[Hero] Anti-Mage

I. Introduction
Take a stab at the meaning behind Anti-Mage's name. What is he good at? If you answered with something similar to "it sounds like he is good at countering spellcasters", then you get a cookie. But that's not all! Anti-Mage is also very adept against low-mana support heroes. Anti-Mage's skill set naturally lends itself to taking down the mana pools of enemies while mitigating their magic damage against him, and lategame he can become quite powerful. With the DotA 2 hero pool as of right now, Anti-Mage is one of the best hard carries. Your team should deal with adept enemy Anti-Mages cautiously and quickly. Anti-Mage can also function quite well as a semi-carry/ganker, though to be effective in this role he needs teammate support, as he has no natural disable of his own.

II. When to Pick?
So, aside from the fact that he has a cool mohawk, why do want to pick Anti-Mage? And even if he is your best friend for life, when do you choose him? When hero selections are taking place, remember and contemplate the questions below in order to make the informed decision.

Does your team lack a stable carry? Are there lots of mana-dependent heroes on the opposing team? Is your team's strategy based upon high mobility? Does your team have enough inherent disables? Is the opposing team very nuke-heavy? Can you last hit well?

If the answer to a majority of questions is yes, then Anti-Mage is a very viable pick.

Does your team already have enough lategame heroes that need farm? Does the opposing team not care (to a certain extent) if their mana is burnt? Does your team lack stuns, crippling slows, and other disables? Are there plenitudes of disables, notably silences and hexes, on the other team? Do you farm like my 99-year-old great-grandmother playing Crystal Maiden?

If you answered a significant number of the above queries with an affirmative, do not pick the blade-wielding monk.

Remember, Anti-Mage has no nuke (aside from his Ultimate), no slow, no stun, no silence, no auras, no heals--simply put, this monk is not a team player. However, given farm, Anti-Mage can put the team on his back. Now that you have a better idea of when and when not to choose Anti-Mage, let's delve deeper into the abyss and discuss what you need be prepared for should Anti-Mage be your hero.

III. Mentality and Gameplay
There are two standard ways to play Anti-Mage: as the more common hard carry, or as the less-seen semi-carry/ganker. I will discuss the mindset you should (generally) take when playing as each role, though since the farming carry Anti-Mage is much more prevalent, that will be the main focus.

Should you find yourself playing Anti-Mage in a team without alternative stable carries, know that your team is relying on you to become strong if the game goes late. You have three goals: farm, farm, farm. Don't forget that now. Remember, monks are very good at being solitary, and the Anti-Mage is no exception.

Assess your team. Do you have an aggressive lineup that can gank while you farm? Is your team more farming oriented, maximizing potential mid- to lategame? In any case, generally you'll want the safe lane: bottom for Radiant and top for Dire. Ask for a babysitter, potentially two to make a trilane if you think you'll be facing staunch opposition. Early on, your primary concern is farming. Let your supports win the lane for you. Ask for wards (in pubs oftentimes nobody will buy any), and call for ganks from your solo mid to get your lane overleveled compared to the opposition. If you're not farming exceptionally, fret not. Just make sure you're not dying early game! Without your vanguard, you are extremely weak. Don't dive towers to get kills unless you have support from teammates and the creep wave. Basically, if you can get kills do your best to get them, since the experience and gold from hero kills is nice. However, don't try to be the ganker. You don't have a disable, you don't have much HP, and you don't have the movespeed to run circles around your enemies.

When the midgame rolls around and your laning partner(s) leave(s) you, create a safe zone; ask for defensive wards to protect your short lane (bottom for Radiant and top for Dire) and jungle. Farm. Always be prepared to blink to safety. Carry a teleportation scroll at all times. Mow down neutral camps. Farm. Do not jump into team fights that could go either way; only come in if you think your team will sweep the opposition, allowing you to pick up gold and experience. Be greedy: take last hits, both on enemy creeps and heroes, from your teammates. Farm. You can push your lane, but don't push too far. Make smart item choices, as there is no set-in-stone item build for Anti-Mage. Keep your health high, and don't needlessly expend your mana on blinking.

Keep in mind: for the first, say, thirty minutes of the game, you are not a team player. You leave your team fighting the uphill 4v5 battle, in the hopes that you will return from your meditativefarming retreat with wisdomgame-ending items. And assuming you last hit well and followed the general guidelines I stated above, at this point you should be ready to join the battle. If your team, despite the numerical disadvantage, has been doing well up till now, you should be ready to help them drive the nail home. And if they haven't... well, Anti-Mage is a very good hero for attempting to turn the tide. When lategame rolls around, your primary focus should be on winning (taking down the opponents' barracks and pushing their Ancient), not farming. However, in the more peaceful lulls keep up the killing of creep. Just don't ignore your team any longer, and be prepared to push, defend, and jump into team fights.

Remember, despite your ridiculous magic reduction, you are not invulnerable. Despite defensive HP-boosting items, with your low strength gain, you are frail to concentrated fire. Do not roleplay as John Rambo. Do not dive headlong into overwhelming numbers. Wait for the rest of your team to engage (or be engaged upon), and jump in after the initial chaos is over. Target heroes that rely on spells, either for dealing damage or for staying alive. They will generally be the opposing team's supports--take them down with your anti-magic prejudice. Blink to chase: do all in your power to kill that enemy at low HP. Blink to stay alive: should you find yourself at low HP/mana and in dire straits, get out. However, through the chaos you should try to spend as much time as possible attacking. Generally speaking, if you are alive and well at the conclusion of a team fight and aren't alone, your team will have emerged victorious. Purchase the bigger-ticket items while prudently saving for buyback, and always be on the lookout for a chance to win. If your team ends up killing Roshan, take the Aegis. You are one of the best heroes to carry it.

While the paragraphs above detail what will probably be your battle plan for 90% of the games you play as Anti-Mage, there are always exceptions. In some cases, when there is another suitable carry on your team, Anti-Mage can play more of a ganker role: supplementing your income from last hitting creeps, a portion of your gold will come from the corpses of enemy heroes. With a built-in blink and mana break, Anti-Mage can be very deadly in the early- and midgame as well. However, you cannot do this alone. With no natural disable, you will have to rely on teammates to provide the necessary slows, stuns, and/or silences to bog down your enemies. However, should a teammate land a sufficient stun that should be enough for you to blink in, whack the unfortunate enemy hero a few times to burn their mana, use your ultimate (Mana Void) to deal more damage, and then pursue with Blink for the kill. Just remember, this is a much riskier way to play Anti-Mage. Before Blink is maxed out, it has a relatively long cooldown, and as a ganker you will be maxing out your Mana Break before Blink. And even then, blinking in always invites retaliation. Ganks can go sour: enemy reinforcements may be laying in wait in the shadows, and inbound teleportations may be only seconds away. Once again, you are not Rambo. Do not charge in on your own, and get out if the situation looks dire. You are also not a dedicated ganker. Remember to farm, when you get the chance.

With more gank-based Anti-Mage play, you will be comparatively not as strong in the lategame had you chosen the farming route. Assuming your ventures into enemy territory were relatively successful, you will have some decent items to enter the ending phases of the game. And even if your items aren't as awesome as that of a farming Anti-Mage, as a successful ganking Anti-Mage your presence and actions should have kept down your opponents, meaning they are relatively weaker as well. At this point, look to win the game through big pushes. Farm in the downtime, and be prepared for the game going longer than expected. For teamfights, the same advice as detailed above pertains.

IV. Stats, Pros, and Cons
Anti-Mage | Strength: 20 + 1.2 | Agility: 22 + 2.8 | Intelligence: 15 + 1.8

Starting Hit Points: 530
Starting Mana: 195
Starting Damage: 49-53
Starting Armor: 3.08
Base Movespeed: 320
Attack Range: 128 (melee)
Base Attack Time: 1.35
Sight Range (Day): 1800
Sight Range (Night): 800

Pros	Cons
Above-average starting STR for AGI hero Fastest-moving hero in Beta thus far Great attack animation High mobility with Blink Highest natural spell damage reduction Lowest BAT of any hero	Second-lowest STR gain of any hero No natural disable Melee (bad for laning) No farming ability No team synergy Very item-dependent

V. Skills
Anti-Mage's skill set is built around blinking in, burning mana, tanking reduced spell damage, and killing high-mana pool, low-HP pool heroes with his ultimate. In this section, we will cover the basics of Anti-Mage's two active skills and two passive abilities, leaving the [slightly] more advanced techniques for a later section. Also, the highlighted red letter in each skill name represents the hotkey from WCIII DotA that was used in conjunction with the skill. DotA 2 defaults all skills to qwer, but if you choose to use Legacy hotkeys you'll be wanting to hit the letters marked in red.

Skill #1: Mana Break | Passive

Level	Mana burned per hit
1	28
2	40
3	52
4	64

Anti-Mage's first ability is his passive orb effect, Mana Break, which burns mana from enemy units with each attack. When mana is burnt, physical damage equal to 60% of the mana burnt is dealt to the target in question. This translates into an extra 17, 24, 31, and 38 damage per attack at levels 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Make full use of this. When farming in lane, utilize the extra damage yielded by Mana Break to last hit the enemy ranged creep a bit sooner. Hit neutrals with mana pools first to decrease a creep camp's overall DPS. Harass enemy heroes and drop their mana pools, rendering them unable or less able to cast spells. One important note: even though Mana Break does physical damage, the ability is blocked by magic immunity, such as that granted through a Black King Bar (BKB). Furthermore,do not purchase items granting orb effects on Anti-Mage since he already has Mana Break, and it is a very powerful orb.

Skill #2: Blink | Active: Point

Level	Cooldown	Teleportation Range
1	12 seconds	200-1000 units
2	9 seconds	200-1075 units
3	7 seconds	200-1150 units
4	5 seconds	200-1150 units

Blink grants Anti-Mage amazing mobility, allowing him to quickly teleport short distances for a constant mana cost of 60 at all levels. Blinking is only allowed to areas previously explored, and there is both a minimum and maximum range. As an ability, Blink is probably the most-sought after skill in DotA because of its versatility. With this ability, Anti-Mage can blink into combat and out of it again in a matter of seconds, evade ganks, and speed up his movement across the map. If done properly, Blinking can also avoid projectiles, though if attempting to do so remember to take into account the .33 second teleportation delay.

Skill #3: Spell Shield | Passive

Level	Magic Damage Reduction
1	26%
2	34%
3	42%
4	50%

Spell Shield makes Anti-Mage shrug off magical damage from spells like no other. Combined with the innate 25% magic resistance inherent in all heroes, Anti-Mage will reduce hostile magic damage by 32.5%, 42.5%, 52.5, and 62.5% at levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively. Think about it this way: Lion's level 1 ultimate, Finger of Death, deals a whopping 500 magical damage to a single unfortunate target. An Anti-Mage with maxed spell shield and no other magical resistance-affecting conditions/items will only take 188 damage. And with a Hood of Defiance granting 30% additional magic resistance, the damage from Finger of Death is mitigated further to a paltry 131 damage. With this in perspective, it's easy to see that Anti-Mage is amazing at surviving spell-based damage. Just keep in mind that because his HP pool is so low through his pitiful strength, it doesn't matter if 100 extra damage is mitigated if you have 500 HP less than the rest of the heroes in the game.

Skill #4: Mana Void | Active: Unit

Level	Mana Cost	Stun	Damage Dealt per Mana Point Missing
1	125	0.1 seconds	0.6
2	200	0.2 seconds	0.85
3	275	0.3 seconds	1.1

Rounding out Anti-Mage's skill set is his ultimate, Mana Void. This single-target spell with a constant casting range of 600 units and cooldown of 70 seconds at all levels deals magical damage based upon the amount of mana the enemy target is missing. And because of this variability, Mana Void can either be very damaging or very weak. For example, assume there are two enemy heroes, Crystal Maiden and Doom Bringer, that Anti-Mage is contemplating targeting with a level 1 Mana Void. The Crystal Maiden has a total mana pool of 650 and is missing 500 of that, either through casting spells or being burned by Mana Break. Should Anti-Mage choose to use Mana Void on the unfortunate Maiden, the level 1 Mana Void would deal 500 x .6 = 300 magical damage. However, against the Doom Bringer with 150/300 mana, Mana Void only deals 150 x .6 = 90 damage. From this, it can easily be seen that Mana Void isn't simply point-and-click. When using Mana Void, make sure you're targeting, in general, a high-mana pool, low-health pool hero that is missing a good portion of mana. Mana Void also has a few other noteworthy points. When Mana Void is cast, there is a mini-stun inflicted upon the target. Secondly, even though Mana Void is a single-target spell, damage dealt is inflicted equally within a 300 range Area of Effect. To avoid this mini-section becoming too long, implications of both these effects will be covered below, in the advanced usage section.

VI. Skill Builds
Depending on what role (carry or ganker) you choose to take with Anti-Mage, your skill build may vary. Here I will provide basic skill builds for either. Remember, these are not set in stone: each game is unique and there may be outstanding circumstances in which you will need to deviate from a preset path. Use these builds as guidelines, not as absolutes. Pirate code?

+ Show Spoiler [Balanced Carry] +
Justification: This build is the one I'd recommend for newer players starting out. It emphasizes survivability over damage, while still allowing for the typical lane and jungle farming Anti-Mage should be doing. For all heroes, generally at level 1 the skill chosen is either a disable or an escape spell. Anti-Mage does not have a disable, so Blink is taken at level 1 in order to survive those nasty first blood attempts. Depending on the lane, Mana Break or Spell Shield is taken at level 2, with Mana Break chosen if you and your teammates are looking to dominate the lane (especially if the enemy lane has any melee heroes) and Spell Shield taken if you feel the enemy is going to be very active in harassing you with spells. Whatever the case, take whatever you didn't take at level 2 when you reach level 3. Take your ultimate when you can at levels 6, 11, and 16. The key part of this build is to level up one level of each of the first three skills at a time, and cycle through them. This will grant you killing power through a more powerful Mana Break, mobility through a Blink with a shorter cooldown, and survivability through improved magic resistance with Spell Shield. All of Anti-Mage's skills are so good, so don't pick up Stats until nothing else is left. Of course, I'm a bit more defensively-oriented than most people: it may suit your tastes to pick up extra levels of Mana Break early on since the best defense may well be pure offense. Burning away more mana in fewer hits early on means that enemy heroes will have less opportunities to cast harmful spells upon you.

For a more organized game though (meaning both teams are relatively coordinated), I'd recommend the build listed directly below this one.

+ Show Spoiler [Defensive Farming Carry] +
Justification: Blink at level 1 for survivability, and Mana Break/Spell Shield on level 2 and the one not chosen on level 3 for reasoning similar to what was listed above. After this, max Spell Shield out first, pausing to take Mana Void at level 6 because Anti-Mage's ultimate is too useful to be passed up on. Maxing Spell Shield first allows you to survive much better in the midgame ganking phase, where chained magical spells are prevalent. Since you will not be participating in team fights or ganks due to your primary duty as a farmer, there's no need to have a shorter cooldown on Blink, and the extra 7 damage granted through each level of Mana Break is not as marginally useful as being able to survive coordinated enemy ganks... especially in public games, where wards are lacking. After Spell Shield is maxed, unless there are extenuating circumstances (you manage to farm up 20000 gold worth of items by level 7 and are ready to join the fight, dealing 300 damage a hit) alternate between leveling up Blink and Mana Break. I generally favor leveling up Blink first, since it helps with lessening the travel time between neutral creep camps, and the reduced cooldown means I can be a bit more liberal in my teleporting without worrying about enemy ganks coming in the downtime between Blinks. Again, Mana Void is taken as soon as possible at level 11, and Stats are only taken when there is nothing left to take. Anti-Mage's skills are amazing, and an extra 2 STR, AGI, and INT are not worth it. To talk a bit more about the efficacy of this particular skill build, this is what the professional DotA farmer ZSMJ, of the Chinese team iG uses. While there might be some variance in his builds from game to game, the core is the same: max Spell Shield by 7, farm away, and carry lategame. Did I mention that even among professional DotA players, ZSMJ is one of the best, if not the best?

+ Show Spoiler [Neutral Farming Carry] +
Justification: The word "neutral" has two connotations. The first involves the literal definition of neutral: it is not as defensive in nature as the first build, allowing Anti-Mage some killing power should your team be forced into a teamfight involving Anti-Mage during the early/midgame. The second involves the actual neutral camps residing in the jungle. After a certain level, when Anti-Mage is strong enough he can just blink between neutral camps to supplement his farming when the lane is pushed. Of course, you would prefer to have the lane stay relatively in the same spot... but nobody's perfect! The first three levels follow similarly to the Defensive Farming Carry build, but after that a second level of Blink is taken before the midgame. Mana Break is then maxed by level 8, so as to better kill neutrals with mana pools (and the occasional hero that Anti-Mage can get his hands on in forced teamfights). Blink is then maxed by level 10, since with proper farm around that time Anti-Mage will be able to blink to a camp, kill it in 5 or 6 seconds, and then blink to the next camp if he so chooses. Spell Shield is maxed last, and again Mana Void is taken as soon as it becomes available. A warning label comes attached to this build though: because you will oftentimes be expending a lot of mana on Blink and losing a good deal of HP from neutrals' attacks early on while farming in the jungle; since your magic resistance through Spell Shield isn't comparably as good, you must be very careful not to be caught with your pants down in an enemy gank. Always leave enough mana to be able to Blink away twice from pursuers (which will leave you enough to teleport away as well in the event that you get ganked by enemies that only have slows for disables). With proper warding, you can farm slightly faster using this build than with the Defensive Farming Build through the extra damage granted through Mana Break.

+ Show Spoiler [Ganker/Semi-Carry] +
Justification: If you plan to play more of the hero-killing role, this is the build for you. Though the first three levels look similar to that of the farming carry builds, you may choose to take Mana Break at level 1 if you think your team will be able to pull off an aggressive first blood in lane. The basis of this build is to max Mana Break by 8, with two levels of Blink and one level in Spell Shield taken before then. Throughout midgame, as long as there is another hero (or two) to disable an enemy, you can blink in, chop their mana down to zero, Mana Void them, and chase for the kill if needed. Blink is maxed after Mana Break, and Spell Shield last. Of course, this can be changed: if you find your enemies packing very heavily in nuking power, consider swapping levels of Mana Break for Blink and Spell Shield early on. Remember: Mana Void does damage based on how much mana is missing. It matters not whether mana was burned away through mana break or expended on spells, and you can bet that you'll be seeing a fair number of nukes and stuns dropped on your head when you blink in. Exercise temperance with your aggression, or you will oftentimes find yourself staring at the respawn counter.

VII. Item Builds
There are currently 123 purchasable items in DotA. That is a lot of items. Of course, as a carry Anti-Mage wouldn't be touching most of them, but there are still enough items that Anti-Mage can effectively use to make item builds not cookie-cutter. As with everything else in this guide, you can deviate from what I suggest. My builds are those elicited from watching professional games and my own personal games, but what works for me doesn't necessarily have to work for you.

After talking about starting and early game items, I'll discuss the general item pool for a farming hard carry Anti-Mage since that is the more common route to take. Ganking Anti-Mage items will also be covered. Since both routes go toward the same lategame result, I will talk about the general items you want to purchase as an Anti-Mage when the game goes late after the two disparate tracks are covered. Situational items and rejected items for Anti-Mage will be covered as well.

Starting Items
Anti-Mage is not a support. Don't feel the need to buy a courier or wards. Your money should go toward regeneratives, stat-boosting items, and the beginnings of your core items. In very organized (inhouse/competitive) games your supports may even buy your regeneratives for you, but generally in public games that won't happen. Since this guide assumes you didn't random Anti-Mage, you start out with 603 gold. Regardless of whether you plan to farm heavily or be more of a ganker, there are two main starting options for Anti-Mage.


The first option is the one I get when playing pubs. Stout Shield early on for melee heroes is amazing--as a low-HP melee hero, you'll be feeling every enemy blow. Stout Shield really cuts down on that harassment, since a 60% chance to block 20 damage means on average every attack that lands on you is reduced by 12. And if you happen to accidentally draw creep aggression, with a stout shield you'll barely feel a thing since melee creep do barely over 20 damage. The Stout Shield also goes into the Poor Man's Shield or Vanguard, both of which are amazing on Anti-Mage and are part of his core. The three Ironwood Branches provide some nice early stats. The extra HP is always nice and the extra mana means you'll have more to work with when blinking, and they go nicely into a Magic Wand... which is useful on any and every hero. The healing salve and tangoes serve nicely in patching up any damage that the Stout Shield couldn't block.

The second option with a Quelling Blade is preferable when you're working in a trilane or have an extremely good babysitter for a dual lane. Of course, the defensive capability of the Stout Shield is foregone, but the 32% increase in damage against creeps makes it a lot easier to last-hit. Anti-Mage's starting damage is already respectable, and with a Quelling Blade last-hitting is a breeze. Quelling Blade also synergizes well with Battle Fury, so if you plan to go that route this is a good way to start. The rest of your starting items are the same as in the first option. Just a warning though: this is only useful if you are in a position to last-hit creep. Obviously, don't try this if you don't have a decent babysitting support since you'll just find yourself sitting back behind the creep wave, unable to use your higher damage to obtain gold.

If you find yourself against enemy heroes that spam their spells a lot, such as Batrider, Lich, Broodmother, etc., consider getting a Magic Stick instead. The early burst heal is invaluable, and it goes nicely into your magic wand. Still though, in general the benefits granted through Stout Shield or Quelling Blade (or both if you have supports kind enough to buy you restoratives!) are better than the Wand to start out with. Consider upgrading it to a Magic Wand if it behooves you, sell it later on if not.

Early Game Items
Anti-Mage isn't a very versatile hero, and isn't a team player. As such, he'll be getting items that benefit himself (and not his team). Here are some of the early game items that you should be looking for if you're playing Anti-Mage.


Stout Shield and Ring of Health should be bought first. The order can vary, but 95 times out of 100 you'll want both. The damage block from Stout Shield is very useful on a melee hero like Anti-Mage with low HP, and Ring of Health will allow you to regenerate damage done from harassment quickly. If you didn't buy your Stout Shield right off the bat, get it from the side shop. And if you're farming very, very well... buy that Ring of Health quickly. These two useful items can either be upgraded into Poor Man's Shield / Perseverance or used together to make a Vanguard. These upgrades will be discussed in the Core Items section.

I hold the belief that pretty much every hero in the game should get a Magic Stick. The maximum burst heal of 150 HP / 150 MP isn't as as good as a Mekansm, but having one of these can provide Anti-Mage the extra bit of HP he needs to escape from ganks. Oftentimes you'll be finding yourself chain-stunned, and you'll be just able to blink away as soon as the last stun ends... but then you die. A Magic Stick can help to solve that problem.

Almost every hero should get Boots of Speed early on. Anti-Mage is no exception, since with Boots and Blink your mobility is amazing. You can chase very aggressively with Boots and Blink, and in the same way you can escape enemies looking to kill you. In general, purchase Boots after your Ring of Health, or in some cases after Vanguard is completed. Eventually, the boots should be upgraded, and there are four options. Before moving onto the discussion about core items, let's talk about the boots dilemma.


Of these four choices, two are inferior. Arcane Boots grant you nice burst mana regeneration, but Anti-Mage doesn't really need much mana... Blink costs 60 mana and Mana Void isn't used too frequently. Remember: you are a farmer. In any sense, Anti-Mage needs to focus on two things: damage and survivability. Arcane Boots provide neither. Do not buy them.

Boots of Travel provide a huge movespeed increase of 95, but the recipe is very expensive. Buy these only after you've maxed out every other item slot late, late into the game.

Now then, the choice is between Power Treads and Phase Boots. Both are viable choices on Anti-Mage, though depending on the situation one will be better than the other. Power Treads are versatile: the ability to switch between modes means Anti-Mage can buffer his ridiculously low HP pool, increase his armor/damage, or have that extra bit of mana for Blink or Mana Void. Power Treads are very useful on a defensive farming Anti-Mage, and the attack speed increase never hurts. Phase Boots are bought on a more aggressive Anti-Mage, perhaps one that is looking more to gank. They boost Anti-Mage's damage by 24, which is quite a bit in the early game. They also allow Anti-Mage to chase even more aggressively: between Blink and the Phase ability of Phase Boots, enemy heroes are not getting away. However, Phase Boots do not provide survivability, and don't scale as well into the late game. Buy these if your team is able to back you up with stuns, slows, and other disables when you're ganking. Anti-Mage with Phase Boots generally signifies a desire to end the game relatively early.

Core (Midgame) Items
After purchasing your early items, look to upgrade them into bigger-ticket items, and there are a few paths you can take. For instance, don't buy both Phase Boots and Power Treads. The movespeed bonus doesn't stack, even though you have two feet. When applicable, I'll pair off core items and talk about when to get what. We'll begin by talking about the defensive items that can be made from a Stout Shield.


Both of these items provide Anti-Mage a comparable damage block, and they don't stack. So which one should you get? Poor Man's Shield is better against physical hero harassment early on since it will always block 20 damage off every enemy hero attack, and it keeps the 60% chance to block creep damage. It's also relatively cheap to assemble: add two Slippers of Agility on top of the Stout Shield and you've got it. It's a nice early game source of Agility and damage block for Anti-Mage, but this doesn't scale well later on: blocking 20 of 45 damage is nice, but blocking 20 of 150 damage is relatively trivial. Poor Man's Shield is cheaper, but I almost always find it inferior to Vanguard. Of course, if you're rushing a Battle Fury, then you don't have to get an extra Ring of Health.

Vanguard can be made by adding a Vitality Booster to your Ring of Health and Stout Shield. In addition to the increased damage block (60% chance to block 40 damage works out to equivalently blocking 28 damage per enemy attack) It provides Anti-Mage, the regeneration is nice as well and the increase to Anti-Mage's pitiful HP pool is most welcome. Vanguard allows Anti-Mage to play more aggressively, and makes him much harder to kill. Jungling becomes a breeze with Vanguard, as neutral creeps will barely scratch Anti-Mage. I recommend buying Vanguard on Anti-Mage over Poor Man's Shield 99% of the time: the buildup is nice, the increased HP pool allows you to fight more aggressively, and the damage block is better.


After finishing one of the two (hint: get Vanguard) shield items above, upgrade your Boots. Either get Power Treads or Phase Boots. I recommend Power Treads.


After completing Vanguard or Poor Man's Shield, you will want some damage. There are three generally accepted first items to go for: Battle Fury, Yasha, and Ultimate Orb. Now, this isn't like Phase Boots/Power Treads or Poor Man's Shield/Vanguard. You will always want the Yasha and Ultimate Orb to make a Manta Style--the Battle Fury is optional, and if you're going to get it get it first.

Battle Fury is an amazing farming item. The cleave allows you to mow down creep waves (or neutral creep camps) quickly, and the +6 HP regeneration, +65 damage, and +150% mana regeneration all help Anti-Mage quite well. In the midgame, Anti-Mage is one of the best junglers with Vanguard and Battle Fury finished since he can blink to a neutral camp, clear it out quickly, and move on to the next. And with the increased HP and MP regeneration granted through Battle Fury, he can stay in the jungle for quite some time. Battle Fury is an amazing item if completed early, since it expedites Anti-Mage's farm in the midgame.

If there is one core item on Anti-Mage, it would be Yasha. Increased attack speed, agility, and movespeed... it's everything Anti-Mage wants, and it goes into the Manta Style. Hands down, Anti-Mage is the best wielder of Manta Style, and I'll explain that below in the late game item section.

If you are farming well, get a Battle Fury early on after Vanguard. By staying in the safe lane and safe jungle (top for Dire and bottom for Radiant), you can move between the neutral creep camps and the lane to farm extremely quickly. In no time, you'll find yourself with the gold to buy a Yasha. I generally recommend going for a Battle Fury first, but if you're not farming very well, get a Yasha first since it scales into lategame better... and almost always your number one priority with Anti-Mage should be to finish a Manta Style.

The Ultimate Orb and Yasha make up the Manta Style, and cost roughly the same amount. If you can farm well, get the Ultimate Orb first. The +10 to all stats will be very noticeable in the early/mid-game, especially in the survivability department. Yasha can be made up of smaller components, so you don't have to save up 2100 gold at once.

Note: As a ganking Anti-Mage, do not buy a Battle Fury, since the cleave is mostly irrelevant if you're going to spend most of your time hunting individual heroes. Get that Ultimate Orb or Yasha first, and work toward that Manta Style as quickly as possible. As a ganking Anti-Mage, getting a Vladimir's Offering is also viable, and I will cover that in the lategame section.

Oh, and how could I forget... Always have one of these.


Always have a Teleportation Scroll on hand. Use it to jump to a lane with a lot of enemy creeps, escape back to the fountain, or more generally as a quicker form of transportation. It doesn't matter what hero you are playing: always carry one of these.

Lategame Items
As stressed above multiple times, Anti-Mage is not a team player. Quite the opposite: he is a selfish monk. For the early- and mid-game, your teammates will be protecting you through wards and their presences, and come 30 or 40 minutes into the game, it's time to pay back the favor. Remember, don't stop farming altogether... Just be prepared to lead (or second) the charge into enemy territory. Anti-Mage is a hard carry, but he isn't the hardest--given equal farm, Spectre and Faceless Void will beat Anti-Mage, and against Sniper it can go either way. After you finish your Manta Style, be prepared to fight.

At the time I join my team, this is generally my item set:



This item set is pretty balanced. It offers survivability (+STR from Manta and Strength Treads, damage block from Vanguard, and burst heal through Magic Wand), attack speed (from Manta and Power Treads) and damage (from Manta and Battle Fury). If your team has been doing well before you joined them, then your arrival with an item set akin to this should many times be enough to win the game. Of course, this is not an end-all set: there are still other items you should go for in between your pushes and team fights. Before we talk about them though, let us take a look at the beautiful Manta Style.


Do not fight before finishing Manta Style. Conversely, as soon as you finish Manta Style, fight. While it doesn't provide any additional stats/AS/MS bonuses that the Ultimate Orb and Yasha grant, it does provide you the infinitely valuable Mirror Image ability. As a melee hero with a natural feedback (mana burn) orb, Anti-Mage benefits immensely from Manta Style. Let's do some simple mathcraft.

Popping Manta Style grants you two illusions that move at the same speed you do, attack at the same speed you do, and burn the same amount of mana per hit as you do. Assume you blink up to a hero, pop Manta, and start attacking him. Between you and your illusions, swiping once each burns 64 x 3 = 192 mana. That translates into 192 x 0.6 = 115 physical damage through feedback alone, or 77 damage through illusions. At this point, attacking an enemy with your hero and two images generally spells the doom of that hero. At the very least, they will quickly be rendered unable to cast spells. What good is a support that can't cast? He or she is no better than an above-average creep.

Popping Manta Style also rids Anti-Mage of many crippling debuffs. Despite the 50% reduction from Spell Shield, Anti-Mage is still very vulnerable to burst damage and chain stuns because of his low HP pool (even with Vanguard). Manta Style gets rid of those nasty stuns and silences, and suddenly the enemy team finds themselves facing not one, but three blade-wielding monks. Panic will ensue.

Know though that illusions do not benefit from raw plus damage, meaning they do not gain the +65 damage from Battle Fury. After completing Manta Style, if you're looking to make your illusions stronger, try to add Agility, not pure plus damage.

Now, I will talk about the other items that Anti-Mage generally gets in the lategame. I will divide the item choices into two groups: offensive and defensive. Let us look at the more offensive-based items first.


Butterfly is every Agility carry hero's dream. +60 damage (30 through agility and 30 through raw), +60 AS (30 through agility and 30 through raw), and 30% evasion? Yes, yes please. With this item, Anti-Mage and his illusions will attack at close to maximum Attack Speed, dealing whopping amounts of damage per blow as well. Being able to evade 30% of physical attacks is invaluable as well, especially if you are going toe to toe with the opposing carry. You will almost always want this item: it comes down to when you can buy this, since Butterfly is quite expensive to make. I normally go straight for Butterfly as my next item after Manta, but in some cases you may want either a different item, either offensively, such as a Basher or Monkey King Bar, or defensively, such as a Black King Bar or Heart of Tarrasque.

Skull Basher provides decent plus damage and a good disable. While you can't permanently stun an enemy anymore since the stun lasts 1.4 seconds while the cooldown is two seconds, since Anti-Mage attacks so quickly it's still very close to being a perma-stun. If your team is lacking stable disables and/or your opponents are escaping through Force Staffs, blinks, or other mobility-shifting skills or items, consider getting one of these. Just remember that your illusions do not benefit from either the plus damage or the bash ability.

Monkey King Bar provides even more plus damage than Skull Basher and is useful against enemy heroes with powerful channeling spells, such as Enigma or Shadow Shaman. Unlike with Skull Basher, your illusions do gain the mini-bash (which also adds +100 damage) ability, so channeling enemies won't be able to keep their spells going. However, this isn't the main reason you get this item: you get it for the true strike if the enemy carries go for Butterfly. Compared to Butterfly, Monkey King Bar is inferior. Only get it if before Butterfly you really need to deal with the enemy carry's evasion.

Vladimir's Offering gives a plus damage aura and a lifesteal aura, allowing Anti-Mage the ability to lifesteal that he otherwise wouldn't be able to get. This can increase his survivability on the battlefield, but only if he can attack. This item is great if your team can keep the enemy in place and off your back for you to chop them to pieces, but if this is the case you can still consider asking a support or another hero on your team to buy it. The aura benefits do not help the bearer any more than they help anybody affected by the aura.

Crystalys (lesser crit) and its bigger brother Daedalus (greater crit) are gotten after you already have a massive amount of damage, and want to ramp it up even more. I rarely see this item on Anti-Mage though. Generally heroes who get a critical strike item already have good survivability, either through positioning, such as Drow Ranger, Weaver, and Sniper, or natural tankiness, such as Faceless Void, Slardar, and Night Stalker. Anti-Mage has to dedicate a portion of his farm to attack speed and tankiness, so critical strike would be gotten very late in the game, after, say, Butterfly and Heart are finished.

So the items listed above are really good for taking down enemies quickly. But what if you find yourself constantly dying or blinking away at low health? Consider tanking up through more defensive items.


Black King Bar grants a bit of strength, a bit of damage, and most importantly, the magic immunity-granting avatar. Despite Spell Shield and HP increase through Vanguard, Anti-Mage is still very much so at risk of being nuked down since his HP pool is still so low. BKB prevents people from disabling you for 5 to 10 seconds, allowing you to burn away all your enemies' mana and take them down. I don't normally get this on Anti-Mage, but if the enemy is packing many disables, consider getting one of these.

There are two cases where you really don't want to get a BKB though. The first is if the enemy has BKB-ignoring ultimate disables. Think Enigma's Black Hole, Bat Rider's Flaming Lasso, and Faceless Void's Chronosphere. They won't care if you have BKB--you'll still be disabled. The second case is if the enemy team relies heavily on physical damage, either through hard-hitting heroes (enemy carries) or from minus-armor strategies. In these cases, if you find yourself at a lack of health, consider getting the ultimate tanking item, the Heart of Tarrasque. Between the strength gain and the raw HP boost, you'll find yourself an extra 1060 HP to work with. This is heaven for Anti-Mage: blink in, Manta up, and go hog wild. If you find yourself low, blink out, wait for a few seconds, and let the 2%/second regeneration of Heart heal you back up to full HP in no time. After getting a Heart, you can generally get rid of your Vanguard.

Blade Mail is the item you get when your enemies consistently find a way to target you to bring you down. The big spikes scream "target me and take your own damage back" at you: if the enemy team is consistently trying to focus fire you down at the start of a team fight, get this item to make them think twice before unloading all their nukes at you. The +10 INT, +5 armor, and overall +32 damage are nice as well, especially since Blade Mail is a relatively cheap item at 2200 gold. I generally don't get this on Anti-Mage though. It's better used on heroes with larger HP pools since then you can reflect more damage, and Anti-Mage, as said so many times in this guide, doesn't have the HP to work with.

And if the game goes very, very late, there are two final items that should be considered.


Swap your Power Treads out for Boots of Travel after you have four other big-ticket items and need that slot that the Teleportation Scroll is taking up. This makes you even faster and allows you to travel the map quickly.

Ah, the Divine Rapier. This should be the very, very last item you should get. If the game goes very late, generally there should be a stronger carry on the other side. Divine Rapier provides the +250 damage that can instantly wipe a team fight... or get you wiped in the next team fight should you die. This is definitely the end-all item. Be very careful when purchasing this, for it can either instantly bring about victory... or spell your certain defeat. Later on, Anti-Mage is a very good candidate for a Divine Rapier through tankiness granted by the Heart and Spell Shield, and his naturally high Attack Speed makes full use of the damage.

Situational Items
So I've now gone over most of the lategame items Anti-Mage will be looking to get in a normal game. There are, however, situational items that you may get once in a while should the situation demand it.


Scythe of Vyse, also known as Sheepstick/Hexstick is generally got on other heroes or supports. But should you need an extra disable, Anti-Mage can carry one as well. Blink in, hex somebody, Manta Style, and that unfortunate hero cannot escape and should be dead.

Necronomicon provides two minions with a wide range of useful benefits, such as movespeed aura, attack speed aura, true sight, even more mana burn... And the +STR helps make Anti-Mage more tanky. Consider getting this if you're dealing with invisible heroes such as Rikimaru, Brood Mother, or heroes with Shadow Blade such as Drow Ranger or Sniper. If you don't feel like sinking a lot of gold into this item, just get a Gem of Truesight. Anti-Mage is very good at carrying this gem, but it does take up a valuable item slot.

Linken's Sphere allows you to perhaps survive that critically dooming spell, be it a hex, Mirana's arrow, or even Doom itself. However, this is an expensive item to farm up and if you're going to get it, get it early. You can consider turning your Perseverance into this instead of a Battle Fury, but it will slow down your farm. The plus stats and regeneration are nice as well.

In very extreme cases, your 62.5% reduction through Spell Shield and natural magic resistance isn't enough. Get a Hood of Defiance or its upgrade, the Pipe of Insight for a whopping magic resistance of 74%. Laugh maniacally at nukes.

Assault Cuirass provides you extra armor, Attack Speed, and a minus armor aura to the enemy team. Very good for dealing extra damage to opposing heroes, but Anti-Mage already has nearly maxed attack speed with regular items. If another hero on your team can get this item, it's much better since you already have the attack speed and can get comparable armor through agility-boosting items.

Rejected Items
There are some items that Anti-Mage just shouldn't get. Either he gets no benefits from them, or the benefits are far outweighed by the costs. We'll look at a few of them now.


What do these items have in common? They're all orbs. Anti-Mage's Mana Break is already a very powerful orb. These orbs are not needed. Eye of Skadi isn't listed since it is a very powerful orb, as it helps your survivability through more HP and it can slow down the enemy carry's attack speed. If you are adamant about replacing Mana Break in the lategame, get Skadi. Do not get any of the other orbs, for reasons detailed below.

I once saw an Anti-Mage on my team get a Diffusal Blade. All nine other players in the game starting flaming him. He said it was for the purge. What? Just don't get this item. You already have a better mana break, and the purge is trivial: an ally's hexstick or disable will do just the same thing.

Lifesteal through Helm of the Dominator, its big brother Satanic, and its crazy second cousin Mask of Madness should be avoided. If you really want lifesteal, either get or ask somebody to get a Vladimir's Offering. Of the three, Satanic is the least unacceptable since it at least gives you tanking ability and survivability through the +25 STR and the active three second 175% lifesteal.

Maelstrom and Mjollnir randomly send out chain lightning blasts that deal 150/160 magical damage. You do more per shot with Mana Break and illusions (images don't benefit from Maelstrom or Mjollnir). The attack speed increase is negligible since Anti-Mage already has a very high attack speed.


Armlet of Mordiggian provides you a temporary strength boost but drains your health. The attack speed increase is trivial. Anti-Mage doesn't have the HP pool to support this and the buildup doesn't suit him at all.

Anti-Mage only has one nuke: his ultimate. And that's pretty much a one-shot thing. Ethereal Blade can amplify the damage of that and provides nice stats overall, but at the cost of not being able to attack for three seconds? Anti-Mage is a right-click DPS hero. Do not get this item.

Soul Ring sacrifices much-needed HP, and your only real active skill has a five second cooldown. No need. The same line of reasoning holds for the Refresher Orb. It might be tempting to be able to knock off two heroes at once with ultimate, refresh, ultimate, but that is very mana-intensive (375 for refreshing and 550 to use Mana Void twice for a total mana cost of 925). Aside from that, it doesn't offer Anti-Mage anything else really for its exorbitant cost.

Shadow Blade, Blink Dagger, and Force Staff are positional items. With a cheap, five second cooldown Blink, why do you need these items?

Item Build Progression Examples
Below I'll list a few sample item build progressions. I won't bother with timings since that the time at which you get specific items is dependent on factors such as your farming skill, warding, the prevalence of enemy ganks, etc. Do remember that these are still guidelines. You don't have to follow the item progression to a T but if you want to, be my guest. They're all certainly feasible.

+ Show Spoiler [My Typical Item Progression] +
+ Show Spoiler [Quelling Blade/Battle Fury First] +
+ Show Spoiler [ZSMJ Build] +

VIII. Special Tactics
Here I will talk about some of the more advanced uses and notes for Anti-Mage's skills, as well as give a more detailed breakdown of what you should do in a typical team fight. I apologize in advance for the lack of screenshot pictures--I'm a bit lazy at this point!

Mana Break

• Harass enemy heroes when you get a chance. Burning their mana means extra damage for them and a reduced ability to cast spells. Even if you trade hits early on, you have restoratives and will be purchasing a Ring of Health. Just be careful not to jump into too many enemies at once. Against melee heroes you should have a really easy time.
  
• When farming in the lane, remember that after Mana Break is skilled it becomes much easier to last hit the ranged creep, since it has a mana pool. Remember though that this doesn't work on allied creep.
  
• Similarly, when farming the jungle targeting a neutral creep with a mana pool means you can do more damage to it. Satyr camps are your best friends, since all four creeps spawned have a mana pool. However, it's a trade off: generally the creep in a camp with a mana pool is the stronger/strongest one, so it might be faster to take out the smaller creep first.
  
• After purchasing Battle Fury, definitely hit the creep with a mana pool. The extra damage through feedback hits the other creep as well.
  
• Manta illusions do full mana burn. Sometimes in team fights you can send your illusions to harass an enemy support, forcing them to run around to avoid losing mana instead of casting spells.
  
• Mana Break does not work on magic immune units. So if you're trying to burn the mana off a unit with BKB, it doesn't do anything for the duration of the BKB avatar.

Blink

• You can only blink to territory previously explored by your team. Make sure in your idle/transit time to cover potential paths you might want to blink to. This includes areas in the border trees. Blinking there can sometimes save your life when the other team can't follow!
  
• Know your Blink range. If you try to Blink more than your allotted maximum range, you'll only go 4/5s of the distance instead. This seems trivial since that's at most 230 units, but when you're being chased by five enemy heroes that can make or break you!
  
• There is a minimum range on Blink. While this usually isn't a problem, keep that in mind if you're trying to make "micro jumps" in order to avoid enemy projectiles while still staying in the same general area.
  
• Speaking of dodging projectiles, you can use Blink to dodge certain enemy stuns. This takes timing and practice though, and the .33 second delay on Blink can often get you killed early on. No matter how good you become at blink-dodging, don't become overconfident. Best to not have a stun thrown at you whenever possible.
  
• When chasing another hero with Blink or a Blink-like spell (such as Morphling's Waveform or Mirana's Leap), don't jump the gun and Blink too early. Wait for them to use their spell, and follow them. Anti-Mage has the shortest Blink cooldown in the game, and combined with Mana Break and dogged persistence you can bring down an enemy hero with good prediction.
  
• Another thing about chasing: whenever possible blink in front of a fleeing hero. This allows you to get a few more hits in while they run around you.

Spell Shield

• While you want to mitigate damage done to you, remember that you take less damage from spells than your teammates do. If you are relatively healthy in terms of HP, bait some nukes out to save a fleeing teammate.
  
• Similarly, early- to mid-game you can act as some sort of bait if you have high levels of Spell Shield. Have your teammates stay back in the shadows, and have them jump when enemy heroes try to instantly kill you with massive amounts of nukes. After the enemy spells go on cooldown, your team should be able to clean up. Don't die in the process!

Mana Void

• There are two trains of thought: Mana Void has a short cooldown (60 seconds), so use it to get isolated kills quite liberally. Besides this, Blink, and Manta Style, Anti-Mage doesn't use much mana for anything else.
  
• In team fights, be careful about who you use this on. Since it's dependent upon the pure total of missing mana, hitting somebody who's missing 200 mana doesn't do much damage. As I said earlier, it doesn't matter if you burned an enemy's mana or they expended it on spells; Mana Void hurts just the same.
  
• There are two main ways to use Mana Break in team fights. Since you don't have a short enough cooldown on it to use it twice generally, you can either pop it early or later on. As a single target spell, you can easily take out a hero early on with Mana Break and Mana Void. However, keeping it in reserve will make enemies more wary to expend mana on big spells. I generally prefer the early assassination option.
  
• Mana Void has a mini-stun. You can use this to cancel a teleportation scroll or a channeling spell. However, this doesn't go through BKB, so don't bother trying.
  
• Most importantly: Mana Void has an AoE effect. Damage is calculated based on how much mana the primary target is missing, but it deals the same damage to all enemies in a 300 radius circle. This can be very powerful if cast on, say, a Storm Spirit missing most of his mana in the middle of three other enemy heroes.

What to do in Team Fights
Unless your team is running a "let's use this super tanky Anti-Mage as bait" strategy, you should not be the first to leap into a team fight. Blinking in may cause your enemies a slight amount of confusion, but after a short bit they will start lobbing all their nukes and disables on you... Which isn't necessarily what you want. Even worse, a more experienced team will just coolly react and take you out with chain stuns before your team can bail you out. In short, you don't initiate. However, after the battle has broken, do blink in. Don't blink in randomly though--blink on top of your target of choice. Anti-Mage excels at taking out supports first, so generally you'll want to blink on one of the enemy supports. They'll be lower-leveled and under-farmed, and as such will be food for you and your Manta illusions. Take them out quickly (using Mana Void if you deem them important enough to the team fight to have to take out early) and move on to the next target. Don't waste time running around though--Blink if the next target is sufficiently far away, and oftentimes they will be since the first support will try to run. Whatever the case is, send your illusions to attack other supports or mana-dependent heroes, just to mess up their positioning and burn a bit of mana. If you find yourself low on health, blink out. Try to predict when dodgeable enemy spells such as Earthshaker's Fissure or Queen of Pain's Sonic Wave will hit you, and blink to dodge. After taking out supports and powerful, mana-dependent spellcasters, go after the enemy carries. Of course, if the enemy carry is dependent on casting spells to deal damage or increase their survivability/mobility, such as Slardar or Night Stalker, drain their mana since they have low mana pools. Don't waste your time taking their health after their mana is depleted though--go kill those supports.

If you are initiated on, assess how severe it is. As long as you aren't hexed, you can break disables with Manta Style. Pop it, and either stand your ground to fight if you feel your team's counter-initiation will win the game, or blink out while leaving your illusions to act as a bit of distraction.

If and when you get the Aegis, you can afford to be more aggressive. Go down swinging--don't give your life up needlessly--and be prepared to fight or flight when the respawn happens. With an Aegis, I generally prefer using Mana Void early, since the team fights can be a bit more extended. You may have a chance to use a second Mana Void in here, so blow it early to kill an important hero (or even a support), and if it comes off cooldown that's just a nice bonus.

IX. Friends, Foes, and Food
Lastly, let's talk about some good allies and powerful foes Anti-Mage has, as well as heroes that he absolutely eats for breakfast.

The Friends: Earthshaker, Clockwerk Goblin, Vengeful Spirit, Nature's Prophet


Really, any hero with a stun is Anti-Mage's friend. Since he lacks a disable anybody who can set up a disable on an enemy hero so that Anti-Mage can cut him/her down is an ally. In particular, Earthshaker, Clockwerk Goblin, and Nature's Prophet are extremely good for Anti-Mage. Earthshaker's Fissure blocks off travel, restricting Anti-Mage's prey from running away. Clockwerk and Prophet are even better. Power Cogs and Sprout, respectively, create a ring around enemies, trapping them in. Normally other melee heroes wouldn't be able to hit enemies trapped in Cogs or Sprout, but Anti-Mage can blink in and go to town. Vengeful Spirit gets a special mention since she has a nice stun early on and can swap Anti-Mage out of a team fight if need be... and oftentimes Anti-Mage finds himself in way too deep.

The Foes: Slardar, Doom Bringer, Night Stalker, Sniper, Faceless Void, Spectre, Drow Ranger, Rikimaru, Bloodseeker, Puck, Lion


Slardar, Doom Bringer, and Night Stalker fall into the category of "don't really need that much mana to bring you down and are really tanky due to be being strength heroes." Slardar's Amplify Damage reduces your armor to nil, making physical attacks hurt so much more. Midgame, Night Stalker's Crippling Fear (silence) and Void (slow and nuke) hurts quite a bit, and the silence lasts forever at night. A silenced Anti-Mage is a dead Anti-Mage. He can be chased down and curb stomped to death by five ravenous enemies. Doom Bringer's silence is even worse, considering it's the single most deadly single-target spell. Not only does it silence your Blink, it also silences your items... and even Mana Break. That's right. For the duration of Doom, you are pretty much a fast-attacking melee creep. A Doomed Anti-Mage is pretty much a dead Anti-Mage. Either get a Linken's against Doom or wait till he casts it on somebody else.

Sniper and Faceless Void can outcarry you. Sniper hits you from afar, and doesn't care too much if you blink up on him. He has a Manta of his own, can match you in damage output, and doesn't care if his mana is burned away. Void is even worse. A quarter of the time you can't even hit him due to Backtrack, and his ultimate Chronosphere completely locks you away for five seconds, allowing his team to whack you to pieces. He easily outclasses you by hitting harder, having a permastun through Timelock, and in general better survivability, and is one of the hardest carries in the game. Spectre tanks all your damage, and even though she'll have no mana you'll have no life.

Drow Ranger, Rikimaru, and Bloodseeker are other semi-carries/carries with a built-in silence. Remember, a silenced Anti-Mage is a dead Anti-Mage. None of the three care about getting their mana burned away. Drow will hit harder than you and will have lifesteal. Rikimaru only needs to just get behind you once with a cloud. Bloodseeker hits just as hard or harder than you, and heals by killing your allies. You'll need to either be much tankier or have much higher damage to beat these guys. Otherwise it comes down to whose team supports the carry better.

Rounding out the foes list, Puck and Lion can pop out of nowhere with Blink daggers, silence you, hex you, and generally just set it up so that their team can nuke you to death. Not a fun prospect, though you become less afraid of them as the game draws later.

The Food: Vengeful Spirit, Venomancer, Chen, Zeus, Lina, Crystal Maiden, Shadow Priest, Pugna, Necrolyte, Witch Doctor, Ancient Apparition


These listed heroes have something in common: with the exceptions of Vengeful Spirit and Venomancer, the rest are Intelligence-based heroes that rely on their spells to do damage or help their teammates. Vengeful Spirit and Venomancer also rely on spells as well. None of them are tanky. Anti-Mage simply rips them to pieces. Blink, Manta, a few hits, and Mana Void will kill any of them, and because the main source of damage comes from spells, they barely tickle a farmed Anti-Mage. Of course, their stuns can still be dangerous... Just because they're food doesn't mean they can't fight back.