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Quelling Blade
Ring of Protection
Tango
ClarityClarity
Ring of Basilius
Vladmir's Offering
Power Treads
Black King Bar
Skull Basher
Medallion of Courage
Heart of Tarrasque
Assault Cuirass
Abyssal Blade
Butterfly
Necronomicon
Mjollnir
Monkey King Bar
Satanic
Armlet of Mordiggian
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Lycan is a pretty simple hero to get a hang of and use effectively enough to help out your team after you have farmed up a few items, its really all about getting over his sub-par early jungling and and cementing a place where you can safely do what you need to do.
First of all you will need to pick up a Quelling Blade for the + melee damage to all creeps and jungle camps.
Side note on the Quelling blade it can be used on Trees to break them and make your jungling faster by cutting down travel time between camps.
Next is the Ring of protection, this boosts your armour against the early camps enough to let you avoid having to micro your wolves too heavily while they are still very weak, this will also build into your Ring of Basilius, i will speak more about this later.
Lastly will be your regen, the clarities are very useful for your first run of the jungle because Lycans mana is relatively low and his Summon Wolves ability costs over half his starting mana pool.
The tangos are useful because for the first few packs of the jungle you could tank the creeps and just let your wolves do the damage like i mentioned earlier, less micro. the regen and bonus armour from Ring of Protection synergize very well.
The first thing you buy will be a Sages Mask, which will combine into Ring of Basilius, this is required Asap, the reason are threefold, number 1 basilius gives an armour aura of + 2 to all units around the wielder, including your wolves. Number 2 it will also give you a mana regen aura, which is useless to your wolves, it is very useful to you, as it will eliminate the need to spend money on Clarity potions, the perk of having a low mana pool is very little mana regen is required to fill it up quickly, finally is the bonus damage that it gives to you, unfortunately this doesnt extend to your wolves but it is a nice well rounded early item that you will feel an impact from straight away.
Now comes the Vladimirs Offering, or Vlads as it is referred too. this is the thing that brings it all together, this item is made with your Ring of Basilius a Morbid Mask a Ring of Regen and 300 gold it is a very cheap and very strong item for how quickly you can get it and all the benefits it offers. Not only does it boost every stat ring of basilius already had by a good margin it also adds a 15% bonus damage aura which unlike your old basilius does extend to your wolves AND a 16% lifesteal aura which also extends to your wolves.
finally is your boots of choice, which in this case are the Power Treads Great boots for lycan, increased attack speed, can boost each stat individually, however they will be kept on strength the majority if not the entire time.
Now the Medalion of Courage is an item that you can pick up for the armour shred it gives to your opponent (and yourself) on use. This will be primarily used for Roshan, if you are new to DotA or new to DotA's jungle you may not think you are ready at the level you have completed your Vlads and your Power Treads to take on Roshan successfully so by investing time into clearing camps so you can afford the medallion it will give you a grace period where you can gain more exp and confidence to take down roshan on the first go. I would recommend the Medallion for newer players but when you have more experience under your belt the gold is better spent elsewhere.
By now you will have killed roshan and with or without you medalion you should go to a lane and try to get some kills under your belt. I usually find myself essentially "wasting" the first aegis i have as a sort of pillow to get kills with Lycans ult and be extremely aggressive on the lanes to try and get my laners an advantage or foothold in an advantageous position, i say wasting because i will constantly do this until i have used up the aegis this space i have created for my team, gives me time to farm for my Black King Bar or BKB which becomes essential against almost any team. it is extremely rare to get a team that doesn't even have a slow. so BKB is a must buy for Lycan as it lets him run wild for pretty much his ults entire duration if used at the correct time.
Brilliant Item on Lycan, inside and outside of Shapeshift. Great damage great synergy with his E's attack speed further increasing the chance of a bash. Not much to say other than all around great item for Lycan.
These 2 items essentially serve the same purpose. Heart is nice for the after math of BKB expiring, gives you enough HP to soak more magic more physical more everything. Assault Cuirass or AC serves during the bkb taking full advantage of your immunity to both magic and physical with the high armour you have from your other items and the attack speed just lets Lycan sweep a team quickly. Both items are great pick ups and they are even better together. just decide for yourself which you need more in that point of the game.
The same as Skull basher except much higher damage and a guaranteed single target stun that goes through BKB but has a cooldown, and it still has a bash chance. WIN WIN.
i believe butterfly to be a very solid item on Lycan, 30 extra damage, 30 agility increasing his attack speed even further and increasing his armour even further, the evasion helps out a lot against physical teams. the movement speed is a somewhat wasted stat inside of Wolf form but outside its great.
Now for the situationals. these all vary from how well your doing, to what you want to be doing. I specifically name these the situationals but everything after BKB falls under this category as well. these items are just more Niche, shall we say then the rest, especially monkey king bar which is only necessary against an evasive carry who you need dead. Satanic is generally used as a replacement for Vlads after a certain point in the game, Usually very late. I use mjolnir and necronomicon as my pushing pair, when split pushing is the only way out. Armlet of Mordiggian can be used to compliment heart of terrasque and vise verse or it can be used as a replacement.
Summon Wolves
Summons two wolves to fight for Lycan. Level 2-4 wolves have Critical Strike, level 3-4 wolves have permanent invisibility, and level 4 wolves have 15 HP regen.
MANA COST: 145
COOLDOWN: 30
ABILITY: NO TARGET
DURATION: 55 / 55 / 55 / 55
BASE ATTACK TIME: 1.25 / 1.2 / 1.15 / 1.1
DAMAGE: 18 / 29 / 37 / 46
HP: 200 / 240 / 280 / 320
This Skill will be Maxed first, level 2 and onward you will notice a considerable power spike in your wolves and when you complete your vlads you will notice you no longer have to switch micro them around so they do not get killed, there crits while heal them extremely quickly and they will almost always stay around for there entire duration and expire naturally rather than dying. Lycans wolves have a few tricks to them. Although they are invisible they still do not have the ability to phase through units, so they can actually be used to block the path of a fleeing or chasing enemy if micro'd correctly. The wolves themselves can also be used as makeshift wards if you need vision in a pinch and no personal risk, wolves will always spawn a few units ahead of lycan himself so because of this fact you can actually plop the wolves up and down terrain for example radiant hard camp, dire ancient stack every ward spot and if angled correctly you can place only 1 wolf up onto a cliff and use the other as recon.
Howl
Grants bonus damage to Lycan, all allied heroes and all units under their control.
MANA COST: 15/20/25/30
COOLDOWN: 50/45/40/35
ABILITY: NO TARGET
DURATION: 12 / 12 / 12 / 12
HERO BONUS DAMAGE: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50
MINION BONUS DAMAGE: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20
This skill is nice when you have it maxed out but i do not believe it comes close to his E being maxed out first. the E is free attack speed and free damage, whereas Howl has a cast time an oddly lengthy one a mana cost, all be it low, it still takes off a portion of Lycans mana which early on is needed to use Summon Wolves, that is why i do not put points into it until i don't have another option.
Feral Impulse
Increases the damage and attack speed of Lycan and all units under his control.
ABILITY: PASSIVE
RADIUS: 900 / 900 / 900 / 900
BONUS ATTACK SPEED: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30
BONUS DAMAGE: 15% / 20% / 25% / 30%
this is the skill i choose to max second to Summon Wolves because its all benefits and no downsides at level 2 the pseudo vlads aura and free attack speed works wonders and makes the easy camps go down quick, not much else to say other than the synergy it shares with Necronomicon.
Shapeshift
Lycan assumes his true form, increasing his combat capabilities. During Shapeshift, Lycan and all units under his control move at maximum speed and cannot be slowed.
MANA COST: 100/100/100
COOLDOWN: 100/70/40
ABILITY: NO TARGET
DURATION: 18 / 18 / 18
BASE ATTACK TIME: 1.5 / 1.5 / 1.5
CRITICAL CHANCE: 30% / 30% / 30%
CRITICAL DAMAGE: 170% / 170% / 170%
BONUS HP: 100 / 200 / 300
BONUS NIGHT VISION: 1000
This spell would be Lycans bread and butter i suppose it really just does everything. Maximum movement speed and slows just don't effect you. a free mini Daedalus and if for whatever reason your in a situation where you haven't yet used Shapeshift and your very low and about to be killed it can be used as an armlet toggle. at max rank it gives you 300hp when is most likely enough to let you survive anything besides maybe a few choice heavy nukes and the bonus night vision is just a delicious cherry on this already hairy cake.
Lycan has many ups and downs here are a few to think on.
Pros:
Bursts out of the jungle a lot earlier than most other junglers and can really help his team get and stay ahead of the enemy.
almost unkitable, if hes chosen a target its difficult for them to get away.
team wide damage increase.
pretty much impossible to catch without perfect CC lock up and damage output.
absolutely crushes roshan.
Cons:
Early jungle is VERY weak if not done correctly and this can seriously hinder you later in the game if you had a rocky start.
although he takes off very quickly, if he is put down hard enough early he becomes trivial.
easily findable and killable pre-6 ussually low mana and low hp. best to try and fight 2v1 and when his wolves arent alive, as a few lucky wolf crits can turn the tides extremely quickly in his favour.
proper use of ghost scepter and etheral blade can waste his ult and put him in a bad position afterward, if he waits out your Auto attack immunity.
any other hero without ultimate.
The 5-15 minute mark is really where lycan can have most impact and absorb most worth from his team the best kind of teams are early tower takers that extra 250 gold from a tower kill can sky rocket his roshan kill and fast track his global presence examples of great team mates:
Pugna pushes towers with his Q like theres no tomorow by 15 minutes if pugnas doing his deeds he can have most Teir 1 towers down and the others ready to be taken. his W also stocks lycan in his track if he has to fight against it. so having that on your side eliminates the free ghost scepter and forces the enemy team to spend that gold to stop him.
Death prophet would suit Lycan perfectly, team wide Silence, this effectively gives lycan a placebo BKB before he has it, and he can do his work without it, another great tower pusher almost as fast as him so he can rely on her to not get left in the dust while he engages alone.
Tidehunter is another fake bkb with his ult, again he can also join lycan in the fray simply because of blink. His E is great aswell for when the stuns and silences where off and they go to turn on Lycan and his team.
These are just a few examples of Semi-carries and supports that work great with lycan, because of there team wide CC's and the fear factor that there abilities bring with them.
Lycan can have a very unstable start, but if you perfect his weakest moments you will hit the ground running and fly through game after game tipping the scales in your favour, If you use him correctly. he is a true beast when mastered and can turn any match into a win.
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