Lunar Ascendancy: Pubstomping low-skill games with Luna

i just played her solo top(radiant) and boy i had hella farm!!! xD
against a solo clinkz just to explain how well the game went i had enough money to buy:a gem and the basic boots, and at the end of the game i had about 4k gold that was really extra, she can KICK ***!!!

Best guide I have ever read anywhere for any game by a long way. A great pleasure to read. Very helpful describing Luna's role in the game through its stages and pointers on what's what. Pretty much made an account just to vote you...

Luna is my favourite character and thanks to your guide I'm aloud to play her with my overly competitive friends lol.

*Look forward to you doing more guides in this sort of format. A most entertaining read for people of any skill level.

Tranquil Boots are an extremely potent item at the moment, and they definitely do make early game sustainability much easier. That said, I generally don't have too much trouble with early game sustain, and if you're going mid (hopefully you are :P) then you're going to have a bottle for that anyway. You're pretty heavily reliant on movespeed for chasing & positioning, and Tranquils obviously aren't as effective in battle as your other options.

If you're rolling face, still get a Butterfly straight out. If you're more trading kills, Shadow Blade is very powerful so long as you use it to near-constantly gank the enemy side lanes. Doing so can put you very far ahead from an otherwise even position.

I registered on dotafire to up vote you. Great guide for carry-beginners like myself.

Question: I have seen people get healing boots and later transition to power treads or boots of speed. And I found myself that it helps a lot with early survivability and early-mid jungling.

What's your thought on that?

Also I find getting shadow blade before butterfly/ethereal blade is better for mid game ganking/team fights. Probably because of my bad positioning etc, but maybe others will find this strategy easier to start with.

Thanks again for the guide!

At the time I originally wrote the guide, this really was never an issue in pub games, at least in the few dozen I played as Luna around then - you would probably still take Black King Bar, but after Helm of the Dominator and Manta Style. Now, a few months later, the skill level of the average DotA 2 pubby (or at least their ability to coordinate CC) has improved enough that I'd recommend getting it immediately after your Butterfly/ Ethereal Blade, or after your Morbid Mask if you're doing well and the enemy hasn't yet caught on to the need to focus you.

I have updated the guide to match this change in recommendation.



While I can appreciate that theorycraft-wise, Ethereal Blade appears to be an untenable choice in most situations, the reality is that every time I have tried it, it has worked out very well for me. This also goes for several immediate gamebros of mine. However, as I said in my guide, I would still recommend getting the Butterfly when in any doubt over which of the two to go with, because the success of the Ethereal Blade path does depend on both your usage of it and your enemies' response.





The problem here is that Bounty Hunter's benefits to Luna are exactly the same as his benefits to any lane partner - there's not really any specific synergy between him and Luna, in all honesty. And while I can understand your points about his invisibility in lane and his burst damage later, I've never actually had problems with either of those. In my experience he is very easily countered in lane with a Sentry Ward and some Lucent Beam harassment, especially because of his own low health pool, and by the time he has any burst damage (whether he was in my lane or not) I've significantly out-leveled and out-farmed him, to the point that I'll usually have both Power Treads and Drum of Endurance before he's hitting at all hard. Certainly you might have trouble with him if he had significantly out-farmed/leveled you, but then that would be the case for any ganker, and when you're relatively well-matched it is too easy to ult and Dust of Appearance before he can finish you off.

Great guide. Detailed in every aspect and explains everything you would need to know to play a good game of Luna.

One tiny, tiny suggestion I would like to give would be to add a long lane Bounty Hunter to your "Both Allies and Enemies". If he's on your team, he wouldn't take up your lane because he's incredibly versatile and his Track ability is incredibly strong with Luna (they can't use fog to avoid Eclipse with Track on them, and it gives Luna extra gold every kill she gets, making her even scarier late game).

But he's also an incredibly strong opponent. If you lane against him, you'll never have enough damage to kill him without invisibility detection (and even if you do, he'll know to play safe and try to only get experience). With some levels, he'll be able to slip by your team and burst you down almost instantly because of your low health pool. Not to mention the fact that Track kills on your team make it harder for you to outcarry their carry late game.

I don't know. I feel like even bads know to use stuns, and Luna is very vulnerable to nukes given her low strength. The BKB is as much about not sitting there stunned as it is about not getting nuked.

I'm a big fan of Luna, and I wrote guide for her myself. Bravo for the design, I'm truly impressed. I do realize title says pub stomp, but BKB is still a must. Unless you are playing in really low level,you will get focused down really fast. Bkb gives you more HP,and of course, it's active is why we buy it. Also,almost always prioritize Butterfly over Etheral,i find him situational. That's it from me.
With regards,
D3n1eD

The most detailed guide I've seen.

Black King Bar is certainly an extremely potent item on any carry, especially one with an ultimate that requires mobility and positioning to be effective, but you must keep in mind that I wrote this guide specifically for low-skill games. In them, your opponents will only occasionally have enough coordination (or enough CC in the first place) to make it necessary, hence its current placement under Situational/Defense.

That being said, I will I think tweak the item description somewhat, so as to more strongly recommend it if one's opponents do show any signs of coordinating well.

Very nice and well written with the exception of BKB needing to be core.

Thank you ^^.



Also, I have just published an update adding the very large Playstyle section, as well as containing numerous fixes and updates for existing material.