I said good day, sir!

Aggys is also a good option, with the 6 second cooldown and all, culling blade can be a useful as hell skill in a team fight just because you can finish off anyone so quickly, but of cause the 6 second cooldown also means more mana so more of a situational item.
But i still think you should give it a mention in this build, just your opinion considering the cooldown for it with aggys is awesome.
Oh yeah, and not liking the BH levels...

Thanks for the guide - lots of good stuff in here.

I can't say I agree on avoiding battle hunger until the end. Like people have been saying since you posted so long ago, BH does a lot of damage and can be what gets Axe the KS for people on the run.

Battle Hunger is a nasty skill depending on how easy it is for enemies to last hit, not to mention the movement speed effects and the synergy with Berserker's Call, so I'm forced to downvote this guide. The build explained here is at best situational.

Sounds like a good guide, haven't yet tried it though..
I've been leveling battle hunger first, trying to max it early,
and i've been getting kills early game with it.

This guide seems to be a lot more sensible though,
and look forward to trying it!

I SAID GOOD DAY SIR.

A well timed Battle Hunger is an incredibly useful early game ability, the damage it does is great but its not a pure harassment ability.
If you use it just as the last of your creed wave is dying and it can do some damage until the enemy gets a creep kill in the next wave.
Use it as you charge them and aggro the creeps and they will have no choice but to turn and run (and take the full damage from battle hunger), try and get a creep kill while axe is charging you (usually resulting in a couple of Counter Helixes hitting), or stand and fighting axe (dmg from both abilities).

Considering that Berserker's Call and Counter Helix doesn't scale that well past lvl 1. their's little excuse for not getting it. The only time i can think of this not being useful is if you vs aoe nukers or get owned in lane and can't force the enemy away from the creep wave. Against melee heroes Battle Hunger keeps them close to the creep wave and in range of your other abilities.

The ability just requires good situational awareness and paired with a soul ring can do wonders.

Sorry, but I have to down vote this guide. I can understand lane Axe, but there is never a reason to forgo battle hunger to the last four levels. Allow me to explain, Battle Hunger deals an insane amount of damage at any rank while also providing Axe with 8% bonus move speed while simultaneously slowing the target by 8% (For a total of 16% difference) and the ONLY way to remove it is to get the last hit on a creep or enemy hero. If you throw it on someone who is about to get a last hit, your ******ed anyway. If your a REAL Axe player, it augments your gank's making escaping an Axe gank almost impossible because it works very well with ALL of axe's other abilities. Your points against battle hunger are that it is "Easy to get rid of". If your any good with Axe, be it on the lane or jungle, your not going to let them get rid of it. As my main hero, I think I am quite qualified to speak about Axe.
https://dotabuff.com/players/63457487/heroes

Faults with this guide:
1 - NO battle hunger all game. This immidiatly makes escaping an Axe gank at least 3 times as easy as it normally is.
2 - Too reliant on Helix Counter. Helix counter's damage can be insane if the RNG doesn't loathe you. Its proc rate is ALWAYS 17% regardless of rank. It also has an amazing rank 1 amount of damage, but it does not scale exceedingly well for rank 2 to 4 compared to his other skills.
3 - It doesn't jungle. Helix counter is the cake skill for jungling. Ranking it early implies your going to get your taunts off because only a moron would attack Axe, and you've already forgone your key chasing skill to land those taunts.
Overall its an UN-realistic build. You can't chase effectively nor can you harass ranged at all. It literally assumes your going to be playing against ******s who will simply auto attack you and never realize that Helix Counter is proccing, or will stand there letting you run up to and taunt them (Assuming you can actually reach high enough levels for taunt to matter). If your against a really stupid team, go for it. But know that any player who possesses even one quarter of a brain will walk circles around this build.

Also, while Axe CAN lane quite well and is one of the few heroes that can successfully LANE CUT, he excells in the jungle especially if Helix Counter is procing efficiently.

Thx for making this guide
it helps me alot

I agree with some of what you have said here. First of all is some of your item choices, in my opinion blink dagger is very important on Axe. Also I do not see a reason to ever get radiance it does give nice damage, but Axe's main job is initiation / tank so that is not really needed. Secondly is Axe as a jungler. In my opinion Axe is a great jungler because you can farm quite well, also his ganks are really nice as you have also stated. Lastly is your not skilling battle hunter till really late. If you take one point in battle hunger at level four it helps with ganking, securing kills, and the extra movement speed helps for hitting enemies with berserker's call. All of this aside nice guide, your item build and explanations are good.

I love it when he says "I SAID GOOD DAY SIR"!

+1 my man! Great guide!

Decided to play Axe because I looted a common helm and an uncommon belt the other day for him. Used your guide and completely dominated. I think that the early stats leveling and the maxing out of Beserker's Call/Counter Helix made all the difference. It got to a point where I didn't even need to get Battle Hunger, but I got it anyway just so I can try it out haha.I was able to get some kills (my teammates were also getting their kills, so that helped) and got my vanguard rather early and then was able to get fast heart. Looking forward to playing Axe again!

I used the recommended build and won. I used this build and conquered. Great guide. I tried out radiance in a practice game and couldn't really see the use of it, but the damage was nice. I think that at that point you were kinda grasping at straws since the main build is pretty much all you need, so it's understandable.




I think the argument here is general versus situational usefulness. It can definitely be useful, but it's also pretty situational. You can get along well without it and the extra health/regen from buffing your stats early is nice. It's useful to catch those runners, though, and I did get a kill from it at one point because they couldn't find a creep in time. *shrug*