Support guide to AA

Changelog

06/08/2012 Added vids on supporting and ganking

06/02/2012 Added replay section

05/28/2012 Reworked tri-lane support build (adding more tankiness)

05/23/2012 Added semi-carry build

04/15/2012 Guide posted on DotaFire.com

04/14/2012 Starting writing the guide

Introduction

Welcome to my guide to AA. This is my first guide, so please be tips would be appreciated.
Also, English is not my first language, so please don't mind my grammar.

AA is mostly a very strong utility hero. He has very strong ganks or can support a teammate from a map away.He has underrated strong teamfight, with a 25% magic reduction , a huge ult, and giving his whole team extra 350 damage. He is very good without items, but he is very level dependent.

Pros / Cons

Pros

Global ultimate
Item independent
Some small items benefit him greatly, but he doesn't REQUIRE them
Very strong teamfight
Counter to many of the strong heroes in the current meta
Counter to all heal strats
No one would bother to counter him

Cons

Level dependent
Health and mana issues
Hard to play
Useless if silenced
Weak lane control as supports go
Very situational pick

So when do you pick him?

When to pick

NEVER AS A FIRST PICK
When the opposing team is full of healing heroes
When the opposing team has little mobility
When you have many disables
When you are going for a all global strat

When NOT to pick

When you have no disables
When the opposing team has mass blinks
When the opposing team has mass disables/silences

Skills

I will assume that you already know what AA's skills are and what they do.
If not, go herefor dota2 or here for dota1

Here's a few tips

Cold feet should be casted right after another disable
Cast chilling touch BEFORE you engage
The first spell to cast in the battle is

ice vortex

Try to aim your ult in front of where the enemy hero is

CHILLING TOUCH ONLY WORKS ON HEROES! DON'T GO CREEPING AND CAST CHILLING TOUCH THINKING IT WOULD DO MORE DAMAGE. THE DAMAGE WILL NOT APPLY, BUT THE 15% ATTACK SPEED SLOW WILL!


There's a bunch more, but you should know them if you were interested in AA.

Support

Steps on what to focus:

1.keeping carry safe
2.keeping yourself safe
3.harassing and zoning
4.Pulling creeps
5.Denying

Your harassment is pretty bad as far as supports go, but your attack damage is very high. Keep that in mind!

Concise vid on general supporting

Ganker

AA can't solo gank. You need to get a partner with a reliable disable (ex: shaker, cm).
Don't spend too much time in lane. Start off in a tri-lane. Hit level 3 and go gank.

Gank target list

1.Mid lane (easiest to gank, and one kill usually means won lane)
2.Enemy carry
3.Kill the enemy on your carry's lane
4.Enemy jungler
5.Others (find the easiest lane to gank)

Leave kills for the carries.

The best gank combo is
1. ice vortex
2. partner stun
3. cold feet
4. he dead

Depending on how far away AA is from the gank, you can use your ult to offer supports when you can't be there.

Concise vid on general ganking

Semi-Carry

Even as semi-carry, you still max cold feet first. It's your best skill in lane. Especially since you're going mid lane. ALWAYS GO SOLO MID AS SEMI-CARRY. Just do it. Chilling touch comes before vortex because it just offers more solo damage. Everything else should be self explanatory.

When using chilling touch, don"t forget to hit creeps too. How to use skills is pretty much the same. Don't forget you can farm global with ult.

Items

Support

As the hard-core support, it s your responsibility to buy wards and crow. It is also your responsibility to make sure your carry farms up. IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KILL THE ENEMY CARRY. Leave that to the support-ganker. Since you need to keep your carry alive, wards are a must. Here is an amazing guide to warding. All credits go to Lycan.

You will be staying in lane not farming for a long time, so you will be very poor. Core is boots and a few bracers. The bracers will help you survive a lot in fights. I suggest upgrading into arcane boots later in the game, but power treads work if you still need more hp. Wards and sentries are your responsibility, so you better buy them. You also better always have a tp scroll on you. I put salves in as core because in a teamfight, if an ally gets low, you can salve him up and he can go right back in.

If need be, you are the one who needs to buy the gem and the dust as well as the smoke of deceits.
If you ever have gold to spare, invest into something like a Medallion or a force staff. If they have mass melee heroes, then a force staff could be a good choice.
If you need more hp, upgrade a bracer into a Drums of Endurance.
You can also go Euls if you need another disable and Hex is hoping too much.

But hey, if it's not hoping too much, by all means go into hex. After getting core extention, possible luxury items besides hex are BoT, Veil, Pipe.

Ganker

As a ganker, you WILL get more items. You start off as a support, then at level 3 you go ganking. YOU ARE NOT PLAYING AS THE HARD SUPPORT. Buy the crow, but that's it.
Get boots asap, as well as tp scrolls. Once again, arcane or power treads, but in pubs go ahead for phase.
Go into mek(an overall good utility item) and Force Staff for more mobility. Leave items like urn for your hard support.
Your core extentions are to be aggressive. Rush a hex if you can, if you need more hp go Rod of Atos.
There are many luxury items, so buy what your teams needs.

Semi-Carry

As a semi-carry, you will solo mid. Start off with 3 branches and 1 set of tangoes. Yes, you will have gold left over. Use that to rush a bottle. Ask a support to crow and start bottle crowing. Cold feet to harass. When going semi-carry, you want to take advantage of chilling touch. Necrobook is awesome cause touch affects them too. Drums work great with necro too so get that as well. Midas is optional, but it will help out your farm a lot. The rest of the items are really obvious. Hex, Shiva, etc. Standard caster stuff.

Synergies and Counters

Good allies

1.

Disablers

You work very well with Rhasta or Shaker. Big aoe disable ults like Chrono and Black Hole ensure a good Ice Blast.

2.

Nukers

Nukers combine very well with Ice Vortex.

Bad enemies

Honestly, there aren't many. All I can say is watch out for Silences.
Unlike common belief, I don't think burst heroes are a problem to you, simply because if they launch all their burst on you, they can't kill the carry.

Replays

Here are some nice replays. Some of them are going to be awesome AA skills, others are just epic games with an AA in them :P I'll update list as I get more replays. If you have any good replays, post them in comments :) plz don't pm me, i don't check very often.

EHOME vs DK (prodota 2)

Credits

I'd like to thank Lycan cause I borrowed his guide without his consent (lol).
I'd like to thank IceFrog for being awesome.
I'd like to thank Luminous for being awesome.
I'd like to thank everyone who helps me make my guide better.