Dota Missing Skeleton King Counter Part...

I'm a philosopher and one thing that philosophers do is search for the path of deviation out of the monotonous and mindless war between black and white.

In the case of dota 2, black and white represent the war between nukers and carries, simple as that.

Taking note of this, I began to search for a character that was designed and functioned in such a way that would allow me to collect all defensive/life regen items along side a blade mail, but maintain such an offensive threat that I was still focused as a primary target.

Getting that kind of attention to make use of the combination blade mail and life regen/tank items is not hardly possible through damage out put, but rather, the combination of two factors.

Disables, and Run walk speed are the main keys to doing this.

So I started with Magnus...

I would start with soul ring on him asap, and spam spells to farm.... I recognized that the blade mail/life regen approach could actually work on this guy because his ulti is such a threat... but what I concluded was that the cool down on ulti and the fact that his offensive spammed magical damaging attacks are spread across 3 skills, that this guy does better off with the carry approach, or even a dagon as the farming capabilities can get dagon maxed out quick... which is where you can see dagon shine the most.

So I moved on from magnus and went to the lich king. Now here was a character that I found more satisfaction with... I would rush soul ring from the start and spam the living hell out of frost nova, it was great...with the mana steal skill and soul ring, you can even spam frost nova to the point of farming... Now dagon on this character is the effing **** if you can farm well enough to max it out decently fast... The rest of the slots on this guy can be filled with tank items and the blade mail as your later frost armor really goes well with the concept.

But, I found myself being targeted like no other in team fights with out any method of escape... I wasn't going to start with frost armor, even though this worked before, because I want to get the most from my magic damage early on...

So I left lich, still searching for the hero that I could implement my goal philosophy on...

I had heard about axe and his ability to make the enemy team target him... he is durable, no doubt, but one can still fall victim as a enemy team target, and as a carry, he still seems like he would benefit better off with attack items then regen items...

Then I got to skeleton king....

He's got a stun, life steal, crit... Everything that a natural carry wants minus the attack speed.

With a soul ring at start, you can stun twice, which is inanely powerful, so with the high run walk speed and stun I was talking about, there is actually a time and place to collect all life regen tank gear with him if your team is a bunch of glass cannon nukers in particular...

But I'll still play a support style skeleton king like this just for spite... I love the feeling of domination despite not being a massive offensive threat alone, just in team fights.

So you get targeted because you are recognized for your offensive stun, crit, etc, etc. You are a durable diabler (DD), and you come back to life with your ulti which really kind of seals the deal on what this character's role is all about... taking hits from the enemy and keeping the enemy team on their feet with stuns/run walk speed, then making great use of blade mail casts.

It has a remarkable effect in team games.


But, what I ultimately concluded, despite this being the most effective character for this to work on, is that I should still be trying to go for carry gear and not armor/regen with blade mail...

The crit passive with the natural life leach sort of screams that...


So, where is the character that is suppose to go the tank item with blade mail approach?

You would rather be a caster...

But the problem is, you would be more interested in picking up refresher, veil of dischord, or dagon over the tank gear and blade mail...


With this game is missing is a character that is a sort of counter part to the skeleton king.

Note that the skeleton king has a natural carry feel embedded right in to him with the vampiric aura that is comparible to morbid mask, and the crit passive comparable to crystalis...


If there was a caster, for example, that had skills that were comparable to let's say, refresher orb, or veil of discord, like a lower resistance aura or skill combined with a reasonably offensive magic damaging attack, or a skill that refreshed all skills after kills or something...

Then this would be the completely ideal character to take the path of life regen/tank with blade mail to boot.

I will end by saying that many people consider Skeleton King to be op and recommend him to noobs because of this...

But the truth of the matter is that skeleton king is not a noob choice, but rather a pro choice as he is the wise choice...

Because he's not Over Powered, no... he is just a character that leans toward fulfilling what is in so many games a gaping hole in team roles.

He is certainly not OP and definitely isn't a pro pick. He is countered easily by mana draining heroes because he has a low mana pool. If you have an anti-mage or PL on you, you won't be able to revive via your ulti. But even besides that, he gets out-carried late game by most other heroes (since he basically doesn't have an ulti that really helps him besides keeping him alive, and not even actively during the fight), on top of him having low mobility.

Holy ****, I think you just made me realize the idea with skeleton king here...

So I start with soul ring recipe and ring of regen, grab soul ring asap...

Then tranquil boots, just early on to compensate for his lesser mobility...

Then this leaves room for 1 slot that can be used for a tanky item like HoD, or Vanguard early on...

But in order to quickly make up for any ultimate carry loss from getting those items, you just end with MoM , Armlet of MOrdigian, and Blade Mail... And I like Sange and Yasha also for the hunt down capabilities...

So you put MoM on C and then Armlet on V...

You see an enemy... You charge at that enemy with mask of madness, now you are the target of the enemy team because of this scary charge...

Activate balade mail and armlet of mordigian if you know that the enemy you targeted won't be escaping...

The armlet will keep you alive more then it will kill you, even with MoM, with the stacked life leach, ias... and the great damage from armlet...

Damn, I think I've found the build on the char I've been looking for...

It's like the armlet makes up for any time lost making the HoD early on, which is what I was looking for...

Perhaps I could even grab the MoM in to Hod, since maybe since magic damage is still threatening that early on?


I would still like to see a sort of Skeleton King counter part which makes the most sense for doing the build direction that I want to.


I think this is the prime reason why I am complaining so hard about the magic damage nukers, which is why my suggestion was a conversion of physical damage to magic spell damage from the raw physical damage items...

It seems, that an equal probable problem here is that the character does not exist of which I can take the direction and do the build that I'm talking about... fulfill that missing hole in team games that makes so many of them hopeless.

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Plus probably switch out the traquil boots for power treads later, obviously.

Oh Atlas, why do you even try with him?

We're just Muggles who fail to comprehend Kyfoid's philosophical musings because we live in an alternate reality where we're handicapped by our understanding of the game. Clearly the ultimate joy in Dota is to activate Mask of Madness on Skeleton King to dupe the other team into attacking you, just so you can hit that Blade Mail. All hail King Kyfoid.

Edit: and if you die, you come back alive! Blade Mail again - double the joy.

Axe should build Mask of Madness, because after your Berserker's Call ends, you can activate Mask of Madness and force the enemy to attack you for another 12 seconds. It's flawless!

Wut? Attack items? Blade Mail, Blink Dagger and a Heart of Tarrasque will make you (inadvertently) the target when jumping in a Berserker's Calling. But the strength of Tarrasque combined with the counter damage from Blade Mail and his Ulti, makes Axe a formidable and almost-perfect tank that can't be ignored or you will die at the hands of Axe.

You didn't even consider Dragon Knight?

heart is only active 6 seconds after not being attacked.........

This could actually work.

Heart gives 300 HP + 40 Str (which adds another 760 HP) for a total of 1060 HP. That is a large amount of HP to tank with. Regen is fairly pointless in a teamfight unless its like ridiculously high.