Blademail++

Amazing guide, but can u make a steam version that could be subscribed and used in game?

Changes for 6.87

+ Blademail now pierces spell immunity
+ Spell dmg now increases with int (~+20% dmg late game)
- Octarine core gives no health regen and 50% less mana regen

Overall, this build looks a lot stronger. I stopped playing it in 6.87 because the core is extremely expensive, but I'll give it another shot now.

Aghanim's Scepter on Sven is extremely strong if you have the right allies.
They need to build a lot of stats or have a lot of basic damage.
Think of Terrorblade, Tiny or maybe even Meepo. Using it with those guys makes it extremely strong but you need some coordination to pull that off.

Glad to see that you like both of them!

Recently I've been experimenting with a damage-aura-spamming Vengeful Spirit. It hasn't been working out too well, but I might come up with something along those lines. Maybe Aghs Sven would be a better choice...?

Hey InfuriatedBrute you seem to become very active here which is nice because both of your guides are quite interesting. You get a +1 from me. Already excited for the next idea!

On Leshrac, probably not. Blowing 5000 gold and 300 mana just so you can double your spikiness duration once every 300 seconds doesn't sound that great to me. In reality you're probably better off just halving your spikiness by casting them not at the same time in order to gain permanent duration. Having both items on at the same time sounds really really good on paper, but it leaves you about as kitable as you would be with a normal blademail build, and in-game people abuse that to no end. So it's not my preferred strategy and I can't recommend a build that only works if you use it.

On other heroes who have long-cooldown spells, definitely. In fact, that might end up making this build viable on those heroes. Thanks for pointing that out.

Well, you definitely bring up some of the best heroes to use this build on. But I still think that it's only good as core on Leshrac. It's definitely a good situational combo on some of those heroes though. Keep in mind that I don't play as or against these heroes very often, especially death prophet.

Sand King seems good for this build, since he does magic damage and all, but in reality he does absolutely nothing after the first few seconds of a fight, since all his spells go on cooldown. At that point I think a better solution would be to just buy a Force Staff and gtfo. (And seriously, who gets this kind of money on Sand King? I always feed with him, lol)

Razor sounds like the perfect candidate, except that he scales with other items too well. A Sange and Yasha + Black King Bar razor, or a Aghanim's Scepter + Refresher Orb razor would do so much more than a Octarine Core + Blade Mail razor. Plus, since one if his skills is auto-attack oriented, lotus orb is worse than a BKB on him; he mainly wants to avoid getting stunned, not stun the enemy.

Necrophos has longer range but less impact at close range compared to leshrac (his w and r are long-range and his q can heal nearby allies). Since this is a tank build which specializes in getting you in close safely, much of its power is lost on him. It's similar to taking a Heart of Tarrasque on Sniper; if the enemy gets close enough to deal that much damage to you, you've already lost. It's not as bad as heart sniper, though, don't get me wrong. A better build that increases his effectiveness at long-range is Mekansm + Aghanim's Scepter, I think.

Death Prophet's not bad for the build. But just like Necrophos she's relatively long-range, so I don't see the point in taking her with it instead of Leshrac. Plus, octarine core's lifesteal is pretty much wasted while her ult is on cooldown, and it has a 145 second cooldown. But then, I never liked death.


TL;DR: Leshrac is the only magic DPS-er who only works close range, so he's the best with it imo.


I don't really have early-game mana issues with leshrac. If you only have Diabolic Edict and Split Earth levelled, you should only be casting spells when either a) you are in a fight outside of lane or b) you are pushing a tower without any creeps nearby. Both are rare enough that you can get by with just Arcane Boots' active and starting Clarity(s) until you need to go back to base because of low health anyhow.

Yes, Lesh is a little squishy early game, but I think trading 150 health for the Blade Mail active makes you more tanky. And that's essentially what you're doing in terms of defense if you math out what 2200g spent on octarine core gives you.

Not levelling Lightning Storm until level 17 is a huge mistake. A 200-damage nuke isn't worth 120 mana in the early game, but in the late game you have more than enough mana for everything except your ult. Attribute Bonus gives you about 40 health and 40 mana, which is nice and all, but I would usually trade 40 health and 40 mana for a 50-damage nuke that affects multiple targets, as well as a short slow. However, if account for Lightning Storm's cast time, perhaps it would actually be better to auto-attack in a teamfight than it would be to cast lightning Storm. If that was the case, the 40 mana and health from attribute bonus would definitely be better. So you might have a pretty good point here, I'll look into it and do some math.


Thanks for replying. You raised some interesting points.

I used to build blademail on him after bloodstone in the pre-nectarine patches. Was fairly successful. +1

is a refresher orb something worth considering? if only for when you want to pop both blade mail and lotus orb at the same time so when they wear off you can use them again if you deem it absolutely necessary?

Funny thing is, the key component of this build is one I used fairly often a while back on Sand King after dagger (though not so much anymore, I've been using Linkens more lately to make him into a pseudo storm spirit), and still use fairly often on Razor, where it makes him a lot tankier. Necrophos is also very viable with this build as well.

Leshrac seems a little fragile to use Blade Mail as his main item, but I've been experimenting with him, to see how to use him post-Bloodstone nerfs. The Death Prophet build of Euls-Octarine seems pretty decent, it gives him almost enough mana, Blade Mail might be a viable late game item on it. When you go blademail into Octarine, do you have enough mana to cast your spells still? Also, have you tried completely skipping lightning until level 17, since it's rather weak now?

Definitely a unique build! I think it has some great merit, especially since Lesh is in a weird place now. +1!

I agree with you, but I still stand by my choices in the guide.

Blademail might not gives as much health, but the active can win you so much, and the damage means you never miss a last-hit.

Lotus Orb doesn't help against earthshaker, but it helps against nearly every other hero. It's rare to see a team that it doesn't counter. And its synergy with the rest of the core is just way too good to pass up against teams it at least sort-of counters. But yeah, if there was a team that it didn't counter at all, you shouldn't buy it; but that's so rare I felt like it wasn't worth mentioning.

EDIT: Actually, I'll put a sentence mentioning it. Thanks for pointing that out.