You Rock: In-Depth Guide to Control-Based Earth Spirit Support

Thanks for all the info, Hi-Breed. I'm always working on this guide, and I've been making small changes here and there almost every day since it's come out. Thanks for the advice, I checked out your guide and I really liked what I saw! I'm going to use some things I learned from yours to try and improve the look of my guide, cut out unneeded or redundant information and keep it short and easy to read. I appreciate the advice!

I spend a good deal of my time now both playing Earth Spirit and watching other people. I get to learn a lot about the hero just from my own practice and seeing what works and doesn't work for other people. JerAxai has been streaming hours (like 14 hours a day) of Earth Spirit and his stream is entertaining to watch on Twitch. he doesn't really play support, but taking Earth solo offlane has been working really well and I like doing that on occasion. Earth Spirit also has some potential to snowball and dominate, but I've been noticing that's largely due to his ability to secure kills and take a lot of the farm for himself. He's is a great pick because he's so versatile and can make it work no matter what lane you stick him in!

I build a lot of times Tranquil Boots and Eul's Scepter of Divinity on support heroes that have a low starting mobility and high mana or MP/s regen need (When I go off-lane with Jakiro, for instance), so I suggest you should give them a try and see how they work.

I would never build that combo on Tiny, though, as 250 mana passively coming from Arcane Boots together with 110 'active' mana can get me another ' Avalanche + Toss + landing on the previous Avalanche' combo, which is close to deadly starting even at level 5.

Of course, that goes off for 3875 gold (975+2700) which is indeed a HUGE amount of gold for a support that lacks AoE creep waves clearing spells (that both Jakiro and Tiny have), so I agree that might be a waste of gold considering Earth Spirit's spells.



Don't. Don't split it. We (the Dota 2 players) need advanced guides, too, so have it as looong as you consider and change the title accordingly ('in-depth', 'advanced techniques', or a funnier '101 item builds' explanation') such that the reader will know EXACTLY what he'll get into.

You can carefully organize similar bits of information under a subchapter-like way using +SPOILERs that display their title, but hide their content until the reader clicks on the title to expand the +SPOILER.

This will also keep your in-depth guide to a minimum length.

And I'll even help you achieve that by sharing all my know-how thanks to your charm I fell pray reading your guide.

For instance, you can check my in-depth Chaos Knight guide here and see how that looks like.

It's so looong that it doesn't even display right: at least I can't see the 'Item Build' chapter right unless I'm logged in to dotafire.

Regarding your guide, Earth Spirit got my attention recently while a team mate built him support-wise (he had early Arcane Boots and early Mekansm) and finished with a score similar to a 30-5-10 one, out-carrying us all.

So I really share your opinion that this hero should be researched and played more, as it has a great potential.

And about the time invested, trust me, I didn't spend tens of hours in crafting mine, as Leshrac_feeder asks



but hundreds.

And the guy is right, I gave you a well-deserved +1 (and FAVORITE), too. ^^

You're on green now. You definitely deserve it,


Hi-Breed

After trying out a few new items, it think the Urn is much better than the medallion. Same mana regen, pull and save teammate, hit em with Urn. Much more useful. Just got Earth in as one of my most successful with a 3.5 kD and 60% win ratio. The better I get with him the more OP I think he is in the right hands. Of course these are pub matches, but what else are we talking a bout here. So much fun.

Hey, Fame Ronin, thanks for the reply. I've gone Euls before, but I haven't tried Euls and Tranquils together. My big problem with Euls is that besides the mana regen I don't think the other things Euls offers you is worth the money. The disable it provides I've never found to be all that great and Earth Spirit doesn't suffer from mobility issues like Crystal Maiden does, so the MS is wasted on him more than it is on other heroes. I feel like most of the gold that you're spending to get that item is just for the regen, and there's more efficient ways to be spending gold.

That being said, Dota is great because every game is different and what item is best to build will be different every game. I've built some crazy items on heroes and put them to great use before so something like a Euls on Earth isn't really out of the question, I feel it's just generally an inefficient use of gold. I also have been moving Medallion out of favor because I don't usually find the extra -armor useful for securing a kill. Usually if I combo someone into my team or under my tower they're already going to die and the -armor doesn't really secure the kill. It is more useful for Gondar because of Jinada.

I will give your build a try, though. I'll try it out in my next game. I was planning on eventually throwing some more updates in here with some info on useful synergy with other heroes, and I'll add some more info on those items or even move them out of the "do not get" list if I feel they're useful. It's a shame this guide is already so damn long, I'd like to add more info in it. It might even be best for me to just build another guide and split this up into 2.

no Shiva's Guard ? i consider it a core, and u should add Veil of Discord as an alternative.
mekans should also be picked by your regular support as ES usually struggles with mana and thats the weakness u should cover for the most.

great guide but I disagree with the Eul's sceptor. It's so cheap for the mana regen it provides early and the ability to do your stun, roll, smash back combo and then then Eul active the 2nd enemy has gotten me many double kill ganks in the early game. The speed increase is wonderful as your escape only works with a clear path. And rolling around everywhere without using a remnant isnt really that fast or mana efficient and you want to save your stones for your stun, roll, ulti combo. Theres nothing worst than rolling in an ultiing with only 2 stones left because you used em all to get to the fight.

With a fast Eul's, you dont need Arcane Boots so you can get tranquil boots that again give speed, health regen and armor, so you almost never have to return to base since casting your spells doesn't break the boots and stop regen. To me the Eul's is the key as it allows you to spam your spells very early in the game. The mana I get from Arcane Boots is very often not enough to do anything but one stun and a push.

My current build with him is

Ring of Basilius and a tango to start.
Tranquil, Eul's, and Medallion in the early game which makes you an amazing ganker, followed by Force Staff and Veil which can be activated after you start your ulti, and gives you armor and stats. Sometimes I get Mek if needed, sometimes not, sometimes Urn. From there its either Shivas or AC to fill up that 6th slot.

I can see swapping out the Medallion for an Urn or something but my time with Bounty Hunter has taught me to love the Medallion. It must be so frustrating to to get the sound when it actives followed by a remnant slamming down behind them, pull stunned, rolled on, 80% slowed, and then bashed back to my teammates to clean up, all with -6 armor and me never taking a hit.

I also think blink dagger is a mistake because you already have a way in, what you need is a way out, and in that case I find that all of the armor and speed items that I get early, combined with your ability to smash anyone out of your way and force staff, lets me roll in ulti and tank a few shots while set my stones to reapply the ulti or escape.

4850 gold for Tranquils, Eul's, and Medallion
+200% mana regen
+100 movespeed
+10 armor
+10 int
2.5 second active disable
7 second active -6 armor debuff.

Even as you build the items, their parts are very helpful early with mana regen or armor parts.

But to each his own. Good guild. Good info. Well Written. One thing with the Roll, Force Staff combo, you can place the remnant while in rolling boulder. I would say to always start the roll first, Force Staff, and then place the remnant or just during the start up. Try my build see what you think.

Great guide +1

Hey man can you please make a Leshrac guide next???? Did you spend 10 hours on this guide? So cool guide 10/10 <3