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2 Votes

The Dragon Rises

January 27, 2013 by Xenergy
Comments: 3    |    Views: 16273    |   


Hero Build

DotA2 Hero: Dragon Knight




Hero Skills

Dragon Blood (Innate)

Breathe Fire

2 3 5 7

Dragon Tail

1 12 13 14

Wyrm's Wrath

4 8 9 10

Elder Dragon Form

6 11 16

Talents

15 17 18

Introduction

Hi, and welcome to my very first guide on Dragon Knight. Dragon Knight is a strength based hero that has great late-game carry potential. This guide will cover how to play this hero as a hard carry. He has a strong ultimate which allows him to push, farm and teamfight effectively based on its levels. This is the first guide I have made, so any suggestions on how it can be improved are welcome. So without further ado, let's get started.

Pro's and con's of Dragon Knight

Pro's
-Hard to kill with Dragon's blood
-Can push with level 1 ultimate
-Has a high agility gain for a strength hero
-Has a skadi effect on level 3 ultimate
-has the longest level 1 stun in the game
-has a high damage nuke
-Peaks earlier than agility carries

Con's
-Very weak early game
-Has no escape mechanisms
-Below average base movement speed
-Can be outcarried by agility carries late game
-Almost useless in teamfigts without his ultimate

Skill build justification

At level 1, you should take a level of Dragon Tail in case you have an opportunity to get a first blood, or it can also save your life by stunning your attacker. Usually, one point in Dragon Tail is taken and the skill is not leveled until quite a while because of its poor damage and stun duration scaling. Next, depending on the situation, you would max out either Breathe Fire or Dragon Blood. If you take a look at how Breathe Fire scales with levels put into the skill, you'll find that the damage increases drastically per level. Also, the damage is most useful early game, where heroes do not have a lot of health. But if you are having a hard time in lane, you should put points into Dragon Blood for more survivability.

Take your ultimate, Elder Dragon Form at levels 6, 11 and 16. Some people do not take level 2 Elder Dragon Form until much later in the game, as the green dragon's poison attack affects towers, making pushing much easier. However, the red dragon's splash damage is really good for farming and killing ancients, which give you a lot of gold and experience, essential for a hard carry to do well.

Of course, take stats at level 15 and after all your skills are maxed out.

Item Build justification

A Tango, a Healing Salve and 3 Iron Branch are for early regen and the 3 Iron Branch provide cheap stats and can be made into a Magic Wand. A Quelling Blade will help you with your last hitting while a Stout Shield will help against enemy autoattacks.

A Magic Wand is pretty much an item you should get for any hero, as it is really cheap and gives you mana and health every time an enemy casts a spell. And the +3 to all attributes wouldn't hurt either.

Boots of Speed will boost your movement speed, which will be assembled into Power Treads later in the game. Attack speed, ability to manipulate your stats, 55 movement speed, what's not to love about Power Treads?

Getting a Soul Ring will let you spam Breathe Fire for very little mana, at the cost of 150 HP, as well as passively give you a boost to your HP and mana regeneration.

Mid game, buying a Helm of Iron Will will be the first step in aquiring a Helm of the Dominator, which its active ability will allow you to stack ancients with ease. The lifesteal will also be a great help when you are killing those ancients or teamfighting.

I find an Armlet of Mordiggian very good on Dragon Knight because of its active. Late game, upgrade your Helm of the Dominator into a Satanic. It gives you an awesome lifesteal, and an EVEN MORE AWESOME active ability, which grants +175% ADDITIONAL LIFESTEAL!!

A Heart of Tarrasque will make you even more tanky and hard to kill. Daedalus allows you to hit harder and deal more damage. A Black King Bar may be picked up if the enemy possess lots of stuns, nukes or slowss.

The rest of the items are quite self-explanatory. Only get a Hand of Midas if you know its going to be a long game and have gold to spare, and a Divine Rapier is you are godlike and raping everyone, and just want more fun. The other items under situational could be considered, based on your preference and the situation. And of course, an Aegis of the Immortal would be amazing.

Gameplay

At the start, get a Tango and a Healing Salve. Buy 3 Iron Branch, which you will make into a Magic Wand as soon as possible. Grab a Quelling Blade or a Stout Shield and go to one of the side lanes, preferably, bottom for Radiant and top for Dire. Try to get a support as your lane partner like Crystal Maiden or Venomancer. In lane, get as many last hits as you can while your support denies and harasses.

Your first item you want to farm for is a Soul Ring, after your Magic Wand. After that, get Power Treads. Get the Boots of Speed first, followed by the other components, all of which can be found in the side shop.

As a carry, you are not expected to take part in ganks or teamfights before the 20 minute mark. But if you see an opportunity to get a kill in your own lane, go for it. Stun, pop your Soul Ring and cast Breathe Fire. If your support isn't a complete noob, you should be able to get the kill. The Soul Ring + Breathe Fire combo can be used to clear creep waves and jungles. The 150 health loss is not a problem, you can just heal up with Dragon Blood.

Dont be hesitant to use level 1 Elder Dragon Form to push the tier 1 towers. your ult, will give you range on your stun and bonus movement speed, so you can use it to escape ganks. If you do use it to escape, farm the jungle so as to not waste it.

When you get your Helm of the Dominator and level 2 ultimate, convert a jungle creep 9(choose one that has high HP) and move it to your ancient camp. Now your going to stack ancients. Just farm in the jungle,(your lifesteal will help), and when the timer at the top of your screen reaches the 52 or 53 second mark, take control of your creep, attack the ancients once, then run off until they stop chasing you. When you come back, If you did it right, there should be 2 ancient camps there. Just stack the ancients till 3 or 4 stacks, then go there, pop your Elder Dragon Form and start killing them. The splash damage from Elder Dragon Formand lifesteal from Helm of the Dominator will help you kill them efficiently. Once you killed them off, get ready to stack them again on the 53 second mark of each minute. The purpose of stacking and killing ancients is to gain a lot of experience and gold. However, DO NOT let the enemy team kill your ancients.

Your next item will be an Armlet of Mordiggian. Then, your item choices branch out a bit. Ask yourself, 'what items are best for this game/situation?" If you're up against huge magical damage and stuns, a Black King Bar is the way to go. If you want to hit harder, get a Daedalus. If you want more health and regeneration, get a Heart of Tarrasque. Upgrade your Helm of the Dominator into a Satanic sometime during the game.

During teamfights, just as you're about to enter the fight, go Elder Dragon Form, pop your Black King Bar and stun someone. Then, immediately, cast Breathe Fire, and rinse and repeat after the cooldown. You and your team should focus down the enemy carry first, before the rest. Your level 3 ultimate comes with a free Eye of Skadi effect handy for chasing down fleeing, weakened foes.

Summary

In conclusion, get as many last hits as you can, push towers with level one Elder Dragon Form, stack ancients, farm your core items and proceed to obliterate the enemy and win. Once again, congratulations if you read this far, and thank you for taking your time to read this guide. Don't forget to rate and comment, if you found this guide helpful or have any ideas or suggestions.

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