Cuttleboss Guide to Training the Best Pseudo-Hard Carry [6.86]

I read your comments on Manta Style and it prompted me to do some research on Gamepedia (search for "illusion") and some subsequent tests in the in-game hero demo.

First, the Dragon Blood armor does affect illusions, but not the HP gain. Second, out of all of the Elder Dragon Form attack modifiers, only the splash damage actually affects anything. The Corrosive Breath and Frost Breath icons above the HUD are only there, I believe, to make it harder for the enemy to determine which Dragon Knight is real.

Anyway, I am going to try out Manta on DK sometimes soon. Aside from removing debuffs, the thought of three elder dragons in every battle is pretty sweet. :)

Alright everyone, I've brought a big guide update. I'm endorsing Aether Lens, Octarine Core, re-endorsing Pipe of Insight, and altered many of the builds, especially when it comes to Armlet. The item builds have been cleaned up, with a timing window and Midas viability feature added.

I hope you all like it!

For snowballing you need to get kills and hunt down fleeing enemies.
So go SB(safer way) or blink(if your team has no classic blink initiator), then maybe S&Y, then what's needed.
Part of the snowballing is to get objectives after each pickoff, and for that BKB + AC/Heart is the safe way. I usually don't build S&Y, if I need some extra mobility I go for drums.
I think the safest build is SB -> BKB -> Heart. SB to get kills, BKB to win teamfights, then Heart to have sustain to break their base.

Hi, decent guide, gj.
But I don't think DK is especially strong against Illusion Heroes, especially not against CK.
CK rapes DK with slightly less farm.
He is okayish, but the illusion guys has the upper hand.

"Helm of the Dominator: This item is very cost efficient for its effects"
Not at all for DK, what cost efficient is maelstorm and drums. HotD gives you a little armor and hp regen, which u already has, gives mediocre damage and lifesteal, which is only useful if u have decent damage, but u don't have it early. I only buy it early game when I am sure that I will have the time and space to stack ancients then farm them, otherwise DK is a better midgame teamfighter/pusher with bkb or ganker with SB which can create space for your harder carry to farm.
So in short HotD is a long term hard carry kind of item with little use in early and in midgame.

Thank you cuttles! I think I should clarify the snowballing question is a bit similiar to a deathball DK.

When I want to finish fast, how should I build him?

@hamster
Personally I prefer Shadow Blade on him

Seriously, if you want to snowball with DK, go straight up Blink Dagger after bottle/treads and gank as soon as you have it. Since you can blink-stun, you can gank even when your ult is down.

Hey Unscathed, let me see if I can answer those questions. Forgive me if they don't seem right, I've not used DK very much this patch.

1. Snowballing DK is rather tough, since he is slow and has high downtime. I used to do it with Mask of Madness, back when it granted 30% speed. One game, I even went MoM-Shadow Blade and just kept picking them off. Most people tend to go snowballer DK with the ganker build, and the AOE damage build is just another carry build that seeks to farm and it has options for splitpushing. But DK is really ill suited to snowball, even with his stun, he lacks the burst damage to do it very easily. He relies on either pushing with his team when he runs mid, or going safelane and being a pretty good hard carry that can win teamfights.

2. Daedalus is not really a required buy. I mean, you can pick it up, sure. Just after Radiance, you want to be tankier usually, so it is of much lower priority, and Daedalus is better suited for builds that use lifesteal, which is why its always comboed with Satanic on DK. Plus, quite often, DK runs into a need for MKB in many of those games, since evasion is something many teams have these days (Solar Crest, damn you!).

Hey cuttles! I have some questions regarding DK.

1. Which build would benefit a snowballer the most? I am unsure if it might ne the AoE damage or the Ganker.
2. On the AoE damage build, why dont you include a Daedalus? Personally I dont mind having mixed damage types...

Anyways, thanks in advance!

Well Frosto, DK can be played in a variety of ways. His appeal is that he can fight quite early, basically as soon as he has his BKB.
If your enemies have a stronger late game, go for a more mid-game orientated build, like SnY-BKB or Armlet-BKB.

However, I think you're underestimating his recently buffed late game. DK may not have damage steroids, but he's still immensely dangerous, especially against Illusion Carries and Kitable Ones. The addition of damage reduction to Breathe Fire helps the DPS races of late game, and his tankability combined with his slow and some attack speed and damage items means that he is extremely dangerous just by being alive and slowing everyone, especially after the fight starts and enemies tend to bunch together. His damage also scales with his items, like a Gyrocopter, and he's ranged, so its not like he can get easily kited in Dragon Form. However, as a solo carry, DK does not hit his potential, kind of like Tiny, he usually wants another hero to help him deal damage, or to supplement his damage with things like Natural Order and Empower. I've had games where I stood toe-to-toe with other carries like Morph and Troll due to having superior tanking and teamfight power.

As for Troll, I have managed to kite him on multiple occasions with DK, as I always go SnY BKB Skadi against Troll. He's very kitable because he tends to stay in his melee form in order to bash. If he doesn't, he's missing out on a lot of potential CC for his team. Sure he's fast, but he's not immune to being slowed by DK, even if he has BKB. So what usually happens is he runs in, turns on BKB, I start hitting him, he either goes ranged mode to try to DPS me down, or he keeps trying to chase me or an ally futilely, but I can tank the ranged damaged until BKB wears off, also due to my own SnY giving me speed. Once his BKB runs out, stun him, and he will die before you do (this is all assuming your net worths are close, a lot of DKs tend to forget to farm if they go pusher or ganker). Only issue is if he goes Dagger, but if he does, he's probably not gonna jump on the tankiest guy on the team, unless you're the only source of damage, which you shouldn't be.

I think dk should just push as must as he can in the midgame and the early lategame. He doesn't do that much damage on heroes but he has his splash what makes him mediocre ate teamfight. He's a bit like drow does a lot on towers and is strong in the midgame but falls of lategame.

BTW
I don't think that troll should be placed by "kittable" heroes cuz even in his ranged form he can do a lot of damage due of fevor. He also has a slow and will go into melee form and come with incredible movementspeed to you if you are getting low and he is really likely to bash you at a certain moment because you can't outrun a troll.

Got a giant update here for Dragon Knight's transformation in 6.84. The entire old thesis of the old guide is now bunk, Dragon Knight can be a hard carry now because of his buffs and the new items he can use. I tossed out Pipe as an item too because of this and replaced it with a new build around the newly buffed Radiance.

Also, mathcraft section was removed, since it was used to support the old thesis that DK is not a hard carry, because it had errors, and because for some reason, people ignored the DK guide and only commented on the carry math section. This data is archived, so if you would like it, I can send it to you.

I see. I will fix that next time I update the calculations, which I keep saying I'll do, but its a ton of effort, so when I have more time.


Also, seems like a minor part of the guide, there is a weird fixation on the calculations of Morphling that everyone is exclusively complaining about and it confuses me.