Hero Discussion #5 - Zet, the Arc Warden

Arc Warden is an Agility ranged hero that requires micromanagement and farm to spiral out of control. In the early stages of the game, he begins by being a powerful nuker, while later becoming a force of push that is sometimes too strong to contest.

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Lore-wise, Zet is the third piece of energy on this cosmos trying to unite and pacify the two other greatest fragments, Radiant and Dire. Something went wrong along the way, and our dear Zet became multiple. Figures…

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Taking a quick look at his abilities:

Flux: Launches a flow of energy to a hero, slowing its movement speed and dealing damage over time if that hero is alone. If, however, the target has allies or neutral creeps within a 225 radius, the spell temporarily stops slowing and damaging the target, until it is alone again.

Magnetic Field: Generates a circular distortion field of magnetic energy (or if you prefer a bubble) that protects allied heroes and buildings within it by evading attacks coming from outside the field. It also applies an attack speed bonus and evasion to allies within the radius. Notice that it does not prevent attacks from landing on allies if the source of the attack is within the field (that is, if you're attacking someone being yourself inside the bubble, then your target does not have evasion).

Spark Wraith: Summons a Wraith/Spooky little ghost that stays in the place you put it, until someone comes in contact with his circular area of contact. If an enemy comes within its range, the wraith runs to fuse with the enemy, dealing magical damage and purging the unit (applying a basic dispel). It affects invisible units and it provides 300 radius flying vision.

Tempest Double: Creates a replica of Arc Warden himself that can use all of Arc Warden's current items and spells, except items that drop on death (it can't use a Refresher Orb either to creat another illusion). The duplicate has separate item and ability cooldowns, and it lasts for 12/14/16 seconds. The duplicate is visually distinguishable from the original Zet for enemies and allies...

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Potential topics of conversation

• After the nerfs to the rat potential of Arc Warden and the exploitation of the use of items like Necro and Divine Rapier on its copy, what place do you think it’s currently left for Arc in the meta?
  
• What is his best role, skill build and item build?
  
• If you think he’s way too underpowered now and he’s not a viable pick-up, what do you think he needs to be on-pair with his fellow teammates/to make it worth entering Captain's mode?
  
• What type of line-ups is he better in? And against what heroes does he struggle the most?
  
• You’re playing against an Arc Warden. What do you need to do in order to make sure you don’t get rekt? (strategies, itemization)
  
• You’re playing with an Arc Warden in your team. What do you need to do to help him achieve his full potential? Where do you lane him?

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I hope this makes for an interestic topic. I have close to zero experience with the hero, that I only played in bots and saw played some times, so I’m very interested in what you guys have to say!

Cheers!
ChiChi

Nice post Chichi

I'm not an experienced Arc Warden player so my imput will be little to none

I have played him several times as a roaming support into a carry. The moment you get Hand of Midas your farming speed harshly accelerate. And since Flux is such a strong skill I could succesfully roam around, getting kills.

I tried aw with bots when the midas exploit worked. Then too, my go to build was midas Dagon>eblade>BoT>dagon5>damage items. I would still go this build if I played Dota and arc warden at that. I love the responses and the model however. Superb work.

Hero was (and to a lesser extent still is) insanely fun to play, if you enjoyed cheese and the pain of your fellow humans. Anyone have the post I made a while back about why I found Arc Warden so enjoyable? Because damn straight that was accurate.

Kewl mate.
Go mid and make SCRUBS cry

I remember when 6.87 came and several Arc Warden guides went full griefer, that the hero is now unplayable.

Arc Warden mid with some variation of Shadow Blade, Orchid Malevolence, and Maelstrom after Midas is the new thing, especially since it looks like Bloodthorn suits him well with the double burn, and AW has a higher winrate in high levels than he ever did in 6.86, with around 55% in 5k. It probably has to do with there not being a broken meta mid this patch (Timber is kinda there but even him not really).

From what I see, SB Warden is nice for sending his clone out for scouting, since its downtime is very low, and he seems very good at sieging now with his low mana cost Spark Wraith and very low cooldown Magnetic Field.

If I had more skill, I'd be interested in learning this hero all over again, since he is much more difficult than he was before, and needs to cooperate with his team more, but it looks like this guy is more powerful than before.

Arc Warden now synergy more with Low Cooldown itens

I would Lane him Classic Mid and Rush Shadow Blade, After start ganking and farm other itens

as Cuttleboss said, Bloodthorn + Silver Edge + Maelstorm is the best build, Scythe of Vyse later on because 7 seconds disable and finally bkb

I'm pretty sure if Arc Warden would be in CM right now he would be ran in a Drow Ranger strat.