I Got Dirt Between My Toes!

Lore

Meepo, the Geomancer

Role: Carry / Disabler / Initiator
Lore: "If you ask me, life is all about who you know and what you can find. When you live up in the Riftshadow Ruins, just finding food can be tough. So you need to cut corners, you need to scrounge, you need to know your strengths. Some of the beasts up there can kill you, so you need a way to trap the weak and duck the strong. On the upside, the ruins have history, and history is worth a lot to some people. There used to be a palace there, where they had all these dark rituals. Bad stuff. If you survived the ceremony, they would shatter a crystal and split your soul into pieces. They made great art though! Sculptures and such. Let me tell you: sometimes you stumble onto some of those old carvings. Take a pack full of those to town and sell them, then get yourself food for a few weeks. If luck is really on your side, you might find a Riftshadow crystal. Get it appraised and start asking around. Someone always knows some crazy fool looking for this kind of thing. If all else fails, sell it to a Magus the next time one's in town. They love that stuff. Still, whatever you do, be careful handling those crystals. You do not want one to go off on you. It really hurts."

Introduction

Hi, my name is Kai and I've been playing Dota 2 for about a year now. I'm relatively fresh off the boat so to speak but I love the game and I'm more than happy to help anyone who feels like they need it which is primarily why I'm writing this guide. Meepo is an incredibly difficult hero that requires extreme focus and some amazing micro skills to properly use. I just started playing Meepo recently but so far I've done well though I did struggle at first. The first few games could be really really frustrating, don't expect to go 17-2, lockdown the enemy team, then finish in 25 minutes like Fnatic n0tail can. This takes patience, time and practice but the rewards are immense.

Micro Control

Unquestionably the most difficult part of playing Meepo. Just imagine playing Lone Druid with 4 bears. Have you ever gotten an illusion rune then lost your mind because you can't select your clones? I have. I feel ridiculous everytime it happens. My point of this is that if you don't establish control groups before playing Meepo you're going to be playing like that the entire time. Control Groups. They simplify Meepo.

A control group is a keyboard command that selects any amount of your Meepos depending on how you want them to be split up. The default keys are 1-0, this allows you to have an absurd amount of control groups that you will never need. I have mine bound to Q,W,E,R since I have a gaming mouse and all my abilities are on my mouse. You can edit bindings in the settings menu. Once you're in game select the Meepos you want then hit Ctrl + Whatever key you want to bind to. For example if I want all 5 of my Meepos in a group I drag my mouse cursor over the 5 Meepos and then hit Ctrl + Q. Then all I have to do is hit Q and it selects all 5 of my Meepos for me for quick switches later on.

Personally I like:

Spacebar-Main Meepo
Q- All Meepos
W- Meepo Clones
E- 2 Meepos
R- 3 Meepos

Q and Spacebar are going to be your go to keys if you bind like me. W is nice to have just in case. E and R are purely for split pushing, creep farming and shouldn't be used until you have Meepo down.

Item Justification and In Depth Build Guide

Summary

Having so much to choose from is always tough, especially on a difficult hero like Meepo which is why I've decided to streamline my item guide. Meepo only really needs Power Treads, Aghanim's Scepter, Vladmir's Offering, and Reaver. Anything past that helps but isn't necessary and if you play well through the game you should be able to end before there's the possibility of getting more items. Personally I hate wasting gold so I keep everything the whole game, everything you buy will be used at some point if you follow my guide. I even hold onto my shield unless I run out of inventory space when I snag that Aegis of the Immortal.

Starting Off

Stout Shield Ring of Protection and Tango are great starting items that are all about survivability since Meepo is squishy and will be the target of harassment early game. People will mercilessly harass you in an attempt to snag first blood. To be quite frank Meepo is awful early game and you have an extremely high chance of getting killed. Play safe and pick up a Poor Man's Shield or your Tranquil Boots as soon as humanly possible depending on how your lane is going. If I run out of Tango from harassment I get Tranquil Boots but if I still have Tango I know that I can take my time getting my boots. Either one is going to increase survivability exponentially early game.

Early Game

After you pick up your Tranquil Boots get a Sage's Mask to build into a Ring of Basilius in a few minutes. By the time you're level six you'll have your first clone and may be able to get an early kill if you want to take the risk. If you feel like your lane isn't strong enough go jungle till you have enough gold to get a Belt of Strength and Gloves of Haste then disassemble your Tranquil Boots and build your Power Treads and Ring of Basilius from them.

Core Items

Once you have this rush Aganhim's Scepter, this item makes Meepo useful. It gives his clones full stat sharing with your main Meepo so they're strong enough to hold their own in addition to adding yet another Meepo. After you get Aghanim's Scepter it's a quick 1200 gold (since you've been building it slowly this whole time) to Vladmir's Offering. Vladmir's Offering is a really fantastic item on Meepo due to the fact that it's an aura and gives you lifesteal on all of your Meepos plus that beautiful 15% damage. Pick up Reaver to get your Meepos an insane amount of extra health and then this right here completes your core.

Core Extensions and Luxury Items

Blink Dagger is a great item and I highly suggest it for Meepo so you can chase anywhere that you're remotely close to someone and hit a net and poof surprise combo. Boots of Travel improve your already absurd map control by making it so you can be literally anywhere on the map at anytime in the game. That's a terrifying thing to see a Meepo with mobility and map control. Heart of Tarrasque is nice but isn't necessary, it gives the main Meepo some great bonuses but isn't a great item since the health regeneration doesn't affect all of your Meepos. If you have 2000 extra gold and have nothing else to buy I say definitely go for it. Armlet of Mordiggan is another good item but I only suggest getting it if you get Heart of Tarrasque since it will drain your health quickly and you don't have the damage for your lifesteal to keep your hp full up. Heart of Tarrasque mitigates the health lost and gives 25 strength to all of your Meepos in addition to some nice bonuses for the main Meepo. Last but not least is Eye of Skadi, 25 to ALL attributes for the Meepo brigade, health and mana for the main Meepo and a 30% slow? That's a great item.

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Great Early/Mid-game nuker. Still good late game.
+ Excellent pushing and split pushing ability.
+ One of the best junglers in the game.
+ Incredibly high XP Gain possibility (I've been 10-13 levels up on the entire other team a few times)
+ Really underestimated and when you have a good early game you can dominate.

Cons

- Proper micro is nearly impossible at first.
- Squishy and an easy target.
- Atrocious base damage.
- Last Hitting is abysmal.

Skills

Earthbind

Tosses a net at the target point, pinning down all enemy units. Earthbind prevents invisibility, blink, and interrupts channeling.
Range: 500/750/1000/1250
Radius: 220/220/220/220
Duration: 2/2/2/2
Cooldown: 20/16/12/8
Mana Cost: 100/100/100/100


The skillshot of skillshots, one of the hardest things in the game to land but incredibly rewarding and useful when you do land it. It has a relatively decent size AoE and has a pretty good disable time. If you really want to hold them in place you can try what's called a continuous net where you throw one net, switch Meepos, throw another and repeat. This can hold someone in place virtually as long as your mana pool allows it however people get incredibly angry after about a minute or so. Despite using it for joke purposes it's a great skill that can hold someone in place to get a stun ready, to initiate a team fight or to chase someone and hold them till you can start beating them mercilessly with your shovel. Don't put a point in this till level 4 since you don't need to start fights then, at that point you're relatively useless and starting a fight will most likely get you killed.

Poof

Drawing mystical energies from the earth, a Meepo can teleport to another Meepo or itself after channeling for 1.5 seconds, dealing damage in both the departure and arrival locations.
Range: Global
Radius: 375/375/375/375
Damage: 80/100/120/140
Cooldown: 12/10/8/6
Mana Cost: 80/80/80/80


The only reason why Meepo is useful pretty much at all. His base damage is abysmal and he's frankly just odd looking. It can be used to teleport Meepos to each other across the map for split pushing. It gets better, if you use it like I do Meepo becomes a threat. A huge threat, early game he can take out one or two squishy heroes on his own with this and late game becomes a great initiation. Nobody wants to start off the battle getting hit by a nuke that does...

1400 DAMAGE

Yes I said 1400 damage. 280 from each Meepo against an earthbound Lina that's been the opposite of what you need throughout the game is going to ruin her day. However this isn't just for hero killing and teleportation, it makes it so you can get that early creep score and clear an entire jungle of camps in less than 40 seconds. Poof does 140 damage on the teleport out and another 140 on the way back in, this eliminates Meepo's farming problems early game even though he's still difficult to purely last hit yet.

Abuse This Skill

Geostrike

Geostrike

Meepo enchants his weapon to deal damage per second, as well as slow the movement speed of the attacked unit. Geostrikes from multiple Meepos stack.
Movement Speed Slow: 5%/10%/15%/20%
Damage per Second: 7/14/21/28
Duration: 2/2/2/2


Next is a fantastic passive that buffs Meepo's terrible late and early game damage. Early game one point in this can help you get a last hit that you missed by a second or so and adds a slow to your attacks as well. This attack

stacks with other Meepos

which means every two seconds you're going to be doing 280 additional damage and throwing down quite a bit of slow.

Divided We Stand

Meepo summons an imperfect, semi-autonomous duplicate of himself, which can gain gold and experience as he does and shares his experience and abilities. However, the clones cannot wield any items but the boots that Meepo himself wears. The cloned Meepos also gain 30% of any bonus attributes the primary Meepo has. If any of the Meepos die, all Meepos die.
Number of Meepos: 2/3/4 (3/4/5*)
Aghanim's ScepterAdds an extra Meepo. Increases shared attribute percentage from 30% to 100%.


This is it. I say that Poof is his best skill and within playing Meepo it is, however without this skill Poof can't do anything. At max level this creates 3 clones of Meepo and since you have Aghanim's Scepter it's going to create 4. 5 full strength heroes roaming around in a group is nothing to scoff at and if you've played well people will turn around and run in fear. This is one of the best abilities and definitely my favorite ability in the whole game. Meepo becomes this powerhouse that's incredibly difficult to counter once all of your Meepos have 3000 health. If people would just focus on one Meepo he wouldn't be such a threat but they see 5 of you and they run, it's a mind game. Your job is to terrify the enemy so much that they either stay in base or quit (it's sad but whenever I have a good game people gg out and quite early). And this ability makes it so you can do that.

A brief visual of all of Meepo's skills

Play Video

Friends and Foes

For most heroes the foes are heroes that might affect your game in a negative way, some of Meepo's foes will END your game and ruin your jolly time.

Friends

These are all heroes that work particularly well with Meepo.
Jakiro A great stun that can lead to some early game kills.
Venomancer The same but with a slow, if they're out of position at all you'll most likely secure the kill.
Dark Seer He can pull in enemies for a quick Poof kill, reduce your early game harass with Ion Shell, and then haste one Meepo to chase if necessary. Then you can toss a net and poof your other Meepos over for an easy kill.
Dazzle Lane control and healing, two problems Meepo has early game. A fantastic lane parter and second only to Dark Seer on my personal favorites list.
Keeper of the Light Early harass, creep control and he gives you mana so you can abuse Poof and get as much CS as you want.
Those are my personal favorite lane partners but anyone with a stun or disable works particularly well with him.

Foes

Earthshaker The worst thing that will ever happen to you in a game. If you see someone pick Earthshaker

DO NOT PICK MEEPO

His ultimate will ravage you, if he pops that with 5 Meepos you're done for. Most Earthshakers know this or will find this out and will hunt you down the whole game. Don't ever think you can handle him, you can't.
Sven Any strength hero with cleave is going to murder you almost instantly, guess who has a passive cleave of 65% damage in the form of Great Cleave? Right. Sven. If he picks up a Battlefury and a Daedalus you might as well just GG and hide for the rest of the day. That's 100% cleave damage plus criticals.
Kunkka Oh great, another cleaving strength hero however this one cleaves with bonus damage and most builds for him are based around damage and critical strikes. The only reason I put Sven higher up than Kunkka is because his Tidebringer hits only once every 4 seconds. However a lucky Kunkka means a dead Meepo. He's the hero that can get those one hit rampages, be careful but be more afraid of Sven.
Tiny Tiny is an on and off kind of problem, his aoe stun and damage create huge problems throughout the whole game, give him a tree and he's cleaving for an insane amount of damage while you're just sitting there stunned. When played correctly he's a magnificent counter but from my experience he doesn't pose a huge threat if you get that early level advantage and push early on.
Faceless Void Completely exploits Meepo's weakness, 1v1 combat. I don't mean the 1v1 with 5 Meepos either. His Chronosphere locks all of your Meepos and forces you to watch while he wails on you. If you can interrupt his farm early game he won't be an issue mid to late game as he is extremely item dependent.

Those are the worst of the enemies but anyone with a cleave, AoE stun, AoE disable, or AoE damage is your immediate enemy. Enemies that deal single target burst damage like Lion can also be a huge problem but not so much late game. If you see someone pick any of the first 3 heroes I listed just don't pick Meepo. Tiny and Faceless Void aren't a huge problem but still be vary wary of them, especially Tiny.

Pre-Game

Before you pick Meepo you need to think about a few things, namely who is on my team and who is on the other team. Refer back one section to the Friends and Foes Section if you need some help on when to pick Meepo. Ask for the easy lane with access to the side shop (Top for Dire and bottom for Radiant. Never take the long or mid lane, ever. You will miss farm in the long lane and won't get your items and in the mid lane you will be utterly destroyed. Avoid tower diving as much as possible and only go in to get last hits, stay near the back of your creeps so you're still getting experience but have time to react if they try anything. Never, and I mean never try to harass your enemies. You do 42 damage before reductions. They'll scoff at you as you gently tap them with your shovel. Then as you're running away they'll whack you with their gigantic sword, stun you, and then kill you. Focus on the last hits and a deny or two if you can. Denies are the least of your worries and you should really just focus on the last hits. Gold is incredibly important for early game survivability, so important in fact that if your lane is hard or you think you can get two creeps at once use Poof to pick up that gold. Once you hit level 6 you can stay in the lane a bit longer, still don't harass but if they come to you have your lane partner harass a little and finish with a quick double Poof if you're confident.

Jungling

You have two Meepos, you feel good, you think you're ready to start racking up some kills, you aren't. Go to the jungle and farm as many camps as you can as quickly as possible. If you think you can try to split up your Meepos and farm camps simultaneously however this is difficult and should not be attempted till you have proper map awareness and micro control and even then you run the risk of being killed. Abuse Poof when you jungle, you clear camps extremely quickly and your clone should have nearly full Mana. Initiate with the main Meepo so your shield blocks some damage and Poof with the clone. Avoid the Golem camps as they are immune to magic and you have to hammer (or shovel) them to death. Alpha wolf camps can also be a problem due to critical hits but don't worry about them as much. Keep jungling as long as possible while still checking your lane so it isn't pushed. Always farm! Never lose a second of XP or gold, you need it all. I farm continuously the whole game, no matter what stage I'm at I am always jungling with some Meepo clones. If you get in a sticky situation you can always Poof them in or out. This is the easiest way to get significant advantages over your enemies.

Mid Game

This is your time to shine. If you want to win you need to end NOW. You fall off a little late game as their hero levels start to catch yours but you're still a very strong late game hero however now is the time that you're unstoppable. You'll most likely be a few levels up with a nice gold advantage which is going to widen the gap even more once you start killing 3 heroes at a time. Get your core items as soon as possible, most specifically Aghanim's Scepter and Vladmir's Offering. Continue jungling with a few Meepos or split push and put 1 or 2 in each lane, this is going to get you the max XP possible. Once you have your core you don't have to worry about the gold as much, it'll come naturally and if you are ever short just get 2-3 Meepos together and Poof a wave of creeps. Try not to be dependent on your team too much but also don't just go off and do your own thing all the time, participate in ganks as you have the best damage at this point in the game. 5 or so minutes into Mid Game is probably the earliest point at which you can begin to finish. My earliest finish with Meepo was at 24 minutes. Get your team together and drive a stake into a chosen lane. Pushing with all 5 Meepos is going to be difficult to stop at this stage in the game and can lead to early and easy finishes. If this doesn't work pull back and try a split push or push another lane with your little army. Running into a single enemy can get you a kill and a tower push. Call for help if you need it since you aren't invincible. Until you pick up Aegis of the Immortal which is a great thing to have once you start pushing. Once you have 4 Meepos try to get this even though 5 is easier. If you really want the win and don't want to drag the game out you need to finish now.

Late Game

This isn't the ideal position but if properly fed from mid game till the end game you can completely destroy the other team. They simply won't be able to stop you. Once you start picking up core extensions you'll have excellent mobility and will be able to become an initiator for your team. Use the same strategy that you have all game just with the added parts, use your boots to TP to where you want to be, blink in, Poof, then beat whoever is left to death with Geostrike and capture escaping enemies with you're Earthbind. It's simple and effective. If you have't been fed enough go jungle some more in an attempt to be relevant however if you're at this point and are on the receiving end of the punishment there is most likely nothing you can do to stop them except for get a kill here and there. Finish mid game and late game won't be a problem. Keep playing confidently and strong, don't be sloppy and don't make mistakes. You can't take their whole team, you may be able to take 3 squishy heroes max. Play safe and stick with your team, force a team fight when you have the advantage then take the opportunity to TP to their towers and try to finish the game.

Videos of Professional Play

This is what you can aspire to be, if you've never seen a pro play you're in for a treat and if you have this is all still pretty impressive.

Fnatic N0tail Play Video
Na'Vi Dendi Play Video