Organized Chaos: A comprehensive guide to (Hand of Midas) Chaos Knight, how to counter him and how to deal with counters [6.86]

Hey! Great guide, I played 250+ SOLO ranked games with CK and wanted to write my own guide but a lot of my remarks are already here so I might just add to the discussion.

1. Absolutely core to me is Magic Wand (as safe lane carry). First items: 1x circlet, 2x branch, 1x gauntlet, 4x tango, 1x clarity potion.
This gives you 260 mana to start (need 280 mana to stun twice). 2x stun is total 150-400 dmg, 2 - 4 sec. The clarity potion and the stat gain gives me more First Bloods than any other setup could.
Later 3 charges on the wand = 1 blink strike. I have never been in a situation where I couldnt get that last blink strike.
That goes instead of bottle, if you go mid, bottle is a must so ignore everything I wrote.

2. Helm of Dominator is good. It allows you to move to effective jungle earlier and solves your HP reg problem. Well placed dominated creep causes an enemy team wipe. Its SPECTACULAR how effective one creep with 1400 hp performs: A warding support stops by to kill it, it takes 20 seconds (enough time to gank), his teammate comes to help, all their team out of position, visible.

3. BKB. I never figured out the right way to judge when do I need a BKB (and I usually dont buy it but I always have a teammate who never played CK and tells me it is core). Whats your experience with BKBs?
My calculation is roughly - heart gives you and your illusions 2000 hp (armlet perma ON), there are very few magic combos that dish this much aoe unless there is invoker aghs + refresher.
Jakiro dies with one blink strike, no need to stun. (keyword is AOE because you cant distinguish CK from illusions before he blink strikes the weak nuker)

4. ARMLET - Absolutely core. +65 dmg, atk speed, +25 dmg for illusions, +HP for illusions.
CK gets to 4k HP armlet +HoT, 2200 hp without them.

5. BUILD:
At 20 min: lvl 11, armlet, dominator, treads, drums - you are the strongest hero every exists at 20 min. This requires ONLY 60 LAST HITS. 20-25 min you teamwipe every team fight. Push all towers and perhaps strike high ground. 25-30 min taking racks down - perfect outcome no matter enemy counter carry.

How does Midas fit into the picture? Not too well. Eventually you will be stronger (peak at 30 - 35min), but the counter carry jungling will reach a fight ready stage coz you will always be OUTFARMED. This is suicidal against counter heroes like Sven, void, ember, refresher ES.

6. Fighting techniques: There is a lot of game changer tricks for CK. Proper ult casting is very important.
For example, when you see pudge sneaking to your free farm: just stand so that he can hook you the moment the hook hits you press ult - free blink strike, pudge dead.
Invoker tornado+meatball once you land from tornado press ult - 0.5 sec is enough to dodge the meatball.
Bloodseeker - you get ruptured, stand, he will cast silence circle, stand. When the circle is about to shut, ult. dodge silence - stun + blink strike.
Charging Bara - wait, once he is close ult. His charge will have no effect, he ends up between your illsuions. Ez kill.
Jugg - jugg ults you and you are alone. Cast ult, his ult stops immidietely, he lands between your illsuions. Ez kill.
Magnus offlane - magnus is hard to kill because he can just charge run to his tower. TO prevent it, as he turns to run, blink strike - blink strike always reverses position so you will end up between him and his tower, he will carry you so he wont escape.
Weaver with Linkens - you need to land the stun or he runs. Linkens blocks one - stun or blink. Cast stun, and blink right after, while the stun is flying, blink strike pops linkens and stun lands.

nice one!
If you have some short gameplay videos of this game, happy to link them in the guide
I am sure a support CK is uncommon enough to be of interest especially given how successful you were

tried chaos as a supporter... got 15 / 3 / 22

nice guide

they were like wtf

Wow, this guide! Great job mate. +1

It's good to see great guides still coming up on this site :)

Absolutely, stats make your illusions stronger. Battle Fury and Mjollnir are situational



Sorry typo - fixed

Generally I would avoid a battlefury on Nessaj simply due to the fact that illusions do not have cleave ability.

Also void stone doesn't build into RoB lol.

Nice guide though, cheers m8.

great guide!

Appreciate the comments so far. Have adjusted the guide somewhat.

Happy to stand by my statement Chaos Knight is a naturally a very slow jungler compared to pretty much every hero. Obviously if you get farm and items he will jungle faster, but extended jungling will mean you will be further and further behind the enemy carry (eg. Battle Fury Anti-Mage or Juggernaut, Split Shot Medusa). He just naturally doesn't have that jungle farming capacity that other carries have (ie. Anti-Mage low BAT and Blink)



These items cost 2350gp total ( Power Treads upgrade (950), Iron Talon (500) and Morbid Mask (900)).

About the same as Hand of Midas (2050gp). May as well get Hand of Midas for the experience boost from extra levels and ability to continue roaming. Certainly you could get this if you are position 1, however Chaos Knight is best played as a position 2-3 anyway, I have found he struggles as a position 1 unless your team is extremely coordinated.

The issue is just that other carries and heroes farm jungle way faster than Chaos Knight. You will fall behind and lose if you jungle for long periods. Sometimes however you can't avoid this (if your team is completely disorganised).



Absolutely Battle Fury is useful if you get it 13 or 14 mins in and the cleave will stack with criticals but I think this is more of a situational item rather than a get every game item, there are a lot of item choices you could choose for the cost of Battle Fury (4500gp). If you purely want the mana regeneration you could get Void Stone for only 850gp for example.

Your illusions will use the extra damage to creeps btw but not the bonus damage or cleave

The Mjollnir idea is great and I use it too



I think anti-armor is very useful against agility carries, particularly later in the game. It is probably the best way you can get your illusions to deal more damage, once they are able to survive for an extended period. You want to kill them fast while you have them disabled. Perhaps not Desolator but at least Assault Cuirass. Another option being Solar Crest but it involves a little extra micromanagement.



I think what I wrote might have been misleading, I meant Terrorblade is a little easier for Chaos Knight to deal with than most illusion carries because you can see the real one (until he gets manta as described), anyway I have removed reference to that to make the guide simpler. Your other points I completely agree with.

CK is not a slow farmer/jungler. He used to be, but not anymore, this was changed with recent indirect buffs to the hero. Current CK is actually a fairly decent farmer.

Between Chaos Strike that reduces armor by 5 (a huge farming boost), CK's highest base damage in the game among carries, and Iron Talon, CK has the ability to jungle faster than most carries.

If you get Power Treads, Iron Talon and an early Morbid Mask, CK can clear jungle pretty fast when his ult is on cooldown.

+1 cause I love that other ppl play roaming chaos knight

I like your guide a lot so you have a +1 from me. Just a question: I have heard a lot that if a CK manages to get an early Battle Fury the game is pretty much done, since it allows him to spam all his abilities and it also increases his farming rate if the game is going slow. If I think I can get a Battle Fury, for let's say 13 or 14 mins in, isn't this a great item for him? I kown your ilussions are not going to crit, but BF gives insane mana regeneration and a some
damage. One thing I like to do when I build Mjollnir is use the active on one of the illusions and I don't know why the whole enemy team assumes that's the real CK.