General DiscussionAxe as a hero.

buff to base regen and buff to blink dagger are new thinks that helped him alot

Oh the blink dagger thing I get, it's a thing of beauty. More on the hero overall I think he is still worth a play through for people.

nobody (recently) has been saying axe is not viable....

A lot of people hate Terrorblade too and he (Axe) seems to be a good answer against him...I still don't know how, but that's what the numbers say.

axe has received a lot of buffs (increased call duration, base hp regen, reduced spin cd, no cd dunks, buff and fix to vanguard, no mana cost on blink)

ye i mean with axe its easy to tell what is the real one, and he has low hp but high armor

when axe gets ahead early it's so hard to stop, free win hero if u re good at snowballing

Call finally has a decent duration. I still think people max out Helix way to early, Call scales better. As for Terrorblade, try out Warlock, shit works.
Another hero that Rod of Atos and Veil of Discord work well on for certain builds, but no one builds that way lol...

His early game is one of the best in the game and a good early game means an even better mid game. But since most people in pubs are fucking retarded and think they are Arteezy, they go Morph and Drow mid so all your early power is fucking wasted.

well said sam

Relentless was only hating on trench tier JUNGLE axe, and its still a thing, I still ALWAYS lose with jungle axe. Leaving the jungle at 4 mins isnt jungle axe.. jungling till 10-15 mins, well it is, and its retarded, and soo many people still do it... Instant lose. Offlane axe is annoying/op, roaming axe sometimes chilling in the jungle is the same... Stronk early, but if you farm the jungle, you lose that potential, that was Relentless'/others' problem.

@Peckin

I am like the only person left still playing mid drow everyone else has given up on it. I find that if you have enough ranged heroes you give the team enough support with aura that you are fine to farm your core items and become a god midgame

Any proper mid hero will shit on Drow mid. Even Sniper mid is way better. At least Sniper has higher chance of lasthitting pre-6 and is more annoying with headshot and more range.

well yea if you view the game as a 1v1 1v1 1v1 1v1 1v1 but in reality she is a ok mid hero you just cant pick hero if you have weak safe lanes

and if you are radiant you have the jungle camps to supplement your early lvs to 6. Not saying she is the best hero ever but it is a nice change from the standard puck/OD/storm

i think itemizing on Axe is very complex and game dependant.

I see far to many axe players in pro games going blindly for tranq boots when arcanes is a very viable option. I also see a lot of tranq builders go into blademail for mana when it is a bad decision in mana games.

Tranqs are great, but it does create a mana issue for axe that often forces players to get sub optimal items, even with blink not needed mana anymore.

I also don't see pro palyers building aghs on axe nearly enough.

I currently think going for tranqs --> urn --> wand--> and then point booster, followed by blink and aghs, is the most optimal and versatile build. Blade mail does not necessarily need to be built, or built early. It is best against AOE nukers imho (like puppey's axe against sand king).

But it's true this patch has seen axe wr go up by like 2% for stated reasons

er...

i usually go either, treads = phase > arcane > tranq on axe

who the hell would go tranq on axe.... unless you're severely suffering in your lane and you decide to level hunger instead...

i still build vguard if theres a physical lineup, or a hood for magical as my first core (unless im gettin extremely fed, then ill just go straight blink)

i dont think aghs is necessary anymore with the recent buff, but its still a nice addition.
if you kill someone below the HP threshold its still a 6 sec cd at all levels (op af)

i think treads are just plain wrong, and phase are not really needed at all, but i guess if you are spending your time last hitting in a lane they could make sense... and for move speed to initiate. Really though you shouldn't be passively farming with axe. He exists to decimate his opponents are early as possible.

who goes tranqs on axe? Every single pro that has used him in the last month i have seen. Bulba, Akke, Puppey, Demon, Bone7.... every single one got tranquils on axe. The move speed is amazing when off cool for rotating, the regen is huge in between farming, and it is a lot of armor for the price. Tranquils keep you out of the well and farming jungling the earliest and the fastest. Also, they don't get broken when stacking if you are using Battlehunger to pull with... The real question you should be asking yourself, is who the hell builds treads or phase on axe.

Also, I don't understand why you think aghs is less necessary after his rework. It raises the damage threshold by a lot, and the movement speed duration allows you to cull a creep to rotate faster and cull before a team fight for 10 seconds of haste.

people need to get the notion that when tranq boots are broken they give nothing. They still give more movement speed then most boots AND armor

^i think you meant get over the notion.

And yes, tranqs are 60 move speed and 4 armor broken. phase/treads are 50 and arcanes are 55 i believe.

yea Im dyslexic so I tend to mix up my typing :P

Tranqs are best when you can contribute to a fight without being in the fight. With the 900 cast range on Battle Hunger that means you can surely do this while you are healing. Then you get to go in and clean up. CHOP CHOP CHOP!

Its also because if you go jungle its arguable best to start with ring of protection and and stout shield, so all you need is the ring of regen and brown boots.

Though, i am unsure which is better, stout shield + ring of protect, or two stout shield to start. I know double stout shield is viable, especially when tanking lane creep waves.

I have played a lot of axe and through the varying crap and good builds I have done here is the following suggestions from experience on how to improve your axe game (if you play him).

- Build tranquils, it helps you regen while you are wandering through the lane and the additional movement speed is beneficial.
- Level battle hunger. It slows them and provides a movement speed buff while dealing quite a lot of damage.
- If you are going to buy blademail use it properly.
- If your intention is to creep skip or jungle for a longer duration than double stout is viable.

Try the following items on Axe as opposed to the usual.

- Bloodstone
- Euls Sceptre
- Forcestaff
- Halberd

....and a fun last little disable for the enemy (Ghost Sceptre + Beserkers Call) 3.2 seconds of them wondering what the hell is going on.

I hate playing against a good axe, he's annoying as crap, if he is good at cutting lanes you get no farm unless your mid will come gank which doesn't usually happen.

Axe+dazzle= Enemy heros cry. Nothing like that epic early game shallow grave while axe procs a bunch of spins. OP. Axe makes me cry if I'm playing dazzle on opp. team :(

Bloodstone Axe is immense, third highest winrate item on axe, only behind Aegis and GoTS

@ Havoc,

Havent tried euls or force staff on him instead of blink. Seems like it would have the same effect as blink so why not. Bloodstone and heavens I've done. Heavens halberd is underrated on him as an item since you can still evade and spin procs anyways.

i thought tranq broke down to regular boots?

i cant really imagine a 13 sec cooldown being viable in lane most of the time, especially if you're being aggressive.

though it would work for creep stacking, and no i didnt know hunger didnt trigger a tranq cooldown :c
(but ive never got the chance to jungle axe, apparently most people don't like it)

i havent built phase on axe in a long time, ever since the mana rework for his ult i haven't built mana boots either.
ive either left it at regular or sometimes treads, or a fast BoT since he needs to be in every team fight.

why euls? helix works during tornado?
ghost scepter hmm, still procs helix i assume?

halberd - i was a fan of this item long before it was considered viable <3

not sure about bloodstone though, maybe as a luxury....
i would prefer HP + armor ?

I'm a fan of Cyclone on Axe, need the mana upkeep to keep calling and ulting. Also gives a ms bonus and the cyclone active is useful in a team fight to cc a random hero during a team fight. My last axe game I went something like tranqs > blink > drum > cyclone > bots > heart or something like that. Once you have the tranqs and cyclone you really never need to go back to base.

Pretty much just gotta snowball so you can get your items early to have a impact on the game. That game was nice too because I was against a slark/bh which can pretty much cancels their ult/invis.

Triggering Euls does not respond with axe spinning since you cannot be attacked. I'm not sure what the point of euls in a fight would be besides the rest of your team getting into position after you "yell" and lock the other team into attacking you, then using it as your team gets into position after the "yell" (can't remember what his Q yell is called)

euls for insane move speed, for mana regen, and for using it on an enemy and then wating for them to fall and then you use call on them.

c'mon guys. think about it :)

Ahhhh Call after you eul them. I was only thinking of it as a temporary escape. How nice!

but i dont see why he would need that excessive mana considering he's a more tank-based hero :/

also i guess Eul/call is useful as an escape... but kind of defeats the purpose of helix temporarily

not to sure how good the tradeoffs are

Euls adds...movement speed, mana regen which he needs and gives you the ability to put someone out of position or disable a stunner or high dps dealer if you didn't go for blademail.

That's the thing people play axe so little that almost any item on him will eventually concede a use once people work out how to use it or play the hero. I have found euls to be super helpful.

In the first page http://dotabuff.com/players/90503334/matches?hero=axe&lobby_type=&game_mode=&match_type=real you can see almost all the varying builds I do on axe a lot of which are situational.

Cyclone active is more for cc'ing someone you're not calling. So say you blink into 2 heroes in a team fight and there's a range hero pounding autos into you or your teammates. Just throw that cyclone on the ranged hero to mitigate damage until the 2 guys you're going on are dead.

I really wouldn't want to use cyclone on the target you're going on...gives too much time for other team to react.

^

i'd see it as very situational

same with vguard/hood

huskar axe ez game

ctrl+f
no mjolnir

are you guys even trying?
bulba's blademail + mjolnir is the best build

why not let someone else buy mjolnir and use it on u

cuz nobody buys mjolnir

such underrated item

i do

and i generally place it on a durable target thats taking dmg

I hope satellizer is trolling you.

the game bulba attempted to get mjolnir, it resulted in a big throw, and he was never able to complete the item. The guy ignored all +hp items, and at 30 minutes in he had the same HP as the bane support on his team. Needless to say they lsot badly.

As for using euls to get a call off, i'm not say you initiate like that, however it has a low cooldown and you can use it a second time at the end of a fight if you cant blink to close the distance.