General Discussion - Snake Fetish or How to play Medusa, by epsik-kun - DOTABUFF

2014-02-23

Medusa the Gorgon is a manifestation of the word "sexiness" itself. She is known for being too much to handle at any stage of game. By her player that’s it. “One of the hardest carries in the game, but requires too much farm to do a thing”. Worst hero blah-blah-blah.
Despite that, Medusa is my favorite hero by far (surprisingly, I didn’t liked her at all in original DotA). So, this “guide” is made for sharing my love.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Pros and Cons:[/color][/size]
[color=#0dbd00]+ sexy;
+ many snakes;
+ center of attention;
+ team fight breaking ultimate;
+ Hardest. Possible. Carry.[/color]
[color=#ff0000]- terrible start;
- squishy;
- highly depends on her team;
- center of attention;
- everyone has a twisted sense of beauty.[/color]

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Abilities:[/color][/size]
Well, you know them. Split Shot for ranged cleave, Mana Shield for tons of effective HP, Mystic Snake for being a pain in the ass and Stone Gaze for the flavor. I mean – you’re Medusa the Gorgon, aren’t you?
I don’t feel necessary to explain what each skill does because tooltip in the game makes it just fine. However, I will write more about their role at different points of game.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Roles:[/color][/size]
Again: you are carry. Hard carry. Very hard. That means you need to farm your items and then kick all asses if game isn’t over yet (how do you even kick with a snake tail?). Don’t try to support or roam with Medusa. Play other creeping… things for these purposes.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Lanes:[/color][/size]
This is the point, where I’ll stop speak nonsense and start actual guide. Of course best lane for Medusa is the safe one (top for Dire and bottom for Radiant). However, most of people who try to read this guide (I don’t even talk about “need it”) play in pubs. This is a wonderful place where various miracles possible! Like 5 carry team with 3 raging players on the mid simultaneously.

So I highly recommend you: always ask other players if you’re allowed to pick Medusa and go safe lane. Never pick her silently, except situation where you are picking last and your team doesn’t have a carry (those miracles appear too, but not as often as I would like them to).
But if you end up in situation where you picked our lady but safe lane already taken, remember: Medusa can stay on any lane. And I do mean any. I’ll tell you more – sometimes safe lane isn’t best choice in pub game. In my case, typical situation is where everyone in the enemies’ team knows what Medusa is and what threat she pose. And my team, on the other hand, asks me to buy a courier and wards… Did I tell you that playing Medusa in pubs will bring you pain? It will. But let’s continue.

Worst lane choice for Medusa is a mid lane. Not because of ganks – there’s a tower really close to outweigh it, but because of Medusa herself not being fit for that role. She has low movement speed and no real use for a bottle, so she’ll not benefit from runes that much. Also she needs money over experience. And she isn’t roamer, so she’ll not be able to help her team.

Offlane, on the other hand, can work out just fine. I don’t say it will be easy, but Medusa has tools to make this possible.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Item choices:[/color][/size]
To be honest, I hate to waste money. So I strongly oppose every single Iron Branch you’ll buy for her. I’ll speak about starting items later, for now I want to point few controversial items:

Power Treads or Phase Boots? As you can see in Dotabuff’s statistics, despite PB being recommended item for Medusa, PT has higher winrate. So I recommend you to ignore this and never buy goddamn PT for Medusa. Please.
Phase Boots is better suited for her in every situation possible. Boots choice has most impact early, and this is a time, when Medusa has shit damage and no escape mechanism. Also, Medusa doesn’t need DPS early, but she really needs extra damage per attack to secure lasthits. Second very important moment – Phase Boots allows you to setup your ulti to actually stone some targets when it really needed.

Manta Style. Second most used item on Medusa. Easy to predict, I’m going to say “Don’t buy it!”. In my opinion, this item for her is too much overrated. Main argument for buying this item is: “you turn on Split Shot, then use Manta and here’s your 224% extra damage”. Let me ask you one thing: Shockwave skill can hit 10+ units and deal total of 3000+ damage. Does it makes it best skill ever? No it doesn’t. Same goes for splitshotting illusions. This is fun, but doesn’t have too much effect. Also you should remember, that illusions neither profit from extra damage nor from IAS modifiers on gear (you bought these PT, didn’t you?). This being said, in late game pair of illusions will add you like 10~15% DPS on a single target. You can calculate it yourself, if you want to.
I am not saying that Manta is a bad item. It’s good and fits Medusa well, but there are much better items for her. You can add 625 gold and buy Eye of Skadi which is amazing.

Midas. Just no.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Actual game:
Early, [/color][/size]
there are either laning or

laning.
As I said before, Medusa has terrible early game, mostly because of low base damage, so-so stats and all skills being useless on lvl 1. In my opinion, countering her damage problem is essential. So, as starting items, I suggest Tango and either

Ring of Basilius or

Blades of Attack. Both will give you some extra damage. Ring has couple of nice properties that will help you on your lane, while Blades will give you more damage and will be used for your Phase Boots later.
It’s important to know who you’re facing before using your first skillpoint.

Mystic Snake should be leveled first only if you’re going for first blood (and you really shouldn’t). In every other case you should pick either stats (for damage that you need so much) or

Mana Shield (if your opponent can possibly do something to get you killed). Best build in my opinion is:
Stats->Snake->Snake->Shield->Snake->etc
I don’t think you need second point in stats, cause you’ll probably already have extra Blades of Attack at level 4. And recent buff for her Mana Shield is good too.
Mana cost of Mystic Snake renders it completely useless on level 1, but after level 2 it’ll become your main harass tool, given you can hit at least two targets with mana at once. But don’t use it for farm itself before you build Perseverance.
Your objectives are simple: don’t die, try to lasthit as much as possible, look at map often. Lasthitting>harassing. Harass enemy only if he/she/it gets in your way or if you have nothing else to do. Deny your creeps as much as possible (without sacrificing lasthits though). Attack them as soon as their HP drops below 50%, so you can prevent lane from pushing further from your tower.
Your items of choice at this point of game is:
Blades of Attack(two, if you bought Ring earlier)->PB->Ring of Health (or Void Stone if you aren’t being harassed for some reason)->Perseveranse->Linken’s Sphere.
Don’t make Ring of Aquila. It’s a good item, but it’s also extra 500 (or even 1000 if you skipped Ring of Basilius) gold you’ll spend on item that you don’t really need. Save it for your Linken’s Sphere.
Remember, that you’ll have your escape option

only on lvl 6. You can give just enough food to an enemy before that moment comes, so don’t risk. Yes, for now try to not think about your ulti other then being your only escape.

Linken’s Sphere is kind of a break point for you. If you have it before 17~20 minutes mark – you’re dangerous already. This doesn’t means you should go and fight with enemy heroes, but they can’t kill you in split second and in most cases that is more than enough. Also +34 damage from Linken’s and PB is good at this point.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Mid game:[/color][/size]
By the moment enemy’s tower is destroyed and you can’t lane safely anymore, you should already have PB and Linken’s Sphere. Your level at this point would be somewhere around 12. What will change? Basically, nothing. You’re still in the beginning of your farm, but you must remember it isn’t so terrible anymore. You’ve just got your first level in

Split Shot (You did, right?), you have big manaregen boost from Linken’s and enough damage to guaranty lasthits. Your course of action from now on is farming lane without going away from tower. If your creeps begin to push lane – just abandon it. TP on another lane or go for some jungling until things change.

Jungling as Medusa at this point is pretty simple, yet have few unique moments:
[*]Don’t waste your time on any camps except big ones and satyrs’ camp. Always use Mystic Snake on satyrs – it works wonders.
[*]Stack ancients as much as possible. If someone in pub does this for you – it’s basically a game you already won. I mean – no one going to stack your ancients for you in pub, deal with it.
[*]Stack big camps if you can’t stack ancients for some reason.
In summary, your action pattern is something like this:
Farm on a lane->creeps move too far from a tower->look at the map – if there is a creep wave coming to your tower on the other lane – go there, if not – go in the jungle.
If you see, that anytime soon some lane will be free for your farming, then come in jungle just at time to stack big camp and kill it with Snake and few shots. If there are no such lanes – go stack ancients and kill big camp if you have free time.

Remember, 12lvl Medusa with PB, Linken’s and one point in Split Shot can easily farm three stack of ancients by herself. Just attack them from some distance, to make them go back sometimes, so you’ll not get attacked by all at once.

Farm

Skadi.
Start with Ultimate Orbs and finish it by going in a Secret Shop. You’ll have no problems with it, if you didn’t have problems with Linken’s before.

Once you get your first Ultimate Orb you can go fight actually. But you should remember: farming>>>fighting. So even if theoretically you can help your teammates in a fight hell I know where – don’t do it. Don’t waste your precious farm time.
But if you see a fight happening in a place you can quickly reach (by moving or TPing) – go for it. In most ~even fights your ultimate will bring victory for your team.
Very important moment: [color=#ff0000][size=25]CARRY THOSE GODDAMN TP SCROLLS![/size][/color] Yeah, I know that’s a given for basically every hero in the game, but as Medusa you MUST always carry at least one of them. You don’t have reliable escape, don’t you? And you’ll not try to make Shadow Blade if you’re not retarded. TP scroll will give you that escape you need so much. It’s very hard to catch Medusa even with multiple heroes if she just presses her ulti and runs away. But if you time her ulti well, with TP you can even escape organized five man ganks.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Late Game:[/color][/size]
I think that idea of Medusa coming online after having 4-5 big items is wrong. She, actually, needs two of them to participate in fight efficiently, three to wipe anyone who wasn’t powerfed by your precious teammates, four to destroy everything in team fights and five to annihilate them solo.

So, your “Late game” begins when you have Skadi. With PB, Linken’s and Skadi you can easily win team fights even while being focused. You’ll also be immortal in one-on-one manfights if any happen (except for powerfed cases). Keep this in mind, when some Riki decides to take you one on one in a cloud. Don’t run away – fight him, he’ll be the one to run away. You can completely ignore Juggernaut’s Omnislash too.

At this point of game, you’re going for aggressive… farming. Yes, you are. Push towers with your team, then stack ancients from time to time, farm jungles and large waves of creeps. Don’t hunt enemy heroes and ask your team to play defensively for a little bit. Don’t go on enemy’s high ground just yet. All fights you should participate are team fights, preferable defensive ones.
Make

Butterfly. That’s it.

If you have done well until now – call your team and A+click on enemy’s base for a free win. In an equal game these three big items is all you need for a win. They will not be able to do anything – you’ll hit hard and any of your hits will force them to actually fight you (or lose a teammate due to Skadi’s slow), and only thing you need to do to stop their initiation is to use Stone Gaze with a good timing. It will nullify anything – Black Hole, Chronosphere, Reverse Polarity, etc. And after that you’ll kill them. Just because you can.

However it’s pretty rare to have equal conditions at this point. Even if it was for like 10-15 minutes, your team had 4vs5 situation and that’s your fault entirely. You should take a look if there’s anyone who actually can fight you. If answer is “yes” than you should delay your dive for a time enough to build

Rapier – your fourth big item and one of reasons why Manta on Medusa is a trash.
You probably know already that Medusa is considered as best Rapier holder in the game. She is range, has an AOE attack without wasting money for Battlefury, tons of effective HP to survive and team fight breaking ultimate. Suck it up, Leoric.
Still, even for her Rapier is still a risky strategy, keep that in mind. In most cases you’ll win, just don’t make terrible mistakes and you’ll be fine.
You could consider buying Rapier as your third big item if you far behind in terms of farm. In a team fight (when defending your highgrounds for example) four-slotted Medusa with a Rapier can outplay other hard carries (like AM) with six slots;

And what’s for sixth slot is that you don’t really need it. Fill it with Aegis for your final rush or save your money for a sudden buyback + another Rapier (I had a game like that). However, if you ask me, I would say that best sixth slot item for Medusa is

Guinsoo (sheep stick). Seriously, it gives you extra stats, active skill to counter enemy’s evasion and manapull that guaranties 100% uptime for your Mana Shield in every possible situation.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Friends and Enemies:[/color][/size]
The very amusing trait of Medusa is that she has no real counterpick. There are few heroes who can put up some resistance to a full farmed Medusa, given they have equal farm (which is little not realistic), but no one, I repeat, NO ONE excels Medusa in a team fight.
Even DOOM, who is an universal hero counter, doesn't really counter her. Your Mana Shield still works under effect of Doom and your Linken's Sphere will give you enough time to activate Stone Gaze before being Doomed.
Best way to counter Medusa is to shut her farm, like with every other hard carry.
You could say, that evasion based heroes could be considered a counter pick. Cause you don't really need that MKB. But if you're facing some Phantom Assassin, getting MKB instead of Butterfly will still win you a game.
Also, "kinda" counter is Bane with his -damage skill. However Linken's does block it, and on a stage where it has an impact, your work is not to deal damage anyway.

Based on that, her best friends are heroes who can stop fast push, don't feed enemy too much and provide Medusa some space. And it's never a bad thing to have some initiate and crowd control potential in your team.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Few facts about Medusa:[/color][/size]
- There are few things that you should know about Stone Gaze:
[*]It will have no effect on someone who never faced Medusa for all Gaze duration. So idea of using it on someone running from you is not a good one.
[*]Stone Gaze drastically slows turning speed of affected targets. You'll stone anyone, who faced you twice, even if it were for a moment. That means, only few heroes can effectively disable you if they turned away from you in the first place. Yes, I am talking about TP out.
- Did you know that you can switch PT from intelligence to any other and gain more mana with a Mystic Snake? You did, right? Forget about it and never buy Power Treads on Medusa;
- Mana Shield will piss off anyone who'll use HP% based skill on you. It's just ridiculous when you get ultied by Necrophos while having like ~40% HP and just creep away;
- Split Shot will never target buildings, but will still work if you attack them yourself;
- Medusa can push stupidly good by learning Split Shot on the first level, but that's a bad idea;
- You can easily protect Stone Gaze from being stolen by Rubik - switch Split Shot or Mana Shield off/on.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Whom to watch:[/color][/size]
I don't think too much knowledge could be gathered by watching other's Medusa plays, cause she don't really has any skillshots or advanced techniques. But if you want to see good Medusa, obviously you can watch ZSMJ games. XBOCT played a good one too, and I saw SingSing game where he nicely used Stone Gaze to catch running away target that turned back to throw some disable.

Don't associate their item builds with this guide though.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]That’s it, folks![/color][/size]
“guide” is over. Feel free to ask me anything about it or about my cute Medusa. I would really appreciate if you point out my mistakes in grammar or punctuation.
Thanks for reading, if you really did waste that much time of yours to read something like this.

[size=20][color=#00ffff]Bonus[/color][/size]

This topic was edited 2014-03-05

Winter

2014-02-23

Dude, I really think you need professional help if you have a fetish for Medusa.

Jokes aside, your sections titles (Early, Mid, Late game) are with quite a small font. You might want to increase that a little bit. And cheers for posting a guide!

General DiscussionSnake Fetish or How to play Medusa, by epsik-kun