Solid Supportruner

Allright, let's agree to disagree ;)

However, here is an example where I think Focus Fire did make a real difference: Dendi from Na'Vi with a well-fed level 23 Lone Druid goes down thanks to Focus Fire at 52:00. (Dendi and his teddybear were so well fed that he was single-handedly able to take down the level 3 tower and 2 barracks right before this starting at 51:40!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMS_b70U_hA

I'm just expressing that I don't feel like the situational items you are suggesting actually benefit Windrunner in the near or long term as much as you might perceive. My build generally is still effective even if you have a bad laning phase and end up 0/3 for most of the reasons I describe. There have been plenty of games that have gone poorly and sitting on a RoB and Boots of Speed for 3-4 levels vs. a Boots of Speed + Void Stone is just a dramatically different level of effectiveness in Windrunner as a character which is the point I'm really trying to make (in fact most games I have one or two early game deaths from either trying to aid an early kill or saving the carry, so this is factored in from my experiences).

With the Tranquil Boots being the exception, I really lance RoB as useless even as a situational item because it really doesn't fix her mana needs and doesn't really provide as much durability as perceived. The Ring of Regen fixes her durability issue much more in my experience just because she can't get whittled down in lane to critical health. I am beating up on that item so specifically because I want to see Windrunners not getting it and pretending it really complements them or provides sufficient mana regen to a lane partner (you're not a Crystal Maiden). There are heroes it is a good item choice for but Windrunner really is not one of them, and I feel like it is the generally accepted trend because it just happened to be the default item recipe or past iterations being stronger than it is now.



I have a huge amount of issue with this line of thinking. First is that you can never have enough disable. It's just not possible. If you are taking any number of enemies out of a team fight for a time you are that much more likely to win. There's never a team where I could feel like too much disable is a bad thing. Second, if you are lacking DPS that is something more to be said with your team's overall composition than your ability to contribute. The best semi-carry games I've ever had with Windrunner had more to do with me just simply not dying and abusing my ever-increasing array of disables and escapes to stymie the enemy's attempts to focus me down than my actual damage output.

The disables help keep your team alive, the mekanism helps keep your team alive. Your escapes help you (or through the Force Staff) or your teammates (run in front of them with Windrun) alive. Your ability to throw more shackleshots mixed with powershots and still have mana and mana regen for more keeps your team alive. If your team is alive and can stay in a fight longer you are benefiting your team much more than any amount of boosted damage from Windrunner's attacks. Windrunner isn't a Drow Ranger and you can't treat her like such. She gets into semi-carry territory when she can engage at will and in most cases either do what she needed to do or get away without dying much like a Dark Seer. I've never had an experience where this semi-carry behaviour was benefited by just having raw damage output versus just being able to split push by myself and have a Nature's Prophet or a Lifestealer attempt to kill me and end up getting killed by Windrunner just because I can tank whatever they can throw at me through escapes and disables and just accumulate damage until they die.



This is a bad and misleading example. During the 39:26 death he was doing about as much damage just shooting at the Alchemist as he was during the focus fire period, just the Alchemist's bonus health disappeared from his ult wearing off. And at the 34:40 Alchemist death the Windrunner is doing nearly no damage. All of the DPS happens after Vengeful and Weaver show up (not to mention Vengeful's bonus damage aura which is not something you can rely on either). I guess that's one of the other things I'm trying to get across- Focus Fire only really works out when you are close to a tower and have an opportunity to wail on it without contention and if you see that opportunity comes up you might want to elect to take the skill, but when it comes to using it on enemy heroes it has a misleading level of effectiveness. It feels like you are doing a lot of damage but in reality it probably wasn't you anyway.

I still feel the stat gain is more important and is part of why this build stays effective longer. Part of the late game snowball effect is that when you start taking levels in stats you are getting effectively two level's worth of stats. When you can't reliably make it to level 25 as a support getting those free stats sooner rather than later makes you much more durable and lets you keep pace much better. This early stat gain is also why the Void Stone is that much better because the scaling effect from the Void Stone kicks in at level 11 instead of level 15 and from 17 on. As was mentioned in the introduction this build is designed to try to make you much more survivable and throw more power shots and shackles.



I did in fact take the magic resistance into account "(assuming 25% magic resistance), 345(270 from powershot + 75 from 100 damage, reduced)" so that isn't a problem. Since it's over two seconds you have to imagine that after the 1 second full charge (yes you can release at 60% but for the sake of simplicity) and then one physical attack. There are fewer heros that end up getting extra magic resistance over physical damage resistance.

I do appreciate your comments, I just have to stand firm that from my experience and the math that Ring of Basilius and Focus Fire generally don't pay off when you are losing or when you are winning.

werpwerp, I'm not sure that you understand that my suggestions are situational items and skill picks only: If everything goes "as planned " in lane your core build seems solid and I think I would go for that. However if the needs of your team and the situation changes so should your build in-battle. That's why I suggest getting the tranqs (temporarily) if and only if you are facing heavy harassment, RoB/RoA if and only if you are dying a lot and/or your lanemate really needs a bit more mana regen (Phantom Lancer, Luna, etc.) and Focus Fire + Crystalys if and only if your team is more lacking DPS to finish off enemies than more disables. Especially as a support you need to think what benefits most your team as a whole and not on what is the ideal build on paper once you are in battle.

In this match the Dire Windrunner is using Focus Fire several times to melt the opposing Alchemist (starting to do so around 39:00->) and is using very well Shackle Shot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NE85amASis

P.S: The problem with your math is i.a. that you are not taking magic resistance (min 25 %) into account.

I have to go back to the point I was making that this is a generally 0 expected farm Windrunner and the build is optimized for that. My issue is fixated mostly on the short lifetime of the item. If you are not getting any farm or only a few kills that early 500 gold out the door truly sets you behind. That's ward money and port money that you just don't have. While I am a huge fan of auras from some of the items Ring of Basilius and Ring of Aquila have a terrible shelf life and the early cost definitely turns into an either-or situation with the Void Stone and I just plant my flag in the sand that the Void Stone is the way to go.

The way I end up looking at it: Powershot = kill money, Shackle = kill money. The more of these you can throw the more money you will make and Basilius/Aquila provides so many fewer opportunities. When I used to go RoB (~50 games)I was perpetually mana starved until I got the Void Stone anyway, and ever since I've switched to the Void Stone I've been able to provide my team much better support because I do have the mana to port across the map and throw both a Powershot and a Shackle.

If the worry about losing money concerns you, it's completely sane to just work through buying the full Phase Boots first piece by piece as well as the Flying Courier or heck even wards or a scroll. The point is- there's better things to spend money on than a RoB.



I admit I don't watch many pro games and this is based nearly entirely on my own experience but I find my lane partners are much happier with being able to constantly harass because the Ring of Regen is keeping my health in a safe range, and then soon later being able to get key Shackles, Powershots and Windruns to make kills happen along with getting strong denies (I average around 15-20 denies before ten minutes as windrunner).

Letting the carry freefarm early game and keeping the enemy out is just the best option compared to whatever trivial aura you can provide. In a pro game I imagine the timings are tighter and coordinated early aggression is more common so I can definitely see waiting to collect 875 gold is more of a risk but at the same time Windrunner is completely useless as a support unless she can shackle on demand.

There are also early kill lanes that she's just bad at, as her window of usefulness is not really in the 1-4 level range so if your lane is like that you may just be stuck either way. I find a Keeper of the Light/ Gyrocopter lane or a Nyx Assassin to be difficult, and really the way I've found to get around it is the Ring of Regen where you can have your health stay above 50% passively.

You mentioned Tranquil Boots again and I just have to agree to disagree. I get them sometimes but not all the time. It's my preference to get Phase Boots because otherwise I usually have to get an extra rank of Windrun to make up the difference when someone 'breaks' your boots. On suicide lane situations I would be more likely to get Tranquil Boots but that's not the purpose of this guide. This guide's purpose is to be a hard support and to be a general framework to tailor to your playstyle.



The problem with your math here is that you didn't take the time to break out the fact that every hit is reduced by armor and it's not a lump addition in damage. Assuming 25% physical reduction 100 DMG at 1 attack/second becomes 75 damage and 3 attacks a second become 112.5/135.0/157.5 DPS which comes out to being 1.5/1.8/2.1 damage a second which really isn't as good and that's assuming you have pristine conditions where you can stand right next to a guy and rain arrows on him. This doesn't include situations where you are chasing a little, firing one or two shots before having to move again which are far more likely. If you could shoot on the run then sure, I would definitely get focus fire every time. I'd much rather use that same 220 mana to do (assuming 25% magic resistance), 345(270 from powershot + 75 from 100 damage, reduced) in the same two seconds as 225/270/314.4. There's also the fact to keep in mind that most the people you want to shoot generally have higher physical damage resistance than magic resistance so the powershot + single shot combo comes out leagues ahead.

Getting those three level of stats earlier gives you health, mana and mana regen (doubled by the Void Stone that you need to be able to throw a steady stream of Powershots to make the alternative work. Dumping 200/300/400 mana out of your mana pool is huge and I can't emphasize enough how better served you are with having the mana for Mekanism (150) and Force Staff (25). Using a Force Staff or Mekanism is something that's 100% reliable while you are taking a fairly high risk that you'll be able to sit there and do damage with a Focus Fire, and you're often trading 30-40% of your mana for that roll of the dice. Not to mention the fact that you can dump all this mana into a focus fire and have them get bursted to death a half a moment later because your carry showed up and focused down the target you were shooting at and waste it utterly.



Crystalys is effectively expensive because it doesn't add to your stable of disables and Windrunner doesn't threaten enough damage for the crits to really take an effect. If you do 100 damage then just by the rules of probability you can only expect to do 115.0 damage over a large number of shots (0.8)(100) + (0.2)(175). I also describe in the guide that there is a point where a sheepstick becomes incredibly unlikely so getting a Eul's is a good alternative. Either way it's well after you've gotten Mekanism where you might have a chance to clear a lane on your own or get some jungle time in.

The main goal of this build is to get something completely reliable as a support and I feel some of these semi-carry items just do not fit the team's needs.

Good that you are putting effort into this, werpwerp but a couple of things should be clarified:

Getting Ring of Basilius or Ring of Aquila is not as a replacement for Void Stone but an addition to it. Both RoB and RoA can be assembled part by part from inexpensive items menaing that if you find yourself dying a lot you can spend your gold before dying, not lose money and still work towards an OK item that also benefits your team. I watched some pro games and even there Windrunner has often problems with dying a lot, hence RoB or RoA are situationally good but not optimal. Also your lanemate might appreciate the extra armor and mana. Don't forget that RoA actually gives you +12 damage which is not bad early on. If you have RoA then your carry maybe doesn't have to get it but can rush some major items that will make or break the game.

The Tranquil Boots are of course meant to be disassembled later on for other boots after the laning phase (and yes, I'll be taking Phase Boots from now on). As you will use Ring of Regen anyway for Mekansm or Force Staff the only "loss" is the Ring of Protection and even if you sell the Ring of Protection you will only lose 87.5 gold or 2-3 last hits which you can easily compensate for if your Tranquil Boots allowed you to not go back to fountain / not having to buy extra regen / not having to sit back in lane passively with low HP even just once. Even when I play a semi-carry usually I take a bow and get Tranqs if I face heavy harassment ( and no healer on own side): They often make or break a lane.

When it comes to Focus Fire: Windrunner usually has an attack speed of around 1 attack/second once she levels up a bit as she is an int hero. With Focus Fire she will have

Attacks per Second = (1 + IAS) / BAT = (1+400 [=max attack speed] /100) / 1.5 = 3.33 attacks / second => around 3 times as much. The damage reduction is only 50/40/30% depending on the level of Focus Fire.

If you base was 1 attack / second dealing 100 damage (= 100 DPS) with Focus Fire it is 166/199/233 DPS meaning that you will do 2.3 times more DPS with level 3 Focus Fire than otherwise! Even level 2 is double the DPS than normal! I don't know what to call it but nice, especially if you have a Crystalys or other damage booster. Crystalys is built from relative inexpensice parts (unlike Sheepstick) meaning that if you are behind and/or dying a lot Crystalys might be worth experimenting with even if you are a hard support as you actually will get it at some point and can make use of it given that your teammates can shield you while you Focus Fire. Obviously won't work against heavy crowd control teams.

I went into this with more detail in my response to Tikru8's post. The fundamental point is that you lose way more usage of your abilities which is more important for being a successful Windrunner.



This isn't a mid guide, and if you aren't playing a mid or a roamer you really shouldn't be using bottle since depending on your lane it's unlikely you will be getting runes to refill it and going back to well just to refill bottle is goofy. That 600 gold is better served getting the Void Stone.



I said elsewhere that I find the mana regen lacking and prior to just omitting Basilius I ended up buying a Void Stone every time anyway and had two slots filled instead of one which later on causes plenty of trouble in its own right. It's also 500 gold down the drain and since you aren't taking much lane farm (none at all hopefully) it's really not worth getting.



Skadi is a super late game item, and was recommended mainly because of the additional stat bonuses make her more durable and being able to knock down an enemy carry's attack speed and movement speed by 20% can be enough to turn the tides. Shiva's Guard is a bad alternative because it's defeated by Black King Bar and other forms of magic immunity while Eye of Skadi is not. Additionally while Skadi gives you strength and health which as a side effect gives you more health regen Shiva's Guard just gives you some physical damage reduction which leaves you just as vulnerable to a big nuke or an invisible heroes' combo. Also Skadi is always on and therefore has no cooldown which is more important late game.

Skadi doesn't really end up being a role for kiting, more as a limiter to make the biggest threat less threatening and also prevent people from getting away. With a combination of the Force Staff and Windrun you can usually chase down any retreating hero and bring a friend along for the ride and Skadi just makes that chase all the easier.

As a third benefit Skadi has is that all the contributing items to the final build are extremely potent on their own, and I feel the final result of 725HP, 575 mana, 25 damage, 25 attack speed, 1 mana regen/second (2 with void stone), .75 HP regen/second, and 3.5 armor to be much more helpful than just Shiva's Guard's +15 armor and int-related goodness. Also I find Point Boosters to be much more reliable to farm for whatever reason. Getting 2700 gold together always seems awkward from just having to buy ports and everything else while 2100 feels to me at least much easier- additionally you only need to buy the point booster and the venom at the secret shop which generally makes the actual logistics of getting the item a lot easier.

EDIT: Just to reiterate the skadi point, the fact that as a normally squishy caster you end up in the 3000 health range gives you tremendous staying power and plenty of health left over to split push without fear of a burst attack. It doesn't matter if they can hit you with two or three crits before you force staff away, you're liable to be likely to survive.

I find Arcane Boots to be only useful if you are on one of those teams where everyone gets mana boots, such as a Magnus or Sand King. Otherwise the 135 mana you get back will lend you one Shackle or one Powershot and still leave you without mana. Like the Ring of Basilius Arcane Boots scale extremely poorly and since this is a support focused builds you need inexpensive items that will last you an extremely long time and scale with you and Void Stone in my opinion is the best option. This isn't a Windrunner with farm we are talking about, this is a 0-farm Windrunner for the most part. Also since as mentioned in the guide Windrunner is a comparatively slow hero, and I find the mobility from Arcane Boots to leave you out in the cold more often than not. Again, this guide is focused on survivability as well.



To this I must disagree strongly. If you are rolling a support build your damage output is going to be lingering in the 90-120 range and it's going to be reduced down to (45-63) to (60-84). On most enemies where focus fire matters you have to deal with 25% armour so (34-47) to (45-63). So instead of doing (reduced by armour) 67.5 to 90 damage every second you are doing basically about the same damage with perhaps a bit biased to the maxed Focus Fire, but you threw away 200/300/400 mana out of your pool of maybe 1000 or so to do it which is not trivial to recover in the slightest. Additionally since you are focusing on stat gain you are attacking faster anyway from the agility which turns to being quite nontrivial.

The mana cost is the biggest inhibitor for me to get it because by the time I have enough mana and mana regen to offset constantly Powershotting and Shackling as needed I'm already in the 16-18+ range and I'll get Focus Fire as needed but even when I do I can never rely on having the time to blast away at someone in a full team fight.



While Skull Basher does give you a chance for stun saving for a Scythe and getting a different item is much more useful. A Crystalys also is a pricey item. This isn't a Windrunner as a carry build, this is a hard support.



I find that Tranquil Boots to be extremely situational like the Arcane Boots since you usually can't start with a Ring of Protection if you have to by wards and the courier and it's dangerous to have a courier flight just to get that item out to you. It works in sometimes when you don't buy a courier but that's more a novelty than something you can rely on. Also it tends to be that the loss of speed from getting hit just turns you into an easy target up until you get your Phase Boots anyway and you don't really have the health to spare.



Ring of Basilius and Ring of Aquila are just bad items for Windrunner overall. As was mentioned in the guide they don't scale, and from a game economy standpoint it quickly becomes money down the drain especially when you are working with 0 farm. 500 gold for a RoB and then 985 is money better served by just getting a Void Stone. If you are worried about health and early game survivability I've found that the Ring of Regen is just flat out better than armor. I find myself ending up with extra regen (a tango or a salve) early on just because I'm not constantly bleeding health.



It's a waste of money except when you have a reliable, yet mana hungry lane partner with low-cost mana spells. This is not something you can say as a blanket statement so it was left out. A clarity only restores 100 mana and takes 30 seconds. That's 30 seconds early game where you are prancing around trying to not get hit instead of denying or harassing the enemies in your lane. If it restored 400 in 10 seconds like a Healing Salve I would say absolutely but Windrunner's skills are too expensive to justify getting the potion, especially since it takes so long. You should be saving her mana for emergencies anyway and natural regen should be adequate until you get the Void Stone, at which point you have usually +4.4 to +4.6 regen and can start to use her skills more readily. If you went RoB you only have +2.6 to +2.8 which is a difference of ~20 seconds for recovering 120 mana from a Powershot and since you get stats you'll be throwing more powershots faster.

The usual prescription Windrunner Build of Basilius + all skills before stats:
Mana Regen @ 8, Seconds till Powershot (120 Mana):
22*0.04+2.6*6*0.04+0.065 = +1.5; 80 Seconds

Mana Regen @ 16, Seconds till Powershot:
22*0.04+2.6*16*0.04+0.065 = +2.6; 46 Seconds

With this Void Stone build.
Mana Regen @ 8, Seconds til Powershot:
(22*0.04+2.6*6*0.04)*2 = +3.0; 40 Seconds

Mana Regen @ 16, Seconds til Powershot:
(22*0.04+2.6*16*0.04+2.6*6*0.04)*2 = +6.3; 19 Seconds

(0.04 is mana regen per point of Int, 2.6 is the per-level increase in int).

My math might be wrong but considering the threshold for infinite power shot is +13.3 regen not to mention you are also using your mana for other things (like Shackle, Force Staff, Mekanism) I can't see any reason anymore to bother with a Basilius. Also don't forget that you're liable to have some Int bonus from the force staff and comparing the @16 numbers again with the force staff added:

Without Void:
32*0.04+2.6*6*0.04+0.065 = +3.0; 40 Seconds

With Void:
(32*0.04+2.6*16*0.04+2.6*6*0.04)*2 = +7.1; 16 Seconds

This is why it's my opinion it's completely suicidal to get a Basilius on Windrunner and any support that has more than one key skill in the ~120 mana range (which is most of them). Additionally if the other team is fielding any mana burn heroes it's just a million times more effective to have regen then try and rely on a pool of mana as a backup.

Level 16 is a goal you are pretty much guaranteed to hit eventually as a hard support, so you need to maximize for that.

If no one on your team has it, Ring of Basilius is much better than Void Stone. Also a Bottle will help you more than the extra .7-1 mana regen an early void stone will provide you compared to a Ring of Basilius. Ring of Basilius + Phase Boots also has good synergy with Focus Fire for sieging towers early. Overall, it may delay your sheepstick, but with a bit more power shot spam you should make up the money pretty quickly.

Also since you are playing support, skadi should really not be recommended as kiting plays a limited role when enemies have easy ways of closing the distance late game. Things like [Shiva's Guard]] or Maelstrom will help you push and provide a team presence. Also chain lightning from Maelstrom works with her ult.

The Skull Basher just doesn't cut it.It is too expensive for just a 10% chance to stun(yes,I know,you have Focus Fire).
I'd suggest a Monkey King Bar or Helm of the Dominator when you need a solid semi-carry windrunner. Daedalus, Desolator or Mjollnir can also be decent.

And no,you cannot attack while ethereal.

Nice guide, thumbs up. Proposing Void Stone for solving her mana problems is definetely worth a try, especially since it can be used for an Eul's or the Sheep Stick. I have played a couple of games with WR and have been torn between getting Phase Boots (nice speed + attack damage but leaves WR with huge mana issues) and Arcane Boots (solves mana issues and helps allies but nerfs her attack damage).

However, I disagree with leveling Focus Fire last at levels 23-25: IMO it should be taken as the situation requires as it is very useful for taking down towers fast and also has situational uses in teamfights, being her perhaps best-scaling ability into late-game. Remember that she will automatically follow the unit targeted while "channeling" and that you can use your abilities (including Force Staff to follow them?) while "channeling" Focus Fire. See an enemy Clockwerk popping his cogs around one of your friends? Void pulling off a Chronosphere on your friends? Just Focus Fire away!

In some circumstances you can even duel against their carries: Shackleshot, then Focus Fire (-> Sheep Stick ) -> Once the stun is off and they start right-clicking you, just stand there using Windrun and laugh as you get 100 % evasion (does Ghost Scepter also work here?). This theoretically gives you a maximum of 8.75 seconds of shooting at them at max possible attack speed while the other hero cannot right-click you (expcept with MKB).
Finish off any surviving opponent with Powershot. Remember that prematurely releasing the Powershot at 0.6-0.7 second mark still deals full damage. No shame in early release ;)

As far as I understand Focus Fire works with Crystalys' critical damage proc and Skull Basher's stun, maybe worth experimenting with these items?

Note however that you must have your team around you taking all the heat from the enemy if you want to use Focus Fire in teamfights. WR just gets killed if she gets stunned and/or silenced. Consider adding a friends & foes section with this in mind.

Foes: Long-range burst damage nuke heroes, disablers (stuns & silences) & the usual invisible pestilences that can just squash you instantly with their combo.

Friends: Meat shields, disablers, slowers and other crowd controllers that you can hide behind and help you set up that 2-hero-shackles and allow you to Focus Fire.

Consider adding Tranquil Boots as an optional early-game item if you face heavy harassment in lane. These can be disassembled into items for a Ring of Basilius -> Ring of Aquila. RoA is a very nice for overall stats and damage especially if you are doing poorly. The Ring of Regen can be used for Force Staff / Mekansm. Also why no Clarity early on?