I'm fairly new to Dota (5 months) so when deciding which items to build, I started as a blank slate. I used math and logic to decide which items to build on different heroes for different reasons. But even as a noob, I'm surprised to see better players use weaker items and use poor builds! One example is a Razor building Vanguard! So I though I would offer some reasonable substitutes for these Items.

I still implore the use of a stout shield in early game. So it's then 1,975 gold to build vanguard. Vanguardlet's say I'm a lvl 6 Clockwerk by the time I build vanguard:

Pre vanguard:
Armor: ~4 armor (probably have an iron branch)
Stout Shield: 53% to block 20dmg. (due to pseudo random distribution)
Expected dmg reduction:
19.4% dmg red. from armor
assume attacks are for 80 dmg.
With stout shield and Armor I'm stopping an expected value of 24dmg per attack of 80 dmg.
Remember that the shield stops damage before the armor, so it's not really adding an extra 20 dmg reduced.

After Van…
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