Invoker

Invoker is one of the most complicated heroes to play as he has 10 spells in addition to invoke, quas, wex and exort. Due to the inability have them all a high level early one must elect a style of play that leads to a particualr skill build. Regardless of the path chosen end game he becomes one of the most potent casteres due to his array of aoe disables and damage.

Contents

I. Syles of play
II. Strategy
Skill builds
Spell basics

Spell combos
III. Advanced Invoker use
Spell tricks
Late game mayhem

I. Styles of play

Standard play

Ganker- Invoker focuses on damage and slows/stuns

Pusher- Invoker uses aoe damage and fordge spirit to push lanes.

Aoe nuker- Invoker focuses on spells that do damage.

Aoe disabler- Invoker focuses on spells that disable.

Support- Invoker builds for as strong a lane as possible, then switched over to providing buffs and disables.

Core items

Phase boots, guinsoo, aghanim's, heart, shiva

For Fun (will not be discussed in depth)

Tank- quas wex (not recommended except for fun). Movement speed and ghost walk to survive after drawing fire, massive regen to heal back damage. Requires massive farm.

Core items

Phase, radiance, heart, shiva

DPS carry- exort wex (not recommended except for fun) exort for damage, wex for attack speed, Meteor to farm up items. Forge spirits can be used to aid in armor reduction once quas is leveled.� Requires massive farm.

Core items

Treads, guinsoo, desolator, heart, bruiza

Assassin-exort wex +1 in quas (not recommended except for fun). Similar to dps carry but with ghost walk to sneak around, more of a glass cannon build. Forge spirits can be used to aid in armor reduction. Requires massive farm.

Core items

Treads, guinsoo, desolator, bruiza, heart (divine rapier can be bought if confidant)

II. Strategy

Due to the flexibily of invoker and the many styles of play I will not make a set skill build, but rather recommend generall guidelines for what to level for each style with an explanation. In picking a roll to play one should look at the heroes on their team and ask what their team lacks. One should also look at the enemy's team to asses their weakness. Can they stop an early push? Do they have lots of squishy heroes? Will it be a long or short game? How hard will your lane be?

Due to the flexibily of invoker and the many styles of play I will not make a set skill build, but rather recommend generall guidelines for what to level for each style with an explanation. In picking a roll to play one should look at the heroes on their team and ask what their team lacks. One should also look at the enemy's team to asses their weakness. Can they stop an early push? Do they have lots of squishy heroes? Will it be a long or short game? How hard will your lane be?

Skill guidelines for each style

Pusher- Exort/Quas- Level exort above quas to help with harassinga nd last hitting, but try to keep them equal until both are level 4. This style relies on Forge spirits to push lanes and towers, even in your absence or when you are dead. As such it is a priority to get both lvl4 exort and lvl4 quas as fast as possible for double summon. I would recommend leaving invoke untill lvl3 and then again at lvl 10 to get summones as fast as possible. A level of wex should after the lanning phase. be taken to add meteor to clear creeps. Sun strike can be used to assist in ganks as you push lanes.

Ganker- Exort/Quas- A simple style to play due easy last hitting for exort and strait forward spells. In order for this style to work the invoker must be able to land most sun strikes. I would recommend getting exort first for last hits, invoke at lvl 3 and 7, and putting most skill points into sun from levels 1-9, where you should start to bring your disables on par with other heroes.

AOE Damager-Exort/Wex- This style is based around meteor, sun strike, EMP, and later deafening blast. Exort should be taken over wex for damage, though don't pass up EMP for lane control. One level of quas is important mid game for access to blast and tornado. I generally don't like this build as it is built too much on the meteor/bast combo which has a long cd and high mana cost.

AOE Disabler- Quas/wex- Start out with wex followed by invoke to start spamming EMP to gain lane control. After the first few levels quas should be brought to the samw level as wex to maximize the disables of tornado and cold snap. Ghost walk with high level of quas and wex is a surprising good slow to help allies chase down feeling heroes.Like viper's orb is slows by 40%, but in an aoe. At least one level of exort should be taken by mid game for icewall as properly landed it can provide up to a 12 sec aoe 80% slow.

Support- Exort/Wex/Quas- this build is similar to the aoe disabler, but a few early levels are placed in exort to help control the lane and to give damage/attack speed to your carry in ganks. This build is very addaptive , but by skilling everything early yoru spells are weak untill mid game.

Spell Basics

Quas- Adds regeneration. Most spells disable is controlled by this skill. Adds larmor and durration to forge spirit.

Wex- Adds movement speed and attack speed to your hero. This element generally dictates range of an attack (meteor, blast, tornado) and speed buffs in in spells, but also impacts the damage tornado does and the attack mute of deafening blast.

Exort- Adds damage to your attack. It is responsible for most skill's damage potential that involve this element. Adds hp to forge spirit

Invoke- Makes skills, often doesn't need to be levled quickly as you will only have a few strong skills you will shift through for much of the game. At level 4 this ability allows for rapid spell spamming, dramaticly changing invoker's late game play style.

Invoked skills

Cold Snap- Somewhere between Enigma's malafice and a true stun this skill is usefull when an enemy hero draws a lot of creep agression, or is being focused by your team, or by you and forge spirits.

Ghost walk- Basically a wind walk, but untill wex is maxed you move slowly, and it also slows enemies, but in doing so reveals your generall area.

Tornado- A long range nuke/disable. The stapple skill of any quas wex build due to its relatively low cd and long range.

EMP- Drains mana and does damage in a large aoe. Early game this can be used to drain strength/agility heroes of their mana and cripple their lanning.

Alacrity- Boosts a units damage, use on a dps carry. Can also be used on forge spirit for faster tower pushing and armor reduction.

Choas Meteor- Aoe dot spell that combine properly with deafening blast is very powerfull. It is also effective at farming due to its damage. Even with a low level of wex it has a large aoe.

Sun Strike- Used to finish off low hp heroes and help gank from anywhere on the map. Due to the 1.7 second delay (be thankful the dota sun sin't as far as the earth sun, we would be waiting 8 min) it can be tricky to land on heroes that are not stationary. An ally disable makes it a gaurentee this is landed for devistating resaults in a gank.

Forge Spirit- A strong summon that aids in almost every situation, it is important to get lvl 4 in both quas and exort for this skill as it will then spawn two spirits. Their choas attack makes them good vs buildings and seige units. They also reduce armor on each hit. This helps them boost a teams dps on a single target.

Ice Wall- An awkward spell to use effectivly, the most basic use it to cast infront of you as u run to slow a chaser.

Deafening Blast- This is an all in one skill that doesn't doesn't do much at low levels. High levels of quas and wex give its close to 6 seconds of disables attack, 2 of which units can't move or castspells. Comboes well with Meteor.

Combo Synergies

Meteor and Blast- Cast meteor and sure blast to get people stuck in it. If landed properly you can blast people along the path of the meteor causing them to take several seconds of maximum damage (80-260dps depending on level). As most players won't stand in the path try casting from an unseen location and casting blas a bit earlier to keep them in place.

Tornado and EMP- EMP goes off right after they land to ensure their mana is drained. At higher levels of Quas you must wait about a fraction of a second To cats EMP as tornado lasts longe then EMP's build up.

Meteor and Sun Strike- Meteor cause damage and them to run out of the way into a well place Sun Strike which hopefully finishes them off.

Tornado and Sun Strike- when they land sunstrike hits them. Note that sunstrike takes 1.7 seconds to hit and can be cast right as tornado hits for quas lvls 1-3 (lvl 3 lasts 1.1 sec giving .6sec for reaction time and lag) lvl 4-7 quas require good timing skills to ensure it hits after they fall, but before they leave the area.

Forge Spirit and Cold Snap- the spirits trigger cold snap and help you physically damage the stunned hero. If they run with low health invoke Sun Strike to finish them off.

Meteor and Cold Snap- The stun on coldsnape holds them in place durring meteor.

Cold Snap and Icewall- Icewall+cold snap is basically a 6 second stun followed by 6 seconds as minimum movement speed for heroes with no blink.

Ghost walk and Icewall- Use ghost walk to overtake running heroes and place icewall allowing your team to catch up and kill them.

III. Advanced Invoker use

Spell Tricks

Always hitting with sunstrike

Sun strike has a 1.7 sec delay and does reduced damage when it hits multiple targets. This makes it a tricky spell to use effectivly. There are generally four times you can land a sun strike perfectly. The enemy hero is standing still and alone from creeps, they are chasing you or an ally, are being chased by you or an ally, or are disabled. Clearly if they are disabled you will land sun strike. Standing is also easy to land provided they are doing an activit that needs them to stay there, such as attacking a creep, hero or tower. The harder, and more useful (sun strikes to land are on fleeing/chasing heroes (as they can net your teams kills and save allies).

To land sun strike is similar to arrow or hook in that you must estimate where they will be, but is also much simpler due to its large aoe. The general rule to hitting it is for a standard non hasted hero ms cast sunstrike in the direction they are moving about 600 units infront of them (use your attack range to mentally estimate). As sun strike has a 200 aoe it will catch people the have move from 400 to 800 units in that time.

A hero at 300 ms moves 510 units in 1.7 sec, one moving at 400 moves 680. If a hero is moving close to or at max ms cast sun strike about 200 units farther (have its edge at the end of your attack range rather then its center) as they will close to 890 units in 1.7 sec.

Forge Spirit tricks

Besides pushing and killing heroes forge spirits, like other summons have many less common uses. They can be used to scout the forest/runes. They also can be place in the forest shooting over trees at creeps to both help push a lane and watch for incomming ganks due to having 900 attack range.� They can also be used to provide a meat sheild to draw damage from creeps, towers and most importantly to intersect abilities like Pudge's hook and Potm's arrow.

Long range ice wall

This is relativly simple in concept but hard to pull off in a timly fashion. If your oreint yourself sideways to your target ice wall has a much greater range, but is harder to hit. Landing a sideways ice wall takes practice and a bit of luck, but the surpirse slow can be deadly.

Late game mayhem

10 Spell Combo+short combo finisher with Aghanim's and lvl 4 Invoke

The 10 spell Combo

Forge Spirits->Meteor and blast Blast->Alacrity->Tornado and EMP->Ghost Walk, Ice Wall and Cold Snap->Sun Strike

Finishing combo (this is overkill)

Tornado and EMP->cold snap and alacrity->ice wall


Ideal Timing with Hotkeys (For those former starcraft players with 400 APM)

10 Spell combo

Before Clash: Cast forge spirit (eeqrf), invoke meteor(eewr), then blast(qwer), set up to invoke alacrity(wwe).

0 sec: Cast meteor(d), invoke alacrity(r), cast blast(b) and cast alacrity(z).

2 sec: invoke tornado (wwqr)

4 sec: invoke EMP (wwwr) set up for ghost walk (qqw). Also try to have ure
spirits focus a weakend hero in this time

6 sec: cast tornado(x), invoke ghost walk(r) and cast EMP(c).

8 sec: invoke icewall(qqer), cast ghost walk.

10-20 sec: Possition and cast ice wall(g), invoke and cast cold snape(qqqry), invoke and cast sun strike (eeert). Invoke and cast alacrity on your carry(wwerz).

Finishing combo

28 sec: invoke tornado (wwqr)

30 sec: Invoke emp(wwwr), as soon as torndado finishes cd (less then 1 sec) cast tornado(x), invoke cold snap(qqqr), cast emp(c)

32 sec: invoke alacrity(wwer), cast alacrity(z) and cold snap(y).

34-50 sec: invoke icewall(qqer), invoke forge spirit(eeqr), possitiona and cast icewall(g), cast forge spirit(f).

50-55 sec: invoke meteor and blast. At 55 sec meteor finished its cd and the whole combo can be started again and endlessly looped if u have the mana... though something is very wrong if you have to loops this combo.

Explanation the order of the 10 Spell combo

This combo begins with forge spirits preemtivly cast to get it out of the way and to provide armor reductiona nd additional dps for the whole time.
Use the Combo for meteor and blast to open your combo hopefully catching most of the team with decent damage and the disable from alacrity is invoke durring the gap between when u cast meteor and when you want to cast blast. It is then casted on a dps hero so they can make the most of the 6 seconds they are free from attack. If your team has an initiatior like tide, ES, or TC the meteor/blast combo should be easy to land.

The time durring blast's disable is used to invoke tornado and EMP in order to use tornado emp combo and set up to invoke ghost walk.
Durring the gap between tornado and emp (tornado's disable is longer then EMP build) invoke ghost walk. Then cast emp you should be able to invoke Use ghost walk to stow them enabling a perfect icewall to completely stall their movement. Invoke cold snap for an additional disable.

Finish low hp heroes that manage to escape with sunstrike, and re cast the tornado/emp combo as they have a low cd, use the 2 sec disable to help possition an icewall, then use the icewall/coldsnap to hold someone in place, cast alacrity to boost a heroe's dps.