Thinking and language fails around now because I'm feeling deadly sick, been through far too much hecticness for my own good, and am lonely and confused. No really, you won't catch me actually saying that very often on public domain.


Hero 4/80: Enchantress

Yet another hero I love. It's one of those heroes I like to call my classics, since I more or less have been using it and trying new tactics with it ever since its release. It's also a hero I came up with to use in draft matches, and though I might not be the first one to use it in one, I came up with the idea of using it myself anyway, so I'm rather proud of it.

The Enchantress is either impossible to kill, or a complete pushover. It really depends on what the enemy's piorities are. The amazingly low HP on this hero sort of makes her susceptible to focus nukage be it in the early or the late game. However, if you don't kill her within 5 seconds, heal and untouchable means you're going to have to chase her down for a really long time to finish her off.

Team battles are also a little messy with this hero, and there are a lot of decisions to make quickly. Do you go near your friend to heal him or just heal yourself and not waste time in battle? Do you finish off the low HP enemy near you or target the guy further away for maximum damage? Do you use enchant on that creep or save it for when your enemy is running away? Do you even want to use impetus constantly and risk having no mana for when it's most effective? I recently realised I more or less manual cast impetus in no lag situations but a slightest spiking problem or a bit of delay makes me autocast it. It really was a sort of subconcious thing and I didn't realise it until today.

Early game, unless I'm soloing, I tend to go massive support. The person I'm assisting on my lane almost never fails to farm really well. How well I farm though, depends on what kind of creep luck I'm getting and how much the person I'm helping KS' me. Creeps and Impetus are I think the two most consistent and deadly sources of damage in the early game.

Oh, and I love the feeling of invulnerability when I use it in those drafts where the opponent simply can't touch you. I simply love that feeling. Plus Enchantress allows you to micro technically up to 8 other units at one time, although usually I'm very contented with 1 or 2. Microing more units than just your hero alone is fun!

Been trying a few things on enchantress, and she really needs that unique balance of survivability, attack speed, mana, and damage. I tried BKB with mass attack speed once, and I could easily clear the weaker heroes in a flash but by the time I got to the stronger ones I was out of mana to do much damage. Dagon is something I have to work with. Heart and Radiance and Guinsoo seem so far to be the items I have the most consistent results with. Skadi is surprisingly ineffective, and I have to try Linken's some day.

To top things off, I've seen a couple of really bad Enchantresses, so I feel happy knowing there are players worse than me. Unfortunately it isn't quite as impossible to die nowadays since more people are learning how to deal with her. Heck, I still think she pwns.


Hero Log 5/80: Sandking

Hoho. I have told you I have a problem hitting those target point spells right? Sandking is actually not that bad.

Well, it was rather bad last time. I had around 50% Burrowstrike missing rate, whether the target was intentionally dodging or not. I'm actually hitting more burrowstrikes now, simply because I only take them when I think it's not too difficult to hit.

Somehow I've always been fortunate enough to land myself in a rather good early game state with a good lane in all the matches that I've used Sandking. Dagger comes up before it's too late to get it, and after that things are usually a breeze.

As much as I hate missing burrowstrike every so often, Sandking is one hero I love to play as long as I get a good early game foundation, because with blink dagger, it's basically am a Strength hero with 3 escape mechanisms, which very few heroes can rival.

I admit I play Sandking very differently from a lot of people. For one, I actually stay put in a lane and move around after level 6. Mostly this is because my teammates are whining about why I didn't move around before then. See, pre-level 6, I can't hit burrowstrike for nuts unless the enemy is stunned, slowed, or right beside me.

I can't start the battle with epicentre. Never. In fact, most battles I only am able to epicentre at one time, and that's just as the battle begins. I can't catch any heroes in epicentre after that, and I can't find the correct moment to do it before. I do get off rather good ones once in a while though.

I epi-blink-burrow more than burrow-epi most of the time, not just because it's easier but because I usually can't hit burrowstrike unless the enemy is already slowed by epicentre.

I don't learn caustic finale, and I also don't ever use burrowstrike to KS creeps. In fact, I find it freaking annoying when my teammates do it because they basically ruin your entire creep farming momentum with 2 clicks. The worst thing is when they come out all well farmed with a Heart and Aegis.

Quite frankly, I think the Sandking has little use in battle after epicentre with those items. Maybe a little bit of tanking power, but the Sandking is far too slow and sluggish to do much damage by hitting enemies. I mean, the Sandking really has enough survival power. What he needs is items to help his team. Guinsoo, Necronomicon, Meka, perhaps Radiance at the worst if damage output is required. I've been using Meka and Guinsoo quite often in the few games that I play Sandking, and recently tried Necronomicon. I also went Skadi once, but it didn't really help that much since there wasn't much chasing to be done.

Yeh, not learning casutic finale also makes room for other nicer item orb effects.