Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Story
3. Strengths and Weaknesses
4. The Stats
5. Epic Skills
6. Skill Build
7. Items
8. Play Style
9. The Friends and the Foes
10. Replay
11. Final Words
12. Updates

Alright, lets get started. If you want to go to any section in the Table of Contents, just search for "-[section]-".

-Introduction-

The Dragon Knight is a powerful hero that can excel during all parts of the game. Coming in the form of a tank/carry, when farmed well the Dragon Knight can be a force to be reckoned with, being able to dish out the damage and being extremely tough to kill. Not only does DK excel at all parts of the game and in carrying or tanking, but proves to be a good ganker as well.

-Story-

Abandoned and forsaken as a child, the Half-bred Dragon Davion sought refuge from the evils of the world, and from the uncontrollable power growing within himself. His search led him to the doorstep of a mighty Druid, who taught him to tap into the massive energies that lay concealed in his blood - a tribute to his ancient Draconian heritage. A master swordsman, Davion smites his foes in his raging frenzy - transforming at will into an Elder Dragon of destructive fiery rage to crush all those that threaten to vanquish his new home.

Yeah, smite them.

-Strengths and Weaknesses-


Strengths

-Excels at any part of the game
-Can take on many roles at once
-The most powerful single targetable disable in the game that is not an ultimate
-Rather epic stat growth
-Base armour rocks
-Fun name

Weaknesses

-As with nearly all strength heroes, his mana sucks
-While you rock as a dragon, you aren't really useful as a human
-Below average movespeed

-The Stats-

The Normal Stats

Strength: 19 + 2.8
Agility: 19 + 2.2
Intelligence: 15 + 1.7

The Advanced Stats

Affiliation: Neutral
Damage: 46-52
Armour: 4.7
Movespeed: 290
Attack range: 125
Attack animation: 0.5 / 0.5
Casting animation: 0 / 0.51
Base attack time: 1.7
Missile speed: Instant
Sight range: 1800 / 800

-Epic Skills-



Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Target point
Ability hotkey: F
AOE: Starts with 50, ends with 250
Distance: 500

Breathes fire at enemy units, dealing damage.

The only nuke that DK has. This skill costs more mana to use compared to others, 130 mana at max level, comparing to other skills like Shockwave. Cooldown sucks compared to other nukes as well. Although it may cost a hell lot of mana, its your only nuke, and nukes are good. The good thing about this skill is that it hits the siege units as well, so you can use this skill to wipe out siege units. Since they give more gold than the normal units, they are obviously good to wipe out. Another good point about this skill is, it comes out fast.

This spell starts with an AOE of 50, ending at 250, and it travels 500 distance. As the spell gets closer to the end point of 500 distance, the AOE increases slowly up to 250.

The cast range of this skill is actually less than 500. If you use this skill, select a target and click on it, DK will move up to the target and shoot the flames out, and the distance between DK and the target will be less than 500 range. So, if you find that you are trying to Breathe Fire on a running opponent and you just can't seem to get Breathe Fire to come out, try targeting the ground instead to try to kill him. I apologise if I explained this part badly.



Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Unit
Ability hotkey: T

Davion bashes a melee-range enemy target with the fury of a dragon's tail swipe. Stuns the target and deals minor damage.

The best level 1 stun in the game, and also the skill that scales the worst in the game. Dragon Tail is going to be DK's main disabling skill while breathing acid/fire/frost or poking them with his sword. Works very well in chain stunning as well. Get a teammate to stun a target hero and then you walk up and stun that hero some more. Overkill.

The downside of this skill is that, the range is nearly melee, a wonderful 150 range. You are gonna have to walk up to a target and then stun him, which is a bad thing. Or, it could be a good thing, because it cannot be dodged as it isn't the typical projectile stun.

The damage done while using this skill is negligible, so you are going to be looking on the epic stun time while using this skill, not the damage.

Never EVER use this skill on creeps. Like nearly all single-targetable skills, they are meant to be used on heroes. It's like using Laguna or FoD on creeps. Wasteful.



Ability type: Passive
Ability hotkey: D

Grants Dragon Knight blood from his ancient ancestral dragon heritage, which increases health regeneration and armor.

This skill upgrades your already rather good tanking capabilities even further. This permanent passive permanently gives a lot of DPS heroes problems, because +8 to armour is no joke. Furthermore, the regen is also rather helpful, especially when you want to go kill some innocent neutrals.

Unlike most other armour boosting skills, the armour bonus isn't displayed in green numbers, but added to DK's current armour rating.



Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Instant
Ability hotkey: R
Duration: 60 seconds

Transforms the Dragon Knight into a powerful elder dragon.

This skill effectively turns you from a small midget into a powerful dragon with extra capabilities. The cooldown of this skill is 115 seconds, so you should be in dragon form for half the time.

Along with extra range, some extra damage, a little boost to movespeed and turning into a really cool dragon, you get some extra benefits.

Green Dragon (Level 1): You get the skill Corrosive Breath. Works great for raping towers, and IMO its way better than the Red Dragon because every touch on the tower will bring its HP down by 100.

Red Dragon (Level 2): Not as good as the Green Dragon, but you get the Splash Attack. This can be effective if your opponents are going for fast pushes.

The splash hits for 100% in a 75 AOE, 75% in a 150 AOE and 50% in a 250 AOE.

Blue Dragon (Level 3): Epic win. Not only does the Blue Dragon retain the Splash Attack from the Red Dragon, but also gets the Frost Attack, which slows attack and move speeds of opponents. The frost effect will affect all within the 250 AOE of the target attacked. It's almost like a free EoS debuff placed on every unit that gets affected.

-Skill Build-

1. Dragon Tail
2. Breathe Fire
3. Breathe Fire
4. Dragon Blood
5. Breathe Fire
6. Elder Dragon Form
7. Breathe Fire
8. Dragon Blood
9. Dragon Blood
10. Dragon Blood
11. Dragon Tail
12. Dragon Tail
13. Dragon Tail
14. Stats
15. Elder Dragon Form
16. Elder Dragon Form
17-25. Stats

Since level 1 Dragon Tail simply owns, a point is placed into it for the epic stun duration, for killing, ganking or escaping, and since the scaling sucks, we don't level it until later. After that we max the nuke, Breathe Fire, because nukes help in lane control. I don't care how hard the lane really is, even if it's a Zeus or Tinker or whatever other epic lane controllers there are, Breathe Fire should always be maxed first over Dragon Blood. Your health and mana will come from a Bottle. Dragon Blood is then maxed next because it also is a plus to lane control and survivability. As explained, Red Dragon isn't as epic as Green Dragon, so we don't get EDF level 2 until level 15. Of course, if your opponents go for fast pushes, get level 2 EDF. As for Dragon Tail, even though the scaling sucks, maxing it would be an extra 0.75 second stun, which is obviously good.

-Items-

Items to Go For



To increase lane control, definitely, Bottle is your best friend.



Now it's changed back again. Treads is viable again now, though because of the awesome damage on Phase Boots that it might be good as well. BoT can still be considered for pushing and defending purposes. All 3 boots are viable on DK.



Your epic tanking skills allow you to stay for a long time on the field, and what better way to piss your opponents off by burning them? Since opponents will have a hard time switching you off, you work very well as a torchlight.



Plus to your armour, plus to attack speed, minus to opponent's armour. Makes you even harder to kill by normal attacks, and the attack speed and armour reduction screws opponents even faster.



The only orb you should get. Lifesteal just prolongs your life and therefore you can tank even further. You have the damage and attack speed to make it effective. Helps you kill Roshan as well.



Grants even more damage, so you can dish out even more damage, making opponents even more desperate to shut you down.



Oh yeah, burst damage. Dragon Blood counters the negative effect to some extent, and the benefits from turning it on are very good.



Now that Heart only gives outside combat regeneration, it is less viable for DK since DK's job is to draw fire and tank so really the 1% in combat would be much better than the 2% outside combat. The extra HP still helps though.



Insane armour, combined with magic resistance, the equivalent of unkillable. Especially when the opposing team can disable you continuously, you should get BKB.

Rejected items



What the hell do you want with more survivability when you are already so hard to kill? Getting this wastes a slot, delaying other more important items, and basically telling your opponents that you can't do anything but stand there and tank.



Get a BKB if you are obsessed with screwing spells up.



You waste the true strike, since it doesn't stack with frost attack. Ministun damage doesn't stack with splash as well. If you want some damage, get Buriza instead.



Turns you back into your cute human form.



I cannot recount how many DK players I have seen get Bfury for DK because they think OMG A MELEE HERO DAMMIT I MUST GET BFURY NOW BECAUSE CLEAVE IN MELEE FORM IS EPIC! You already have a splash in dragon form and you are in it for half the time, so why the hell would you want to get Bfury? To make your midget form more important than your dragon form?



Same reason with Bfury, and if you get both Bfury and Vlads for DK you ought to facepalm yourself.



You aren't supposed to be a ninja. You are supposed to tell your opponents 'ATTACK ME DAMMIT' and draw the fire away from your teammates.

-Play Style-

Choosing your lane

Although DK doesn't have the epic lane control capability of some heroes, he can take a solo decently as long as he has a bottle. And you have a need to get to level 16 fast, so soloing is good for you. Taking a dual lane might be good, especially if your lane partner is a stunner.

However, since I like to solo pretty much, the play style will be on soloing.

Early Game (1-8)

Early on, play very defensively, because reckless behaviour can screw up a DK solo very fast, even if you have a Bottle. Try not to go forward to take last hits if you know your opponents will punish you in return. Last hitting near towers will be very common, because of the defensive style that you will be playing.

When you hit level 3, your life gets a whole lot easier. Now it's worth the mana to use Breathe Fire to last hit. While using Fire, don't forget to try to catch the enemy heroes in it as well, so they get harassed and you get some money.

Your bottle will prove to be very important, because of the amount of mana you will be burning just to burn your opponents. Runewhore like hell, because it will help a lot in lane controlling.

Mid Game (8-16)

Mid Game actually starts for DK when you have taken down the mid tower, which should be rather easy because Corrosive Breath rapes towers. After taking down your tower, you should be aiming to start taking down the other tier 1 towers. After you are done with all of them, get back to base, get some lifesteal, start farming.

DK can still gank when the opportunity arises because of his epic stun, but outleveling all your opponents will give you an edge as late game approaches. By farming consistently, you should be at least one of the top few levels in the game.

Farming with Breathe Fire becomes very important. Try to get all the creeps down to about yellow HP, then use Fire to knock them all out. If possible, try to get every creep you can get in a wave, because gold is good and it helps you get items.

If you want to play the gank lifestyle, it's also a viable option, only that you can less gold and level slower. Stick to the farm option for grinding faster.

Late Game (16-25)

You start shining really brightly during late game, at least more than other parts of the game. If you did your farming well, you should be one of the most well farmed heroes in the game. It's time to stop farming, and time to go killing.

DK is a very powerful force late game, especially if your opponents aren't well farmed and leveled to be a threat to you. I tried taking on 3 heroes at once before and I actually succeeded in killing all of them. However, don't let your arrogance get the better of you. Be humble and admit that you still can get killed, and don't get raped unnecessarily by running into 5 heroes.

If you haven't killed Roshan yet, do it. However, when you die with Aegis and you are in Dragon form, you turn back in human form after revival.

End the game if you haven't yet now, because I'm sure you got bored of the game after perma farming and you want to go take a break.

-The Friends and the Foes-

Friends



Your armour goes up, up and up even further.



Can't get a BKB? He solves your weakness to magic easily.

Any other friendly disabler would also be very helpful to you, because your stun only works at melee range. Get them to use their disables first, whack a few times then you stun them and you have epic stun duration.

Foes



Your mana depletes even faster, when you already lack plenty. Rape them back later when you aren't so mana dependent.



Who cares how much armour you have? These guys can negate your armour and make short work of you.



Did you say your base armour was unnaturally high? Natural Order will screw it up.



No matter how hard you try to get his health down, he always seems to be at full HP thanks to your high HP.



You can't really get rid of these guys effectively because you can't get true strike to go through their evasion.

-Replay-

I will upload a replay soon if I can.

-Final Words-

There are many ways to play the Dragon Knight, but playing him as a carry instead of a ganker or a tank helps the team much more. If you think farming gets boring after awhile, do some ganking to make it more of a team game instead of a RPG. Have fun playing him.

-Updates-

21/9/09: I mean, updates to 6.63b.
21/9/09: Updates to 6.63. They did not nerf his epicness.