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___________________________146.739 Characters on an often underestimated Hero
Don't take Old Man's Candys
______________________________________'cause he's just gonna rape ya!







In contradiction to the most played and public role of Ezalor, Supporting, I want to introduce a new, offensive way of playing the Keeper of the Light.
This way appears ridiculous and as a part of trolling, but it transforms you into a glass, ambushed-attacking canon.
Thanks to his skillset, he is a neverstopping, manacreating machine that can be quite difficult to play against.
Usually players start up their support items in order to grant carries babysitting or further protection, but since the opposite is quite effective and we have no guide that deals with an offensive, doublekilling and wicked sick Ezalor, I decided to write one. This way approved well in several public games, against players with low and also higher skill. It works due enormous harrisment and execution combined with the strategy to let enemies neither farming gold nor experience, while your team becomes superior.

Critical to this way of playing is more mapawareness, skill, knowledge, courage, timing, confidence and prediction than you might think and most carries need.

The only disadvantage consists of host's leaving ...

_ Foreword _________________________ Table of Contents _________________________ Pros and Cons _________________________ Hero Summary Comments _________________________ Alt + Tab Guide _________________________ Introduction This Guide's Specifics _________________________ Hero Information General Statistics Backgroundstory Skills Illuminate Manaleak Chakra Magic Spirit Form Recall Blinding Lights _________________________ Skillbuild _________________________ Itembuild Starting Core Extensions Itembuilding _________________________ Gameplay General Skill Usage Item Usage Situationanalysis Gamebreakdown _________________________ Hero Synergy Best Allies Worst Enemies _________________________ Conclusion _________________________ Credits and Thanks _

Pros__________	__________Cons
[+] Itemindependent Early	Fragile [-]_
[+] High Start-MS	Lack of Disables [-]_
[+] No Manaproblems	Needs Prediction [-]_
[+] Good (Counter)Pushing	Needs Communication [-]_
[+] Ultimate Gives 2 Extra Skills	Very Teamdependent [-]_
[+] Dagerously Destructive Nuke	Long Backswing [-]_
[+] Good Teamfight Potential	No Escapeability [-]_
[+] Ability to Rescue and Unify	Very Itemdependent later on [-]_
[+] High Flexibility	Channeling takes "long" [-]_
[+] High Goldincome
[+] Anti-Escape-Ability
[+] Anticarry-Ability
[+] Enormous Synergy
[+] Supports Team
[+] He got the Magic Stick

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JM[Emo-KpecmbI] If there are no invisers then Ezalor is a God _   Butterfly ^^ One of my favorite heroes. Can stand in a lane without going back to the base. Very powerful support hero as he can destroy an enemy's mana pool, prevent them from pushing while healing his own mana, and push towers earlier than usual. Thumbs up. _   Vongola Judaime Have you tried pressure playing with Ezalor? Instead of waiting for a good position, early game he can dominate and kill the first tower pretty quickly. _   ^eQu!nOx^ he's like a bank, so many cash.,. XD _   M9hail hero that can make lots of gold, and still he`s an undepended item hero.. just make him some regen HP and some defence, like vanguard and hood, than easly go on skadi, very fun playing with him. _   Loluthinks super pusher/harrrass + infinite mana= owned :P _   SkyHawk_911 gg supporter mana pooler harraser pusher free teleporting any hero _   rkdtnscjf001 a pro ezalor = a dead you

Keeper of the Light Ezalor Strength Agility Intelligence 16+1.8 15+1.6 22+2.8 Affiliation: Sentinel Damage: 38-54 Armor: 1.1 Movespeed: 315 Attack Range: 600 Attack Animation: 0.3/0.85 Casting Animation: 0.3/2.4 Base Attack Time: 1.7 Missile Speed: 900 Sight Range: 1800/800 Illuminate Ability Hotkey:T Mana Leak Ability Hotkey:E Chakra Magic Ability Hotkey:C Spirit Form Ability Hotkey:F Recall Ability Hotkey:R Blinding Lights Ability Hotkey:B

Since I am about to make this an offensive guide, you better not completely but allmost forget the supporting part:

The Keeper of the Light is a one man support team neverending, offensive, huge cashmaking skillspammer. He has a wide variety of support spells for any situation. He is a master of manipulating mana, with Chakra Magic to restore large amounts of energy to his allies and Mana Leak to drain it from his foes. Illuminate turns the Keeper of the Light into a piece of artillery. After a long charge up time, Illuminate releases a massive shockwave of energy, dealing huge amounts of damage to all enemies in its path. Due to its long channeling period, this spell is generally most effective in large offensive or defensive pushes, if used wisely it also grants a perfect nuke for pushing and at the same time killing foes. Spirit Form further elevates the support skills of the Keeper. While in Spirit Form, he no longer needs to be present to channel Illuminate; a spirit charges it for him, allowing him to move freely and cast other spells. He also gains the valuable Recall and Blinding Light spells while transformed. Recall can teleport any allied hero to his location from anywhere on the battlefield, and Blinding Light releases a massive pulse of light which knocks enemies away and causes them to miss most of their attacks for a few seconds afterwards. For support-minded players, searching for a threatingly dangerous early game spell-carry, it's tough impossible to find a better hero.

_ Ezalor _ Strength Agility Intelligence 16+1.8 15+1.6 22+2.8 ___

-- Affiliation: Sentinel Damage: 38-54 Armor: 1.1 Movespeed: 315 Attackrange: 600 ____ Attackanimation: 0.3/0.85 Casting Animation: 0.3/2.4 Base Attack Time: 1.7 Missile Speed: 900 Sight Range: 1800/800

Master of light and mana manipulation, Ezalor was once viewed as a scholar, and was regarded as a powerful mentor to many. However, his defection and betrayal of his allies during the War of the Magi caused him to be sentenced to banishment to the spirit realm for all of eternity. However, knowing of his tremendous power, the Sentinel granted him a corporeal form within the physical realm in exchange for his alliance against the Scourge onslaught. As such, Ezalor carries his duties of supporting his comrades valiantly despite the treacherous past that most know little about.

Ganker:	llllllllllll
Magical Carry:	llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Initiator:	llllllllllllllllllll
Tank:	llllll
Disabler:	llllll
Supporter:	llllllllll
Chaser:	llllllll
Babysitter:	llllllllllllllllllll
Nuker:	llllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Skillspammer:	llllllllllllllllllllllllll
Pusher:	llllllllllllllllllll
Turtler:	llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Level	Mana Cost	Cooldown	Casting Range	Area of Effect	Allowed Targets	Effects
1	150	10 secs	230	400 AoE / 800 Distance	Enemy Units	Channels up to 200 damage
2	150	10 secs	230	400 AoE / 800 Distance	Enemy Units	Channels up to 300 damage
3	150	10 secs	230	400 AoE / 800 Distance	Enemy Units	Channels up to 400 damage
4	150	10 secs	230	400 AoE / 800 Distance	Enemy Units	Channels up to 500 damage

Level	Mana Cost	Cooldown	Casting Range	Duration	Allowed Targets	Effects
1	75	18 secs	550	4 secs	Enemy Unit	Drains 3.5% of max mana per 100 units moved. If mana runs out, stuns for 1.25 seconds
2	75	18 secs	700	5 secs	Enemy Unit	Drains 4% of max mana per 100 units moved. If mana runs out, stuns for 1.5 seconds
3	75	18 secs	850	6 seconds	Enemy Unit	Drains 4.5% of max mana per 100 units moved. If mana runs out, stuns for 1.75 seconds
4	75	18 secs	1000	7 secs	Enemy Unit	Drains 5% of max mana per 100 units moved. If mana runs out, stuns for 2 seconds

Level	Mana Cost	Cooldown	Casting Range	Allowed Targets	Effects
1	40	19 secs	900	Allied units / Self	Restores 75 mana
2	55	18 secs	900	Allied units / Self	Restores 150 mana
3	70	17 secs	900	Allied units / Self	Restores 225 mana
4	85	16 secs	900	Allied units / Self	Restores 300 mana

Level	Mana Cost	Cooldown	Duration	Effects
1	100	80 secs	40 secs	Morph into Spirit Form, gain automatically charging Illuminate, Recall, and Blinding Light abilities
2	100	70 secs	40 secs	Morph into Spirit Form, gain automatically charging Illuminate, Recall, and Blinding Light abilities
3	100	60 secs	40 secs	Morph into Spirit Form, gain automatically charging Illuminate, Recall, and Blinding Light abilities

Recall

Abilitytype: Active Targetingtype: Unit Abilityhotkey: R

Target an allied hero. Teleports that hero to your location. If the target takes player based damage during this period, this ability is interrupted.

Mana Cost	Cooldown	Casting Range	Allowed Targets	Effects
100	40 secs	Global	Allied Heroes	Teleportation with 5 second delay
100	40 secs	Global	Allied Heroes	Teleportation with 4 second delay
100	40 secs	Global	Allied Heroes	Teleportation with 3 second delay

Notes

• Since the cooldown and mana cost take effect upon casting, the mana will be deducted and the spell will go into cooldown even if the spell is interrupted.
• This ability can target any allied hero on the map.
• The -disablehelp command can prevent an allied Keeper of the Light from casting this ability on you.
• This skill interrupts channeling spells.
• Clicking this skill on the minimap will target the nearest allied hero.

Recall is a quite powerful antiganking-skill. This requires global awareness of your enemies and allies.
An Ezalor should be the head of planing teaminteraction. Since you are not as powerful as hardcore damagedealers, public-game-players do not listen to you quite often. Just be aware where your enemies are and when you should prevent an allie from being ganked. Call them back when some enemies disappeared and you see an allie pushing quite far on enemies territiory.

When you see an teamfight going to initiate, you can teleport farming carries or stupid idiots (that act like they are PvE though they are carries, quite often seen in publics) from another lane to you. This way you can also get some allies to your lane or the position where you want to gank an enemy.

If some enemies are chased and you try to rescue your allie, he will often be stunned and therefore Recall will be interrupted. If that happened you did a bad job. I am not refering to the fact that the allie is stunned. You have to develop a 6th sense when allies are in danger, even though you cannot see an enemy. Playing a good Keeper of the Light requires more Skill and Knowledge about the game, than most public-game-players have. I guess you never thought that before, too.

Blinding Lights

Abilitytype: Active Targetingtype: AoE Abilityhotkey: B

Blind nearby units, causing them to miss 80% of the time.

Mana Cost	Cooldown	Casting Range	Level	Duration	Allowed Targets	Effects
50	20 secs	900	675	3 secs	Enemy Units	Causes 80% misschance and knocks back
50	20 secs	900	675	4 secs	Enemy Units	Causes 80% misschance and knocks back
50	20 secs	900	675	5 secs	Enemy Units	Causes 80% misschance and knocks back

Notes

• Causes knockback of 250 range over 0.4 seconds, centered on the middle of the target AoE.
• If a unit being knock-backed collides with a tree, the tree is destroyed.
• Does not interrupt channeling skills.

This Skill is quite brilliant, since there are a few ways how to use it quite nicely.

When you are in a teamfight, a lot of physical carries are around, you can cause all of them to miss a lot of their attacks. Furthermore you can push a single or maybe two enemies into your team.
When someone like Crixalis or Nevermore jumps into to deal huge damage with their Ultimate, you can push them away, to minimize effect.

Even a Keeper of the Light has to be a selfish person from time to time. When you are ganked by a physical carry, you can maximize your chance to survive by causing him to miss, pushing is then a quite cool thing, too.

Eventually I want to mention that this skill synergizes quite well with Illuminate, since you can push enemies into an Illuminate. It also boosts Mana Leak's potential.

If your game should develop more gank-orientated or you are on a trilane, get Mana Leak earlier. It helps to stun and get more kills.

Minor changes are allowed, too. If you need some more damage output, you can max Illuminate earlier etc.

Items like Wards are not mentione since you should know when to buy them, I hope.

Itembuilding

The following diagram shows you what item to build when. Hold your mouse on icons or arrows to gain explaination.
The backgroundcolor defines how well your game does, "red"-items should be bought, if something went terribly wrong. Go for the "green" ones if everything is okay.
More expensive items with better effect are at the bottom of the diagram, so the later in your game, the lower you have to look at it.
The following axes will tell you what I meant, if you had no idea, what I was talking of the last 2 paragraphs.


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Ezalor - Keeper of the Light known as KotL or Eza was meant to be a supporter-type hero. Even Icefrog said so, but there are a few things I want you to do diffrently.

At first, start being more selfcentered than a supporter but a bit less than a carry. Try something like Rooftrellen.

An offensive Keeper of the Light trys to stay back behind the tanks or trees to develop his full potential. He should neither tank nor try to act a hardcore carry. Playing a good Ezalor, you must be fast and have to predict what will happen. You use your spells for harrasment and to unify the team. Try to be a captain(though mode is not -cm) who has allways a look on everything. Mind where enemies were and where they will re-appear. Direct your team and plan ganks. Land Illuminates perfectly and mark enemies that are fleeing to be killed. Prevent allies from being killed, use your Blinding Lights for seperating enemies via Knockback and also make them fail when trying to kill your team a physical way. You have to make your team organized and try to play strategicly while you are nuking through enemy team.
Make the game more then a disable, hit, hit, hit, disable, hit, nuke, hit -thing.



Illuminates are a great way to deal huge damage. It needs some prediction, but you can harres enemies over a great distance. If you are good with it, double kills or at least wicked sick will become usual. Godlikes can be reached easily and just because of 500 points damage nuking through enemy team. Next can be channeled again, while they are still wondering why they run suddenly at low HP.

Most powerful nuke ingame and only evadeable if you saw Ezalor channeling or have a blink-skill.

I marked a few spots that are decent to channel from, but you can mind in general to channel it out of the fog into the whole crowd of enemies. These spots are not the only places where to land a good Illuminate from. It depends on the situation you are in, so be a bit flexible.





For targetting Illuminate I did a little quiz ...





Mana Leak is a very effective spell and can be used well in several situations. It prevents enemies from moving, at least when their mana ran out. Enemies that still have a low mana pool will feel pretty annoyed because of the loss, heroes like Obsidian Destroyer will feel damned annoyed. As they suddenly run out of mana and cannot deal damage anymore. When ganking enemies, you can prevent them from moving until everyone got his position. In teamfights you can mark enemies to make your team focus one. It has a good Synergy with Illuminate. Mana Leak prevents enemies from moving so that you can land Illuminates perfectly and also gives some Mana back if the target prefers running, a few distance and also out of mana.
Low HP enemies cannot escape because of the high casting range. Cooldown is okay too. Maybe use it in before of a teamfight, it will cause your enemies to loose mana and thanks to the high casting range, you will not be in danger.



This spell that makes you and sometimes your allies superior in early game is Chakra Magic. Giving you or allies a decent mana buff this enables high spamability.
Playing an offensive Ezalor, you should use it for you, but allways try to have a look on allies manapool. It makes you a killing machine in early and also late game. Do only give a few Chakras away to allies in early. Though it does great support, do not waste all your Chakras on noobs that can be found easily and pretty often in public games.
Allways use it when cooldown is over, except you allready have full mana.



Spiritform transforms you into a half invisible, white version of yourself. Both subskills gained when activated will not be concerned here sonce they have their own section.
The upgrade for Illuminate is pretty decent and unlocks you a few cool moves that cannot be down with normal Illuminates and improves some others.
If you want to harres more effectively when laning, you can step behind a tree or somewhere enemies can't see you. Target Illuminate where enemies will probably be and go back on the lane. The enemy on your lane will think you made sure noone is ready in the woods to start a gank or something like that, ergo they will try to get a few lasthits or (not often seen in public games) deni creeps. Shortly afterwards the 500 damagewave will travel through the push and noone expected that because you were all the time on the lane.
Use it for harresment before teamfights. Go a few units in the direction of enemy team (if you can step into fog it is even better) and target Illuminate into there. Run back and just see how another 500 damage is harresing them pretty hard.
The upgrade gains you strong ganking- and antigankingability, too. When you are going to be ganked, activate your ultimate and target an Illuminate into the direction you want to flee. I allways recommend the way back to base if you are ganked by 1 single enemy. If there are 2 or more you better go the way where less are. If you targetted, just start running and while you are fleeing, enemies just run after you, dealing as much damage as they can. When they got the first 500 damage, enemies normally stop chasing-process. If they keep on, target the next Illuminate if you haven't reached a tower yet. Another 500 damage most enemies are not able to to take. Whenever they should be about to run out of HP, just start attacking them physically. Protection from tower should be enough to call you safe then.
Using it for ganking, you can channel it where the target is going to flee to and step on the lane with teammates. You chase the victim right into 500 magical damage. Initiating is also quite decent, since your spell has a quite low CD you can initiate by using it for harresment and later on if possible for further harresment or execution.
The concept is at least only about 2 things, predict where enemies will be and target Illuminate there (same as Illuminate alone) and influence enemies where to go to.


Well, Recall is quite a powerful spell and saves 135 gold for allies. Apart from porting allies instead of their TP-ing, you have some greater uses of Recall. Maybe the most obvious one is to safe allies and port them out of danger when gank is incoming. What a pity, Recall has a delay and you have to do another thing then. Either you port your allie out of there when enemies are far away enough and Recall will not be canceled or your team has a death more. The last and most successful version is about you, developing global awareness and porting allies back that pushed too far while 2 or more enemies are missing on the minimap. If you do not have such a 6th sense wards can be used alternatively.



Often understimated, this skill has 2 decent effects. It pushes and gives misschance. Do not ask me how light can push someone, but Blinding Lights is pretty awesome anyway. Use it only in teamfights or for PvP. Wait that is the same! So I recommend you, using it against physical heroes.
When a single enemy wants to gank you, you can push him away and probably protect yourself or someone else from being hit. With a overall average movespeed you can escape then easily. When enemies like Nevermore or Crixalis are around, you can simply push them away from the middle of the teamfight and they will deal only smaller damage. Also decent in a teamfight, is the misschance. Target Blinding Light at the "opposite edge of teamfight Area" simply means: Do not push injured heroes away from happening so that they can escape even easier. When you team is about to win the fight, mind the following ...

A little tip from me: Allways mind your ping, since you can really really fail this skill when you targetted it right but a moment later the spell is casted. You could push a Nightstalker or an Ursa Warrior right into you, no good feeling.



I hope that this needs no explaination, but safe is safe and so I tell you. When you want to push fast, you toggle it to normal. This is usually the case, since you can and want to rush towers pretty early. When you don't want to push, you better toggle it to heroes-only. This can be the case if you are against 2 strong enemies with disables or something like that.



Well, another item that should not need any explaination, but let's go. Urn of Shadows is a good supportative item. You wonder now, why an offensive hero should carry sich a thing? It is pretty easy, channeling Illuminate you can be harresed and nukers may damage you too. In teamfights I am sure you will get more than 100 damage and all in all it is not bad to have heal if you do not need it instead of having no when you need it. The strength buff gains you some surviveability and heal rises you "lane-stay-bility". Since your mates are sometimes in danger you can also heal them.
It seems a bit strange, but game somehow is easier with it, don't know why, but it proofed well in several game.
Eventually I want to add that you should never use it on enemies that have higher hp than 50. As enemies have regenerations, the small DoT will sometimes not even be then enough.


Actually one of those items above that need no explaination. Use it when you try to escape while you life is not about to be enough for a safe escape. Another possibility is, to use it when you failed at steadly casting Chakra Magics and need some mana while you have not even enough for casting Chakra. Then you use the stick and will have suddenly enough for one.


I slowly get tired, explaining unnecessary things. Do not teleport directly into the creepwave. This avoids that the creep, you ported to, may be killed. Use if to get fast to any position, for team-interactions or stuff like that. Movespeed, gained, is brilliant.


If you have this item, I have good and bad news for you. Enemies will be dead very fast, but you are focused all day. If you have no Lothars, you better stand back and try to have only 1 or 2 enemies in burning AoE. Damage is decent, too. Turn Radiance off if you ambush or try to escape and hide in the trees. Allready having a Lothar's, you need to turn it off before you go into Windwalk.


Aside from highering your DPS, Lothar's Edge helps you in many many situations. When you are initiating or trying to escape. Whenever enemies chase you and you try to hide or something like that, I really recommend you stepping into the woods and then porting away. Though duration is quite okay, you have other problems. They should be called enemies: Dust of Appearance, Gems of Truesight and Sentry Wards. While wards are easy to counter-ward or to step out of AoE and enemies should not dare to buy a gem since they have to fear loosing it in every teamfight, Dust is your worst enemy. Not taken by many player but pretty effective you will be revealed and death in about 2 seconds. For this reason I am now proud to present my...



Initially I want to mention a few things about the




It costs only 180 gold and has 2 charges, has a cooldown of 1 minute or 60 seconds, while the AoE of 1050 is pretty big and also the duration of 12 seconds is not really nice for you.
To summarize that, dust is easy to use and evil for you, but if you could evade you do not have to fear being dusted the next minute. It is pretty cheap and often used in ganks to reveal invisible enemies.

The only chance to survive a gank while your enemies have dust, is to flee invisible as soon as you noticed their appearance. If you got a disable they will stand next to you afterwards and you will be simply dusted when try to excape with Lothar's. So what can you do? Start running as soon as you can and do not run into the enemy that got Dust. Try to find out very early who of them got dust and who has no. Knowing enemy's inventory is critical to your escape.

Allways have a look, if you can find this somewhere:

This map shows the most dangerous zones for you in red and safer zones in green.


Click the picture for higher definition.

Being in a green zone does not say you are ungankable. Reds just mark the areas where enemies can gank you easily and your chance to surivive is about 0% or even less. Furthermore most enemies, unless they are invisible, will gank from woods that is more centered. At the outer edge of bot and top lane, usually no enemy waits to start the gank. If you feel like someone could hide in woods to gank you, better step to the outer edges of lanes, since that also gains you another second to react.

Now I will show you a few situations and what you can do:

Suddenly a Yuerno appears on the lane. He has a Dust of Appearance and wants to kill you. We will forget the fact that you are allready standing in the AoE of Dust. He will try to kill you with his ultimate or physically, it does not matter.
You notice him, activate your Lothar's and run in the opposite direction to escape. Since Lothras gives you decent MS bonus, he will neither be able dust nor to catch you.

Like in the first case, there is a Yuerno on the lane. Your bad, you cannot escape to the left, because there is Dark Seer. The only chance to escape is activating Lothar's and the run down. Since Dark Seer can reach max MS, you can hardly escape by just running. Try to go where he would not expect you to go. Step behind trees or things like that.

Ooops! Something went terribly wrong. Suddenly you have 3 Guys around. You better know who has a dust. Escape through the direction with the enemy without dust. If all have dust or you do not know, who has, try a random direction. Only chance might be, to blink yourself into the trees with a dagger.

Actually this situation should never excist. When you miss 3 enemies on map for some moments, you should fear a gank and maybe take some wards.

Juggernaut is allready very very near. You have no choice, but going into woods. Try to go inside and then step behind a corner, activate Windwalk and run through him out of woods. That's the only way to get out of this situation as long as Juggeraut does not use dust on the beginning. If he does it initially, you have only a minor chance to surive. Try to juke for 12 seconds to get rid of him. If you survived the 12 seconds, you can use Lothar's and get out of there.

If all that did not work, you maybe ask yourself ...



At first, you can notice the effect of dust, when:

1. Creeps and Heroes attack you, while you should be invisible.
2. You stood in the AoE, noticeable due the visual up in the air.
3. There is such a little debuff:

If you were dusted, it means that you are very very endangered and should fear being killed in next few moments. There are a few strategies that will work and prevent you from being killed. Possibles are:

• Just escape due the MS-Bonus from Windwalk. Ignore the Dust-debuff and run.
• Target Eul's Scpeter of Divinity on yourself and blink with a dagger afterwards to the Trees, where noone can get you. This works excellent and is pretty safe. If you cannot blink into the woods, because the area has not been scouted, target an Illuminate into that direction, before using Eul's. This will clear the fog and you can blink there. Only disadvantage consists of the fact that enemies know where you blinked to and can kill you via Hook, Elun's Arrow or Shockwave.
• Use a Scroll of TP, unless your enemies have stun- or silenceskills. You can just hope that you can stand their damage then.
• Activate Shiva's Guarda and run in hope of the slow will create enough distance between you and enemies.
• Try hide somehow in trees or other stuff that blocks vision to you until dust is over.
• Use Guinsoo's Scepter on an enemy in hope of getting out of there.
• Call an allie via Recall to you in hope that you both can manage to kill the enemies. If you want to use this way, do never port an allie that can neither deal with enemies or has an escape mechanism. Otheriwse you also condemn him to death.

Dagon is a pretty good item on Ezalor. You might say ZOMFG WTF, you allready have a 500 dmg nuke, but I say you, that this is instant and has no chance to fail. Furthermore you can execute pretty well with this item. Executing is one of the things, Eza is bad in. Imagine the Lane and you harresed someone to 100 HP, but cannot reach him with attacks. What do you do? Hope that he might stay at tower and kill him with another Illuminate? This will not work if he fears being killed by such or you allready did it that way a few times. Dagon hast a good casting range later on and provides easy kills.


Is there anything you can do wrong with massive stats boost? Not really. Slow is quite decent for chasing or a physical duell, getting out of danger, supporting your team in a teamfight ... it actually does well in every situation.
Allways attack the guy you want to kill and slow works perfectly. Since your attacktime is not above 2 seconds, you can perma slow single enemies.


Shiva's Guard gains you a little intelligence and highers your surviveability enormous. The armor and AS-slow decreses physical carries potential a lot, while Arctic Blast helps you to escape. This can work pretty well with Radiance and Dagger or Lothar's Edge, when juping in and bashing everyone by critical high magical damage.


Strong and expensive ganking and escaping item. You can prevent enemies from fleeing when you gank or can hex them when they try to gank you. Furthermore, you can hex enemies that try to use their ultimate (like Crystal Maiden or Sandking).


Eul's Scepter of Divinity is also a very strong item. It provides mana and regeneration for moderately cheap price. Cycloning your enemies you can prevent yourself from being ganked or can whirl someone up into the air, to get closer when ganking. It has a strong antiganking effect when combined with Kelen's Dagger. You can also whirl yourself up, to avoid being hit by strong ultimates.


Force Staff is a very situational item, but can be owning in some cases. It synergizes well with Mana Leak, when pushing an enemy that you casted Mana Leak on. When you have a teamfight going to happen and one of the enemies faces your team, you can pull him into your team. This will reap his ass in a second or less. When you are ganked, you can push yoruself to be faster or push an enemy that reached you again away from you to the opposite side. Force Staff enables you to reach cliffs etc. by pushing yoruself upwards.


This has only passive effects, what shall I tell you concerning usage?


Probably the most powerful item ever, Kelen's Dagger gains you the ability to travel far distances quickly and reach neverseen places.
Most heroes get a boost of their potential with this item, Ezalor too, but not that much like Nevermore.

Use it go get in fights or out(when combined with Eul's) quickly. You can blink up cliffs also, to escape. It gives you new options for using Illuminate and is also very good for chasing very low hp enemies.

If you want to learn anything about warding, click the image below. To me, there is no better warding guide than this. Ezalor has a lot of money, so in most games it is your job to ward.





At first, I will reveal a few Information about the Keeper of the Light concerning his DPS. You probably thought he is no damage dealer or carry, but I will proof the opposite(please mind that alle magical DPS will effect an AoE, so several units/heroes can be hit). Grey lines are physical and orange ones are magical DPS. All values are calculated with the normal skill- and itembuild of this guide. Click the pictures for better definition.



This maybe shows that he has a high DPS from early on, what makes him so dangerous. Later on, heroes like Phantom Assasin can reach a lot higher DPS, but this time will probably never be reached in a game, you picked Ezalor in.

The substance of this section is to emphasize, what to do in a few important situations. See the following below:




This section contains all about laning, that consists of you and maybe an allie stays on the lane to farm gold and gain exp. This mostly appears in earlier games, when the leveldiffrence weights pretty heavy.

When you are laning, you do not have to fear many enemies. Most cannot do a thing against your imba-early-game-damageoutput. Pay some attention to these anyways:

TorrentFissureBurning SpearSnowballDoom
BalanarPudgeMaginaBladefuryWindwalks
VenomancerViperPowershotSticky NapalmAstral Imprisonment

A few of that skills/heroes can really reap your ass in a few seconds. You are normally alone on your lane, so try to avoid being affected, though it might be hard.

A greater danger is that you might be ganked (or roamed since laning is in early game), because you push tower with your Illuminate. Therefore I really recommend you to go another lane after finishing tower. There you can gank 2 or 1 enemy(s) and go for next tower.

Now to the process of laning:

When the game starts, you should block your creeps at the maximum, you can. Step in front of them and force you to stand, go a few units and stop, go, stop. This way you block effeciently.

If you blocked well, enemy creeps will be slain by you, your creeps and the tower. Do not block so hard that the tower has to manage all alone. Afterwards, you go to enemy tower and attack it, when enemy creeps arrive you give them and your enemy hero a first Illuminate from behind the nearest trees.
This tactics will cause the enemytower to loose some hp during the first minute and will make sure that the enemy hero gets that you are the boss on this lane.

The further laning consists of enormous harresment due Illuminates and pushing the tower. Get a few kills if possible and also roam if necessary. Allways have a look on ganks/roams incoming. Having killed first tower, go another lane and start all that again.

Your early game is pretty powerful, because you have Infinite Mana and 1 Illumiante every 10 seconds. This provides you a good protection from your enemy trying to kill you. When they are allways at low hp or even less they will not dare getting into your attackrange. Probably they regeneration Items will not be enough to stand this damage. They will go back to base for sure and that gives you another leveladvantage. If you can ruin enemy's early due deniing, lasthitting and enormous harresment opposite team will play like a 4n5. If you manage to stand that pressure on other lanes few of enemies will be at retarded level. This is brilliant if they are lategame heroes.
Furthermore, use your chicken and all items you need to stay on lane. Nothing is more important but experience in your Laning Phase.
If you worked well, this is the gamebreaking point. Since enemy are tarded you will (I hope) win all teamfights and so become superior. Everything decides in Early game for you. If it does not properly, you start a supporter Item- and Skillbuild in order to be useful somehow. Noone needs a retarded early game hero in lategame.

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Ganking seems to be impossible with Ezalor, becasue you have no reliable disable. Well that is true, but 500 Damage seem to be convincing, huh?
Hide in the trees and give them an Illuminate. If this should have been enough to harres one to low hp, you can wait behind the tower in the woods this hero to cross there. You give him a Mana Leak and finish.
If it shouldn't been enough to kill or harres an enemy enough, you can send another Illuminate to the tower, where enemies feel usually safest. If it wasn't enough again, send another Illuminate somewhere behind the tower to hit a third time.
Safer and easier is to count on Allies and their disables that will be reliable enough. Blinkstrikes can be good to finish, an Assasinate will be sparkling, too. Find something that either disables or finsihes well. If tehre is no enemy around with such, you can get someone there via Recall.
Later on, Forcestaff or an Guinsoo's will fix this issue. At least an Eul's works too.
Items like Dagon or Eye of Skandi or Shiva's guard can help you a lot, too, when ganking. Radiance highers you damage output a lot and could be useful for chasing.
Try to get some disables and then let them feel you potential. Ganking is not pretty hard, so I will stop here and keep on harder things.





Antiganking has to be divided into preventing you or an Allie from being ganked.
If an Allie is going to be gankend and you are neither there, nor can be there soon enough to do a thing, you only have 1 option. Activate your Ultimate and Recall your Allie out of there.
If you are ganked, you have quite a lot of Options. Depending on your Level and Itembuild, you will not have all enabled. Use as many as you need. Some will be safer and some risky. Do allways chose the safest(self-evident, obviously huh?).
You can just use a Scroll of TP, hoping enemies have neither stun nor silence. This is pretty risky, because even they might have not, they can still kill you.
Usa Mana Leak on one of the enemies and then activate your Ultimate. Target an Illuminate into the direction you want to escape and maybe use a Blinding Lights, too. It will give you more distance in between you and enemies and causes them to miss ! 80% ! of their attacks. This will cause 1 enemy to be stun soon. Rest is damage and will not really be able to damage you a physical way. This is the safest way, without any items.
You could also teleport an Allie to you that will help you to protect whatever and maybe kill some of the enemies.
When being ganked, you can regenerate soem HP due Urn of Shadows and Magic Wand. Maybe it will help.
Lothar's Edge has a very good escape mechanism and will work properly if none of the enemies has Dust of Appearance, Sentry Wards or a gem.
Furthermore you can simply disable one or more enemies with your items, so that they have no choince to get after you. Eul's or Guinsoo's will be good.
A fast way out of danger is Kelen's Dagger. If you were damaged allready, use Eul's on yourself first and then Blink away. This is the safest way, since you can blink everywhere and noone knows where and even if they spread, you can blink somewhere else.






To escape properly, you need a good MS and/or some skill. Escape might be at some points equal to Antiganking, but Antiganking focusses the moment of a gank.
Do allways target Illuminates (of course with Ultimate activated) on the ground when running away. It will deal some decent damage to enemies and maybe they will get sick of taking so much damage and return.
Mana Leak can help you to get rid of a follower.
Items like Blink Dagger and Lothar's Edge can be very effective for escaping. Furthermore, I recommend you juking some and confuse your chasers by taking diffrent way than normal or even noob/newbie players.





Teamfights are really great. There are many targets to hit with Illuminates and a potential of 1875 pure damage or even more.

If a teamfight starts, you need allready to be there. Teleport an allie to you if necessary. Start haresment due Illuminating out of fog. While enemy will run at about half-HP, your team will rush into them. Try to do your best by max. damageoutput and hardcore harresment.
Further Illuminates are good, try to keep 1 or 2 enemies in range of Radiance, but do not act the tank, stay back until enemies are on the fallback, get some of them by using Mana Leak, disable enemy team's carries with Eul's or Guinsoo's and do allways try to use blinding lights for anti-physical-carry-ing. Shiva's Guard and also Physical Attacks will be quite useful.
Use all your equipment and spells that could be useful. Single enemies that want to escpae can be kept there with mana leak and finished by using Lothar's and following them, Radiance will end them. Dagon works sparkling, too.




This Section deals with the Issue how to defend your base in case of enemies pushing into. The Problem you have to deal with, are a lot of creeps and some heroes at the same time.
Your most powerful weapon is still Illuminate that can be channeled from your tower inside of the base and released on all creeps entering. You got right, that melee creeps have more HP than Illuminate does damage. As to this reason, you use either Shiva's Arctic Blast or Radiance-Burn.
This will solve the PvE problem, but there are still heroes that want to rush your base.
Since 2 or 3 enenmies can rape your ass rapidly, you can get an allie for help via Recall. Protecting your tower with Glyph of Fortification is a must. Further Harresment by Tower, Radiance, Illuminates and physical attacks will force them to stop the base rush.
Disables are cool, too, because disabled enemies cannot do damage.








Start of the Game

A public game usually starts with the question what a hero you want to play. Since Ezalor is pretty flexible, you can allways need a Keeper of the Light. Pick him if several of the of the following things are true:

• Enemy Team has 1 or more pusher.
• Your team has bad or average pushingqualities.
• Your Mate plays Magina.
• is in the enemy team. Spiderlings can all the killed by a single Illuminate and you farm extra gold and experience.
• is one of your enemies. All 4 Clones can be damaged and if that happens, meepo is pretty easy to kill.
• One of your enemies is and want his mana to be drained.
• Ultimates of or can be turned useless by using Blinding Lights.
• Your team has a high mana need and no good mana pool. One example is that needs pretty much.
• You like mega Spellcarries.
• There are some very fragile heroes with low magical resistance in the game. Heroes like for example , , , , , , or .
• You can predict at least moderately good what enemies will do next.
• There are many enemies with lategame-focused heroes that need a lot of experience and gold like , , or .

Do not pick Ezalor if several of the following applied as given:

• You are to stupid for using Spells, because you allways play afk Farmers.
• You have no custom keys.
• You haven't read this guide.
• You dislike old men or horses.
• You have a in the enemy team.
• One more of your enemies are invisible heroes like , , , , or .
• mined the lane you want to go or the whole jungle.
• is in the Game.
• If you got highly skilled players in the opposite team.

Having bought all items you need, you ask yourself what a lane to choose. There are only 3 possibilities.

1. Take Midlane alone.
2. Take another Lane where you are alone, because one of your Allies left, jungles or is afk.
3. Take a Lane with one of your best Allies like Weaver or someone that greatly executes enemies.

Expect Allies to wonder why a Supporter takes a lane alone. Ignore Flame and say that you know what you are doing (or at least hope) and they should trust you. Since your playstyle is a pretty offensive, 2 low HP enemies will not dare to try on killing you. Even a trilane you can easily handle.


For exact definition of Game-Phases, I divided the game into 6 parts by level. The phases can develop diffrently in your games, it is only used for a rough overview.

The Graph below shows your potential that is pretty well in early game, but decreases to about 0 in the end. This is the reason why games should better not take that long.

Early Game:	llllllllllllllllll
Early-Mid Game:	llllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Mid Game:	llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Late Mid-Game:	llllllllllllllllllllllll
Late Game:	llllllllll
End Game:	llll

Early Game
(Level 1-6)

For my Definition the Early Game starts with the spawn of the creeps. Try to block creeps as good as you can the whole Lane. If you failed it is no problem, but if you succed first enemy creep wave will be killed by your tower. Maybe you wonder why to do that. I will tell you now: You can deal good damage to the enemy tower with a full creep wave. Your aim for the Early game is harresment and pushing. Since you can use Illuminate only rarely, harresment does not work pretty well. Try to bash the tower to half HP.
Your spamability is pretty low and therefore you have no chance to get firstblood, allways avoid direct fights not to be killed. The most important thing is not to feed you enemies, because that destroys the whole concept. If you have roamers as enemies get some wards to make sure you are not killed or at least not suprised by their appearance. In the End of Early Game your damage output rises slowly and lead into the PvP phase. Only leave your lane if you are sure that your kill will be sucessful or your action is really needed.


Early-Mid Game
(Level 7-9)

With thanks to your Illuminate and Chakra magic on higher levels you can deal good damage to creeps and heroes. You should kill the first tower now. When the tower is down and you got two or three kills or at least assists, you can hardly spend more time on your lane, because of enemy's ganking you to avoid your pushing further. Leave your Lane and go to another, enemies will be quite suprised when 500 damage hit them. Try to get two further kills or assists and rush the next tower on that lane with the two allies you have there. Whenever there is some trouble use a TP to help, therefore I really recommend you allways having one ready.
Having killed allready 2 towers you can start the last of the first towers if you want, but don't forget the enemy players. If there should allready be a teamfight, you have to be in there. I do not expect one since you pushed a bit, enemies will be about to defend or start counter pushes. If there should be such a counter push, ambush behind trees with some Allies and kill them all.


Mid Game
(Level 10-12)

During this time you should focus on 2 things.
Try allways to have all lanes on the march forward. If creeps push them on their own your team can have teamfights without any worry about defending base or towers.
Keep creeps pushing top and bot lane forward by their own. If well timed, enemies have to defend their tower/base and stay in teamfight at the same time. If they fight creeps destroy buildings. In the case of some go for defence you win teamfight easily.
When you loose teamfight they will be busy by deffending. If you win, you rush into their base from every direction.
This is pretty effective and helps you a lot. Just requires some timing.
As allready mentioned teamfights are the second thing you should care about.

If both succeed you lead your team into Win. Somehow Ezalor looses potential compared to Allies. If you managed to play well, they have good level and items. Your importantness decreases from now on with the time.
At least even an Carry-KotL is just a support. Just another way.


Late-Mid Game
(Level 13-15)

If your game developed quite well, game will end soon. Since Teamfights and Pushing work decent, your team should be superior. Keep teamfighting and pushing. use Boots of Travel to be everywhere, just like a Furion. Though pushing uses most time now, be in every teamfight. Maybe your team can handle alone, but some more DPS is never bad.


Late Game
(Level 16-24)

This section leads into your fall. Ezalor's DPS grows extremly high until Midgame. Later on your potential does not really increase. Being ganked is as dangerous as never before.
Keep teamfighting, but focus push. End the game now or you will suck from now on. Every KotL, no matter how he is played sucks in Late Game. Not even mass gold and items can really solve your retard-ness.


End Game
(Level 25)

Fail if you are still playing. Keeper of the Light are useless on level 25. you can not even kill creepwaves well now. Strength heroes will not take any damage from you, Ints usually hide behind tanks or push and agility-carries regenerate more HP due lifesteal than your DPS is.
There is no way to be useful now. Apart from your disables you have nothing that really helps your team. Since you have to do something, focus pushing and nothing more. You will be slayn rapidly in PvP and only feed then.
You cannot really influence the game now and that is the reason why to end Ezalor-Games earlier.





Best Allies


Warlock's Fatal Bonds help you to deal even more damage to enemies in a teamfight or whatever, since it supports AoE based spells.


When you cast Mana Leak and enemy runs out of mana, Magina can deal huge damage using his Ultimate.


Free Amplification for you Illuminate that can deal a lot more damage when Tauren Chieftain is around.


High Magic Amplification due Criplify that also slows the enemy, so that you can land Illuminates perfectly and even deathlier as before.


Kinetic Field can trap enemies inside and helps you to land Illumiantes perfectly.


Infinite Mana raises Lancers potential to a maximum. His Finishing quallities are also quite good.


Vacuum can pull all enemies in a teamfight together to deal damage to all of them.


Heartstopper Aura is damned good for your playstyle of enormous harresment. Since your enemies will have low hp all time they would not even be able to regenerate some of that back.


Nerubian Weaver is a quite good lanemate since he/she (I do not really know what Weaver is) can execute enemies quite good if you should not be able to manage.


Techies is quite excellent since he can mine the jungle, so you can stand in there and do not have to fear any enemy coming there and killing you (maybe from midlane, but that does not count).
Furthermore Techies benefits from your managiving ability.


Another Goblin, but with completely other qualities. Since Tinker is able to more or less instantkill and finish enemies he can kill enemies with 200 HP quite good. His mana pool will be empty quite fast, so you better spend a few mana on him.


A quite safe way to execute fleeing enemies. As long as your teammate does not have a too high ping.



Worst Enemies


Enemies that can silence you are quite annoying and can interupt Illuminate, right when it was started, or when you try to port an enemy. Your potentional is magic, purely magic, and therefore they are not the worst, but some of the bad enemies.


Invisible Heroes can easily find you in the fog when playing moveable wards. You can only counter that with wards, since you are too paper for a gem. Furthermore it is quite hard to predict where enemies will be in 5 seconds, it is even harder to predict where invisible enemies will be.


Magina can easily burn your mana and kill you, while you cannot really deal high damage to him.


Backtracking, Void can avoid (lol at wordplay) being harrased by Illuminates.


Puck can easily avoid being damaged due using Phaseshift, when Illuminate is incoming.


A moderately feeded Phantom Lancer will eat you alive, since he can slow you and will burn all your mana in a few seconds, while you can only try to kill the Illusions with Illuminates. Do not meet him somewhere alone without a Lothars.


Naga Siren will burn your mana nearly as fast as lancer, but she can ensnare and I would not recommend you doing a 1n1 with her, without any preperation.


Pudge is one of the worst enemies you have. He usually buys a Hood and the extra magic resistance will cause your Illuminate to deal minor damage. Furthermore pudge can hook you out of the fog seeing where your Illuminate comes from. If you are hooked you are dead. In addition to that Pudge is normally where you have to be, in the fog behind trees. Expell him out of there as good as possible.


Bloodseeker will not really care about Illuminate since he can regenerate a lot of HP due lasthitting and deniing creeps. Try to focus him, while your lanemate attacks him too, or at least lasthit the creeps. Usually you have not to fear such high skilled Bloodseekers and therefore you could manage that alone too.





If used wisely Ezalor is a very powerful weapon in the right hands. It is harder to play him than playing pure carries or Nukers. He grants you options to ruin every heroes early game. This is the gamebreaking point. If your Allies develop moderate or good, while enemies have problems in their early game, your team will fastly become superior.
At least even a carry Ezalor is just a Supporter. Though you do not wear Mekkanism or an Ancient Jango, you still help your team, well not really help your team but you force the enemy team to retardness in level and gold, that eventually helps your team, too.

KotL-Games are usually not long, but full of action. Maybe you did not really think an Old Man needing a horse to move could really do action, but he can.

As a small summary, to remind you of things that were in this guide, you can see the Checklist below.

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Thanks to everyone who left a comment.
Thanks My_R and Sheep005 for general help and playing enemies in my pictures
Thanks to Icefrog for creating such a great Hero
Credits for Icons and Models go to DotA and Blizzard Entertainment®
Fonts of Headings are taken from 1001 Free Fonts
Models are viewed with HiveWorkshop - Model Editor
Thanks to Microsoft for creating MS Paint and MS Office Picture Manager
WxMaxima and Geogebra were used for the graphs
I also want to thank JerkCo and renrenlao for discussion and help with typos, grammar errors and stuff like that.
Last but not least:
Thank you
PlayDotA.com
for being the best community out there!


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