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On December 24 2014 08:15 Belisarius wrote: So diffusal blade on omniknight during his ult only removed Guardian from omniknight himself?
I swear it used to cancel the whole spell. Maybe I'm insane. Is that a buff I've missed? Only the target of the purge gets GA removed, has always been like that.
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purge removing GA for the whole team would be crazy O_O
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I seriously always thought it was like that. Alright then.
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1. Is there an optimal place to stand while sandstorming jungle camps?
2. What's the reasoning behind not maxing Refraction at 7 and instead putting a couple more points in meld? Ferrari seems to do it fairly consistently. Also he seems to leave lvl 2 traps until 12, but I assume that's because of the insane XP gap between 11 and 12 during which time I'd assume Psi Blades do more than having more traps. + Show Spoiler +
3. What are the guidelines for skilling Ember Spirit? I understand that he has one of the most flexible paths, but I don't quite understand the ways in which variances in his build affect how he's played into the midgame.
4. Any suggestions for improving illusion micro? I tried some replays but they seem bugged with regards to selection of multiple units. I'm using cloning and control groups like SC2, and I also individually select illusions, but I've never been able to box select with the same degree of comfort as in Starcraft, can anyone tell / show me what else I should work on?
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The two general ways to skill Ember Spirit are maxing flame guard first, or maxing SoF and chains first. Flame guard gives you better magic survivability and lets you do a lot of damage if you can get close to people, as well as allows you to clear waves very quickly before you grab a rune, for example. SoF/chains lets you stay farther away from the wave and harass cheaply, and does potentially a lot of damage with the SoF/chains combo. I'd be inclined to go for guard if the lane is a lane you can compete for or win, and SoF/chains if it's a very hard lane (can last hit somewhat with SoF too. Against lane bullies like viper and OD I would probably go SoF/chains. Most lanes I go flame guard though.
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United States12248 Posts
Does SoF proc Corrosive Skin or other abilities of that school?
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United States47024 Posts
Guard also gives you superior pre-BF farming speed, which accelerates your BF a lot if your early tempo is good.
If you're in a hard lane, you simply won't be in a good situation to leverage that farming speed due to slower item and level progression, plus a fed lane opponent who's tempo you have to be able to respond to.
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The most common question with ember is whether or not to take guard.
Guard gives you more lane presence when it matters (ie. before like level 8), gives you durability in skirmishes, gives you a ton of damage in skirmishes if it stays up, gives you the potential to solokill anything that can't pop it, and also powers your jungle farming. Considering all that, I think you need to plan very carefully if you're going to skip it.
No-guard builds (ie. 4-4-0-1) sacrifice your lane strength and earlygame presence for a narrow but strong ganking timing around 7-11ish. SoF-chains allows you to initiate from beyond smoke-break range and deal a respectable amount of damage while locking heroes down for your allies. It's also more reliable in early teamfights because you're not dependent on flameguard staying up.
In my opinion, taking 3-4 levels of guard is safer and stronger unless you have a specific plan to make use of the SoF-chains timing.
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As for the jungle camps, I would say standing far enough to one side that the sandstorm will hit a creep that takes the furthest path out of the camp in that direction. For example, on Radiant hard camp near rune, I stand near the side path of that camp on the left side of the opening. Any creep that runs to stand out on the left side gets caught in a level 2 sandstorm, as well as ones that go straight out. In this scenario, only ones that run out and to the right avoid the sand. If you use sandstorm in the middle of the opening to the camp, creeps can run either left or right, dodgeing you either way.
If that didn't explain it well enough I'll make a picture
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i've always maxed Guard. Guard is just pretty good to skip early game like Belisarius said it gives solo kill potential, increases your farming speed and allows you to be more tankier in fights. Usually enemies don't even focus you because of that.
I don't think SoF- chains is a good build anymore. Unless you are the needed CC for the team (if you team doesn't have disables and/or they rely on your early disable if you are doing some kind of fight all the time strat) which is probably pretty rare. (i also don't SoF-chains build nowadays anymore)
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I really like 3-1-0-0 into 3-4-0-1 ember.
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Running a dual lane with Sven, who are good supports to pair him with?
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all of them  its completely dependant on ur lane opponent etc. The fact that sven offers a stun and some bulk means that very few supports WONT work out passably with him. He provides a setup stun for heroes like lesh or lina, some armor/ms for slow squishbags like CM, etc. No lane is going to be an unmitigated disaster bar maybe Earthshaker/Sven lol but even then u have 2 stuns.
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On December 25 2014 03:41 Sn0_Man wrote:all of them 
Lol. Do any synergize particularly well with him?
Edit: thanks sno. You're quick on dem keys
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the ideal lane support gives him mana (wisp/cm/kotl) but those heroes aren't necessarily the best kill heroes, and running a carry like sven with a hard stun/nuke generally means you want to kill so its all lane dependant. Wisp synergizes real well all game but is hard to play and isn't the strongest in contested lanes.
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On December 25 2014 03:18 BoZiffer wrote: Running a dual lane with Sven, who are good supports to pair him with?
Since Sven is melee you definitely want to pair him with a ranged hero. Also Sven if played as a carry(which most people do, is pretty gold dependent to be effective, so pair him with a support (ranged) who doesn't need a lot of gold.
Sven is also a good carry to be aggressive in the laning phase due to his high damage aoe stun. In order to supplement that using a ranged support with a stun or stun and slow should open some opportunities to get early kills vs most other dual lanes.
So who does that leave: CM (aura bonus is very good with Sven too), Lion, and Shadow Shaman would be the easiest if you can get in range for both disables.
Most other ranged supports can work honestly you just have to understand how to ensure kills with each partner
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On December 25 2014 03:46 Sn0_Man wrote: the ideal lane support gives him mana (wisp/cm/kotl) but those heroes aren't necessarily the best kill heroes, and running a carry like sven with a hard stun/nuke generally means you want to kill so its all lane dependant. Wisp synergizes real well all game but is hard to play and isn't the strongest in contested lanes. Pft Kotl is the best kill hero. I have like 3.3 career KDA on Kotl. So deadly. :3
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I have a friend who plays kotl in the jungle and only goes midas dagon on that hero. he's like 5.5k :|
There's actually nothing wrong with melee supports and sven, but it depends what you want from the lane. You can run like abbadon + sven offlane dual and contest basically anything with the abba making sven invincible right. But ur not getting all that many frags with that lane so it's pretty awful safelane vs say offlane tide.
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On December 25 2014 03:50 Sn0_Man wrote: I have a friend who plays kotl in the jungle and only goes midas dagon on that hero. he's like 5.5k :|
There's actually nothing wrong with melee supports and sven, but it depends what you want from the lane. You can run like abbadon + sven offlane dual and contest basically anything with the abba making sven invincible right. But ur not getting all that many frags with that lane so it's pretty awful safelane vs say offlane tide.
True I shouldn't have said such a hard and fast rule like don't put melee supports with melee carries in a dual lane.
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United States47024 Posts
On December 25 2014 03:50 Sn0_Man wrote: You can run like abbadon + sven offlane dual and contest basically anything with the abba making sven invincible right. I mean, it depends what you mean by "contest". You'll get XP, but you aren't actually a threat to their safe lane because you no harassment power thanks to 2 melee and no killing power because Abaddon has pretty much none, like you said. So while you're getting more XP and possibly farm on Sven, you're not really pressuring their safelane much unless it's incredibly weak, and you're sacrificing strength on your safelane by 2-1-2ing.
Sven Aba is kind of a bad example because Aba is a purely defensive support in lane, and Sven only ever does anything other than farm in lane with offensive supports because he has no harassment power and the prohibitive mana cost of Storm Bolt means you can only use it to force kills. I'd argue that it's WORSE than Sven+Shaker even though you gave that as an example of a "bad" lane (Shaker is also in many cases primarily a defensive support but has more offensive capability than Abaddon does).
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