The Stone Giant - Masaaki14's Guide on Tiny

Sorry guys, after a period of time where i went to play LoL instead, i have neglected this site and my own guide. I will be going through a few things before deciding if i need to update this guide, since with the addition of new items and new meta, there might be a few new things in need of changing. However, since this is more or less a carry tiny guide, i don't think there will be much change in terms of gameplay and skill build.



This is highly situational, and honestly, i would never go go Craggy Exterior before maxing the other 2 skills. This is because i want to max out the full burst that makes tiny what he is in the midgame, and going craggy level 1 would delay that timing by quite a bit. Also, i feel that having a 275 damage nuke at level 2 is more important than having more survivability, since your supports should be helping you zone out the enemy, or at least making sure you don't die to harass.




While i would agree that Eye of Skadi is a very good item in general, Tiny is not a hero i would get it on. that boils down to the fact that tiny does not actually need all the stats that skadi gives, neither does he actually need the orb effect. ***ualt cuirass is a core item on him anyway, so he has more than enough armour. he gets enough stats from the Aghanim's Scepter, bkb and natural stat gain, and attack speed is taken care of by Butterfly/ Moon Shard. his combo in the early game has another use in the lategame, which is to buy you enough time to hit the enemy. between Avalanche and Toss, you have about 3-4 seconds of time you can use to freely hit the enemy affected. Blink Dagger or Silver Edge is your solution to kiting, and i have never found myself lacking in that department. Talking about EHP, a Tarrasque and AC gives you more than a AC and skadi.

level 25 tiny with aghs, blink, bkb, BoTs +
AC and Tarrasque: Physical EHP = 10759.43
AC and Skadi: Physical EHP = 10654.75

Abyssal Blade is an okay item on tiny, i would classify it as situational for situations where you need the extra lockdown for an evasive enemy hero like Weaver/ Storm Spirit. In those situations, building more damage in the form of Moon Shard or Daedalus so that you can kill them in the 3 second span of your combo is another solution. An alternative is sheepstick, which serves the same purpose, which is why you sometimes see tinys build either items. Generally in most matches i wouldn't recommend it.

Satanic is a really good suggestion, and if it wasn't for tiny's problem of not having enough item slots, i would totally add it in. unfortunately, Tiny does suffer from a serious lack of item slots, and most of the other items in the lategame build would help more depending on several situations.

Aghanims, AC, boots and either blink or SE are pretty much core, and bkb is needed in 80-90% of games. that leaves you with one more slot.
Having problems with physical carries? Butterfly
need to split push? Manta Style
need more damage in teamfights? Daedalus
enemies have evasion? Monkey King Bar
getting bursted down too fast? Heart of Tarrasque
As you can see, most sitautions wouldn't require a satanic. That is the reason i did not include Satanic in my guide.

No, Maasaki's got the right build. Having 3 levels of Avalanche at 5 and then maxing Toss.

One level of Avalanche gives +80 damage which is actually +160 because damage is doubled in ava-toss combo.

While one level of Toss is only +75 damage before skilling Grow, +101 damage after skilling it.

Only the last level of Avalanche is not worth it because it's only +40 damage, so +80 in ava-toss.

Maxing Toss first is a viable build but it's only good for AFK farming. Maxing Avalanche gives almost twice the burst damage on heroes. But you can spam toss to farm only if you have Io in your team (now that Bottle does pretty much nothing), so the typical pub Tiny goes simply for the max burst build and rushes blink.

Isn't Toss the better spell to max first because it's got almost half the cooldown of Avalanche?

Hi! It's a great guide, I like it a lot. Just one thing: I am a huge fan of Eye of Skadi in Tiny since he needs to be close to the enemy so he can smack them in their faces and the slow from Skadi allows you to do that. Besides I feel Skadi is a better survivality item than Tarrasque, I really don't like Tarrasque since the regeneration is not going to help you in a figth. I have a question: Is Skull Basher a good item in Tiny? How about Satanic?.

I would add an optional lvl 1 Craggy exterior. +2 armour helps with harassment.
The main situation where this is really useful is mid against a melee, where the 10% stun comes into play (bloodseeker for example).

Added a section to explain the combo in a little more detail.

I think is a good guide so far. As a suggestion (although it was already asked by ChiChi and answered) I would like to see within the guide, a more detailed explanation on the Combo since that is a huge part on playing Tiny.

Guide is finished for now

Right, i will be going into some of those details in the gameplay guide.

In most cases, my item progression is boots > Blink dagger > aghs > attack speed.

Blink Dagger allows you to go for pickoffs and lets you snowball faster to get your other items faster, then aghs to improve pushing. Only build attack speed after aghs.

For his combo, the ideal is to use Avalanche first, then Toss. The opposite is also possible, but the time interval that you need to cast the 2 spells is far shorter, and you need to be practically shift queuing to achieve that cast speed

I like what you've done so far, and I don't play Tiny but already learned a lot with your guide! So keep it up :)

I have a question though: If Aghs only grants you the cleave and more damage vs buildings, shouldn't you be rushing other items in some situations, like the Blink and even a Hyperstone to offset the low attack speed? How often do you think you go for Aghs as a first item, or do you never do it?

I would also like you to explain better his combo: so he blinks in, tosses and then avalanches, or is it the other way around? I never fully got that.