[Bloop] Divine/Immortal Troll Warlord Guide (7.19d)

About Me

Name: Scott
Age: 27
Location: Florida

I first started playing MOBA's in 2010 and it started off with Heroes of Newerth (HoN, a DotA clone). I managed to climb the ranks rather quickly over the years playing both games and have peaked in the 6k~ MMR average bracket. I have experience playing w/ higher MMR players and some professional/semi-professional players (Tier 1/2) on both HoN and Dota 2. I hope these guides can help improve your knowledge and over-all game play and style on Dota 2!

I also stream live on Twitch! where i'm very interactive w/ my viewers and give insight throughout the game on/off. I also play with viewers, have a discord and answer all kinds of questions!

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For those interested in watching / giving me a follow I stream on Twitch! where you can watch me play live and ask me any kinds of questions. I'm very interactive w/ my viewers/followers and give insight throughout the game on occasion. I also play w/ viewers occasionally and have a personal Discord to hang out and chat in. We do viewer in-house games over the weekends for fun, too!

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This Guide Was Last Updated On: November 14th, 2018.

Laning Phase & Early Game

You want to start off with:
- 2x Tango's
- 1x Healing Salve
- Stout Shield

If at any point during the laning phase (the first 0-10/12 minutes) you run out of regeneration while laning and need to heal, don't EVER run back to the base [unless you have to]. Use the courier and ferry yourself more regeneration items. Whether it's one more set of Tango's, a Healing Salve or a Clarity this is extremely important and something I see happen even in higher ranked games where players just run back to the well for no reason rather than ferrying themselves more regeneration in lane. Experience early on, maintaining lane control and sustaining the lane w/ enough regeneration is very important and by running back to the well makes you miss out on all of this and will put you even further behind than simply just purchasing another regeneration item. That or use the shrine around the 5 minute mark if need be as well (if available of course).

One key benefit of playing Troll Warlord in lane is that you can handle/control MOST lanes by yourself in the current meta simply because of the fact that he is both a Melee and Ranged hero so he can toggle between both stances to help you for every scenario/situation you get put into. He's also not THE worst jungler if you do get pushed out of your lane. You can just rush a Morbid Mask and farm jungle to and from the safelane. Keep an eye on the lane while you jungle to know when to go back to the lane whenever the enemy offlane pushes the creep waves towards/underneath your tower.

With the way the meta is right now for the offlane (two people in the offlane, running 2-1-2 lanes) you will lose the safelane more than you'll win so don't expect to have good farm every game! unless you have a solid lane support that can help you get by. It is OKAY to struggle a bit, you'll recover to and from the jungle and the lane and eventually the enemy teams supports will leave and rotate other lanes (hopefully!) after some time of getting their offlaner ahead.

Some key supports to have in your lane [in general really!] as a partner are:
Winter Wyvern, Ogre Magi, Crystal Maiden, Vengeful Spirit, Silencer, Grimstroke to help zone and even get kills w/ your Whirling Axes (Melee) and Whirling Axes (Ranged)

Ogre Magi's Bloodlust And Magnus's Empower are both AMAZING abilities (and heroes) to have on your team to really buff Trolls mid/late game carry potential up WAY high.

Item Order and Ideal Timings:
Ring of Aquila (4 Minutes) -> Magic Wand (4 Minutes) -> Boots of Speed -> Phase Boots (8 Minutes) -> Morbid Mask (11 Minutes)-> Yasha(15 Minutes).

This depends on your lane of course but in most cases I tend to go these items in that order. I'll occasionally get a Wand first if it's a spam heavy lane into Boots of Speed if I truly can't find the space to farm Ring of Aquila first safely. Having Ring of Aquila paired w/ a Magic Wand as early as possible will help your laning phase tremendously w/ the regeneration of Mana (which helps your support too including yourself) and the damage/stats it gives to help you harass and get last hits easier followed by Morbid Mask so that you can farm the jungle to and from lane more efficiently w/o losing life and being able to trade hits w/ the enemy offlaner more effectively. Your first main item will be Yasha for the stats, movement speed and the damage it gives early on which will help you farm faster from the camp to camp in the jungle and in the lane killing creeps and pressuring buildings early on.

Mid Game Items & Strategy

Item Order, Ideal Timings and Strategy:

Sange and Yasha (18-20 Minutes) -> Black King Bar (26-28 minutes).
-OR-
Yasha (15 Minutes) -> Black King Bar (20-22 Minutes)-> Sange and Yasha (25-26 minutes).

When do I skip finishing Sange and Yasha and build a casual Yasha Into Black King Bar ?

If you're starting to find yourself in a "pickle" for farm against a team full of disables/nukers/aoe that are scaling fairly well pressuring you and/or your team/buildings or you have no faith in your team it's best to play it safe considering you could possibly lose the game at this point (or at least put yourself in a TERRIBLE situation where you're down a lane of rax after this next big engagement/pick off if things go overly poorly. So having a Black King Bar will allow you to play it safe and be more securing for you when trying to split push/push or take fights and out maneuver the enemy teams stuns/aoe.

Once you finish your Sange and Yasha and/or Black King Bar you want to either group/smoke w/ your team and gank/psuh or smoke yourself into the Roshan Pit to take Aegis of the Immortal by yourself which is usually free (as long as you don't give away your position by using ultimate too early when trying to kill Roshan [they can hear the active globally]). Depending on which you do, let's say you take Roshan and claim Aegis of the Immortal you'd then want to consider smoke ganking again and picking one off before pushing or simply grouping up and taking tower after tower / team fighting until it expires or you die / get another big item.

Late Game items & Strategy

Late game gets a little tricky.
Deciding on what items to go for are completely situational.

You have to stop and ask yourself these questions as far as itemizing goes:

- Do I need to be initiating? Are we lacking catch/initiation? If so, it'd be a good idea to consider a Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade after picking up your Sange and Yasha / Black King Bar to pick off their supports in the back lines prior to full blown fights or simple to setup ganks for yourself or your team to initiate.

- Do they have a lot of single target spells/items that i'd like to disregard w/o having to use Black King Bar all the time to be able to out maneuver them? If so, it'd be a good idea to consider picking up Linken's Sphere.

- Do they have a lot of Physical Damage and some burst? If so, it'd be a good idea to consider building either a Satanic or an Eye of Skadi both are good and play "similar" roles. Satanic makes you tanky, gives damage and gives you the direct lifesteal active Unholy Rage which helps you stay alive in team fights a lot longer (especially against other right clickers) whereas Eye of Skadi gives you stats which makes you tankier as well, gives a little bit of damage and most importantly stacks w/ your Sange and Yasha Procs (which slows) and slows their attack speed AND movement speed down. It really comes down to the preference of the player and the situation that fits either or best. Can't go wrong w/ either or in most cases.

- Should I ever get Butterfly? Eh, not really. You don't have the slots for it and in most games the enemy core will build an Monkey King Bar to deal w/ your evasion that comes from your Whirling Axes (Melee) Ability which would make it less significant.

- When should I purchase a Nullifier ? If the enemy team's building Ghost Scepter, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, Shadow Blade, Heaven's Halberd, Scythe of Vyse then building a Nullifier is always an AMAZING option into the late game to stop them from being able use these key items against you or to get away.

- A lot of cores (right clickers) tend to build Butterfly late game so be aware of this when considering your final damage item and building a Monkey King Bar.

- What other items should I purchase when I am 6 slotted? Well, if you're still using Phase Boots replace them for Boots of Travel and put them in your Backpack and fill your 6th slot w/ whatever item you haven't gotten yet from your situational items tab or late game items tab. If you've already done this, buy Moonshards and eat them or start saving up for a Divine Rapier / BuyBack.

ALWAYS make sure you have BUYBACK going into the late/ultra late game phase this is EXTREMELY important unless you desperately need that next big item to control / win team fights. So many games are lost because of this, not saving for Buyback.

You should be controlling Roshan ( Aegis of the Immortal ) late game (35+ Minutes), this is also very VERY important. Not controlling Roshan for the Aegis of the Immortal, Cheese and Refresher Shard could very easily cost you the game, map control and momentum but you have to be careful when taking it, you can also very easily lose going for it! so be smart about how you go about taking Roshan. I tend to coordinate smoke/pick offs or taking towers and backing w/ vision up before considering taking Roshan. Always have a Sentry outside of the pit too!