Top 2 World Visage Guide - Relaunch!

Introduction

YAY! Im proud to announce, that according to Dotabuff TOP 100 Visage list im TOP 2 not-yet-proffesional Visage player out there and 7-10 best depending to actual Pro player rating.

I know that guide is a little bit unactual. My gameplay style has changed as well so..

I AM PREPARING UPGRADED NEW VERSION OF THIS GUIDE
which will be part of my coaching service.

Hello everybody!
This is my first guide so feel free to comment and criticize it. English isn't my first language so please forgive me any mistakes. Sometimes you may feel my writing style is a little cocky or even i'm too sure of some statements. This guide has been based on my personal experiences and that's why i am so confident.

The Public Bracket
I think it's a valuable information for all of You. In a moment of writing this guide i got 88 lvl and most of my games are played in Highest Bracket or how you may find them in Dota - Highest Difficulty (in "Watch Games"). For now i played 185 Visage games and got 71% win rate which i think is really high.

The Hero itself
I introduced reality in which i am playing to assure you that Visage is not only a hero to stomp low level pubs. Personally I find that hero so supergood for Pub stomping that i don't even consider famous Phantom Lancer + Keeper of the Light combo so powerful.

I am sick of people who has no basic idea how to play Visage. He's usually pointed as one of hardest to play heroes. Everybody who can play him know its not true. Visage Micro is nothing when it comes to Chen or Meepo. Even when you end up having 4 units they all keep together and basically do the same.

Don't be scared that your skill may be too low to play Visage. Like all heroes, he needs practice. To encourage you to play Visage i may say that since he's not a full carry, you wont spend all early/mid game on farming. Since he isn't full support either, playing him isn't so boring as well.

Visage is raising in popularity in Pro games. For now (May 2013) he raised from almost no picked or Tier 5 hero to Tier 3 support. I think there is going to be even more Visage after some players has proven his high potential.

Update:
2 of June, 2013
Visage raised to Tier 1 of Competitive Heroes List and is one of most picked heroes by Pro players.

Even if this guide is titled "stomping" it involves also general information about playing Visage. I tried to write as many in depth information as it was possible to make it complex and full of any useful information you may need while playing him. It is NOT a guide that will work only on inexperienced players.

The fact is that most of pro players play him as a tri-lane support (which is absolutely fine because he suits that role very well) but in addition Na'Vi KuroKy play him the same way like i do (First big item - Aghanim's Scepter) (By saying the same i meant the actual gameplay - not the laning)

Skill explanation

You can instantly set this scheme as your default in Dota:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151470526

Grave Chill
Basically its 32% move speed and 64% attack speed slow. The best thing is that you steal all that effects for yourself and can use them for some time. It's both your escaping skilll and ganking skill. Low cool-down makes it spam-able.

Soul Assumption
Your main nuke. Aside from other nukes Visage needs soul charges to use this skill efficiently. You gain Soul charges when ANY (you, ally or enemy) hero receive damage. It's not that complicated because they fill up really fast even when you fight 1 v 1 with a hero that just run away from you. Your right clicking + familiars will fill all your soul charges in 2-3 seconds. In team fights you can pretty much spam that all the time.

Gravekeeper's Cloak
It gives you additional armor and magic resistance. There are 4 layers of defense, and one is lost every time you receive damage from a hero. At max level you got 4(layers)*16(per layer)+10(basic)=74% magic resistance. Basically it means that if any Lina or Lion ultimate you as first skill, you are not going to even feel that. The layers recover quite fast. This skill makes Visage really durable considering he's Intelligence type.

Summon Familiars
Summons 2 (3 while having Aghanim's Scepter familiars to help you. They deal huge amount of damage and can stun enemies in medium AOE while going into Stone Form. Familiars rely on Damage charges which replenish slowly while flying and fully when Stone Form is used. They don't have any life duration time so if you are careful enough - you can keep them basically forever.

Skill Sequence explanation:
1. Your first skill should be Grave Chill while solo offlane or Soul Assumption while played as support or duo/tri-lane.
If you find Double Damage or Speed rune at 00:00 you can preety much make First Blood alone with Grave Chill on some support.
2. Then you are going to max Soul Assumption as fast as possible.
3. From my personal experience i realized that after Soul Assumption and your Ultimate you should split your points equally between your two other skills. (So give one point at Grave Chill then one point at Gravekeeper's Cloak and then repeat). It helps you keep nice defense all the time and additional seconds at slow with enemies progression in items/hp.

Pros / Cons

Pros
+ Visage is a very versatile hero. He's a Nuker, Ganker, Disabler, Pusher and Nuker even again.
+ Does absolute tons of damage in short time.
+ He's a level dependent hero and don't rely on items that much.
+ Can escape really well (Slow + dual/triple stun)
+ Suits any lineup (from tri-lane support to mid and solo offlane)
+ The secret skill (works on pubs only and explained later)
+ Since you are not first carry, you are not being focused that much and have time to farm (on lane) or to do your damage (in fight)
+ Super high magic def and physical def on first hits you are taking (prevent from being killed in seconds)
+ You are useful in every stage of the game.
+ Even when you die, you can still kill/farm with Familiars
+ Your familiars fly so they become the anti-juke mechanism as well as chasing people everywhere since they can reach any location.
+ Your nuke has looooooooooooong range, does super high damage and has very low cool-down. That means that you are going to get really a lot of kills (especially on running heroes which nobody else can get)
+ Familiars got 96% magic resistance. They just dont care. For example. Lich ulti casted on Visage usually ends up bouncing between familiars multiple times doing basically nothing.

Cons
- If they catch your without your disables, you are dead.
- If enemies out level you before you get to level 11 - your ulti is pretty much useless.
- Really needs practice to master but still less then many other heroes.
- Weak (not useless) vs Black King Bar lineup.
- Very low base moving speed.
- Familiars aren't really bound to your hero like Lone Druid Spirit Bear. When you teleport, you have to re summon familiars or transport them across the map.
- Visage itself is only 50% of your character. Familiars are the other 50% so if you lose them and your ulti is on cool-down - its pretty much VERY bad.

Item explanation

You can instantly set this scheme as your default in Dota:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=151470526

You are going offlane so you gonna need Observer Ward to ward their pull spot and second to secure yourself. Even if they de-ward their pull spot, care to place your secondary ward to don't let them de-ward it so easy.

Your first item is Boots of Speed to increase your survivability.

Then you gonna need Ring of Basilius in case you will need spam your Grave Chill to survive.

Next item should be Power Treads. You gonna need that extra boost on level 6 to start ganking your lane, jungle or mid lane. Power Treads are the most usefull boots for you. They provide extra hit points and in some cases extra mana when changed into INT. Your basic PT setting should be Strength until you finish your [Aghanim's Scepter]] then switch them to Intelligence. Phase Boots aren't really necessary because Visage can always keep up to slowed enemies and orbwalk. You don't really need that much mana so leave the Arcane Boots. Tranquil Boots gives you nothing when compared to Power Treads. Remember. You are going to stand in the battlefield for a long time and just nuke. You need that extra HP/mana.

Arcane Boots STILL are the viable choice when playing Visage as a support BUT when anybody else in your team already got one (or is going to), stay with your Power Treads

Magic Wand is a basic item for many heroes so you probably know purposes for having one. Since you are a ganker, you will make a nice use of it.

WHEN IT COMES TO NEXT ITEM - THERE ARE TWO POSSIBLE CHOICES. READ CAREFULLY.

Mekansmis very viable item for your Visage but ONLY if there is no other support for which natural build is Mekansm (For example, Lich, Keeper of the Light or Omniknight. Main reason to have this item is to be sure that your Familiars will stay alive. While being semi-carry you are also semi-support so this item counts as a supportive. And while you are not going to buy wards this game, by getting Mekansm you let other full supports save money for wards, dust and smoke.

IF YOU DONT HAVE TO BUY Mekansm:

Eul's Scepter of Divinity is item just made for Visage. Its absolute must have if you dont have to buy Mekansm. NEVER BUILD IT IF YOU HAVE Mekansm and go straight to Aghanim.
Reasons to have Euls are:
1. Its Intelligence item so its +Damage
2. Gives you additional speed which is amazing for already slow Visage. On low levels your slow doesnt last long enough and you may not be able to solo kill harder enemies or enemies with Phase Boots.
3. Its Active skill let you wind up enemy who is running from you, shorten the distance and execute your full combo again.
4. You are burster and your skills have really low cooldowns. In teamfight while being Focused you can use Active on yourself and use that 2,5 seconds to refresh your nuke, slow or even time when familiars are recharging.
5. Its also supportive disable item which let you e.g counter Batrider, disable some of them carries for a moment ( Faceless Void or Sven on their ults)
This item should be even banned for Visage.

Aghanim's Scepter is you absolute core. Buying order should be Point Booster > Ogre Club > Staff of Wizardry and Blade of Alacrity as last. While buying Staff of Wizardry you can sell your Ring of Basilius. Aghanim's Scepter adds you another Familiar. Basically it means + ~500 burst damage and additional stun to your stunlock. 20 lvl Visage with Aghanim's Scepter can kill most of Intelligence supports just by using his Familiars wandering around the map.

Force Staff - This item is absolutely perfect on Visage. You need it for the following purposes:
1. Initiating. You just Force yourself ahead into enemy hero and immediately slow him then execute your full combo.
2. Escaping. After Grave Chill just force yourself from the enemy and run. It helps a lot because you got instant speed burst which leaves your slowed enemy behind you.
3. Its also a supportive item to help your allies in some cases.
4. Its an intelligence item means it gives extra damage to your DPS.

Luxuries:
If your farm goes really well and you dominate on the map, you should buy Orchid Malevolence even before Force Staff. If you can execute full combo at the item duration (which is possible), Orchid will add you another 400-600 damage at the end. Not mentioning the silence.

Scythe of Vyse is a huge Intelligence bonus (mana + damage) and the Hex. Nothing to wonder about. Amazing.

Mjollnir is very viable item when you are facing high attack speed enemies (most of Dexterity Carries). With their 60% attack speed, lightning gonna give your huge boost in DPS.

Black King Bar - Even more HP and Survivalability. When you are really being focused and they got a lot stunners/hexers/silencers - get this item as a first luxury after core.

Visage is also good Gem of True Sight carrier due to his high survivability and usually free inventory slots.

After 45 minute your Mekansm can be easy sold and replaced by any of those Luxuries.

Summing up
Visage isn't the farming hero at all. Most of your gold will come from frags, assists and pushed structures. From personal experience i know that its almost not possible to farm more than your Core + 1 luxury item before the game ends. Even in long games.

Friends and Foes

Foes

Axe and Bristleback - They just don't care about your familiars and instakill them with Counter Helix or Quill Spray. You cant kill them alone. While chasing with friends just slow and nuke them and keep familiars away. When vs Bristleback - in his face!

Omniknight - His Purification totally destroys Familiars and thanks to Repel his untouchable to you. We don't like that guy too. Dazzle works the same like Omni. His heal damages familiars even harder.



Phantom Assasin - Level 4 Stifling Dagger will just two-hit your familiars. The same with Bane who kills your lvl 1 familiars with 1 Brain Sap

Lifestealer When laning versus him he will just laugh your slow in your face and slow you instead. Deadly in lane combo with a support but possible to kill while ganked in jungle.

Enchantress and Chen ganking from jungle. Wards please! The first one is also hard to focus due to her Untouchable

Bloodseeker, Silencer, Drow Ranger, Night Stalker - because the obvious Silence reason. You dont like also all Orchid Malevolence gankers like Storm Spirit, Clinkz and Bounty Hunter

Friends

Since i treat Visage as a secondary carry you gonna love every hardcarry who can tank a lot and keep the fight as long as possible.

Examples: Lifestealer, Lone Druid, Alchemist, Chaos Knight, Dragon Knight, Phantom Lancer,Skeleton King and some other.

Keeper of the Light - Since in long fights you gonna need his mana.

Drow Ranger - Her Precision Aura absolutely boost up your DPS. Familiars without any damage charges still has +damage from her aura.

Troll Warlord in enemy team is your friend too. Troll is squishy hero and can be focused really fast and what more important if he ults, you steal 60% of his attack speed and applies that on yourself.

Any Mask of Madness users in enemy team are going to die in seconds vs your familiars. 20 lvl Spirit Breaker with Mask of Madness turned on, dies in three seconds vs 16+ Visage

Visage basically kills on his own and that's why he don't really benefit from any particular hero presence specially.

Gameplay, tactics and strategies

Introduction of secret power
First of all Visage is very rare hero. According to Dotabuff hes the least played hero of all(not including new heroes). Take advantage of it. Most pub players didn't face good Visage player that much to understand what to expect and how to prevent that. That is the secret skill i was talking about earlier. Positioning and knowing possible danger sources is a crucial part of Dota. Many enemies you will face wont understand that they are going to die in seconds if they stay positioned badly.

First thing to focus while learning Visage
Learn how much damage you can make in every part of game. This is very important thing to know. By knowing your limits, you can strike very fast at one of enemies, focus with familiars and fast nuke, stone form, force staff away and resummon familiars. If you are SURE that enemy wont survive your full combo, it all can be done in 2-3 seconds.

Awareness
Unless you are Visage foe - you don't even try to kill Visage while being solo. Surprisingly even now in high bracket games i find people literally suicide themselves into fully loaded (mana + familiars) Visage and dying in a seconds. Of course you cant assume that everybody wont know what to expect from your hero but reality shown me that most of them don't.
Example:
Know your possibilities! Imagine yourself at level 8-9 in a lane. You are facing 2 enemies. They are both 5-7 levels since you are on solo lane. Try to stay badly positioned in purpose. Common scheme: As we know you are solo. You usually face Carry + Support lane. The common mistake is that they will try to gank you. That's exactly what you want. You are stealing Carry attack speed, focus (right clicking fire + familiars ) on support and then spam nuke on carry and stone form on his head. You will end up with 1 or 2 frags which depends only if the another hero (carry) will runaway or not.

Game preparation
When starting a game you should inform your allies that you are not going to be a support Visage (unless you want) and you are taking offlane. Nobody would discuss about that. If you have basic Dota knowledge you will figure out enemies lineup to know what heroes you are going to face. If you are sure it is going to be aggressive tri-lane you can ask for some assistance. In every other case you should insist to get a solo offlane, ward yourself and farm or at least survive.

Laning
Ok. You got your starting items and you have warded yourself. Good. Stay safe. Try to get last hits if you can ( Visage animation isn't the easiest to micro - i know) and try to keep the order of item purchasing. Don't let them gank you. Refresh the wards if necessary. I asked you to insist on solo lane because getting to level 11 as fast as possible is Visage priority. While you are 11 barely NOBODY can kill you alone and only some heroes can evade being killed by you. Experienced Visage can survive 3 people ganks.

Pushing
Visage is able to push enemies towers really fast with Familiars so make use of it anytime you can. If you can push the tower before even level 11 - do it, then go gank people. In the laning phase Visage can gank pretty much any jungler. Ursa needs some kiting and Lycanthrope needs really fast Familiars focus followed by instant stun. Nature's Prophet, Enchantress, Enigma, Lone Druid, Chen aren't the problem. Only Axe is.

You are going to leave your lane in this cases:
1. You pushed enemy tower and lane went too far to continue farming.
2. You are level 11 and already ganked enemy carry enough.
3. Allies desperately needs you because enemies are pushing your towers and only you can help.
It is very important to know your potential. If you already casted your ulti, in some points there is no sense to teleport to opposite lane without familiars. If you are sure that only your hero presence will do any difference - do it. If you know it gonna change nothing, stay and farm or at least move familiars there as fast as possible.

Ganking
Visage can kill enemies very very fast. Combined with another ganking hero (mostly a mid hero) you can pretty much gank 3 people with 2 of you. Do it. Just do it. Good team communication is essential but if you got wards and enemy team is split, make use of your outstanding burst damage.

Early-Mid game behavior
Try to always have your familiars damage charges up. Don't use them to push creep waves unless you are 100% sure you are not going to need them in next 10-20 seconds. Keep the charges for towers or enemy heroes. Since you are ganker, be present everywhere when something is happening and just spam your damage.

You are going to need some games to realize full potential of your damage but when you get to this point, you have to be sure who is going to survive your full combo and who is not.

A basic combo looks like that:
0. Initiate with a Force Staff if nessesary or/and Orchid Malevolence is you posses one.
1. Grave Chill
2. Full focus with familiars and your hero right clicking. If enemy is running - orb walk (move and hit basically)
3. Spam your Soul Assumption as soon as you are going to have all soul charges ready.
4. Stun your enemy with familiars. The most efficient way is stun lock obviously so wait like 0,7 a second with a next familiar and then stun.
5. Cast another Soul Assumption
6. If you want to secure that kill you can resummon your familiars just after casting Stone form and continue.

KDA
I play all type of heroes but among all of them my Visage KDA is the highest. The main reason of that is that his Soul Assumption has insanely long range of casting.
In fights your nuke is usually latest one the enemy hero see before death. Remember that you are secondary carry and you don't need so much farm, especially when you are sure it is going to be a long game and you are facing some hard carries. If it possible - let your main carry last hit the enemy heroes. Remember. You have to be 100% sure that your ally is going to kill him. Otherwise don't lose any opportunity to frag.

Controlling your Visage
From my experience the best way to organize your groups is simply:
F1 - is you basic default hero selection button. You gonna need it.
1 - First group should involve all your units, means your hero and all familiars
2 - In the second group there should be only familiars. You gonna need it mostly when escaping and disabling enemy heroes while in team gank.

Usage:
If you are being ganked, cast Grave Chill on the enemy then Force Staff yourself if you can and then move in your desired direction with group 1 (Everybody). While you whole group is moving, select hero only [F1] and send him to the location you want. While Familiars are actually following you, select group 2 and execute a stun lock on chasing enemies. After some time try to escape with familiars or resummon them if necessary.

When fighting in big team fight, you should be able to quickly select your familiars and send them to stun enemy who is channeling a spell (for example Bane) then quickly back to the fight.

Stun lock
When you are controlling your first group (Hero + Familiars) you can stun lock by pressing:
TAB - goes to first familiar
Q - Stone Form
TAB - second familiar
Q - Stone Form
TAB - third familiar
Q - Stone Form
TAB - back to your hero

Familliars Strategies

Familiars
They don't care if you are dead or alive. If you managed to die on lane, use them to last hit and farm a gold. If you died in a gank, continue to do your job, chase running heroes or stun if its necessary either to defend your allies or offensively.

Since Familiars fly you can use them as a anti juke and to scout a forest for a running heroes.

When you face Tinker, Anti-Mage or Queen of Pain blinking into the forest to teleport back to base - you don't care. You just fly there and Stone Form their face while teleporting. The same goes with Nature's Prophet sprouting himself. You don't care.

2 fully loaded 11 lvl familiars are able to push 1/4 of tower alone. 3 fully loaded 16 lvl familiars are able to push 1/4 of any tier tower with even backdoor protection.
Watch for enemies tower health all the time and send familiars there to finish it up. Since you have quick damage burst, you can even push damaged raxes without carrying if your creeps are there. Yes - its backdoor but you are the one who gonna decide about that.

When you are going to a team gank and you are facing Batrider, you can send them over the forest or the edge of map to secure yourself that he's not going to blink from nowhere.

If you have your ulti up to cast again and you are going to gank with full team, you can use Familiars as a split push and summon new ones when it comes to actual gank. Be smart though because instead of having 6 familiars during a gank, you end up with 3 only.

Familiars has 96% magic resistance so you can make a nice use of them. They can take full Lich ulti on themselves. When you or your team are being catch by Magnus Reverse d Polarty your familiars are actually not. You can pretty much stun lock Magnus for the whole duration of his ultimate and prevent him from skewering away with your allies.

When facing Warlock, familiars can nuke his ultimate in one full load. The same goes with Undying Tombstone

Remember that while ganking you have to spend around 3-4 seconds to fully deploy familiars attack charges. Sometimes is better to skip that and just stun enemies. It depend on situation mostly but that's what good Visage player should know. Remember that instead of chasing easy to kill support, sometimes its better to secure some carry kill from not blinking away for example.

If you have your Sentry wards placed in a warding spot, you can send familiars to de ward enemy observer wards if necessary.

Remember that you have 3 independent stun sources. You can disturb 3 different heroes from casting their channeling spells.

Your familiars (especially those from Level 1 of your Ultimate) are very easy to kill. Since you ulti has long cooldown, and Familiars provide rather big bounty (100 gold) to enemies, try to keep them save and don't feed. Especially vs Ranged heroes like e.g Windrunner who can basically follow them for long time.

It is very important to keep your familiars cooldowns together. If you were forced to cast a single Stone Form try to wait a little and refresh all your familiars at the same time. You don't want all familiars flying but only some of them with damage charges.

After casting Stone Form familiar needs some time to actually fall on the ground. In that time you can actually move your familiar a little. It helps your stunlock being more precise.

Next level

Lesson 1: Perfect stunlocking. Since familiars needs some time from preparing Stone Form to casting it, you have to practice and learn how to maximize your stunlock with 3 familiars.

Lesson 2: Basic Visage will cast Grave Chill on enemy that he's going to nuke. You should learn to quickly recognize the most dangerous target or the target with fastest attack speed, steal his speed and then use it on a target you want (even different one)

Lesson 3: Single Familiar Micro. Basic Visage just control everything in one group and spam skills and TAB button. You should be able to quickly select any familiar and Stone form it when its being focused without forcing every other familiar to leave the fight.

Lesson 4: Observe and learn the attack speed and move speed of enemy heroes. Stealing always highest attack speed increase your DPS while knowing which hero is the fastest can increase your survivability. Sometimes this little difference in stolen movement speed can decide if you are dead or not.

Lesson 5: While being ganked by multiple heroes you should think ahead how they are going to disable you. Your speed burst doesn't last long. If you know you are going to be stunned or for example Frostbitten, wait for the end of disable duration and then cast your Grave Chill and escape. If you are going to cast it before disable, you will lose it's effect while being actually unable to move.

Lesson 6: Since you can burst a lot of damage in a long time, even when being ganked by multiple heroes you can usually take one of them to the grave with you. Learn your potential and execute your full combo when they are ganking you. (Do it ONLY if you know you are going to die, and there is no way to survive)

Countering Visage

Visage isn't really a hero that you are going to counter but its good to know how to defend and being prepared to his presence.

For squishy supports
Fact is that high level Visage can deal ~2000 dmg in a matter of 5 seconds. If you cant survive that then think about any survivability items like Eul's Scepter of Divinity or Ghost Scepter

For carries
Black King Bar is a absolute must. In midgame any carry is going to be absolutely focused and shut down by Visage. You wont resist his familiars damage but you wont lose your attack speed and at least wont suffer his nuking damage.

Pipe of Insight helps too.

While being ganked by solo Visage.
1. If he attacks you - it means he can kill you. Thats a preety bad fact for you.
2. You have to react quickly.
3. Ask yourself if you can kill Visage in max 7 seconds or his familiars in 3 seconds. If you can do any of this things - you gonna live.
4. If you are support or a hero without any burst damage - RUN
5. Now the most important thing. Visage is really slow hero. When his Grave Chill ends you can leave him behind. There is one basic rule when running from him. Take any long straight line and run in this direction. Don't juke because it wont work. Remember that if you are going to choose any curved patch or change the angle, the familiars that are chasing you are going to make the same distance faster because they can fly in straight line. After that you are going to be stunlocked and stunned again and that's not what you want.

Don't focus Visage alone unless you are just a rightclicker with a constant damage. If your main damage source is any kind of burst, Visage will just take it into his Gravekeeper's Cloak and eat your face right away.

Dota Updates

6.79

This one controversial update brought some changes into playing Visage. Here what changed when it comes to play our hero.

The hero itself.
Base armor -1 nerf and -15% basic magic resistance

This two changes made this hero squishier. When playing solo lane you really have to extremely careful now to avoid being focused. Gravekeeper Cloak at lvl 4 is now absolute must.
Since playing Visage at solo always needed being positioned well so nothing changed at that matter. In endgame you still dont have that much magic resistance but with Gravekeeper Cloak you still got that 4 shields block so you should be able to survive nuking.

Visage was sometimes called the Trilane King. In this update they made a trilaning less effective so now think twice before picking this hero as a trilaner, especially when u will stay at low levels for a long time with nerfed defensive capabilities.

Offlaning: You still got gold to get all what you need to offlane (regen and wards). You also got the creeplane closer to your tower.

The other heroes:
Good:
Alchemist is now easier enemy for us since he got less HP and we dont care about his regen since we can burst him quickly enough. Thats good.

Lifestealer Rage cooldown increased. Any nerf to our most dangerous enemy is good for us.


Bad:
Axe is now faster, more dangerous, spins even more. Hes now very dangerous enemy to us.

Bloodseeker He was already annoying before with his silence but now with he was buffed hes even more dangerous.

Clinkz His buffed arrows can now two-shot familiars very very fast at earlier stages.

Broodmother can now follow familiars anywhere.

Drow Ranger Her buff isnt applying on Familiars on default anymore. Before we could use her aura bonus damage as extra bonus for our familiars but now she has to turn on that buff manually.

Lich His Frost Armor now also works vs Ranged units (also familiars) which makes his a little bit harder to focus down.

Luna Glaives can now bounce between familiars few times. This hero became really good in killing our pets.

Phantom Assassin Her new dagger that can crit since level 6 is super dangerous to familiars.

Pugna Nether Ward is now harder to focus down by Familiars. The same goes with Tusk sigil.

Slark Hes now superhard to kill for us due to perma invis on ulti.

Three Spirits Update

Earth Spirit - Has two abilities that prevent us from focusing him. His Boulder Rolling skill can be interupted with Familiar Stun but the other problem is his Knockback. Any normal player should easily resist Visage gank. Sadly.

Ember Spirit - Just like his Earth brother hes also hard to kill. Hes very mobile, got 500 magic damage block Shield and Shackle. Visage should easy win the manfight with Ember but a good Ember player should escape from Visage without any problem. If you manage to cast your Soul Assumption before he actiate Flame Shield - his dead.
There are two things about Familiars that you should know. The good is that Familiars can take both Shackles and leave your hero untouched and they still move and attack. The bad thing is that Ember target every unit in his AOE from Sleigh of Fist albo damaging Familiars which can be dangerous you are being outleveled by him.

Ending and updates

Thanks for being patient and reading my guide. I hope you guys got some important info or even learned something from this wall of text.

Since i think its a complex guide with many aspects taken into consideration i will update it when everything important will come into my mind.

Be aggresive, dont hold yourself in killing enemies and show them true power or Visage

Thanks!

Viveroth

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Update 1 (13.06.2013)
Corrected typos. Added few more things. Corrected minor mistakes.

Update 2 (8.07.2013)
Added second (support) build, corrected some stuff. Removed Gyrocopter as a threat.
Btw. Visage is Tier 1 hero with highest pickrate/winrate in TI3!!! Hail to the king!

Update 3 (23.08.2013)
Added section for Dota update 6.79

Update 4 (21.11.2013)
Added Three Spirits update.