Guide To Medusa, the Gorgon

Medusa's model comes from the Naga leader in Warcraft 3: the Frozen Throne. Raisen by Illidan from the depths of seas, they were once corrupt night elves who sought to bring demons into this world in exchange for power. The name Medusa however, tells another story and an interesting fact about Aegis, Roshan's gift.


Changelog:
23/8/2009: Medusa 2.0
This is my Medusa's Guide 2.0 after the original one suddenly disappeared. I've rearranged the structure and changed item build a little. If you plan to write guides, ALWAYS BACK IT UP!!!
3/9/2009: Stone Gaze instantly kills Visage's Remanents

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HERO OVERVIEW


Click above for details

Pros:
300% team fight dps
Fast farmer&Great pusher
Tough
Underestimated

Cons:
Item dependent
Pure farmer early-mid game
Not effective in 1v1 solo fights
Fragile without mana

Stats Analysis:
Medusa has decent overall stats growth which is good because she needs all 3 attributes. Her base strength is rather low to make up with potential hp provided by mana shield. Her main attribute growth is average, she's not the imba stats growth type of carry but a skill-based carry, meaning levelling up is very important. Her base damage and attack animation ranks among the average, good last hitting ability is required. Her base armor is low, don't get hit too much early game.

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Almost the complete opposite of Viper, Medusa is one of the most unique ranged dps heroes who is born for team fights. All her skills are designed to deal massive damage to lots of enemies and tank enough to kill, but not effective in 1v1 situations. Naturally, Medusa doesn't get to kill a lot. Choose Medusa if you are a team player good at using carry heroes to increase your side's total damage in team fights.

Good Allies

Team fight Initiators&Chaos creators


Team fight initiators are a MUST for Medusa. If there's one important factor that cannot be shown in statistics, it's positioning. And if you are to win with Medusa, a good Initiator is halfway towards victory. Choose chaos creators like SS, Meepo, Butcher and Dirge to avert enemy attention, the longer you stand the better.

Disablers


Medusa has almost no disabling skills, you need heroes to do it for you, period.

Chasers


Medusa does 300% damage to the enemy team, but only 75% to each unit. You need heroes great at chasing them down so you can focus on doing your job which is NOT killing LOL wierd right?

Healers


Because of Medusa's play style, healers are very important in providing regen. Whoever stands last wins.

Note that a lot of heroes are various roles combined, e.g. Dirge is a Chaos creator and healer, Slarder can be a team fight initiator, disabler and chaser.

Do not pick Medusa if:

• You want a ganker, support, tank or simply don't know what to do
• You are a newbie
• You do better outside team fights
• You are not good in farming/your side has too many farmers

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SKILL ANALYSIS

• Your carry skill, farming skill and pushing skill, the reason you farm and the team fight damage dealer. It increases your total damage to 300%.
• Attacks the 4 closest targets within attack range. This skill is 360 degree, you even hit enemies behind you, but they must be in sight.
• Orbs only stack with your main arrow, e.g. on the unit you click attack. When Maelstorm/Mjollnir procs, only 1 arrow is fired. Skadi is a buff placer for all ranged heroes!
• +damage items work with this skill, but critical strike seems to work only with 1 arrow too
• Pathetic damage early game, don't expect to harrass with this.
• Levelling it up with Splitshot on won't auto use the new level. You need to turn it off and on.
• Works with illusions! Turning it on before you create an illusion gives it Splitshot too. Turn it off beforehand and your illusion is just like everyone else's.
• Turning it on is an action that will stop what you are doing. It won't charge magic wands, however.
• If you turn it on and attack towers, it'll attack surrounding enemies as well. But it doesn't work vice versa.

• Interesting aoe nuke. You need more targets to maximize its potential. At level 4, it can deal 1800 damage(1350 after reduction) and siphons 450 mana. Impressive huh?
• It jumps to the next closest target, which is out of your control.
• The mana is returned to you after the snake returns to you
• Note again that "Every time it damages, the damage amount is increased by 20% of its BASE VALUE."

How to spam Mystic Snake

• Always keep enough mana for mana shield
• Always target units with low hp as its damage increases.
• When harassing heroes, make sure it hits the heroes last. Easy to predict since it jumps to its next closest target.
• If you can hit at least 3 targets with mana, e.g. 1 melee creep, 2 ranged + heroes, spam immediately. Mana cost is halved at least.
• Spam it like Zeus spams Chain lightening before team fights. You need to have vision of your targets.

• Your tanking skill. Keep it on at all times.
• Mana shield only absorbs half damage, if an enemy hit you for 100 damage and you have lv4 mana shield, 20% armor reduction:

  1. 100 damage is halved. 25 mana is used to absorb 50 damage.
  2. Armor reduction takes place, taking away 20% of the remaining 50 damage.
  3. You take 40 damage.

• Corrected thanks to hugseal. Suppose you have a Medusa with 1000 hp and lv4 mana shield with enough mana. It's gonna take more than 2000 damage to kill her due to damage reduction.The exact potential hp increase is impossible to calculate since your armor changes, different types of damage hit you and so on. If this the damage this skill absorbs is reduced by damage reduction first, then it increases your hp by 100%, but it's not, so it's less than 100%. Get it? The higher reduction you have, the less it increases. You are trading a part of your mana for potential hp, the percentage mana needed to fully tank before you die is 133%/80%/67%/50 of your total hp.
• Silence and Doom turns this off, of course. Illusions don't gain this skill

• Your ultimate really shines in team fights, use it first to help your teammates ultimate or after so you deal more damage before enemy lines clash.
• a factor of 2/3/5 means divided by 2/3/5, e.g. reduced to 50%/33%/20%. Levelling it up slows enemies even further and deals more damage to summoned units like illusions and Hellfires.
• Enemies must see you for it to have effect. You don't need to face them. Cast it when fleeing with enemies chasing you and enjoy!
• It is not a stun! You are not invincible with it!
• I just found out it instantly kills Visage's remanants!Does it work on Chen's beasts then? Does it work on converted units too?

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SKILL BUILD

1. max damage




This build is for spaming Mystic Snake. You are fragile with this build because much of your mana goes to spaming Mystic Snake and you have no stats. Keep only 1 level of ulti and level it up 15-16, since you are only slowing down them more.....slowly. Don't level up Splitshot early game, it won't net you kills, you harrass badly with it, it's useless then.

2. Survival Build




For the Medusas who fear they'll die a lot, if not already. At lv8 you have +10 all stats which equals an ultimate orb, plus all of your mana goes to mana shield. 2 levels would be enough.


3. Balanced Build



With this build I'm trying to maximize Medusa's mana with a lv4 Mystic Snake for early game, stats for better performance and a decent mana shield. Early game stats helps Medusa a lot in last hitting/denying/harrassing. Level up mana shield when ganks happen a lot increases your survivability, 2 levels gives you enough spare mana to spam Mystic Snake decently. Although you should still keep 40% at all times. Late game Medusa's mana is always enough, stats are more important.

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ITEM BUILD

Early Game
*2

All stats are important for you, 3 branches make Magic Wand later. Keep a Clarity and use it after lv6, you would have mana shield soon and it helps you farm longer.

Core Build


Magic wand is good for Medusa because:

• She's a farmer and it helps detect nearby enemies
• Emergency hp+mp, you increase 375 hp with the help of mana shield, many enemies underestimate this
• A well placed Mystic Snake gives you more mana than it consumes!
• Cheap all-stat booster
• Magic wand is also useful late game, don't sell it.

Treads is next, no brainer. Manta Style is your main damage item, although itself doesn't offer great dps, the 2 images are the real dps against towers and heroes, and as you all know illusions die fast, so positioning is all the more important. Skadi is next because it's not a dps item, it's an awesome survivability item and it synergizes perfectly with your illusions, takes up a buff placer(NOT orb effect) and gives Medusa everything she needs. Don't get Skadi first! You don't have enough dps yet.

How to correctly use Manta Style

• Turning on Splitshot before using it gives your illusions Splitshot too! A total increase of 198% dps!
• Using it disables mana shield! Remember to turn it on manually first thing after.
• Skadi's buff placer doesn't work on illusions. Your illusions only have the animation but no effect.

Luxury Items


If you want more dps after your core build, try Mjollnir first. The orb stacks with Skadi and Splitshot, and gives you an awesome active skill. If you use it on yourself with mana shield on, it's barely visable in team fights with all those havok around. In terms of further increasing dps, Mjollnir is definitely the best. HoT next for tanking, not Linkens, not BKB, now you are almost always the hero with the MOST hp, the toughest dps. Tank for your teammates, it's easy!

Situational Items


With this you can move in directly after your team fight initiators and start dpsing, if your enemies are spell-based. Otherwise you'll have to wait until the 1st wave of nukes is over. However, if you're tanking for your weaker allies, using this forces your enemies to focus on allies around you, in which case Heart of Tarrasque is better.


In an extremely favourable game I'd get this. Treads+Radiance+Skadi and the game basically ends there. Medusa doesn't have the survivability to maximize Radiance early to mid game, normally getting this auto turns her into a big sign that says FUCK YOU NOOBS! and enemies will focus on her.


I never got this item with Medusa but I think it's a possibility. If you had a very favourable early game this is preferable to help farming and mobility. Also you should semi-support teammates by tping over and casting Stone Gaze to help escape/chasing. Remember that with this item, you should farm even faster, not slower. This is mainly a farming item.

Items to avoid


I've seen so many Medusas get this and fail completely. The idea of getting a tank with a decent aoe, nice ulti with some physical dps abilities might seem nice, but Medusa has no imba team disable worth focus-killing, no dps no heal no stun why bother killing someone so difficult? If Medusa gets this, her side's dps lowers by a large chunk, not to mention how expensive this item is.


For an item 5000+ I think it's totally not worth it. It's not a dps item or a farm booster, you don't stop farming from here. It's not BKB, you are only immune to 1 blast. Easily countered. It's not Heart of Tarrasque, you can't tank like hell. Plus it's so expensive. How many 5000s can you farm in 1 game?


Getting this is like Bristleback getting this to increase mid game farming for Radiance. Cower to your tower and control the line. DO NOT PUSH. Keep 1-2 clarities if necessary, it'll save you 1600 gold. And I think this is useless late game.

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WALKTHROUGH

Early Game
Buy your items and head out to a lane. It doesn't matter which lane that much, but be careful not to lane against heroes that can seriously disrupt early game farming. If you don't have mana shield early game(before 6), stay back and harrass passively with Mystic Snake or when enemies come forward to last hit. But with mana shield you are very tough, wear your enemies down before they wear your mana off!


Mid Game
Farm, farm, farm. Every minute is better spent farming. Cower to a tower and farm. Keep the lane to your side. Don't ask me how to do it or don't use a farmer! Don't use Mystic Snake or Splitshot unless you're intentionally pushing or going elsewhere. Do not actively go to team fights, the faster you have Manta Style the better. Once you have Manta Style however, start going to team fights while pushing when there's none. Balance well between both. Normally your dps is still not enough for a guranteed victory, farm by pushing, an occasional kill in team fights and last hitting towers. Here's where you show off your awesome team play sense!


Team Fights

Medusa deals damage much like Necrolyte and Proudmore. Necrolyte relies on Death Pulse/5 sec while Proudmore - Tidebringer/4sec. You have a 0 cd 0 mana Splitshot that increases your physical damage to 300% but divides it between 4 targets. For this reason I suggest turning on Splitshot at all times, you are not a good burst damage dealer nor should you try to be. Put frankly, killing is not your task lol. Your task is to wear them all off before they kill you one by one.

Golden rules for team fights:

2. Positioning: always move in after your team fight initiators
3. DPS: Splitshot on+2 illusions
4. Survivability: Mana shield on!
5. Surprise: A charged Magic wand saves the day

Explaination:

Positioning: Move in after your team fight initiators and chaos creators and avoid getting hit by the 1st wave of nukes. In pubs, these 2 types of heroes don't normally coordinate well, you might wanna time a Stone Gaze to help your teammates' positioning.
A good enemy team will have strict positioning too, meaning disablers&dpsers behind tanks and so on. To maximize Splitshot, you need to cover 4 heroes and make sure no creeps stand in between. A good idea is to stand behind your tanks, right outside enemy skill disable/damage range. In doing so, you basically ignore enemy tank line and directly hit their fragile heroes. Cover your fragile heroes in attack range, any enemy making for them will likely be attacked as well. Try to make the fight evolve around you while you always follow the heat of the tide.

DPSing: Once you've moved in, turn on Splitshot and create illusions. Here's the diliema for your enemies: with mana shield on they know whose the real Medusa, but leaving your illusions dealing damage is a BIG mistake. Killing your illusions, however, wastes precious time. I suggest turning on Splitshot at all times, chase-killing is really not your job. Normally I always manage to kill 2-3 in team fights before they could run out of attack range. It doesn't matter who you're attacking until you have Skadi/Mjollnir, make sure you clear the creeps off asap, your arrows only hit the closest 4 targets, they don't care who!

Survivability: You are the dps and semi-tank. Because of Medusa's damage style, more than often your tanks die first. When they die, you're the 2nd tank. So avoid the 1st wave of nukes, you live for a good reason! Tank for your fragile allies and chasers, they're gonna need all the hp available. Magic wand has proven more than useful many time here.

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