Ancient Apparition - Breaking the Ice

Good Guide +1 from me

I think you could add Ursa to allies Chilling Touch and Overpower is really sick because Ursa will hve extra damage from both : Fury Swipes and Chilling Touch

great guide i do have one question for you. On my own ive been messing around with ancient apparition and i have found that a octraine core can be a very helpfull item as it makes your ults cooldown 30 seconds instead of fourty meaning more freezing ice balls in fact ive been able to kill many heros pushing simply because i could cast it more and had wards so i could see where they were when they tried to flee

Maybe you could put Hand of Midas as a situational. I've seen Puppey do it a lot, he gets it for the levels, not the gold.

Done a little updating on this guide as it was getting pretty out of date.

As always there is some flexibility in his skill builds, I'm not against a value point in Ice Vortex, as it can be quite handy for scouting etc, but his two other spells can be so devastating early on that it's hard to look past them. Just depends what kind of damage/disable trade off you need.

A really good guide overall,
In the guide, is wrote that AA is very situational based from the 1-2 reason, but is there possible of any new meta build of AA? AA has skills that scales on specific situation, so the users must have good situation readers so AA can be effective, for example that maxing skills can be so variative.


that's form me, +1 if reply, i'm really looking forword your feedback, Sando :) thx

I'd add Abaddon the heros AA counters strictly due to the fact that AA counters his ult (always a good feeling seeing his ult pop and he can't gain health [still can't go down either though]), Also it's been awhile but last time I chacked AA was either 3rd or 4th for the highest Agility gain for a non Agility hero and mid to late game he can usually be one of your fastest hitters (I still every now and then, if I see the opposing team has 3-4 BKB's, go for a desolater after Eul's since due to AA's high int this usually means 200 right click damage at a decent speed which most teams never expect from an AA).

Aaah, the good old stats build: I remember when competitive players would go 4-1-0 since the third skill was pretty bad. Also, as you mentioned armor, I remember hearing somewhere that AA has a pretty decent AGI gain if I recall correctly.

Thanks for those thoughts Angelo, I'll have to try those builds out when I get a suitable team - I like playing AA too, just difficult fitting him into teams a lot of the time!

The enemies list I agree is somewhat strange - there are a few heroes in there that you both counter, and counter you. E.g. Slark - your ultimate is one of the few things that reliably goes through his, BUT he can laugh off Cold Feet unless you have 4 seconds of complete stun/silence to back you up (pretty unlikely).

Same with LC - I see what you're saying about how handy Cold Feet would be when she duels, but again, horrible to lane against as you've got almost no chance to landing a stun on her or her allies. Both ultimately depends on situation/playerskill, it's just worth being aware of!

I've been thinking about making an AA guide. I absolutely love this hero and how he plays. He's my highest win % support (Minus Lich, but that's a lot of low tier rolls). Here's some advice from my experiences with AA:

Another AA build to consider is 1-1-4 in a tri lane. It's very good against aggressive tri lanes, as your Q forces one hero to back, and your E will give an unbelievable DPS boost to your lane when they commit. If you have a reliable stun (Like a CM bite or something), the ability to drop an E, and a W on top of a target that is held in place will almost certainly take over half of their HP if all 3 heroes target them for one volley of auto attacks.

Another support build that I go for pub games is 4-4-1. I know it sounds silly, but pub games rarely tri lane unless it's captains mode. I think dual laning greatly hinders the potential of E, so I don't pick it up really (Sometimes I don't even skill it to level 1). Since the damage is set, but the attack speed debuff is a percentage, the skill scales horribly. At level 1 50 damage is huge, and 15% isn't that much since your attack speed is awful. Late game, 80 damage is still okay, but the 15% will be taking a much larger chunk out of your carries DPS, and you may just end up breaking even in DPS rather than buffing it (You may even lower it).

Just some thoughts. Try those builds out though and see if they're worth mentioning in your guide. Overall though, really well rounded and complete guide. My friend and I were doing long lane earth shaker and I'd support short lane with AA. I went first item veil. After a stun, I'd veil... He'd combo, with my W on the carry in the fight and my ult since they're stunned for a few seconds. Good lawd it's a fun combo.

Edit: Also I'd change some of the "Enemy list". Two that I would take off is Legion Commander and Slark. When LC ults, she stands still which is perfect for your W and Q. Ulting on top of that not only does huge damage, but disables her E so she is unable to lifesteal for the remaining duration of the fight. I've had a lot of success playing AA to counter LC as long as my positioning is correct. LC's W will also not take off your ult. Slark relies on dipping in and out of the fog of war to regen health from his ult. Your ult disables this. Also his Q does not purge your ult.

Edit again: As Peppo said, AA is very team dependent. If you're not doing well and you're playing from behind... I will go 4-1-0 and the rest stats. Then I will level my W back up when I feel we're back in the lead. When you're behind on AA, you're BEHIIIIND and it's hard to catch up. Getting some extra health and armor from the stats can make the difference between feeding, and barely surviving (Which means you still get to ult on your way back to the fountain).

Well, as I said in a blog post Ancient Apparition is very lane and team dependent: I wouldn't pick him without a good lane (even dual lanes with CK, WK or Sven work really well with him) and/or some global gankers or simply global ultimates. I think you did the right thing leaving one early point in Ice Vortex and maxing out Cold Feet at 7, the items are also well summarized. :D

Some good points as always Peppo, I've reworked the builds a little. Chilling Touch really depends on your lane composition in my book - if you have a trilane it's well worth those extra early points, and you could max it before Cold Feet. The thing is that the stun time is so good if you can get the right backup, while getting 5-6 attacks in each with 15% AS reduction is tricky in a single gank - it depends. As a solo mid it's a bit expensive.

I do always like to have at least 1 point in Ice Vortex relatively early, because of it's utility - mainly vision, and you also get most of the slow effect.

I'll add in Spirit Breaker as another ally - I agree you could land some nasty ganks, and even just the marker could work for targeting long range Ice Blasts!

Good guide, though I really think Chilling Touch should always be maxed first or second like you do in the second build: the damage increase doesn't scale very well, but the amount of hits do and are pretty significant. Cold Feet is good but two seconds are usually enough to kill an enemy you're laning against (I still max it out first though); Ice Vortex offers too little for the early game to be effective and isn't good for ganking, but it does amplify the extra damage from all of your skills including Chilling Touch.

I also like your friends and foes section, but you're missing Spirit Breaker and maybe Slardar (not sure about him though) between the global gankers. I remember watching a competitive game in which a team - Alliance I believe, but I'm not sure - drafted Ancient Apparition and Spirit Breaker as supports: SB would roam around and target someone, then AA would throw his ultimate to add some really needed damage; SB is really useful because he can keep an enemy in the same place for a lot of time thanks to bashes and ultimate, so timing the Ice Blast isn't a problem at all with him in your team.