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3 Votes

The Chronicle of : Enigma

December 11, 2013 by Gahruga
Comments: 8    |    Views: 15763    |   


Item and Skill Build

DotA2 Hero: Enigma




Hero Skills

Gravity Well (Innate)

Malefice

2 4 7 8

Demonic Summoning

1 3 13 14

Midnight Pulse

5 9 10 12

Black Hole

6 11 16

Talents

15 17 18

Introduction

Good morning, everyone! It's a beautiful morning right here, and why not use that to make a guide to such a brilliant hero? People keep saying that Enigma is a hard hero to use (basically because of his ultimate, Black Hole), but I disagree. He is a lot of fun, and with a little confidence and some balls, you can do fine with Enigma.



Listen to his folklore:
"In truth, Enigma is a mystery for whom the only true biography is description: he is a universal force, a consumer of worlds. He is a being of the void, at times corporeal, other times ethereal. A beast between the planes."

Sounds badass, does it? How come you don't want to play a hero that sounds so badass like that? ;)

So, let's get started.

Enigma's Yin and Yang

PROS:
* Ultimate is one of the best disabling skill in the game.
* Ultimate goes through magic immunity (including BKB)
* His Eidolons are great farming tools, so will get Dagger in no time
* Pretty nice animation of Black Hole.
* Less item dependence.

CONS:
* Even though ultimate is one of the best disabling skill, it is hard to do.
* Very mana dependence.
* Lack of escaping mechanism.


So, when to pick Enigma?

PICK WHEN:
* your team lack of disabler
* there are a lot of melee in enemies' team
* it looks like your enemies will make BKB as their item
* you have a lot of balls.
* you like astronomy, universe and stuffs.

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PICK, WHEN:
* so many range heroes in enemies' side
* your fingers are slow
* you don't have any balls


Roles
* Carry? BIG NO.
* Semi carry? What?
* Support? Yes, indeed.
* Ganker? His spells suit this role greatly.
* Pusher? You can do that.

Skills Explanation



MALEFICE
This skill is mainly used for teamfight and ganking. At maximum level, it gives you 3 times stuns (each 1 second stun), which gives you total 3 seconds. There are 2 seconds interval between the stun, so beware of what your enemies will do between those intervals. Since it is a great team fight tool, you should max it out first.

Demonic Conversion

DEMONIC CONVERSION
Your main tool for jungling, pushing, and last-hitting on lanes. It is also useful for harassing enemies, as your Eidolons do pretty high damage. At maximum level, each of your Eidolons do 51 damage; there will be 3 Eidolons instantly, so total you can produce 51x3=153 damage, JUST from your Eidolons. Nice, right?



MIDNIGHT PULSE
Before patch 6.79, I always take this skill after stats (at late game), because it is basically only useful when your enemies have high HP. But now, this skill also affects the ultimate, so I can't ignore this one. Besides, you can cut down trees with this skill, so heroes who get benefit from trees (such as Broodmother and Timbersaw) become more helpless.

P.S.: I hate its animation. It produces such a buzzing sound and makes me dizzy.



BLACK HOLE
Your bread-and-butter skill. This skill separates between a good Enigma user and a not one. The greatest things about this skill are that first, this ultimate goes through BKB (magic immunity). And second, it has HUGE area, so you don't have to be very precise to cast this spell. One thing to note is that this skill is channeling type, so you have to remain standing still while you are casting Black Hole.

Items Explanation

STARTING ITEMS

Courier
If you pick Enigma, the normal respond from your team is: "Enigma, courier please." Don't be mad at them, you may buy it, unless there is another support who is very kind to buy courier. But this thing rarely happens in pubs. Every one wants to be carry. *sigh

Mantle of Intelligence
Good to boost up your mana pool.

Clarity
After buying courier and mantle, you may spend the rest of your gold to buy Clarity as much as possible. It will be useful to cast your spells and stay longer on lane/jungle or whatever role you take.


EARLY ITEMS

Boots of Speed
Standard item for every hero. It will be upgraded to Arcane Boots.

Ring of Basilius
Great for armor boost and mana regeneration. Commonly used for pushing play purpose, and also useful for strengthen your Eidolons in the jungle. As comparison, Eidolons can only last 1 Neutral Creep camp when I dont have Ring Basilius, but when I have it my Eidolons can last for average 2 camps.

Soul Ring
this little guy is always a nice thing to have. You can gain benefit from its HP and mana regen, but what give you the most is for its 150 instant mana supply. It is a good thing to have this item before Arcane, as it is more cheaper to buy.


CORE ITEMS

Arcane Boots
Enigma depends on his mana A LOT, because his spells consume high mana. So he needs the boots pair that can add his mana pool.

Blink Dagger
When enemies see you, it always means one thing: "Black Hole ***in! Run for your life guys!" If you walk onto them, they will run away from you (or in worse case they will silence and kill you first), and you never will be able to cast a single Black Hole in entire game. So Blink Dagger is very very important for this reason. Jump right onto the middle enemies' team, and boom! There your Black Hole goes (that's why I mentioned before if you don't have balls you can not play this hero).


SITUATIONAL ITEMS

Black King Bar
You will meet two or more situations where you have to cast Black Hole right away (because your team is in danger or it is a good position to catch enemies' carry with your Black Hole), BUT you can see there is still one disabler hero who can interrupt your Black Hole, standing out of your Black Hole range. So you must buy this item, it will render you immune to magic, so your Black Hole will not be interrupted.

Mekansm
Enigma can do well as support, so Mekans is a good item to get for supports. It heals 250 HP (which is very crucial in life-or-death situation) and add bonus 2 armor for 25 seconds. You can skip buying Black King Bar if your enemies' side lacks of disabler.

Bloodstone
Amazing item for boosting your surviving capability. It gives you huge HP and mana pool, and also grants a huge 200% mana regeneration, 9 HP regen, and +10 damage.

Refresher Orb
Sometimes the game just has gone too late, and you realize you need to extend the disabling effect from Black Hole. Two times well placed Black Hole can never go wrong.

Shiva Guard
Besides boosting your armor and mana capability, the good thing about this item is that you can activate this item without interrupting your Black Hole.

Radiance
Now whoever being catch up at the edge of Black Hole also get damage.


JUST FOR FUN

Shadow Blade
Dagger -> Black Hole -> Shadow Blade. It is always fun to disappear after casting Black Hole and see your enemies left confused.

Laning/Jungling

Consider yourself jungling, if :
* you want to get Blink Dagger as fast as you can
* You want to play late, and you don't want to rush down enemy's towers as soon as possible.
* there is one hero in your team who can do offlane (who can take one lane all by himself)

Consider yourself laning, if:
* you want to play fast and take down towers as fast as possible.
* your offlane team mate doesn't do well in his lane; go help him.
* you want to help harassing enemy's carry.
* you dont want to rush down towers, but you want to play support.

Teamwork

First thing that you have to do is focusing on getting level 6 as fast as you can. By level 6, usually there will be several team fights, and your ultimate makes huge different for turning the tide of the battle. You can do that by going jungle or mid lane (but you are highly recommended to go to side lanes, for supporting the side lane you take).

Once you get level 6, be prepared to do some ganks. Get the benefit of your ultimate. It is a good thing for having heroes that can do initiating without Blink Dagger such as Axe, Elder Titan, or Venomancer. Always get behind those heroes, unless you want to see them running away from you or doing something bad to you. Let them do the initiating, and when you are close enough to enemies, lock them up with your ultimate. It is a good thing to focus on locking their support and letting them useless, because once you fail the Black Hole, you have to wait for long time (about 3 minutes!) to get on your next Black Hole. But don't worry, the area of Black Hole is big, so you should not have a hard time to find your locking targets.

But if you don't have friends who can do initiating first instead of you, you can start the ganking by casting your Malefice. Stun them, and close your distance. It's better if you can sneak behind and surprise them. In many cases, you will be confused which hero should be stunned by you. Basically, you should cast Malefice on whoever can stun you back/disable you; but you will know better if get practice casting the Malefice.



One important to note: never gank alone. Never ever.

Let's say for the worst that what you get from your ganks are failures and more failures. Dpn't worry. Twice you get failed to gank, stop it. Stop feeding your enemy. You better go farming again, rush your Blink Dagger.

By the time you have Blink Dagger, your enemy is also ready up for teamfights. And when this time comes, go buy some Observer Wards, put them into several main spots for ganking, and do the first move. Even though Black Hole can be used to counter-initiate enemies, but it always better to plan the attack first. Don't let your enemy do something bad on you first, otherwise you can't manage your spells well and your Black Hole can't reach its maximum teamfight potential.

Another thing that I like from Black Hole is that this ultimate stays useful until late game. In late game, usually all carries have Black King Bar (so your team spells are useless) and high damage output. If you need something that can prevent them from happening and want to kill them first, Black Hole is all you need. Just make sure that your friends are right behind you to finish them off while you are casting your Black Hole. If your friends can not follow up your ultimate well, it is a huge advantage for your enemy, and they can wipe your team easily.

Best Friends , Worst Foes.

BEST FRIENDS.

are they who can deal huge damage output while you cast Black Hole, such as:

Shadow Fiend

Gyrocopter

Lich

Earthshaker

Warlock

Outworld Devourer Outworld Devourer

or the one who can help you to gather enemies in one group and help you to initiate, such as:

Dark Seer

Magnus

Naga Siren

WORST FOES.

Your ultimate means nothing to them.

Rubick. The most annoying thing is looking YOU ARE INSIDE Black Hole.

Anti Mage. Your friends have to finish him off quickly, otherwise he blinks away after your Black Hole, and getting stronger time after time your team fail to kill him.

Silencer. The worst thing is that he is ranged hero, so you need extra effort to jump right onto him and lock him up first. And also if you don't have BKB, your Black Hole can be interrupted by his Global Silence (his silence can't go though your BKB effect). But, if you have BKB and you get silenced before your Black Hole, you can pop up your BKB to get rid off the silence effect.

Vengeful Spirit, and Beastmaster. Both of their ultimate can go through your BKB, and they can cast it from range.

Closing Statements

There are stories that say he was once a great alchemist who tried to unlock the secrets of the universe and was cursed for his arrogance. Other legends tell that he is an ancient being of strange gravity, the abyss personified�a twisted voice from out the original darkness, before the first light in the universe. And there are older legends that say he is the first collapsed star, a black hole grown complicated and sentient�his motivations unknowable, his power inexorable, a force of destruction unleashed upon existence itself.


Enigma is a fun hero to play, yet need some practices to master his Ultimate. But once you master it, nothing will stop you. Nice feedback and comments are highly appreciated. Thank you, and happy Black Hole-ing.

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