Welcome to my guide to competitive invoker! This guide is focused for the competitive play. I won't be descriving every spell and how it works, I will just explain the different ways to play invoker and which one aplies better for every single game. If you are not intrested on playing competitive games or you don't know how invoker's spells work, this guide is not for you.

Invoker is a very versatile hero. In the right hands, he can adapt to any situation. I will make a guide based on my experience with this hero, trying to show the best ways to play invoker in any kind of game

First of all, some thoughts that you must have clear before using invoker.
-Invoker really needs levels, so you must go to a solo lane.
-you don't have much rune control as your ms is pretty low and you don't have any "direct" disable to win a race to the rune, so you are not suposed to go for the rune every 2 minutes
-Invoker is a "static" hero most of the times. even in mid-game, you won't be ganking too much, you need a lane for the xp, just carry a tp in case some big tf happens near your towers and help out with sunstrikes






There are many different skill builds you can go for:



Exort build (erwqeee / ewrqeee / erweeeq): pretty common, this will give you a solid advantage in your lane control

Pros
-intelligence and damage bonus
-Global presense
-Good nuke power

Cons
-You won't have any strong disable

strong skills
, , ,

sunstrike is a really strong nuke with this build, tell your team to let you know if someone is red hp or if they will engage as this nuke is really helpful in your triplelane.

Item build with this build, you just have to stay in the lane as long as possible. you will need a couple of claritys if you want to spam alacrity to get every single lasthit (you don't need them from fountain, just use your crow), and think about who you will be laning against and take enough tangoes/salves to remain full hp, then fill up with branches, circlets and/or mantles. a rop/stick can work in some cases.

I highly recommend to go treads as soon as possible, this way you will have an insane dps combined with your alacrity, nobody can stand against you in the lane and you won't be missing any lasthit



Wex build (qrwewww / wrqewww / qrwwqww): an ocasionally used build. this build doesn't give you any advantage in the laning phase, but having a cold snap at level 2 is really efective if you are expecting your teammates to gank in your lane

Pros
-Long tornado
-High ms bonus
-Almost-constant Quas regeneration

Cons
-Low damage
-Your only nuke will be Tornado

strong skills
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emp is pretty weak on wex's first levels. if you go for a wex build, i would recommend to still use alacrity/cold snap to lasthit/harass until your wex is lv4 at least

item build: with this skill build you will be weaker, but still you have a good lane control. Don't get as much tangoes/salves, as you will have your 3 quases casted all the time, I recommend to get more stats items to ensure your lasthit, like salve+ 3branches+ circlet+ mantle, or 2 salves+circlet+4branches. Keep your mana pool high, as you will probably need a tornado+coldsnap if your team ganks. you will also need your phase boots fast to chase/escape and for the high damage to lasthit/harass with no problems.



Quas build (qrweqqq / qrwqqqe / qreqqqw): (i've never seen this build in any competitive game, but it can be efective in some cases) A very defensive build. you won't only get +2str per lv of quas, you will also have a strong regen and a deadly slow with icewall/ghost walk. you can also use forged spirits to scout a bit if the enemy supports are missing. your slow is really efective in ganks, so you can play it agressively too

Pros
-High and constant Quas regeneration
-Great disables either to escape or chase (icewall, cold snap, tornado)

Cons
-Low damage
-Low ms

strong skills
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Tornado+icewall is a deadly combo if you got teammates ganking your lane or if the enemies dive under your tower

item build: This depends on how hard your lane is. If you go for this skill build you will most likely be facing a really agressive lane, like a triple lane, or a batrider. you can go for boots+salve first in some cases, as if you manage to get a couple of levels you won't need any tangos to keep your hp full, and the boots really helps you to stay out of the range of some spells. rop is also good for a rob if you are on a side lane, as it's +3 armor and you can also disassember it later to make a medallion.


Early tips:
-Some skills aren't super-strong with some builds but they are still effective, e.g the coldsnap can be useful even with quas lv1, same with ghost walk, alacrity, meteor+deafening blast, etc. those can be useful in some situations even with low level
-Sunstrike is a really strong nuke if you went for an Exort build, always use it when your team engages
-It's important that your supports hold at least 1 rune every 2 minutes if you are soloing mid, especially if you are lanning against lion, sf, rexar, or any other hero that will have a hard time against you in the lane but can easilly kill you with some help from teammates/runes






As mentioned before, you will need a lane for the xp. every level is important and makes you much stronger. you don't want to be fighting too much unless your team really needs you. I will explain 4 different skill builds here:



e4 w1 q4. forged spirits build. @Level 11 you will have 2 forged spirits invoked all the time. It's commonly used currently as now everybody is putting alot of enphasis on pushing towers.

Pros
-Helps pushing towers
-Deals great dps on single-target and reduces armor
-Map controlling

Cons
-You won't have any excelent nuke or disable, all your skills will be "balanced", all of them are still usefull but they won't be SUPER-EFFECTIVE, most of the times you will have to chose between a not-so-powerful disable or nuke

item build: Treads+Medallion is an excelent build. I find this really effective as you can kill any hero on your own with forgeds and tornado+ ice wall+ alacrity/cold snap+ medallion (and even roshan). After this I recommend getting an aghanims, as with this build you will have many useful skills and you want to cast them all. a necro3 is a great choise too



e7 w1 q2. maximaze your nuke power. great for a in-lane invoker that's just gonna lasthit everything and land deadly sunstrikes/meteors+blast

Pros:
-Great dps and nuke power
-You will get much more farm
-475dmg global nuke

Cons:
-you will rely only in a few spells (sunstrike, meteor+blast and alacrity). All your other spells can still be useful, but they will be weak
-You will be having farm that could be taken for your hard-carry

item build: With this build you need to put yourself in an agressive position to land your skills perfectly, but then you want to survive. Force staff will be useful for this, and even a lothars can be useful too for the ms+invisibility+backstab bonus and the damage (I think lothars is a really underrated items such as necro3 and euls).



e1 w6 q2 / w6 q3 / e1 w4 q4: burning bitch
this invoker is much more oriented to push/anti push and tf disable. your main objetive is to prevent the enemy to initiate on your team, you will just cast tornado+emp all the time to nullify heroes like ES, tide, sven, vs, etc and make them retreat or fight with no mana

Pros:
-you can initiate/bait from long range.
-Prevents teamfights
-A slow but guaranteed way to push

Cons:
-You won't have any heavy nuke nor a strong slow/stun.
-The only spells you can rely on will be tornado and emp, maybe cold snap/alacrity, but they still will be weak.
-You can be easily countered by 2 or 3 arcane boots, in this case you will be almost useless

item build: phase boots and janggos are really effective. remember that you are focusing to a teamfight monster, so you need as much items to buff your team as possible, mekansm is not the best choise, but go for it if nobody else takes it, or euls, discord, guinso, etc



e1 w1 q7 / e1 w3 q5: Gank monster
the slow power of your icewall is just insane, and it comes with +14str and a solid hp regen.

Pros
-Insane ganking potential
-Powerful at teamfights
-Hard(er) to kill

Cons
-You will be pretty useless against heroes with blink or BKB
-Your only excellent disable is your icewall, don't miss it
-No strong nukes

item build: you will need phase boots to chase. after that, there are many itembuilds that are effective. you can go for janggo, euls, medallion, discord, shivas, necro3, guinso, linkens, etc. It really depends on your gameplay and the situation. I usually go for medallion, treads/phase stick and necro3/guinso






Here you should be a couple of levels ahead. Now is when you start to become a monster, all your spells are now strong and with your ultimate maxed you will be casting left and right. But yet again, there are many different ways to play the late-game invoker, I will explain some different builds you can go for



e4 w7 q4: FORGEDS+WEX with this build all your skills are useful. you will be spamming tornado+EMP to delay teamfights, but you will also have 2 forgeds invoked, a powerful alacrity and a strong icewall that can be combined with cold snap/meteor. You will also have a 3 seconds "silence" with blast and a decent nuke power with your meteor and sunstrike

Pros
-All your skills are strong, so you will be useful in any kind of game-plan
-Map control with forgeds
-Mana burn with tornado+emp
-Good nukes with meteor+blast and sunstrike
-Teamfight presense

Cons
-Mana can be a problem if you don't have any mp-regeneration item
-You will most likely be focused on every teamfight

item build: I feel like you really need an aghanims here to land all those spells. aside from that, you should think how you are planning to play. If you go for a gank-into-push strategy you should get euls, guinso, medallion, etc. If you are defending their push, and need a great teamfight, go for janggo, discord, necro3, etc



e7 w2 q6 / e7 w3 q5: EXORT+QUAS. this build is so agressive. your main objetive will be landing deadly tornado+meteor+blast combos (you don't need the tornado if someone on your team initiates). But on the other hand, you will have a really strong icewall and alacrity, and a cold snap that can be useful to prevent heavy-chanelling ultimates from being casted if they don't have a bkb (like atropos, wd, pudge, cm, enigma, etc)

Pros
-Insane nuke power
-Map control with forgeds
-Great slow with icewall

Cons
-Low ms bonus with Wex
-Your tornado won't be long enough to initiate/scout from long range


item build: a force staff is always good, especially if you don't have an aghanims and you will take alot of time to cast all your shit, you wan't to survive as long as possible. Also guinso, shivas, linkens/bkb and discord can be useful, but I usually go for aghanims+force staff+guinso



e1 w7 q7: AoE disabler. You will be a teamfight monster. with blast you have a 3 seconds aoe silence, with icewall a 140% slow, a 3 seconds disable with tornado, a 400 aoe mana burn with emp, a 6 seconds mini-stun with cold snap and a 40% slow+invisivility with ghost walk. That's 7 great disables, and also a 90% IAS on your hard carry with alacrity.

Pros
-Teamfight presense
-Deadly slow with icewall
-Great ms bonus with Wex and strength+hp regen bonus with Quas

Cons
-No nuke power
-No imba double-forged spirits
-No intelligence and damage bonus from Exort

item build: I feel like you really need an aghanims scepter to cast all your spells in the teamfight. You will also need to stay alive while you are casting, so take the items that you think you will need in order to stay alive the time that you take to cast. BKB, force staff, linkens, euls, shivas, all of those are useful in some cases, it's up to you to identify when you can make profit of each item. guinso is a great choise too.






e7 w7 q7: All your skills are maxed, so you are so strong now. You must identify what skills you're gonna need for pushes/ ganks/ teamfights. You can do everything explained before, so now you have to identify which spells fits better on each situation. Have 2 forged spirits invoked all the time as you can always take profit of them for vision and/or dps and armor reduction


Try to identify how your team is planing to fight. Do you wanna nuke someone important fast? have meteor+blast ready and then cold snap/sunstrike/alacrity to finish him off. do you want your hard carry to focus on their supports? get a tornado+icewall+blast/alacrity to make sure your carry is safe while he goes in and focus on their weak heroes. Do you want to avoid teamfights? scout with forgeds and cast tornado+emp to have vision of your enemys and burn their mana. There are lots of stuff that you can do here



What can I do in a teamfight?

I will make a rank of "the most important spells" to cast in the middle of a "standard" teamfight with aghanims:

1. land your nuke combo (tornado+meteor+blast)
2. If there is any enemy hero with a deadly chanelling ultimate, cast cold snap on him right after your combo to prevent him from casting it (unless he got bkb)
3. If you see the possibility of casting a good icewall getting 2 or more heroes (or 1 really important hero), cast it.
4. If possible, have 2 forged spirits invoked before the teamfight. Else, cast them now
5. Cast alacrity on your higher dps hero/the one in the better position to attack
6. If you didn't use your cold snap, cast it now on the heroe you are focusing
7. Try to land your sunstrike
8. If your tornado or alacrity aren't ready yet, use emp

(Remember that this is a generic situation, i'm not considering that you may have any item, and i'm supposing that you are not being focused)

After your nuke combo you should always be looking for an oportunity to land your icewall. whenever they start focusing on you, just cast your ghost walk unless you are sure they got gem or used sentrys/dusts. Tornado is a really effective spell combined with your aoe nukes/disables. If you didn't use it in your meteor combo, use it to land your icewall, a suntrike or just for the 3 seconds disable

The spells with lower cooldowns are:
alacrity: 15 seconds
cold snap: 20 seconds
tornado/icewall/emp: 25 seconds

So if you are looking for a second cast of any of your spells, you should look for those

Remember this is generic, there are many situations when you really need one specific spell, or when some spells won't do anything to change the teamfight, you must adapt to any situation and this comes with the experience.





Now I will explain how to perfectly cast your tornado+meteor+blast combo.

Have tornado and meteor ready to cast, in that order. Now use your tornado. Right after you cast tornado, use your ultimate to have ready your deafening blast. (before casting the meteor you should wait up to 1 second, depending on your level of quas. For quas lv3 cast both tornado and meteor at almost the same time, for quas lv7 wait 1 seconds after your tornado to cast meteor). If you did it right, your tornado will drop the enemies exactly when the meteor lands, now cast deafening blast, and (if your quas is lv 7, your ultimate maxed and you got aghanims) you can throw a 4th spell now. I recommend icewall or cold snap


Example. Being lv25 with aghanims:

Ready to cast:

Action: +qwer+wait 1 second++wait 1.5sec+qqqr++

With everything maxed you will deal over 1200 damage in AoE



THINK YOUR MOVES!


-If they have any "not so high" mana pool heroe that really depends on mana, use tornado+emp whenever possible on him/them. 2 or 3 times and they will have to retreat (cast on heroes like tide, es, vs, cm, sven, etc)
-Use your forged spirits to scout upper hills when you are pushing
-To clear heavy creep waves don't use your meteor. At this point of the game your mana won't be a problem, so you should cast tornado+deafening blast to stop their pushes (it's enough to kill all the enemy creeps). this is important as your meteor has 55 seconds cooldown, while your tornado has 25 and your blast 40, you will be ready to fight faster
-Putting yourself on a poor position during a teamfight can mean losing the game. The enemies won't hesistate to focus on you if you give them the chance. Stay at fog or farbehind a couple of strong teammates. Remember that you are one of the most important heroes on the teamfight, if your teammates fight without you they will certainly lose
-Always be one step ahead. If you are afraid of some heavy silence/burst damage or something that may kill you without letting you land any spell, just counter it. make an euls so you will be invulnerable for almost the whole silence time, or a lothars, or get a force staff and back up whenever they focus on you, get a ghost scepter against heavy dps heroes, get a blademail against powerful melee heroes/strong single-target nukes (necro's/magina's ultimate, etc), Get an urn or a medallion to take off the linkens of some heroe you wanna focus on, etc.

There's always something you can do to prevent being raped, you just have to play with your head.



Replays!

by ferrari
build: early exort, mid forged, late mana burn
GosuGamers DotA | Replay: AlienwareDG vs Deity

by Ka
build: early exort, mid nuke, late nuke/burn, pretty hybrid build
GosuGamers DotA | Replay: StarsBoba vs WAG
blink dagger!

By bulba
build: early exort, mid forged, late nuke
GosuGamers DotA | Replay: Ukraine vs USA
BKB!

By Dendi
build: early quas, mid wex, late forged+wex
GosuGamers DotA | Replay: Na'Vi vs TR
Exort 1 @ lv14!

By AVA
build: early quas, mid wex, late ??
GosuGamers DotA | Replay: MYM vs OK.Nirvana.int
blades of attack?



That's it for now, I will try to update this guide with new replays and content, and maybe some videos, stay tunned!


Updated 02/07/2011: Added Images, pros and cons on every build and some content