Dealing with axe

So I have been having this problem of late... Whenever I verse Axe I loose and it's because I can't deal with his high health/ Blade Mail and also practically everything he does.
HOW DO I DEAL WITH Axe because I am either playing incorrectly or picking incorrectly or both. Any form of help would be greatly appreciated.

Bane ... when i vs an axe i make sure we pick a Bane, in team fights when he initiates i Nightmare him and at lvl 4 it usually lasts until the team fight is over, unless people attack him. or when stunned he cant Counter Helix so pick a stun heavy support roster Lion Lina, a good Mirana arrow can disable him long enough to finish him off.

i find the same problem with him early to mid game, once he gets heart or vanguard and a blade mail he is annoying to deal with, but me and the lads have started to change our strats for Axe ... when he mails up, we either retreat for a 3-4 seconds then go in again. or we ignore him focus on the hard carry or glass cannons.

honestly your line up should have 3-4 stuns/disables on it and if chain them correctly then he doesn't become so much of a problem. most stuns are on average 2 seconds, if 4 hit him chained well, he's out for 8 seconds. either you try and kill him then or if he popped mail before you started by the end of it the mail will be over and you can burst him down.

In lane, Dazzle wrecks him.Later in the game though, you need to kite him around, since he is pretty clunky and slow without his Blink Dagger.

@Smuggles

Axe wants you to throw your disables at him, that's the point of it.A disable thrown on Axe is one less disable thrown at his carry.Same thing with Bristleback game strategy.

I will admit heroes like Axe and BB are hard to deal with, because if you disable them, it lets the carry go free, but if you don't disable, they can still do considerable damage. I just played a game as sniper where I just had a BB tank everything for me and with positioning was able to just kite away.

@Wulfstan



or you could go an AoE stun line up ? Earth Shaker with blink can solo chain stun him plus most of the team.

i pick Bane because he has the ability to lock down 2 targets for the price of himself.

Nightmare Axe then Fiends Grip the hard carry.

i can see the armour reduction side of dazzle working well against him, but Culling Blade can kill through Shallow Grave so unless you either get rid of Axe first, or cast it when getting chased ?, then it kinda loses it's usefulness.

Right thanks, for that, so basically choose Bane to keep him disabled, I was also thinking Necrophos because during laning phase you can keep draining his health + ult on him when he has low enough health to keep him dead.
Also chain stun.

I was thinking about Dazzle because most Axe players will run through your creeps towards you to proc the helixes, so you can use Shadow Wave to do serious damage.

You don't want to max aura early with necro, it can be denied just by getting a ring of regeneration

My Tip: Play Axe, play him some more. You will be countered, i guarantee it. See what the others do to stop you.

In General: Early on you can use magic-nukes against him. This will not make him spin. Later it gets less effective because of his huge hp-pool then and the fact that spell-damage usually does not scale into late game. Then you need to disable him either by picking heros with disables or a sheepstick.
You should also consider that hitting hard is better than hitting fast against axe. Some skills are suicide against him (ever tried windranger ulti on him?).

1) Black King Bar againt Blade Mail
2) Stack Amor, as his leathal dmg from Counter Helix is physical dmg, which is reduced by amor.

gameplay:
never let him engange you near your own creeps, as rightklicking you will make your creeps attack axe.
this will also add some serious Counter Helix proccs

in genereal axe is a early to midgame- hero.
if you get to lategame, he will be useless, as everything he can do is jump in, and taunt, but his abiliys wind do any dmg at all in lategame (compared to the carrys).

so get to lategame, dont stay clumped and win the ****ing game ;)

You dont like axe because of his high health and disable which makes him a preety scary tank but u seem to forget that d2 has a tank destroyer whose name is Lifestealer