Warrior of a Heretic Order

Current Version (6.74c) Update

Disclaimer

The main body of this guide were written for DotA v6.72f. Since then there has been some major buff on Sven's skillset. This section will cover some strategy changes.

Balance Changes

[+] Great Cleave increased from 20/30/40/50% to 30/40/50/60%.
[+] God's Strength is no longer purgeable.
[+] God's Strength damage buff increased from 100/125/150% to 100/140/180%.
[+] Warcry duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds.
[+] Warcry cast time removed.

It is quite obvious that IceFrog's intention is to make Sven a better damage dealer during team fights, hence the unpurgable and damage-enhanced God's Strength, and larger cleave damage. Even better, Warcry has been buffed to actually become a viable early skill, no cast animation, 8 seconds duration.

New Items

Tranquil boots is very good on early-game roaming Sven. Get this with a Soul ring and you solve all your health and mana problems, with a nice plus of superior movement speed and armor. Highly suggested if you play ganker Sven.

Heaven's Halberd, the 25% evasion plus disarm is good for Carry-style Sven.

(Update) Alt-Tab Mini Guide

Alt-Tab Mini Guide

Sven's Story

Sven's father is a human paladine and his mother an elf priestress. Sven is born a knight from his father, but ostracized since birth because of the heretic faith of his mother.

Introduction
Sven is a melee strength hero with good ganking capability early on and outstanding farming skills at mid game. He can also semi-carry at late game if farmed up.

Pros:
[+] One of the best non-ulti ranged AOE stuns.
[+] Good farming skills, good attack animation too.
[+] Good DPS without too much items.

Cons:
[-] Mana problems.
[-] His Ulti is countered by purge.
[-] Mediocre stats gain, below average movement speed.

Stats at level 25
Base damage 118-120+20

Str 87+20
Agi 69+20
Int 45+20

Armor 9+2.8

Life 2183
Mana 845

Move Speed 295
Range 128 (melee)
BAT 1.7
Attack Animation 0.4/0.3

Link to the Sven's Hero page

Skills

Storm Bolt

A ranged AOE stun that auto-tracks the target. Gives 325 magical damage and 2 second stun at level 4, with a 600 casting range.

Your bread and butter skill, this is what makes Sven a viable pick in competitive games. Lets take a quick look at other heroes' non-ulti ranged stuns:

Vengeful spirit's

Magic Missile is single targeted, deals the same 325 damge but only stuns for 1.75 second, and only 500 range.

Leoric's

Hellfire Blast is single targeted, deals 300 damage, stuns 2 second, slows 2 second and 525 range.

Nessaj's

Chaos Bolt is single targeted, deals 188 damge on average, stuns 2.5 sec on average and 500 range.

Clearly Sven's stun has a good combination of damage and range, the 2 second duration is on-par with others but most important of all Storm Bolt is an AOE effect!

Note:
Althought it looks like an area based effect, the Storm Bolt is actually target-based, so once it is cast it will track the central target even if he/she Blink or Juke. However it can still be dodged by model replacement based skills (Manta for instance).

Skill Build

Level 1 - Storm Bolt
Level 2 - Stats
Level 3 - Storm Bolt
Level 4 - Warcry / Stats
Level 5 - Storm Bolt
Level 6 - God's Strength
Level 7 - Storm Bolt
Level 8 - Stats
Level 9 - Stats
Level 10 - Stats
Level 11 - God's Strength
Level 12 - Cleave / Warcry
Level 13 - Cleave / Warcry
Level 14 - Cleave / Warcry
Level 15 - Cleave / Warcry / Stats
Level 16 - God's Strength
Level 17+ - Whatever is left

Justification:
This is the most common Sven build, storm bolt is maxed ASAP for obvious reason, and stats is get early to give more mana / ganking power.

Item Build

Always remember that skill and item builds are fluid, and this is especially true for the item build. I'll list some good item choices below but don't restrict your choices too much by this guide. Use your imagination and instincts.

Starting Item Choice

Some combination of these. If you play carry style Sven, get the Quelling blade, otherwise you shouldn't get it at the start.

Low Level Item Choice

Usually the Bracers are so good it is a sin to not get them. A boot is a must and everything else is situational.

Core Item Set

Armlet is the best DPS/Survival item you can get for Sven, and it has a very fluent build up. Under level 3 god's strength, it gives you 102.5 damage, 25 ias, INVALUABLE instant 475 life boost and 5 armor at the cost of 37hp/Sec. Switching armlet OFF and ON (5 sec cooldown! better than blink) saved me numerous times when I am being chase / ganked.

Power Tread is the boot for Sven. With God's Strength that 8 strength is pumped up to 20 damage. Sven also desperately needs the 25 attack speed.
Phase boots are for emo kids. Real men like Sven needs raw stats.

The Magic wand somehow solves your mana problems. Alternatively you can rely on the Bottle or Soul ring but personally I think wand is enough. Also wand provides stats boost.

Always carry a town portal, you are one of the better base defenders with your huge cleave damage.

Luxury Item Choice

Basically anything that can provide good strength boost is worth considering on Sven.

Blink Dagger deserves a special mentioning here. If the game is going on your side, you can get it as your first luxury after Armlet. However if you were forced to be on the defense side and can't freely roam/gank then you may skip this. It as situational (albeit strong) item rather than absolute core.

Heart of Tarrasque is a significant HP/Damage boost on sven for rather cheap 5500 gold, I recommend to get it as soon as you can afford it.

Battlefury, in contrast with common (mis)beliefs, is actually a viable Luxury item for Sven. If you plan to get it, get it early (right after PT/Armlet for example). The mana regen is very helpful, the life regen is nice, the damage boost is huge (BFury is actually one of the best damage/gold items in the game) the cleave stacks with your passive so you have a wopping 85% 200 AOE cleave damage, which is comparable with Dragon knight's elder dragon form.

Of all the orbs I recommend Satanic (life steal), because of the 25 strength in the built-up.

Endgame Full Set

With this build you have 4345 hit points, 67% physical damage reduction after Warcry, and crit for 2000 damage without resorting to any Divine Rapiers, can instant kill the enemy team if landing an excellent Storm bolt. However if the enemy team has strong disablers/silence/purge you should swap the BFury for a BKB.

Sven's Killing Routine

After Seeing enemies: Activate Armlet.
Cast God's strength.
(optionally) Use MOC on someone if you have it.
(optionally) Warcry.
(optionally) Activate BKB.
Initiate with Storm Bolt, try to AOE stun as many as possible.
Attack the enemy, position yourself so that the rest are in your cleave AOE. Blink to the best position if you can.
If they run away with fragment of HP and there are enemy creeps blocking your path, attack the creep so that the cleave will reach the fleeing heroes.
Don't forget to deactivate Armlet when it is safe.