Winning With Invoker

(Making sense of the elemental chaos)

Guide version: 2009-06-17

For DOTA version: 6.60b

(Click to go directly to the section. Click the section title to return to the TOC.)

About Invoker
Introduction to This Guide and Its Author
The Very Basics
The Basic Approach to Invoker
Single Spell Strategy
1. Spells
Strategy
Miscellaneous Strategic and Tactical Tips
1. Replays
Conclusion

About Invoker

In 6.50 Invoker made his way (back) into DOTA. He was an old hero who got taken out for being broken and incomprehensible, but got remade and put back in. I'm not going to go into Invoker's history, though. This guide is about the current version, which has been pretty stable for a few patches now. Invoker is pretty unique among DOTA heroes, largely because his skills go all the way out to level 25 and he has no stats, as well as the fact that his normal skills don't do very much. Instead, he "invokes" spells: turns his active reagents into a spell that then is added to his slots, replacing the existing (or oldest) spell. At Invoke level 2 he can have up to two spells invoked at once.

You can find some basic information about Invoker in the heroes section.

Invoker is a late-game spell spamming quasi-carry hero. Possibly the only one in all of DOTA, depending on your definitions.

By "late-game" i mean he's only really good at high levels, and especially level 17 and above. (Although with the advent of 6.60 that has changed to a degree.) He can certainly do well early on--EMP spamming can completely negate some heroes, for instance--but every level he gains increases his power significantly.

By "spell spamming" i mean that his biggest advantage over most heroes is the range of spells he has available. That manifests in two ways: that he is a "toolbox hero"(*) and also that he can cast lots of spells quickly, winning just through volume if nothing else.

By "quasi-carry" i mean that he can dominate an enemy team once he gets set up properly. Note that, unlike almost every other carry hero in the game, the strength of Invoker's carry depends primarily on the strength of his spells and not very much at all on the strength of his normal attack and straight-up DPS. His carrying status also isn't just about "owning heroes", but also about his flexibility: he's hard to kill (late game--early on a light breeze can take him out), a reasonably good push hero, good at ganking, team fights, stalling, etc. Overall, Invoker can form the backbone of your team in a way similar to lots of physical DPS heroes--but unlike most "two carry" teams, Invoker won't necessarily step on your other carry's toes.

One more thing on Invoker himself: for the sake of clarity, when i say "spell" i'm referring to actual invoked spells (ie, Deafening Blast) and not his reagents (Quas, Wex, Exort) or Invoke.

(* Note: By "toolbox hero" i mean he has a spell for every situation. Deafening Blast beats heroes with big normal attacks, Ice Wall beats magic immunity, Cold Snap is a strong single-target disable, Chaos Meteor does large aoe damage, etc.)

Introduction to This Guide and Its Author

Firstly, the target audience for this guide is people who are interested in Invoker but aren't entirely sure what to do with him. Generally speaking, you should have some idea of how he works--i'm not going to go over all the newbie questions--but those who are already experts won't find much, if anything, that's really exciting in here. My aim is to show people in a straightforward way how to use Invoker. What i'm not going to do, though, is giving a copy-and-paste item/skill build order that you will just use. I am suspicious of those in general, and in the case of Invoker that's not very helpful anyway.

I don't have fancy pictures or whatever, which i know people like. I will include a replay in a later section, which i hope will help. Invoker is a complicated hero, though, so it is difficult to compress all this information into pictures of build orders and the like. This isn't a guide for people totally new to DOTA, or those who just want "get this item and these skills" builds.

I am not, myself, some sort of elite DOTA pro either. However, i have put some time into learning Invoker and i think i have some valuable information--at least for those newer to Invoker. If you're already a high-level player i probably don't have much to say that you don't already know, but you might want to do a quick read as i think my knowledge of Invoker is fairly comprehensive.

The Very Basics

This is for those of you who have never played Invoker before, or who are just starting. There's nothing particularly clever in here, so feel free to skip it if you know approximately what you're doing. It's not too long, though.

Invoker has four "basic" skills, like most heroes, but the four basics really don't do that much. He can, however, combine those basic skills to expand his list (fourteen skills all together). The spells he gains from these combinations are what make him powerful. The four basics are the three reagents and Invoke. Invoker can have up to three reagents active at any one time, gaining passive benefits from them, and the combination of those reagents determines what spell Invoke brings up. Note that the order reagents are summoned dose not matter to Invoke. The four basic skills are:

Quas: .75 regen per level per Quas brought up. This is probably the worst effect in general, but early on it's great and it can be +15 hp/sec when maxed. Regen just isn't that good most of the time
Wex: 2% attack speed and 1% move speed per level per Wex brought up. The bonus move speed is very powerful when Wex is maxed--at full max it's +21% ms passively, which lets you hit the 400-500 range of ms without too much trouble. This actually gives a lot of heroes trouble--heroes like Clinkz will have a hard time killing you because you can just walk away from them.
Exort: +3 damage per level per Exort brought up. This is the best in static fights, and is especially powerful for early game last hitting and harassing. Combined with Invoker's excellent attack animation and range makes life difficult for many different heroes. At max it is approximately a Sacred Relic (63 bonus damage), but at later levels it loses some of its strength.
Invoke: This turns your current active reagents into a spell. Which spell you get is determined by which reagents are active. Additional levels reduce the cooldown and, at level 2 Invoke, let you have two spells up at any given time instead of only one.

Note, once again, that Invoker is unique in that he has no +stats skill. Instead, each of his reagents is a 7 level skill while Invoke is a 4 level skill. This has some implications for the late game, but until level 12-16 or so there's no real difference between him and any other hero with strong skills. One last note on the reagents is that they cost nothing to bring up (although they do stop your movement--see below) and so you should freely change them to whatever the situation requires at the moment. Manipulating your reagents is important to success with Invoker.

When you use Invoke, as mentioned, you get one of the following spells:

Quas, Quas, Quas: Cold Snap
Quas, Quas, Wex: Ghost Walk
Quas, Wex, Wex: Tornado
Quas, Quas, Exort: Ice Wall
Quas, Exort, Exort: Forge Spirits
Wex, Wex, Wex: EMP
Wex, Wex, Exort: Alacrity
Wex, Exort, Exort: Chaos Meteor
Exort, Exort, Exort: Sun Strike
Quas, Wex, Exort: Deafening Blast

You can bring this list up in-game at any time by typing "-invokelist" into the chat box. When learning Invoker you should do this often, just to make sure you're aware of your options. Eventually you'll get a feel for his spells and they will come more-or-less naturally.

At Invoke level 1 you can have one spell invoked max--a new one will replace the existing one. At Invoke level 2 through 4 (with or without Agha), however, you can have two spells. When you Invoke a new one the oldest is replaced.

One important thing to understand is that you can Invoke a new spell at any time your cooldown is up, even if your existing spell or spells are on cooldown! In other words, you can cast EMP, then Invoke Tornado (QWWR with the default hotkeys) and cast that immediately. When you hit Invoke level 4 (or get Agha) this trick becomes incredibly powerful, and indeed the backbone of Invoker's gameplay. As long as you can manage the micro requirements and think fast enough you can spam spells at a surprising rate: one every five seconds or better! Even Zeus has a hard time keeping up with Invoker's spam late game.

If you don't have much experience with Invoker yet i would advise you to try things out in a single player game (or against AI opponents) before "going live". Getting a feel for how things play out with Invoker is very important.

The Basic Approach to Invoker

Invoker has an early attack point (in other words, his actual attack comes out early in his attack animation), reasonably good projectile speed, and 600 range. This combined with Exort (or to some extent Wex) makes him great at laning. Your attack is good enough that you can quasi-orb walk with it by animation canceling, since almost all of his animation can be canceled.

Similarly, but even moreso, Invoker has a cast point of zero on all his spells. This means all his spells come out instantly, without any casting time or delay. (Many of them have long delays from the point at which they are cast to the point at which they become effective to make up for this, but not all of them.) Aside from all the great parts about having fast spells, you can also "hide" his spell casts by moving and canceling properly to make it look like you did nothing when you actually cast a spell. Getting this right takes practice and experience.

Because of his early attack point and lack of casting time, Invoker "feels" very responsive when played well. If you go Wex this is enhanced further; he can "flow" in a way few other heroes can. His speed (with Wex), responsiveness, and versatility make him difficult for many heroes to handle.

On the other hand, Invoker is very demanding to play. His spells require precise positioning, timing, and coordination with your team. Because Invoker's spells vary, and because of the way Invoke works, he also requires and rewards high APM and is not a hero you can run on "autopilot" at any stage in the game. In addition to that, because of the flexibility of his builds you must be able to make a plan and execute it after the game has already started and people have picked their heroes. (Of course, on the other hand, this means Invoker can counter heroes in unexpected ways just by modifying his skill or item build!)

Invoker is not an "I right clicked you and now you will die" type of hero. He's not a traditional carry, he's not a character who wins a lane and then throws out his ult once every two minutes but nothing else. He's not all about 1v1 (although he can 1v1), he's not about DPSing down entire teams (although his AOE is powerful), and he's not about one big spell. This is where the lack of high level Invoker players makes me somewhat sad, because there aren't many replays(*) to help you get a feel for what Invoker should be doing in the game.

Even beyond that, your allies also need to understand how Invoker works or else they will screw you (and themselves) up continuously. Some Invoker builds (primarily QW builds) are just not appropriate if your teammates are not coordinated and reliable. Some spells will not be as good as they can be unless your allies know how to take advantage of them. I can't count the number of times i've been in a game where my allies said "oh, just go Q+W because that's what all the pros do!" and then spent the rest of the game alternatively fumbling over or being noobed by Tornado.

Similarly, your allies need to realize that Invoker must not die if he wants to be powerful. Because you're a late game hero you need levels badly and, therefore, dying is worse for Invoker than it is for most heroes. Your allies must not sacrifice Invoker so they can survive, thinking Invoker is not important. Again, i can't count the number of times i've been in TDA or DCL games where people messed up their allied Invoker by treating him like he's "just another ward bitch Intel hero". In fact, i think very few people even among the top players really get Invoker. He's probably too complicated for the competitive scene in its current form, even if he is competitive when played well, and too hard for most "normal" players to master. Of course: the other side of that is that many players don't understand how to play against Invoker to the same degree as they understand playing against, say, Zeus. This gives an Invoker player a big advantage for "going rogue".

(* Note: If you have some good Invoker replays--i mean actually, objectively good replays--please, please let me know so i can include them in this guide.)

Single Spell Strategy

I'm not going to go over every detail of every spell--the dota-allstars.com Wiki (when it comes back online) has most of the details, and the heroes page for Invoker here on playdota.com is pretty good anyway. I will, however, go over some information that i think is relevant and not commonly known about the spells as well as the basic strategy for and use of each spell.

Cold Snap

Cold Snap is not a debuff, but instead a triggered effect. This means it can't be purged off and it blows through Linken's Sphere without being blocked (but it sends Linken's into cooldown). It's important to remember which Invoker spell trumps which mode of defense, as Invoker can overcome pretty much everything.

Cold Snap triggers off any damage. Yes, that means Rot (either cast it on an enemy being Rotted or an enemy Pudge to force him to turn Rot off). That means Radiance. That means Ogre Magi's Ignite. Effects which reduce HP but are not damage (Necrolyte's aura, for instance) don't trigger it though.

It's also important to note that not all DPS attacks are the same, as far as Cold Snap is concerned. Some proc once a second, some once every half second, and so on. The more often (per second) the damage procs the better the odds it will trigger a ministun. The more sources of damage (the more times the target is hit per second) the more effective Cold Snap becomes.

Cold Snap is generally useful for stopping attacks or spells, especially channeling spells. Think of being attacked by Sniper with MKB and you'll get the idea. Heroes with slow/bad attacks or spells can be stopped dead by a stream of ministuns. It's also useful as a defensive measure against enemies who charge you behind a line of your creeps or who run up to your tower or allies. Particularly guys like Stealth Assassin or Bounty Hunter, who often end up isolated but right on top of you.

~

Ghost Walk

Ghost Walk is Invoker's only real escape, and for that reason it is very important. It's awkward in a number of ways, however: it requires two reagents (Quas and Wex), it slows you down at low Wex (which is really bad since you aren't very fast to start with), the slow aura can give your presences away, it costs a ton of mana, the cooldown is enormous, and any sort of detection will defeat it.

On the mana point, compare it against the "big" level 1 ultimaets: Laguna Blade is 280, Thundergod's Wrath is 225, and so on. The most expensive level 1 ultimate is Freezing Field, at 300 mana. Ghost Walk also costs 300 mana and Invoker doesn't get a big mana aura. You're going to have to be careful if you expect to Ghost Walk early game.

Note that although the cooldown is long (60 seconds), the duration is even longer (100 seconds). If you're being really pressured hard you can, in theory, just Ghost Walk and sit on the lane. Completely giving up on last hits is bad, but sometimes the alternative might be worse.

Tne pitfall here is that Ghost Walk breaks Town Portal teleports. I'm not sure if this is intentional or if it is a bug, but it does. On the other hand: it doesn't break teleports from Boots of Travel! That's not a good reason to buy BoT all by itself, but it's worth mentioning.

Don't forget that Ghost Walk's aura does slow! At level 4 Quas, it's about as strong as Omni's Degen Aura at level 4, so you can use it to keep enemies from escaping or use it to save your allies. At higher Quas it is, of course, even stronger. Note that, since it's an aura, it also slows through magic immunity!

Finally, at max Wex you take 0% speed penalty so at that point you can stop being worried about slowing down.

~

Tornado

Tornado gives vision as it travels.

It's the only(?) Invoker spell to be really blocked by Linken's Sphere.

Ice Wall

Ice Wall goes through magic immunity.

It's hard to target, works best with shift-queueing.

Can use blink dagger (etc) to position it.

Forge Spirits

The armor reduction means they do quite a surprising amount of DPS and your target may not realize the true extent of the danger before it is too late.

Getting double Spirits early is important--the first level with double Spirits is more than twice as effective as the previous level.

Their long range and chaos damage type allow them to do quite well against towers.

Use with Cold Snap or Ice Wall to crush most opponents.

EMP

EMP is a favorite of pros (actual and self styled) and for good reason: draining up to 400 mana per cast is stronger than any direct drain, though possibly weaker than Mana Leak. During the laning phase you can keep even a dual lane of heroes completely drained of mana by spamming it. Even against smart enemies who run away any time they see you can use it to force them to back off when you want. (And if they still run up through EMP you've got a pretty good indication you're about to get ganked or at least rushed.)

An ally with a stun, or some other form of movement disable, helps a lot with EMP. Stuff like Deafening Blast, Meteor, Ice Wall, or even Cold Snap can all hold enemies in the area. Tornado deserve special mention since it's usually paired with EMP in the QW build. Note that although Tornado does make targets invulnerable when they're hit, they can still be hit by EMP since it goes after their mana and not HP directly.

EMP doesn't require line of sight to be cast, so you can be sneaky and hide it behind trees or up hills. If they can't see the pre-cast effect they won't be able to dodge it! Be careful you don't give it away by casting awkwardly, though. Note, however, that you don't get vision of the target area.

~

Alacrity

Alacrity is my least favorite of Invoker's spells. Usually it just seems like i have better things to do than buff someone's DPS. Anyway, it's pretty straightforward: cast it on some DPS hero (works best on ranged DPS)--even yourself if there's no better target--and then the target should right click. Works well with heroes like Void or Sniper.

With the advent of 6.60, Alacrity becomes better. Both because of the duration increase and because of the Agha buff. Make sure you don't forget it, even if you just throw it on yourself or one of your Forge Spirits. It helps against buildings, too.

Chaos Meteor

~~

Chaos Meteor is rather straightforward, but powerful. It deals incredible AOE damage, and if the target walks into it (or rather, runs along with it) it can easily kill all by itself. The worst thing to happen would be the target running straight at you and just ignoring the Meteor, so you'll have to take steps to ensure the target does what you awnt.

The "classic" Meteor combo is Deafening Blast plus Meteor. Not only will the knockback from Blast help keep the target in the Meteor (200 damage from Blast plus 260 damage per second for 1.75 seconds at max Quas and Exort) but also the attack prevention on Blast makes DPS style heroes want to clear out for their own good. In this way, your opponents will be forced to choose from a set of options which are all unpleasant: run at Invoker and dodge the Meteor, but get beaten down for up to 4 seconds versus run away and take huge damage versus try to dodge the Meteor and then run (possibly avoiding Meteor damage but getting caught up in something they otherwise wouldn't have).

Note that Meteor has a delay on it--exactly the same from cast point to the initial damage as Sun Strike, 1.7 seconds. This means (among other things) that if you cast them at the same time they will hit at the same time, which can be quite substantial damage. Meteor can also help clear creeps away for Sun Strike.

Other Meteor combinations include: Cold Snap, which locks the target in place due to the ongoing damage of Meteor; Ice Wall, for much the same reasons; Guinsoo's Hex or other allied disables, again for much the same reasons; Tornado gives you time to set up and wait out the spell delay; Force Staff might help push targets into Meteor, thought it seems to be a narrow application there; any permaslow hero can help keep people in the effect; and so on.

One final trick with Meteor is that it can be quite effective at discouraging chasers. While you're running you cast it in front of you (so the Meteor rolls the same direction you move) and time it so that, if your pursuers want to keep after you, it will land right on them and deal a million damage. Their options, then, are to back off or side-step it, giving you some additional space to escape.

Sun Strike

There's no real trick to this spell, but watch out for the cast delay on it. (1.7 seconds.) The general use for it is to nail runners, similar to Zeus's Thundergod's Wrath. A good Invoker can Sun Strike targets who have run into fog just by understanding where targets naturally run, what choke points they're likely to run through, and how fast they run. Be careful, though, as if you wait too long the enemy will probably juke it randomly--possibly without even meaning to! You can also kill weak heroes who are chasing your allies down, possibly saving their lives. Pay attention, and have your allies let you know when there's a target available. (They have to give you enough time to go to the target--pinging helps--and watch the movement and cast, though, so this is one of those cases where your allies can let you down.)

On the other hand, killing runners is actually not the ideal use of this spell. A better way to use it is to harass targets in other lanes (or your own lane, even!) to soften them up for real attacks and to cast when the enemy in question is being attacked and is locked down. If you cast it at the start of a Storm Bolt or Magic Missile stun, for instance, the delay will end at around the same time as the stun, making a hit guaranteed. Enemies who are permaslowed (or just slowed for more than 1.7 seconds) are also much more vulnerable to Sun Strike than most, and they're usually running away from your allies so their movement is predictable. If your team is coordinated, your allies should give you warning that they're going to attack just as if you were in the lane or ganking with them. In fact, if your allies expect a Sun Strike it's their job, and not yours, to give you warning. If you see the shot and take it without warning that's good too, but Invoker tends to have to focus on his own lane pretty heavily...

Your own spells can help you land Sun strike, too. Tornado is a good one, although it requires Q and W while Sun Strike requires E. (Don't forget this if you hit level 25 though!)

Other heroes with global attacks (in other words, Zeus and Spectre) can help you land Sun Strike by giving you vision of targets and potentially slowing an enemy. Just be careful the target in question doesn't randomly juke Sun Strike after they're TGod's Wrathed--that's what smart enemies do. Similarly, since Sun Strike gives vision of the area, you can sometimes tell how much HP the target has after a Sun Strike so Zeus or Spectre can use their ults to finish the kill.

One final thing is that you shouldn't underestimate Sun Strike's damage potential. 425 is a lot--more than Thundergod's Wrath levels 1 or 2.

~

Deafening Blast

Deafening Blast mostly goes through Linken's Sphere. The damage is blocked, but the knockback and no-attack still take effect. It also sends Linken's into cooldown.

Deafening Blast's attack prevention actually changes the hero AI of targets to something approximating what creeps do when they're hit by a target they can't hit back. The default action is to run from any damage, though micromanagement can counter this effect. Just be aware that this can mess up enemies--particularly inexperienced ones.

Since Deafening Blast requires all three reagents it is the most powerful spell, and keeps growing in power until level 25. The flip side, of course, is that you can't rely on it as much early in the game. That makes a Deafening Blast focused Invoker somewhat unworkable.

When you

Strategy (Skill Builds)

Invoker is sort of three heroes in one, depending on your skill build. The three basic styles are:

Q+E, largely Forge Spirit with support spells. Ice Wall, Cold Snap, and Sun Strike.
Q+W, Tornado plus EMP.
W+E, largely Chaos Meteor. This one is sometimes mostly focused on Exort and not so much at all on Wex.

The build you pick depends somewhat on which heroes everyone else in the game picks and what your team's plan is. (And what the other team's plan is, ideally... if you can figure it out...) These days it seems like the Q+E and Q+W builds are the favorite, with the Meteor build largely ignored.

Strategy (Items)

Despite his reliance on spells, Invoker is actually kind of item dependent too. Early on this is not a big deal, but at later levels his lack of Stats start making his HP and mana pool look a bit weak. In addition to that, what with all the spamming he does, he can burn through even a fairly good-sized mana pool quite quickly.

Strategy (Friends and Enemies)

Miscellaneous Strategic and Tactical Tips

One thing to be aware of is how to most effectively invoke new spells. Summoning three reagents, Invoking, and then casting in the heat of the moment is an error-prone process--best to not do that unless you are forced to. Usually, though, you have alternatives.

The most basic (and easiest) option is to bring up your reagents after using Invoke. In other words, Invoke a spell (say Forge Spirits) and then bring up QQQ so that, when Invoke's cooldown is up, you can immediately Invoke Cold Snap. This saves time, but the problem here is that you might end up in a situation where the spell you had lined up was not the spell you wanted when Invoke's cooldown was done.

The next trick to use is to use command queueing (aka "shift click") to bring get things right. This is sometimes more reliable than trying to bring up reagents by clicking normally--if you are stunned and need to cast some spell (say Deafening Blast) as soon as you become un-stunned it's difficult to tell when, precisely, you become un-stunned and (subsequently) which exact reagents you have up. Or another, common, situation is that you're running away from an enemy and need to Invoke a certain spell or simply need to bring up triple Wex to increase your movespeed. In this case, you can click on a location, then hold shift and click your reagents (say Wex, Wex, Wex), then click wherever you want to move to and release shift. Done properly you will change reagents "instantly" and continue on your way. This same approach can be used to cast spells without stopping.

The final trick is to use macros to set up specific spells and combinations of reagents. This is most useful for Ghost Walk, since that tends to be your all-purpose "panic button" as an Invoker. In my case, one of the buttons of my mouse is set up to macro QQWRWW (that is: bring up QQW for Ghost Walk, Invoke Ghost Walk, then bring up two more Wexes for full move speed) so that i can do that instantly. (I would have set it up to cast Ghost Walk as well, but for mechanical reasons that doesn't quite work.) This is just about foolproof, so (particularly for Ghost Walk) it can make a big difference in whether you get out of some tight situation alive or not.

Replays!

Although i only have one now, eventually i hope to have several. (Actually i haven't finished the one yet--expect an overview of some spells as well as a demonstration of the power of Agha and Invoke 4.)

Also: this replay.