"My Lightning Raws!" Illumination's Guide to Razor - Lightning Revenant (6.81 !)

Introduction

Hey guys !
First of all, I want to say a big hello and thank you for reading my very first guide here in Dotafire, about one of my newly started training hero in Dota 2 - Razor the Lightning Revenant. Well, as a first time guide writer, I need a lot of feedbacks from all you readers/viewers so I can improve more in future and being able to write down even more contents.

*UPDATED: Here's my second guide, check it out! "From the Outer Dark!" Illumination's Guide to Habringer - Outworld Devourer

Hero Summary

"Among the emblematic powers that populate the Underscape, Razor the Lightning Revenant is one of the most feared. With his whip of lightning, he patrols the Narrow Maze, that treacherous webwork of passages by which the souls of the dead are sorted according to their own innate intelligence, cunning and persistence. Drifting above the Maze, Razor looks down on the baffled souls below, and delivers jolts of scalding electricity that both punish and quicken the souls as they decide their own fates, hurrying on toward luminous exits or endlessly dark pits. Razor is the eternal embodiment of a dominating power, abstract and almost clinical in his application of power. Yet he has a lordly air that suggests he takes a sardonic satisfaction in his work."

Razor

Razor

Razor

Hero Skills

Plasma Field:
The primary source of nuking damage of Razor. Has good damage and AOE, especially its mechanics compliment well with the overall of Razor himself. Also good at clearing creepwaves. Getting into late game though, this skill is not scaling that good.

Static Link:
Possibly the signature skill that makes Razor stands out of the crowd. With a bit of cunning and good positioning/moving in teamfights/hero ganking-killing, you can easily net some kills. 224 damage is almost a free Divine Rapier, so what can I say about it ?
And the best thing is, it goes through magic immunity so having a Black King Bar or certain skills like Juggernaut's Blade Fury or Lifestealer's Rage won't help you out!

Unstable Current:
Ok, now you got a nice nuke and a damage stealer, how to use it best ? A nice passive that not only increase your movement speed but also can purge out any heroes who try to run away from you. It can't be anything nicer than this. In some critical moments it could help you secure a big big kill or run away from a multi-man gank.

Eye of the Storm:
Your target is almost dead, and lacking just a little more damage to finish them off ? Here's your life saver right there. Great for ganking, hunting inside jungle. Adding up Aghanim's Scepter will be way more better as you can deal more damage, plus it will damage buildings as well, which is very nice for split-pushing.

Foods, Friends, Foes

Razor is most effective versus slow moving, less mobility heroes.
The fact that his skill set is so special allows him to be built/skilled in many different ways in order to be effective. As Razor's source of damage mostly comes from Static Link, plus the nice use of Unstable Current makes him a more of a tanky carry than a DPS one like most carries used to.

Here are the guys that Razor can be effective against:



Yep, you got the point, they can't move that quickly and are all great targets for Razor to steal out their damage. Support heroes in the early game are also considerable targets.

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The ones you can't quite deal with



Well they got some kind of escape mechanisms to run away from you/your Static Link. Dealing with them will be quite difficult unless you got a good disabler to pair up with.

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Your perfect companion:



Well, one of the most popular support heroes right now, works just perfectly right with Razor. He got a disable ( Nightmare), a nuke/heal for himself ( Brain Sap), a damage reducer that weakens your target even more after you've already stolen all their damage ( Enfeeble), and most important, a lockdown that goes through BKB as well ( Fiend's Grip). The good just gets much much better.



Another nice support to pair up with our Razor. Again, with a disabler ( Magic Missile), a nuke that reduce armor and gives vision ( Wave of Terror), an aura which buffs up the whole team's damage ( Vengeance Aura), and one crucial positional skill Nether Swap, you just can't run away, really !



A nice guy that just about anyone would love to be pair up with. A heal/nuke ( Shadow Wave), a slow then leads to a stun ( Poison Touch), a buff which helps you run away in crucial moments while being ganked/focused in teamfights or diving towers ( Shallow Grave). Then here comes the ultimate that weakens the opponent then transfers it to you and your team ( Weave).



Continuing the support pair up, again with some sort of slow and disable from Frostbite and Crystal Nova, a mana regeneration source from Arcane Aura to solve out your mana problem. Overall another nice choice


Of course there are tons of options out there, feel free to try and use it based on how the game goes on. Those 4 above are my preference of support with Razor

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Your nemesis:

doom bringer

Well it's kinda tough to really class this big guy to be a big opponent of our Razor. But certainly Doom Bringer got some tricks in his sleeves to really shut you down. He can farm quickly with Devour, plus getting the skill from any creeps that he devoured, LVL? Death really hurts a lot if using in the right level, Scorched Earth to run away or chase you down, and of course Doom itself, makes Razor become like nothing at all.



You wouldn't want him to be on the opposite team while playing Razor. Like really, he can spam his silence Bloodrage frequently, can stand in lane easily against you with Blood Bath, chase you down with ease because of Thirst. Finally, Rupture will lock you down in one dead place if you don't want to die out from its effect, which is the worst thing can happen with Razor as he needs to move in and out a lot to keep up his Static Link and Eye of the Storm.



A bit of words from myself. Viper is my most played hero in Dota 2 (well just ~120 out of 600+ games so far, yes I don't play Dota 2 that frequently). Then I realize that this is one of a big counters to Razor. He can harass you easily with orb-walking of Poison Attack especially in lvl 3+, Nethertoxin simply peels into your not-so-big HP, Corrosive Skin makes it hard to chase him down, and Viper Strike, just plain more slow and damage. Personally I find both Viper and Razor very similar as building them tanky is a definitely good way to make them efficient. This matchup is quite interesting indeed.



Another special mention here, Riki is one threat that you need to look out for. As he reaches level 6, unless you got some ways to detect invisibility, then you are having a big trouble. He pop out of Permanent Invisibility. drop down the Smoke Screen to silence/slow you, after that he just slice and slice with his bonus damage from Backstab until you're dead. Combining together with a Diffusal Blade, there's very little chance you can survive a Riki's attack.



Well, the nature of Razor is to counter carry right ? Sniper is one of the harder one to really really do it. He starts out shooting from so far away in the battlefield because of his amazing range thanks to Take Aim, then he slows you down with his Headshot + Shrapnel, and then after you've taken enough damage, he'll finish you off with one Assassinate in your face. Be careful of that little dwarf guy :)



A very high level, top pick in competitive scene, Batrider himself is already very annoying to deal with as being an extremely mobile ganking hero. You can't run into or away from him because of Sticky Napalm and Flamebreak, not to mention Firefly, catching him is near impossible if he also got Force Staff, Blink Dagger, etc ... His ultimate Flaming Lasso is a pain in the butt as well, renders you useless. That's all

I read your guide, and still lose!?

Blame your freaking teammates, man! ;) :D
Nah, just kidding.
The reason why I want to include this section is to share with you guys a little work that you should do regularly if you want to improve your Dota skill. No matter it's a win or a loss, look back at the replays of previous games you played. See if you can find any weaknesses, errors in item purchasing or decision making in-game that costs you the game. Should I pick something else rather than Razor since the whole team is crowded with carries like Anti-Mage, Phantom Assassin, Faceless Void, ... ? Or being too inactive in lane, leaving yourself opened to ganks from the opposing team ? Not pushing the lane while the other team is 4 man down ? Personally myself, sometimes I still have those kinds of mistakes randomly. It's hard to really ease them down. Dota is indeed a competitive game of skill and teamwork, so it's not a bad idea to look back your old games. One more thing also, try to watch the games from the competitive pro-scene, you can definitely learn a lot more from the very best players in the world. My personal favorite website about Dota 2 is joindota.com, you can find news, articles about the game itself, the current pro scene, plus livestreams from countless leagues and cups, also from some pro gamers themselves (I do know Dotafire also have it ;). Hopefully those points will further help you sharpening your Dota skill and make you an even better player!

Changelog

• Feb 28 2014: First time that the guide is updated. After some inputs/comments from some very nice guys, I removed Vanguard and Tranquil Boots because it's not that good anymore right now. Plus the addition of Bracer and Drum of Endurance since those 2 are very popular among Razor players as of now. As well as some small grammatical errors.
• Mar 1 2014: Added a new chapter called "I read your guide, and still lose!?"
  Plus some of my personal reference late game item builds.
• May 27th 2014: Re-done some formatting and build orders.
• Aug 22nd 2014: Removed Skill Build/Item Build section. Updated Skill Build/Item Build on the top of the guide ;)