intro
Introduction
This guide is my second guide ever, so any constructive comments will not go unappreciated. This guide isn't necessarily meant to be read from beginning to end, it's more of an authoritative source for everything you need to know about Linken's Sphere (as I will often henceforth call “Linken’s” for short). I wrote this guide for players who have a good basic knowledge of the game, or who have at the very least read and understood the Learners guide. The tips in this guide are merely guidelines to help get you started. This guide is for the official DotA map, and strategies are written for 5v5 play. This guide is very image-intensive, and therefore I plan to write a text-only version of this guide for quick-reference purposes.

Please, feel free to bookmark this guide if you think you may refer to it often.

I decided to write this guide because I think the Linken's Sphere is one of the coolest strategic and situational items in the game. It's also one of the most complex items, and it can be very tough to remember how it interacts with spells and other items.

This guide is property of myself, nix. If you want to share info from my guide, you must credit this guide properly with a link included. This guide took me over 30 hours to draft because there was so much data to collect, and it takes even more time updating it for every map version. I did not base it off any pre-existing Linken's guide, because all the other ones out there are incredibly inaccurate and/or outdated.

Tips for reading this guide
Using the Ctrl+F (Find) function will help you immensely in finding what you're looking for in my guide.
Remember: if you don't see it in this guide, it has no interaction with Linken's Sphere.

(Note: In this guide, you can click on the Up-arrow Sphere (below) to return to the table of contents)
overview
Linken's Sphere overview
Linken’s Sphere is a high-tier defensive item. It is fairly expensive, but it provides good stats and regeneration. The recipe scroll is one of the most expensive in the game, and that’s because of the special ability it gives: Linken’s will block spells targeting its wielder. Once a spell is blocked, Linken’s Sphere goes into a 20-second cooldown during which it will not block any spells. As such, Linken’s is only considered for purchase very carefully.
Worry not, this guide provides the answers. Scroll down to see how each and every spell in the game interacts with Linken’s. Linken’s Sphere strategies will be discussed more in detail further down.

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list
Interactions
Welcome to the main attraction of this guide. This is the killer part where I will proceed to list every skill or ability that interacts with Linken's Sphere in some way.
When I say the skill is blocked normally and completely, it is to be understood that the skill went into cooldown having had no effect on the holder other than sending the Linken's Sphere into cooldown, nor having an effect on the caster.
I did NOT list the skills or items that have no interaction with Linken's Sphere, so if you do not see any mention of the skill it means that it will not trigger Linken's cooldown nor will it be blocked in any way.
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Remember, if you don't see it in this guide, it has no interaction with Linken's Sphere.
































































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strat
Strategy

Linken’s Sphere is a defensive item. It is one of the most situational items in the game, and by this I mean Linken’s is never going to be in anyone’s core build. The benefits of Linken’s differ greatly depending on lineups. It doesn’t counter a specific list or set of enemies, rather, it counters specific strategies.

hero
There are different types of heroes that benefit greatly from Linken’s Sphere.
-heroes that have spells that complement Linken’s
-heroes that can’t afford to be stunned or disabled
-heroes that already have some form of magic resistance or immunity
-heroes that need both survivability and mana regeneration

Some heroes that come to mind are Puck, Razor, AM, PL, Morph, QoP, Storm, Dusa etc.

Keep in mind that Linken’s is expensive, more so than Black King Bar (BKB), so this needs to be taken into consideration. It’s only worth it if you can farm easily it after your core and need a defensive item.

Some heroes can’t afford to be Purged, for example, Brood or Omniknight. Usually, Brood will get BKB in order to carry harder. However, if the carry is relying on Repel and there’s a risk of having it Purged, Linken’s will protect the Repel buff by blocking Purge.

Some heroes who can’t afford to be disabled even by a ministun (example: Sand King) usually build BKB. But sometimes, even though it’s cheaper, BKB isn’t the best option…

Example. Suppose you’re playing Crystal Maiden. Your ultimate, Freezing Field, is a big area of effect damaging and slowing channelling spell. Much of the time, your luxury item build may include BKB for magic immunity, effective against many stuns. However, lets suppose you’re facing an enemy Beastmaster, who usually saves his ultimate (which goes through BKB) to cancel your channelling. You could consider Linken’s as an alternative (or a complementary item) to BKB, especially if your opponents are lacking other single-target disables or spells that will get rid of Linken’s efficiently. This strategy would be maybe not so good against enemies that can interrupt through Linken's fairly easily (like Balanar's Void or Nessaj's Chaos Bolt) or against enemies like Vengeful Spirit, who has 2 ways of cancelling your channel.
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List of BKB-penetrating interrupts
that are BLOCKED by Linken's Sphere
build
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Linken's isn't exactly easy to farm, but it's not incredibly hard. Click here to see the components of Linken's Sphere.
The main decision you'll have to make about building Linken's is what to get first, Ultimate Orb or Perseverance. Of course, Perseverance is relatively easy to build from the side lane, and it gives better staying power. Ultimate Orb takes a larger initial investment, but it gives lots of stats which can help survivability immensely. If you're thinking of buying Linken's and you're sitting on 2100 gold, pick up Ultimate Orb first. In general, though, you usually won't be hoarding 2100 gold too early in the game, so it's often easier to go for Perseverance first.
Some heroes benefit cleanly more from one over the other.
Ex: Morph – has suvivability, but needs lane-staying power for farming – Pers first
Ex: Prophet – needs suvivability, and can farm easily – Ulti orb first


Note:
Linken's Sphere is triggered when its holder casts Phantasm or Mirror Image, making Linken's a less-than-optimal choice for Naga Siren or Chaos Knight.
Linken’s cannot be Rearmed or Refreshed, despite what the animation may show (it will show it as off cooldown in the item slot, however the Linken's "protective buff", for lack of a better term, will not be placed on the holder until after the 20s cooldown will have ended. During this time, Linken's cannot be dropped or sold.)
Obtaining two or more Linken’s Spheres is a terrible idea and never advisable, since they share cooldown, and the spell block can get seriously messed up. If ever your Linken's is acting weird, try dropping it on the ground in a safe area and picking it up. Doing so should fix most bugs.

counter

If you've been over the massive Interactions section of this guide, you'll probably have noticed that some heroes would be excellent candidates to counter Linken's Sphere. Some heroes have few or no spells that are blocked by Linken's, like Slark or Pit Lord.
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Other heroes would make good counters to Linken's Sphere by having skills that trigger the cooldown but aren't blocked, for example, Earthshaker. Some heroes that have more than one way to put Linken's on cooldown, like Lion. Medusa and Warlock fit well into both of these categories.

Another easy way to counter Linken's is to take advantage of certain passive skills:
-Last Word
-Incapacitating Bite
-Overload
-Headshot
-Unstable Current
-Craggy Exterior
-Untouchable
These are the only spell passives that trigger Linken's, however, a few item passives such as Maelstrom or ranged Crystalis can be effective at burning away Linken's.

Of course, some heroes wouldn't be very good counters, like Skeleton King, whose only active skill gets blocked.

Now, it's not like you'll be able to choose your hero after you find out that your enemy is building a Linken's Sphere. You won't know if you need to think about countering Linken's Sphere usually until your opponent already has one, so the best way to bypass or burn through Linken's is to find the hero you're using in the monstrous list above (I'll say it again, Ctrl+F is your friend) and figure out how your spells (and items!) interact with Linken's.

As of this version, there are some easily obtainable items which have spells that are good at triggering Linken's sphere.

faq
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Click on the question to be directed to the answer in the guide!

I’m against ________ heroes, is Linken’s a good option?
I’m facing a hero with a Linken’s, how do I counter it?
I am ___ hero, is Linken’s a good option?
I am ___ hero, how should I build Linken’s?
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conclusion
Conclusion
This guide has taken me dozens of hours to test, draft, upload, edit, retest, revise, reset, repeat. Needless to say, it was a lot of hard work. I lost many hours of sleep over this guide, and I ripped my hair out in frustration more than once. Somehow, though, I found inspiration continue the guide, whenever I discovered a particularly interesting interaction. I hope you'll use this as a reference to all your Linken's problems for many maps to come. I will be updating the guide a couple weeks after each major map release, so you can always count on me to keep you posted.

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you learned many interesting things, as I have. Have fun!


Credits:
Thanks to everyone who commented with helpful remarks!

Thanks to spasmodia for helping with later testing revisions.
Thanks to Dracolich's test map for helping me test some recent changes.
Special thanks to my brother Xerxes231 for putting a lot of time and effort put into testing every skill over LAN when I was too tired to operate 3 computers by myself.
Special thanks to AKBu3nY for revising the guide and proposing several changes and clarifications.

Thanks to Unforgiving for translating my guide into Chinese! Though it is not up-to-date, it can be viewed here:

There is currently a Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) translation in the works, by Yodra. You can contact him if you'd like to help out.

Written by nix
Started on Nov 10, 2009.
Drafted on Nov 18, 2009.
Published on Nov 22, 2009.
Last Revised on Jan 26, 2013.