The Ancient Evil Survives
A Comprehensive Guide to Lion, The Demon Witch
Foreword
A Comprehensive Guide to Lion, The Demon Witch
Foreword
After six or more years of playing DotA, I've decided to share my knowledge I have gained through several thousands of matches, including inhouses, scrimmages, and of course pubs. I have grown a liking to Lion as a hero and I see many people not playing him correctly.
Introduction
Lion is one of the most powerful disablers in the game, having 6 full seconds of stun on his skills, one of the skills being AoE. With his powerful burst damage and long duration stuns he can remove heroes from battle swiftly before they even cast a spell. This guide will be emphasizing the way to play a solo middle Lion with utmost efficiency.
Hero Statistics
Skill and Item Builds
Skills
1. Impale
2. Voodoo
3. Impale
4. Voodoo
5. Impale
6. Finger of Death
7. Impale
8. Voodoo
9. Voodoo
10. Stats
11. Finger of Death
12-15. Stats
16. Finger of Death.
17-21. Stats
22-25. Mana Drain
Just like almost any other hero, you will be maxing your two disables as fast as possible. Keep in mind all skill builds and item builds are subject to change depending on certain circumstances. It may be viable to get one level of Mana Drain at 10 to instant kill a Morph's Replicate, or even maxing it by level 14 to drain an AM's blink mana while he is hexed. This however, is the general build that works in basically any situation. It is up to you to decide if mana drain is worth the points or not.
Core Item Build
With the item build, it is subject to change just as much as a skill build is. Keep in mind the treads will usually be on intelligence since Lion's spells are extremely mana intensive. Bottle as early as possible to rune whore and keep your lane down as well as open up good gank opportunities.
Blink dagger is extremely important on a solo Lion, farming this blink quick can even be a game decider if you are playing him correctly. Having a blink gives him great mobility and allows you to take advantage of enemies that are even slightly out of position.
TP scroll is self explanatory, you should ALWAYS be carrying one once you hit level 6, the counter ganking abilities of Lion are extremely powerful with his 2 disables.
Luxury Items
Luxury items ARE luxury. Do not expect to afford multiple or even one of these every game. You should be getting your income from hero kills, after your blink dagger, farming creeps is better off left to your carry unless the situation calls for you to get items, or if the game goes on later than expected.
Strategy
Laning
The play style of a solo mid Lion is extremely aggressive. Its good to take every opportunity you can to land pot shots on the enemy and shove them off the creep line. Since you have two disables at your possession, if they try to make a move on you, you can harass them much harder.
As you can see in the picture, my positioning is extremely close to the melee creep line. When using impale during the laning phase, you want to get the most out of it, meaning you always want to get a creep kill combined with harassment on the enemy hero. This is key when it comes to conserving your mana in the laning stage and keeping the upperhand on who you are laning against.
Lion usually has the upperhand on most solo laners, heroes like Bat, Windrunner or Invoker can give you a lot of trouble in lane. Against these heroes its not always smart to play aggressive, but once you hit level 5, and obviously 6, you can take the lane back and/or start ganking.
And remember to ALWAYS have a TP scroll on you once you hit level 6, maybe even earlier, the two disables of lion can turn ganks around easily and these counterganks can give you a snowball effect into your midgame ganking presence.
Replays
This is basically a scrimmage game, team of 5 friends on scourge and 3 friends of mine on Sentinel with two pubs (Skeleton King and Furion).
This game displays how to lane half decently as well as good choices on the targets you disable in teamfights. It also shows how good Lion is at catching heroes in a bad position and how they can pay for it, not to mention turn ganks around with your burst damage. Keep in mind I'm not a professional, there are several mistakes I make in this game but try to take in how I played in general.
Lion Guide saved by Blarrg
Changelog
v0.01 Introduction and Hero Statistics
v0.02 Item and Skill Builds
v0.03 Laning Strategy
v0.04 Added Replay
v0.05 Layout and Color improvements
Lion the Demon WitchAuthor: Blarrg
Map Vers.: 6.72f
The Ancient Evil Survives
Comprehensive Guide to Demon Witch
Last Comment:18/12/2011
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