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Tango
Ring of Protection
Iron BranchIron Branch
Observer Ward
Clarity
Tranquil Boots
Urn of Shadows
Ogre Club
Black King Bar
Heaven's Halberd
Radiance
Heart of Tarrasque
Shiva's Guard
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2 | 15 |  |
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1 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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4 | 8 | 10 | 12 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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9 | 13 | 14 | 17 | 18 |
Having played Phoenix for a year, I decided to revamp my guide for this hero to be more of a support role.
Also, I'm so happy to see Phoenix being used more in the PRO tournament scene. Phoenix is one of my favorite and best characters.
Phoenix is a great Team Fighter. He isn't a carry, so there isn't a need for big ticket items. And the beauty of it is that Phoenix doesn't need fantastic items to be effective. Phoenix is extremely effective on a team with at least one AOE stunner and one tanker.
The skills of Phoenix that are very good are:
a) Fire Spirit: Amazing attack slow and damage over time
b) Sun Ray: Life % Depletion (enemy) and Life Heal (friendly heroes). Pure Damage
c) Super Nova: Magical Damage, attention drawing, mass chaos and confusion
The idea of this build is to support your carries / tankers who are at the front lines with attack speed slow (fire spirits), healing carries (sun ray) and damage over time (fire spirits + Sun Ray).
The problem with Phoenix is that all his skills take up a % of Phoenix life to use. So you have to be careful what items to buy and how / when to use the skills, which I will explain in later chapters.
STARTING (from Level 1 to 6):
Lane Choice: Safe lane or Off Lane, either is ok.
Spawn Items: 1x Ring of Protection, 1x Observer Ward, 2x Iron Wood, 1x Tango and 1x Clarity potion.
Item Explanation:
- Ring of Protection to build the Tranquil Boots at the side shop easily.
- Iron wood for life, mana and stats
- Ward river and the blind spots for yourself and the carry in your lane
- Tango for healing yourself and the carry in your lane
- Clarity so you can always Fire Spirit
Skill Choice Sequence:
Fire Spirit, Dive, Fire Spirit, Sun Ray, Fire Spirits, Super Nova.
Play Style:
- You basically want to farm up and not be entirely aggressive until you've hit level 6.
- Your main farming technique is using Fire Spirit and last hits.
- Don't use too much of your skills to farm / harass until you've gotten your Tranquil Boots. This is because all your skills suck a big % of your life.
- Once you've hit Level 2 of Fire Spirit, you should have your tranquil boots. Then try not to physically attack and let Fire Spirits do your farming for you so that you can enjoy the +12 HP Regen and 30 move speed.
- Enemy heroes should be finding you particularly annoying as you harass them with your Fire Spirit burn and attack slow. They shouldn't be able to farm properly especially if you are denying creeps when they are attack slowed.
*Early Ganks*
At Level 4 you could potentially gank in your lane if you are paired with a stunner fren.
- Cast Fire Spirits and launch them to enemy and creeps.
- Do not physically attack anything, this is so that Tranquil Boots are still on and you'll be healing up the % life lost from activating your skills.
- Ask your stunner fren to cast their stun.
- Launch your fire spirits at 3 - 4 second intervals to maximize the damage overtime while right clicking down the enemy.
- If that doesn't kill him already and enemy is running away, choose to do either a dive or sun ray to finish him off.
*Early Team Fights*
- Always hang at the back of the fight (you are extremely squishy with 35% of your life removed if you activate fire spirits and dive)
- Let your tanks / carries be at front.
- Launch Fire spirits at will at 3 - 4 sec intervals.
- If any of your allies initiate on enemies with a stun / lock down, immediately sun ray into that area.
- If any of your allies get jumped on, sun ray them to heal them.
- Fire spirit enemies, dive into hard to reach area and Nova for good measure.
End of Early Game Items: 1x Tranquil Boots, 1x Urn of Shadows, 1 x Ogre Club.
Mid Game Items: 1x Tranquil Boots, 1x Urn of Shadows, 1 x Ogre Club, Wards.
If things went well, you should be having these very basic core items.
Tranquil Boots: +12 HP Regen, 30 movement speed
Urn of Shadows: Heal Allies for 400HP that's a lot of health. And 150 damage to enemy.
Orge Club: This allows you to decide whether to go for BKB or Halberd depending on situation.
Choice of BKB or Halberd:
- If the enemy team have a lot of disablers, then BKB is the way to go
- If the enemy team have a lot of DPS carries, then Halberd is good for the disarm and the % evasion (syncs well with Nova).
Skill Choice Sequence:
Max out Fire Spirits first, followed by Sun Ray, then Stats / Dive, taking Nova anytime available.
Strategy:
- Here you basically want to be in every team fight. Have a Town Portal on you at all times.
- You can are essential for team fights because of your attack speed slow + damage over time (from Fire spirits), and %life pure damage (Sun Ray) and heal for front line allies (sun ray).
- Same tactics apply, stay behind the fight.
- If you are ever in a bad position, dive out of the area and stop the dive such that you are at the back of fight with your tankers / carries between you and enemy team.
- Always have Fire Spirits casted so that you can always release the attack slowing spirits at anytime and while healing up with Tranquil Boots.
- Remember to always launch Fire Spirits in team fights. They can be launched while sun raying even.
- It would be best if the tanks / stunners initiate and then sunray the hell out of enemies while healing your tanks and stunners in your ray. Toggle sunray movement to give chase if needed. Dive in and cast ulti to cause mass chaos and refresh life and skills.
- Use urn to heal allies where necessary for 400 HP.
End of Mid Game Items: 1x Tranquil Boots, 1x Urn of Shadows, 1x Halberd or 1x BKB
Late Game Items: 1x Tranquil Boots, 1x Urn of Shadows, 1x Halberd or 1x BKB
Skill Choice Sequence: Put into Stats and Dive accordingly.
In late game, it'll be best to go for AOE damage / AOE effect or Huge amount of Life since you've not going to out-DPS the enemy carries.
Late Game Luxury Items:
- Shivas Guard: For the attack + movement speed slow and Frozen blast 200 damage which can be activated during dive to spread across a huge AOE.
- Radiance: For the burn (as if burning the enemy with fire spirit and sun ray isn't enough)
- Heart: For the Massive amount of life and life regen.
Strategy:
- Same team fight tactics apply. Support your carries, tankers and stay at the back of the fight.
Phoenix best friends are Tankers / Carries with stuns or lock downs as you need someone in front to initiate and hold people down while you Fire Spirit and Sun ray them out of existence.
Off the top of my head:
a) Axe
b) Clock
c) Magnus
d) Tidehunter
e) Alchemist
f) Bristleback
g) Pudge
h) Slark
i) Void
j) Sven
k) Abbadon
All these guys are fairly tanky and when they initiate, they seem to draw the whole enemy team's wraith. So just back them up from behind with fire spirits and sun ray. You'll be seeing the whole team's life disappear really fast.
Phoenix worst enemies are silencers, AOE stunners and blinkers (who can close in on Phoenix fast).
a) Silencer
b) Void
c) Riki
d) Drow
e) Death Prophet
f) Storm Spirit
g) Earth Shaker
h) Nyx Assassin
i) Demon Witch
j) Lina
k) Shadow Shaman
l) Doom
*If you are ever out of position or see these guys coming at you (i.e gank coming), dive out immediately and fight from behind. Activate BKB where necessary.
Phoenix is one of my favorite characters, so I hope this guide helps everyone understand how cool this character is.
Enjoy and have fun.
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