Dazzling Support : Heal and Harm

Hey regilure,

I was regularly checking your guide for updates and since it charted, I now have to second what Sando already said: You miss one major mechanic of Dazzle's skillset over all, which is that he is about physical damage and armor. This is reflected by his spells as a whole.

The most significant fact is, that Shadow Wave deals physical damage, what most people do not notice is, that Poison Touch does so too. This means that not only the physical attack damage output by your allies is amplified by Weave, but also the damage from all of your spells too. While Shallow Grave also saves from magical damage sources, it kind of fits into that scheme. This is why Medallion of Courage and Solar Crest are considered core on Dazzle by many -- it takes the armor/physical damage alteration even further. Also this is the reascon why Dazzle work especially well with other amrmor reducing abilities like Acid Spay or even Natural Order.

Also you are missing out on the mobility/positioning items for Dazzle, especially Force Staff and Glimmer Cape. One of these I would consider strongly recommended in most games. There are some other topics you could expand on and work on using proper coding for a nicer layout.

But all in all, this is a great basement for a good guide you got there. Keep the effort up and make it shine. Good work anway! E1

You should probably tone down the use of the word "lol", just something I noticed, apart from that, it's a pretty well formatted guide with good discussion of your item and ability choices, especially for your first guide, you could probably focus on adding a few chapters about the playstyle of the hero, some useful allies etc, and maybe a section for Sitauational items. However, it's a nice guide with the basic item progression down pat and good discussion. +1

Hey! I have to say I liked this guide a lot. Not because it's the end game 6K MMR guide on how to play Dazzle, but because it's not. When's the last time you read in dotabuff guide that you have to be extra careful with a skill not to missclick and cast it on a creep. :) I think it's really good that we have a noob friendly guide (and I consider myself a noob as well) on Dazzle and on several other heroes as well as they help with certain issues that seems so self evident to the high MMR crowd that they never bother to explain it to the new guy. So definitely a +1 from me for that.

Even though I disagree with quite a few points and have different skill/build/possibly to some extent even role priorities when playing Dazzle I think it's a solid guide for a new player and you certainly won't play bad if you follow this guide. A few things I'd perhaps suggest you consider (apart from formating, and I know this forum can be formatting nazis, but it really does make things a lot more readable) is the following:
- force staff, as people mentioned, is not just an escape, but also a control tool, even more so if you combine it with aether lense, which I normally don't build on dazzle due to other items getting priorities. It's really good as it can be used on other people, not just yourself. If you position right, you probably won't be in the middle of a fight and you can use it to save your escaping carry, help your team mate chase a fleeing enemy and the like,
- medallion is great for a bit of survivability, increasing your damage but I know for us new people the trick is to remember to use it and also to click the right button at the right time. It helps to have it on a binding you can easily remember and then just spam it until it becomes second nature. Also the mana regen helps a lot. For us newer guys mana efficiency is a big issue and having extra regen really makes the game more fluid. When used defensively it can be surprisingly effective, early game especially and on strength carries even more so. It also speeds up Rosh. If you're filthy rich, Solar crest is your friend of course.
- I see very little point in 2 points of poison touch. By the time you get that 66% slow for one second at level 2, they'll be under the tower so it won't help much, if you can't get your carries in range after the first 2 seconds of 33%, the extra bit usually doesn't make a difference. I'd much rather have another level of shadow wave. And don't underestimate a well placed shadow wave at a rune fight if they all bunch up. It's usually my number 1 priority.
- Shallow grave at 5 is way too late. I usually take a point at level 3-4 and sometimes even at 2 or 1. It really does depend how aggressive you and your partner tend to be in lane, but in my experience a well placed grave and some communication with your carry can give him the extra second or two or the chance to dive a tower and turn a death into a kill. Highly recommended.
- I would probably finish grave to 4 before I'd even touch poison touch above lvl 1. Especially in longer engagements where you go in, disengage, get chased and turn the fight (or if the other team does that), the change to grave every time is incredibly important.
- I'd stress positioning is really important on a Dazzle (like on every other hero, eh? :D). If you die in a teamfight before you get a grave off (even if it's on yourself if you get focused), you've just thrown away your biggest strength. Play defensively and yes, aether lense can help with that. Sure there's blink initiators that will ruin your game, but whatever happens, don't be in the front, try to get your spells off and when graving, it's better to err on the side of caution than to be a bit too late. Especially when going against high burst damage, grave early, grave often. :) Even if that means Lina will never cast that Laguna blade on the carry as he's graved or will rather chose to cast it on you and one shot you, you've still pretty much done a large part of your job. Yes it's not as impressive as finishing your grave cast timer just before her animation finishes, but it's a lot more effective than a dead carry.

These are of course just my thoughts and I'm by no means a pro gamer myself so hope it helps and maybe you include some of it in the guide. Also thank you for your view on Dazzle, I got some new ideas myself from your style.

No probs, glad it was helpful. You can do the picture links etc like this:

Gives you Dazzle

Formatting Guide

Omg thanks all, and Sando too. I often buy Medallion Of Courage but seldom use it lol. I'll try using it later on my games.

I see... Glimmer Cape and Force Staff is it... I'll try using them too, thanks :D

By the way hot to summon that Little Picture of skills and their links? I don't know.

I agree with Sando, Solar Crest is just super good for Dazzle. I usually play a #5 Dazzle so I let my #4 get Mek instead since he usually has more money than me. I use to go for a Urn of Shadows+ Medallion of Courage in the early to mid game since these items help your teammates a lot. Glimmer Cape is extremely good if you can afford it, if you have the money, buy it, IMO is better than Aghs, just saying. In the games where I'm drowning in money (almost 0) my item build looks like this Urn of Shadows+ Arcane Boots+ Solar Crest+ Lotus Orb+ Glimmer Cape+ Force Staff. Force is a really good item since you can grave an ally and then force him away from the enemy team.
Nice guide, I'll give you a +1

The guide is ok, you've done a pretty good job of explaining yourself, and used a bit of colour to break things up a bit. There are a few things you've either missed or could do to talk about more however:

- Skill build for Dazzle is completely open, especially that first point. You might end up with it in any of your 3 main skills, depending on the situation. I know Dotafire doesn't make it easy to show this, but maybe you could talk about it a bit.

- Shadow Wave is primarily a nuke and pushing skill, with a tiny bit of heal on the side. Sure, you'll use it to heal people occasionally, but especially early on it's really strong - up to 240 physical damage at level 1 is not to be sniffed at! Try to keep that as your mindset rather than having to spend a lot of mana on weak heals.

- Medallion of Courage/ Solar Crest these items are pretty much core on Dazzle. All of your damage output is physical, most carries output physical damage too. You can not only help protect your allies with it, you can help them farm faster, take rosh faster, and amplify your damage against enemies heroes.

- Could do to talk about cheap defensive items as a support, the ones you've already listed plus Glimmer Cape, Ghost Scepter etc. Guardian Greaves are very desirable (you explained why well), but sometimes not affordable as a #5.