Axe's Role

So, I've played axe a bit now and I'm starting to like him as a jungle semi support. I've been grabbing a stout shield, courier and heading straight to jungle. Grabbing a Mek, blink, drums.
Has anyone else been running more axe lately? What are your thoughts on using him as a support/pusher?

Cheers

You can jungle him if needed but with the tranq boots change it became harder. his laning is also very strong with battle hunger and you could even play him mid. Or you just go really agressive with him together with a hero like abbadon or dazzle, and even creepskip if you are against a very passive lane and knock down their tower early.

I would always get a blink dagger to initiate, so in lategame you can either be of use by providing a massive distraction with beserkers call to let others deal damage, or if you have been snowballing you can go for some items like assault cuirass and basher so you can do big damage yourself.

Try to play him as either a support or an agressive hero together with a friend on a fitting support, one that can allow you to be more agressive.

Axe is great as a support imo. He doesn't really need that much farm and he can farm really quickly when he needs the money so he can be out there supporting your carries and pushing, losing a bit of durability compared to the standard Axe but still being pretty effective in that regard.

Regarding your item build, you can't delay your core so you'll have to get your drums later on but I think getting Drum of Endurance at that point would not be worth it because it is a really early game item.

I would consider getting an Urn of Shadows before Mekansm or opting to get a supporting luxury item after Blink Dagger like Eul's Scepter of Divinity (If you formerly got Drum of Endurance for the extra ms) Force Staff or even Rod of Atos.

Timminatorr - I'm talking in a trilane setup. I've run him in lane but the issue is, counter helix can screw your own carry. Jungling is still effective, but I don't build tranquils any more. I'm rushing the head dress for regen instead which is generally enough.

So I'm toying with this as my build order
Starting Items
Courier - 150
Stoud Shield -250
Tangoes - 125
Branch

Buy Order
Brown Boots
Ring of Regen
Headdress Recipe
Blink
Finish Mek
Drums

I dont think he works as a support in a traditional trilane, the only thing he adds is battle hunger if you dont want to use counter helix, wich is great but apart from that you cant zone them out in a different way or kill them.
As a trilane support he is best i think when you go in the offlane, and your trilane farmer is a hero not that item dependant, like windrunner, dazzle, pugna or jugger. Get their tower early, get kills and snowball of that.

One way to play him as a Tri-lane Support could be by having the Hard Support, constantly Pull the lane, so the Creeps were under the Tower, you can then Tank the Creep Wave while your Carry hits them. Obviously, you'd need to pick a Carry with a strong enough starting Damage and maybe a Flash-Farming Skill to make this work ( Tiny / Doom / etc.). If the Offlaner(s) try to contest the Pulls, then you can man-up with Berserker's Call or Battle Hunger. If you choose a Hard Support with a Reliable Stun/Slow/Heal ( Dazzle, Io, etc.) you can be quite Aggressive by having them Stun/Slow the enemy to allow you to land Berserker's Call, or to keep you Healed so you can Tank more hits from Creeps and Enemies, for Counter Helix procs.

Then again, this kind of strat could fail easily buuuuut...*runs off to find a 5 stack*

I was looking less at lane support/baby sitting and more at a jungle support (ala chen, enchantress, enigma)
In a 1-5 he'd be a 3 spot but he could pixk up your mek/drums with his flash farm.

I'd rather just get Arcane and Mek, then blink.You can farm it up quick enough if you stack some camps and get at least 1 kill(yourself) until the 15 min mark.Blink should be around 22-23.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/363741280

Obviously, this wasn't trilane, but it's a good starting point.

You should try a Dagon to make up for his lack of range.

Also get Blade Mail to stack with his passive counter. And a Mjollnir for the lightning shield as well.

Honestly i play him as how he was before the patch, the only thing they did was make him a more effective hero by reducing the cool down on counter helix which is actually really great since my RNG is pretty nice. i would say just a dagger so that way u can berserker call and then feed kills to who ever or you can take the kill with your ultimate. Always max the battle hunger first though!