Earth Spirit? IMBA SPIRIT!

Earth (ebola) spirit will trainwreck your life yo!

Sorry for the low quality guys! This is my first guide and please leave helpful comments so I can make higher quality guides in the future! Earth Spirit is one of my favourite heroes mainly due to the high amount of damage you can deal in team fights and how much you can save your allies. Feels amazing when someone says "THX ES,COMMENDED"

Pros:

High mobility
4 second silence
Strong 2 second stun with boulder smash
INSANE DAMAGE during teamfights!
Can buy support items as he's not as item dependent
Can save allies

Cons:

Cannot manfight with low str gain
Rolling boulder can be stopped by standing right next to it
Not much use without rocks
Cannot carry whatsoever,dota tooltips lie :(

Item choices

EARLY GAME

Stout Shield Provides some protection from the creeps you will probably be tanking or harass

Iron Branch Some extra stats for dem GG goodness

Observer Ward Lets face it,sometimes you don't get many supports. That's where you man up and sacrifice your gold for that vision. Usually you would want to place this on their easy camp to prevent pulling and on the rune.

MID GAME

Boots of Speed GOTTA GO FAST,LIKE SANIC!

Bottle Should be your first item to go,provides good regen for constant awesomeness

Urn of Shadows Provides you with some good tankiness and mana regen. Urn charges are amazing as well,allows you to constantly roam as you don't have to worry about HP. Also helps with killing enemies or healing allies

Force Staff For saving you or your allies from sticky situations. Combos well with rolling boulder

LATE GAME

Boots of Travel Provides good global presence.If a fight arises without you,joining the fray could turn the tides of battle. Get this after your aghanims

Aghanim's Scepter Gives the skill Enchant Remnant. This skill can be used offensively of defensively. More info later in the guide

Situational

Mekansm If your team has no support (which isn't rare in low tier pubs), this item could be considered!

Blink Dagger This works well with Enchant Remnant! Blink in,Enchant remnant some out of position scrub,then pull them and kick them into your team. Ez kidnapping

Power Treads If you think that you might need a little bit more auto attacks and tankiness,this is your go to item

Observer Wards You don't require a lot of items to be effective. If your team has no vision of the map,you know what to do.

Blade Mail If you find that you are having trouble against those strong right clickers you roll into,this item is always good to have. Especially if the enemy has strong magic damage as well.

Dagon Sometimes that burst damage can really seal the kill on a hero

Heart of Tarrasque Soaking up damage is your job if it goes into late game

Ghost Scepter An item to pick up if you are against strong right clickers! DO NOT GET THIS if the enemy has a skywrath mage or anything with HIGH MAGIC BURST DAMAGE Lion Lina

Veil of Discord A good item to increase the damage of your Magnetize. Also helps when your team has a lot of spell casters!

Scythe of Vyse Well I personally did not get this item much. But I can see why others would get it,being able to Hex a low priority target before them slaughtering your face seems nice.

When to pick/not pick

When to pick Earth Spirit

When your team needs a silence for those spell casters
When you feel like balling out of control
When your team lacks strong AOE hero destroying action
Seriously this hero is so good,in most situations you can pick this hero and just win the game

When NOT to pick Earth Spirit

When they have... Huskar YOU CANNOT KILL THIS GUY NO MATTER WHAT!
When your team lacks a strong carry (since you fall off late game)

Allies

Earthshaker Kick him into the enemy team with your enchant remnant,lots of power in this
Axe Same thing as above
Tidehunter &_&

Really,he combos really well with almost every hero in the game. He is also very strong as a one man army. Noted above are just some noticeable mentions that I found were really good,though I guess its the same with any initiator

Laning and mid-game

Laning Phase

Offlane (optimal)

IN ALL CASES,CARRY A Town Portal Scroll if the enemy dives the other lanes,you can come in and get some kills and much needed levels!

If the enemy is playing solo safelane (you are either solo or in a dual lane)
What you wanna do in the laning phase is roll using Rolling Boulder into the hero in the lane and sneak in a few auto attacks on them,dealing a hefty amount of harass damage.

This forces him to take distance from the creeps and thus prevents him from farming. Note,does not work with some tankier heroes or heroes that can actually destroy you at level one Axe Huskar Gyrocopter Juggernaut

If the enemy is playing a dual/trilane (you are solo or in a dual lane)
If the enemy has a squishy support or a combo that won't be able to kill you at level one,just Rolling Boulder into the squisher support to force him off the lane.

However,if they have a lot of killing potential,please just stay back and last hit using Boulder Smash while hitting the enemy hero to harass.Once you have hit level 4 with two levels in Geomagnetic Grip,use that to secure last hits and harass instead since it costs less mana with the same amount of damage as Boulder Smash

Midlane

Earth Spirit is actually also a viable mid laner! With early levels,once he reaches level 6,with Magnetize,someone is going down for sure. I do not recommend rolling into the enemy as much in mid as the tower is really near and if you were to miss the roll,you are probably going to die to the tower.

Other than that,last hit with Boulder Smash and Geomagnetic Grip. Use these skills to harass the enemy hero as well. Once you reach level 6,you should at the bare minimum have Boots of Speed and Bottle.

If you manage to kill the enemy mid laner with your sick killer combo (below),proceed to roam and ask someone else to take mid (presumably a hero that needs fast levels)

Safelane

Same as offlane pretty much,except your carry probably needs this lane more than you do.

The Killer Combo at low levels

The combo goes like this
Boulder Smash a rock into the enemy and Geomagnetic Grip it after it has hit the target hero]]. After the pull,straight away Rolling Boulder into the enemy and the enemy just took a ton of damage.If you are level 6,follow this up with Magnetize and that guy is pretty much dead.

Assuming you are level 5 when you do this,the enemy takes 125 + 100 + 200 = 425 unreduced magic damage in this instant. Not to mention the 2-4 auto attacks you would managed to hit.

Of course,this combo can be a bit difficult to land considering you have to pull the rock in the middle of Boulder Smash.

If you find it too difficult

another option would be getting closer to the enemy and Geomagnetic Grip the enemy followed by a Boulder Smash,then rolling into the enemy.

Now,I find this a bit more unreliable as the enemy can dodge the Boulder Smash and you might also have to use an extra stone to roll into the enemy if he's further away.

Another option

would be to roll into someone in the fog,then proceed to Geomagnetic Grip and then Boulder Smash a rock into him or kick him back. This way,you can get more auto attacks in. A way to prevent heroes like Weaver or any hero with an escape skill from escaping is to pull a rock while you are using Rolling Boulder so that they can't react fast enough to run away.

[NOTE] DO NOT PULL THE ROCK WHILE ROLLING WHEN YOU CAN BE SEEN. If you try to roll into an enemy where you can be seen,it's pretty easy to avoid and you would have probably taken a ton of damage from auto attacks when running back to your creeps.

How Magnetize should be used!

It should usually be used after Rolling Boulder into an enemy. However,if you were to miss that,you could also do the Boulder Smash and Geomagnetic Grip combo then walk to the enemy to Magnetize them.

After that, what you do is follow the enemy and every 4-5 seconds,place another remnant near them. Make sure not to stay too close to them and make sure they are in a 1100 AOE around you,so that you can place another rock near them to refresh Magnetize If you have urn charges,use one on the enemy right after Magnetizing him.

With this combo,including an urn charge,you should be able to deal about 100 + 125 + 275 + 50*6 + 150(urn) = 950 UNREDUCED DAMAGE! And,if you refresh Magnetize duration every 5 seconds lets say,2 times,it amounts to a whopping 950 + 50*6*2 = 1550 UNREDUCED DAMAGE!


In a teamfight,this could be

devastating

and obviously at level 7,when you can do this amount of damage,it would completely destroy anyone. Not to mention anyone affected by Magnetize is affected by the silence or slow from Geomagnetic Grip and Rolling Boulder.

Mid Game

At this phase,you would be roaming and at least level 6. The plan is,to kill a lot of people and make space for your carry. ALWAYS carry a Town Portal Scroll in case of a fight going on.

Of course,don't forget to remind your team of objectives,such as pushing towers after a fight or telling people to be as awesome as you,since your KDA right now is probably 6/0/9 or something now.

This is where all the big game changing teamfights occur,so make sure you are always there as Magnetize and Geomagnetic Grip can really turn the tides of a fight.

This is the time where you are probably going to be low on stones. If you have 1 or 2 stones left and you are low on HP or Mana,just walk back to the fountain and heal up instead of teleporting back. By the time you return to a lane (walking most preferably),you would have two extra stones and ready to rumble!

Also,stone management is important!

With 6 stones,don't be afraid to use one stone to clear creep waves with Geomagnetic Grip and Boulder Smash.

With 3-5 stones,you should probably be getting ready for a fight somewhere or maybe even start one yourself

With 1-2 stones,tell your team that you're low on stones and that you shouldn't really fight now,unless your team is sure they can win it without the extra Magnetize duration. Also,you wouldn't be able to escape as fast if things were to go wrong as you would have no more stones to Rolling Boulder away.

Positioning

Usually you would want to stand WAY behind your team as if someone gets initiated on,you cna pull them out of danger using Geomagnetic Grip.

If you are initiating,standing in the fog or far away so that they won't see you is IMPORTANT as your Rolling Boulder is extremely easy to dodge,as quoted earlier. All this will get you is dead when 9 million enemy heroes land their nukes on you.

Your team would also call you a noob which sucks as well. Of course,when that happens to me,I either buyback immediately as a fight will probably ensue or say "I baited the spells,NOW IS THE TIME TO FIGHT".

If you do manage to hit the rolling boulder, Magnetize immediately and spread it to the entire enemy team using a stone and then Geomagnetic Grip anyone,this would silence all the people affected by Magnetize. After that, Force Staff out of the fray and just keep extending the duration of Magnetize every 4 seconds or so.

However,most likely,you will be hit by their spells before you can silence them if you were too slow to silence them. (Happens occasionally)
Thats where your team follows up and saves you. Remember! Dota 2 is a team game!

Ending before the 40 minute mark is optimal in games with earth spirit

Late Game

Once it gets here,its up to the carries of your team.

The only significant thing you can do in a fight is probably silence and stun,however. When the game reaches this point,most likely Black King Bar would have been picked up by the enemy,making our poor Earth Spirit all the more sad ;(

Magnetize still does a ton of damage,but at this point,the amount of damage just isn't enough to stop the enemy's carry.

Of course,you can get rid of one hero from the fight by using Enchant Remnant on an enemy and kicking them into a far away place or saving an ally by casting it on them and kicking them away.

However,don't be that guy who Enchant Remnant a secured kill,only to give the guy a chance to escape.

Summary

OVERALL

Earth Spirit is definitely one of the most broken heroes in dota 2 at the moment,with a 4 second AOE silence and a 2.25 second AOE stun and of course,a INSANE high damage ultimate.

That is probably why it's still not added to Captain's Mode.

If you can master this hero,you will soon be rolling around while being awesome and getting a million commends and friend requests because you will be the man of the game. Well,at least the mid game.

I myself have not mastered this hero,but I have been doing extremely well with him and have raised my HORRID MMR by about 600 just by playing Earth Spirit...

and omniknight (op bros)

If anyone has suggestion to help me improve this guide,I would be really grateful! Thank you!