DOTAFire is a community that lives to help every Dota 2 player take their game to the next level by having open access to all our tools and resources. Please consider supporting us by whitelisting us in your ad blocker!
Want to support DOTAFire with an ad-free experience? You can support us ad-free for less than $1 a month!
Go Ad-Free
Stout Shield
Tango
Healing Salve
Iron BranchIron Branch
Boots of Speed
Magic Wand
Urn of Shadows
Arcane Boots
Blade Mail
Mekansm
Black King Bar
Blink Dagger
Assault Cuirass
Heaven's Halberd
Force Staff
Hand of Midas
Tranquil Boots
Orchid Malevolence
Aghanim's Scepter
Shiva's Guard
Heart of Tarrasque
|
|
2 | 4 | 7 | 8 |  |
|
1 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
|
3 | 5 | 9 | 10 |  |
|
6 | 11 | 16 |  |
|
15 | 17 | 18 |
Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of Clockwerk ! Clockwerk, also known as Rattletrap is a very powerful initiator, a strong solo laner who needs levels and a bit of farm, making him ideal for a role in the offlane.
Clock has decent armour and starting damage, making him fairly good at last hitting in the early game, his signature skill Hookshot making Clock a potent initiator in the mid game all the way through to the late game.
Hopefully these three guides will help you understand more about what kind of combinations of items you can run on Clockwerk to make him as efficient as possible during the mid to late game scene.
Most often in pub and even pro games you will find Clockwerk run on the offlane, and for good reason, since he is a strong laner who is mainly level dependent.
The ability Power Cogs on Clock is what makes him such a strong laner in the early game. For a mere 50 mana this skill can push back, damage and mana drain enemy heroes and keep them away. The chances of enemies coming closer after one zap is fairy low. This is used by me primarily to zone the farming hero out a bit so I can snag a couple of last hits. Also, if your mid or a support is roaming to gank, the mana drain from this skill can be used so that enemies such as 
Faceless Void don't have enough mana for their blinks, making the gank easier and thereby accelerating your farm and XP while the farmer is gone and the assist or kill from killing them.
I like to put two points into Rocket Flare so the cooldown is lowered and the damage heightened so it can be used to zone the lane occasionally and, if needs be, farm the lane by timing it carefully. It can also be used to snipe heroes walking to fountain after a failed enemy gank or a semi-successful gank by yours to gain gold, a bit of XP and also make you look like a badass.
There is much dispute over boot options for Clock. Most pro players prefer 
Power Treads but personally my favorite build revolves around the Arcanes Urn build. I think this since it means that Clock has enough mana to use Power Cogs and Rocket Flare in lane, and also get off the combo (I shall talk about this in the Positioning and Initiating section) when ganking lanes. Urn is great as well since it gives a bit more mana regen, some strength, but mainly the synergy with Arcane Boots allow you to roam a lot more and not need to go back to base. It can also be used offensively and against enemy blinkers to stop them from getting off their annoying blink combos and also increase the damage during your initiation or ganking combo. If your lane goes very badly, ie. an offensive tri-lane, consider getting Tranquil Boots instead until you can farm up some other items before going back to your boot options if needs be. They're excellent boots in that situation, allowing you to sit back and gently regenerate your health, and also gives some nice armour and great move speed when roaming. This also means you don't need to get a 
Bottle which could result in bottle saturation in your team. This doesn't matter if you have a mid like 
Invoker, so use the other build if you want to.
This build will focus more on the off chance that the enemy team is running a defensive tri-lane, a dual lane or even a solo lane, allowing you to be a bit more aggressive in lane and out of it.
For this you will want a Bottle, and this will hopefully make up 2 along with your mid, so you can respectively secure both runes, and if not use the courier to send it back to base. This keeps up your mana and health which will allow you to be aggressive and go on supports and even their carry if they're squishy, and gank lanes, returning along the river to pick up the rune. Invis runes are great on Clock since it allows you to walk in Power Cogs and Battery Assault before the enemy knows what's happening.
Once again, there is another boot debate. I personally prefer Treads since they add good attack speed and you can switch them if you are running low on mana to get off your combo, so can give mana or damage and health. Another option if you are being especially offensive are 
Phase Boots, they add good damage that helps you dominate lane in terms of last hitting/denying, and lets you catch up to enemies with your Battery Assault on, so you can Cogs them. Plus you can escape through creeps if you get cornered by illusions or creeps or both.
Two items that are solely in the aggressive build are Radiance and Armlet of Mordiggian. Radiance is definitely a snowball item for me, if you can get it before 20 mins or so then do if you can. If you can get the relic before 17 mins then go for it. It's great since the enemy can't get out of your Power Cogs without blink or a Force Staff. This can cause your enemies to (at max. level) take a minimum of 400 damage when in max level Cogs. It also adds good right click damage, which is already quite strong, and gives a decent farming item too.
Armlet of Mordiggian is a personal favorite item of mine, it gives some great damage, health, regen, quite a lot of what Clock needs aside from mana, and it means that if you're really careful you can Armlet switch in cogs whilst the enemy is mini-stunned by Battery Assault and essentially have infinite health. It makes you a lot tankier, hit harder, and more difficult to kill.
I have played this support build a couple of times to varying degrees of success. You still have to play a fairly ballsy support, but if you do then you can dominate the mid game well.
Mekansm is a very good item on Clockwerk, since with Arcanes you have the mana to sustain it. Being the first into battle means that you're going to want some sort of item that can keep you alive until your team can arrive, and since you're supporting you can't really farm something like that. Therefore, a Mek is great. In general Mek is a really good item to get on your team, and it can help keep your team as well as you alive and fighting. This can also be exchanged with a Pipe of Insight later game if the enemy team have some annoying magic nukers like an 
Earthshaker.
Vladimir's Offering
Vladimir's Offering is another good team item to get on Clock. It gives armour, some mana regen, some health regen and also a lifesteal for your team to take advantage of, including the armour aura that is given off too. This increases your teams survivability exponentially when combined with a Mekansm.
In this section I will talk about the items that will be gotten by Clock which aren't just specific to each guide.
One option which I occasionally run when I've got decent cash but not ridiculous enough for a Radiance is a Hand of Midas. It gives some extra attack speed which is always useful, but the main point is the active which increases your GPM and XPPM greatly, both of which are nice on Clock, since it can give a level advantage, so better lockdown on his skills, and also give some bonus gold. It's especially useful since you can use it on the go, so when ganking you don't have to stop and farm a wave. Remember that melee creeps give more XP and eat the biggest creep available.
This is core on every build because it's an excellent all round item on Clock. It gives damage, armour and mana which are all good items on Clock, and the active is the main part of it. When in your Power Cogs, the only thing the enemy can really do aside from try to escape (which in pubs most won't do) is attack you, so you can make it so that when they attack you they deal damage to themselves. So they can either hope the Blade Mail won't do too much damage or just leave it and let you kill them nice and easily.
One very obvious item if the enemy has a lot of disables or magic damage is a BKB. Damage, health and one of the best actives in the game make you pretty much a devil in your own Power Cogs so to speak, the enemy won't be able to do much at all.
You may be thinking that this is a bit of a strange item, but it opens quite a few possibilities. You can Hookshot and blink out, you can blink and Cogs, used a bit like a hook, and you can also blink out of the way of creeps to line up a Hookshot. Quite an underrated item which can be very useful when used correctly.
A Force Staff is another common pick up in pro games, as it opens plenty of possibilities. You can use it as an escape for you and allies, put enemies out of position, push up to a Power Cogs use or, most common in pro games, isolate a hero with no escape by hooking, cogs and then using a Force Staff to escape, leaving them temporarily trapped. When running away you can drop a Power Cogs and push out, rather than denying a cog.
An Assault Cuirass is a great benefactor for your team. It gives you lots of armour and attack speed, both of which are decent as Clock since it increases damage and reduces the physical damage you take. It also reduces the enemy's armour, which allows you and your team to kill the enemy faster and gives your team armour to increase their survivability, so this item can tip the scales in a battle.
A Heaven's Halberd is another good utility item, it adds some more health, damage and also some evasion which increases your EHP by about 25%, and also adds an excellent disabling passive against right clickers, so unless they have a BKB or magic immunity on them, they are unable to attack for either 3 seconds if melee or 4.5 seconds if they're a ranged hero.
Many people don't think Orchid Malevolence is a good item on Clock, it doesn't seem to fit, does it? But it can be very helpful against many heroes. Heroes such as 
Anti-Mage or 
Queen of Pain that can normally blink away will be unable to, and heroes like 
Juggernaut who can dodge most of the damage with a magic immune spell won't be able to get it off either. It also adds some generous mana regen and decent attack speed, both of which are good on Clock. In general, quite a situational item, but it can make ganking a lot easier and your range of gankable enemies much bigger.
Aghanim's Scepter is the first luxury item on my builds because it's the first item that isn't necessary but is still extremely useful. It decreases the cooldown of Hookshot across all levels to 12 seconds, making it a very potent skill. In combination with max level Power Cogs which keep them in for 8 seconds, you only have around a 3-4 second down-time before you can hook and cogs all over again. It allows you to reinitiate two or three or even more times during a large team fight, stopping the enemy in their tracks when they try to fight you back with counter-initiation. Altogether allows you to gank and use your most powerful and signature skill far more often than you would normally.
A Shiva's Guard pick up after an Aghs stops the enemy from getting any further. It provides a good AOE nuke and slow, adds about 500EHP in terms of armour addition, it also adds a passive AOE attack slow, along with lots of intelligence. In general a great item for Clock as it stops the enemy getting quite as much DPS as they usually would and can slow the entire team with enough luck. Great item, often picked up, and well worth it.
A classic Heart of Tarrasque on Clock is a no brainer late game, it gives 40 strength which for Clock is also damage, 1060 health- quite a lot, and also gives a 2% health regen per second. This can fully heal anyone from almost zero is less than 50 seconds, and a heart can sort out most of your initiating problems, aside from mana. Luckily that's sorted from the Shiva's Guard which you'll get before/after this. I would strongly recommend getting this item after Aghs if your Blade Mail is doing a lot of work, because with Shiva's Guard, your armour is increased, so you take less right click, so less return damage, whereas with heart you just have more health to live through it. So if you want good return damage, get a Heart of Tarrasque before a Shiva's Guard.
So, there are a couple of different possibilities in terms of laning a Clock. Depending on what kind of lane you're in will alternate which build to use, the support one obviously being only for supporting roles, the normal one against either an aggressive or defensive tri-lane or an offensive dual-lane. However, if you are either dual laning yourself or up against a defensive dual-lane or a solo safelane then it may be a good idea to transition to the aggro build around level 4 if you are getting enough farm.
The most common one is to solo the offlane, since what Clock needs most is fast levels, not a lot of farm since you can get that by ganking later on. You generally solo the offlane to get a fairly quite level 6 and get Hookshot and then go ganking, with the order of importance being Carry>Mid>Jungler>Support. One great thing about soloing the offlane is that after your lane pushes, you can fire a flare across almost all the jungle camps from the right spot, and while the enemy don't know where you are, go and gank their jungler. You can do it fairly easily as long as you're careful, just walk in and Power Cogs from fog or high ground on both Radiant and Dire, I would say it's easier to do so on Dire offlane.
When your mid or a support does rotate, one nice trick I like to play is to wait until an enemy creep is last hittable, and walk towards it as if you're going to last hit it. Usually you can just walk straight past the creep and cogs the enemy, but if you're lucky they'll go for the deny and set it up all for you :)
Another option for laning to dual lane. This can be used if either a) you need to fill a position 2 role more than your normal solo position 3. b) You want to get a lot of kills to tip the scales of the mid-game into your hands, or c) the enemy has a farm-dependant carry like a Faceless Void or 
Medusa and you want to deny as much farm as possible, while also ganking where possible. I would recommend using the aggressive build if you are dual-laning and also take a ganking orientated support like a 
Lion for example. This combo should allow you to dominate your lane in most scenarios, unless they run some sort of aggro lane with an 
Undying or something like that.
In this part of the guide i'll try to go over Clock's skill and how to use them and how they can be good against certain heroes.
Clock's first skill Battery Assault is a very strong ability. It fires off small AOE mini-stuns every 0.7 seconds that connect onto the closest thing to Clock. After you use Power Cogs on someone pop this. When you do get an enemy in cogs, try not to have any creeps inside, this will proc onto creeps and it will waste both the mini-stun and the damage. In total it deals around 1125 damage if you get every single one off, making it one of the strongest damage skills in the game. You can also use this to slow enemies when they try to run away since it will mini-stun them, so this is one of the reasons you may consider getting Phase Boots to use in conjunction with this skill. You can also use this to farm in the jungle or pop it to farm a creep wave in lane, it will damage the creeps and any heroes that aren't ranged that try to harass you will be hit by the stuns.
Power Cogs is another good skill which is what makes Clock so strong in lane. For a mere 50 mana it can burn 80 mana and health, provide an escape since the mana burn pushes the enemy backwards, so when running away pop it so they won't be able to pass. As said before, try to get just heroes in the cogs to maximise the Battery Assault damage that you deal. Also, cogs moves the enemy slightly, so if they are quite near a creep pack, you can walk away from it a little and then use Power Cogs and as long as they would be where the cogs would spawn, they'll get dragged in. You can also use this in two other quite devious ways. Firstly, if you are against someone like Faceless Void who has a blink which in the early game is fairly mana expensive, you can spam cogs so he can't blink, and then if you get a gank you can cogs for real instead of harass and they can't escape. This is also not a bad idea against Medusa in lane to get rid of her mana for her shield. Also, if you are really careful you can use Power Cogs to push enemy heroes up onto high ground, so when getting the 0:00 rune, if someone comes to contest and you time it just right, you can push them onto the cliff for the next three minutes :D
One of the best utility skills, Rocket Flare has many uses. Firstly, it can be used in lane to farm and harass. Mainly however, I use it as a scouting skill. For a whole 10 seconds you can provide large AOE vision, which makes it ideal for scouting out Roshan attempts and enemy movement. I often use it when the enemy has a jungler to find out how much health they are on, so if it gets really low I can go and gank them given the chance. Also, it can be used to somewhat support an early game fight from anywhere across the map, given the range is global. It can also make you look like an absolute badass when you get someone just as they walk into fountain with it. Finally, I often use it to see where the enemy is. You can get sight for a Hookshot initiation, see the enemy positions on high ground before a fight, and if you're lucky, cancel a blink just before someone tries to blink ult and ruin the initiation.
Clockwerk's signature skill, the reverse Pudge hook, AKA Hookshot is the most potent of all of Clock's abilities. It deals some decent damage, but the main factor is that it has a decent stun that GOES THROUGH MAGIC IMMUNITY!! This means when than Enigma is using a Black Hole with Black King Bar, you can still stop it with a hook. And the stun isn't just on the one person, it affects people in around a 200 unit area, approximately. However, it also lands on the first thing that it hits, so be warned not only for your enemies movement, but also the creeps, the rest of the team and your team too. And don't forget, hook isn't instant, it has a travel time, so do adjust for that. Aside from this problem, Hookshot is pretty much the most bawling skill there is in my opinion XD It has a huge range which can both let you initiate from miles away, but you can also avoid an enemy initiation and then counter-initiate quite well. This can be used quite well in conjunction with heroes like 
Lifestealer, who can sit in your armour (not sure how much room there would be) and then when the enemy is trapped in cogs they can go to town on them. Finally, this can not only be used as initiation, if needs be you can hook to your own team or creepwave or neutral camp as an escape.
This is your wombo-combo, the thing which will have your team screaming "Are you Dendi???" You Hookshot in on the enemy, and when you have them latched, use your Power Cogs and then Battery Assault. After this, pop your Blade Mail or Black King Bar and right click as much as you can. An alternative when hooking onto an enemy you want isolated it to Hookshot Power Cogs Force Staff and then pop your Battery Assault and leave the isolated enemy trapped temporarily while you deal with the rest of the team.
As Clockwerk, your positioning is key to both initiating a gank, a team fight, a Roshan attempt, a game-changing fight or counter-initiate a game-changing fight.
The first rule of the Clock is to ALWAYS make sure before using Hookshot that there is nothing in the way, because if you hook a neutral camp or your support walks in the way, it will be a rather large waste of an ult. When lining up a hook, you should always think about positioning, not just yours and your enemies. Are you in the right place, are you going to hook into the enemy team, do they have invis or a BKB? Are your team going to be nearby for the ensuing fight? And who is the best hero to disable, is it their main carry or their initiator, or a support who's been especially on point. These are all questions you have to ask yourself, and you yourself have to decide if it's a good idea to go in.
Generally speaking I would usually go in and focus the hero who is causing us the most trouble, be it a fed Sven or a Crystal Maiden. On most carries however, one good tactic is to focus down the rest of the team and then the carry. If you find you can't focus down the enemy carry and they're too much of a problem, then you can hook, cogs, and then force staff yourself out. This leaves the carry trapped in cogs allowing you and your team to finish off the rest of the enemy team and then team up and get the carry. This is most effective against melee problem makers for obvious reasons, but it's still perfectly worth it against ranged heroes.
If you do decide to go in, there's a general combo. First line up your hook. Once you've assessed the situation, you need to line up the hook. It's a point target, so make sure that if the enemy's moving you can adjust for the travel time, it isn't instant. Blind hooks look cool but not if you do it right into their team, use Rocket Flare to gain vision on the enemy before you hook in.
So, once you're hooked, start up your Battery Assault and Power Cogs, then pop your Blade Mail and if you need to your Black King Bar, along with your other items if needs be. After this, just try to right click them down. The cogs will drag enemies into them, so it isn't a bad idea to move while they're stunned so you don't get any creeps or summons in the cogs, since your Battery Assault will proc on the nearest thing, so it may end up stunning and damaging creeps instead of your enemy.
Once this has happened, the fight has started and your team is here, you need to help out as much as possible. You can use Power Cogs to trap the enemy whilst your carry fights them, and hook wherever possible to disable any enemies trying to counter-initiate. It is also a dangerous but sometimes rewarding idea to dive quite far with Hookshot to trap and finish off any fleeing enemies.
If you would like to see some examples of very high skill Clockwerk games, look at either Universe from EG or Bulba, one of the most famous Clockwerk players ever, both of which are very good at playing Clock and assessing the situation and making a good call.
This is only my third build, i'm still not great at it so please do leave any comments or suggestions about additions or changes, they are very welcome.
I hope this guide has helped you somewhat in your ventures as Clock, either in the mindset, build or general playstyle. I personally love Clock, one of my favorite heroes, and I hope this guide helps you enjoy playing Clock too :)
DOTAFire is the place to find the perfect build guide to take your game to the next level. Learn how to play a new hero, or fine tune your favorite DotA hero’s build and strategy.
Copyright © 2019 DOTAFire | All Rights Reserved
Quick Comment (9) View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.