@GAN's Guide to Prophet Victory (updated) w/ different playstyles

Introduction and Role

This is a simple guide for advanced players to aid in victory. Most people have their different playstyles, and I'm going to share mine. You do not have to follow this build closely, but for those learning how to play this hero, it is recommended that you follow this build. My first hero in the early stages of Dota during the WC3 times is prophet, and i have played countless number of games of it. I know most of the details and mechanics of prophet as I played it many times. Therefore, I know which items are best suited for prophet in any kind of situation. Prophet is fun because it can be built in an infinite number of ways.

Roles:
Ganker = best role
Pusher = best role
Semi-Carry (if your team lacks carry)
Semi-Support( if your team lack support, not recommended)

Prophet when left alone early, can farm up to as fast as a 7min Midas without ganking, thus increasing his farming potential which is coupled by his ultimate which turns prophet into a crazy pushing machine. With the gold earned from towers and farming, prophet can get disables and damage items to easily pluck off enemy heros.

Reminder : Play the hero as it suits you, as this will definitely turn out better than following the guide closely.

Gameplay

Early Game
Primary role is to jungle and farm up midas ASAP
Look out for couriers and heroes to kill

Mid Game
Farm empty lanes/push
Look out for single heroes and pluck them off
Roshan
Take out Tier 2 Towers

Late game
Push/Gank
Catch single enemies
Roshan
Focus mega creep/push and end

For fun
camp outside fountain and auto attack rampage

Pros and Cons

Pros
Awesome pusher
Awesome farmer
Awesome ganker
Not difficult to play
Many styles to play
High damage output late-game
Has an escape mechanism
One of the best semi-gankers/semi-carries out there
Annoying
Able to instill fear into enemies from mid-game to late-game to prevent them from farming lane
Can play as any role
Easy jungling skill
Able to turn losing clashes into winning games by taking down other lanes easily
Mapawareness pays off much more than for other heroes

Cons
Squishy early-game
mana-dry early-game
Often called a KSer by it's ultimate
Often the target during clashes
Often hunted by heroes such as Nyx Assassin
Below average move speed of 295.
Highly dependant on map awareness

Skills and justification

Ok, Sprout. This creates a ring of trees around the target, which lasts 5.25 seconds at level 4.

However, we shall leave this skill at level 1, because of the importance of other skills. Also, this skill is easily countered by heroes with quelling blades, skills such as Chakram and Lina's stun.

Tips on how to use the skill :
Killing
Mainly, all you have to do is just click on the person to trap him while you finish him off.
However, if the person is juking you, try to predict his movements and click on the ground in the fog. You may or may not trap him successfully, but the trees provide sight which will help you predict his movements too.

Escaping
When you sprout yourself, enemies cannot see you as there is fog. However, this does not work when you are tracked or amplify damageamplified by Slardar.
When running from an enemy, you do not neccesarily have to sprout yourself and teleport away. Incase of running from enemies such as Axe who can easily call you, you should either try to juke him or sprout him and run away.

You do not have to level sprout early unless you are going for a ganker build.

Ganker build:
Level your teleportation as early as possible, then sprout. Higher sprout level means longer trap time, and it would easier for ganks.


Prophet's signature skill. This is a deadly skill if used appropriately, which can turn the tides of the games.

So what if you are losing lanes and your team dying badly early? With this skill, you can avoid getting caught in clashes and focus on pushing down towers. If you do not play with conscience, you may consider backdooring, however i do not recommend that as you will get badmouthed by players.

This skill is great for escaping if you have a TP scroll or a Shadowblade a.k.a lothar. You can activate teleportation during shadowblade, it will not cancel the invisibility buff, as teleportation is considered done when you successfully teleport somewhere else, putting the skill on CD. Also, you can first activate TP then turning on shadowblade, which does not cancel the TP scroll effect.

When your teammates are engaging in a clash, what you should do:
-Determine if your teammates are able to handle with/without you
Options:
If your teammates are able to win the clash without you, go ahead to push the towers.
If your teammates need you to win the clash, you go down there and rape everybody with your insane damage.
If your teammates cannot win the clash even with you, it is pointless to stay around there, just teleport and push, which helps your team generate gold. In late games, you should be fat enough to down towers quickly and rax easily with your treants.




Nature's call. This ability allows you to summon 5 treants at level 4 and it is your main jungling skill.

Note: there are several ways about jungling. You may decide to put a point in teleport or treant first, which will be explained later.

This skill allows you to push and help you tank the towers while to take it down. Also, you can use the treants to block paths of enemies' heroes' to save yourself or your allies.




Another signature skill of prophet. This skill is so strong in a way that it can help defend
by killing all the creeps, turning a push from opponent's side to your side. If you are planning to farm, it is recommended that you get Agha's to push quickly and get all the farm, and it is best that you use it on every cooldown. However, if you are planning to gank, it is more logical to save your ultimate to cast it only when you and your allies are locking down a target

Items Justifications

Midas is a good item if you are planning to drag the game long and it is recommended that you buy this if you are pushing/supporting. This gives a neat 190gold + 2.5x experience, which should be used on neutral creeps early if possible. This item will help you reach higher levels more easily and get more gold.


Desolator. Sick item which reduces the target's armor by 6 even before the attack lands. This works on towers which means you push faster and kill your enemies faster. Usually a must-get item.


Another must-get item for Prophet, unless you are supporting. This item gives a nice damage output with some attack speed, and also mana regen so that you do not have to return to base frequently to heal your mana. This also silences enemies such as anti magewhose blink is annoying and can easily escape your trap.


Situational, but i get it for every game. Reason? It gives invisibility which means that you can down towers infront of your enemies and just get away. This is also good for ganking, where you teleport into fog and surprise them with this item. This gives a bonus 150 damage on hit, and it gives a nice 30 damage and 30 attack speed.


Situational, but is good as you can disable carries who are farming alone so that you can kill them before they can kill you. This is also good for ganks and teamfights.


Another disable with a good damage output of 100. Hex 3.5s disable + Abyssal 2s stun = 5.5s disable on the hero, which allows you to quickly kill the hero before he can damage you.


Lowers target armour, which includes towers, for faster pushing. Also gives treants and allies more armour and attack speed. Stacks with desolator to give a total of -11 armor, reducing towers' armor from 30 to 19.


For annoying heroes like Phantom Assassin and windrunnerWindrunner.


BKB, grants immunity so that you can rape enemies or down towers without being disabled.


Super high damage output to clear enemy team easily and towers, not recommended if you are dying frequently or up against heroes like Slardar and Wisp, which can catch you easily and get your divine.


If you feel like carrying.


This item may be considered a core item also, as it provides an insane +80 attack speed coupled with the chance to let out a 160 damage chain lightning to creeps. This enhances prophet's overall pushing power. Also, the active skill may be cast on tank heroes so that opponents attacking the hero will get damaged. Stacks with desolator.


You may consider getting this item early as it kills creeps super fast early game, while allows you to push faster.

Good and Bad Allies

Good allies


Track gold gives you more money and sight so that you can kill easily.


Passive skill helps you jungle easily early and Frost Arrows + Silence guarantee a kill.


Tinker can teleport to your creeps and gank heroes easily.


Cold snap + treants, kill guaranteed. Also, sprout + sunstrike guarantees an easy kill. Alacrity helps you kill roshan and down raxes easily.

windrunner
Shackleshot + sprout.


Bad/hated enemies


Most hated enemy hero of all time. While you are jungling, suddenly a nyx hits you and dagon combos you to death. Hard to kill early with Nyx's 3rd skill, which stuns you.


Although it is a good ally, it is also a bad opponent. Imagine you are farming and suddenly, bounty hunter tracks and kills you with other heroes. Annoying invisibility.


Another bugger. When you teleport to a lane to farm, suddenly a wisp creeps from behind bringing heroes like Slardar and Tiny to insta kill you.


This bugger just charges you when you farm under vision. Within the Next minute, 3-5 heroes come and kill you.


Powerful laning opponent, and prophet is most likely to get ganked by a drow with shadowblade if drow was doing well early. Silence prevents teleportation and frost arrows slow your movement, it is almost impossible to run from drow on a 1 to 1 fight.


Timbersaw's spells destroys your sprout easily, foiling your ganks and escapes.


Heroes with this item are much harder to gank.


They can easily escape with force staff and it is hard to gank heroes with this item(example windrunnerWindrunner.)

Creeping / Jungling

Tips on how to jungle:

Add a point in treant and just jungle. Simple as that. However, advanced players would be able to effectively use treants to stack other camps at around .53 - .55 timing. Help to pull creeps if the lane is not doing well.

Firstly, get a RoB (Ring of Basilius) and 2 clarity, which will ensure that you do not return to the base frequently. Also, RoB provides armour for your treants to tank more damage and the 0.6 mana regeneration is good.

However, if you are seeking to obtain hand of midas asap, stick to getting gloves of haste first. This build is more for advanced players, who know how to use their treants to take certain damage or pull/stack creeps.

Note: if you are not able to kill a camp before the .00 minute mark, try to pull the camp around .53-.55 timing so that you can come back later and get more gold. When you level your treants higher, always try to use a treant to stack another camp before the minute mark. This may be difficult to do at start, because treants generally have a slow movement speed.

By midgame, you should let your allies farm neutrals while you teleport around the map and farm. (DO not teleport to lanes where you carries are farming and KS creeps.)

Note : always try to teleport to the unsafe lane to farm, leaving the safer lanes for your carries while you push enemy team's safer lane and down the towers in the lane. This will prevent their carries from being able to farm faster than yours if the towers in your safe lane are intact while enemy teams' are down. (Safe lane for radiant = Bottom , For dire = Top).

Note # 2 : usage of Wrath of nature
If you feel like farming alot, you should be using wrath on every cooldown. Only if feel like farming alot, but usually it is a bad idea to do during early stages of the game as it pushes the lanes and steals carries' farms. This will cause your allies to farm lesser, thus i recommend that you save it for ganks or clashes during the early-mid stages of the game. But always keep alert of the map. If you see that your allies are farming neutrals, try to wait for them to kill neutrals first before casting, in case of creep stealing. Also, even though you should be using wrath on every cooldown, you should be looking at the map to see how many enemy creeps are actually in sight. If there are only 5-10, you should probably wait for the next wave where more enemy creeps are present. Also, try to cast wrath of nature on creeps with lower hp. This is so that the bounce damage can be stacked to kill creeps with higher HP and not wasted on creeps with low hp.

Wrath is important early for pushing lanes and pressuring the opponents while allowing your carries to farm, which requires a good timing on how to use it. Also, it is good for defending towers early. Having it on cooldown when you need it is ludicrous, thus try not to use your ulti on every cooldown during the early-mid game stages.
-credits to Prophecy for explaining to me this

Alternative way to jungle :

This should only be done while you are in Radiant, but if you like to risk, you may also do this in Dire.
This is a risky way of jungling, but I think this provides the best benefits.
You add a point in teleport and teleport there ASAP, so that if you see people coming to kill you, you might have a chance to teleport away. Also, there might be a chance of spawning ranged creeps on the first wave, which you will definitely die if you attempt to attack the creeps

What to do if range creeps have spawned:
For me, if I was on the radiant team, I will suicide. I would have killed the 2 small ranged creeps, and the big one with 50%-75% hp left. Then, I will teleport back and kill the creep, taking me to level 2, which I will add a point in treants so that if ranged creeps spawn again, I will not die.

Things to note:
Always take note of the timing. The timing that neutrals spawn are .00, so you have to ensure that you kill the creeps before the timing, so that you can kill the next camp. By this method, I was able to get midas by 7.30 minutes without ganking.

This does not neccassarily farm faster than the normal treant build, but i prefer this build as it allows you to add up more on teleportation early, which means more ganks which provide more than rather than normal treant jungling. Also, this does not take up much mana in the early game jungling process, and you most likely have more time to look around the lanes and help allies. This is why this way of jungling is actually quite risky, as ganks may not succeed and try-hard enemies will always try to kill you there.

Always go for a gank
You should be looking at the whole map, helping to report missing as you are just auto attacking the creeps. When an enemy is low, or is able to die quickly by ganking, just teleport and help to kill the hero. It gives more money than killing neutrals.

Look out for enemy couriers
Teleport, and kill. It is best that you kill the courier only when it is not too far from your half side of the map, and it is not upgraded to a flying courier yet. This gives a free 175 gold to your team, in which your team will appreciate.

Laning

If you are laning instead of jungling, get some branches and consumables early.

Hard lane w/ Babysits a.k.a lane supports
1)Your ally should have purchased observer wards to block off neutrals.
2)Focus on farming, and do not play aggressively, unless enemy heroes are melee and are incapable of killing you easily.
3)Help to gank

Hard lane solo
1)Play defensively, get observers to block off neutrals
2)Try not to cross the river
3)Deny as much as you can, if enemies are aggressive consider getting Tranquils
4)Just focus on denying and not dying

Mid lane
1)Get bottle ASAP. You can spam sprout and harass enemy heroes if they are melee or have lower attack ranges than you
2)You can use your treants to farm the lower level neutrals or stack other neutral camps
3)Ensure that you have visions on both runes to ensure rune control. You can teleport to runes faster than QoP's blink.

Safe Lane w/ babysits
1)Should be easy, just farm and last hit as much as possible.
2)Ask supports to deward and pull neutral camps
3)Get phase early so that you can last hit and deny more easily

Safe Lane solo
1)Farm and deny as much as possible
2)Look out for missing heroes from middle
3)Consider threads for HP or phase to last hit more easily

Safe Lane Babysit
1)If you are babysitting a carry somehow, focus on denying and pulling creeps
2)Get RoB and Headdress early to help your carry, but turn off the ring so that your creeps dont push as much
3)Upgrade courier ASAP

Team Work

Always, always, always gank whenever possible. This is what prophet was born to do. Team up with your allies to catch an unsuspecting carry who is farming, or a squishy hero who just happened to walk pass a ward.

To play prophet, it requires a large amount of teamwork. For example, teamming with your allies to lure a clash far from you, while you push other towers and down raxes. You can also lure enemies to you by pushing a lane, which gives your allies time to farm.

By the midgame, you should see less heroes farming in lanes. This is because they are afraid that Prophet will teleport to gank and this slows down their farming speed, leading your team to victory.

Summary

By mid-late game, enemies should be afraid of you and you should at least have downed tier 2 towers. This is why Prophet is such a strong hero and is commonly banned in CM games. Thanks for reading, please provide comments.

Some Screenshots

As you can see, even with 20+ kills it wasnt able to win the game. Teamwork is crucial and I guess I was lacking in teamwork in those games.



Lets compare 2 different builds
Dagon build provides less gold per min and kills rather than the normal pusher/semi-carry build. But it provides more assists. Therefore i advise players to stick to pusher builds and only go dagon for pubstomp games.

Some Screenshots of my items

Videos

Play Video
Credits to DotaCinema, this video is useful for people who dont understand some of my points.

Notes

Mjollnir/Maelstrom stacks with Desolator. When the lightning proccs, the minus armor debuff does not comeout, only for that attack where the lightning procced.

You can cast teleportation during Shadow Blade.

The minus armor aura from assault cuirass stacks with the minus armor debuff from desolator.

Mini-stuns from Monkey King Bar do not override the bash duration/stun from Abyssal and basher in Dota 2. In Dota 1, it still does.

Monkey King Bar does not give 100% hit on Faceless's backtrack, as a different mechanic is used. Backtrack is not a chance to miss on attacks or spells, it is a chance to completely negate the damage income from damage, spells and mini-bashes from MKB.

You can have a maximum of 10 treants at once.

Treants are 33% resistant to magic, thus you can use them to attack Int heroes to harass without fear of feeding the treants easily.

The 1st tier towers do not have anti-bd, which means that even if there are no creeps, the tower will not regenerate back its' HP while you attack. Perfect for prophets to take down.

You can cast sprout to provide sight at a certain area by clicking on the ground.

Other Prophet Guides

Check out :
nopunt's prophet guide
Untech's prophet guide
Warding and De-warding
Anti-Drow Guide
Chicken here's UNDERSTANDING Damage types