~Ehero's guide to Rubick~

Intro:

Eheroduelist's my name and video games are my game.
... Creativity not so much.

In any case, I've been playing DotA 2 for quite some time now and I've been reading some guides- so I felt like sharing my own (personal) build for my favorite hero: Rubick.

Most of the items listed are situational as Rubick himself is entirely a situalional hero. He is not a normal Hero that can be thrown into just any game- his playstyle revolves entirely around the playstyle of your opponents. If your opponents have aggressive supports, level 6 and up he will quickly reciprocate the aggressiveness. If your opponents are defensively or passively built, he will be able to reciprocate as such.

However, Rubick's utility skills allow for his laning partner to easily get farm and outlane their laning opponents (Fade Bolt's damage reduction is devastating early game, but more on that later), and allows himself to (usually) smoothly transition into his mid-late game.

Character Bio:

Any mage can cast a spell or two, and a few may even study long enough to become a wizard, but only the most talented are allowed to be recognized as a Magus. Yet as with any sorcerers circle, a sense of community has never guaranteed competitive courtesy.
Already a renowned duelist and scholar of the grander world of sorcery, it had never occurred to Rubick that he might perhaps be Magus material until he was in the midst of his seventh assassination attempt. As he casually tossed the twelfth of a string of would-be killers from a high balcony, it dawned on him how utterly unimaginative the attempts on his life had become. Where once the interruption of a fingersnap or firehand might have put a cheerful spring in his step, it had all become so very predictable. He craved greater competition. Therefore, donning his combat mask, he did what any wizard seeking to ascend the ranks would do: he announced his intention to kill a Magus.

Rubick quickly discovered that to threaten one Magus is to threaten them all, and they fell upon him in force. Each antagonist's spell was an unstoppable torrent of energy, and every attack a calculated killing blow. But very soon something occurred that Rubick's foes found unexpected: their arts appeared to turn against them. Inside the magic maelstrom, Rubick chuckled, subtly reading and replicating the powers of one in order to cast it against another, sowing chaos among those who had allied against him. Accusations of betrayal began to fly, and soon the sorcerers turned one upon another without suspecting who was behind their undoing.

When the battle finally drew to a close, all were singed and frozen, soaked and cut and pierced. More than one lay dead by an allys craft. Rubick stood apart, sore but delighted in the weeks festivities. None had the strength to argue when he presented his petition of assumption to the Hidden Council, and the Insubstantial Eleven agreed as one to grant him the title of Grand Magus.

Skills

• Telekinesis Rubick uses his telekinetic powers to lift the enemy into the air briefly and then hurls them back at the ground. The unit lands on the ground with such force that it stuns nearby enemies.
  Range: 550/575/600/625
  Radius: 325
  Lift duration: 1.5/1.75/2/2.25
  Stun duration: 1/1.25/1.5/1.75
  
  - Easily one of the best level 1 stuns in the game, it picks an enemy up, throws them wherever you please, and as an added bonus you stun any enemies around the landing spot (you can choose by pressing the spell again and clicking on a landing spot) for a decent enough duration.
  
  
• Fade Bolt Rubick creates a powerful stream of arcane energy that travels between enemy units, dealing damage and reducing their attack damage. Each jump deals less damage.
  
  Range: 800
  Jump Distance: 440
  Duration: 10
  Damage: 70/140/210/280
  Jump damage reduction: 4%
  Attack damage decrease: 14/20/26/32 (7/10/13/16 for creeps)
  
  - It doesn't do much damage at lower levels, but the damage reduction tends to make an enemy's last hitting much more difficult. The main problem with spamming this is that the bounces are not controllable, meaning that if used carelessly early on you can easily push the creep wave to the enemy tower (despite the lower damage reduction to creeps, their creeps aren't going to kill yours as quickly).
  
  
• Null Field Rubick's mastery of the arcane protects his allies against weaker magics, granting them magic resistance.
  Bonus magic resistance: 5%/10%/15%/20%
  
  
  - Probably an underrated skill, but usually you don't need to level this passive until later in the game due to the fact that you need the nuke from fade bolt and the increased duration from Telekinesis more in the early-mid game. However, especially if you're up against a heavy magical user ( Zeus, Lich, Invoker), the magical resistance will usually be very helpful in the teamfights.
  
  
• Spell Steal Rubick studies the trace magical essence of one enemy hero, learning the secrets of the last spell the hero cast. Rubick can use this spell as his own for several minutes or until he dies.
  
  - Rubick's best spell and in my opinion the best spell in the game. It makes Rubick the copycat Hero he's designed to be, snatching the last activated spell an enemy hero used (cannot steal passive abilities or auto-cast spells such as Frost Arrow) and uses it against his enemies. This generally makes enemy heroes wary of using their most powerful abilties, given Rubick can snatch them at a moment's notice and quickly turn the tide of a teamfight.
  (sidenote): If you steal a spell with a long cooldown is stolen then use it, you can reset the cooldown by first stealing a different spell then re-stealing the original spell. Re-stealing the spell directly will not reset the cooldown, only refresh the duration of your Spell Steal. You don't always have to steal Ravage or Black Hole (although if you do and land them properly you will look amazing), generally a utility spell/stun such as Burrowstrike or Storm Hammer will suffice for fights or ganks.

Warding

I decided to do a segment on warding spots. Typically played as the position 5 (ward b---h), warding is a very relevant concept for support Rubick (unless you're mid). This is more of a general support concept, but I feel it's worth sharing my own personal warding preferences.

Yellow is defensive warding spots for Radiant, aggressive for Dire; and Red is defensive warding spots for Dire, and aggressive warding spots for Radiant.
The black spots on the neutral creep camps are blocking spots. Typically, you will want to block those camps if you notice the enemy heroes are pulling their creep wave (relevant only if you are the offlane hero in need of experience or the offlane support).

For more professional play the exact spot to place a ward to block the camp from spawning you can google "how to block pull camps" and watch the ensuing videos/look at the pictures.

Warding is the best way to secure vision of the enemy, the more you're aware of your enemy (invisible or not) the better you and your team can react to their movements. Exact placement of either type of ward is irrelevant as long as it accomplishes important goals.
In the offlane, it can secure your carry (or you) necessary experience and deny your opponents control of their lane and if the enemy has a jungler they cannot farm blocked camps (also reduces the likelihood of the jungler jumping into the lane to gank and/or provide vision of the attempted gank so as to avoid it if possible).

Starting the game: Laning

So you've picked Rubick (by some virtue or another) and you need to pick a lane.

Typically Rubick plays safe lane support since he is very good at babysitting a carry, and feeding kills to carries that don't have a reliable stun (Juggernaut, Ursa, Anti-mage, etc) and heavy early game damage output ( Blade Fury, Mana Break, etc). (I've even referred to my own laning with Ursa to be "chucking heroes at fuzzy wuzzy for free kills.")
However, Rubick can lane in pretty much any lane, given the ability to pick up heroes and throw them almost anywhere he pleases makes him pretty viable almost anywhere in the game. (note: Telekinesis does an AoE stun upon the landing of the lifted person- however the lifted unit is disabled for around a second during the lift (levels increase duration of both stun and lift) but is not affected afterwards, meaning the person you lift will still be able to attack you! make the Melee hero your target for Telekinesis when you're being chased and toss them back, giving yourself the best chance of escaping.

As Rubick I personally always choose to contest rune spawns purely because there is a very high chance that (usually only in lower-level pubs) players that are unaware (or simply just aren't cautious) of Rubick's ability to throw people onto cliffs. If you succeed, you will most likely keep that person at bay and out of lane until Flying courier and Teleport scrolls are available to him/her, which usually takes a decently long period of time. (note: you will enrage the person on the receiving end of this trap, and (s)he will be likely to be fairly aggressive upon returning to lane (given you don't camp him on the cliff with a ward + telekinesis), make an effort to punish this if it occurs.)

If you're going middle, you'll need the Iron Branch and Tango for regen and survivability, but just like any middle hero you'll need Bottle for rune control and overall lane dominance.
However, laning Rubick mid can be fairly difficult due his frail nature and lack of natural movement speed (base speed 290), but if your team can take strong advantage of the top and/or bottom lanes and the Rubick player can choose his positioning accordingly, it can be viable and worthwhile.

The nice part about Rubick is that (given you max Fade Bolt as quickly as possible) unless you're against a lane opponent that can easily ignore the slight burst damage and easily harass you/kill you (Viper, Tinker with pew pew, etc) you typically can just throw out Fade Bolt to last hit and harass at the same time. If you get your bottle and rune control fast enough, typically you won't have too much trouble mana-wise, but if you can't control the runes you may end up having to play passively.
Fade Bolt is overall great for harass, and it's debuff to cause the hero hit by it to deal reduced attack damage makes it increasingly difficult to last hit/harass/deny.
(Having only 50-70 initial right-click damage makes a -14 attack damage quite a pain to deal with.)
The only problem is that it also bounces off of creeps, albeit bouncing indefinitely within a radius within the bouncing target and within vision, often pushes the lane outside of your control (great way to buy some time to grab runes, and your other support(s) should ward at least 1 rune spot so that you're not guessing if you're mid). Typically early game (especially at level 2, with high mana cost and low damage) you won't be using it more than once or twice, but a few levels later you can use it to push the middle lane to the tower to secure runes.

If you are laning top or bottom, your goal is that of any support: harass enemy heroes when reasonable (easier in safe lane, you can hide in trees and range-attack enemy heroes) and deny creeps. Typically I like to pick up a Ring of Basilius early (built from Ring of Protection from starting items) from side shop, but if you laning opponents push you behind your tower (not normal occurrence) you will need the courier to bring you your Sage's Mask. It's almost essential to grab Basilius, as it gives you necessary mana regeneration (Seriously, Rubick goes through mana like fat people go through tacos) and with Fade bolt costing a whooping 150 mana you need as much leeway as you can muster.
In terms of spell usage, typically you won't be casting many spells towards the beginning (unless you clifftrap someone, which is fairly rare albeit very worthwhile). Once in a while you will use Telekinesis to allow your carry to get free hits (and hopefully a kill on) an enemy in-lane. Typically I use Telekinesis, Fade Bolt, then reuse the Telekinesis hotkey to select a location to pull the enemy hero, pull them back, and if the carry can't capitalize on it, return to last hitting/denying, otherwise help your carry dive for the kill.
After Basilius, you can typically purchase consumables, or utility items for stats/mana regen. I like to build Bracer, then Arcane Boots (can be done in reverse order if farm is nice, your carry gets kills, and/or you pick up the last hits your carry can't, I don't want to advise you to play Rubick as a semi-carry as that is not his primary role, but do what you have to do to win the game...), but don't forget your role: you're a support. Buy wards, flying, sentries, dust, and smoke when deemably necessary. The less gold your carry spends on support items, the more gold they have to beat faces in with.

Early-mid game

At this point, given your wards have protected the carry while he farms and your telekinesis/Fade bolt have kept enemy heroes off your creeps and carry, you are likely to have picked up a bracer and started on your force staff. You're also likely to have picked up your ultimate- Spellsteal. (IMPORTANT- Any spell you steal will be at the level/damage of the owner from who you stole it from, examples being Invoker's Quas/Wex/Exort combination spells such as Sunstrike, Tornado, or Flaming Meteor, along with other skill-based spells such as Luna's ultimate.)

Ideally, you will like to steal one of three types of spells throughout the game.
1. Utility spells/support nuking spells such as Shadow Word, Brain Sap, Purification, etc.
2. Disables/stuns such as Earth Spike, Impale, Magic Missile, Hex, Nightmare, etc.
3. Ultimates. These are the most powerful spells in the game, and stealing multiple ultimates throughout the game can be devastating (you may even be able to steal multiple ultimates in a single teamfight).

Typically your priority will be 3->2->1, but I don't want to give a pre-determined priority to any given type of spell due to the unpredictability of the game- If you need an additional stun, sometimes you'll have to pass up Rupture to grab Storm Bolt to win a teamfight. Playing Rubick mid-late game is highly dependent on your skill level in deciding what spell is appropriate to grab for the situation at hand. Sometimes healing a low health Sven with a max level Shadow Word is deadlier than grabbing a Earth Spike.
You're just as well off grabbing Shallow Grave to save a teammate than to grab Thundergod's Wrath for a solo kill.

And just because you can use Blink Dagger to steal Rupture, doesn't mean it's going to work out well for you. Typically, you don't want to steal the spell then have it being used on you to pound your face in.

(Oh, for the love of all that is dear in this game, do NOT steal Chronosphere unless your team can capitalize on it, but more often than not you're better off just not screwing with it. Why? There's a reason it's good on Faceless Void.
He can move through it no matter what, and your team will most like type into global chat "Report Rubick" if you screw your team with it.)

At this point (if you're playing lane support and not mid) your farm is probably shabby at best, and you should either be helping to get pick offs, stacking ancients for your farming carry, aggressive/defensive warding, or farming the jungle yourself with Fade Bolt.

Late game

This is about when your contribution to the game falls off (unless you can steal a Black Hole) slightly. Your Fade Bolt damage is easily shrugged off, and your Telekinesis is less threatening as it generally takes longer for heroes to kill one another (Unless you're a REEEEAAAALLLY farmed Sven with crits...).
However, you can still contribute to the teamfights with utility stuns/disables and ultimates. You can also split push effectively with Boots of Travel and possibly a max level Necromonicon.

Typically though, this is the point where you simply contribute the most you can to teamfights but, as a support, your damage is nil and your contribution is minimal. You mostly have to trust your carries to have farmed enough to assume control of the game and win.
Baaaaaasically get out your bible, get down on your knees and bow your head and hope your carries don't suck.

Friends/Foes

Typically you will be good friends with just about any carry that needs a babysitter ( Telekinesis makes you very likable), but your best friends will be heroes with hard-to-land stuns ( Split Earth, Echo Stomp) or pretty much anyone who can capitalize on your ability to control the location of an enemy.
Crystal Maiden is always a nice support to team up with (not lane with), for the same reason ANYONE would want to play with Maiden. Her Arcane Aura is amazing for ANY mana-intensive hero early-mid game.
Overall, everyone is going to like you. At least as far as your team is concerned.

Enemies:
Nothing hurts Rubick like being restricted to little more than a right-click, and he's fairly squishy, rendering him generally unable to handle high amounts of burst damage or being silenced.

Tough/impossible to deal with
Clinkz: Orchid Malevolence In GENERAL is tough to deal with, but this guy has the capability to blow you up fairly easily. Avoid at almost all costs.
Doom: His ultimate combined with his AoE burn and a pinch of right-click annnnnd you're dead. Don't let him see you, don't let him touch you. Avoid at ALL costs. He WILL ult you and he WILL kill you.
Only play against him if your carries are very important in that you can eat the Dooms for them.
Silencer: Silence, mana burn, and burst damage- a pretty much #$%# you to anything and everything Rubick can possibly do. Avoid playing against if possible, only redeeming value in playing against this guy in general is that at level 6 you can give him a taste of his own medicine.
Viper: Undoubtedly the nastiest right-clicker in the game. You can dodge certain spells but DoTs are not so simple. You can only steal his ultimate, but it is a guaranteed steal since he can't use ANY other spell (seriously, right-click orientated isn't strong enough a description for this guy). Avoid playing against if possible, otherwise buy a Eul's Scepter of Divinity and PRAY he doesn't find you tasty.
Anti-Mage: Nasty right-click with the mana-burn, hard to avoid chase with the blink, and an ultimate that will most likely shred you at least ONCE in the game.
Dude's called Anti-MAGE for a reason. Playing the Grand MAGUS against ANTI-MAGE is not going to be a fun time. Avoid if possible.
Nightstalker: Silence, heavy chase at night plus a nasty right-clicker- need I say anything else? Easier to deal with than the others due to the fact he's only useful at night, but play smart against this guy or you're toast.

Bearable, but annoying
Puck: I was indecisive in terms of placing this hero, as Puck's silence is irritating and both Puck and Rubick start playing well at the same time, but Rubick doesn't handle burst damage well. Overall, play smart and you should be fine. Spellstealing will work wonders against this hero.
Lion, Lina: Intense burst damage is hard to deal with on squishy heroes in general, but if you can dodge the ultimates you can steal them and give them a taste of their own medicine- however their utility spells ( Hex) are fairly useful given appropriate circumstances (Lina's stun is easier to land without cast animation and the fact you can control location with Telekinesis). Play smart.
Lifestealer: Not much to steal outside of Infest, and his slow combined with a pinch of burst damage from enemies is enough to ensure your swift demise. Play smart/buy Force Staff early (like instantly after Arcane Boots).
Bloodseeker: Holy mother of ouch. He deals a LOT of burst damage with Rupture, and he'll be apt to shred your face in at least once in the game, if you're lucky. His Bloodrage is not fun to deal with, however it makes you right-click pretty strong, so right-click-to-win when he does hit you with it (oh, and press and hold H to hold still when he ults you. Pretty general tactic but VERY note-worthy). You'll probably want a Mekanism against him, otherwise, aim to steal Rupture and buy Force Staff and use his own tactics against him. Don't give him his own bonus damage. If you steal his silence, use it on a support that's spell dependent (example: Crystal Maiden), and pray he doesn't hack-and-slash your face for an easy kill.
Shadow Fiend: Not TOO painful to deal with, however, each of his Shadow Razes count as a separate spell. So if you're spellstealing him, make sure you note how far the distance is.