Still in draft - started 4/1/2012

Featuring star players!

WARNING - THIS IS A CAPS LOCK HEAVY GUIDE! I DON'T KNOW WHY!





HI THERE. I AM AIRCON. A LITTLE BIT ABOUT MYSELF BEFORE YOU MAY READ THIS GUIDE OR YOU CAN JUST IGNORE THIS AND SCROLL DOWN WHICH I RECOMMEND YOU DON'T. I AM AN AUSTRALIAN DOTA PLAYER, BEEN IN THE COMPETITIVE AUSTRALIAN SCENE FOR MORE THAN AN YEAR. Oh crap, forgot I kept caps lock on, and I can't be bothered retyping that.

Anyway, I have experienced many different metagames, from the pushing, to the turtling, to the ganking, to the pushing. Faceless Void had potential in all those metas. Why is that?

Reliable escape, chasing skill - good for escaping ganks, and also initiating them.
Extremely strong potential late game - Perma bash, 1 v 5 team etc.

High base damage for them towers, also pretty tanky - Used in the current metagame as a late-game hero if it reaches to that point, however, can also assist in pushing towers in another lane mid game.

As you can see, Faceless Void can fit into many different situations, which makes him a great pick!

You have a look at how often he is played in high level competitive. You realise - oh not a lot, he must be weak.

WRONG. YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE WRONG REPLAYS. FACELESS VOID STOMPS IN PUBS AND LOW-MID LEVEL COMPETITIVE SCENE.

Well, now that I talked about how he plays in the current meta, let's look at AIRCON'S GUIDE TO FACELESS VOID AND WHY YOU SUCK AT DOTA IF YOU CAN'T USE HIM (not really)

Hero Page: Insert hero page here

Skills:

time walk.jpg
blahblah

backtrack.jpg
blahblahderpblah

time lock.jpg
herpderp

chronosphere.png
lalalala

PROS -

- HARD TO GANK, EASY TO GANK WITH
- HIGH BASE DAMAGE
- LATE GAME POTENTIAL IS ABOVE MANY OTHER LATE GAMERS
- IS NOT A SINGLE TARGET HERO UNLIKE BARATHUM OR HUSKAR
- FUN TO PLAY IF YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT

CONS -

- ULTIMATE IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD
- REQUIRES AN PROPER ITEM BUILD TO PLAY TO HIS FULL POTENTIAL
- HEAVILY ITEM DEPENDENT
- LITTLE POTENTIAL EARLY GAME
- HORRIBAD BORING TO PLAY IF YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG

Of course, these cons are mainly the reason why people don't play faceless void as much I do. Many pub players think he is a weak hero. Many high level competitive players don't like taking risks, as a badly-placed chrono is a double edged sword. This guide is to teach you guys how to overcome these cons and use void to his full potential! Trust me, as boring as this guide might look compared to the other fancily formatted guides, the information contained in this is worth the read.

Skill Build:

1. Timewalk
2. Time Lock
3. Timewalk
4. Backtrack
5. Timewalk
6. Chronosphere
7. Timewalk
8. Time Lock
9. Time Lock
10. Time Lock
11. Chronosphere
12. Backtrack
13. Backtrack
14. Backtrack
15. Stats
16. Chronosphere
17~25. Stats

Justification:

Playing void, your main aim is to get gold, survive, and dominate late game.
Early game, you just need stable farm, and don't die.
Mid game, you might want to contribute some team fight changing chrono spheres as well as farm for your dps items.
Late game, you would time walk into 5 heroes, chrono, and proceed to get a rampage by yourself. Seems fun doesn't it? Well, it is only possible with a few things to keep in mind.

I see so many people these days just getting 1 level of timewalk, thinking, oh 1 level is enough for me to escape ganks.

Well, look at how terribad lvl 1 of timewalk is, and then look at how each level scales. Decreases CD, increases range by a WHOPPING amount, which also increases your survivability up to 4 times.

And then the stubborn noobs say, oh come on, only those bonuses, I rather increase my time lock/backtrack.
Yea, and levelling them up early game scales your farm up extremely high, survivability real well...

Of course, depending on the team you are fighting, you can also alternate between backtrack, timelock, or just max backtrack first. the important thing to note here is that you should still max timelock and get chrono at every level possible.

STARTING ITEMS:

Quelling Blade - Now I will assume you know the basics of last hitting and shit. Void has one of the highest base damages in the game, and you can abuse that fact even more with a quelling blade and your awesome attack animation.
Stout Shield - A good laning item for agility heroes. Increases your survivability, and can be turned into Poor Man's Shield later (not a core).
Tango/Salve - Necessary Regen, since you are quite the easy harrass target early (though almost impossible to die due to timewalk). I would get tango, but salve also works, since you are going to buy a ring of health as soon as you get it anyway.

ITEM BUILD
Ring of Health first (for survivability)
Boots of Speed second
Perserverance
Now keep on farming to get BATTLEFURY
Power treads
MoM
MKB (If against evasion heroes)
BKB (if necessary)/Daedalus(Buriza)
Butterfly (cause evasion stacks)

Allies early:

Babysitter heroes that can synergize with your slow. Try to lane with the following allies unless you are confident mid solo.

Lich.
Dazzle.
Witch Doctor.
ES paired with another hero for trilane.

Enemies early:
Heavy harass heroes and lane controllers:
Viper.
Huskar.
Batrider.
Lich
AA
Zeus

Food early:
Not much, except low hp heroes that can't kill you or harass you and can't escape from you.
Creeps
VS
Crappy melee heroes


Try to avoid these heroes by predicting their lane.