SoIMBA.Com's Wisp Guide, This Ball is Making Me Testy

Introduction to the Author

Hey guys, Airwave here. I've been playing games of the MOBA/DotA genre for the majority of the past four years, first in HoN and most recently in DotA2. In Heroes of Newerth I was an 1850-1900 MMR hard support player with 57-60 percent win in public matchmaking. More recently I've been a member of the teams CoN2 and Team Jacob as their offlane solo player while maintaining a 55+ percent win rate in the "very high" matchmaking bracket while also (as of 2/10) being rated 4352 in TMM, good for 50something in the world. This guide will be part of a longer series as I attempt to write a guide for every hero in the DotA2 hero pool. In this guide I will explain my primary Wisp build while also going into the nuts and bolts of my item build and most importantly, how I play Wisp.

Introduction to Wisp

Wisp is an extremely unique and powerful support hero who can have a massive impact on the game, both positively and negatively. Wisp is unique for a variety of reasons, he has a skill set unlike any other hero in the game, he's a ranged strength support hero and most importantly he/she/it is a ball of light that beeps and boops in a manner similar to R2-D2. Being a good wisp player requires good communication with teammates, quick thinking and superb game sense. With Tether and Relocate Wisp offers top tier manueverability to himself and (typically) your teams primary carry while also offering extra time and room for your carry to farm (similar to how Morphling can use Replicate, but more on this later).

Pros and Cons

Pros:

+Relocate has a plethora of powerful uses (offense, defense, initiation, escape, ganking)
+Tether regen allows for hit trading/spamming in lane
+Spirits is capable of dealing very high damage if used correctly
+Overcharge allows your carry to carry harder
+Global presence thanks to Relocate

Cons:

-Lacklustre lane presence due to low base damage and the lack of a reliable nuke or stun.
-Needs level six to maximize presence
-Requires extremely strong communication amongst yourself and teammates
-Requires good team synergy in order to maximize effect on the game.

Skill Build with Explanation

[Q] Tether:
Tether, Wisp's stun, links wisp to an allied unit granting both Wisp and the tethered unit 20% extra movement speed. Furthermore, any enemy unit that passes through the tether is stunned. While Tether can be used offensively as a stun, it offers incredible defensive and escape capabilities for Wisp in two very distinct ways. Firstly, any regen used on Wisp while Tether is active will also apply to the tethered unit x 1.5 the original amount. This makes items like Urn of Shadows or Mekansm or spells like Chakra Magic and Hand of God exceptionally more powerful while Wisp is around. Secondly, Wisp can tether to any allied unit from up to 1800 units away, allowing Wisp to escape from difficult spots in a pinch.

[W] Spirits:
The nuke, albeit an unreliable one, is Wisps primary form of damage and harass while in lane. When the ability is cast five balls of light will begin to surround wisp in a circle, dealing 8/14/20/26 damage to any enemy creeps it passes through and 25/50/75/100 damage to any hero it comes in contact with, exploding on touch (thus dealing the damage in a small AoE). The spirits also provide vision in a small area around them so they can act as a very poor excuse for wards in a pinch. While Spirits can be a tricky spell to land, it has fantastic range and can also be used in combination with a tether stun (while the spirits are closest to you) to ensure their damage.

[E] Overcharge:
A toggled ability that grants increased attack speed and damage reduction at the cost of 3.5% of Wisps maximum health and mana per second. This ability is extremely helpful and potent towards the late-game and allows strength carries to carry into the late-late phase, even against the hardest of agility carries. Overcharge is also useful because in order to heal an ally with tether Wisp must be below maximum health, overcharge allows for this to happen without dispelling items like Healing Salve or Clarity. Overcharge can also be quickly toggled to activate while projectiles are in the air, such as a tower hit or Assassination.

[R] Relocate:
Wisps trademark skill. Relocate teleports Wisp and any tethered ally to any spot on the map after a 2-2.5 second delay, returning them both to their original point after 12 seconds. Relocate has a variety of purposes and allows your team to play a 3+2 playstyle, giving your carry both more space and more time to farm (similar to how Morphling can use Replicate to be present in a fight without sacrificing farming time). I'll go deeper into Relocate and all of its uses later in the guide. One important thing to note about Relocate is that it's not actually a channel but a countdown, meaning that you can move/cast/etc. while relocate is counting down.

Item Build Explained: How to Become a Pokemon Center

When I play Wisp all of my core items offer some benefit to my teammates, as well as myself. My team has nicknamed our Wisp as a "walking aid station" and "hovering Pokemon Center". This is because during the mid-game Wisp can replenish a depleted ally in an instant once he gets a few of his important items.

This is a relatively standard starting build for most support heroes. I start with three branches, although this can be replaced with a gauntlet of strength if you want to rush out an Urn of Shadows. If you do decide to go three branches they'll build into your Magic Wand. Besides that you'll buy either chick or wards for your team, along with a fair amount of regen. If you're laning with a hero such as Keeper of the Light you can get an extra set of tangos instead of two claritys. Regardless, this is a bread and butter build that you can tweak according to your preferences.

Obviously Boots of Speed is a standard laning item on any hero, but I really like rushing out an Urn of Shadows after basic boots. Besides the obvious heal effect it provides, I find that in a typical Wisp support lane you'll be able to get your Urn around the time you hit six, giving you the chance to assert your global ganking presence and get some charges for your Urn. One successful gank gives your Urn two charges, allowing you to play more aggressively once you return to the lane at the conclusion of Relocate.

I mentioned three items in the situational portion of the item build and I'll explain when I'd get each here. Soul Ring is not an item I like and I will only get it if I already have Tranquil Boots. For 800 gold I'd rather work towards building my Mekansm but if I'm laning with a hero who's super mana dependent and is constantly spamming I will occasionally build Soul Ring. For 800 gold I'd rather just save for 200 more and get Arcane Boots or do a Tranquil/Arcane disassemble split (with the pieces of Tranq turning into Mek eventually). Magic Wand is cheap and effective although it won't provide as strong of an effect as Tranqs/SoulRing/Arcanes/Bottle. Bottle is another item that I think is moderately expensive for Wisps early game but can be great if:
A) you get it early (i.e. first blood money allows for a sub three minute bottle)
B) are in a very aggressive lane (I really like bottle in aggro trilanes)
C) you don't have a mid who needs/uses bottle (i.e. Invoker)
Bottle is good and provides both health and mana, although neither in excess.

Wisp will almost always be cash strapped early game and I try to rush out a Mek ASAP. Basically extra gold + aggressive lane = get one of the situational items as you see fit.



Since I received this question I figured here would be a good place to explain it. Essentially you keep the parts for both Tranquil Boots (RoP/Ring of Regen) and Arcane Boots (Energy Booster) and alternate boots depending on cooldown. So I usually keep my boots as Tranquil until Arcane would come off cooldown, I quickly switch to Arcanes, use the active ability and switch back to Tranquils. I will do this for two reasons, first it gives you two activate boot abilities, both of which are useful, and the expensive piece of Tranquil Boots build into Mekansm, my first big item.

My core items usually involve the Arcane/Tranq split while rushing a Mekansm. Mekansm is amazing on Wisp, even more so than it is on your typical support hero. Tether allows for single target healing of 625 on a single target, in addition to the standard 250 it provides to everyone else in the area. Needless to say, 625 health during the mid-game is a massive chunk of any players health.


After Mekansm my next item is usually specific to the game and the troubles that my team is facing. In a game where positioning is a problem I'll usually go Force Staff since it's both cheap and extremely effective. If the other team has a carry who's focusing me immediately down in fights (someone like Naix or CK) I'll get an early Ghost Scepter to offset their effect. Eul's Scepter of Divinity provides even more movespeed to a mobile little ball, with some good regen/int, which doesn't even mention that fantastic defensive capabilities that Eul's effect provides. Pipe of Insight is not an item I usually pick up on Wisp but if nobody on your team has one yet it's worth the investment.


Typically you'll never get this level of farm on Wisp, but if you do you have a few different options that will benefit both yourself and your carry. Heart of Tarrasque is my preferred super-expensive item since the life regen it can provide your carry is immense while also making Wisp much more difficult to kill. Shiva's Guard serves a similar purpose to Heart in that it makes Wisp a more difficult kill target while also providing a good anti-carry tool. That being said, I prefer Heart's effect. Scythe of Vyse is probably your best option, especially if you're not just concerned with helping a carry survive. Scythe lacks the survivability bonus that Shiva's/Heart provides but the lockdown is superb. Heaven's Halberd is a good mix of lockdown and health/survivability for Wisp (while also being much cheaper), although you need to get in melee range in order to activate it's effect.

Relocate and You: One Skill, Many Uses

Relocate is amazing. When used correctly it can turn well protected enemies into easy ganks, allow for quick escapes and even initiate fights with a huge teamfight ult (such as Echo Slam or Epicenter). For me Relocate has four primary purposes:

The easiest and simplest way to use Relocate is to gank another lane. If you're laning with a carry who's capable of cc'ing or dealing damage early you can tether up and head to either lane, get into a good position and (hopefully) execute a gank. Be prepared for the enemy to move back as soon as they see your TP indicator on their minimap, something that you can account for by leading with your TP target and communicating with your teammate that they need to initiate the fight (or at least be prepared to follow up). Communication is unbelievably important on Wisp and it's part of what makes the hero have such a huge risk/reward.

This doesn't mean that you'll escape, you will die, albeit twelve seconds after your cast. Using relocate to escape means tethering to one of your allies who's getting ganked/about to die and relocating them back to to base. Yes, you will probably die as a result, but it's much better to only lose one hero, especially a support. Just remember to break the tether or else the hero you just saved will die along with you.


This is a hero specific purpose but relocate can be used in conjunction with a big team fight ult to wreak havok. Heroes such as Sand King, Earthshaker, Magnus and Enigma can all make use of relocate to turn the tide of an early teamfight, especially useful if they don't yet have a Blink Dagger. While relocate is by no means a substitute for Blink, it can act as well as one if timed and used well.


The 3+2 style is a mid/mid-late strategy that involves having three heroes push out one lane while Wisp and (usually) your hard carry push out a different lane or farm a specific area of the map. This gives your carry significantly more time to farm, especially if you find yourself being stonewalled at an outer tower. Another benefit is that your carry will usually miss the opening onslaught of spells that typically mark the beginning of a fight. While this is a really powerful strategy, it isn't without flaws. For one, you need to react quickly and relocate in as soon as you notice the other team hard committing to an engagement. Secondly, a team can bait out the relocate without hard initiating forcing your team to either:
A - initiate before relocate comes back up
B - fight a 4v5 (without Wisp)
C - retreat (usually the best idea)

Friends and Enemies of Wisp

Wisp is immensely powerful during the mid to late game, especially for a support, but he usually struggles as a lone support in lane. Here I'll list some of the supports that Wisp excels with in a trilane and some of the carries that he most benefits.

Without a reliable nuke Wisp must rely on others to output damage. Keeper of the Light is another (currently) top tier support hero who works terrifically well with Wisp for two reasons. Being able to double shot Chakra Magic is fantastic in a trilane while Illuminate makes up for a lot of the damage that Wisp is missing. Other nuke-heavy heroes such as Leshrac, Crystal Maiden and Lina work very well with Wisp since they're able to follow up stun while also outputting a fair amount of damage.


Wisp is primarily used to boost the effectiveness of strength carries, especially ones who are effective gankers. Wisp's most notable game was during The International 2 when EHome used a Wisp/Tiny strategy to eventually outcarry a Morphling (for those of you who don't know, Morphling was the best hero in the game at this point while doubling as one of the strongest carries). Heroes like Naix, Tiny and Chaos Knight are the ideal partners to lane with because they all offer so form of CC, become very potent gankers once Wisp hits six and benefit greatly from overcharge's effect. Faceless Void, a hero who doesn't benefit nearly as much from all that Wisp has to offer can also do well with Wisp since Wisp offers Void the two things I think he needs most (survivability and attack speed).

Tips and Tricks

- While Wisp needs to be below max health in order for regen to be passed from Wisp to a tether, the same does not apply for mana. Even if Wisp is at full mana both Chakra Magic and {[Arcane Boots]] will give mana to Wisp and the tethered target.
- Tether can be used on creeps if you need something to latch onto either to escape a gank or guarantee a stun.
- Spirits do hit invisible targets, if you're afraid of a ganking BH/Nyx/Clinkz etc. you can activate Spirits as a precautionary measure to hit them while they're invis, thus alerting you to their presence.

Addendum and Updates

2/13/13 - First draft is written
2/21/13 - Second draft is completed and published