Face the Knight, Face the Dragon (6.81)

Can' wait for a reason of not buying HotD since I'm still getting it >_<
And nice short guide! 1+

Baby Roshan > Dog > ... > Donkey <}3

what does a hero truly need: a dog, dk is a man and dogs are mans best companion I'm told, get a dog dk. Really xyrus, put a dog in core items, they can fetch your things for you instead of the stupid donkey

Quelling Blade isn't really needed for Last Hitting in a Lane when you can Flash Farm. There's a few reasons why people get it on a Dragon Knight though.

#1 They struggle with timing Last Hits

This one is the easiest to fix, as all you need is a bit of practice. Simply create a lobby with just you, no other bots or players and get every last Creep. After a while you'll get the timing for Last Hits down.

#2 The Creep Wave gets Pushed under their Tower, meaning they're competing against 100-120 Damage

This is a little more complicated, but you'll eventually learn to gauge whether an extra Auto-Attack is needed to lower the Creeps HP so you can Last Hit it in between Tower Attacks.

For example, a Ranged Creep will typically take 2 of DK's Auto-Attacks and 2 Tower Attacks to bring down, so hit it as soon as you can, then wait until the Tower has Attacked it a 2nd time. Providing it isn't being attacked by other Creeps, this will always work at lower level (naturally as your Damage increases, it only take 1 hit from DK to finish it).

#3 Their opponent has higher Base Daamge, a better animation and/or more skill with Last Hitting, and they use this to Deny as many of your Creeps as possible.

Try getting 22/33 Creeps in the following exercises:-

• Start off by creating a "Mid Only" Lobby and pit yourself against a Bot on Passive difficulty.
• Next, try doing the Last Hitting Training mission where you have 10 minutes to get as many Creeps as possible
• Now do exactly the same as the first exercise, but against a harder Bot.

Eventually, you should be able to get a good amount Last Hits against most players, even if they have good Base Damage.

If they're a Melee Hero, e.g. Night Stalker, Tiny etc. try Auto-Attacking the Wave so you both your Creeps' and their Creeps' HP goes into Last Hitting range at the same time. They'll either lose Last Hits themselves, or tehy'll have to focus on their own Last Hits letting you get yours. 8{)

If they're Ranged, you're gonna have to play it safe, Bottle-Crow and rely on Breathe Fire for Last Hits, but there's very little any Hero can do to stop you from Flash Farming. 8{D

Really nice, in-depth guide on a hero I never though I needed a guide for to play. :D

One question: What are your thoughts on starting with a quelling blade to compensate for DK's mediocre base damage? Could be a little greedy, considering it delays your bottle but maybe in an easy match-up?

You can thank Hades and Mowen for those, I just nagged those 2 to make them. 8{)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I cannot fail DOTO Math!!! Never!! T-T

Fixed it, ty for the heads up. 8{)

I only ever buy Orchid Malevolence when I need the Active to increase my Damage or more usually to Silence someone for 5 seconds so they can't Escape, e.g. Wevaer, Anti-Mage, etc. Imo, it's better suited to Heroes like Queen of Pain and Storm Spirit since they can deal most of their Damage quite quickly, but don't have much in the way of Crowd Control.

It can work on DK too, but you already have a 2.5 - 3.25 second Stun, so preventing someone from Escaping is already pretty easy, the 5 second Silence isn't going to add much. The Damage Amplification may be useful, but I'd rather focus on powering up my Right-Click.

I'd rather have the 150 Damage and 20% Movement Speed from Shadow Blade when it comes to Ganking tbh.

Great guide; love the rune icons.

Tiny mistake with the Magic Wand section, you wrote:

When 15 charges x 15 hp = 225 hp, not 255, so less than mek.

Also what do you think about Orchid on DK? It gives him good attack speed and damage and also solves his mana problems.

I did getting the 2nd point in Dragon Blood if you're feeling pressured X{D

Ty for the upvote <}3

Isn't putting off a level 2 Dragon Blood 'til level 8 a little risky? I know it's generally pretty easy to get to that level, but if you don't want to get ganked early I would definitely have two points on it by your ultimate.
Otherwise, awesome guide. Very thorough. I like that in a guide.

Actually what I meant was, that if there's even 1 Invis Hero on your Team, against smart players, they're going to get Countered. That applies to anyone carrying a Shadow Blade too.

I played a game a little while ago, where after picking up my Shadow Blade, I nearly got a kill on a Clockwerk. After watching the replay I noticed that while Healing up in his base, he bought Dust of Appearance as soon he realised there was Invis on my Team. Whether there are already Invis Heroes on my Team or not, I'm going to get "Countered" just as much as if there aren't any.

So whether there are any other Invis Heroes, I'll always assume I'm going to get countered with Dust of Appearance, Sentry Wards and maybe even a Gem of Truesight.

The thing is, I'm not really bothered about these things. They don't stop you from being effective with a Shadow Blade.

Sentry Wards can help the other Team to spot you, but only if you walk under their Radius. Most people will place Sentries in the Lane since that's where they're most likely to get ambushed, but if you avoid the obvious spots, you'll either go undetected, or you'll bait out even more Sentries.

Dust of Appearance is next to useless against Shadow Blade since, by the time you're in Dusting Range, you're nearly close enough to start fighting. The only time you'd use Shadow Blade as an Escape is when you're hiding behind some Trees and are TPing out while Invis. This applies to all Truesight Skills as well, e.g. Track, Amplify Damage, etc.

Gem of Truesight is a major risk on the other Team's part, because if you get it? BYE BYE SENTRIES! 8[D

Honestly, I'm more concerned about Observer Wards than detection

P.S. This is all going to be added to the guide, it's part of the "Map of Rune Spot to avoid while Invis (Shadow Blade)" bit.

I had a good laugh, but you're actually right: in that case I'd go BKB into Mjollnir or Cuirass, sometimes Armlet if I'm behind. What Xyrus meant, though, is that if you can get it early and there are no invisible Heroes (without considering ultimates) in your team, you can mess up with the enemy supports and make them buy Sentries before they would actually need to when, for example, you have a Mirana in your team. I like the attack speed and damage from the SB so I'd take it anyways, but if you have a Bounty Hunter or Clinkz in your team (who usually make the supports buy Sentries and Dust even in the laning phase) it would be better to skip the SB as you say.

That's a lotta comments! 8{D

Well, I've been around these parts for a while, and have started but never finished a lot of guides, so I've had plenty of opportunities to play around with the formatting. I'll play around with the icon size, I just went with 64 by default since it seemed big enough but not too big.

Ty, and Battle Fury...really? D{8

I've tried this and believe me, you'll always lose at least 1 Creep, especially given the amount of time to takes to waddle over to the Rune and back again in Melee form. I might add this bit to the guide though, since you are inevitably going to want a Rune and it does minimize the loss. 8{)

Apparently it used to, but that was just a bug, I'll add it anyway since it's still useful though. 8{)

http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7865585

I'm 10% there baby! >8{D

Yeah, a lot of people prefer Halberd it seems, Butterfly is just my personal preference tbh. 8{(

As for Shadow Blade, I think people overestimate the Invisibility part of it since it's so easily Countered, but the other benefits of its Active make up for that, especially on a Hero like DK...you also get some nice Stats 8{D

Ty for the +1s guys