[Hero] Faceless Void - Page 20

On April 08 2016 22:02 yamato77 wrote:
So as a resident Void picker who used to love playing him safelane carry, I've been quite disheartened with his apparent relegation to the offlane. Buying blink-vlads every game is not what I feel is at the heart of this hero, yet many players saw it as the only viable option in games for quite some time. However, as many of you have been attempting to iterate on builds in this thread, I thought I would open a discussion on the newest fad in safelane Void brought to you by the newly minted 8000 MMR player, Wagamama.

+ Show Spoiler [The Build] +

+ Show Spoiler [The Reasoning] +

Essentially, the build is broken down simply. Early game, you buy aquila, treads, quelling, and vanguard in some order. In the videos, Waga says to start stout/ring/tango/salve but as with any starting build it's adaptable to what you want to do. Once you have most of these items, your lane pressure goes way up because you're insanely tanky and it's difficult for any non-burst hero to kill you without at least one other hero's assistance and chain stuns. You are fairly static in general in pushing the lane, but your sustainability is quite high so you generally farm the next part of the build fairly quickly.

The next part of this build is somewhat odd, and may only be a product of the item itself being slightly overpowered, but Waga recommends that you buy Radiance. It makes sense, given the miss chance and the increase in farm rate. The only downside to this item that Waga touches on is that you still don't really have an amazing ability to solo-kill heros in Chrono, but with an appropriate line-up this isn't an issue as the build is a teamfight build primarily. The playstyle with this build can be highly aggressive, gated only by the cooldown on Timewalk and your personal ability as a player to outplay with it combined with Time Dilation.

At this point, the only thing that really kills you is chain stuns/silences and high burst damage. You theoretically could buy BKB at this stage but that item offers very little other than the obviously strong active, but then you'd be limited by its uptime which only becomes worse as the game goes on. Unless you absolutely cannot avoid their (counter)engage (like a blink tide for example), you probably shouldn't buy it. Instead, Waga recommends buying Manta Style which removes your problem with silence and lets you outplay certain stuns, and gives you beneficial stats to boot. It also opens up the radiance/manta shenanigans with wave pushing that further accelerates your farm.

Next, Waga says he generally buys Octarine, but this is the point where I have to question if there aren't better alternatives. Certainly, the Octarine allows you to continue to increase in tankiness and gives you yet more Time Walks, Dilations, and Manta illusions to play around with in any given scenario, but there are other needs to consider at this stage in the game that you might have to address. Often, it becomes necessary that you are able to solo kill heros in Chronosphere in the lategame, and there are many damage items all with their own situational uses that allow you to do this. There are arguments for Moon Shard, Butterfly, Mjollnir, Assault Cuirass, MKB, and even Daedalus in different scenarios. In this way, Void acts like the more classic carry he was known to be, a role he still has to fulfill if picked in the safelane on occasion.

Waga mentions that OD still makes your life miserable, and with his current prevalence in pubs it is best that you not first pick this hero lest you be made very sad. I would also add that Beastmaster is another meta-relevant hero to consider attempting to avoid, as Roar is a chain-stun enabling sort of spell that Void cannot avoid, making solo farming less safe throughout the game and teamfights much more dangerous, even with the tankiness of the build. Generally, anything that removes Void's ability to abuse the short cooldown on Timewalk significantly hampers this hero.

All that said, this build is strong at pretty much all stages of the game. Void's current laning is quite good and once you have a maxed Timewalk and your Vanguard, there really isn't a lull in the strength of the build unless your team falls behind and it becomes difficult to farm Radiance quickly. Thankfully, Void's Chronosphere is a tool that allows you to simply remove a single scary hero with some reliability in most line-ups so there is always the chance to turn a lost lane into a fed spree later in the game.

I'd like some discussion on the merits of this build, in particular if perhaps it only appears to be effective because the holy trinity of Radiance/Manta/Octarine is just an overtuned combination, and if there are any alternatives to some of the core items such as Manta being replaced by SnY and Octarine being replaced by any sort of item that is generally accepted to be good on the hero.

On April 08 2016 22:15 ChunderBoy wrote:

waga and other void pickers stopped buying octarine and manta every game
the important thing is radiance not manta not octarine
u can do the same from the offlane if enemy cant zone u properly
id rather be an offlane void with a radiance than a safelane one
its just generally better for the team