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13 Votes

The Earth Trembles

April 28, 2014 by mastadoom
Comments: 10    |    Views: 53395    |   


Build 1
Build 2
Build 3

Lane support

DotA2 Hero: Earthshaker





Introduction

Earthshaker is a support/initiator that can be played as a carry. He is armed with 1 stun, and a passive that makes his other 2 moves stuns.

While playing ES keep in mind that team fights are what you are good at, so make team fights happen.


Pros:

+Had CC coming out of his butt
+Long range nuke
+Can fill in for your carry if need be
+Had massive AOE damage
+One of the best initiators in the game
+Stops push strats HARD


Cons:
-Needs more farm than your average support
-Is highly level dependent
-Mana issues
-All or nothing team fighter (can't just pop his ult and see what happens)

Skills

Fissure: This is ES's iconic move, it makes a wall of unpathable terrain from where ES is standing and where the end of the range is. It also stuns and damages everyone it hits. This move blocks off escape routes and (if used right) can push people onto cliffs.
Pro tip: Don't click this on the hero, you will miss fissures doing it this way, but the ones you hit will be far better. BY clicking on the hero to fissure, more than 70% of the time, you will be positioned wrong and push them to the wrong side of the wall.
Enchant Totem: This is your bread and butter skill. With it's low cooldown and mana cost, it will be the main way you proc your 3rd skill.
Pro tip: Pre-cast this spell, so you get the buff and the spell on off cooldown before you initiate. This will let you blink, ult, hit, enchant totem, fissure, hit.
Aftershock: This moves makes you go from one stun, to three. The main way you get to use this is with Enchant Totem due to it having a low cooldown.
Echo Slam: THIS MOVE SO IS OP IT HURTS ME ON THE INSIDE! Ok, lets break this move down really fast, it does initial damage, for every unit hit by this initial damage it makes an echo. This echo then hits every unit hit by the initial damage. So really quick numbers at level one this move does 160 damage, with a 40 damage echo. So a team fight breaks out inside the creep wave and all 5 heros are there, that is 3 melee creeps, 1 ranged creep, and 5 heros = 9 total units. 160 + (40*9=360) = 520 damage. 520 damage is the amount of damage EVERY unit takes for a level one echo slam before magic resistance.
There is an aghanim's upgrade for this move, it makes each HERO (not creeps) echo twice. When I first played ES I thought that is was really underpowered upgrade, boy was I wrong, that upgrade is crazy good, almost doubling its damage.
Pro tip: The initial damage goes through BKB, but not the echo damage, this move will hit invis heros and heros in fog of war as of 6.81 This is the only ES move that has no cast animation.

SUPER HELPFUL: You find an enemy carry AFK farming a lane, what do you do? You walk into lane in a way that doesn't revel your position, you fissure him, walk up to him, AND POP YOUR ULT ON ONE GUY STANDING IN A CREEP WAVE BECAUSE YOU CAN! And then you walk away with a kill under your belt.

Early game:support

I would recommend laning with your teams hard carry. You can save them from a death early on, as well as set up a kill or two with your stuns.

I would like to make a point on my starting items, it is very greedy for a support. If you have to, drop some of the stats and buy a courier and/or a wards. Don't be that guy that makes your jungling lifestealer have to but the courier (happened to me).

Because you are melee, harrassing is very hard for you, so just focus on denying creeps.

Mid game :support

This is where things get fun, team fights happen, people are roaming.

At some time in this stage, you need to get a blink dagger, it is how you initiate, because without it people will scatter when you start to walk into the middle of them all.

You want team fights to happen, because you can win them as long as your ult is up. But the other team may know this and refuse to fight you. In this case, you force the fights. Get your team and 5 man push down mid. If the other team doesn't defend, they lose a rax, if they do defend, they get wiped. It is a win/win for you.

Late game: support

You may be a support, but after all those kills you should have gotten with team fights you should pretty much win the game. With an aghs in hand, and maybe one of your extension items, even if you carry can't win your team fights, you can.

Early game: carry

Now, the infamous carry shaker... not my preference on how to play ES, but some people like it.

You are going to go mid and get a bottle, the bottle is key because you don't have Arcane Boots to support your mana. After your bottle, you can go treads or phase. I would recommend phase boots because of the move speed boost to land Enchant Totem Aftershock procs. Also, a level 4 enchant totem (gotten at level 10) does only 8 damage more than what phase boots give you, so phase is better earlier.

You are going to want to farm most of the early game like a hard carry and gank when need be. Try to take the mid tower while the other mid is off doing things.

Mid game: carry

During the mid game you should have a shadow blade, with this item, no one is safe. Cast enchant totem, shadow blade, walk up to a person hit them, enchant totem, hit them. Not many people can survive this at this point in the game.

As you might be able to tell at this point, you build very much like the kunnka one shot wonder. The reason for the double Daedalus is because even though you can't get a double crit (that would be cool though) you want to increase the chance that you crit as much as possible, because you want to be in and back out as fast as you can.

Just run around the map and one shot people at this stage of the game.

Late game : carry

Not much to say here, you are the carry, win the game.

h4nni mid ES

H4nni plays solo mid for the pro team fnatic, and let me just say, he is one of the best earthshakers out there, if not THE best. He does a cross between a carry and a support filling in as a ganker/utility role.

I would recommend watching him play ES mid if you want to do this, because it is too hard to explain what he does in words. I will still attempt to explain this though.

Ok, so, H4nni gets treads for the tread witching powers to save mana and all that other fun stuff. Bottle is obvious. Blink is obvious. BKB, now that one is interesting because that is an item carries normal farm, but in this case you are playing as a utility hero, that means that you are staying in the fights for longer than you normally would, so the BKB keeps him from dieing. Sheep stick and refresher are good pickups always, so nothing there.

He starts roaming after he gets his Power Treads, in the mid lane, that is around level 6-7 for playing a melee hero. So in other words, it is a normal time to start ganking as mid. He gets his blink dagger and makes plays happen, this in turn makes room for the carry.

Well, that was the best i could explain his ES, but ya, just watch him play ES mid and be amazed.

Items

I have mentioned so many items, im going to break down the list into nice easy to read categories.

Boots:
Arcane Boots: These are the boots that most people go for due to ES's mana issues through out the game. On top of that it is a good support item.

Power Treads: These have the ability to tread switch to conserve your mana, other than that, not a lot of bonuses for ES, but still good.

Phase Boots: Damage and move speed, how ever leaves you with no way to solve your mana issues with out other items.

Initiation:

Blink Dagger: The blink dagger is the item of choice due to its long initiation range, no mana cost, and low cooldown

Shadow Blade: High mana cost for your manapool, not good for initiations if the other team has a gem or sentries.

Suppory items:
With these it is player preference, i like getting drums, other people like the veil.

Drum of Endurance: Good stats, cheap, has an aura.

Veil of Discord: Boosts damage of all of your spells.

You have too much farm, but its ok:

Aghanim's Scepter:Must have item if you can get the gold, makes your already good ult even better.

Bloodstone: NO MANA PROBLEMS! Just a good item in general, i like this after my aghs.

Scythe of Vyse: NO MANA PROBLEMS! Also had a really good disable.

Heart of Tarrasque: Makes you hard to kill.

Shiva's Guard: MOAR INITIATION! Also no mana problems.

Refresher Orb: MOAR INITIATION! Also gives you some regen and stats.

situational:

Blade Mail: Gives some mana and armour, other than that you arn't tanky, so you can't make good use of this, but if you have too get it, it can be good.

Pipe of Insight: Good support item to get, but not really needed every game.

Friends and foes

Friends: You like follow up initiators, AOE carries and people you can lane with aggresivly.

Kunkka: Have him do his full combo after you initate, also is a really good lane partner if he can land his torrents.

Medusa, Luna, Gyrocopter: all AOE carries, they can destroy teams after you hit them with Echo Slam.



Foes: These people beat you up on the play ground and take your lunch money.

Silencer: Not only does he have silences, but he steals your INT as well, no more spells for you.

Puck: He can counter-initiate pretty good against you. If he knows you are coming, he can even dodge your ULT.

Rubick: This guy... this guy. Due to the ****py animations of your spells, if you don't stun this guy in a fight, he will take your ult, use it against you and then take fissure as you run away. and fissure is just such a good move.

Conclusion

All in all earthshaker is a very good hero with good disables and high damage output.

Thank you for reading my guide, if you have any think you thought should be added to this guide, tell me in the comments.

Also check out my Templar Assassin guide here

Thanks for reading this
-Mastadoom

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