Bash those skulls!! Updated for 7.00

Introduction

There's one reason why I'm using Troll Warlord in 7.00, the existence of Mask of Madness.

Crazy farm speed with said item. Existence of Shrine makes him continuously active raking gold from jungles. And goodness of all, he destroy towers like there's no tomorrow. He can even solo backdoor towers now, provided he is sufficiently farmed.

Who is he?

It's an easy thing to offend a troll. A prickly and contentious race, trolls thrive on argument and strife, missing no excuse to raise their voices in dispute. Males grow to maturity in subterranean chambers beneath their matriarch's domicile, feeding and amusing themselves while contributing nothing. Often they stay for years beyond the age of maturity, while the matriarch provides them with sustenance. When young trolls are finally pushed from their sub-chamber, they gather with others of their kind, forming roving gangs of malcontents who complain loudly about all manner of vexation.


As much as trolls love to argue, imagine how rare it is for a troll to be driven from his own kind for being too difficult to get along with. Such was Jah'rakal's fate, a monger troll from deep in the Hoven. So deluded was he, so bitter and abrasive, that even other trolls found his company intolerable. After one particularly vitriolic outburst in which he claimed the lion's share of loot from their latest raid, his cohorts finally snapped. They turned on him, beat him with clubs, and drove him from the encampment. Enraged at his banishment, he returned the next day, armed with steel, and slew them all, one by one. He then swore a blood oath: he would ever after be a fighting force unto himself. Now he roams the world as the Troll Warlord, bitter and angry, the Imperial high commander of an army of one.


TL;DR, he is an angry troll.

P.S. He likes to bash.

P.S.S. Copy-pasted from a certain pedia.

Strength and Weakness (of this guide)

Strength

• Free Bashes.
• VERY HIGH ATTACK SPEED. Easily reaches the maximum attack speed the game allowed when combined with Mask of Madness.
• Towers are your food.
• 8 Armor at early level without any items after picking Berserker's Rage. Basically Ogre Magi without the amazing base health regen.
• Does not get easily bullied in lane because he can be a ranged hero to creep score from afar.
• Powerful Solo-Roshan candidate (at level 12 and has Mask of Madness).
• No melee carry can goes head-to-head with him because of Whirling Axes (Melee) or they want to get bashed to death.

Weakness

1. Stuns means his death.
2. Root is your enemy now. With the buff to the mechanic itself, expect more people using Root ( Rod of Atos, Frostbite)
3. Base Health pool is not really terrific.
4. Somewhat squishy to nukes. Can be mitigated later by Black King Bar or going tanky by Eye of Skadi.
5. Not great against illusion heroes unless you buy Maelstrom. Even so, it's not a magnificent solution.
6. Illusion doesn't bash nor does has the bonus attack speed from Fervor.
7. Countered hard by Ghost form ( Pugna, Necrophos, Ghost Scepter), Guardian Angel until you get Diffusal Blade.

Abilities, Skill Builds, and Talents

Hover over the Icons for skill descriptions.

This is your Q. The ability that makes Troll Warlord very unique. He can be melee and ranged hero at will unlike Dragon Knight that needs his ult to be ranged or Terrorblade where he needs Metamorphosis, even then you cannot change to melee until your spell duration ends.

The bonuses (bashes, armor, and movement speed) only applies when the Berserker's Rage goes red (melee).

This ability has a built in Bash attack, so unfortunately you cannot have Skull Basher and Abyssal Blade passive effect, but fret not, this bash stacks with Monkey King Bar. Because of your monstrous attack speed from Fervor and Battle Trance, Mask of Madness also with the bash duration, basically a single bash will almost lead to a perma-bash and thus killing them. When combined with Monkey King Bar's very high mini-bash chance, your enemy cannot do a thing unless their stun ability has 0 cast time. (The only one that has this is Dragon Tail If I remember correctly).

NOTE: Bash has a hidden cooldown, so getting Perma-Bash means you are very lucky.

Most of your damage come from the combination of Fervor and the bash from this, so we max this second. Also because of these bonuses, despite able being a ranged hero, his melee form is more powerful and thus preferred in many situations. Only use Ranged form when trying to take dangerous towers or enemies trying to escape from you.

The 6 armor bonus means you can farm jungle on easy and medium camp by level 3 with just level 2 Fervor and Quelling Blade without receiving much damage return. If your lane is bad (you get bullied hard), consider going to jungle instead.

Leveling this skill increases your Movement Speed, Bash duration, and Bash Damage, but the armor bonus stays the same. For that armor bonus alone (and melee form), we can put this skill in mere value point if you wish so.

Granted when putting this skill in value point means he needs a set up from his allies like a stun or disable so he can catch up, but in upside, you get some nice damage nuke from your Whirling Axes and Attack Speed from Fervor. Having Blink Dagger or Sange and Yasha helps to offset your lack of positioning for not leveling this in early or mid game.

Do note that the Bash damage from this skill is magical damage. This means that the damage won't pierce Black King Bar but don't worry, the bash stun still pierce.

Note: This ability has interesting interaction with various things. Please visit this link to know what these effects are. Do note that I don't forward to Dotafire because Troll's Berserker's Rage ability notes has not been updated yet since... ever.

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These abilities switches with each other depends on whether your Berserker's Rage is passive (ranged) or active (melee). When passive he uses the Ranged Whirling Axes and vice versa.

Things you have to note:

• The Whirling Axes (Ranged) has constant damage and slow, while leveling the ability only gives extra slow duration.
  
• The Whirling Axes (Melee) has constant Blind while leveling the ability gives extra damage and extra blind duration.
  
• These slow and blind are not dispelled by Magic Immunity but does not pierce it, and can be purged. Meaning the Slow and Blind persists if you can hit them before they pop BKB.

The orange-colored texts are the reason we can put this skill in value point. But leveling this skill gives the power to nuke down enemies easily with reliable 300 magical damage before reductions. if your team lacks damage from nukes, leveling this might be a good idea.

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Pretty self-explanatory skill. Your primary damage. Good for farming jungle and pushes towers down. The low starting attack speed is covered by both Battle Trance and Mask of Madness, so we max this first.

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Another self-explanatory skill. This skill gives impact mostly to Fervor and Berserker's Rage since they benefit from your bonus attack speed.

Use this to kill opponents, destroy towers, or generally use it when in team fights even when you are far away so your team has bonus attack speed. Use this also to kill ancient creeps quickly, but don't overuse it. You have little mana pool, and doesn't want to have empty mana when team fights happen.

If there is Tiny with Aghanim's Scepter on your team, prepare to demolish your opponents towers in seconds.

Max this whenever it's available.

Make sure to use this ability first before using Mask of Madness, or else it would be awkward. (I'm serious about this though)

Talents

So, we are here.


Level 10 Talent is no brainer. Agility scales better to late game, and your health will be covered with items.


Level 15 Talent also gives nothing to mull about. With superior movement speed bonus from Mask of Madness, picking +15 movement speed is bad. +6 Armor, however, is very good. It will offset minus armor from MoM's active.


Level 20 is where you have to choose wisely. +40 Damage is Great, but at some situations, they can be bad (E.G. facing Axe or Legion Commander with Blade Mail). Pick +300 health when getting tanky is far more detrimental. Like facing Blade Mail users, Dispersion, or facing many unscaling damage nukes.


Level 25 is just... well... meh. -7 Whirling Axes cooldown seems cool on paper, but when you get level 25, you are already doing so much damage from your right clicks that you will forget to even use the ability until the enemy is escaping. 20% Magic Resistance is just as bad. You already have Black King Bar as one of your item choices, and the item already blocks majority of the nukes. Pick Magic resistance when facing heroes like Necrophos, Storm Spirit, heroes that rely heavily on magic damage, otherwise pick the lower cooldown.

Item Build

Hover over icons for item name and description.

Starting Items

The reason why we bring only few regen is because we can heal from Shrine. Buy Healing Salve after the horn if you go one vs one in lane.

Starting Items (Random)

Ditch the Healing Salve if you get babysitted and pick Wind Lace instead for killing potential.

Early Game

Phase Boots for damage and speed burst. Attack speed already comes from your abilities and Madness. Your next item after madness center around stats. Mask of Madness new active effect is a pure beast. It comes with the downside of being silenced, but after casting Battle Trance, you don't care about silence anyway. -5 Armor is covered by Berserker's Rage passive (melee) and your level 15 talent, so this item has no downsides for him.

Core

The only core you need. After getting this, you are a true beast in the battlefield. This guide rely heavily on melee Troll, which this item covers everything he needs. Stats, Damage, Movement Speed, and Slow to keep hitting.

Getting this item has 2 ways, directly or indirectly.

Directly means you pick Yasha, then buy Sange.

Indirectly means, you buy Dragon Lance first. Then Blade of Alacrity, Belt of Strength, Recipe (Yasha), Recipe (Sange), in any order. Then proceed to disassemble Dragon Lance to get Sange and Yasha. The extra Band of Elvenskin can be sold.

So What does this mean?

Getting directly, means you get Yasha first, which an item good for farming, pushing, but bad for fighting since your health is low.

Going for Dragon Lance first means superior stats for fighting, but less farming speed. And you have to pay 200 gold more than usual to get SnY, but the superior stats on the way are very good for that kind of price.

Generally, if I get a good lane, my team is good at keeping enemies at bay in early-mid game, I generally go directly for Sange and Yasha, but if you are forced to go online quickly, opt for Dragon Lance.

You can exchange this item with Silver Edge if you need to get stealthy to deal with their backline heroes first. However don't get both SnY and SE, too redundant.

Extension

Black King Bar will solve many lock down by the enemies and make carries go down under if he goes fight you even with his team backing him up.

Pure damage. Crazy good on Troll. If you want your enemy carry to cannot fight you back face to face, pick this. The stun is only ministun, but the proc chance is high and has no cooldown. With your crazy attack speed, the ministun will proc so much that you can almost see it as guaranteed Perma-Bash.

Pure damage, again. Outclassed by far margin when compared to Bloodthorn. Pick this up if facing enemies with crazy high health bar or high armor like Pudge, Dragon Knight, otherwise, stick to Monkey King Bar.

Pure stats, pure health, pure survivability. Pick this up after getting a damage item, otherwise your damage output will be too low. Rush this if you need to be tanky rather than buying BKB first.

Situational

Get this if you really need to get the jump on someone like Drow Ranger or Sniper that hides too well. Usually SnY, BKB, Phase, and MoM's active is the only thing needed to weed through the battlefield to kill that pesky enemy hero.

Pick this to get the jump on enemy backline heroes like Keeper of the Light, Crystal Maiden, etc before they get to cast their abilities.

If 2 or 3 of enemy heroes are right clickers, buy this.

Buy if there is an Omniknight or Pugna (Now includes Necrophos) on enemy team. Or they have too much love to their Ghost Scepter.

Buy this ONLY if you are ahead, or facing heroes like Storm Spirit.

General Playthrough

With the changes to 7.00, games tends to be quicker.

Farming is far faster now with the runes and the far more neutrals, so getting SnY is also far faster.

In early game, stick to the lane until level 6. If your mana is lower than half and your allies ping for Shrine, unless he or she is on the other side of the map, go join him. You will need all the mana Troll has.

Don't be shy to use shrines. Since you need mana (and health) to push, going for a quick heal to push faster before enemies react is great. But don't waste shrines, use it wisely.

The rest of the game is situational, so good luck!

Allies

All heroes with reliable stuns are your best friends. Some however, deserves special mention, having stun or not.

Magnus is your MMR Farm booster. Ask him for some points in Empower in early levels and watch your farm skyrockets. He is literally a portable Battle Fury giver, which is something you want, but will never buy because it will delay you in significant margin and doesn't do much in team fights.



Stun ( Slithereen Crush) and amplify damage? what more can you ask for?



Same as Slardar, but with more utility. Stun from Magic Missile for you to catch up, Armor Reduction and Damage enhancer from Wave of Terror and Vengeance Aura means you can kill them easily. Her Nether Swap to save you when you are over extended or to catch fleeing enemies.

Shendelzare should be Troll Warlord's lover, not a certain chicken.


Your tower destroying friend when he has Aghanim's Scepter. Cast Battle Trance when he is plowing buildings.

Enemies

Stuns are agility carries worst nightmare, Troll Warlord included, but we can pacify this with Black King Bar or Linken's Sphere.

Troll Warlord has surprisingly few weakness when going this build, but it doesn't mean he doesn't have one. Since you go online early where most other carries likely go farming, he can press advantages before getting mowed down by the enemies.

Since you are a single hero killer, illusion heroes are naturally your enemies. Terrorblade is not in here because you can distinguish the real one from his illusion except the ones created from Manta Style. Still, a Whirling Axes (Melee) can easily distinguish which one is real.



Brewmaster is a core and anti-carry that comes online quick because he is not a priority farmer. This guy most likely already online before you get Monkey King Bar or Black King Bar, making him a very dangerous guy. And never forget his ult, since he can escape using it. Depend on your allies to root him down with stuns and nukes until you get these items.


ROOT will be your new enemy with the buff to said mechanic. Root has been buffed and no doubt will be popular. Root abilities also generally has low cooldown since its status is considered inferior to stuns. Heroes that can cast them in early game is the most dangerous ones for you.