Some Say the World Will End in Fire, Sounds all Right to me! Support Lina Guide (Updated Build for 6.84!)

Welcome!

Hello everyone! This is my second guide I have made thus far, and this one is about Lina!

Hope you enjoy, and I hope you can learn something out of this guide. Any suggestions or things you think I should fix, just put down in the comments.

About Lina

Lina is a ranged intelligence hero, who specialises in large burst damage on low cooldowns. She can be played a support or semi-carry depending on your play style.

She is a fairly weak hero, with low strength and agility gain, but makes up for it with a large intelligence gain.

I'll tell you more in detail about her skills later, but if you were to combo all of her skills together at level 6 to one target, you would deal a whopping 820 damage (which goes down to 615 after base resist reduction.) Most heroes hp levels at lvl 6 range from about 700-1000+, so this burst damage takes a huge portion of health from their hp pools.

Lore

The sibling rivalries between Lina the Slayer, and her younger sister Rylai, the Crystal Maiden, were the stuff of legend in the temperate region where they spent their quarrelsome childhoods together. Lina always had the advantage, however, for while Crystal was guileless and naive, Lina's fiery ardor was tempered by cleverness and conniving. The exasperated parents of these incompatible offspring went through half a dozen homesteads, losing one to fire, the next to ice, before they realized life would be simpler if the children were separated. As the oldest, Lina was sent far south to live with a patient aunt in the blazing Desert of Misrule, a climate that proved more than comfortable for the fiery Slayer. Her arrival made quite an impression on the somnolent locals, and more than one would-be suitor scorched his fingers or went away with singed eyebrows, his advances spurned. Lina is proud and confident, and nothing can dampen her flame.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Huge burst damage.
• Good intelligence gain.
• Great level 1 nuke damage.
• Abilities all scale well.
• Strong ganking abilities

Cons

• Really low hp and low strength gain.
• Suffers from some mana issues early game.
• Stun can be hard to land.
• Falls off quite hard late game.
• Can't do much when silenced

Item Builds

Aa with every hero in DotA 2, items are incredibly important, allowing you to further enhance your heroes power.

Starting Items

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Clarity potions are consumables that restore your mana faster over a period of time once used. It takes a little while for the potion effect to finish, so be careful, as enemies can damage you in order to end the effect early.


Healing Salves are consumables that restore a large amount of health to you over a short period of time. They work similarly to clarity potions and can be canceled early if you take damage. They are not necessary to buy at the start of the, and often times you will already have spent all of your money on other support items.


Tangos are consumables that restore a small portion of health over a period of time, to use one you have to target a tree, which in turn will destroy said tree. These are generally always bought early game by almost every hero in the game. They are used for sustain in lane and unlike Clarity potions or healing salves the effect cannot be canceled by taking damage. For each Tango you purchase you will be given a stack of four, allowing you to regain a total of 500 hp if all of them are used one after the other. They also can be used simply to destroy trees, which believe it or not can get you out of a lot of sticky situations.


Iron Branches are cheap items which boost each of your stats by 1+ each. They are very cost efficient, and are often bought by many heroes at the start of the game to increase health, mana and damage, allowing you to have a slightly better presence in lane. Buy a couple of these accordingly, depending on how many slots you have left in your inventory, and how much gold you have leftover.

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Early Game Items

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A Bracer is a cheap cost efficient item that boosts stats. Buying one of these is entirely up to you or the lineup you are facing. They are primary bought on squishy heroes who really need a boost to their hp pools.


Boots of Speed are item that are almost required on every hero. They boost your movement speed by 50, which will allow you to move around a lot faster. Depending on how well you are doing (presuming you are playing hard support) you might have boots around the 7 minute mark. Getting a first blood however pretty much grants you enough money for boots right off the bat.


Urn of Shadows is a great item to pick up on heroes who are going to do a lot of ganking and roaming. Each time an enemy hero dies in a 1400 AoE (area of effect) around you, your urn will gain a "charge". Each of these charges can be used to either heal the targeted ally, or apply a DoT (damage over time) effect to the target enemy. The urn however cannot be used if there are no charges, so make sure you go and help gank often to get full usage of your item.

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Boot Choices

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I figured I would make a separate section for boot choices, since I included 3 in the guide.


Arcane Boots provide a bonus to your max mana pool, and have an active effect that restores 135 mana to all units and heroes in an AoE around you. This does have a cooldown though, so still make sure you manage your mana well. Take note that it costs you 35 mana to use this active, so you are essentially only restoring 100 mana to yourself. These boots are most useful when you have other mana hungry heroes on your team, thus making the active more useful.


Phase Boots provide a bonus to your attack damage, increasing it by 24. These boots also have an active effect, Phase. When used, this active will give you "unit walking", which allows you to walk through units instead of being blocked by them, and gives you a percentage movement speed increase. The cooldown is very low, so make sure you use it whenever you can to help move around the map faster.


Power Treads provide an attack speed bonus, as well as +8 of any attribute you desire. By using the active, "tread switch" you can change between Intelligence, Strength and Agility. This can allow you to have more health, mana and even +1 armour if you so desire, at any given time. If you run out of mana for one finishing spell, switch your treads to Intelligence, as it will give you close to 100 more mana for your spell, or switch to Strength to gain some extra hp so you can avoid a killing blow.

Picking boots all depends on the situation, Treads if you need to tank up and extend your mana pool. Phase if you need more speed and right click damage, and Arcanes if you need a larger mana pool and some mana restoration for your team.

P.S I have never tried Tranquil Boots on Lina so I don't know how good they are to buy.

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Mid Game Items

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Eul's Scepter of Divinity is an amazing item. It gives you some mana regen, some intelligence and some movement speed, and that's just the beginning!
Eul's Scepter has a great active called "Cyclone". Cyclone lifts you or a target enemy into the air for 2.5 seconds, where they can't be attacked or attack. Using Eul's on an enemy almost guarantees that you can land a Light Strike Array, if you can time it right. Eul's also purges off debuffs from you, allowing you to remove things like slows, silences etc. It's mana cost got increased, so you will struggle more with mana from the combo. It is still worth buying in almost every case, however!

Overall it is an incredibly useful item, In my opinion a definite pick up. You can even get normal Brown Boots and then get Eul's first, if you so desire.


Force Staff is an item which gives you some intelligence and health regeneration, but also has a very neat active which pushes you, or any target ally or enemy 900 units in the direction they are facing. You can use this for chasing, positioning yourself, saving allies and even putting enemy heroes out of position and pushing them right into your whole team. This is a good pick up as it helps you become more useful overall.


Blink Dagger is an incredibly versatile item which allows you to "blink" anywhere you click within a 1200 range. It allows you to reposition yourself, follow up on initiations or chase down foes with no escape abilities.

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Late Game Choices

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Aghanim's Scepter is an item which passively upgrades the ultimate abilities of many heroes, Lina is no exception. Lina's Aghanim's upgrade changes her ult damage from magical, to pure. Pure damage is not reduced by magical resistance, so this means you can still heroes with lots of magic resistance hard. It also pierces magic immunity! This means you can still use the spell vs enemies who have Black King Bar or Repel, for example. An incredibly good item that is worthy of being picked up at some point in the game.


Scythe of Vyse is an incredible item that can be targeted on enemies to turn them into a sheep for a few seconds, AKA a hex. While hexed, an enemy moves slower (unless they have haste, or lycan is in ultimate form for example), they are silenced, can't attack and lose passives. Allowing you to destroy them quickly and hassle free. Definitely pick this up later on when you are against heroes who can output massive damage.


Shiva's Guard is a great item that gives you armour and intelligence. It slows attack speed of nearby enemy heroes in an area around you, and has an active effect that releases a wave of frost which will slow and damage enemies nearby. A fantastic item which gives you yet more utility and some tankiness.


Rod of Atos is a good item which provides you with some more hp and some intelligence. It has a special active effect which when used on an enemy, will slow them by 60%! This will help you and your team chase down enemies, or can be used to stop pursuing enemies in their tracks.


Glimmer Cape is a new item added in the most recent patch, 6.84, when used, it provides invisibility after a .4 delay, and bonus 66% magic resistance. If you break the invisibility, (by using spells, items or autoattacking) it will still return after a .4 delay, providing you are still affected by the Glimmer buff. This item is good on almost any support, and is very good on Lina. It allows you to move around in fights undetected while throwing out nukes. Since you are very squishy in nature, this item is very useful, since it can help you stick around in fights undetected.


Octarine Core is a new very expensive item that was added in the 6.84 patch. The item is super expensive, so only grab it as a late game situational. The item provides some meagre stats, but what it does provide, is 25% cooldown reduction on spells, and 25% magic spell steal. So what does this Cooldown Reduction do for Lina? Dragon Slave is reduced to about a 6 second cooldown, Light Strike Array is reduced to about 5 seconds, and Laguna Blade is reduced to about 40/39 seconds(at max level)! Although these cooldown reductions are very useful, the main bonus from this is the spell lifesteal, so what does this do? Spell lifesteal allows you to heal off of a percentage of any spell damage dealt by you. Which means you lifesteal about 250 hp whenever you cast Laguna Blade. The reason this is good is because it helps you stay alive in a fight for much longer, you heal roughly 80 hp from Dragon Slave and 60 from Light Strike Array. These numbers may not seem very high, but coupled with the cooldown reduction it means you can use these spells much more often in fights, therefore healing more from them (effectively). This item is very expensive, but late game if it becomes an option, definitely go for it.

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Support Items

(buy whenever needed)

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The Animal Courier is a required pick up for any support. Couriers can carry items to and from you base after placed, meaning that you won't have to walk back to base in order to pick up your items.


Observer Wards are consumable items commonly bought by Support heroes, they can be placed almost anywhere on the map (provided you are close enough) and will grant a large area of vision wherever they are placed. These are very handy so you can see where your enemies are at all points in the game. You should always buy some at the start of the game to avoid early game ganks from your enemies.


Smoke of Deceit is a consumable which provides bonus movement speed and invisibility to any nearby hero when used. The effect wear off after 35 seconds, or whenever you come in 1025 range of an enemy hero or tower. This is primarily used for ganking, since the invisibility hides you from wards. When ganking as Lina, if possible it is sometimes better to pair up with another hero with a reliable lockdown so you can hit an easier stun.


Sentry Wards are consumables very similar to Observer Wards, but have very different effects. To use one, simply select the ward and choose where you want to place it. Sentry Wards detect invisible units and heroes, making these incredibly useful items to buy at any stage in the game, if possible always make sure you or another support purchase some of these at the start of the gane.

But the wonders of this item never cease! Wards become invisible after being placed, which is true of observer wards also, placing a sentry ward will allow you to see invisible wards that have been placed by the enemy. Revealing and destroying these wards is called "dewarding". Dewarding is incredibly useful, as it removes the enemy's vision of the areas they have warded, allowing your team to be able to move around the map more freely out of sight.


The Flying Courier is an upgrade to the previously bought Animal Courier. As the name suggests this upgrade allows your courier to fly, granting it more movement speed, the ability to pass over impassable terrain, and a boost ability which allows the courier to move at incredible speeds for a short amount of time. The flying courier should be bought around the 4 minute mark, if possible.

Skill Overview

Lina has a very amazing skill set, so I would like to go over it in detail:

Dragon Slave

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Lina channels the breath of a dragon, sending out a wave of fire that scorches everything in it's path.

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Notes:

• Can hit targets up to 1275 units away.
• Does not provide vision.

We max Dragon Slave first because the damage scales better, is easier to apply and it has an incredible range. Use this to harass in lane, and spam it as much as possible in teamfights.

Light Strike Array

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Summons a column of flames that damages and stuns enemies.

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Notes:

• Destroys trees in its area of effect.

We max Light Strike Array second, because it doesn't scale incredibly well, although it can stun for a total of 2.5 seconds at max level which is really great.

Fiery Soul

Type: Targets:

Passive Self

Grants bonus attack and movement speed each time Lina casts a spell. Stacks with itself up to 3 times. Lasts for 10 seconds.

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Notes:

• Using items does not trigger Fiery Soul
• At 3 stacks the buff grants 15%/18%/21%/24% movement speed and 120/165/210/255 attack speed.

We max Fiery Soul last, as it will prove most powerful later on in the game when you acquire decent right click damage.

Laguna Blade

Type: Targets:

Targeted Enemy Units

Fires off a bolt of lightning at a single enemy unit, dealing massive damage.

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Notes:

• Has a .25 delay before damage is applied, meaning this skill can be dodged by certain abilities if done correctly.

Laguna Blade is an incredibly powerful skill which has a short cooldown. Feel free to use this to nuke down any hero you find, since the cooldown isn't long enough to justify saving it for certain targets early game.

How to Play at Various Stages of the Game.

Early game

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In the early stages of the game you should be focusing on harassing enemies and denying creeps, if you are baby sitting a carry.

But to bring out the full potential of Lina you need to actively gank other lanes.

"Ganking" means to roam to other lanes in order to assist your team in getting early kills and getting an advantage for their lanes.
When ganking often, or "roaming", you generally won't have a specific lane to stay around in, but remember you can still gank frequently even if you are babysitting a carry, just ask yourself "am I needed in this lane?"
If the answer is no, then head to another lane and ask that same question.
If the answer is yes, then stick around and try to get kills for your team.

When roaming you will generally be at an Experience and Level disadvantage, but if successful in your ganks, you will often have a lot of gold handy.
Whether you roam or not is all depending on how your lanes are working, if your carry is struggling to get farm and is being pushed out of lane, it's sometimes good to stick around and help make sure they don't get pushed out of lane.

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Mid Game

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When the mid game arrives you will start seeing some early fights and tower pushes occurring. Make sure you participate in fights and sieges as mush as you possibly can, because early game you are at your strongest, so make sure you are getting the most out of your abilities.

When a fight is happening, make sure you try to land a Light Strike Array on as many heroes as possible, this way you will get an advantage in the fight, then it comes down to... Who do I Laguna Blade?
Generally you'll want to focus down the enemy carry, most carrys early game are quite weak, so nuking them down as much as possible will kill, or remove them from the fight, allowing your team to win.

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Late Game

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Late game will be when your power drops off, but this doesn't mean you are worthless! When fights break out, make sure you stay as far back as possible and throw out your spells as much as possible, as previously said, make sure you focus down the main damage dealer on the team, the sooner you can remove them from the fight, the better.
Ganking is still an option late game too, buy smoke of deceit and go and gank vulnerable heroes on the map with your teammates, this way you can gain yet more advantages, and put the hero you ganked a little further behind, which is vital in the later stages of the game.

Friends and Foes

Friends

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Lina pairs well together with heroes with reliable stuns, which will allow her to follow up with an easier light strike array.

Examples of this are:




etc. Any hero with a 100% guaranteed stun is great to lane with.

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She also works well with heroes with heavy slows, which also allows you to aim Light Strike Array a little better.

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And she is also good in lane with hard carrys who don't possess much ability to kill heroes on their own early game. Lina has about enough damage solo to reduce targets to minimal hp, allowing said hard carrys to get kills easily.

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Foes

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Lina gets easily destroyed by heroes with huge nuke damage. Lina is incredibly Squishy, so she can be easily killed by heroes with strong burst damage nukes.





If you get hit by a strong disable, you are going to be in quite a bit of trouble, because getting stunned for even a couple of seconds is going to hurt.






Since Lina has no escape mechanism she can easily be chased and killed by heroes with strong gap closing abilities.





Since Lina is a caster, she will struggle with being silenced for long periods of time.





....and



Basically, Lina can get destroyed by a lot of things, from strong Nukes to Long Disables, which is why you have to position yourself quite carefully.

Final Words

Thank you for reading my guide! I hope you learned something from it, and make sure to tell me suggestions or things you don't like in the comments. I will most likely be adding new sections on playstyle and skill and item builds later on.

I used Dr. D's guide for formatting, http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/blog/dr-d/guide-formatting-and-you

and the included skill table sample to make my skill overview section look good.

Thanks for reading!

Bunkansee

Updated a couple of things for 6.84