Help! I've played 1,000+ hours of DotA and still don't know how to play Earth Spirit! (6.81b)

+1'd this without a hesitation. Amazing guide. Maybe attach your dotabuff link though to watch replays.

I created an account on dotafire just to say thanks and +1 for a fantastic guide written.

Nice guide,congrats and thank you for it.
It took me from 1/11 tô 17/1 in just two games.

Regards

This guide is incredible. Had no clue what this hero could do, came here to fulfill my hero challenge. Your explanations and animated gifs are precise and clear. I'm sure I'll beat the **** out of bots thanks to you :D

No, seriously, I wish all guides were that good.

Thanks to this guide. ES is my best hero now
+1

As for a couple questions about item choices:

I wrote on why I don't like Drum of Endurance here:



As for Necronomicon, Kaolin's other item choices are too good to consider Necro. He doesn't benefit too much from the STR; to the extent that he does, Halberd is a far better option. He doesn't need or benefit from the pushing power that Necro gives; later game a Veil of Discord gives Kaolin all the pushing power he needs. Last but not least, Kaolin is such a hard hero to play that I would hate having to micro the necro units while playing him.

Hey everyone. Glad to see this guide is still getting some love!

Yeah unfortunately I do have a life now that I went back to school. My academic research is very time consuming, and also my computer has been having trouble running Dota. With those things in mind, it's safe to say I won't be playing Dota 2 for a long time.

A lot of the guide is outdated but AFAIK, from what little I keep up with Dota, everything I wrote in the 6.82 UPDATE HYPE section is true. Kaolin is indeed a terrible position 5 now (not only because of direct nerfs but due to the meta slowing down), Mek is bad now, and Aghs+Blink/Force is core. The item build section is incredibly outdated, but a lot of the stuff on his abilities and laning and whatnot haven't changed.

Also, if anyone wants to use the clips in my guide for their own guides, feel free!

I want to learn this hero... I think i'll read this, and other, guides another 150 times and watch 100 hours of playthrough's, and play 50 games against Bots, then maybe i can start to think about maybe considering selecting him.

Great guide, very informative, and doesnt shy away from the fact he is HARD! +1

This guide was so good, I created an account just to upvote it :)

Baing drained of all his mana by necrobook and being unable to resurrect isn't pleasant at all, I assure you.

Wk and friends(well, depending on friends, but for WK it's 100%) actually only get some pleasant goldey-boldey from Necros if they are not rushed ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). And in what percentage of games would he able torush them when there are so many other useful items to get for that money?

You didn't mention Necronomicon. Isn't it a good situational item? If Earth Spirit's role is to snowball the early game and end the game quickly, why not simply rush a necrobook and push down towers? As you say it really well pubs suck at pushing and ending the game early so why not buy an item to do that yourself?
Besides necrobook gives you some fighting power that is not reliant on nukes, making you better at taking down those annoying tanky heroes like Wraith King and friends.

@Fleet : he already talked about drum in the guide, look it up.