Axe and Dark Seer, New Role: Indirect Carries?

When it comes to all the arguments of who is stronger then who, and op this, op that. I'm sure that axe has many of times been accused of being op, but then people probably responded with something like "Dude, he's not a carry, look at most of his stats at the end of games" although, I bet if people looked at winning records of teams with axe it might tell a different story.

I found axe to be the most powerful design concept of a character so far. It's not that he carries a team himself, but when working in decent cooperation with your team he just turns in to a pure indirect carry.

I found that my double boot theory actually makes the most sense on him, and that Q is maxed last, unless you dislike W due to magic scaling late game.

It says he is an initiator, but he isn't in the sense of MS initation, which is why the Phase + Tranq speed makes so much sense for his initation to get enemies to target him. Like I said, my tranq phase double boot theory makes the most sense on him.

I simply start with wand and the defense ring, keep the rest of the gold at the start and buy a regen ring at shop in to tranq, then claw, claw, boot for phase. In the mean time I'm using wand for Battle Hunger Casts with awesome initiation from phase/tranq. I also got a shield, but decide on whether i want to go more offense with MoM or defense with vanguard. If you can get guys to attack you with such great initation, it just makes blade mail all the more powerful.



Now... remember my dark seer build? Tranq, MoM, shield, Dagon, Basilus or Wand?

Ion Shell stats? maybe 1 in surge?

If you lane THIS character with the Axe and build I talked about, I seriously think that you got the most powerful team associated power in the game.


Here is the thing...

No one can tell me with this combo "Oh, you can't do that noob because those characters are carries and will be conflicting with each other for gold and levels"...

You can't say that, as neither are carries...

But....

Once you see that these two perhaps especially together dominate and dictate the game so strongly and can attain kill death ratios worthy of carry?

What will you say then?

I will add that I did play a game recently which ended up being a 2 against 2 with all else disconnecting.

It was me as axe and an outworld destroyer(I think) against a spirit breaker and Lina....


I ended up with a 19 / 4 kill death ratio, but WE STILL LOST THE GAME.

In the end the spirit breaker was able to beat me with a losing kill death ratio...

But maybe this makes sense because axe is not a carry and spirit breaker is?


I realized that I shoulda been fighting in the creep mobs to get my axe to swing more when I would solo against the spirit breaker...

And another critical point is, I think his BkB made him immune to my Q...

Anyways, interesting replay, here it is.

Match I.D.

240280035


But again, with kill death ratios being capable of this, I think he has to exist in this mysterious new category of &quot (Indirect carry)


And my over all hypothesis is that the more of these sort of heroes that play on a team together, the stronger the team is period.


btw, my dark seer as being like the opposite concept to pugna is a little off in the sense that pugna is sota more an indirect carry in the sense of tower destruction....

but maybe there does exist a character in the game who is a focus fire harasser in to a great farmer with radiance as an inverse to a dark seer who farms in to focus fire harassment with dagon.

Spirit breaker is not a carry either. I like to think of axe as a sort of "early game carry" or an anti carry. He can be aggressive early game and take out the other teams carry. He tends to drop off late game unless you get a heart by about 20-25 minutes. Axe can also lane with just about anyone although best with a ranged partner, I could see Dark Seer being very beneficial to him. However, double boots, just no.

You lost me at axe being op....hes not. and you just buy a blink on him? You never talk about it on any initiator. Are you like allergic to it? Plus OD is a mimd hero since he needs levels very badly and he destroys most mid matchups. You dont need to spam battle hunger, just put it on supports everyonce in a while.

i don't think you know what carry means...
Axe is an initiator - some good at STARTING the fight - but it will still be someone else's job to clean up and finish off..
Axe and Dark seer together is great, but in practice.. against semi decent people. you lost out on potential farm and exp.. as both axe or dark seer can jungle, while the other lanes - increasing your GPM and XPM...
you could have both dark seer AND Axe clear the jungle creeps - and gank lanes from there. The jungle would give them 900+ exp, from one end to the other.. 1 can stack camps while the other kills creeps (likely axe) and gank.. (at level 1, they will both likely get to level 3, in 1 clearing)

I also wouldn't start with a wand, it's cheap and you can get it in the side shop. Just get both rings at the start (ring of protection and ring of regen) all you need is 200 for wand, if you really need it, and 450 for boots..

no point have tranq and phase - disassemble the tranq - make a headress (build into mech) and keep the phase.. same healing power, but you are a bit slower...

I also want to add that I see pugna now as some kind of a soul ring farmer....

With his MS and attack range, I thought he would be a physical damage mage at the start and focus heroes...

But the range that he has to get in to for the nether blast to go along side "Harassing PHysical Damage" from like a crystialis, just conflict too harshly with each other...

It's like he needs soul ring from the start to double cast nether blasts(with that fast cooldown) for farming purposes... and if he can do then, THEN i see what people were getting at when they say that dagon is good on him....


I did not understand how dagon could be good on a hero that couldn't farm well...

He is the best hero at the concept he represents... that being one that handles and deals with multi ranged focus fire, which has naturally been a problem of balance in many games.

Centaur is comparable to the concept but axe is on an entirely different level of fulfilling that role, that hardly gets filled by any other character.

Some people even do bizzare things like start with two shields on him because of this, but this is stupid in my opinion because he is a slow poke @ 290 and needs double boot initiation.

He can easily get disable before he runs in and gets the call. Thats why you buy a blink or forcestaff. Abaddon deals with "multi ranged focus fire" as do carries with lifesteal. Tiny can do it to melee heros.

But they would need to be a ranged attack disabler if he was with a Dark Seer and had ion shell on him...

Are two disablers that are melee, or hell, one... going to disable him then go in knowing that they might take some damage from ion shell and try to finish him off with Ion + axe swings?

Ranged stunner that comes to mind is Dragon Knight, anyone else?

The reason why you can get Dagon on Pugna is because you earn gold through ganking and pushing, which Pugna does quite well. You basically snowball in the early game and gets some heroes and towers down, that's where you get Dagon money.



Axe ain't imbalanced, but he's a frikkin' man, running in and ganking all the damage with no need for a good reason. Still doesn't warrant double boots, though.