Phoenix, Living Inferno of Destruction

Introduction

My second guide is dedicated to Phoenix, a hero with a terrifying nuke and debuff to hamper enemies and bring healing to allies.

Pros and Cons

Pros:
+ Powerful nuke at early game (240 magical damage) with Fire Spirits
+ Sun Ray with a very good scaling power
+ Virtually immortal with a successful Supernova
+ Insane ASPD slow debuff

Cons:
- Long spell cooldown
- Fragile without Supernova
- Will become squishy target with bad positioning

Spell and in-depth mechanism

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Icarus Dive

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A versatile spell that can be used to gank, escape and dislocate area-of-effects projectile magic such as Storm Hammer and Paralyzing Cask if you stay too close to allies when the main target of the spell is you.

This spell force Phoenix to move in shape of an ellipse. A full course of Icarus Dive will return Phoenix to original position with its head facing left from the start position of the dive. This spell doesn't disjoint projectile (it's the same as Force Staff effect).

Use this spell to initiate, closing gap between enemy heroes, slow down escaping heroes or escape from chasing enemy.

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Fire Spirits

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A very powerful nuke and debuff to hamper your enemies. Each spirits burns for 4 seconds so a well-aimed Fire Spirits will cause a whopping damage and debilitating ASPD debuff for whole 16 seconds. Heroes that uses right clicks such as Anti-Mage will find themselves greatly slowed to land an attack to allies.

This spell effect goes very well even though the game continues to late game.

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Sun Ray

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Phoenix spells that doing benevolent and malevolent effects at the same time. Enemy hit by this spell will suffer continous DoT while allies will heal when under this ray.

This spell has a few miliseconds for each damage tick, casting it with enemy under Cold Snap will cause stunlock.

A special mention, this spell goes through enemies that hit by Medusa's Stone Gaze as this spell damage is HP removal.

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Supernova

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A gamble on life and death spell for a chance of reborn and abilities cooldown reset. In this state Phoenix reach the most fragile state where he only can wait for 6 seconds to be recharged to full condition.

Item that has area-of-effects ability such as Shiva's Guard and Radiance will still work even Phoenix is in Supernova state.

If Supernova HP counter dropped below 50%, Phoenix can be denied.

Tower, creeps and illusions attacks won't decrease Supernova HP counter ( Meepo's clone still counted as hero).

Role

Phoenix is an unusual hero which he have skill set of an Support but in heavy need of experience like an Offlaner. To fulfill those two requirements, Phoenix can be put on mid or offlane, but that will cause the team to break down due to hero that are supposed in mid or ofllane is replaced by Phoenix. So another option is to put him as Jungler. His Fire Spirits eaily clear out camp stacks within mere seconds.

Once he hit level 6, prepare to roam and gank, as he has finished jungling at that point. Mostly his income will come from assists or creeps that died during ganking.

Items

is a very good investment for Phoenix. 2-3 Bracers will give a nice Str boosts and damage. 3 Bracers more or less is equal to a Reaver which is a wise replacement since Reaver is expensive.

fix your horrible movement speed and also give more mobility to gank, escaping and pushing.

a luxury which a Phoenix can't pass on. Its huge regen helps Phoenix to reduce his HP usage greatly.

is useful in teamfights as it slows ASPD by 25% and when combined with Fire Spirits it will slows enemy attacks to slow motion (lol).

Massive damage Area-of-effect boosts. 'nuff said

Use it for HP heal burst in dire state.

Become tougher when facing enemy with deadly nuke such as Lina, Lion, Zeus or Skywrath Mage

A special mention, as this item debuff crank up your Icarus Dive, Fire Spirits, and Supernova damage.

Allies and Foes

Allies:

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She duels and you throw Fire Spirits and cook enemy with Sun Ray. Most case no one escaped this torment.
Cold Snap and Sun Ray. Stunlocked to death.
Allies that helps you to survive Supernova mode.
Quick kill with Stone Gaze

and also heroes that benefits from Phoenix that I didn't mention here :


Foes:

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Doom Bringer hero with stuns or disables will send you to death if you can't cast Supernova.
hero with silence will render you as an idiot totally.
Bad sign if Supernova is on cooldown.
No need to burn him. He can simply Time Lapse.
Good ally is also a worst foe to be met. Prepare to go to toilet or take a sip of drink once you are Dueled.

Conclusion

Phoenix is a hero we can call as "glass artillery cannon" as his nuke is very powerful yet at the same time it weakens him. A good Phoenix player should know when to stop using his Sun Ray as that skill takes away 25% of current HP which is a huge number. Also Phoenix player need to be aware of which disable that can affect him. If he leaved unharmed in teamfight, he will literally crush any enemy that are hit by all his spells and also rejuvenates allies using Sun Ray.

That's the end of my Phoenix guide. Cheers!