One of the most versatiles heros in dota phoenix

mid lane phoenix build

Hello and welcome to my first dotafire guide here i made a list of options of how to play phoenix either pubs or ranked every build up there have a function for Phoenix either be played as a ganker/support/just to have fun/semy-carry/ranked options phew that is alot of items to build thats why phoenix is so versatile and can do the job as many roles very well. here im gonna list some friends and enemys too. also why to play it when to play it and justify all itens of choice.

Skills

as it is my first guide i dont know how to make a beautiful skill by skill guide and super crazy stuff to make it look better than thousands of boring words like so (i accept any help)

Phoenix skills are not so simple because every of his skills cost HP except Supernova
Phoenix first skill is Icarus Dive this skill is active and when used make phoenix do a large swoop in the selected direction and when in mid fly you can stop it by pressing the same abbility again. icarus dive is either a initiation/escape mecanism but you are still vulnerable to stuns that will cancel your dive. you can pass thougt unpassable terrains in the flight too like cliffs hight grounds and trees. this skill is most of the time your PANIC BUTTOM to escape ganks. on competitive play this skill can be used to check roshan pit safelly because when you use the abbility you came back to where you first started the flyght. you can also use it to place wards or activational itens like mekanism or shivas guard as well if enemys are caught on the skill they are slowed and suffer DoT (damage over time) according to your current skill level. however this skill cost 15% of your CURRENT HEALTH and have a very long colldown so use it wisely. a little trick: it is 15% of your CURRENT HEALTH not max health if you are with 100 hp this will cost 15hp if 200 hp this will cost you 30 hp and so on.

phoenix second and most iteresting skill is Fire Spirits this skill if used right has the BIGGEST doT of all skills (except some ultimates like Venomancer Poison Nova or Jakiro Macropyre) however this is hard to use it will cost 20% of your HP, once activated you will have a sub abbility on the place of the fire spirits this sub abbility allows you to lauch your's fire spirits in a designed area then they hit the desired area the spirit will eplode in a small Aoe (area of effect)causing large Dot and attack speed slow deppending on current level of the skill. the affected target will burn for 4 seconds suferring both attack speed slow and Dot if you hit another you will refresh the duration of the effect. this is a strong harass and way to pick off low health enemys (however this is hard to hit since the spirits travel kinda slowly to get to the target.) Fire Spirits is a way to stop carrys dealing last hits/denys because of the attack speed slow-jungling-and dealling devastating combos. you can combo Icarus Dive with Fire Spirits when using the dive you can LAUNCH the fire spirits also use your next abbility in line Sun Ray

Sun Ray sunray is by far your most bad *** skill and most expensive skill the ray will affect a large area in front of you. you can toggle movement to make you fly in a certain direction also you can direct the laser by clicking. this abbility scales better in late game because the damage applied is based on your MAX HP in the beggining of the game you have 600 hp to work with and later you have about 1822 at lvl 25 with no itens you can opt by leaving icarus dive at lvl 3 and getting a point in this skill if you want to (reffering to the ganker phoenix build) you can cancel the sunray in a sub abbility and can toggle on and off your movement too... this is also a 'harder to use panic buttom' when you toggle your movement on you pass unpassable terrains to run away from enemys chasing you be aware of enemys ho do the same like Mirana Faceless Void Batrider and etc...

Supernova this is your ultimate abbility and ultimate panic buttom your ultimate will transform you in a super bad *** SUN that deals TONS OF dot and will STUN enemys in a certain area (the damage dealt is blocked by BkB but the stun is not) when on suppernova you cant act until the end of the skill if heroes hit your super nova a certain ammount of time before the end you die no matter what and a hero that counter it bad is Meepo because his clones from Divided We Stand count as hero on your super nova this means he can simply kill you while on this mode (ilussions dont damage the sun) however if you hit a enemy hero with fire spirits first he cant destroy your sun by himself because of the HUGE ATTACK SPEED SLOW making you safe from THAT HERO not others with a normal attack speed. this ultimate is by far one of the most hard to proper use in team fights... since every enemy can simply run away from it... but synergise very well with Enigma Black Hole if you want to try this combo use supernova first to lure the enemy to destroy the sun and then enigma uses the blackhole to keep everyone in position by the duration of it. when you reborn from the sun all of your abbility colldown are reseted except ultimate also itens get refreshed too except Refresher Orb.

items explanations for each build - ganker phoenix

items from each build you sellected. part 1 GANKER PHOENIX

here you can see some unique choices of items since ganker phoenix go mid lane we have a usual bottle rush, Stout Shield is a great help if you are being harassed by enemys like Sniper Shadow Fiend or even Viper. you will recieve less damage than if you have chosen a ring of protection, on ganker phoenix i build a Phase Boots. you may think this as a wrong decision because phoenix skills cost hp and you will probably end up killed the reason why i chosed phase boots is to help you last hit in the lane get better rune control and catch up fleeing enemys. in some cases power treads is better but it is a good choice if ganking alot. also the Urn of Shadows will keep you healed up if you were doing a good job on ganking. euls scepter is also a good mention it works like a sub boot because of the 40 bonus speed and amazing mana regen it grants you also a disable in your sleeves. Eul's Scepter of Divinity works way too good on phoenix to be honest icarus dive euls someone chasing your ally like something they cant run from like rigwar or Drow Ranger is also a great use of it and because you can use activational itens in mid fly you will be safe afterwords in the worst case scenario you brought them time. Veil of Discord one of the best agressive itens even if you are playing hard support. use the veil trow fire spirits like a shotgun Icarus Dive and super nova behind the enemy... great ganking combination in every phase of the game even late game when enemys are tankier dont forget to use sunray after super nova explosion with icarus dive to catch enemys if they ran away.

now you may be thinking why Hood of Defiance? to survive enemys attacks also it depends on the enemy team if they have strong physical damage opt for a Vanguard instead.

ok there are beautiful days and there are the days you cant either get a successful gank early on you can opt by those items shadowblade makes you get a better aproach from behind while invisible (watchout when ganking in a lane where one of your allies can be invisible like Broodmother Riki Bounty Hunter and etc they may have revealing wards positioned there now Shadow Blade for the newer players when you use it you will be invisible for 15 seconds when you do a normal attack before the invisibility ends you will get a bonus attack damage about 170 so dont end the invisi by using firespirits or even Icarus Dive please dont use your main escape mecanism like this if you do to get the slow at least do the auto attack first and be carefull wehn you are ganking your oposing mid laner can be ganking too so call for miss if he is not there *check the minimap before initiating a gank.

dagon and icarus dive is a nothing to say great combo better if you have a Bloodseeker on your team to snipe down fools you may be like now: this guide is junt showing me ways to get kills and not win the game or something like with those itens i could even gank with a medusa in early game so why phoenix can do this better? because of it skills synergise well with almost any team! Faceless Void jumped in to a big cronosphere? fire spirit everyone inside! Slardar just charged to stun the enemys? it is slow time baby Icarus Dive your meepo cant get a good net? force then to run elsewhere with super nova Pugna is suffering in the solo hard lane? nothing that a decrepfy dagon combo cant fix also your Fire Spirits will do more Dot!
there is a Riki out of controll ganking everyone? nothing some positioning and team coordination cant kill even playing with a ganker phoenix you can buy wards to help some cases the Crystal Maiden is having a bad time and cant even buy boots by the 12 minutes mark (ok at least upgrade the boots but bad things can happen right?) buy then for her even she being the ''ward bi***'' a hero phoenix synergise well is also other supports or initiators like earth shaker Enigma even little Dark Seer vaccuing people back to your super nova and giving you the iron shell to you deal even more dot after a 2 man icarus dive. now you may be thinking: this is dream situations where enemys dont fight back or where they dont have wards or team coordination this will only happen in pubs bla bla blaa phoenix can turn around many fights if used right sir wards? Shadow Blade or smoke to by pass this you are having a bad time in the middle lane being harassed and cant even buy a bootle? call a ally and kill the one killing you like the poke style Huskar his harass is the worst( now there are cases you will initiate and die it is almost impossible a flawless game while playing phoenix but here is the case icarus dive is you PANIC BUTTOM so dont waste for things like getting that rune faster or getting a last hit on a far away creep yes you have sun ray and super nova but what if they are on colldown and you are being chased in revenge? you cant use either! so play safe to avoid dying... and nonstop feeding something common if you are playing phoenix for the first time. now here some itens that counter phoenix really bad
[*] orchid malevolence
[*] shadow blade
[*] rod of atos
[*] pipe of insight
[*] mjnolir
escapes mecanism and atttack speed really kills you this is why Force Staff is on the list, you get a secondary escape mecanism or a way to catch up enemys faster now enemys that counters phoenix

Storm Spirit strong disablers with hight dps is not the best lane to you gank
Nyx Assassin invisible thing that stops you in mid fly with Spiked Carapace and kills you with Impale dagon easelly even without his ult
Silencer silences makes you really useless
Doombringer now this guy will just press R and you are dead boy actually this counters ANY HERO! you can just auto attack (phase boots helps a bit)


hearth of terrasque gives you insane health regen and more power on sunray
linkens sphere simply block directioned stuns on you during icarus dive also mana and health regen works
Necronomicon if ganking is a dream in the late game pushing is a better option or help pusshing too (also a tiny bit more power on sunray because you get str from it too
shivas guard even inside the super nova aura effect itens works like Radiance and shivas... stay to destroy the suppernova will cost the enemys much run away from it will cost them even more!
Refresher Orb ult plan dont worked? they wont expect a little second super nova right on theyr butts after the main initiation... at least not for the first time ya. here ends the ganker phoenix section.

items explanations for each build - support phoenix

support phoenix is not a bad thing you know your job is support your team to win and playing support i mean harass the enemy let your carry get farm dont dying buy support itens like courier wards and mekanism... support phoenix is not a bad choise he makes a great job on a trilane because of the Fire Spirits strong harass and icarus dive big escape so going agains a phoenix is really annyoing... at least a good phoenix player. this is why the Healing Salve is here after harassing alot or sending 2 fire spirits you will need to het hp back and fast to keep harrassing out of mana? icarus dive on em - but you said early icarus dive is emergency only! if there is no miss call if there is no much mana on enemys swoop safelly and then go a bit back as a support your job is to make your team win the rest of the itens are self explanatory also makes phoenix stronger in many aspects faster stronger and more helpful... big team fight break out? icarus dive mekanism/pipe urn of shadow and super nova to gain your allies time or turn around! Rod of Atos to assist kills
a good trilane mate is Venomancer combine your Fire Spirits with his Poison Sting Dot... no farm for those against you and your carry also both of you provides slow and big Dot!
you may be like how can i farm those itens being a support? phoenix can jungle well with his fire spirits grab 3 claritys and just exit the jungle with some good gold!
you may notice Sun Ray was maxed before as support phoenix after you get tranquils this will heal your members manly heal (be ware of the mana cost too) this was a short support phoenix guide.

items explanations for each build - just to have fun

this is something to make only to have fun! this build may never be fully complete by you because it works poorly and those are just options to merelly have fun in pubs or lobby matchs agains friends this is a right clicker phoenix since you can slow them with Icarus Dive they cant run away from you aghanim CAN save you and your friend from death... those items are super hard to get and are just to mess with or even test phoenix potential

Ranked options

you may notice i dont have a build for ranked actually ranked games are verry verry situational and either ganker phoenix aggressive itens like Veil of Discord or defensive like Force Staff can work well on ranked the idea of using icarus dive to check roshan pit is very viable in ranked games a mix between ganker phoenix and support phoenix can be the best choice but the itens you make really depends on the match so a bit of your self experience or even experience this guide gave to you can be usefull only go mid on ranked you dont have any mid lanners then you can opt on being a later game supporter or a early game ganker depends on everything so be smart with one of the most versatiles heroes in dota. and after all... good luck and have fun!