Doctor Doom's Druid Guide for Douchebags 7.29d

It depends. My advice about Ags itemization is that you should consider what you actually need. The scepter does not make you much better at doing your job, in the sense that your job is to kill creeps/heroes/buildings, since it gives no offensive power. Ask yourself, if you had spent all that time and money to build Scepter, would the situation actually be different? That's money that wouldn't be going to the Bear's damage output, so there are lose-lose situations where if you don't build Scepter then your Bear won't survive the fight, but if you do build Scepter then your Bear isn't doing enough damage and you still lose the fight. This is the primary reason I am critical of his Scepter.

Also in my experience, in situations where no amount of defensive items (heart, halberd, shiva's, pipe, etc) could keep Sylla alive, Scepter won't make a difference. The tools that let the enemy kill Sylla will also let them kill the Bear. But you still have a few options. The first is to buy an Aeon Disk. It doesn't feel great to buy usually since people think of it as a support item, but when you think about it Sylla is really just a support for the Bear. If the enemy is killing you by jumping you outside True Form it can keep you alive long enough to use your Ult.

Another option is his Shard. Are you using Roar frequently? How often do you take the Savage Roar Cooldown talent? It is an offensive ability since it is a disable, but it is also a defensive ability since it keeps the enemy from dealing damage and forces them to back off. With his new Shard, the ability is even better since the Roar works from both units even if one is disabled and dispels both units. Tons of value in a 1.4k gold item.

Another option is better positioning on Sylla. Remember that he doesn't really do much in fights, and all he has to do is be within 1100 units of the Bear. Putting him in harm's way is an unncecessary move and one I'm trying to get better at. Experiment with items like Shadow Amulet. In low rank games, invisibility is invincibility.

The other option is to adjust your play. I strongly encourage fast, agressive play on Lone Druid because of his early power spikes, but remember that he is also fantastic in the late game. If you can secure yourself a lead in the early game but your team doesn't want to take advantage of it, trying to win the game solo is not the answer. Farm up, push waves where it is safe, kill rosh, and yell at your team to man up if you can. You have 12 slots to fill. If your team wants to afk farm, then afk farm until Sylla has a billion effective HP and the Bear hits like a truck.

Radiance used to be a popular item but it isn't as useful anymore. There are a few reasons why.

Firstly, its components. Radiance builds from a 3800 gold Sacred Relic and a 1350 gold recipe. These are expensive components, that don't offer much utility. The damage from Sacred Relic is nice but if this is your first farming item then it will be slow to get that much gold and you won't have any benefit from the components for some time. Compare this to MKB, my preffered item after Mask of Madness and Phase Boots. MKB builds from a Demon Edge, a Javelin, Blitz Knuckles, and a 350 gold Recipe. I buy the Blitz Knuckles first, then the Javelin, then the Demon Edge and then the recipe. Each of these components is helpful in farming up the rest of the item. The attack speed from Blitz Knuckles helps you hit creeps faster, which accelerates your ability to make gold in the jungle and in lane. Only Demon Edge is a relatively expensive component, and it provides more cost effective damage than Sacred Relic (Demon Edge is 2200 gold and gives 42 damage which is 52 gold per damage, while Sacred Relic is 3800 gold and gives 60 damage which is 63 gold per damage)

The second reason Radiance isn't effective is that it simply doesn't offer as much benefit for the price. It deals 60 magical damage per second to enemies in the area and effectively gives you 17% evasion. A level 15 Bear with a Blight Stone, Phase Boots, Mask of Madness and Radiance deals around 275 DPS (411 ish with MoM active, see the end of the comment for math) to a single target. Swapping the Radiance for an MKB, your bear will deal around 338 DPS (521 ish with MoM active) to a single target. That can vary depending on how lucky you are with the MKB proc, but it is a notably higher damage output for less money. MKB also offers evasion piercing to kill heroes like Windranger or Phantom Assassin. MKB also offers attack speed, which is something you need a great deal of. Lone Druid is all about getting the Entangling Claws proc and making the most out of that time. Also, attack speed helps you stay alive with lifesteal, and when you build Moon Shard and Assault Cuirass later, MKB will become even more valuable. The 100 magical damage proc on MKB can do a lot, and it gets better when you attack faster.

Under some circumstances, Radiance can be a decent purchase if you are facing illusion heroes like Phantom Lancer or Zoo heroes like Chen and you need to burn away the extra units. I do not recommend it as a first item because it is less cost effective and is much harder to farm. I strongly recommend MKB instead, but if you are winning with Radiance then go for it.

Math: To compare the damage output of MKB and Radiance I've done a bit of math. These calculations do not include the damage from Entangling Claws or the damage reduction from armor/magic resistance.

A level 15 Bear with no items has 90 damage and 187 attack speed (attacking every 0.91 seconds), dealing an average of 98 damage per second.

With a Mask of Madness and Phase Boots, the Bear has 123 damage and 199 attack speed (attacking once every 0.85 seconds), dealing an average of 144 damage per second. If Mask of Madness is active then the Bear has 328 attack speed (attacking once every 0.52 seconds) and dealing 236 damage per second.

With a MoM, Phase, and Radiance, the Bear has 183 damage and 199 attack speed (attacking once every 0.85 seconds) and dealing an average of 215 damage per second, plus 60 passive damage per second for a total of 275. With Mask of Madness active, the Bear has an attack speed of 328 (attacking once every .52 seconds) and dealing an average of 351 damage per second, plus 60 passive damage per second for a total of 411.

With a MoM, Phase, and a Monkey King Bar, the Bear deals an average of 240 damage per attack (165 physical damage, plus 100 magical damage on 75% of attacks, so an average of 75 magical damage per attack) and has 240 attack speed (attacking once every .71 seconds) and dealing an average of 338 damage per second. With MoM active, the Bear has 369 attack speed (attacking once every 0.46 seconds) and dealing an average of 521 damage per second.

As you can see, MKB offers superior single target damage and also scales better as you get items like Moonshard and Assault Cuirass.

EDIT: MKB was recently changed to be slightly more expensive but the result is the same. It is better for fighting and the slightly reduced farm speed is worth it for the price difference.

No. Mask of Madness silences the Bear but Entangling Claws is a passive ability. You can test it in demo mode for yourself.

Still, I prefer to activate Mask of Madness after getting an EC proc, so that less of the duration is wasted on movement. If you really need to, you can activate Mask of Madness while chasing to catch someone faster because it gives 30 movement speed while active. It does not matter if you activate Phase Boots or Mask of Madness first, if you choose to activate both, your speed total will be the same.

Mask of Madness silences the Bear, which means Savage Roar cannot be cast from it and if cast from Sylla, it will not affect enemies around the Bear. This behavior is new as of 7.27b. This just means you have to be a bit careful with Mask of Madness if you anticipate needing Savage Roar for something.

The bigger danger you have to consider when using Mask of Madness is that it reduces your armor by 8 for the duration. You can use Mask of Madness to quickly destroy towers, but best to make sure that you have a creepwave there to tank the tower hits, towers can deal a lot of damage if you have that armor reduction and you can't lifesteal off tower damage.

Later on, you can ditch the Mask of Madness on the Bear in favor of something like Abyssal Blade, and buy Vladmir's Offering and Solar Crest on Sylla. These are substantially more expensive, but provide a few key benefits. With the lifesteal aura from Vladmir's Offering, and the attack speed bonus from Solar Crest you can simulate a Mask of Madness. This way, your Bear also gains 18% bonus damage from the Aura, gains armor from the Solar Crest, and isn't silenced which means you can still use Savage Roar with the Bear.

Thank you this was very helpful. I am trying to further improve the formatting of my guide but I can't find a good list of all the codes to make everything. I've done some searching and found several threads linking to a guide by Dr. D

https://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/blog/dr-d/guide-formatting-and-you

But for me this link is not working. Everything below the site banner is black, and there is no content. Has the guide been moved or deleted? Is there another place I can find this information?