Cold Comfort - Crystal Maiden (6.81b)

Introduction

DISCLAIMER

Hello and welcome to my first guide. I am publishing it slightly unfinished because before I go putting in the bells and whistles I want to make sure it is fundamentally sound - More images will be added later, information may change based on feedback from you the readers, and the entire thing could get scrapped if you tell me I should hang my head in shame for thinking I have a clue about how to play this excellent support!

On to the guide!

I am not a "DOTA2 Guru(tm)" nor am I a focused Crystal Maiden player, but I have played her and with her often enough to notice a few problems in common pub play and as such felt this guide could help a little.

It should be noted that Crystal Maiden is perhaps the most flexible hero I have played with regards to skill builds*. Virtually any sequence works, and the game you are in matters much more than any "magic" formula to levelling skills. Build to what you need for the match you are in! Early team mana regen could be the boost your mostly caster team needs for a quick victory, or maybe you need more disable/damage to support your melee carry's gank attempts... Build to the game, I cannot emphasize it enough! The above ability sequence is a rough version of what I typically do, but I'm often changing it up to meet the needs of the match, sometimes from level 1!

*: (Emphasis added because apparently it was not clear enough. While Crystal is a fairly fixed-role hero her SKILL build is extremely flexible and you can basically completely disregard the build I have above which was only included because without it you cannot post a guide - Again, build to the game you are playing, not the one someone else played)

Pros / Cons

Pros: Mana Regen via Arcane Aura for the whole team. Gank-resistant with slow and stun abilities. Item-independent early to mid-game. Able to push creeps effectively. Disables scale well in late game. Hearing a female voice often in game can help to keep you cool and focused. Besides, she is kind of cute.

V E R S U S

Cons: Squishy. Very squishy. Sustained damage is low without items and only decent with. Hard to play solo. Requires strong mini-map and positional awareness to survive. Disables blocked by magic immunity like Black King Bar or Rage

Items

Your item build on a support Crystal Maiden is very straightforward: First and foremost your role is to support, so gold you can spend on others comes before gold you can spend on yourself.

Fortunately this works in your favour as gold you spend on others gets you many assists and even the occasional kill which gets you more gold faster than trying to focus on yourself in most games.

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Starting Items:

Starting out Crystal Maiden has few needs: I generally get basic regen after buying the courier (Courier is your job, even with other supports on the team - you can cruise through early game with no gear at all if necessary, few of the others can). Tangoes are pretty much a must for early harassment, Healing Salve can save either yourself or your lane partner a trip back to the base and Clarity can keep you in position to gank, push back or rescue. You can adjust these as needed based on your lane partner when in a party or otherwise slightly organized game. Optional: Get Observer Wards if someone else does get Animal Courier, or even drop other items to get them if you expect a lot of early aggression.

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Early Game

Boots of Speed are essential on nearly any hero, but Crystal Maiden can delay them a short time in favour of Observer Wards, Sentry Wards or her Bracer depending on how her lane is going - better to spend the money than to lose it to deaths, and also if you are not having problems maintaining safe position boots can be delayed a little longer in favour of items that make you a bit less squishy or warn you of gank attempts. Bracer also builds into your Drum of Endurance and so should be picked up as early as you are comfortable with it. A Magic Stick pick-up is handy, although optional - And you don't need to upgrade it to Magic Wand later, selling it is a viable option to make space or get a little extra gold for a later item. Remember to prioritise getting wards over your personal gear! They can shift a game very quickly in your favour, while one missed opportunity to prevent a gank can do the opposite!

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Core Items

Tranquil Boots allow you to regen your health as quickly as your mana should be at this point thanks to Arcane Aura as you should probably not be using your right click too often and shouldn't be opening yourself up to damage at all. The movement speed is a huge bonus when moving to support other heroes or getting into position for your spells. Urn of Shadows is listed as core but if your partner has already gotten it you may substitute another item such as Medallion of Courage or Vladmir's Offering in its place - the benefits of two on one lane are small, and once team fights begin you should be the furthest from the fight most of the time, not the closest. The utility of Urn of Shadows is in its ability to both heal and damage - often it is all you need to finish a fleeing foe, or heal up another hero so the push can continue. Force Staff - Not sure how I missed this one on the first pass, thanks to those in the comments for pointing it out (repeatedly, and I probably deserved that!) - Escape, rescue, disruption, all in all a very nice add, plus the 10 Intelligence helps with mana regen, mana pool and right click damage. Again, weird I missed it since I buy it nearly every game...

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Luxury / Optional Items

Dagon

This list is large, and they all have their place based on how a particular game is going... Some, just for fun, should actually never be bought according to many but hey, this is a game right? Have fun with the mad money you often accumulate at the end of the game when your team is rolling well. Aghanim's Scepter - Big damage boost for your ultimate, a nice boost to stats. Totally optional until they decide to patch in an increase in slow for having the scepter, but can be fun if you get a lot of gold; Probably critical if you go for a Blink Dagger initiation build. Black King Bar - Late game item usually simply due to the demands on your gold, BKB can be a major boon when initiating with the Blink Dagger Freezing Field combo, or simply surviving team fights. The addition of damage and strength (for health) also help general survivability. In low skill-level games the magic immunity can be a big boost as few players understand or even face the BKB often. Blink Dagger - Great for initiation, escape or speeding up running point to point. Using it to skip cliffs and other obstacles can both help with travel and escape. Dagon - Nice burst damage, can help with initiation, burning down squishy-types and also simply striking fear into their hearts. Stat bonus also helps. Desolator - Adding a good chunk of damage to your right click and knocking armour off towers, creeps and especially heroes can only be a good thing. The damage increase may not be critical, but making towers and heroes more squishy to physical damage helps your team - Does not stack so only get it if nobody else pushing with you has it or is working on it. Eul's Scepter of Divinity - Adding another disable to your toolbox is good. Adding speed and intelligence as well? Maybe some more mana regen so you simply cannot run dry??? Pure awesome. Pretty cheap for the benefits. Remember that this disable renders the target invulnerable for the duration, so don't do it to a focus target! Ghost Scepter - While the increased damage taken from magic is scary against some teams those with mostly right-click damage will be unable to hurt you while this is active. Situational, but very helpful at the right times; Even if it only stops a couple kills that can be a tipping point in the game. Boots of Travel - Late game you may find the additional global mobility to be handier than the small stat gains of other boots, but definitely situational and luxury; Wards may be a better investment. Pipe of Insight - Against casters with large AoE spells this is especially useful, the cost isn't ridiculous and the active can make your team pushes into the enemy base much more survivable. Only one needed on a team typically, so only get it if you will be the first to do so.

Skills

Crystal Nova

CASTING METHOD: ACTIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: AREA
ALLOWED TARGETS: ENEMY UNITS
A burst of damaging frost slows enemy movement and attack rate in the targeted area.

Range: 700
Radius: 400
Duration: 3.5 / 4 / 4.5 / 5
Damage: 100 / 150 / 200 / 250
Movement Speed Slow: 30%
Attack Speed Slow: 20%
Mana Cost: 100 / 120 / 140 / 160 Cooldown Time: 15

This is most often the spell I max first in order to facilitate last hitting, harass and gank setup/avoidance.
Dropping it just behind you as you run can often catch a full team of pursuers, opening up a chance for a juke to break line of sight and escape.
Dropped carefully it can catch more than a full normal creep wave for good damage, as well as catching any hero that may be hiding in the wave going for last hits and denies.
In team fights it can slow the entire opposing team, do damage and in lower to mid level games even cause outright panic, something not seen in higher level play. The attack slow can also be very debilitating to right-click damage heroes.
Overall a very flexible spell, but its high mana cost can prevent you from using it in the early lane phase. It is worth buying a mana regen item such as an Urn of Shadows to support using this spell more often, and eventually you will probably be casting it on cooldown in late game.

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Frostbite

CASTING METHOD: ACTIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: UNIT
ALLOWED TARGETS: ENEMY UNIT
Encases an enemy unit in ice, prohibiting movement and attack, while dealing damage per second.

Range: 500
Duration: 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3
Damage Per Second: 70
Mana Cost: 115 / 125 / 140 / 150 Cooldown Time: 10

Frostbite is sometimes argued to be your bread-and-butter spell, but I disagree - It is a single target disable with a decent duration and damage, but scales poorly later and is almost useless against creep waves. I find a preference for Crystal Nova for general use and reserve this one for either gank or single-chaser escape in most cases as it is much more efficient to hit multiple targets with a slow and damage - it does however make a great follow-up in a team fight and should not be ignored in the levelling!
An absolute must for team fights, where you will probably cast at least two, and essential for holding position in an enemy base as you can break up rushes.
Strictly speaking Frostbite is not a Stun; It prevents movement and right-click attacking, but skills and items are still generally usable.

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Arcane Aura

CASTING METHOD: PASSIVE
ALLOWED TARGETS: ALLIED UNITS WITH MANA POOL
Gives additional mana regeneration to all friendly units on the map.

This bonus is doubled on Crystal Maiden.

Radius: Global
Mana Regeneration: 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5

This is the ability that makes Crystal Maiden shine in my eyes as an amazing support: No mana regen items needed once this is levelled up! For ANYONE on your team!
Even the first level does more for your whole team than Basilius Rings on everyone, and for most will outperform their Sage's Mask for several levels (But they benefit from it, so let them still buy them!)
Later in the game heroes like Witch Doctor will love you for this ability as they can spam their spells and auras much more often with no significant mana loss.

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Freezing Field

CASTING METHOD: ACTIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: INSTANT
ALLOWED TARGETS: ENEMY UNITS
CHANNELED - Surrounds Crystal Maiden with random icy explosions that slow enemies and deal massive damage.

Radius of Spell: 685
Radius of Explosions : 230
Duration: 7
Damage: 105 / 170 / 250 (*170 / 250 / 310)
Movement Speed Slow: 50%,^50%
Attack Speed Slow: 30%,*50%
*SCEPTER UPGRADE
Mana Cost: 200 / 400 / 600 Cooldown Time: 150 / 120 / 90

An overwhelming ultimate if you can get it off, Freezing Field is definitely not a one-size-fits-all ultimate - I often forgo it until later levels as you can see in the skill build simply because it is hard to survive using it. If the enemy team is stunned or otherwise disabled so you can get it going they will often panic and attempt to flee rather than stun/kill you, making it very effective.
Mana costs are high, but with Arcane Aura you have plenty gained between cooldowns to keep it going.
This spell is sometimes best saved as a utility to slow rather than counting on the damage since your foes may not be inclined to sit around for it!
Aghanim's Scepter brings the damage up incredibly high, about 2170 per victim at level 3, but does not otherwise upgrade the ability and is therefore optional.
Black King Bar can help a lot with the survival when using this spell, or Ghost Scepter if the opposing team is mostly right-clickers - but the increased damage taken from magic when using Ghost Scepter makes it very high-risk.

Gameplay Tips

Initiating

Crystal Maiden is not a tanky initiator, yet often I see her pushed to the front of a battle in an attempt to use her channeled ultimate Freezing Field, a high damage but slow ulti that more often than not gets interrupted (often by Crystal Maiden's death!) when used to initiate or even mid-fight if the opposing team is not disabled in some way.

If you must initiate try instead using Crystal Nova on as many as you can catch followed by a Frostbite on the enemy Carry or a squishy nuker in order to set up a first kill of the fight.

Alternatively the infamous Black King Bar (BKB for short) can give you short term magic immunity which can do the trick for Freezing Field - An expensive piece of equipment, but allows you to use your most powerful attack more easily.

Farming

If you are full health and feeling fairly safe (so you won't need your heal/speed from Tranquil Boots) try to hit multiple creeps with your right-click before using Crystal Nova to get a few kills with one spell rather than casting it on cooldown. This has the further advantage of keeping Crystal Nova available for slowing chasers if the other team tries to gank you while you are farming neutral creeps.

Using Frostbite to farm jungle creeps can boost experience and gold gain without committing to fighting the entire camp and taking the hits doing so. This can speed buying big ticket items, and is easy to do as you run through the jungle to your next area, or between waves of creeps.(Credit to SkyStompSpectre in the comments for this one)

Harassing your lane

Using Frostbite to lock down a hero trying to get last hits can also have the benefit of getting them hit multiple times by your creeps and your right-click, making it much more effective than just right-clicking. Mana costs are steep in early game but if you can force an opposing hero out of lane so they get no farm or experience it is worthwhile to consider.

Crystal Nova is a good harass when your lane is being pushed back too far - significant damage at early levels, damage to the pushing creeps and a slow that can set up your partner for a possible kill. Frostbite as a follow-up if your lane partner decides to go for the kill can keep him from having to tower-dive for the finish.

Ganking

If your lane mate is having an easy time holding the lane you can wander over to mid and with timely use of your disable/slow set up an easy kill for your mid player. Going across the map is not recommended, however, as it can take too long to get back to your lane without a TP scroll and the opposing team may make a gank attempt in your absence, or simply push the lane hard enough to go for a tower kill.

When ganking mid try to hit the opposing hero while they are at least halfway across the river in order to maximize chances of a kill without a tower dive.

Grabbing a rune on the way to mid for your gank can greatly increase the chance of success, so timing it so you pass the rune point at the two-minute interval is good too.

Do not leave your lane to gank before you have at least Boots of Speed and preferably Tranquil Boots or your travel time will cut deeply into your experience earning, and situations can change much too quickly while you are out of lane. Tranquil Boots also allow you to heal while returning to your lane if you took some hits.

Wards!!!

Observer Wards and Sentry Wards can be game changers. You should ward your forest on safe-lane at a minimum, with bonus points for covering the closest rune as well. Early game this is probably all you can manage, but it will be very helpful in avoiding ganks and setting up your own.

On Hard Lane you may find warding their forest and the nearby rune similarly helpful for your own ganking attempts as well as early warning of incoming heroes - I often ward between their towers so that I can see where they are hiding when they are heavily damaged - it can be worth taking a couple of tower hits to finish off a wounded foe hiding in the woods with a blind Crystal Nova!

Later in the game wards tend to be focused in the mid-lane; this can be a mistake, as early warning of heroes sneaking through woods or side-lanes can again shift the balance of the fight and therefore the game.

Warding versus invisible heroes, especially intelligently by placing them where towers have fallen but battles rage on, can be a big help. The best defence against invisible opponents is often just being in groups, but it is much better if you can also kill them with those groups when they skulk by! Special mention goes to Gem of True Sight for counter-warding as well; You can buy it and pass it on to a more durable hero if necessary.

Creep Stacking / Pulling

Stacking: A more advanced technique than this guide is really meant for but you can stack up camps of creeps for your lane partner to run off and kill. You do this by pulling them out of camp at approximately xx:53-xx:54 and simply run away until they go back to camp, allowing a new camp full of creeps to spawn while they are away.

Stacking can be done with the regular camps on Safe Lane (Top for Dire, bottom for Radiant) or with the Ancient camp on Hard Lane (Top for Radiant, bottom for Dire) during the early laning phase, or anywhere once you are establishing map control of larger areas with tower pushing.

Pulling: Alternatively pull the creeps into your lane at the correct times to intercept your own creeps and deny some experience / gold to the other team, or to block their wave and kill everything in it if you have the lane to yourself for some reason. There are many guides and videos on how to do this, and I don't explain it well; Here is a link to a search, with a little cheekiness!

I favour creep stacking, mostly because at lower skill levels it is much easier to do, your partner can fit in the clearing of the camp on their own timetable which in pubs is much more likely than coordinated pulling.

A support is only as good as her Team

Crystal Maiden is a powerful support - her Mana Regen passive is a global boost to the whole team, her AoE slow Crystal Nova can turn the tide of a battle as can her single target stun Frostbite, and may the gods show some small mercy on the team her ultimate Freezing Field is unleashed upon if she is unhindered!

This is all without considering her damage, auras gained from the big-ticket support items such as Drum of Endurance or Mekansm, her ability to set up a gank with Crystal Nova or Frostbite (or both!) or even just bait a trap simply by appearing solo - she is a squishy intelligence based support, few gankers can resist the temptation.

Crystal Maiden, played well, can actually help a team pull together as they try to take advantage of her disables. Her burst damage output with her two nukes and right click damage can knock enough health off even mid-game carries to make them a tempting target for her own team to focus down to the ground, allowing her a leadership role without saying a word.

But it all comes down to teamwork for her as much as any other support: Without it she will, inevitably, fail. She will be ganked hard, fail to complete kills and may even change her focus from supporter to survivor, rendering her effectively useless to her team.

Summary

So, other than adding some pictures and a bit more item detail this is my proposed guide to Crystal Maiden played as support and light ganker! I'd be more than happy to make changes based on feedback, and remember that this is in no way intended to be for competitive play, merely low to mid level public unranked matchmaking games.

Please rate as you see fit (I have no feelings to hurt!) and comment below if you have anything constructive to say / errors to point out / kudos (not expecting any!)

To Do List:

• Add images, break up Wall of Text. In progress
• More gameplay tips. In progress
• Possibly more formatting. In progress

Changelog

0.4 June 17, 2014 - Major formatting changes for easier readability, passing time while waiting for real life events to occur.

• Some better formatting on several sections of the guide including Pros and Cons, Items.
• Cleaning up unnecessary tags in bbcode - You can't see these, they make my job easier though!
• Other tiny things changes.

0.3 June 16, 2014 - Mostly adding icons - Never Published.

• Icons added to item and skill sections. Ongoing but much better.
• Added a bit about BKB to gameplay tips. Minor wording updates to other tips.

0.2 June 5, 2014 - First Edit - Still Incomplete but better

• Added emphasis and clarification in introduction.
• Several items removed from Luxury / Situational on advice from others.
• Added Force Staff to Core, apologies for forgetting it, thanks to comments for reminding me.
• Added Blink Dagger to Luxury
• Added Black King Bar to Luxury
• Added and slightly changed some of the gameplay tips based on feedback.
• Added a lmgtfy link to the creep stacking / pulling tip because I don't necessarily explain it all that well.

0.1 June 4, 2014 - Initial Posting - Incomplete