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Hand of Midas
Ring of Aquila
Helm of the Dominator
Power Treads
Manta Style
Black King Bar
Butterfly
Wraith Band
Tango
Iron Branch
Iron Branch
Iron Branch
Slippers of Agility
Tango
Hand of Midas
Ring of Aquila
Helm of the Dominator
Power Treads
Yasha
Manta Style
Black King Bar
Butterfly
Eye of Skadi
Black King Bar
Satanic
Divine Rapier
Heart of Tarrasque
Boots of Travel
Shadow Blade
Blink Dagger
Monkey King Bar
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Welcome to my first ever guide, I made this in hopes to give back to the DoTA community and teach new players how to play Luna. This hero is my most successful hero and is really fun and easy to play. First of all Luna is not like heroes such as 
Shadow Fiend or 
Invoker where your active gameplay in team fights show how good of a player you are, what seperates good and bad Luna players is their passive gameplay throughout the game. The only outstanding action you can do in a teamfight is probably evading a projectile stun with a Manta Style but that's it. She is really straight forward in teamfights; wait for initiation, get into postion and activate Eclipse whilst activating Black King Bar, keep spamming Lucent Beam, open Manta Style to either stop enemies from focussing you or increase dps on a pinned hero, auto attack and mow the enemies down. I have read other guides and they aren't necessarily bad, but they don't explain in depth about the things you should do at the right time. Basically they just say "Play safe, farm, get items, win late game, good allies, bad enemies." I really want to make a guide to help new players understand Luna is not just farm and auto attack to victory hero.
SKILL 1
Lucent Beam
A simple nuke that directly effects your ultimate. Quite cheap mana cost low CD harassment tool, spam in mid game team fights. But when you reach a point where 2 hits > 300 damage, just right click and use it only to ministun. Maximizing this is going to be top priority but keep a level of Lunar Blessing first for easy lvl 1 farm.
SKILL 2
Moon Glaive
Max this last because you don't want to push your lane and ruin your farm. Great passive to clear down creep waves to screw towers up and flash farm. With manta style you are the enemy team's terrorist bringing down buildings. But in a situation where you just cant farm the lane, get Helm of the Dominator over Hand of Midas and farm jungle. But remember only add 2 times for early jungling and continue to max Lunar Blessing Because level 3 glaive is insignificant in the early stages of the game. Get two levels on moon glaive, max Lunar Blessing then only max moon glaive
HERE IS PROOF IN CASE YOU CALL BULLSH*T
Spoiler: Click to view Lunar Blessing EclipseLuna can go safe lane or hard lane provided she is paired with good support. An agressive trilane luna with 2 disable supports is also not unheard of but it's best she be paired with 1 support only because her early levels of Lucent Beam is great so she needs the exp. Good supports pairing with luna are usually disablers which will punish enemies if they try to be aggressive. In the very early stages of the game any disable with good damage such as 
Fireblast, 
Storm Hammer, 
Light Strike Array combined with Lucent Beam will obliterate any hero.
SUPER WOMBO COMBO LANE PARTNER
Vengeful Spirit
This girlfriend's 
Vengeance Aura stacks with your Lunar Blessing so you both whack your enemies with your right clicks like AK-47 shots. 
Magic Missile + Lucent Beam + few right clicks is sure to pop a cap in any enemy's a*s.
It is possible to solo mid luna depending on the enemy's solo mid hero. Luna should be ok with perhaps 
Bloodseeker, 
Magnus, 
Brewmaster or 
Dragon Knight. Basically heroes that can't really do much harass or solo kill you easily without their ultimate. Now some perhaps experience players may argue that solo mid should be give to exp dependant heroes such as Invoker or 
Queen of Pain which will deal great havoc in the mid game with their skills. Good levels of Eclipse is also really really good for the mid game. But if there is another hero more suitable for solo mid compared to you of course you should let them.
Now peacefully get last hits and exp and only ingage in a fight if you are sure that sucker can be killed. With Ring of Aquila you can use your Lucent Beam to harass enemy quite frequently, but be sure to have enough mana to use it at least twice because in situation of a gank on the enemy you can follow up ministun the hero in place and finish him off after a low CD in case he survived. It will be the supports job to place wards to make view incoming ganks but it will be your job to play safe and hug tower when the atmosphere seems fishy. Always look at the minimap and pay attention to the little colourful circles. Make sure you back off a little when suddenly a colour circle disappears for a long time. Of course if you have a decent team that always calls missing that is great.
If the enemy is looking to shut down your farm by giving you tough laning opponents, it will be best if your support can pull the creep wave so you can safely last hit under the tower. Otherwise, rush Helm of the Dominator and jungle the small camp closest to your lane and go back to farming the wave creeps when it's safe. It is important to note when you clear the small camp every minute the creep wave should be at a safe distance to your tower so don't go wandering off to fight bigger camps. Creep wave is better than Medium camp, please remember that.
however if for any ****ty reason you can't get farm because suddenly you are laned with a carry that contest farm with you, your 
Earthshaker decided he can be a better carry than you and takes your last hits. Rush Helm of the Dominator and stack creeps so you can clear them later. You can also jungle full time because that support that believe he is a carry can't contest farm with you in the jungle. Please note that a jungling Luna farms slower than a laning Luna especially in the early phase when you can't really clear creep waves with few hits.
By now you should have your Manta Style. Because this beautiful item opens up a wide range of stuff you can do. Depending on your teams ability to protect you in teamfights and the severity of disables on the enemy team, sometimes Black King Bar isn't necessary and you can just snowball by buying Butterfly.
HOW TO TEAM FIGHT?
1. Let ally initiate and get into position to land your Eclipse
2. Avoid disables by popping Black King Bar
3. Don't activate Manta Style immediately, activate either when you are being focused or you want to focus a hero that is in a bad position.
4. Spam Lucent Beam and right click relentlessly.
5. If there are wounded survivors with low health chase after them, get into a closer position before you lucent beam so that with your mini stun you can bag a couple more right clicks.
Ok then that was simple, now let's discuss what your passive gameplay throughout the mid game should be under these common scenarios.
Scenario 1: Your team's overall team fight ability is stronger.
Things will be very simple then, with your dps mow down creep waves and take down as many towers as you can with your team and get more map control by warding their side. The enemy team should be playing defensively and avoid fights but that don't mean their towers can avoid fights. Just snowball to victory.
Scenario 2: Enemy team's overall team fight ability is stronger.
This will be a slightly bad position for you because luna isn't really a defensive hero, Lucent Beam from afar to get the creep agro to you and mow them down behind the tower. Get as many last hits as you can and avoid death. If your team has the ability to hold the fort themselves go out and farm. Farm neutrals safely when there is no intel on the enemy's position and quickly clear creep waves when they lay siege on your towers. bring 
Town Portal Scroll and split push by ratting with Manta Style. Pay attention on the siege on your territory, if enemy is recklessly diving towers desperate for initiation Town Portal Scroll back and drop Eclipse on them.
scenario 3: Enemy is hunting your team in small skirmishes.
This is when the enemy team is ganking oriented. Many high mobility disablers that combo well with each other going around the map in small groups looking for cheap kills. If your team is cooperative turn this against them by warding your territory and stay in big groups and surprise them when they are trying to surprise you. Conversely instead of being defensive, your team can stick in a group and go on the offense forcing them to stick and defend. While your team mates are at a stalemate against the enemy team you can split push by the same strategy with Town Portal Scroll and Manta Style as stated before.
Scenario 4: You don't understand what your team mates are saying.
If your team is filled with players that talk in their native language and farm solo and get killed again and again, the best you can do is leave them to their death and push the lanes. While the enemy is distracted by killing your allies push opposite lanes quickly and be wary about their positions. With Manta Style and Black King Bar you can easily deal decent damage to towers and escape with a Town Portal Scroll if needed. Sometimes the enemy is having so much fun killing your allies they don't care their towers are going down. In many cases with you free farming while they nag a kill every few minutes, you are actually farming faster and could really possibly carry the game.
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/989014028
take for example this game, the enemy team is constantly looking for kills while I simply avoid them. They got many kills starting but was surprised at how big I became after a mere 5 minute free farm. The game became easy after I surprised them with an invi rune > bkb > manta style > eclipse > ultra kill. In an instant 4 of them were dead and in less than 1 minutes their tier 2 and tier 3 towers were gone along with their mid rax. That is the farming power of luna, never underestimate a free farming luna.
At this stage you might be in trouble depending on the enemy's heroes and base condition. Luna is a hard carry no doubt but she can't win late game against 
Anti-Mage with a 1.5 base attack speed, or a 
Phantom Assassin with a 4.5 multiplier critical which deals pure damage, or a 
Medusa with her shotgun arrows and that magic armour that gets better with items. or a 
Chaos Knight that can summon 4 illusions that deal full damage and gets tankier with items. If they are farmed well you are in trouble, you can't fight them in a fair battle any more. That is why you really need to take as many towers down and establish map control as soon as possible during the early and mid stages of the game, to screw their farming space up. If they are really farmed up it is vital you buy a second Black King Bar because it will definitely take longer to kill them and you don't want to get stunned half way through, you will also need a Satanic to compensate for your low health pool and give you one instant full hp regen. Manta Style is near obsolete in this stage and Heart of Tarrasque is a better option for survivability. As a final resort to contest them with DPS a Divine Rapier is your make or break item. But keep in mind even with all these precautions you are still very likely to be out carried if you don't end the game soon.
In a nutshell you really have to cause mass destruction in the early and mid game to prevent them from ever having a chance to get farmed because in an even 1v1 battle where you and your hard carry opponent get equal farm YOU WILL LOSE
Luna is great at dealing damage to heroes in the early and mid game, not bad in the late game. But she is outstanding at pushing and taking down towers at all stages of the game, make sure to utilize that to it's greatest potential; while the enemy is weak.
Aghanim's Scepter was always one of my least favorite items for Luna, the Lucent Beam blast is good but the upgrade that gives more beam counts is redundant in some ways. Take for example 
Lich's Aghanim's Scepter upgrade. It is well known to be quite redundant because good players will be able to avoid clumping together and most of the time the 
Chain Frost only bounce 3-4 times, thus making the infinite bounce count utterly useless. It is only viable when there are good solid disables such as 
Black Hole or 
Reverse Polarity. This concept is same when it comes to luna's Eclipse. It deals great damage but getting it too late in the game makes the nuke damage not really significant, getting it too early in the game makes her DPS build up and survivability go down.
6.84 changes everything. No beam limit + the ability to cast on ur team's initiator. You can cast it on a 
Tidehunter and he can proceed to blink in and deliver the ultimate. In a sense it can be cast on any tanky hero with a Blink Dagger, at most you will waste 1-2 beams before blinking in but it is ultimately worth it. But do note this takes good coordination. Even activating the ultimate after a massive stun by the imitator makes a wonderful follow up. Furthermore now with the new alchemist change, you can simply farm ur own items and he can give you the Aghanim's Scepter without slowing down ur dps build up.
In a nut shell the new Aghanim's Scepter is more of a viable item to buy for luna compared to before the update. But take note it is still not a core item, still situational but this time you will probably want to buy it more than half of the games you play. If you are snowballing then get it immediately to further ur advantage against the enemy especially when they haven't got a BKB. If your team needs instant follow up damage then get it.
This is a very good game example of Sylar playing against an agressive Tri-lane. He played it safe by staying at distance just to get creep wave exp and farm under the tower during the early laning phase.
At the 3 minute mark treant protector went out of position from his team and easily got picked of with 
Fissure, 
Shackles, 
Ether Shock and Lucent Beam which is why Luna is great when lane with supports with buurst damage and disables. The supports in the game did a good job pulling the creep wave so Luna can farm which means she don't need helm of dominator to jungle to farm.
At the 6 minute mark I strongly believe he made a huge mistake by being too greedy over the 
Treant Protector. You can clearly see that all the skills has been casted on the Treant Protector but it's clear with his tankiness he require at least 5 more last hits to take down. Furthermore 
Viper and 
Rubick is just right behind him. In the end 3 of them died just to take down the Treant Protector which was not worth it at all. So remember if you can't kill a target swiftly and safely simply back off because harassing him to go back and heal is good enough.
At 9 minute mark is perfect example of finding lanes to push/farm. Viper died in mid, Tidehunter and Rubick is pushing top and Treant Protector is bottom who can't can't stop him from farming. So he TP bottom and pushed/farmed.
At 10 minute mark after getting the bottom tower he find more lanes to farm. Top was empty and in the middle there was a stalemate between his team and them enemy so he went top and to get some easy free farm. He maintain an awareness about what is happening in mid by checking every once in a while. Then suddenly in mid the enemy team got greedy and engaged on a tanky 
Doom. To kill him Viper and Tidehunter used their ultimates and they positioned themselves badly under the tower. Sylar TP mid and punished them for over extending just to kill a single hero.
After that fight they took advantage of their momentum and got ro3 and pushed nearly uncontested.
Notice in from 9 minutes to 13 minutes he farmed Hand of Midas and from then on until the game ended at 17 minutes he farmed 3.8k gold using 1 k to make power threads with 2.8k in reserve.
This replay teaches many basic things to note when playing Luna
-Safely take last hits and exp in the early game.
-Only engage if you can take down the hero quickly (early game)
-Always be farming by prioritizing creep wave farm
-Always try to take down towers
-Be aware about what's going on in the map and TP to assist allies if needed.
Here are 6 Winning games from the The International 2014 which I found most note worthy.
-Every game Luna is in a push strat based team.
-Luna is picked almost last every game to prevent being counter picked with the exception of the 3rd game
-Most of the enemy teams consist of drafts that do not do very well in the mid game
-Half of the enemy teams don't do well in the late game
-Most of the enemy teams consist of drafts that are teamfight oriented which gives a lot of space for split-pushing
Here are 6 losing games from The International 2014 which I found most note worthy
-All of the enemy teams has a stronger late game carry
-Most of the enemy teams have strong counter push
-Most of the enemy teams consist of drafts that can defend split-pushing well
Luna's friends during the Laning phase are supports with good high damage disables that combo with her Lucent Beam and insane early base damage to swiftly kill of heroes that dare get too aggressive with you. Thus you can enjoy safe farm while the enemy keep it safe by keeping their distance from you, otherwise punish them for being ******ed.
Examples:
Vengeful Spirit
Sven
Shadow Shaman
Lion
Lina
Alchemist
Ogre Magi
Sand King
Wraith King
Jakiro
Earthshaker
Lich
Good lane supports are good too even though you are not very likely to deal swift huge damage to out of position enemy heroes. As long they allow you to have decent farm.
Examples:
Warlock
Omniknight
Dazzle
Crystal Maiden
In terms of overall, Luna is great with heroes in 2 line-ups
Firstly the pushing line-up where the team consist at least 2 other individual heroes that can deal massive amounts of tower damage on their own which allow Luna to split-push and farm insanely fast if the enemy team's line-up is unable to protect multiple lanes at once safely.
Examples:
Nature's Prophet
Shadow Shaman
Lycan
Naga Siren (In the hands of a good player)
Leshrac
Drow Ranger (The aura she provides is great too)
Dragon Knight
Secondly the ganking line-up where the team consist of many mid game powerhouse that can easily solo kill and dominate the mid and early game. If the enemy team's line-up has weak mid-game capabilities which forces them to play defensively by grouping up. This allow you to take advantage of their predictable positions at all times and split push, quicly down towers and farm like a boss while your team keep them pinned in a defensive spot
Examples:
Queen of Pain
Tiny
Slark
Bloodseeker
Viper
Pudge
Ember Spirit
Night Stalker
Mirana
Lina
What counters Luna in the laning phase is typically very aggressive and effective lane control freaks that slows down her momentum to cause havoc in the mid game.
Examples:
Skywrath Mage
Viper
Lich
Lina
Lion
Timbersaw
Puck
Sniper
Abaddon
Keeper of the Light
Please note that shutting down Luna's farm during the early laning phase is not really a huge issue because with only 2 levels of moon glaive, a Power Treads, a Helm of the Dominator and a Ring of Aquila, Luna can farm a Manta Style and Butterfly in less than 10 minutes provided that she is not disturbed. It only becomes an issue if the enemy is taking control of the map and conquering your farming space.
Now in the mid game, what counters Luna depends on what line-up your team is.
Firstly 4 protect 1 Where you are the main carry they expect you to be really big and win the late game. If the team don't have good late-game potential you are safe. Otherwise true late game carries will screw you up
Examples:
Phantom Assassin
Morphling
Chaos Knight
Meepo
Sniper
Faceless Void
Lifestealer
Sven
Weaver
Lycan
Alchemist
Other than that, if the enemy team is running a push strat you are in trouble too if your team is not able to defend multiple lanes safely. Giving their carry tons of space to farm and forcing you to run around and defend.
Examples:
Nature's Prophet
Broodmother
Death Prophet
Shadow Shaman
Pugna
Morphling
Gyrocopter
Lycan
Tinker
Techies (A good player)
Secondly Push Strat Where your team is aiming to down as much towers as soon as possible and conquer the enemy's farming space. It only works if the objective is achieved smoothly. If the enemy team pick counter push to protect their carry's farming space you are in trouble. For carries that will destroy Luna in a fair fight is as listed above just now, for heroes that can effectively defend a push alone:
Examples:
Techies
Venomancer
Death Prophet
Shadow Shaman
Tiny
Puck
Keeper of the Light
Shadow Fiend
Leshrac
Tinker
Gyrocopter
Sniper
Sand King
Battle Fury Carries.
In a nutshell An enemy team that counters Luna is a mobile defensive team that can protect all their towers and farming space at all times to drag the game for their own carry to get bigger than her. Luna is not a late game carry, she is in between the lines of a mid game carry and late game carry. Her strength comes from her unique ability to push effectively without much items and an ultimate that forces enemy to plan their ganks better if they wish to take you out. She is an offensive hero overall.
If you feel this guide made you understood some things please vote it up so it can help other players better understand this hero. If you find flaws in this guide, do speak with an open mind. I will greatly accept criticism, because if I believe my play at Luna is perfect I would have a 100% winrate with her don't I? So please by criticising by work you are not only helping this guide improve, but helping me improve as well.
Thanks for reading!
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