March-April 2015 Medusa Guide

First and last chapter

Wall of text / Cerebral Puking:

Skill Build order is of course FLUID. Let me repeat that again, FLUID.

You save up your skillpoint ALWAYS, until you see the situation, what's the lane, do you check the rune, what is happening? Etc. I shouldn't have to explain this, and it annoys me but maybe that's why you're reading the guide in the first place, because you don't know too much. Well, let me tell you my friend, that I'm actually making this guide as a witness, as proof, that I am prophet of metas, and I have been so for many many years but I have a certain void in my soul. A validation I never got. I think it's because I never really socialized bar with my IRL friends when it came to dota. I never really understood the concept of being a friend with someone purely through the internet. What a tragicomic thing really. Building friendships without physical presence. Sad and depressing, truly.

In any case, back to the build. You always want to see the situation beforehand, get a FEEL of what's gonna happen. Don't pretend to know because you have an ego attached to your game. I get so pissed when these sub 4k kids IRL try to explain to me why a certain build works rather than the one I may have presented to them.

Want to learn real dota? Shut the **** up, turn off your **** music in the background, and focus 100% on 1 player in the top page 1 game, and try to think what he thinks, why he goes there, how he goes where he goes, how he breathes and lives. That's how you learn.

Now same applies to items. Not finishing that wand, not going for that item. Changing the build into something else entirely mid-way. All of the good stuff, all the little details. That is what is the difference between that rampaging BEESA or China tryhard compared to you.

MECHANICS. FEEL THEM, BREATHE THEM.

You already know bout animation cancel, backswing, orb walking, now learn about stat-gain, turn rates, remember people's armor, memorize cooldowns in your head, keep a tab on absolutely everything like an autist.


Anyway:

Medusa's strength lies in quick damage because of the multiple arrow thingy. But first they need to hit, and hit quick before people split (not counting disalbes). So she needs MS, and DPS. DPS mostly. But god so sad it is to see a pee-shooting dusa chasing with her low ms that one #3 hero on the other team and not getting jack ****.

That makes me think of one item then: MoM, quickly gotten, can chase, keeps her hp up while she chases making the opponent turn not likely. But what about when it's mass people?
Well, she got mana shield so -> TANK.

Mana to surivial ration is very efficient, but then there is costs of snake and gaze to consider, and maybe even some more items. So she needs a lot of mana. Luckily, mana regen is the cheapest to upgrade. She doesn't make use of int, she just needs to pool.

And so we are left with the need of a tanking item (she got the agi that becomes armor covered so good EHP) that regens.

Well the obvious choice is of course Bloodstone.

Bloodstone into suicide for big plays, Bloodstone charges can rack up early in game really quick and make you a monster. It quickens respawn time so you get less downtime on your farming.

With ms to move about, and splitshot, and walking fountain item, you should only learn farm timings, patterns, and one eye on the minimap (just look at Fear's eyes and you'll see what I mean: STRABISMUS BOYS 2001. He's a pretty good carry.) and mind's eye on the throne.

So something ms, but not yasha because it's a waste of money because manta ranged blows, and not drums (not terrible but it doesn't scale too well for a late-game oriented hero, she needs all the slot-momentum she can get). Something ms, tank from blood, MoM (with the incoming damage reduced by the excellent mana shield)

Point booster with maxed mana shield in early levels along with phase+soul ring allows for many big plays and you're near impossible to kill. People NEED to commit multiple heroes to kill you. MoM midgame allows for regening when tanking camps, so that bloodstone regen can heal you up if you've taken a fight, to make you ready for the next.

So what damage do we go for then? Raw damage. There are situations where you can go mael and then maybe ditch it because it doesn't scale to the max-late game in your slots, but gerneally you can just go for raw damage. Demon Edge, Relic. Demon edge can become crit or mkb, Relic into Abyssal or Divine. Divine might be risky, and the best choice to abuse MoM would be Abyssal. Then you can 1v1 other carries that might carry bkb, and it just rapes in general with walk-in + gaze + blablabla.

Up to you dear reader, feel and base yourself on experience and style of play.

Now with 4 slots covered, if we want to change MoM into Satanic to remove the extra incoming damage, there is butterfly ms activation. But Butter+Sata leaves you only with one choice for the last slot. Divine, or even dissassemble Abyssal for double surprise divine rape.

Travels btw are no-brainer with low respawn bloodstone and ms for positioning and farming.

Lategame theorycrafting:

Instead of going just straight for more damage, utilty might be favored, ususally is. So the REFRESHER FOR DOUBLE ULTI AND DOUBLE SUPERBASH MIGHT COME IN HANDY TO SAY THE LEAST. Yes, it is expensive, but if not medusa, who could pull of the play?


Core:
Phase that are sold when you have travels with buyback and the necessity for a slot, Soul Ring into Bloodstone, Point Booster the super cost effective stepping stone, MoM for more battle prowess.

Finish Blood even before MoM if you see that you will get many charges quickly.
Abyssal because it's raw damage, that is also a very cost efficient choice in bash-through-bkb-potentialized through MoM-IAS and ability to be dissassembeled for divine.

Finally the remaining slots can be fore either damage or ulitiy, boiled down to:

Butter, crit, divines, mkb, sb, refresher, shiva's, blademail, bkb.

Special mention goes to linken's that can be bought if you really need to not be swapped by venge.



WILL THIS BECOME THE NEW NORM? WE SHALL SEE, DEAR FRIENDS! JUST AS WE WILL SEE OMNI #1 POSITION UNTIL HE GETS A QUICK AGA AND LET'S SOMEONE ELSE TAKE HIS FARMING PRIORIY, OR OMNI OFFLANE, OR MAX STR ADAPTIVE STRIKE MORPHLING OFFLANE/CLIFF JUNGLE SOLO GOING TRANQ+SR+DAGGER+(BLADEMAIL) TRANSITIONING INTO CARRY WITH MAELSTROM AND MORPHING MORE STATS INTO AGI, OR LONE DRUID DOUBLE NECROBOOK.

WE SHALL SEE!