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ClarityClarityClarity
Circlet
Mantle of Intelligence
Null Talisman
Boots of Speed
Energy Booster
Arcane Boots
Helm of Iron Will
Veil of Discord
Sage's Mask
Robe of the Magi
Sage's Mask
Robe of the Magi
Oblivion Staff
Oblivion Staff
Orchid Malevolence
Point Booster
Ultimate Orb
Ultimate Orb
Orb of Venom
Eye of Skadi
Eul's Scepter of Divinity
Force Staff
Linken's Sphere
Rod of Atos
Scythe of Vyse
Desolator
Daedalus
Blink Dagger
Heart of Tarrasque
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QUICK INTRO: I WRITE A LOT. TOO MUCH EVEN. I HAVE BOLDED PARTS OF THIS GUIDE THAT GET TO THE POINT. SKIM THE BOLDED STUFF TO GET AN IDEA. READ THE WHOLE THING TO UNDERSTAND IT. ANYWAY:
Lina is slow. Lina uses a lot of mana to be effective. Lina is easily countered. Lina is frequently told to be a support hero.
FORGET. THAT.
Lina is not a support hero. Support heroes are used to help carries. They can do this by setting up kills, or harassing in-lane to keep the carry safe. Lina is very ineffective at both of these things. Her stun is difficult to land, and even if it does, it's not very useful. She has a strong damage dealing ability, too strong. Lina is more likely to steal kills then set them up. This is especially true for her Ultimate. She also needs mana pool or mana regen to be a consistent threat.
So we just established that Lina is good at getting kills, and needs items to be effective. Does that sound like a support? No, it sounds like a carry.
If you're not convinced already allow me to direct you to Lina's passive: An ability that increases her attack speed and movement speed for each spell she casts, this can stack three times. That means Lina's passive ability is about amplifying her damage output, based on her ability to keep casting spells.
Lina is a magic nuker with right-click potential. Playing her as anything else is a waste of a hero. People don't know this, or refuse to believe she's a carry. That's why she's so rarely picked, and why her win rate isn't really spectacular. If you want to play Lina, take her mid, get super easy kills, and snowball into late game.
When you start playing, if you do well and have some luck, you'll think that Lina is pretty over powered in her current state. So I want to begin this guide with some acknowledgements of when you're going to get destroyed.
Lina's key weakness is her incredibly slow speed and slow attack animation. You have to get a feel for her last-hitting because it's 100% anticipation of damage. Most heroes wait until the kill-shot is available, then they click, and ta-da, you got a last hit. Lina's attack animation is so long (especially from max range) that creeps will almost always get an additional attack in while you're winding up the attack. If there are multiple creep attacking the same target, then that's 20-80 extra damage being inflicted while you're just waiting for your attack to soar on over.
As a result the heroes you'll hate to face against are effective last-hitters. Sniper, Viper, Bloodseeker, Slark, and even other heroes who don't usually go mid like Phantom Assassin, or Juggernaut, are going to be really annoying. You won't get many, if any, last hits. If this happens you need to gain levels, control the runes, and gank as soon as you get level 6. It's all you can do.
The good news is virtually every other hero at mid you'll obliterate. Especially heroes who need to farm at mid like Outworld Devourer, Tinker, or god forbid they make the mistake of sending a Luna or Tiny.
Quick note on OD: You'd think his intelligence draining would be a buzzkill, but Lina's manapool is so enormous she can still pull off her combo even if OD has three stacks of intelligence stolen. It's a little absurd.
Now as for actually starting the game and going mid. Your first item is a Null Tailsman, which you should get within 30 seconds of the game starting. Buy the Circlet and Mantle, then buy the recipe when you get three last hits. You can buy clarities if you want to harass or if you think you'll need them but I never buy more than one.
You'll want to try to last hit, but especially try to kill the other mid hero. Lina best at slaying heroes. Use the cliff vision and nighttime to take advantage of advancing heroes. You can lay down your stun without them seeing you, then blast them with Dragon Slave to harass a bit. When you have your ultimate you can Light Strike Array, Dragon Slave, then Laguna Blade and you'll kill 60% of the heroes in the game at level 6. If for some reason you don't kill them, you should have a point in your passive which will rocket your attack speed. Lina's attack range is the longest in the game (even longer than Sniper before he ups his passive) so you can throw an additional 2-3 hits to finish off heroes who barely survive. This combo should be pulled off all within the duration of your stun, so 1-2 seconds.
I usually kill the other mid first, then gank the sides depending on runes. You don't have a bottle because it's very ineffective at restoring your mana and it's a waste of money. But if you see a Double Damage, that's an easy gank, same with invisibility, or haste. All you need to do is get next to the hero, if you land your stun, they're dead. You can already kill most heroes at level 6. Ganking a lane with two heroes helping you gank a hero that's lower level than you should be easy.
And I can't stress this enough: Lina needs kills to snowball. If it's 15 minutes and you haven't gotten a single kill, you're going to fall off in mid and late game. If the other team has some sense they'll start targeting you in team fights so it might be even more difficult to catch up later in the game. Start strong, and keep it going.
So if you did well in the laning phase you should have a Veil of Discord. Most people think this is an ineffective item since it costs a lot of money and they don't think it does very much. This build differs from most other Veils because it's intended to be gotten very early. Since you're at mid, and you're ganking, you should be able to get it before 20 minutes. At this early in the game having an increase of magic damage is devastating for teams that aren't expecting it. Lina already has a huge damage output with all her spells, the veil just makes it a nightmare. This is especially true if you have other nukers on your team. Ult-focused heroes like Tidehunter, Sandking, or Magnus, will also hugely benefit from Veil. This item single-handedly guarantees you'll have the edge on team fights for the foreseeable future.
In actual team fights you need to remember that Lina is squishy. You really don't want to be on the front lines. Her attack range is tremendous so there's no reason to be so up close, and more importantly if you get stunlocked to death then your team is missing out on 1k worth of damage. That's what Lina is all about, damage output. If you're not dealing damage, you're playing her wrong.
Which brings me to to Lina's mid-game item. For me, I always either get a Linken's Sphere or Orchid. These two items give you really good mana regen, which you'll need so that you can keep casting spells. Picking one over the other is entirely based on the other team's heroes and how they're playing. If they have some heroes who can target you with a spell and ruin your day, then get a Linken's. Doom, Bane, Lion, Sniper, etc. Otherwise I usually get an Orchid. In some occasions you can take on the "best defense is a good offense" approach and simply silence the heroes you're worried about. Orchid is especially necessary for heroes like Storm Spirit, Weaver, Slark, or Queen of Pain.
When you have the mana regen you need, you'll want to get into the habit of anticipating fights. Lina's passive is really great, but you need to get it ready by casting three spells and getting to maximum speed. It's important to note that Lina's stun has a shorter cooldown than her passive. Which means you can cast that spell whenever it's off cooldown and you'll always be at 3 stacks on her passive. I wouldn't do that the entire game because your mana regen isn't that great, and it's also kind of unnecessary. But keep this in mind when you need to run to a location quickly, or a team fight is about to occur. Keep the stacks up.
In fights, you always want to ensure you kill someone right off the bat. Don't always focus the carry, because you might not kill them. Make sure someone of their team isn't going to get experience from a team fight and kill them before anyone else drops. Supports are easy targets, you keep them further behind in XP/Gold and increase your overall gain. If a carry is becoming a nuisance than you can look into helping your team burst them down before they wipe everyone. Remember that your Dragon Slave and Light Strike Array are more than enough to nuke heroes down. Don't think that you're useless after your Laguna Blade is used. Keep right clicking, keep using spells once they're off cooldown.
When Lina is (wrongly) played as a support, she's known to fall off dramatically in the late game. This isn't true with Lina as a carry if you spec her correctly.
A lot of people like Lina's magic nuke abilities and what to keep that going, so they get a Dagon. If you think Dagon is a good idea than you don't understand what makes Lina good.
In Late Game Lina can become a stat-based right click hero. So if the entire team gets BKBs or multiple pipes? Too bad. Your right click is now the real issue.
For this reason I always try to build Eye of Skadi. Typically an item used on melee heroes primarily, because of the added benefits, but in my opinion Lina absolutely needs this item. Skadi is great because it slows Attack Speed, Movement Speed, and it goes through magic immunity. It also gives massive stats (which it should since it's so damn expensive) which means Lina gets more health, which she needs, more mana pool/regen, which is always welcomed, and more armor, which ain't too bad either. With three stacks of her passive, and potentially an orchid already increasing your attack speed, Lina is going to look like she's shooting a silver laser beam out of her hands.
With Skadi she can chase heroes down, she can slow the effectiveness of enemy carries, she can deal massive damage through BKBs, and in general be a big bad ***. I think I've lost one game with Lina after getting an Eye of Skadi on her, and there's a reason. It's a great item that synergizes with what Lina needs.
After Skadi, if the game isn't over, the two items I would consider are Aghnaims Scepter or Sheep Stick. These are relatively simple to explain. Aghs increases Lina's ult damage, and it goes through Magic immunity. Although honestly, if you get Aghs super late into the game their BKBs are going to be at 4 second durations so it won't really matter. I wouldn't get Aghs before Skadi because Skadi is a better item, and your mana regen won't be that great to allow your Scepter ult to be super effective.
Sheep Stick is good to crowd control heroes, and it's really never a bad item on any INT hero, Lina is no exception. Although I can only remember one game where I had to get Veil + Orchid + Skadi + Sheep Stick, before the game ended. So this probably won't happen.
Eul's Scepter - If you're doing bad at mid, and it's coming close to 25 minutes and you haven't finished the Veil yet, get a Eul's before Orchid/Linkens. The increased speed from Eul's is good, and it's a cheaper item that increases Lina's mana regen. As an added bonus it makes landing her stun easier. It's not an ideal item but it's fine for if you're doing poorly.
Force Staff - A lot of people talk about how immobile Lina is, which she is, but force staff should really only be gotten for a few heroes. Clockwerk cogs, Riki cloud, Viper/Veno slows, etc. This item is used for escaping. It has some ok health regen and mana regen so it's not a terrible item, but if you don't need it, don't buy it.
Rod of Atos - For me this is the "If Razor or Death Prophet are on their team" item. Those heroes who are super fast and you need to catch up to. Atos gives Lina some good stats and it makes her stun easier to land so it's really not so bad. This is also a good item for heroes who make Linken's and you need to break it. So heroes like Morphling, Weaver, or Medusa, it might be worth making an Atos for them.
Desolater - This is an orb effect so if you get Deso, you can't get Skadi (or the other way around). Get Deso for heroes with massive health regen. I literally only get this item against Alchemist. In all other situations, Skadi works just fine. Armor reduction is a nice effect, but Deso only increases Lina's damage, and not her mana, her health, or her armor. So there are better items.
Daedalus - I honestly have never built this on Lina but people say it's good. I guess the attack speed increases your chances of criting, but still, no stats. Lina needs stats.
Blink Dagger - If you need to dodge ultimates or need to catch-up with your team than this item is a good pick. If you're facing Faceless Void, Magnus, Earthshaker, Sandking, then a blink would be good to get out of the way. If your teammates include Storm Spirit, Slark, Weaver, or other mobile heroes, then you may need a blink to keep up with them.
Heart of Tarrasque - I would only buy this if you're getting blown up a lot, or if your entire team lacks beefy heroes. For example, if your team is: Lina, Sniper, Leshrac, Bounty, and Witch Doctor. Buy a Heart. Really if 4/5s of your team is squishy, buy a heart. It happens more frequently than you think. However I would still get this item after Skadi.
Bloodstone - I don't know what idiot thinks Bloodstone is a good item. Lina has high-cost abilities, but they don't continuously drain her mana. If you get a bloodstone you'll be able to cast 3 spells over five seconds and then... what? You have no stats, no right click damage, nothing. If your spells don't kill anyone then you're screwed. You need to be able to finish heroes with your right click. Bloodstone gives you mana regen, but so do many other items that are far more useful. Don't buy this. Ever.
Mask of Madness - "Maybe I can increase my attack speed and kill heroes even faster?" Yeah, and you can die twice as fast too. Stupid ******** item.
Mjolnir - More attack speed, right? It doesn't give you the stats you need and there are other better items.
Dagon - Want to be 100% magic dependent and be 100% counterable by BKBs and Pipe? Buy a Dagon.
Radiance - Some people like to buy a Radiance on any hero when they're doing incredibly well. Fun fact: Lina's attack range is longer than Radiance's damage range. It's literally useless.
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