Visage

Welcome to this guide about in my opinion one of the best heroes this version. Visage is epic in the games most us play, namely pubs. In competitive dota, Visage is banned in almost every game. This clearly shows he isn't weak. But he isn't easy to master either...

1. Table of contents
2. Why would you pick Visage?
3. When should you pick Visage?
4. What does Visage do?
5. How does Visage combine his skills?
6. What does Visage need?
7. Replays

Why would you pick Visage?

Let's start off by showing his stonger and weaker sides.

Pros:
+ Can gank solo from lvl 6 on
+ Gamebreaking in teamfights
+ Got two semi-escape mechanisms
+ Deals massive amounts of burst damage
+ Almost unkillable early game
+ Can also babysit in a lane
+ Can gank without leaving his lane

Cons:
- Very vulnerable to DoT
- Low basedamage
- Becomes far less usefull into lategame
- Can't farm or push too well
- Single target
- Steals a lot of kills

Visage is an awesome ganker, who can gank solo with great succes rate, but when paired with a reliable stun, reach an even higher success rate. Pick Visage if teamfights will be common, and ganks will be necessary so your carries can freefarm safe.
Due to his Cloak, Visage can be an amazing babysitter, but more about that later.


When should you pick Visage

Due to Visage's skills, explained later, certain heroes will synergize very well with him. It doesn't even matter in what team they are, as long as they are in the game, you are going to be successful.

So pick Visage, when you see those heroes being picked, no matter by who:
AoE heroes:
Heroes with nukes that hit multiple targets:

Visage, as a ganker, benefits a lot from help from his allies. A good slow, stun or burst damage always helps. So whenever you want to get the most out of him, make sure your allies got the following.
A good slow:
A reliable stun:
Burst damage:

Heroes that rape Visage:
So don't pick Visage whenever the enemy has these heroes!

Visage, due to his Gravekeepers Cloak, is very vulnerable to DoT ( Damage over Time). The following heroes will outlane Visage and give him a hard time in his momentum, namely early game. Also due to his familiars weakness to physical damage, certain heroes are very effective.

Heroes dealing DoT:
Physical AoE:
Heroes with cleave:


What does Visage do?

Visage's skillset after the remake seems complicated at first sight, but once you got the hang of it, it's no big deal. You read this because you want to learn something right?

A description of his skills:


The only skill that reminds people of the old Visage, a great skill that can be used for different functions. It can be used to chase, to escape and to harrash. Chasing and escaping should be obvious, but harrashing might sound weird. Harrashing with this spell becomes very effective, since your attack speed is increased, while they have a hard time fighting back, or running away.


This is one of the skills that makes visage so complicated. The damage of the nuke is based on the damage counters Visage got. Damage counters are obtained whenever a hero, in a 1200 AoE, takes 110 damage. Be quick to use them, because after 6 seconds they will be gone! There are two ways to see whether you should fire your nuke, the first is by looking above Visage, there are counters, if all are green and you see a hero, don't hesitate, SHOOT!
The other way is in the skill menu, above his skills, when the bar is full, SHOOT!


This skill is what gives Visage an amazing lane control. Having 8 armor means you don't have to worry about drawing aggro from the creeps, and are free to harrash you opponent. As already said, DoT is your biggest enemy here.
This skill also allows you to babysit by harrashing.



One of the most underrated ultimates, it may not be a Doom or Ravage, but it certainly has it's value. The familiars lose one of their bonus damage counter each time they attack, so at the end, they will deal close to zero damage. But because they start with high amounts, they deal a lot of burst damage, which means a lot of damage counters on Visage, which means a high damage soul assumption, which could mean a successful gank!

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How does Visage combine his skills?

During the laning phase, harrashing by normal attacking is the way, if you feel that you should land some more hits, use Grave Chill and land several hits. If you are babysitting, repeat this trick a little more and focus much less on last hitting. Whenever you are alone, you will have to find the right balance between the two possible ways, which is different in any case.

If you are on 2 or 3 lane, be sure that you initiate the kill with Gravekeepers Cloak, followed up by other nukes and your Soul Assumptiion.

Once you reach lvl 6, you become a threat to everyone in the game and you should abuse that by ganking all over the map. In pub environment, you preferably are mid solo, so you reach 6 fast and will be able to own sooner. This also gives you the possibility to gank a lot on your sidelanes. Be sure to leave the lane whenever you are out of vision so people won't see where you are heading. Watch the position of the creeps towards the tower, if it's really close, forget about ganking, you won't make it. If it's the short lane, you can ask for a pull, if it's the long lane, they should deny everything.

How to use the familiars?

There are two ways of controlling your familiars. The easiest one is having them both grouped at 2, and have them follow Visage unless you need them.
You could also have 1 grouped at 2 and one at 3. The last option is interesting for people who aren't used to use tab or side mouse buttons.

The other option is the same with controlling but you don't have them follow your hero constantly, you also control them. This is not recommended for people who never played the warcraft 3 ladder at reasonable level. Keep in mind that when leaving a battle, you need to take your familiars with you, else you feed 200 gold.

NEVER EVER ALL GROUP THEM AS 1, YOUR FAMILIARS WILL LOSE DAMAGE!

If you have used some attacks of your familiars in a gank, don't hesitate to fly them to creeps and refresh them there. Your familiars are not made to initiate, and are best used to chain stun. Their damage will be more valuable most of the time.

What does Visage need?

Visage, as an item independent hero doesn't need much items.
There are two roles I want to show here, starting off with the ganking role.
Replays



This replay may not be the best example because it has one leaver, but in this SIG game I played quite well, and did what I advise to do.
Dota-League :: Replays