range hero with low health quas Is the way to go. Why? Well if you get coldsnap up as fast as possible and using it right will win you the lane right at the spot. But when do I know when I should coldsnap?
I can teach you neat trick that can harass your enemy hero down from 100% to 20% hp in just a few seconds, it can even score a kill. I call this machinegun-snap.
Machinegun-snap:
When you are playing against a hero mid you will find that the creep wave will go back and forth between the towers. When the enemy creep wave get pushed in at your tower you will have about 3-4 creeps left while the enemy got none. Now if the enemy hero is sloppy with his positioning you can now use your creeps to proc the coldsnap. It is basically a way of punishing your enemy for being out of position.
If executed right and you get your opponent of guard, you can get a lot of damage dealt on him.
Next step in early game is to max exort until level 7 then you get invoke of course.
While you are last-hit fighting and harassing mid you have to constatly look around at the mini-map and see if there is fight going on. I recommend that you let your team mates know that you going exort build and that tell them to report sunstrikes just in case. When you for example see a sandking stun cristal maiden top immediately follow up with a sunstrike and you got yourself a easy kill.
Now this is your role the intire early game, leveling up mid(levels are way more important than farm) then assist your team with nukes.
Early game items:
Start of with a set of tangos a salve one circlet and 3 branches. This will setup some nice early stats. Next, depending on what you are up against mid or your play-style next items should be either boots or bottle. Bottle is more situational but if you get bottle you can spam cold-snap all day long mid and win easily. If you are winning mid without effort you can go boots then bottle or if you dont intend to gank you can skip bottle right away. Exort build will get your mana-pool up quite a bit and you don't have to worry about getting out of mana as much.
Next item should be either phase boots or arcane boots. Phase boots if you have bottle and arcane boots if you don't go bottle.
After you got a boots set you should start to build up to Eul's scepter.
Mid Game:
Now when laning phase is or soon will be over you should start to move around the map. Assist in pushing, ganking and defending. When you have Eul's you can use your first Nuke combo.
Nuke combo n1:
First of you should have two spells available. First is sunstrike on D(Default keybind) next spell is meteor on F.
First use Eul's on a hero that are going to kill then wait a second then cast your sunstrike after sunstrike cast meteor, wait until your meteor lands then cast Deafening Blast.
As you are leveling up and maxing exort this combo will take more and more damage. When you have maxed exort this combo is executed right will take over 1k damage.
This is a overall good combo but it is more of a single killing combo. In teamfights you should use other combos, but I will go through them later.
Next items after Eul's is Blink dagger. Blink dagger is great for positioning, chasing and escaping. If you are getting ganked you can use Eul's on yourself then the CD on dagger will reset enough for you to blink away. I have escaped from ganks tons of times.
After you have maxed exort you should put enough points in quas to have two forge spirits. When you have two FS you should always have them up for either pushing, farming jungle while you farm lane or other creep camp, and of course in fights.
Now dont continue to max quas, you should put your remaning skill points to max wex first. There are more spells that benefit from maxing out wex before quas. Spells that are better to benefit your team and to use in team fights.
EMP, Tornado range, Deafening Blast range, Alacrity to put on yourself or your hard-carry teammate.
Next item to go for now when late game is nearly here is up to you.
Black king bar, scythe of vise, aghanim's scepter.
Personally I prefer aghanim's to cast as many spells as possible in teamfights.
Late game:
Here is when the fun begins, now when you are a lot of mana and 10 spells that are good upgrades you can start to become a real beast in the battle field.
If you look at your team and you see that you got no initiator then you should use the next nuke combo.
Nuke Combo n2:
This is the ultimate way to turn the tide battle if you get enough heroes caught in it.
First of you should have Tornado on D then Chaos Meteor on F.
Now you should use your blink dagger to initiate, look for openings and bad positioning of the enemy heroes. When the clump up 4-5 then jump in with dagger and use tornado on as many heroes as possible, next depeding on how many quas points you have you should wait 1-2 seconds before casting meteor. After meteor invoker Deafning blast and cast it right away. A neat trick to invoke blast is not to push q,w,e then r in order(again, default keybinds) you should push q,w,e down at the same time. In that way you can save a lot of time.
Now when the opening combo has ended you should invoke Ice wall and look for a nice position to put it to ruin escape paths or just to slow as many heroes as possible.
Now when they are slowed use EMP. Now you are free to use what ever spell that you feel is needed. Forge spirits, coldsnap, sunstrike, alacrity allied heroes or yourself.
This combo is easily the best combo you can use but remember to not use tornado if you got a good initiator in your team, if you use tornado when Tide Hunter jumps in and ultimate you remove the stun duration and potential damage dealt to enemy heroes. Using this combo for example when your whole enemy team is in roshan's pit can win teamfights.
Now, your job in late game is to stay in the back and look for openings when to jump in and deal as much damage as possible. With a decent team and coordinated spells winning is only a few team fights away.
The Pusher(Wex).
(Ganker, pusher, defender).
This strategy is considered the best and is the most popular one.
It is great for controling space, pushing and defending. It also gives invoker good early teamfight presence. The high movement speed makes invoker walk around the map easily and giving map control the your team by pushing, ganking and defending.
When maxed Wex and you activated phase boots you get max movement speed.
Requirements for this build is to have nice timing with spells and being a very “active” player.
Early game:
Your first kill-point should be Quas for early lane control, after you should put as many points in wex as possible. When you should put one point in exort is up to you but I recommend waiting until you get to level 10-11.
Early game items:
A set of tangos, one salve, one circlet, one guantlet of strength and of the slots branches.
Same as The Nuker build you should go either bottle or boots. But I rarely go Bottle before boots with this build because boots help out a lot more to buff the already high movement speed. The thing is with this build that mana will be a problem. Low point in exort means low intellect which means low mana-pool. So going bottle with build is recommended. When you have your phase boots next items you are going for is Drums Of Endurance. Great item, buffing attack speed and movement speed to yourself and team mates can win fights and makes pushing towers so much faster.
This build is more gank orientated because of the high movment speed aswell. So you should start ganking at level 7 if not earlier. This build is meant to be for players with a “active” play-style. You should be all around the map, controlling lanes by pushing, defending and ganking.
But what makes this build so good? Maxing wex makes invoker the one of the most mobility orientated heroes in the game. Using big spells like tornado and wex to control space and force your enemy heroes to go back when pushing a tower.
Mid game:
Now when you have maxed Wex you should start to put points in exort, wait with quas until you have maxed exort. Keep being active on the map and push lanes, don't stand still for a single moment.
Mid game items:
What item you should go after Drums of Endurance depends. But if you feel you need more mobility to chase or to run away dagger or force staff is great. I recommend going force staff due to the low mana pool.
Next item should be scythe of vice or shiva's guard.
In teamfights you should try to land EMP on as many heroes as possible and land coldsnaps on enemy carries or burst damage dealers. Be careful while using Tornado in teamfights, the damage output from tornado is not so great and it makes you unable to attack your enemy. Instead use deafening blast, when you have many points in wex your blast range is increased.
When a teamfight is near or your enemy team is trying to force a fight or pushing you should use The Pusher combo.
Pusher combo n1:
This is the classic invoker combo which is using tornado to land a emp to drain mana and health. When maxed wex EMP takes 2 seconds to detonate so you will have to land tornado to make it hit. Now depending on how many points you have in quas you should time your combo differently. If you have nearly nothing or half of the points in quas you should cast EMP before tornado, in that way they land directly when it detonate. When you have maxed quas you should cast EMP after tornado.
This combo when executed right drains 400 mana points and if you use it several times before fighting you can easily win team fights with it.
This combo also controls space like no other, forces the team to fall back
and regroup.
In mid game fights it is also important that you put alacrity on your allied carry hero. It increases their attack-speed with 80% which is quite a lot.
Late game:
Late game Wex invoker is simular to Exort invoker, you should have maxed both exort and wex and you can use The Nuker combo n2 to initiate. But instead of using Ice wall after you should prioritize EMP then Ice wall.
Items as Wex invoker depends, but if you feel you have control of the game and maybe even carring your team a bit going for Eye of Skadi is a great choice.
And if none of you team mates have Assault Cuirass that is good choice as well.
Late game invoker play out about the same, stay in the back. Look for openings and position yourself to execute as many spells as possible.
The Carry(exort, quas).
(Damage dealer, pusher, ganker, farmer).
This strategy is built around getting fast double Forge Spirits.
Early FS can have devastating effect because to the amazing damage the deal mid game. Using this build is the easiest way to snowball yourself to carry. FS also gives map control and are great for pushing.
Early game:
Early game play out the same as The Nuker build. Machinegun-snaping yourself to win mid and ganking if needed. Go for Phase boots and bottle. But don't got for Eul's scepter, instead go for forcestaff. Forcestaff works better with this build because it synchronizes better with your Forge Spirits.
The Skill-build is first to one in each exort and quas. Then to put in exort until you have 4 points then do the same for quas. Now put one point in wex then max out exort, then wex.
Mid game:
Mid game you should be on a ganking spree. If not then use FS to multitask yourself to get amazing farm and ganking.
Example: You are standing The Dire easy creep camp, you summon FS to deal with that camp while you send a meteor flying to one camp and cast wex on yourself to kill the 3rd camp.
Example 2: You are pushing at the dire top-lane tier 1 tower. You summon FS then you teleport mid to assist your team in a fight. Now when the fight is going on your spirits are pushing and killing the enemy tier 1 tower.
Example 3: You are Dire bot-lane pushing, you use FS and send them to the lower right river side warding spot. There you find a lonely venomance warding. Orb attack venomancer until he get low enough health that you can suntrike his ass. Easy kill.
Maxing exort before quas makes your forge spirits deal a lot more damage, but what many people don't know is that FS also lower the targets armor for every auto attack it makes. That is what makes FS so deadly, specially if you combo them with a well placed Ice wall or Coldsnap.
This build is more like the Wex build, for more active players, but if you are good farmer and get some early strong items like Eye of Skadi that is also great.
Late game:
This build makes invoker great when late game approaches. That is because of your skill-build being well rounded and buffs a lot of spells. So if you have good game sense and know how and when to use spells this build is great. So that is almost always choose to go agahnim's scepter after forcestaff with this build because it makes the build more versatile. Always have two forge spirits running with or around the map scouting and map controlling. And as the other strategies positioning is key, and a well executed The Nuker combo n2 can win games.
Outro:
This is my three strategies and I hope you learned something new or maybe got inspired to try out this amazing hero. I always wanted to write a guide and I it would be nice to get some feedback in the comment section below.
Happy spell-casting.
TLDR:
Invoker is a very good hero.
