How to (Actually) Carry With Sven (VERY in-Depth)

An Intro to Sven, and this guide.

Sven is a terribly misunderstood hero, I think. I say this, of course, because the most common item build is wrong, and also because I too used to misunderstand Sven. I used to think that he couldn't DPS hard enough to make it into the club of the hardest carries in the came, along with the likes of Phantom Assassin and Faceless Void, simply because he isn't not Agility. That was before I took a look at God's Strength and actually started to do a little math. Scroll over that tooltip, people.

You may see that it says something about +200% Base Damage. Add that to the 100% that he already has, and you have 300% Base Damage.

Yeah, If he didn't have that, my statement before would have been true. That is a lot of damage. 300% of what he should have is a lot. Actually, once I crunched the numbers, with 6 slots of all the correct items, your DPS is around 1.4x the max DPS of a 6-Slotted Phantom Assassin.

Then again, not many people buy the right items on Sven.

People tend to not even know about the fact that you get another 200% of your base damage, and they build like a normal carry, and not to the best of his potential.

Let me explain...

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To new players, the concept of "Base Damage"/"Total Damage"/"+Damage" can be a little difficult.

Basically, It comes down to where your damage comes from. Then, you just add it up. You obviously want more, so here's how you increase them

"Average Total Damage": ("Base Damage" + "+Damage") * ("Crit Multiplication" / ("Crit Chance") + 1)

"Base Damage": Damage given by Strength. You also start with a bit at Level 1.

"+Damage": Damage given by items that say +Damage, like Broadsword.


So, yeah. That is basic Physical hero damage. It's also reduced by armor, and can miss because of evasion, or just ignored by Backtrack.

It's complicated.

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That little intro to hero physical damage will help you understand how God's Strength amplified your damage.

You may notice that little disclaimer on the bottom of the tooltip. It says that only the hero's Base damage is amplified.

What this means is that, since Daedalus is +Damage, It actually has no synergy with God's Strength whatsoever. It does, however, have a crit. That multiplies the whole thing. That means that it's good in the late game, because it increases your damage by a percentage, rather than addatively. In the early game, addition is actually more efficient than multiplication. Therefore, buying a Daedalus/ Crystalys when you only have a Mask of Madness and Power Treads is not at all efficient. Save it for the late game. That's when it's actually good.

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To sort of prove the point, let's take damage given by Heart of Tarrasque and compare it to Daedalus.

Heart of Tarrasque +40 Strength +300 Hp

Remember that since Sven is a strength hero, he receives +40 damage from the 40 strength. also remember to multipy it by 3 :D So really, It gives +120 Dmg and 1060 HP because it gives 40 strength, and 1 Strength= 19 Hp. ((40*19)+300 = 1060)

Daedalus +81 Damage Passive: Critical strike- 25% chance to crit for 240% of your "Total Damage."

Sven doesn't get any bonus from the God's Strength on +Damage, so you don't multiply it by God's Strength. Even though Sven doesn't get as much damage from Daedalus as Heart of Tarrasque, and it gives you no survivability whatsoever, it multiplies your average total damage by 1.35, becoming a useful item to multiply all of your other items by. In the late game. If you get it first, though, it's not going to be effective.

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So, yeah. That's why the common build sucks. If you swear by the other build, try this one, then decide for yourself. The thing is, Mask of Madness isn't bad on Sven, but I find that the Strength from Satanic is way too good to pass up. You can get 95 Damage(25 Strength + 20 Damage), Lifesteal, and Uber Lifesteal all at once. After thinking about it for a while, I think the reason why it's popular is because it's fun. The thing is, IMO, Blink Dagger is even more fun than MoM.

That says about all that needs to be said about it. It's a good time, but it's not statistically good, or at least as much as a Satanic. It also would help you to accelerate your farm with the stacking and pulling potential that it gives as a Helm of the Dominator. If you play a good Luna, you know what I mean. Stacking/Pulling + Great Cleave tends to be powerful. Once you get good at it, you can stack 2 camps at once.

The Most Common Build, according to DotaBuff: (Screenshot taken 1/5/14)

(Screenshot taken 1/5/14)

If it's been too long since, check out where I got it.
http://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/sven

I've been following it for 5 months, and it hasn't at all changed, except that the percentage for the skill build has gotten slowly higher as time passes. Too bad that build is too situational. Stats on Sven tends to be much more reliable. It gives you a little of everything, as opposed to a little of just one thing.

This Man Knows How to Build a Sven

Follow These Guidelines, And You'll Just Be Sitting There Like:

Because You Just Did This:

Skills

And so, finally we arrive to where I actually explain Sven's skills.

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Storm Hammer

Type: Targets:

Active, Unit Target Enemy Units

You can punch your foes! From a distance! How convenient!

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Notes:

• This spell does more damage at level 4 than the average nuke does at level 4. (Average is 300)
• If it is disjointed, It does absolutely nothing. Beware Puck.
• Can't target magic immune, but if the target becomes magic immune while the projectile is in the air, when it connects it will do damage and stun in the AoE, but not have an effect on the target.

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Great Cleave

Type: Targets:

Passive Yourself

When you slap people, the people around them feel it too. LOGICAL!

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Notes:

• Cleaves are reduced by armor type, but not armor value, meaning that if you hit people with low armor, you're going to cleave more than if you were hitting people with high armor.
• Stacks with Battle Fury, yielding 100% cleave. It's situational wether you should do so or not.

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Warcry

Type: Targets:

Active, Instant Friendly Units

Scream, and you and your allies will run faster and grow plates of metal out of your own flesh. Seems Legit.

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Notes:

• Completely stacks with all abilities in the game.

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God's Strength

Type: Targets:

Active, Instant Self

Turn red, and then enter Berzerker Rage-mode. Because you're red. Pwn their face for me.

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Notes:

• This ability has a 31.25% Uptime. You should play by the Cooldown, much like you would with Doom. When It's up, go and gank. When it's not, take stacks and just farm. Ancients are a viable option too. The +7 HP regen from Armlet of Mordiggian should be enough sustain.
• Honestly, Volvo. In what way is this balanced? I'm just going to make all the items that give survivability also give B.S. amounts of damage. FOR NOTHING. Armlet of Mordiggian now gives +90/102.5/115 Damage and 25 Attack Speed.

The Tangental Circle That I Mentioned

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Stat Growths

Generally speaking, on any hero, stat growths are going to matter. Because of God's Strength, his stat growths are "3x" as important.

Strength- 2.7
Agility- 2
Intelligence- 1.3

I'm going to get to the point.

Strength- 2.7
Each level, He gains 5.4/6.75/8.1 Damage\, because of God's Strength. He also gets 51.3 Hp per level, because 1 Strength = 19Hp.

Agility- 2
His attack speed isn't at all bad, but it's not godmode ludicrous. Attack Speed will let you DPS, but until you have a lot of Strength. It's not going to be as good if you have no damage. Generally speaking, buying strength is a more efficient way to increase your DPS. You also have Warcry for a little attack speed, so you can put it off for a little bit.

Intelligence- 1.3
The thing is, Your manapool is going to suck. Your Storm Hammer, If you use it at level one, It takes about 75% of your manapool. It's a very intensive spell, and Sven can't really handle it. That being said, when you do use it, it's going to be completely overpowered. If lots of fights are happening, consider a Ring of Basilius. It gives 39 mana per minute, so it's basically going to be a Storm Hammer every 3.589 minutes. It gives other bonuses too. It isn't worth it only for the mana regen, but it's really, really nice. It also gives you and your friends a lot of armor, stacking nicely with Warcry.

Skill Build

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So, Back to the Skill Build...

Yeah, that's basically it. You also, of course get God's Strength at 6, 11, and 16. In other words, it's not like other heroes that skip their ultimate like Tiny, Leshrac, Chaos Knight, Tinker, and Windranger.

I've told you the skill build, let's get to why.


1. Skipping your ult just doesn't make any sense with Sven. God's Strength is most of his damage. That is, if you build him right.

2. Here's the part you're probably wondering about: The stats. It's common knowledge that early points of Great Cleave just push your lane and indirectly deny you farm. The thing is, most people just go ahead and skill Warcry, when actually you should be focusing on stats, even in your items. It's kinda just a common instinct. The thing is, a little bit of stats goes a long way on Sven. It lets you, you know, actually get to use your Storm Hammer, and gives you 4/5/6 damage with God's Strength. It also gives you 28 HP per skill point. That's important, because most of the damage that is taken in the laning stages is magical. Therefore, armor is a bit of a waste. Then again, 4 armor makes it good enough to take a skill pint at Level 4 when you already have a little bit of stats with which to leverage the armor. After you do that, it becomes more efficient to get stats over more armor, assuming that 1/2 of the damage you are taking is magical. Not only that, but if you get stats, you will be getting about 1/2 a point of armor each level from all the Agility.

3. If you level it up early, Storm Hammer does complete ****loads of damage. It's just, In general, really good. Better, for example, than a similar skill; Wraithfire Blast.

4. You'll notice that the focus shifts back away from stats back to Warcry. This is because of the fact that most of the damage on the enemy team is switching back over to Physical because their carries are likely coming online. At this point, the armor is going to mean a whole lot more than before, because of that, and because of the fact that you have so much more HP now.

5. The 4 levels in Great Cleave should be taken when you want to jungel or accelerate your farm. It's an excellent farming tool in the jungle; it just sucks in the laning stages, actually denying you farm by pushing the wave.

How to counter Sven

I'll keep it brief. Basically, Sven as a carry is a hero that is very, very dependent on farming in the laning stage, sort of like an Anti Mage. Yet, in spite of that, will exell in small conflicts due to his short cooldowns, AoE stun, and his Warcry giving large amounts of Armor.

Items

Judging by all of the other things we've learned, what items are the most efficient, and give you the best mix of DPS, Survivability, and Utility? Remember also, that with all Melee Carries, If you can't quite reach your target, you may need an item to help you. If you can't hit anything at all, than your DPS is worthless, because you can't use it anyway.

I've mentioned all of the items that i think are viable in the build above. I'll go over all of them. The thing is, there are very few items that wouldn't be better than other items in certain situations. Welcome to Situational items.

Since almost all of the items in the game could be better than others in certain games, feel free to stray from the build. For example, if you're playing against a team with lots of silences, and you have an Antimage, consider a Diffusal Blade. It just might save a life. That being said, it's VERY situational, and I don't recommend it. Just don't go full ****** and buy a Shadow Blade or something just because I said that it's sometimes feasible to stray from the build a little.

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So, Back to What I Was Saying...

I'll also be giving an In-Depth analysis to most of the items.

Now, some generalities about your items.

YOU REALLY LIKE STRENGTH.

Attack speed is really nice, as is armor. Your DPS and EHP gets a bit ludicrous once you have a Assault Cuirass. I've found that it actually makes you really hard to stop.

In the early to mid game, STATS. He really, really, needs the extra INT. All of them are nice. Sort of why I included the wand. The mana that Magic Wand gives is also very important on heroes with low mana pools like Sven.

In the late game, you want the most DPS possible for as cheap as possible. That is accomplished, like on all heroes, through Attack Speed, Damage (From strength, as +Dmg is inefficient because of God's Strength), and Armor Reduction, the less mentioned of the trio. It comes from Assault Cuirass, which also gives a lot of Attack Speed. it basically gives you all you need other than the damage, which you'll be getting from Heart of Tarrasque and Armlet of Mordiggian, which gives Attack Speed too.

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Analysis of Items

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ONWARDS, TO ANALYSIS!



Starting Items:
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Your basic regen to go into lane with. Basically, you just don't want to get forced out of lane. You usually pop your clarity after the first time that you use Storm Hammer, because it's cost is so gigantic, and you need to have mana for it.

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As you are a melee carry, you should always be considering this item. The thing is that you don't really have a way to farm from a distance like, for example, Phantom Assassin does. You're going to be taking a lot of harass, and this helps to mitigate a lot of that, making your regen go further, and making your potential to outlane your opponent higher because of that.

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Newer players tend to not understand how good that Iron Branches are. It's the most efficient item in the game. It's also a component to your Magic Wand.



Early Game:
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A must for every hero. Not much to say, except that Sven is not a hero that can put it off, like, for example, a Weaver can. Even then, you'd have bought this by the 10 Min. mark if you were a Weaver. Also, you know, a component of Power Treads.

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You'll need it quick, half for stats, half because the burst regeneration is so good. remember, STATS! Also, If you're a new player, it's imperative that you use the active. It's the reason why you get it.

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It's about the time, when you get this, to think about TP supporting. Keep one eye on the map, and the other on lasthitting, and the other on your enemies, and the other on the timer for stacking and pulling. Yeah. Also, In general, you need to have at least one TP scroll on yourself at all times to farm other lanes, and show up to teamfights. It's one of the most powerful items in Dota.

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Clearly the boots of choice on Sven. It gives 16/20/24 damage, and you can now do Tread Switching to save a little mana. If you don't know what that is, look it up. Google Search bar on top. It also gives good attack speed, which is going to carry you into the late game.



Mid Game:
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Many people don't agree with this, but I'll do a bit of explaining about it. When you reach around level 8 or so, the normal level for a blink dagger, I've found, your biggest problem is not your DPS. The problem, in fact, is your lack of initiation.

Your Warcry and God's Strength both have a cast time, so you'll waste like, a whole second on buffs before you initiate. It's better to do that far away from them.

Also, you have an AoE Stun, so if you can land it on several people in a teamfight, you're golden. To give your stun an effective 1200 extra range is really good.

Sven is a hero that has to hit something to be effective. If you're being kited you can't do that. It's nearly impossible to kite someone who simply blinks, stuns, and drinks you.

You actually already have good DPS compared to other heroes in the game. It's great to actually be able to use it.

It's more about fixing your mobility than anything else.


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People don't realize this, but when you toggle armlet, you get 25 Strength(:D). In other words, it gives you ******** amounts of DPS, for very cheap. Why? Because, of course, of God's Strength. As I said in the Skills section, Armlet of Mordiggian now gives +90/102.5/115 Damage and 25 Attack Speed. For it's cost, it's like, 75% more efficient as it should be, not only because your damage gets so big, but it also gives you a lot of attack speed, which gets more efficient the more damage that you have. It's really good, and really, really underrated on Sven. Once you get this, Sven really starts to shine. You have a Blink Dagger to use for ganking, and to let you DPS, and then you get the gigantic DPS item. you're also inherently tanky, too. You can just buff, blink, drink, and leave(beware TP supports). You're just, in general, really, really strong. Then, from there, you get even more powerful because of all of the other efficient items that you can buy, like Heart of Tarrasque, Assault Cuirass, and the Daedalus for the late game.



Late Game:
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Heart of Tarrasque is, like Armlet of Mordiggian, blatantly overpowered on Sven. It's just like: Why don't we give the item that gives the most health in the game to the hero with an ability that gives ****tons of armor, and then have it give more Damage than a Daedalus? What could possibly go wrong? This is half of the reason that Sven is so good. I said it in the intro in my comparison with Daedalus, but it gives 80/100/120 Damage and 1060 Hp. also, the Hp is much more efficient because of that 16 Armor. It makes Sven even more like Sven.

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At this point, you're going to be hitting freakishly hard, and you're going to have a lot of Hp. What Assault Cuirass does is it takes both of these and makes them go a whole lot further. You may notice a gap in the build so far. It fills it all in PERFECTLY. You hit really hard. Now let's hit harder, because of the armor reduction, but do so much, much faster. You have lots of Hp. With Assault Cuirass, you become unbelievably tanky. As an added bonus, you also give Effective HP to your allies too. I find that it's extremely hard to stop a Sven once they get this farmed, no matter who you are.

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You're always clamoring for DPS as a Sven. This item brings DPS to it's logical conclusion. Which is to say, insane. I already said that Heart of Tarrasque gives more damage, and it does. The thing is, Daedalus takes your DPS, adds 81 Damage into the equation, and subsequently multiplies it by 1.35. Even if you were to stack 3 hearts, your DPS would not be as good as if you were to get one Heart of Tarrasque, one Assault Cuirass, and one Daedalus. It wouldn't even be close.




TO THE SITUATIONAL ITEMS, AWAAAY!


Situational items, are, as the name implies, the items that are better than other items in certain situations. In my analysis, I'll yell you when these items can be correct. these reasons also may or may not have exceptions.

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If you feel like you're having trouble DPSing against heroes that are fast and squshy, like Weaver or especially Slardar, you can get Abyssal Blade to chain stun people(Because you have Storm Hammer), while just putting yourself next to them with Blink Dagger.

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Great Cleave is 65% cleave. Battle Fury is 35% cleave. That means that with both, you get 100% cleaver. If you're up against a Meepo, a Phantom Lancer, or a Chaos Knight, and they're getting out of control, consider the item. Those heroes are countered by strong AoE. The downside about the item is that it cripples your DPS. But, you can do 100% of it to everyone. It has no Strength in it, making it not the best choice. Don't get it for a gimmick, there are much better items.

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Black King Bar is not an item that anybody WANTS to buy. unfortunately, sometimes you HAVE to. The reason that any hero buys a BKB is to counter the things that counter them. In Sven's case, it's anything that stops you from DPSing. With a Black King Bar, there are significantly less things like so. A good example would be if you got hit by a Sacred Arrow into a Fissure, into an Aftershock from Enchant Totem, into a Dragon Tail, into a Hex. With BKB, This ******** doesn't happen. You could actually try to panic TP, and probably live. With BKB, this stuff can't touch you, for an entire 10/9/8/7/6/5 seconds, depending on how much you've used the Black King Bar. It also counters the casual Blade Mail that the opposing team's tank may have picked up.

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It's a good item on all heroes in the late game. It lets you defend enemy split pushes, and it can get you into teamfights. Also useful for backdooring/your own split pushes. Eventually, when there's nothing else to buy, there's no point in not buying it.

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Are you crushing your lane? If so, try and rush a Hand of Midas by 8 minutes after Boots of Speed. Buy the Gloves of Haste first, and if you can't get your Midas by 8 minutes, than build it into Power Treads instead. Hand of Midas is a bit controversial, but it can keep you ahead the entire game, and is therefore worth a mention. If you don't know why it's controversial, than Google it.

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If you know how to use a HoTD to stack, do so. If not, than you should look it up, then try it out on Dragon Knight. Go Power Treads into Helm of the Dominator, into Maelstrom.

Anyway, once you learn how to stack, it'll greatly increase your GPM(Gold Per Minute), especially with Great Cleave. Also, you could ask your supports to stack for you. If they know what stacking is, I'm sure that they'll be happy to comply.

Helm of the Dominator also builds into Satanic, although the tooltip on Dotafire is bugged.

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Looking at it, you'll notice that it has a whole bunch of STRENGTH in it. What's better than Strength? Strength + Lifesteal, is, of course, the answer. What's better than
that? Strength + ber Lifestael, of course! I must also stress that to make full use of this item, you need to be able to hit things. It's a really, really good item on Sven in general.

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You may be thinking to yourself: S+Y? Isn't that an Agility Hero item? Well, let's do some math.


For Strength Heroes:
304 Health(16 Strength*19)
2.24 Armor(16 Agility*0.14)
32 Damage(16+16 Strength)
32 Attack Speed(16+16 Agility)
+16% Movement Speed
16% Chance to apply "Greater Maim"

For Agility Heroes:
304 Health(16 Strength*19)
2.24 Armor(16 Agility*0.14)
32 Damage(16+16 Agility)
32 Attack Speed(16+16 Agility)
+16% Movement Speed
16% Chance to apply "Greater Maim"


You'll notice that they're exactly the same. In other words, It's not an item only for AGI carries. However, Sven is different.


For Sven:
304 Health(16 Strength*19)
2.24 Armor(16 Agility*0.14)
48/56/64 Damage(16+16 Strength)
32 Attack Speed(16+16 Agility)
+16% Movement Speed
16% Chance to apply "Greater Maim"


Also, something that Sven tends to need more than other carries is a way to chase. This fills the gap quite nicely. If you feel like people keep escaping, than Sange and Yasha may be a viable option.

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A good early game item for when a lot of early fights are going on. I've already explained it; I'll Copy/Paste it.

"The thing is, Your manapool is going to suck. Your Storm Hammer, If you use it at level one, It takes about 75% of your manapool. It's a very intensive spell, and Sven can't really handle it. That being said, when you do use it, it's going to be completely overpowered. If lots of fights are happening, consider a Ring of Basilius. It gives 39 mana per minute, so it's basically going to be a Storm Hammer every 3.589 minutes. It gives other bonuses too. It isn't worth it only for the mana regen, but it's really, really nice. It also gives you and your friends a lot of armor, stacking nicely with Warcry. I don't recommend building it into a Vladamir's Offering, because Satanic is way better, as far as Lifesteal goes."

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Basically, you buy this when you're being completely screwed by a right-click hero, like Phantom Assassin (who happens to be your biggest counter). You can disarm a PA for 4 seconds, and even after that, you reduce everyone's DPS by 25% on you. It also gives 65/75/85 Damage. Also useful for chasing their escaping carry when you're trying to turn the game around.

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What do you think?

BTW, Techies is not Hard-Countered by Gem. That's because the Techies can still place mines up high ground that you have no vision of, and you'll still go boom just the same. Then, the Techies steals your gem.

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Clinkz giving you trouble? Omnislash got you down? Why not just be immune to all of it for 4 seconds, giving you a chance to run? You can seriously have a fun with a Juggernaut when you have this, because there's no way he can out-DPS you, and he can Omnislash you, but it'll simply deal 0 damage. His best bet is to walk away, because there's no way he can take you. It's also rather cheap, at 1600 Gold, and it gives STATS!

Very simple Friends/Foes/Food

Friends:
[*]Disables, and those with lots of them. Bane, Crystal Maiden, and Lion are awesome. You revolve around DPSing. Landing stuns is great, but so is the reason that you are a position 1 carry.
[*] Arcane Aura is awesome too, as are Ravages and other big teamfight ultimates.

Foes:
[*]Anything that stops you from DPSing, like Hexes, Fiend's Grips, and other random things like Eul's Scepter of Divinity and Hookshot into Power Cogs into Force Staff.


Food:
[*]Heroes without escapes or ways to disjoint Storm Hammer. As a ganking hero, Sven can pick up a lot of kills.
[*]Anyone that you can DPS reliably

Conclusion

Finally, the items section is done. I'm assuming that you didn't read all that, and skipped to the conclusions. I don't blame you.

Anyway, This guide is to set the record straight. Mask of Madness and Daedalus are very good items on Sven, but the common build is still massively inefficient. They contain no Strength, perhaps the most important part of an efficient Sven build. The calculations have spoken. Feel free to PM me on Dotafire if you find grammatical, mathematical, or conceptual errors. I've only proofread it 2 times, so there's probably a lot that I've missed.

I've spent somewhere in the vicinity of about 24 total hours working on this guide, over the course of 3 months. That's only the writing. I've also spent about 3 hours staring at Sven's Stats, Skills, and calculating things on pen and paper.

The entire guide should be up to date as of the New Bloom Update.

Since no guide should ever be complete, I'll be updating it semi-regularly.

The truth resists simplicity. This is even more true in Dota. If there is an argument that I haven't covered, comment it. I'll comment back.

I feel like the guide is a wall of text, but I feel that it is actually formatted very well. There's just a LOT of text.

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Thanks for reading my in-depth guide. If you feel like I've done a good job, please upvote. If you downvote, at least say why in the comments.