Perfect position : A guide to support and mid Kaolin (more updates)

Introduction

Earth Spirit is a really tricky hero to play, that can be played as a decent utility ganker, support and initiator.

With his abilities, Earth Spirit becomes a really scary ganker or teamfight hero, who can basically wreck havoc from afar without warning. His ganking potential is as scary as if it was a combination of Storm Spirit and Batrider with stuns and slows.

Earth Spirit is one of those new heroes from the "Three-Spirits" patch, and at the moment people are having a bit of trouble playing the hero. I've picked him up and practiced in a few Diretide matches and eventually actual pub-matches and probably have the gist of how this hero works. Most of this is from experience, I could be wrong or just facing really horrible opponents, but I'll write down this guide nevertheless.

PS : There are probably going to be a lot of unattractive wall of texts in this really basic-format guide, so hopefully you can all bear with it. I will attempt to upgrade it when I have enough resources (screenshots and stuff) but in the meantime, it will be mostly words.

Changes

21.11.2013 : -Added a few items to support build.
-Added "Friends and Foes" section

7.12.2013: -Added more side-notes to his abilities

Note regarding Skill-Build

Honestly, this was really hard to put into the guide, because I haven't been following a solid skill-build regardless of what position I'm playing.
Earth Spirit is one of those heroes who is very situational when it comes to choosing what to max out first, so the skill build is actually very fluid, and depends on your play-style. The skill builds provided is just probably closest to most viable... probably.

Pros and Cons

Pros [*] Very strong early to mid game [*] Average stat game [*] Above average move speed, reasonable starting armor and okay base damage [*] Relatively durable throughout the whole game [*] Very mobile [*] Long ranged disabler [*] Very capable in saving allies [*] Exceptionally fun to play

Cons [*] Very mana dependent [*] Shut down by magic immunity [*] Has an escape mechanism that can be interrupted

I won't go through a "When to pick and when not to pick" part for Viper, because he is so flexible and able to fulfill any role effectively.
Although one exception is picking him as a #1 hard-carry when the enemy has harder carries as their #1

Stone Remnant

Earth Spirit calls forth a remnant of his stone army, long buried with him in the dark embrace of the Earth.

Stone Remnant is an innate ability where you place a stone charge on an area within a 1400 range. It has a maximum of 6 charges which you start with, and the charges replenish every 25 seconds, and lasts for 120 seconds. It doesn't cost any mana, neither does it have a cooldown.

Alright, to begin with this ability is what newbies have a problem with when playing Earth Spirit. It is when they like to "set-up" the stones for future initiations, which gives the enemy an idea of what you're planning to do, making it easy for them to avoid. Yes it might be good for "mind-games" and the such, but you don't want to waste a stone charge positioning it in a place where you might never have a reason or need to access it.

Also understand how your other abilities can work without the stones, so it isn't necessary to keep spending a charge for them. You only can have 6 at a time on the map, so use them efficiently. They are your emergency tools for when you don't have anything else nearby to use your abilities with, or when you really need to use the secondary effect of your ability.

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What to keep in mind when using it
-There is no cast animation required to set a stone-charge. Placing it is instant, therefore you don't have to set them up beforehand.

Boulder Smash

It is with the power of a mountain that Earth Spirit strikes his enemies.

Boulder Smash is an active which allows you to kick the target unit (allied or enemy) or rock towards the direction you're facing. The target enemy will take damage, as well as damaging any unit it passes. If it is a rock, it will move further, and silence all enemies in contact for 5 seconds.

This is basically a free Force Staff for your allies as well as a decent ranged AOE nuke and a powerful ganking and teamfight ability. You can use this to help your initiator initiate, or kick solo enemies towards your teammates, or utilize the very powerful 5 seconds silence. It's quite tricky to use this against moving targets, as they might change the angle to where you're facing, and screw up the kick.

This should be maxed out as fast as possible, as it has great scaling on cooldown and damage, and being at a 100 mana cost at all levels.

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What to keep in mind when using it
-Rocks have extended range of a whopping 2000: This allows you to throw in a powerful 5 seconds silence to anyone at that distance, provided you hit them.

Rolling Boulder

Calling upon his connection to the land, the Earth Spirit draws loose stone to him, which forms a protective ball that he can use to roll short distances.

Rolling Boulder is basically your mobility spell (all the spirits have one!) in which after a 0.6 seconds delay you turn into a rock and roll towards the target location for 800 units. You will stop when stunned or when colliding with an enemy hero, damaging them. If you run over a boulder, it will consume the boulder charge and extend the range by 1600 and adds a slow effect of 80% when colliding with an enemy.

If you're unable to afford an initiation tool, this is a great ability to use for your initiation. You'll have to time it because of the delay, which also makes it not so good as an escape mechanism.

You might want to max this out as fast as possible after Boulder Smash as the cooldown reduction is really good, allowing you to be very mobile. It also has a really low mana-cost of 50 every level.
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What to keep in mind when using it
-Speed is doubled when consuming a rock charge:
-Disables will stop you: Be careful when initiating, as getting out won't be that easy even though you're really mobile.
-You CAN USE A SPELL WHILE ROLLING: It works the same way like Storm Spirit's Ball Lightning where you can cast spells while in the roll animation.

Geomagnetic Grip

Like calls to like. Even the minerals found in the blood and bones of living beings are not immune to the call of the Earth Spirit.

Geomagnetic Grip is your main disable, which has an extremely far range for an AOE disable. It is something like a Jakiro's Ice Path except the direction is reversed, and it is faster. It also is a point-and-click Meat Hook to save your allies from trouble!

This ability allows you to gank so effectively, what with it having an extremely long range for an AOE disable.

Taking one level of this early is really good, regardless of which position you're playing as it is so useful for securing kills or saving allies. The scaling of it isn't really that good, and you could possibly leave it at 1 for a while.

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What to keep in mind when using it
-I just can't stress enough about how ridiculously long the range is for a RELIABLE AOE disable.

Magnetize

At the Earth Spirits call, the minerals in the blood and bones of his enemies rebel against the bodies they find themselves in.

Magnetize is your ultimate, which will place a debuff on nearby enemies, causing them to take minor damage overtime for 6 seconds. Having magnetized heroes near a boulder will cause it to detonate and reset the debuff duration.

This spell deals a total of 300/450/600 damage without any detonation. In a teamfight it is always good to initiate with this ability first before using your other abilities, in order to make good use of the debuff duration reset. It may seem really insignificant at first, but if you make use of it really well, it hurts.

Try getting this whenever possible, if could be doable to probably skip it for a few levels of your other abilities as it still can deal massive damage at level 1 if it keeps resetting. If my mathematics is correct, you could potentially deal 2100 damage at level 1 of it (with the "7th" replenishing rock charge).

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The debuff goes through magic immunity, but the damage doesn't : You could extend it to surpass the duration of magic immunity.
-It has a really small range:: Careful
-Detonating rocks will apply the debuff to enemies who don't already have it:
-Any debuff with your other skills on one of the magnetized enemy will apply to ALL other magnetized enemies: Spread the love!

Gameplay

EARLY TO MID GAME

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Support Oriented

This build revolves around you being a utility ganker, grabbing items useful for your teammates and sticking with them. You have to understand that with a lane partner you have a lot of killing potential. You can truly be a monster in a trilane due to the extremely far range of Geomagnetic Grip or the way Boulder Smash works.

When in lane, don't spam abilities or anything. Just stand-by and wait for an opportunity for something to happen. Once you have at least 1 level of everything, you can easily score a kill if your initiation goes right. The way I would initiate is to go Geomagnetic Grip first, then Rolling Boulder into the stunned enemy and Boulder Smash to kick the target back to your teammate. This can almost always guarantee a kill.

You want to make sure that by level 3 you have at least 1 level of each ability, as they are all really great abilities, even at the early levels. Grab a Mekansm and Arcane Boots for more survivability, and an increase to your mana pool which allows you to be more active on the battlefield.




Mid-Lane Oriented

Not only are you getting levels in the mid-lane, but it is possible to get a lot of solo-kills as well. The goal is to kick the enemy back to your tower with Boulder Smash, which can prove tricky at times. It is easier when your enemy is a melee hero, and when the creep-wave is closer to your tower.

However it still can be a hassle to do so as having the creep-wave near your tower means you'll have to pass on grabbing the rune, which gives the enemy mid-laner a slight advantage. You'll just to try and control the creep-wave to have it near your tower when the rune isn't going to come up any time sooner. One way to do this is to let the ranged creep die first, so that the lane will push to your tower, but you'll have to time it in a way so that you won't have it happen when the rune is up.

This build focuses a lot on positioning, having both Phase Boots and Blink Dagger. I really like getting Phase Boots on this hero over Arcane Boots as it helps a lot with the positioning for Boulder Smash ganks, however being unable to grab it on a support role due to the absence of the Bottle as Kaolin is very mana dependent. Grabbing Blink Dagger makes you a fearsome ganking machine, as you can just Blink in and kick the enemy back to your teammates or just anywhere out of position. It also helps a lot with your Magnetize initiation, as you can save a stone charge from getting consumed by Rolling Boulder to deal more damage with Magnetize

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In the mid-game, whichever build you're going, you become a really powerful ganking monster. It is really difficult to escape an Earth Spirit gank unless you have the proper escape mechanism. Trust me, this fella can initiate a gank from miles away and still succeed.


LATE GAME

As the game progresses on towards the late game, this is where you have to be more wary about the secondary effect of all your abilities, and utilize them more. The slow from Rolling Boulder is really good in chasing down enemies or preventing the enemy carry from doing too much damage by slowing down the attack speed. The 5 seconds silence from Boulder Smash can be really great in preventing initiations, and also the long range from Geomagnetic Grip helps in catching enemies out of position. Magnetize isn't really that useless yet, as at level 3 it could potentially deal 3100 damage (as unrealistic as it sound to a whole team, at least you could do it to a single target)


Just remember, Earth Spirit is not a farming carry. You have so much potential with your abilities to wreck the opposing team, and you sort of fall off slightly in the late game due to having no proper DPS ability. Do not let your ganking potential go to waste, be active and help your teammates!

Situationals and Luxuries

Earth Spirit can utilize quite a few items pretty well, here are the list of items you could purchase on Earth Spirit that was not looked upon in the gameplay guide:

It helps in getting your HP and mana pool up as you need to make use of your abilities a lot, as well as being in the center of battle. Yes Earth Spirit has quite a decent stat-gain, but it doesn't hurt to grab more!

Positioning is SO IMPORTANT on this hero, and having an item which helps in it as well as contribute to increasing your mana-pool can be very useful.

This is a very nice tool which gives you all the stats you need (HP and Mana), as well as a really long ranged slow with quite a short cooldown, which in conjunction with all your abilities and their crazy long range, turns you into a really scary ganking monster.

Having relatively good health, I think it's viable to grab this for that emergency mana burst when you really need it. It is cheap, you could grab this to replace Arcane Boots if you're struggling.

The stats it provides are great for Earth Spirit, and also since you'll probably be ganking a lot you will be getting a lot of charges.

Since most of your damage is magical, you could argue this is a must have item for Earth Spirit. However keep in mind that your highest damage potential comes from Magnetize and your other abilities don't really do that much (except probably Boulder Smash but it is still quite insignificant) so don't make this a go-to item if it isn't necessary(not having much magical nukers in your team).

Having more survivability is always good, especially since you'll be in the middle of the fight most of the time.

This is a great item to keep you active in a fight. Being chain-disabled or silenced is going to hinder you a lot, so grabbing this can help you overcome the hindrance.

Since you're mostly going to be the focus of all fights, it can be good to reflect some of that damage back to attackers. It also scares the living daylights out of those who are getting ganked, as using a nuking disable to stop you from ganking them would contribute to it more than escaping it.

It is actually very funny to surprise an enemy hero by suddenly appearing out of nowhere and kicking them to your bloodthirsty teammates. I do not high recommend this item if you're serious, but it can be purchased if you want to have a bit of sadistic fun.

It is a great utility item to add up to your damage output, as well as providing great stats. You could also utilize the Necronomicon warriors with your abilities.

It's great to have as much health as possible, as well as health regeneration. Since you're also a strength hero, it helps build up your DPS (which is pretty insignificant in the first place) which sorts of help.

Armor is another great way to boost your survivability, especially against strong physical DPS carries. It also gives a great slow aura and nuke, as well as a huge boost to your mana-pool, which is always welcome for a very mana-dependent hero.

Always one of the best late-game items for non-DPS heroes.

Friends and Foes

FRIENDS

Earth Spirit has a lot of synergy with a lot of heroes that has strong disables or nukes, due to the nature of his skills.
However, instead of the general group of heroes, I'll list down some notable ones.

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Not only is she good for you due to her reliable stun and nuke, but this is a great teamfight initiation combo, where you can Nether Swap out the most dangerous target from the enemy team, and pull Vengeful Spirit back to your team, possibly stunning the other enemies if she is positioned well during the swap.

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Both has reliable disables, but that's not why they're notable. You can actually move them around without interrupting Death Ward or Black Hole. With this you can reposition them if they ever look like they're in real danger during their channeling.

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A lot of things Crystal Maiden has has great synergy with you. An AOE nuke and slow, a reliable semi-disable, a passive to keep your mana up and you can reposition her when she is using her ultimate Freezing Field without interrupting it. Keep in mind however, repositioning her will reposition the AOE as well.

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You can actually reposition him while he is channeling his Epicenter without interrupting it! Same goes to Sand Storm

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You get the idea.

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This is a really scary duo. Not only are both of them extremely good gankers, but your skills allow Batrider to do extremely far range Flaming Lasso initiations as your Geomagnetic Grip does not break the lasso, neither does Boulder Smash. It also allows Batrider to come online really early without needing a Force Staff (or perhaps if you're well coordinated, Blink Dagger also isn't required!)

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FOES

Earth Spirit like every other hero is countered by chain stunning, and like every other mana-dependent mobile hero, he is shut down completely by silences. Magic immunity also screws him up a bit, especially if it's on a hero with extremely high DPS, something that he cannot match up against (although he is relatively tanky)

Heroes like Bloodseeker, Drow Ranger and Night Stalker with really long silences and chasing ability can screw Earth Spirit up really easily.

Heroes like Anti Mage, Queen of Pain and Slark have a lot of mobility, and generally you need to shut them down with your silence if you want to get a kill on them, which hinders you from using Boulder Smash to kick them to your allies.

Black King Bar is always going to be a hindrance for you.

Also, another notable hero in the Foes list is Pudge. Your Geomagnetic Grip screws up his Meat Hooks a lot.

Author's Notes

Remember, all item and skill builds are fluid. Dota is a game that is ever-changing and to be good at it, one must be able to adapt to the situation and do what is needed in that situation. Don't go for a static build, but be more flexible and look at the synergy with your team and the counters to enemies.

Earth Spirit, like all the other spirits is going to be a really tricky hero to play, what else master, although he is undoubtedly the strongest among the three if used properly, with your really powerful abilities. He is very fun to use once you get the gist of it, however keep in mind that in his "newly-ported-hero" state, screwing up will bring in more hate from your teammates than usual. But don't be discouraged by all the hate, play Earth Spirit frequently and you'll soon be able to make a lot of entertaining plays!