General Discussion

General DiscussionArc Warden

Arc Warden in General Discussion
Kr[o]ck

    Hi everyone, ive recently discovered a love for arc warden and am wondering what people tend to build on him. I find myself favouring : midas, travels mjnolnier pike linkens silver edge daedulus. But ive built bkb instead of linkens and butterfly instead of silver edge and skadi instead of crits. Any advice is much appreciated. Thank you!

    casual gamer

      u have a vast love for passive items

      Kr[o]ck

        Okay but is that correct on this hero? Can u give me advice as to what i should buy instead?
        I know my mmr is bad but ive had success when playing him like this.
        Solo carrying the team success.

        casual gamer

          on phone rn, when i get to my computer i will write a nerd essay for you

          ill explain why i like what i like, but keep in mind ur aptitude with active items is going to be different from mine, just like mine is different from cookie’s and his is different from some 8k mmr player who picks arc every game

          Kr[o]ck

            Thanks man! Thats really kind. Its not that i hate active items (or cannot use them) either, i just like the progression of these items.

            casual gamer

              so

              this is the account where i played arc warden https://www.dotabuff.com/players/215678138

              mj you need basically every game, I won't even bother talking about it. remember to cast double shield because it's easily hundreds of aoe damage

              my personal progression is almost always mj shadow blade orchid then either thorn nullifier or hex, then thorn if i chose one of the other two

              shadow blade versus pike is imo partially opinion. certain heroes like sven or ursa pike is very effective against. Shadow blade has much more pick potential and damage, but far less repositioning and you lose attack range. I usually upgrade to SE late, I would probably only upgrade early in very rare games that involve playing against pa-type heroes and also being rushed into fights while relatively poor

              the reason i almost always go sb thorn hex/null is very simple, I use the clone to solo kill people with actives. An isolated target can do literally nothing to you while muted and silenced, and these items give you massive stat bonuses (damage, ias, some armor) that ensure you can burst most heroes down. You can invis your clone while tping it to a lane, it never shows on the minimap and can immediately walk into the jungle and look for victims

              Killing heroes increases map control, map control lets you leverage your insane farm and split potential. Thorn is just as effective against rosh as it is against heroes. In fights having double silence is huge, and null can purge a surprising amount of buffs. It's a lot harder to get close to people with invis in teamfights, but not impossible.

              I'm more inclined to go hex in a couple circumstances. The primary one is I'm playing against a mobility hero who has purges that I can't sneak up on. Sometimes this is game dependant, too.

              Hex has a couple huge advantages over null. Hex has huge range, hex has no projectile, hex disarms heroes, and hex lasts 1.5 seconds longer. Hex vs null slow is situational, but null slow has higher potential. Null has lower cd

              So if you can't get near a hero like storm in time, hex is more likely to enable a kill that null. If you don't need additional damage at all (hey ur pa has deso bash at 16 minutes), hex is strictly better than null nearly always. Certain heroes can respond to null+thorn by clicking you, sven with ult on is a good example

              So lemme go over why I don't buy the items you do in most games

              Linkens is fine against certain heroes, but where it sucks is that the stats are simply awful. Regen is ok but not particularly useful, and 15 stats with 0 damage is pretty bad. It's a 5k gold item with strictly defensive uses, and even with the ability to have 2x block on your main is not exceptional

              Daedalus is not something i usually buy, because bloodthorn fulfills a very similar role while giving me more utility. The biggest advantage daedalus has is that it damages through magic immunity, but I almost always want hex or nullifier anyway, so it doesn't really matter to me. If you know someone is going to preemptively bkb to hit buildings or you are playing against lotus/repel, daedalus is probably more attractive

              Butterfly would be a great item, except for one problem. Since you have 100% evasion from a skill, enemies are much more likely to build truestrike. Once enemies have truestrike, bfly is basically just a dps item that raises your armor from 5 to 10. If I want EHP as a last item, I'm more likely to buy satanic or AC. A lot of people buy shivas I guess, but I don't personally.

              Skadi is another EHP item, it has a small niche in slowing through bkb but is basically bought to give raw stats and a 700 hp buffer. I don't buy it very often

              The reason I avoid EHP items is because I build hex thorn type stuff. Since I have so much disable, I try to preserve myself by preemptively disabling or killing the heroes most likely to kill me. Damage items are also more useful on your clone than hp, since it is alive for a very limited amount of time and you really want to make it count. AW also has a huge uphill battle to fight on becoming tanky, because unless you buy shivas AC and butter all in one build, your armor is going to be super duper shit

              BKB is good imo. I build bkb for 2 reasons, but theyre basically the same. If I have to commit to attacking something, and I'm playing against disablers, BKB is potentially valuable. Normally, I would want to just disable them first but this is very unrealistic against a couple of heroes. If you know your team cannot win fights, you can use bkb to kill rax. If you have to commit to killing a specific enemy, BKB can let you avoid disables while your enemy is still silenced and hexed. The downside to bkb is that the stats are remarkably shitty, even worse than linkens. Buying bkb early also reduces its value later on, as it loses duration

              Main points on playing the hero:

              Make sure you aren't using clone at times where it fucks your midas timing up, unless you will receive something of equal or greater value

              Pay attention to the clone's midas

              Make sure you aren't forgetting to bubble ur teammates, especially against heroes like clinkz and drow bubble is a huge game changer

              position ur allied tower bubbles so that it's touching as little of the tower as possible

              use mj active to push creepwaves that your clone cant

              split ur debuffs up, but make sure you can kill ur primary target

              be very wary of physical burst. slardar ls, pa, sven etc will kill you VERY fast so you should be spending a lot of fights with ur main hero in fog

              make sure you aren't being too lazy with ur micro, ppl tend to randomly flame me in allchat (enemies, while losing too. strange) but i usually win so w/e

              overview of the difference in how we play:

              u play a tankier AW with way less burst and disables, you also take both positioning items where i usually only get 1

              I try to focus on bursting people and quickly pushing lanes/towers, but have to be very careful about not getting jumped at all

              DC.MASON

                i once built six active items
                i lost

                DC.MASON

                  also i think that midas>bot>shadow blade has potential at least in high 4k average but it would be helpful if arc wasn't a dogshit hero he is right now

                  Feachairu

                    i thank you for the information blue person

                    Kr[o]ck

                      This guy, your knowledge is incredible id love to pick your brains about other things too seems like i would really learn a lot and the account u have linked shows heroes i play a lot too. So any advice is appreciated! But thanks so much for the AW tips!

                      casual gamer

                        thanks, no problem

                        if you have any questions you should probably look to whoever is playing the hero at high mmr now, the hero hasn't changed very much but I'm slightly outdated on general stuff

                        Shou

                          ur knowledge is I N C R E D I B L E
                          the only thing i have to say is pike is way more defensive and sb is much more offensive and abt map control, since supports and squishy targets cant go alone for fear of dying to a random invis arc clone

                          Kr[o]ck

                            Do you have any advice as to the best team to pair with arc warden? Would be super helpful!

                            casual gamer

                              If i had DB+ i could literally tell you which heroes have what % winrate with me as arc

                              In general, you want disables and frontliners. Ideally you have a carry who can use bubble to man up on buildings and heroes. You want to play against ranged heroes because bubble is more useful

                              I have a lot more information on what not to play against than what to play with, AW is fairly team-independent as long as you execute correctly

                              Drow's really good, I remember that. Very easy way to crush games is drow+AW+ a deathball offlaner like omni

                              Kr[o]ck

                                Ill keep that in mind! I think you personally tend to run him mid far more than safelane right? So what do u hate playing against

                                casual gamer

                                  The worst is stuff like LC, PL. Physical damage, harass, completely unaffected by flux. If you can't kill the enemy mid, you have trouble getting ahead. A hero like LC or PL has a very easy time crushing arc on cs and is pretty hard to harass out of lane. Meepo can be pretty horrendous too

                                  I used to pick bloodseeker against AW mid. At the time, bs was a very powerful hero. I could easily stand in the creeps and tank, and dumb arcs would quickly die to thirst due to a combination of terrible movespeed and armor

                                  In terms of general matchups, the worst is chaos knight probably. Huge physical damage, high range abilities, buys blink, -armor, and he can pull you out of bubble. He has a nasty stun, too. Stuff like sven, pa, any kind of high physical damage hero who ideally also has disable. Melee is worse than range because melee heroes have an easier time getting inside your bubble, but clinkz can be pretty bad as well if he gets the jump and you don't have an item to deal with it

                                  Slardar in particular used to be a pain in the ass. He very commonly buys invis + blink, bkb etc. He has a shitton of minus armor and most importantly provides truesight vision of you for a long time just by amping you. Slardar LS in particular is a combo you will struggle against if they know what they're doing, although thank god it's not as popular as it used to be. I remember one game where I got amped and nearly died to Vendetta damage, you really are incredibly vulnerable against physical damage

                                  Kr[o]ck

                                    Thanks man# is there any other hero you would recommend? That is kinda similar to arc in the way he can just take over a game? I tend to play PL atm but im looking to expand my pool more#

                                    Totentanz to The King: M ...

                                      Wow, actually helpful advice in dotabuff

                                      casual gamer

                                        On the carry side - TB and Luna i used to play a lot of. For mids I tend to play tinker more than anything else, but TA I also used to play

                                        The thing is, a ton of core heros can take over the game if they're given the opportunity. These four have some similar attributes to arc warden, though. Generally a high potential for split pushing, the ability to farm quickly, and good scaling. TA and tinker have decent kill potential, and Luna has a pretty huge ability to turn small fights into crushing victories from 8-11 minutes.

                                        You might on average get a higher gpm out of AW, but TA can easily push 800+ GPM, and tb is actually probably even more potentially ridiculous although they nerf the jungle every patch

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                                        Kr[o]ck

                                          I am so glad you commented on my post! This is amazing. Thank you once again. Ill try and put your knowlege to good use as soon as my parents unban me from dota 😂

                                          Soggy Coochie Enthusiast

                                            What are your item timings? And if picking up bkb, what items should you have already in your inventory ideally?

                                            casual gamer

                                              my item timings are here https://www.dotabuff.com/players/215678138/matches?hero=arc-warden&enhance=overview

                                              you need damage before you buy bkb, otherwise it's useless. What specific items you need is going to vary on what heroes you are against and what you need to accomplish. I can imagine some ridiculous game where your build ends up being travels mael mom deso bkb, but usually you're going to want some kind of item that ensures you're actually killing people with your bkb charge

                                              that being said I very rarely go bkb, and when I do it's usually the last thing I buy before backpack octarine core as a slot-friendly power boost. I'm a very greedy player so if I'm looking for more "impact" out of desperation I'm more likely to go for damage than magic immunity

                                              Soggy Coochie Enthusiast

                                                What are your opinions on diffusal blade? Is it still any viable as some sort of early poor man's hex

                                                casual gamer

                                                  On my phone now. The old diffusal blade had a much lower cd, purged, and gave you more damage. IMO the new one isn’t worth buying in nearly all scenarios, but I haven’t had a ton of experience testing it

                                                  I always thought of diffusal as more of a cheap damage item with utility than a hex-substitute. I used to buy it when I wanted fast damage against heroes like sven and clinkz that have insanely good purgeable buffs, or medusa types that are crippled by manaburn

                                                  Shou

                                                    aw in 2018 LUL
                                                    ye the hero has barely 5-6 armor at lvl 25 with no items and he is an agi hero ROFL

                                                    Melt

                                                      holy crap somebody just wrote a book and posted in it a shitty forum

                                                      Jacked

                                                        What a Long nerdy essay that's completely wrong. I suggest not listening to this guy. No necro book suggestion at all.

                                                        Shou

                                                          ^haHAA good one

                                                          Yoss

                                                            this hero already dead.

                                                            bojji-sama

                                                              Pardon me but hex is shorter in duration for 1.5s instead (5s vs 3.5s) and hex set the target ms to 150

                                                              Feachairu

                                                                necrobook arc sucks alot after the change cooldown is actually there for the double,before it was real good imo
                                                                at the rapier era
                                                                now its amazingly long on cd and just give your enemy like 800gold per cast

                                                                i'm actually still wondering when you can buy nullfiier for the "dispel" thing,what the heck is a buff worthy enough to be dispelled by null?

                                                                casual gamer

                                                                  Pardon me but hex is shorter in duration for 1.5s instead (5s vs 3.5s) and hex set the target ms to 150

                                                                  yeah this is right idk why i had it backwards

                                                                  hex slow is still potentially weaker than null slow if theres creeps/birds hitting then or you stagger ur clones attacks

                                                                  Toudou Kirin

                                                                    i'm actually still wondering when you can buy nullfiier for the "dispel" thing,what the heck is a buff worthy enough to be dispelled by null?

                                                                    there is like rabid (lone druid), embers flame guard, close to every oracle spell (except the ultimate), chen's send back is important to purge.

                                                                    And there is stuff liek sven's warcry and dark seer's surge who can be annoying (because aw is really slow)

                                                                    casual gamer

                                                                      warcry alacrity mom buff euls windrun

                                                                      Player 404335202

                                                                        JDF8 is that you ?

                                                                        chicken spook,,,,

                                                                          ^lmao

                                                                          casual gamer

                                                                            yes