Linkens Manta on a Medusa

I just watched two games of F5 vs Escape Gaming (No Diggity) where Illidan (on F5), playing a Medusa went defensive builds with linkens/manta the first game and manta/skadi the next game. They lost both games, and I strongly feel that it had a lot to do with Illidan's item choices.

In the first game, he went linkens as a first core item against a team with Slardar/Lone Druid/Timbersaw/Io/Undying.. I'm not sure what his reasoning was.. Slardar's amp damage is the only meaningful ability that it would help against, and that is on a 5 second cooldown compared to linken's 20 second cd.. If anything that alone should be a deterrent against a linkens even if they had a strong targeted lockdown..

On top of this, he went Manta in two games against lineups with absolutely no silences whatsoever, or nothing else that needed to be dispelled.

Wouldn't a far better item build be going phase aquila into either Yasha/Mask of Madness for farm speed and rush the skadi, followed by MKB or rapier or even a daedalus for damage? F5 lost almost all of their teamfights simply because the dusa did no damage for most of the game.

I think dota item builds have evolved quite a bit since the old days of vanguard AM (before the changes to the item, by the way). This was probably the period when linkens manta was core on dusa. Nowadays, with the early aggression playstyle, wouldn't it be better just rushing a skadi (much like a slark) and a damage item to follow that up?

I agree. Personally I go Linken's for the stats and the regen and not the active, but as you say, even items like Silver Edge could be nice.

I go BoTs, aquila, wand, yasha -> ultimate orb as starter pack everytime. Then I have some time to decide if I want either skadi, manta or linkens...

Some pros are stuck in outdated builds, no idea why. And they lose games over them.

I think that what people don't understand is that back in the days, Linkens was only bought on Dusa so that they could AFK farm and push out lanes for 40 minutes without getting caught out. That's the only point of this item on the hero : have the active to block initiations and use ulti to escape. But in a teamfight this is pretty much useless : Dusa has already one of the highest effective HPs in the game if not the highest. So it's pretty much impossible to burst down the enemy Dusa before she can ult. Focusing a Dusa at the beginning of a teamfight is about as smart as focusing an Abaddon. The only thing that will happen is that she'll get away with half HP while her team is kicking your ***. And then she ults and turns on you.

Linkens Dusa only made sense in ultra-slow metas where dota was just about AFK farming for an hour and there was nothing going on. In a game like that it allowed her to split push all game while farming. But this hasn't been the case for like 3 years. Even metas like 6.83 weren't about AFK farming like that, they were about constant attrition that dragged into late game. Hell, this hasn't been the case since I was playing dota 1 and everyone was a scrub :)

Want another reason why Linkens/Manta dusa is outdated as hell?



This item.

If you're playing against those lousy linkens/manta Dusas that don't go BKB, buy halberd win game. And if they do go BKB after their silly build, they deal no damage so...buy halberd win game as well.

This wasn't the case back when manta purged halberd.

Gotta evolve with the game :)

Linkens is, like every item in the game, situational. But Medusa is 100% a BKB hero. Having a 10 second BKB on a hard carry going into the lategame is a really scary prospect. MoM > Yasha > Skadi > damage and situationals > BKB every day.

The Manta Style, though, is completely legit. Illusions fully benefit from Split Shot, so they'll still be doing a ton of area damage. Single-target is sadly as weak as usual.

Fnatic vs WG.Unity.. Another medusa that goes linkens manta.. hits like a kitten throughout the game.. forced to go rapier later on for damage, gets kicked by an earth spirit into the enemy fountain.. loses game..

I wouldn't even say that. I'm actually genuinely curious : name a lineup against which it's a good idea to go linkens on Dusa.

The thing is, the stuff that you usually buy Linkens against, like Duel or Doom, Dusa doesn't care about in the first place. You can buy it to block Primal Roar, but Beastmaster is a natural Heaven's Halberd carrier so he can mess with you super bad even if you buy linkens.
No seriously the only situation when I've ever seen Linkens do *anything* on Dusa is when playing against Nyx Assassin to block the Mana Burn harass. And even then against Nyx BKB is 10 times better.

You can't go both BKB and linkens on that hero. She just doesn't have the slots since she already needs mass damage items and skadi. SO going linkens is kind of saying you don't need BKB. But in that case you can simply go full DPS + skadi...




It is. But it's still terrible as a 2nd item. Yasha is good because it speeds up your farm, but I honestly see no point in upgrading to manta before you get both your skadi and butterfly, probably even your BKB as well. Manta doesn't increase your farm in any way (their damage is wayy too low to farm waves, and you need it up in case a teamfight breaks out anyways), and the damage scaling is only good once your stats are really high.

The only case where you need early manta is when playing against silence. It's a good damage amplifier as a 4th or 5th slot, but the illusions are honestly irrelevant until like the 40th min mark.




Bloodthorn. Thanks Icefrog for the perfect 6th slot item on that hero :)

Seriously a farmed Dusa deals with literally anything that isn't rat dota.

thepiratebay.org I think that so.