Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Guide To Enchantress

Contents:

Intro
Enchantress info
Where Enchantress is right now
When to pick her
Skill order
Jungle Enchantress
-How to Jungle
-Speed Jungling
-Hotkeys
-How to gank/micro
-Countering Chen
Items
Early
Mid
Late
Pro tips
Replay pack
Shameless blog plug


For the full info her skills linky is HERE

A little thing to note though is the maximum possible damage of her orb - Impetus at each level.

Where Enchantress is right now

Enchantress rarely sees play in European or American leagues and I have only see her make a consistant appearance in Asian games and even then I feel that she is played wrong or at least, its not how myself and my team play her. Hopefully this insight will get a few more teams and players using her, no matter where she is played.

When to pick her

In my lineups I rarely put her as solo mid, usually solo in the safe lane (bot for sentinel, top for scourge) with a jungler supporting her. Usually chen/enigma/DS! When picking Ench you should bare in mind that she comes with only a slow, and it wont be skilled in the early game anyway so make sure you have a team with enough stuns and slows to be able to gank effectively and put up a fight in the early game. She can also be used a powerfull jungler taking on the role of Chen.

When picking for jungling its pretty much the opposite situation. You are going to have stuns and slows from the creeps she Enchants and have a great ganker overall with some good map control but have a weaker late game.


Skill build

This is related to solo lane play. Enchantress can handle pretty much any lane with this build - even double stunners. Replay at the bottom of the page will show how an Enchantress can stand up to a VS/potm in lane and we have played agaisnt sk/lina where they could not manage a kill.


Solo lane build:


1.Natures Attendants
2.Untouchable
3.Natures Attendants
4.Untouchable]
5.Natures Attendants
6.Impetus

After this its really personal preferance. Our main Ench player goes:
7.Natures Attendants
8.Untouchable
9.Enchant

But I personally prefer a more aggressive

7.Enchant
8.Enchant
9.Enchant
10.Natures Attendants
11.Impetus
12.Untouchable
13.Enchant
14.Untouchable

I prefer to have the slow, but again - personal preferance and depends on enemy heroes and your team make up. If you have a lot of stuns and slows then you can afford to not go Enchant for the slow, and instead beef yourself up a bit more defensive wise.

I will talk about the reasoning of the skill build more in the Early game section and cover how you should be playing and using them.

Jungling


The skill build for this is the following:

1.Enchant
2.Stats
3.Enchant
4.Stats
5.Enchant
6.Impetus
7.Enchant
8.Natures Attendants


This makes for a great offensive build after level 6 and means that you can play pretty much like Chen. After this you will want to max Natures Attendants and then Untouchable making sure to pick up Impetus at 11 and 16.



How to jungle

To jungle you simply Enchant the biggest/hardest hitting creep in the camp and proceed to kill the rest of the camp with it. Spam its ability like Thunder Clap for example since you won't care about the mana of it. The aim is to jungle as fast as possible. Start off at the hard camps so you can get the biggest creeps.

Speed Jungling

Instead of just killing camps, kill them upto the 45 second mark, if you can't kill the creep before this time then the creeps corpse will block the spawn of the next creeps at the next minute mark. So simply pull the creeps back and either kill them outside the respawn box which is not that large, or wait untill 53 seconds and simply pull the creeps away from their spawn in order to stack the camp. Because you dont care about the creeps dieing (fast cooldown on Enchant) you can afford to do this and you can really speed jungle using this method. Make sure to spam abilities of creeps and try to have as many creeps up as possible.

Hotkeys
I use the following hotkeys and reccommend them for any hero with summons or creeps like Chen/Ench

1. Hero only
2. Summons/Creeps only
3. Summons/Creeps and Hero


How to gank/micro

When ganking a lane you will want to Enchant creeps, you can take more than one at level 1 so make use of this. Enchant your creeps and set your hotkeys whilst running to the lane you want to gank. Make sure the lane isn't pushed and that your ally knows the gank is coming. You will want to slow the enemy hero you are ganking so its easier to land stuns/thunder claps/anything from the creeps you have and just get in more auto attacks. So to do this you will press hotkey 1 to select just Enchantress. Click Enchant then target enemy hero and right click to cast, then SHIFT and right click the hero. This makes Enchantress Enchant/slow the enemy hero and then the shift click means that you will then start to auto attack the hero after casting. Do this quickly and then press hotkey 2 to select your creeps only. You then move your creeps into position and land your stun/slow whatever ability perfectly. Then you press either hotkey 1 to control your hero and finish off the kill or hotkey 3 to select hero and creeps to move back after the succesfull gank and go back to forest for more farming.

Countering Chen

Enchantress is a great coutner to Chen because your Enchant ability has a much shorter cooldown than Chens and you won't be relying on creeps all game meaning you will be stronger in the late game. Just spam Enchant on Chens creeps and try to do it before the battle begins so you can do it 2 or 3 times by the end of a big battle and take Chens creeps. In the jungle you really just want to keep harrasing Chen with your Enchant ability and taking his creeps. Follow him round and take boots + tango's as your first items if you are going to be specifically countering Chen. This way you can stay ahead of him and stop his creeping while also being able to score a kill if you catch him in a bad place with his version of Enchant on cooldown.


Items


Solo lane:
Start off with your standard regen items and take a circlet for added hp. Since you will be solo lane don't worry about a courier or wards. Take a magic stick and upgrade it - Always comes in usefull and will save your skin a few times when 1v2.


Jungling:
I would reccomend going Boots/tango. You will need the speed boost to fight with enemy junglers and it helps so much when ganking a lane. You also dont need a stack of regen items since Enchant is so cheap mana wise.


If you have an insanely hard, and very aggressive lane this is what you should be aiming for at the least at level 6. This really is a bare minimum and you should have more.. but not every game goes according to plan.



I recommend Phase boots over ptreads. BoT is too expensive for Ench when what you really want is a fast Guinsoos. Phase give a much needed speed boost for catching enemies and getting off extra orbs or catching someone with an Enchant slow.

The next step is this:


After this you want to get your "big item" up.

Depending on your teams amount of stuns and enemy heroes we tend to use either Guinsoos or Orchid. We also get a Midas if we are going to use Ench as a late game carry. If the game is dragging on and you are feeling like paper get a Heart.






Force Staff


I love this item on Ench, big numbers on Impetus are always fun when you force staff yourself away from the enemy and it has everything you need, Int gain is dmg/mana and thiers added damage and attack speed. The push itself gives some great utility but most often you are best off getting that Guinsoos. If you are playing a fun game as oppose to clan war then go ahead and get it, it's a very fun item and you can do some great trick shots etc but for serious play a fast guinsoos can be game breaking.

Bracers


I don't think you really need bracers, just stick with Nulls for the mana since you will need at 55/60/65 mana per impetus and you will be using a lot of those in a team fight not to mention spamming your slow and having wisps up. If you are up against NA then go ahead and get one but otherwise - stick to the nulls.

No bloodstones, No agha, No MKB.


You can BKB vs a stun heavy line up and you are carrying but I think an Orchid is ten times better. With an Orchid you are solving a problem at the beginning. Silence = No spells and No stuns whereas BKB means stuns go onto your allies instead of yourself.


I have been asked my opinion on blink dagger and I have got to say What the hell are you smoking. Force staff gives you so much utility and can be used when under attack and gives stats. I love the Force staff build on Enchantress and if I was pub stomping I would probably get a blink dagger for lulz. I get the blink dagger when I want to be flashy. When I want to dodge impales/stormbolts/autoattacks really anything to show off or do unneccisary jukes but let me say that playing a flashy game is great untill you fuck up. I would rather have a consistant player who will give his team utility over someone flashy trying to make the next Art of Mindgames movie. So that is my view on blink dagger, go prawnage pubs with it but leave it at home when you want to play for real.

Early game

Putting Ench in the safe lane is your best bet, though she can go mid if you want. I just find her very strong against a double lane, even double stunners will have some serious trouble against her.

Last hitting should be pretty easy with such a great attack animation and a decent base damage. Just play it defensive, do a little harras on enemy melle if they have one, their is no point giving away free farm, if you see a storm bolt or impale coming your way be perceptive and use Natures attendants early. Its extremely hard to kill Ench when they are up and attack speed is slowed from Untouchable - Eat a tango use your wand and you shouldnt have much problem surviving at all.

At level 6 call for a gank immidiatly. As soon as our Enchantress is about to ding we have someone ready to gank and it always ends in a double kill. At level 4/5 you really dont have the hp to be able to take Enchantress free firing Impetus at you while you run away.

From then on the lane is yours. I like to let Ench farm a bit between ganks so she stays strong throughout the whole mid-game. But you really want to show some map dominance and ganks should be fast paced and often. Make sure to carry a tp as Ench should keep presence on the map. Helping allies and turning around a team fight is easy.

Mid game

Mid game you really just want to get your hex up and start some ganks. Offensive warding by your team will help and after a gank a quick tower push can often be acheived. Being harrased by Enchantress is never fun and she can tower dive so easily with wisps out.

Late game

Leading onto late game you are going to becomes a lot weaker. You really need your hex up and start going for tower pushes to end the game. Target support heroes early as 4/5 hits from Impetus is usually a kill and if anyone is running away - make sure to throw an orb after them.

A few tips:
Be perceptive and use your Wisps when stuns are incoming. Do some good juking and good Wand usage can really turn a gank around. Keep a tp on you at all times and make sure you harras enemies in lane at level 6. 1 or 2 orb harras' can easily lead into a slow > kill

When you have mana for just one more Impetus or the enemy is faster than you are - and you have just one hit left, let the orb fly and start to run in the opposite direction to your enemy.

Increase distance between you and the enemy means more damage from Impetus.

No comments:

Post a Comment