6.86 Offlane Titan

Introduction

Elder Titan gets no love, currently sitting at the 3rd least played hero!
However, if played properly (not support!) he can wreck pubs, provided you don't have bad teammates, auto attacking them and wasting your ult.

6.86 introduced a huge buff to his ultimate Earth Splitter, now 50% dmg at lvl16. 25% is Magic Damage and 25% is Physical Damage. This guide focuses on buffing that damage further, and scaling well all the way to the late game while being useful all around the game.

(This is my first guide on DF, so please any feedback or mistakes you find tell me right away :) ).

Items and Explanation

This guide is about Offlane ET, so we start with a Stout Shield, Ring of Protection and the regen of your liking (Like Tango+ Healing Salve or Tango+ Faerie Fire+ Clarity).

You upgrade the Ring of Protection into a Basilius Ring of Basilius, then get a Ring of Regen and disassemble the Basilius to get Soul Ring. Then use the Ring of Protection to complete your Tranquil Boots (Lots of rings, I know).

From there on, I've tried many many item builds. Best thing I could decide for is to walk around with your SoulRing+Tranquils+Magic Stick and save for your Hand of Midas. Even a late Midas is still worth it on ET. It guarantees that you'll scale to the late game, gives you fast xp to lvl16 where you shine.

I'll explain the math behind those items later.

After Midas things get easy, you go for Medallion of Courage then upgrade to Solar Crest. Afterwards I'm enjoying the new Veil Veil of Discord, the INT it gives is huge and the active synergies extremely well with your ult.
I'd call those items core, after you have your Veil, things get situational. Aghanims is decent, so is Refresher, Assault Cuirass, Eul (I don't advice it) and whatever you fancy.

The reason I don't go Eul, is because of the nerfs it got. The mana cost is big now, the cast range is nerfed. It's just not worth it anymore unless enemy team has some channeling heroes (CM, Pudge, WD, etc...).

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What to get after your core?

This is when things become complicated, what are the best luxury items for Elder Titan?


Aghanim's Scepter: Gives decent stats, upgrades your ultimate so that it applies Disarm effect on enemies for the slow duration. Amazing against right clickers on the enemy team.

Refresher Orb: Only get this if you are playing with friends who know how to play with Elder Titan (means they can wait until you cast two Earth Splitters). Two Earth Splitters will insta kill most heroes HA!

Octarine Core: Useful all around, decreases cooldowns for all skills and your active items. Works best when you have more active items.

Black King Bar: Self explanatory. Nukes, Disables, AoE stuns --> BKB

Rod of Atos: If you're having a hard time landing your Echo Stomp after the Spirit. This item received a neat buff. Gives huge INT and HP, and helps you set up your Echo Stomp. Also great against Evasion (PA,WR,Radiance burn and Butterfly).

Ghost Scepter: Get this item when the enemy team has some fast right clickers, such as Ursa, Juggernaut, Phantom Assassin, etc...

Blademail: Situational item imo, buy this when you're planning on going on the front lines after you cast your ultimate or if your team has no particular frontliner.

Scythe of Vyse: Great item if you can afford it late game, and helps your team disable an annoying carry such as Antimage.

Aether Lens: Another great item that's good if you decide to get Eul's Scepter of Divinity, extends the cast range of your Astral Spirit and your items.

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Time to explain the item choices.

Why no Eul? Why no Arcane boots! Are you mad?

2 patches ago, I'd tell you you're crazy for not going Eul on ET, but not anymore. The item is nerfed, it's not so good on low mana pool heroes. The cost is big, the range is dangerously small. Just not worth it.

No Arcane Boots because you're offlaning and because Soul Ring + Tranquils give you infinite mana. You almost never have to go to base.

So why Solar Crest and Veil?
Reason being is the new buff to his ult, 50% dmg at lvl16. 25% is magic dmg and 25% is physical.

Let's say you're against Centaur Warrunner with 4 Heart of Tarrasque and 6k HP. But he has no Armor items. just his Base Armor. let's say he has 9 base armor and 25% basic magic dmg resistance. You Astral Spirit and Stomp and use ultie, his armor is reduced to 0 and magic res is also 0%. So he takes full 50% dmg, from 6k hp to 3k hp -give or take-.

Do the same again but this time use Solar Crest and Veil, his armor is now -10 and his magic res is about -25%. He takes about 37% more physical dmg and 25% more magic dmg.

(25*1.37) + (25*1.25) = 65.5% of HP as dmg. From 6k hp to 2170 hp.

Solar Crest and Veil are not just for your ultimate, Solar Crest is always good and Veil is especially good with magic dmg dealers on your team.
And they're both relatively cheap to build, low cost build up, and great stats to top it all. 18 INT on Veil!

I usually go Refresher Orb late game, just for the flashy 1 shotting on full hp enemy heroes!

For your standard game, best purchases would be: Soul Ring, Tranquil Boots, Solar Crest, Veil of Discord, Hand of Midas, Aghanim's Scepter and Refresher Orb. (get rid of the Soul Ring after 45 mins, it's ok :) ).

Skills and Buildup

Echo Stomp:
Great disable, 5 seconds of sleep in an AoE. Downside of course is that it requires channeling and that it's a sleep which means any hero damage they take will wake them up (keep in mind ONLY hero damage will wake them up, not tower or creep damage, use this if they tank a creep wave or they're under tower).


Astral Spirit:
Elder Titan's companion, the spirit has your aura as well as your Echo Stomp which allows you to stun from a very very long range. The spirit has your movement speed. At lvl2 you can use it for last hitting in lane, but try to control it to get maximum effect. After it returns it gives you more damage the more units it passed through. So the best usage would be is to use it on a creep wave then make pass through the jungle camp then return. Let's say it passed through 2 heroes, 5 wave creeps and 3 jungle creeps: it would give you 68 damage at lvl1! go pound those supports to oblivion.


Natural Order:
This is what makes Elder Titan so strong late game against agility based carries.100% reduction in base armor (base armor means the armor they get from their Agi). Morphling with maxed morphed agility has more than 25 base armor, with Elder Titan he has 0!


Earth Splitter:
This is what makes 6.86 Elder Titan a team fight beast. 50% of their HP as damage, which means it scales no matter what phase of the game it is. 25% of it is physical damage (pierces bkb) and 25% is magic. The usage of Solar Crest and Veil is to increase that damage even further, along with your Natural Order aura, everyone will have minus armor and minus magic damage resist. This way your ultimate can take up to 70% of max HP as damage!



For the laning stage we start with Astral Spirit for lvl1, it lets you trade hits early on with the enemy support/carry. With Stout Shield + tango you'll definitely win the right click war (Don't over extend).

At lvl2 Stomp, lvl3 Astral for more dmg boost. Keep your at Astral Spirt then at lvl2. We take ultie at lvl7 (you won't get a chance to use it at 6 yet, at least not without your Soul Ring) and with Stomp at least lvl3.

Then we max Stomp, Natural Order and then finally max the Astral Spirit, taking the ultie at lvl11.

At level8 it would either like this: 3-2-2-1 or like this: 4-2-1-1.

How to Lane

If your solo off, then just try to get xp, occasional last hitting with your Astral Spirit. Trading hits against dual lane is not bad, but don't do it against a trilane.

XP is more important than last hits, you'll always get gold from fights, but you need levels to fight.

Once you're lvl7-8 your skills would be like this: 4-2-1-1 (or 3-2-1-1) and with Soul Ring + Tranquil Boots then you can start roaming and helping other lanes or even ask your mid hero for a gank on your lane, with your ultie you can kill any 2 heroes along with your mid ally (just tell him: By all that is holy, don't wake them up before I ult!).

Basically Soul Ring and Tranquils are all you need to sustain. Save up for the Midas. Believe me I've always played without Midas, and I was always low-lvled, underfarmed. Midas gives you that boost for lvl16.

From there on, get Solar Crest, Veil and probably Aghs or any other late game item.

Ending and Best/Worst hero matchps

Who are Elder Titan's best and worst to heroes to play with or against?

Let's start with our friends, heroes that are great to have in your team.

Vengeful Spirit, Shadow Demon, Dazzle, Ancient Apparition, Slardar, Shadow Fiend, Enigma, Faceless Void.

Those heroes shine with ET. Most of them offer additional minus armor or minus magic damage resistance. Shadow Fiend in particular for both his minus armor aura Presence of the Dark Lord and that we can set him up for great Requiem of Souls while Enigma and Void can follow up after your ultimate.

Next are some heroes that screw up Elder Titan's set up, unintentionally due to some items or skills.
Basically any hero that has Damage over Time skills, like Venomancer, Jakiro Viper or Phoenix. Also Radiance builders like Spectre.

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Favorite Enemies!

ET loves going against Agi based carries. Phantom Lancer, Spectre, Luna, etc...
His aura nullifies their strengths.

ET's Worst Enemies

Clockwerk this hero takes a special place, I hate going up against him.
Pudge also can ruin your game with his hooks and also his Rot wakes him...
Other heroes with long range stuns that can cancel your Echo Stomp such as Earthshaker and Earth Spirit.

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To sum up, Elder Titan is not played, no one likes him, probably too slow for this meta, but he's a decent offlaner. Works wonders against Agi carries like Spectre and AM who skip Armor items. Great siege engine. One of the best high ground defenders you can ask for.

I hope this small *guide* has been somewhat helpful for anyone willing to go offlane ET and suffer through the never-ending "ET is useless, go support man"

Any feedback, please don't hesitate!
Thank you for reading.