Lich - Baby Sitter #1

Introduction

So you want to be a Lich?

Well i hope you are a very selfless person who doesn't mind hanging in the background secretly making a huge difference in the battle.

As a Lich your main goals will be to deny your enemy XP and GOLD early in the game, while helping your lane partner gain as much as he can while you stay back and annoyingly harass them without them able to do much, because of their lower level and your lane partner being in between.

Pros / Cons

Pros:
Never has mana issues
Can deny XP and Gold with Sacrifice
Has huge nuke that will make a huge difference in team fights
Very key player in early game

Cons:
Requires a good lane partner, preferably a carry
Very easily taken down by any hero that has a stun or blink
Will almost never win a 1 v 1 battle
Hated by the whole enemy team and will be targeted first most likely

Items

Starting Items

The healing salve are NOT FOR YOU, they are to keep your lane partner healthy and on the front line at all times, getting all that tasty XP and Gold.
If your partner is a melee hero he will most likely get harassed often in the lane.

Early Game

Get a wand even before you get your boots, because you will most likely suffer some minor damage.

Mid Game

All you need is a Scepter, to nuke your enemy in team fights.

Most-Mid Game

Only Mekanism to help in those pushes and team fights.

Extras

If your team has heros that are pretty slow compared to your enemy, get the drums they'll help.

If your team has alot of melee heros, get Vlad's to help them stay alive. Though most likely ONE of them will already have it before you do.

If your enemy has a lot of magic damage, get a pipe.

Skills

The rule to fallow as a Lich with your skills are simple, SPAM SPAM SPAM, Harass Harass Harass. NUKE NUKE NUKE.

Spam your Frost Blast early game, you can sometimes take as much as half of your enemy's health by level 5, which is extremely useful for ganks and of course slows your enemy down making them a sitting duck.

Ice armor can wait until later in the game, because it's not really worth it early on and he has skills that are a lot more useful to have.

Use Sacrifice to get more mana and deny creeps, even if you don't need mana USE IT whenever you can all the time, literately as soon as it's off cool down backup and eat a creep.

Use Chain Frost when a few heroes are close together, even in early game as harassment. It's hilarious when the enemy is trying to retreat from a battle and you toss one and ether get a kill or take most of their health. Also keep in mind that it may be worth casting if there is ONE enemy creep left, because they don't usually back up until all their creeps are down and it'll bounce around from the creep to the heroes and hilarity ensues.

Key notes when playing with Lich

1. The healing salve are NOT FOR YOU, they are to keep your lane partner healthy and on the front line at all times, getting all that tasty XP and Gold.
If your partner is a melee hero he will most likely get harassed often in the lane.

2. Don't worry if it takes you a while to get the these relatively cheap items, you are not supposed to be last hitting often anyway. If you are last hitting often then you're doing it wrong. You should focus on denies and harassing your enemy.

3. By the mid game you should have your Scepter making you a very good post initiator. Meaning that once the fight starts and all those tasty enemies are grouped up, fire it and watch it bounce around them taking their health down dramatically. Your goal is NOT to actually kill anyone, take their health down and let your carry take the last hits if the enemy is not smart enough to back off.

4. DO NOT DIE, Stay back, take a few shots at creeps so your carry can last hit them. The Tranquil Boots should give you the upper hand when it comes to getting away alive if you spot anyone even near you while you're alone don't even think about getting close to them, because you never know who's around the corner waiting to pounce on you.

5. Deny, Deny, DENY! When possible pull back and use your sacrifice on your creeps when they are out of XP range of the enemy. At the same time this should put YOU out of XP range which makes your carry get that much more XP, while keeping the enemy that much weaker.

6. Always harass your enemy, it doesn't matter if they have full health, let our a Frost Blast whenever you can to make them think twice before they think of attacking your carry. With the combination of them getting less XP from the creeps you Sacrifice, by level 5 your Frost Blast could take a third of a squishy hero's health OR MORE. Depending on how well you denied the lanes to keep your enemy's level down.

7. Make sure you know where a team fight is going on. You always want to be in the a team fight, specially after level 6. Your Chain Frost can make all the difference in a team fight. Sure you won't get the kill most of the time, but being Lich means letting other heroes have the last hits, because they need the gold and XP more than you do.

8. You're a MEDIC! That's right you are in fact a medic, your URN and mekanism can greatly heal your allies. Most of the time in a team battle SOMEONE will take too much damage and have to retreat back to base, but with your mekanism and URN you can heal them greatly and keep them in the fight. This is a specially true for squishy heroes that do a lot of damage, you'll want to keep a close eye on them and make sure they can blast your enemy without having to retreat to base. The boots and wand are for you, Mekanism and Urn are for your friends. Of course if your wand has no charges and your boots are on CD, you should heal yourself too.

9. Wards! Another thing you should do as a Lich is always get some wards and ward around the Runes to keep an eye on those pesky gankers coming for you. And trust me if you do your job well every enemy hero is going to want you dead.

10. Always know where your enemy is. You're a pretty laid back hero so it's not hard to keep your eye on the minimap and let your team know of enemy movement. You always want to be where your enemy is, just way back in the background denying this creeps and harassing them like mad.

11. GANKING TIME. When it comes time to gang rush in let out a Frost Blast to take the enemy hero's health down and if there are a few enemies together, use your Chain Frost, chances are the next gank or team fight won't take place until after your cooldown is over. And make sure you always retreat back behind your team and harass away.

12. Oh **** I'm getting ganked! Well if for some reason you find yourself alone surrounded by enemies, GREAT! Let your chain frost our and run like hell, if your enemy does not disburse and it bounces around a few times, you'll probably kill at least one of them and make them think twice next time they come for you, because ganking a Lich who has his ULT is very rarely worth it. If they gank you and go for a tower, your team SHOULD TP into a battle where they have the upper hand as the enemy heroes should have taken a pretty massive amount of damage. Meaning they'll ether die or retreat. But you should always hang way back in the background and not let yourself be alone into enemy territory.


These are my key notes when playing Lich and unless your team is totally incompetent you should almost always make a huge difference in battle and win fights your team shouldn't technically win.

Lich is one of the best support heros in combat for the simple fact that he is completely selfless, doens't really need many items and has massive nukes in team battles.

Summary

That does it for my first guide to playing Lich.
He is quickly becoming one of my favorite support to play, just because of his insane amount of damage in team fights and how well he can keep the enemy at bay in lanes.