A way to Sven

Post has been edited, and I have learned much since first posting this Article.

I hope this is reflected in the new updated guide!

Peonlord is right. Leveling Great Cleave during the laning phase will not help you farm in any way an in fact, will hinder your farm if anything.

Every time you attack, the other creeps also get damaged.

Since the other creeps got damaged, they'll have less health than your creeps.

Since your creeps have more health, they'll last longer.

Since they'll last longer, all of the enemy creeps will be dead before yours.

Since your creeps are still alive and the enemy's are dead, your creeps will advance forward.

Since your creeps are advancing forward, you will be further away from your tower and closer to the enemy's. This means that it will be hard to get kills in your lane, and it will be harder to escape from ganks in your lane. Never a good situation as a carry.

It is the same reason why Skeleton King's Lifesteal Aura, Nevermore's -Armor aura, and Sand King's Caustic Finale (unless he's mid) should never be leveled during the laning phase (which is usually from the beginning of the game until the 8-12 minute mark). It is also why pro's always turn off their early Ring of Basilius or Ring of Aquila during the laning phase.

If you don't believe me, try this test. Start a practice game and don't do anything but watch the creeps. If you watch it long enough, you'll notice that it will take a very long time before the first tower falls.

Now, make a new game and go to the lane as Sven and level Great Cleave once. Last hit 1 creep per wave and deny 1 creeps per wave and then back off. Pay attention to where the creeps clash in the lane. Because of the tiny extra bit of extra AoE damage, your creeps end up having more health than the enemies and will advance forward in the lane.

This is a concept you MUST understand very well if you want to become a good carry player. I'm going to be very blunt about this but right now, you are a bit lacking in knowledge about the mechanics of DotA and you are also very stubborn about your viewpoint as well. For example, you said playing against Riki is annoying because his Silence stops Armlet toggling. Silence doesn't prevent you from using items. Here's another example: "Crystalys is a good choice to buy here as well. It will only crit on your main target and will not transfer the crits with your Great Cleave." If you knew more about the mechanics of DotA (cleave in particular), you would know that the damage from the critical hit DOES transfer through your cleave as it is 1 single attack, not an attack on each enemy in the AoE. What I'm saying is, know what you're talking about before trying to teach someone else about it.

And about your stubbornness, you will get better very slowly (if at all) at DotA if you stay this way. Especially when it comes to making guides, keep an open mind for suggestions and advice. Try to see why someone has a different build than you rather than fighting over which one is better.

One last suggestion before I end this off: NEVER buy a Quelling Blade without a Stout Shield unless you know for sure you will not be laning against a ranged hero. Stout Shield blocks a ton of early harassment damage from range heroes and if you can't get close enough to last hit a creep without dying, what's the Quelling Blade going to do for you? I don't remember who it was, but a professional player once said that Quelling Blades can single-handedly lose entire games for a team because their carry couldn't get last hits early because they got harassed out of lane.

This is not about play style,
it is game mechanics and a known fact of dota
I have stated why u should not auto attack creeps when laning, there are plenty of articles discussed about this

Try argue against it, don't just tell someone who disagree with u to go away
I was auto attacking when i was new too, i was blamed in game and i learnt why on DotaFire, DotaFire is my teacher and i am trying to make DotaFire a better community
If that unplease u, i will stop here and this will be my last reply

@Peonlord
Well, then don't level your skills like that then. Play the way you play and ignore this guide if that's the way you do find works for you. I do it this way and it works for me. I don't have much else to say about it anymore.

In laning phase, u should NOT attack creeps unless its a last hit
ppl always blame player who auto attack creeps, becoz

1. even if u killed the creep wave faster, creeps will not spawn faster. Your gold/exp per minute is not increased
2. u are pushing the lane closer to enemy tower, make ur opponents harder to be ganked and expose urself in danger of being ganked

There are some articles discuss about Laning knowledge
The main point is u should secure last hits and keep urself in a safe zone (i.e. near tower)

Come back to my point
Therefore Great Cleave is bad in laning phase, becoz it pushes the lane
Great Cleave isn't helping since u just take last hit
if u auto attack creeps, its wrong in the first place

@Peonlord I'll try and explain again, but you're making my point for me so I'm not sure what you really have a problem with.

1) Great Cleave helps my farming (both in lane and in jungle) by speeding it up. Instead of having to let my allied creeps do damage to the enemy creeps slowly while I single target each one seperately without Great Cleave, I can hit each mob at the same time, doing normal damage to my main target, and a percentage of my damage to each secondary mob within range of Great Cleave, that way, when I have finished last hitting my first target, the next target(s) have less HP and therefore take less time to kill, and sometimes I can last hit 2 or 3 creeps at the same time, instead of risking my opponent getting a deny (if in lane). Does this make sense now? If not please let me know in a private message and I will try and explain it better again.

2)The reason I go with mana regen items is because once I have the item giving me mana regen, I don't have to continually spend more money on something else that regens mana. If I was to get Clarity potions, they only regen 100 mana, will stop regening mana if I get hit, and as well cost me more gold over time if they are my only source of mana regen/replentishment, where a Ring of Basilius will continually provide mana regen regardless of if I'm getting hit, as well as giving me an armour aura, for a one time cost. Having a huge mana pool works for bursting, but once you've used all of your mana and you have no mana regen, having a huge mana pool is useless.

3)Once again, Radiance is an optional/luxury item that I have not really discussed in the guide as of yet. Yes, there are better items out there, and Yes, I will get around to discussing the items I have chosen for my Core/Late game suggestions, as well as any possible Luxury/Optional items that may or may not be already in the guide, I just haven't done it yet. Please be patient and I will get around to doing so.

As well, these are only my suggestions, they are not meant as a hard or fast rule that you have to follow. I believe I stated that in the very beginning of the guide. If you don't like the suggestion and/or you think something else works better than go ahead and use it instead. I'm not going to tell you you are wrong for doing so. If you want to tell me why an item is better than another one, please have a reason or facts to back up your suggestion, just saying that this is better isn't a valid way of discussion. If your arguement makes sense, I will try it out, and adjust my guide accordingly.

4)I agree with what you say here. Mask of Madness can work as an item on Sven if you are not initiating fights, but that is not how I play Sven. I personally tend to use Storm Hammer as my initiation tool in the games I play, and this is what works for me. I will include this in my item discussion anyways when I post it in the guide though as an option, so thank you for your input!

1) u are just getting last hit anyway, i see no point how Great Cleave would help
if u are talking about jungling, without decent DPS item(armlet, crystalys etc), Great Cleave are not speeding up ur farming

OOM problem could be solved if u grab 1-2 clarity potion (circlet's price = 2 branch + 2 clarity)
Storm Hammer make Sven stay as a threat to opponent, otherwise Sven has nothing to rely in laning phase

if Sven is OOM, ur opponent will be aggresive and u will get no farm at all
I do understand Sven is a late game hero, means how well u do in early game is even more important

3) i will always prefer a Heart than Radiance

4) well, its a matter of play style
with MoM, Sven should not be initiating most of the time, he should come out when enemy team throw out the disable skills to ur ally

Thank you Hydriss, I will definately take a look at that and update!

Thank you for your input!

These are my reasons for doing the points you make in the way I do them.

1)As mentioned in my guide, before level 6 you generally will only have enough mana to use Storm Hammer once or maybe twice before being OOM. Upping Storm Hammer's level will only decrease the cooldown (which, when you don't have enough mana to cast it twice that early makes no sense) and will increase damage by 75, which early game can make a difference in a gank, but I would personally rather have the increased farm ability to speed myself up for more ganks later on. I tend to play Sven as if he was a late game hero, not an early game one, so keep that in mind.

As well, I tend to take the safe lane, so even the little bit of lane push I get from Great Cleave isn't enough to take me too far from the safety of the tower.

2) I do suggest Urn/Ring of Basilius for mana regen, as any time you get mana back to use your abilities more without having to leave the fight (and lose xp and gold production) to go back to the Well is better. As well, by level 6 when you get your ultimate You should already have enough mana to use your abilities with, as I believe I said in my guide . I will look back and see if I can make that more understood.

I generally do suggest Basilius as it grows into Vlad's later in the game, but if you need the Str (for damage and hp) and the heals because you're being targetted early game then Urn can be quite useful.

3)Radiance was supposed to be an optional choice. Edited it to make that more apparent, but it isn't a particularly great choice with Sven other than it is more AoE damage, which he already seems to do quite well.

4)I do not like MoM on Sven at all. He doesn't have enough Hp to be tanky enough to take the extra 30% damage, and he already has a fairly fast attack speed with the items I've got in the build. MoM is great on a tanky and slow attack speed Hero such as Doom/Doombringer, or one with a built in Blade Mail, but not on Sven.

overall the guide is pretty decent but could use some formatting check This Guide for some great formatting tips :)

Several points i do not agree

1. upping Great Cleave prior to Storm Hammer
Great Cleave actually will push the lane which is not a good thing in laning phase

2. Sven early game mana problem
u suggested Urn/Ring of Basillus, but i think mana regen on non-intelligence hero is bad
just increasing the mana pool is better (Power Tread(intel) + Bracer)
this could allow Sven to cast his Ultimate and Storm Hammer at the same time

3. late game Radiance
Sven could just 3 hit clear a wave of creep, Radiance's AoE didn't help

4. and u should definitely mention Mask of Madness too
going MoM will not be wrong as long as u are not under farmed or under level