BaneHallow - the Lycanthrope - Guide

BaneHallow, the Lycanthrope

Introduction
I played a few Lycan games over the past week and was rather impressed by the results I gathered. Necro-Lycan does indeed work, and so far all the games were won. Apart from achieving consistent results, I went on to stress test the strategy in various ways as well. Eg with constant feeding and playing with delay. So yeah, this guide will serve to present my findings. Sorry for the lack of colours and presentation style. If there is any beauty in this guide, it can be found in the content.


How does Necro-Lycan works?
The idea is to rush Necro but you wouldn't be using it in teamfights. The necroboys are there to help you in pushes. There are many arguments going around on how max speed necros+wolves can be a beast in teamfights but I doubt it works everytime. Kinda iffy as it relies quite heavily on the skill of the player, and his micro. You see, I'm a lazy person who prefers to win games through the easiest method. Which is exactly the intent and purpose of this guide.

So back to the idea. You will be using wolves+necroboys to assist you in your Solo pushes. You will only summon them when you are taking down a tower or a rax, and for the very reason you do not summon them during teamfights. Necroboys for teamfights means no necroboys for pushes. In fact, you should avoid teamfights altogether! Because teamfights create a perfect opportunity for you to push without much resistance since your opponents are busy with their own battle.


Skillbuild and Item Build?

If you need to check the hero details and abilities, click the link below.
Lycanthrope - DotA Hero Details

Skill Build
1. Wolves
2. Feral Impulse
3. Wolves
4. Feral Impulse
5. Wolves
6. Shapeshift
7. Wolves

You max wolves first. Level 4 wolves are great for farming your crucial items ie Necrobook. Then focus on maxing Feral Impulse, get Shapeshift whenever possible and max Howl after that. Add stats only after you have maxed everything



Item Build
Start off with the following items:

Good mana regen, good armor aura, great for wolves.

Aim for the following items:

First priority is to build your Necrobook. They are key to your pushes. Healing salve is great because you don't have lifesteal (from Vlad's) yet. Also, it can be quite a waste needing to go back base to heal while still having 50%+ mana.

Other items to get in order of priority:
--> --> or
Boots of Travels -- the next most critical item after Necrobook. You need this for the extra mobility. Opportunities to push can spring up in an instant but you need to get there quick to seize the opportunity. To be able to tp to creeps is insta-win.
Vlad's Offering -- Nice lifesteal, bonus dmg aura, etc.
MoM & BKB -- these two comes in a pair. MoM gives you more dps for your main wolf. Pushing outer towers are easy but inner base towers and raxes can be a challenge cos there are usually 4-5 heroes defending it. I usually activate both MoM + BKB and continue whacking them till I die. Yes it's suicide, but worth it.
Manta -- An alternative if you don't like MoM/BKB.

***It is worth to suicide if you have BoT no longer on cooldown and cash at hand for buybacks. Base pushes usually occur around 30th min (for me) and eversince the remade on the buyback formula (it is now time-based rather than level based), you only need to pay around 800-1000 gold at around 30th min which is a pretty good deal if you still need to finish up the rax before it heals, especially Ranged rax. Traditionally, the old system would require you to pay around 1300-1500 gold.

Do I lane or jungle?
Erm, anything goes. It doesn't really matter much as long as you get good farm and levels. However to play safe (and never fail), I usually follow the following method:

-- If you are playing in scourge, head off to top lane cos it has easier access to the forest. There is no need for fanciful jungling. Pull the medium camp at x:42, lane abit then pull again the medium camp once they respawn. By then you should reach level 3.
-- Lvl 2 wolves are strong enough to take most small and medium camps so if you aren't comfortable with laning, you can farm the woods. To kill big camps (centaurs/furbolgs etc), have at least lvl 3 wolves.

The goal here is to level and gain as much gold as you can. Look out for opportunity to push (when you are level 7 especially) as tower gold can help finance an early Necrobook.



Taking down the Towers and Raxes
Here comes the fun part. Playing a Necro-Lycan is like playing a cat-and-mouse game. You must avoid enemy heroes at all cost. You should not attract too much attention. You strike when least expected. Never let your opponents anticipate where you are going to strike next. Easier said then done, but here are some guidelines on how to achieve them

Map Reading
1: Push when the enemy are busy in a fight, especially a teamfight!
2: Look out where the enemy heroes are on the map. If most of them are at the bottom, try pushing top. They might tp. So you wait, till all of them tp in. Then you tp back to bottom and push that lane.
3: If enemy heroes are missing on the map, you can expect them staging a push or trying to initiate a gank. Look closely and spot which allied heroes are farming in lane. The one closest to the enemy base is likely to be ganked first. If that poor guy is close beside you (or you yourself), get out of that place immediately, tp to the other side of the map and push.

Taking down Outer Towers
1: Necro3 + wolves can clear the tower completely even without your main hero present.
2: Wolf summons last 55secs. Summon them way before you reach the tower so that by the time you reach, the ability has already cooldowned (cd is 30secs). Make them tank, let them die, immediately cast a new pair. You can use the tower cycling trick or whatever its called as well.
3: Necroboys are tanky (800hp) and they have uber strong magic resistance (40% reduction). Your wolves will die from AoE nukes, but you can always re-summon them immediately. So worry not of having to micro them intensively to avoid damage.
4: Cast howl only when you are taking down towers. Or when allies are in teamfights. It may look spammable but in reality it is not. 35secs cd, 12 sec duration.
5: Run away from heroes at first sight! The moment you see a hero approaching, expect to be chain stunned/disabled. Pop your ulti and run away. Don't worry, your minions will take down the towers for you.
6: There is no need to clear creeps first before attacking the tower. You Necroboys + Wolves can tank and dps without outside help.


Taking down Base Towers and Raxes
Arguably the toughest part of the push and the most exciting.
1: DO NOT follow your allies in the push. You should push another lane and try to time it in such a way both lanes are pushing towards their base at the same time. Enemy will be forced into a dilemma, which lane do we defend?
2: IF for whatever reason you are pushing together with your allies, you need to stand back and not enter the teamfight. Once the fight breaks out, immediately pop your ulti and rush into their base (and pray nobody sees you in the midst of the confusion). Summon your wolves and boys, howl, then whack away. Someone will eventually notice you. Don't kill him, just continue raxing, once you are done, swing to the other lanes and take out the towers/raxes.
3: Bring a pair of wards before going for a base push. Plant the ward immediately once the tower is down. Helps to give advance warning of incoming enemy heroes.
4: Against chain stunners/disablers, you can suicide push by popping MoM+BKB and continue hitting while in wolf-form for a guaranteed Rax destroyed.
5: Shapeshift has a very low cooldown (40secs). Don't use it for dps, use it for mobility eg to escape or to get into an empty lane fast. This coupled with your BoT makes you extremely mobile to take advantage of your enemy's weak spots whenever they present themselves. You can even get Blink Dagger for additional mobility! (I haven't tried it though, there wasn't a need to)
6: There are more tricks which are kinda hard to explain, watch the replays!



Reading the Flow of the Game

From experience, there is a standard way on how the game will turn out. By that I mean the behaviour and responses of your opponents and your allies are basically similar across the games when you employ such a pushing strategy. It will be in your best interest to make them play 'in-your-game' rather than falling out of your game. Since falling out of your game means their actions will differ from their usual norms and it makes prediction and planning ahead rather difficult for you.

For example, your 4 allies are pushing mid while you are pushing bottom lane. You were expecting them to ignore you since mid is a larger threat but lo and behold, there is a hero standing at the tower waiting to welcome you and your dogs. This deviates from the usual norm and as such you must be quick to come out with a solution to the problem. All in all, it is a good thing as it forces you to actually think of your own counter (and not me spoon-feeding all the tips). Basically, the gist of this section is to show you how the metagame develops within your game. It may vary depending on your demographic and where you play from.

Early Game:
-- Against a stack team of sentinels, they might actually ward your medium camp to prevent creeps from spawning. Worry not, carry on with the usual laning. You can start pulling again around 6min onwards after the ward expires

-- As you start jungling fulltime, they will take notice and send gankers to hunt you in the woods. Keep an eye on the minimap

-- If the enemy team consists of many early gamers, they will be interested in doing an early team push to force you out of the jungle to defend. This is where your first opportunity to push opens up. As they team push, you sneak into their pushed lane and take down their towers. One for one.


Mid Game:
-- Okay so by now you already have a Necro1 and your opponents are probably laughing their ass off looking at your noob item build. That's good cos it's a sure sign they will ignore you which is exactly what you want. Your allies will be bitching as well, fine. Tell them you won't help in teamfights. Pretend to QQ. This is good because you don't want allies to be too hopeful to help them during teamfights. High expectations can ruin games. Make them feel it is a 4v5 and they will play more cautiously, smartly and learn to be self-sufficient.

-- By the time you reach Necro3, your opponents wouldn't be taking you lightly anymore. They know what you are capable of and try to find counters. Well, there aren't many. Necro3 are mighty hard to kill with spells, and the blue guy can be quite scary to kill. Enchantress can enchant the boys but who would suspect during the picking phase that you will be going Necro Lycan, right? HotD & Diffusal can work too but these are items which takes some time to build. It is not like you have warlock on the other team that screams 'must-get-diffusal' right from 0:00 min. Bottom line is, when they realise your One-man army is unstoppable, it is already too late.

-- So what's next? They will most likely anticipate the next tower you are going to wipe. Play their game, but don't fall into their trap. You will be their center of attraction but keep it that way. If you have 5 enemy heroes chasing your tail at every moment, it is a sure sign that your 4 other allies are having a free farm. Or at even a free push. If you have Boots of Travels, it works even better. Make them run and down like little kids playing soccer chasing after a single ball. Chasing and ganking are utter waste of time if you can't take down the target. They will realise it sooner or later, and they will start ignoring you again.


Lategame:
-- Once the outer towers have been cleared, the enemy will be forced to turtle. What you need to do is constantly push all the three lanes to keep your creeps as close to the enemy tower as possible. Make use of BoT and Shapeshift to swing from lane to lane. This is so reduce the time needed to push into their base whenever an opportunity arise (say a teamfight suddenly breaks out at mid) and to avoid people screaming backdoor.

-- The beauty of Lycan is that he doesn't need to push a specific lane. His One-Man Army has the ability to tank towers. You can push in from the bottom lane, and instead of raxing the tower, you dash into their base and whack the top lane tower instead. It makes you like an idiot which isn't a bad thing really. At this stage of the game, you will want to make yourself as unpredictable as possible. Yes, like an idiot. Create as much confusion as possible and avoid the conventional norms. Like ugh, all 5 heroes pushing the same lane etc. 5 vs 5 teamfights are exciting but it doesn't always win games. Remember, this is all about meta-gaming. If you make yourself unpredictable, they can never come up with a suitable counter since they can never read your moves.





Some MathCraft and Theorycrafting
Okay, for this section I will try to convince you why this strategy works through mathcraft and theorycrafting. First off, we need to find the damage output of each individual unit main hero, wolf, yellowboy, and blueboy.

Their raw data can be found below:

[o00F] Lycanthropy Wolf (4)
Level: 2 (20 experience)
HP: 625
HP regen: 0.25
Mana: -
Mana regen: -
Damage: 43-49 (Normal)(90 melee)
Armor: 0 (Heavy)
Mspd: 400
BAT: 1.1
Missile speed: -
Damage point/backswing: 0.33/0.64
Casting point/backswing: 0.3/0.51
Vision day/night: 1200/800
Acquisition range: 500
Type: Summoned
Bounty: 41
Hand of Midas: 82
Ability:
[A03B] Crit Strike - 30% chance, 1.5x damage multiplier.
[A0ZD] Permanent Invisibility - 3 second fade time.

[n00K] Necronomicon Archer 3
Level: 5 (59 experience)
HP: 800
HP regen: 5
Mana: -
Mana regen: -
Damage: 91 (Piercing)(550)
Armor: 10 (Heavy)
Mspd: 390
BAT: 1
Missile speed: 900
Damage point/backswing: 0.7/0.3
Casting point/backswing: 0.5/0.51
Vision day/night: 1500/1500
Acquisition range: 600
Type: Summoned
Bounty: 100
Hand of Midas: 234
Ability:
[A0JW] Mana Burn - 225 mana burned, 60 second cooldown, 250 range.
[A0HN] Endurance Aura - 9% movement and attack speed bonus, 400 AoE.
[A0H2] Spell Resistance - 40% resistance against spell damage.

[n006] Necronomicon Warrior 3
Level: 5 (59 experience)
HP: 800
HP regen: 5
Mana: -
Mana regen: -
Damage: 61 (Normal)(100 melee)
Armor: 10 (Heavy)
Mspd: 390
BAT: 1
Missile speed: -
Damage point/backswing: 0.56/0.44
Casting point/backswing: 0.5/0.51
Vision day/night: 1500/1500
Acquisition range: 500
Type: Summoned
Bounty: 100
Hand of Midas: 234
Ability:
[A0M4] Mana Break - 75 mana burned per hit, 60% of the burned mana will be dealt as damage.
[A0H2] Spell Resistance - 40% resistance against spell damage.
[A0GZ] Last Will - 600 pure damage dealt to the killing unit on death.
[A0M5] Necronomicon Sight - 1000 AOE.

Before you do any calculations, identify all the relevant bonuses first. For example, true sight, mana burn, and critical strike aren't needed when running this strategy. You treat them as mere bonuses. So don't go around harping how Necro Lycan is great for his true sight, mana-burn ability etc. It doesn't fit the context here. IF say you are running a Necro Lycan who gets himself involved in teamfights often, then you may use that argument. Anyways, the key point here is to identify the DOMINANT factors.

So now I will form a list consist consisting of Dominant, Relevant and Irrelevant factors. Bearing in my, the goal is to take down towers and raxes and avoid team battles.

Dominant factors (ie most influential)
1) Wolves + Blueboy has Normal attack damage (From attack table, Normal deals 70%, Hero deals 50% and Piercing deals 35% dmg to fortified armor ie towers/raxes). For consistent measurements, you want to convert everything to Hero type. So Normal is equivalent to +40% extra dmg, while Piercing is 70% of hero dmg
2) Feral Impulse. A 25% increase in attack speed and dmg translates to +56% increase in dps. This is as good as having an additional blueboy (so now you have 3!) in terms of dps.
3) Lycan's shapeshift grants max speed to all units. This means greater mobility for your hit-and-run tactics apart from providing an escape mechanism.
4) Wolves versatility in terms of pushing power (clearing creeps), jungling ,farming and raxing potential makes him a strong all-round summon.
5) Wolves have 55 sec duration with 30 sec cd. Which means you can re-summon immediately without any downtime. That said, they make extremely viable tankers.
6) Existence of Boot of Travels to enhance mobility. Since the key to pushing success is to respond quickly to pushing opportunities.

Relevant Factors (mediocre influence)
1) Both boys have 40% spell resistance. Tanky vs spells.
2) Yellowboy grants 9% movement and attack speed bonus aura
3) Howl grants 16 damage to units, 50dmg to heroes (not really dominant because you only have it maxed at 14. Doesn't play a significant role during early game)
4) +15% dmg bonus and +5 armor from Vlad's. The dmg increase is not so significant, the +5 armor bonus does add quite alot of tankiness if youre talking about early game but it doesn't warrant a dominant factor.

Irrelevant Factors (little to no influence)
1) True Sight from Blueboy. Your sole reason to buy the book is to provide pushing power, not hunt invis heroes. If they do exist in game, treat it as a bonus.
2) Mana Burn (both spell and passive) since you won't be hitting heroes much.
3) Critical strike from both wolves and in shapeshift form.
4) Lowered BAT of 1.4 from 1.7 when in Shapeshift form. Doesn't matter much since you are using it to run away, not to dps.
5) Invis for wolves. Towers have truesight, yeah.


So yeah, this is my thought process when it comes to theorycrafting. The key is to identify the dominant factors and from there, you can quickly evaluate the effectiveness/potential of the strategy. Like in this case True sight which is a strong aspect of Necrobook is actually ranked as Irrelevant.


Next up we will work out some mathcraft. The idea of mathcrafting isn't about finding the DPS to the exact 3 decimal places. The final DPS will mean nothing if you have nothing to compare with. That said, the DPS will only have meaning when you start making relative comparisons to other common types of DPS form. Say in this case, you might be interested how this pusher strategy compare to that of Broodmother or a Butterfly + Buriza Bone Fletcher or a Naga with Mantard.

DPS Calculations
All calculations are taken based on a Lvl 16 Lycan with maxed wolves and Necro3.
Buffs: Feral Impulse (+25%/+25%dmg), Howl (+14dmg), Endurance Aura (+9%ias) from Necro. Also Normal attacks will gain 40% overall dmg (for consistency with Hero dmg), Piercing (for Necro Archer) will only deal 70% total dmg. Assume Vlad's hasn't been made yet.

Lycanthrophy Wolves
Dmg: 43-49 + 14 (60avg)
BAT: 1.1
DPS = [46*0.25+60]*[(1/1.1)*(1.25+0.09)]*1.40
= 121.9

Necro Warrior 3 (Blueboy)
Dmg: 61 + 14
BAT: 1.0
DPS = [61*0.25+75]*[(1/1.0)*(1.25+0.09)]*1.40
= 169.3

Necro Archer 3 (Yellow Boy)
Dmg: 91 + 14
BAT: 1.0
DPS = [91*0.25+105]*[(1/1.0)*(1.25+0.09)]*0.70
= 119.8

BaneHallow
Assume the following:
- With and w/o Shapeshift
- Necrobook 3 grants +14dmg from +14str
- Lvl 16 with 94-98 base dmg

Dmg: 94-98 + 14 + 44 (154avg)
BAT: 1.7
DPS = [110*0.25+154]*[(1/1.7)*(1.25+0.09+0.44)]*1.00
= 190.0 (w/o shapeshift)
With Shapeshift, Dps
= 190.0*(1.7/1.4)
= 230.8

In summary,
Total DPS = 2*Wolves + Warrior + Archer + Hero
= 121.9*2 + 169.3 + 119.8 + 230.8
= 763.7

Lycan only accounts for 30% of total dps.
To give you a sensing of how Lycan fare with other pushers,

1. Naga Siren
Assume the following:
- Lvl 16 with 92-94 dmg
- Manta Style (note: manta images does 33%dmg, Naga's ability does 40% dmg)
- Butterfly (Only agi component transfers to image, raw dmg and Ias doesn't)
- Boots is BoT

Main Naga
Dmg: 92-94 + 88
BAT: 1.7
Base agi: 62
Agi gain from Manta/Butter: 55
Ias bonus: 45

DPS = 93+88*[2.62*(1/1.7)]
= 278.9

Dmg: 92-94 (93avg)
BAT: 1.7
Base agi: 62
Agi gain from Manta/Butter: 55
Naga Images total dps (5 Images: 33%*2 + 40%*3 = 186%)
DPS = 93+55*[2.17*(1/1.7)]*1.86
= 351.4

Total Dps = 278.9 + 351.4
= 630.3

Dps is lower than Necro Lycan, even though a Butterfly was added to the build.

Bone Fletcher
Assume the following:
- Lvl 16 with 82-88 dmg
- Has BoT, Butterfly and MKB

Total dmg: 85 + 110 (from mkb+butter) + 30 (from butter +30agi)
Total Ias: 67 (base agi) + 30 (from +30agi) + 45(raw ias from butter and mkb) + 90 (from Strafe skill)
Other buffs: 8% bonus dmg from death pact = 44dmg for a melee creep
BAT: 1.7

DPS = (85+110+30+44)*(1.00+0.67+0.30+0.45+0.90)*(1/1.7)
= 525.3

Oh my! Even with the extra MKB, he still can't compete with Lycan's Dps of 750.

In summary, Lycan with just Necro3 way outdps other notable pushers with the same items. Even with an extra tier 4 item, most heroes are still unable to match Lycan's Dps. Initially, I wasn't really inclined to provide a mathcraft proof to show Lycan's dps potential cause I thought it was way too obvious. But the sake of completeness here it is.



Time taken to take down Towers and Raxes
Every tower has different armor. Their HP may differ as well. In order of towers we need to take down, we have:



Time taken to down tower
= [EHP of tower / Lycan's dps (763.7)]*2
Note: Hero deals only 50% dmg to towers thus the *2.

T1: 1300HP/18Armor
EHP: 2704
Time taken: 7.1sec

T2: 1600/18Armor
EHP: 3330
Time taken: 8.7sec

T3: 1600/25Armor
EHP: 4000
Time taken: 10.5sec

Rax Ranged: 1500/5armor
EHP: 1950
Time taken: 5.1sec

Rax Melee: 1500/15armor
EHP: 2850
Time taken: 7.5sec

T4: 1600/30armor
EHP: 4480
Time taken: 11.7sec

Note that T4 refers to the tower defending the Throne/Tree. The pair of towers will remain invulnerable until at least 1 Rax tower (from the 3 lanes) are downed. That means you can go straight for the throne without destroying any raxes at all.

This image has been resized. Click this bar to view the full image. The original image is sized 1412x1352.

Im not Sold. This is just Theorycrafting right?

First off, I'm not a salesman. And the replays are there to show how it is done. It works for me, everytime. And I'm not using cheesy tactics like stacking my own team with friends to assist me in my games, I played alone. Or suggesting allies to pick summon heroes like Brood to abuse my howl.

NEW Replays:
Here are some replays compatible with 1.24d warcraft version, 6.67c Dota Map.

Game 1:
I played with some known faces from previous game and they were chatting about my lycan strat. So I decided to give a demonstration to the rest. 15min through the game, I formed Necro3 and began to mop up their base.
http://www.playdota.com/forums/attac...1&d=1279492157

Game 2:
Easy game, fast win.
http://www.playdota.com/forums/attac...1&d=1279492157

Game 3:
Won again.
http://www.playdota.com/forums/attac...1&d=1279492157

OLD Replays:

Game 4: Necro Lycan 0-7
http://www.playdota.com/forums/attac...1&d=1270812510
This ones a funny. We were playing against a stacked sentinel team, and scourge had some friends as well. I was laning with Bone at top, but the medium camp was warded. Farming didn't really go so well. I kept pushing and suiciding in the process. Went 0-7 in this game, but it was well worth it. Scourge was calling me stupid at one time, brilliant at another. Feeder wins the day.


Question and Answer Section

The Q&A section is pretty long, so I hid them under the spoiler box. Click to open it. They are mostly replies from questions asked by forumers. Do read it as I tried to answer to most of the doubts people might have on this sort of strategy. Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion; iKrivetko, zaphodbrx99, FunnyWarfare, Lycan, DJRequiem, Cenerae, etc

Quote:

Originally Posted by iKrivetko Why don't you get Dominator if you're focusing on pushes solely?

The pets you dominate will be more of a liability than a help. Necros+wolves are more than enough to get the job done. Also, the strategy relies much on mobility. I could be on top lane on one sec, then tp down to bottom lane at another. But my pets doesn't tp along with me. When taking down towers, i'd be worrying about the survival of my pets? Like c'mon, I can only dominate once every 6 min. i need something where i can summon on-demand. something expendable. something that suits a highly mobile pusher. Necrobook fits the criteria, HotD doesn't. I could go on arguing hotd will delay my core and my bot etc. I wish arguing in the forum could be as easy as saying, "it just doesn't work. Try it yourself and you'll know why." But the reality is, this forum is tied down with a culture whereby you need to back up whatever you are saying with arguments or people wouldn't listen to you. I hope my answer suffice

Quote:

Originally Posted by zaphodbrx99 I like your idea. But the playstyle doesn't appeal to me, neither will it be to most people. Most people want to see shit flying about and big red numbers rather than go knock down some towers. And I got a couple of other problems 1. Do you really need book for this strategy? 2. Isn't it just better to pick broodmother/ furion 3. why MoM/BKB rather than Hotd/manta 4. most people who want to see necro-lycan want to see 'micro' - and well, your build doesn't have any..

1. Yea. The outer towers are pretty easy to take down with just your wolves but when you start pushing the base towers, you'll realise there will often be 2-3 heroes defending. And you really need that extra tankiness and dps to get the job done.

2. Yea, brood/furion/naga/bone are all possible candidates solo pushers each with their own perks and limitations. Brood works very well early game but come late game, the summons dies easy to double aoe nukes. And you can see him pushing from miles away, cos he has to spawn spiders to gain momentum.
Furion with book, sounds good but is still no match for Lycan. Give 1x boots + Necro3 to each of them, Lycan will perform better. Treants does jackshit dmg, Lycan has wolves. And feral impulse on top of that. More importantly, is the dps source. Lycan has 80% of his dps source coming from summons, while Furion, probably only 50%. The other half relies on his dps items. Lycan's case is more advantageous since the main hero can just run away but get the tower down.
Naga has to rely on a good early game for good farm. Get manta, and some hp and abuse his Ultimate which has quite a long cd.
Bone totally relies on dps items to get the job done. Skill plays a larger role than strategy since last hitting, farming skills etc largely depends on your skill.

3. Once you get Necro3 and BoT, you've already done 70% right. A choice between MoM/BKB and HotD/Manta wouldn't really affect much the outcome of the game if you know what you are doing. So yeah i dont really have much arguments on this. I consider them as trivial matters but forum readers usually get all hyped up on item choices, to the point of neglecting the more important stuff.

4. They can continue living in their fantasy world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lycan interesting but i don't think it's superior to vlad armlet bkb but it sure as hell is a lot more joyfull to be playing.

If I said Necro Lycan is superior, no one will believe me. Some strategies are just not so obvious. When soul ring was introduced, the potential to abuse it is fairly glaring. When Vanguard Razor was introduced, many were suspicious on it's effectiveness. The reason behind it wasn't so obvious and it takes you to actually play a game or two to actually feel the effectiveness of the build. And you will realise it wasn't so much about the +300 hp + dmg blk that makes it good. It is how Razor's skills synergize with the tanking build. Plasma field has 0 casting time, you can cast on the move. Static link sticks if you chase. His ulti requires you to chase as well. It wasn't so much about making Razor a tanker. Instead, Vanguard was needed to turn him into a hardcore tower-diving chaser.

I say this; if you spent half the time chasing heroes in teamfights, it is as good as having a dps efficiency of 50%. Why not just pound that tower which doesn't move to achieve 100% dps efficiency?

Conventional wisdom says:
Step1: gather to push with a team
Step 2: win the teamfight
Step 3: push down the towers and rax
Isn't it more convenient to skip step 1 and 2 altogether and jump to step 3 immediately. If you win, it is still a legitimate win.

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Originally Posted by zaphodbrx99 back to the topic, one thing you can mention is that you can use BoT to tp to invisible wolves.

Unfortunately, only allies are able to tp to your own units, Lycan can't. Still it's a great idea. From experience, i never really had the chance to abuse that trick though. It reminds me of how the old watchers (from weaver) can be abused by Tinker to achieve global map dominance.

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Originally Posted by Cenerae The only problem (and it's a big one) I have with your advocated concept here, is that you don't advocate pushing with your team (where necrobook auras will shine), but off by yourself. This basically means that barring times when the enemy team allows you to knock down some towers, your team is playing 4v5 the entire game. And on top of that, you advocate suiciding in order to knock down towers. While tower smashing is important, you're not a team player if you're feeding the other team gold... I don't have any issue with the concept of a necrobook pusher lycan, just the method you talk about using it with. Yes you may be pushing 2 lanes at once since your team has the other, but it only takes 1 hero to stop your rambo push cold. (Any hero with aoe to kill your wolves and summons can do the trick. It's not like your personal DPS will be too much of a deterrant given your items)

4v5 the entire game? That is not true. At times it will be 1v5, them chasing me while my entire team goes around 4v0. At other times, it'd be 2v1 and 3v4. Cos they chose to split their forces. This kind of tactic can be very foreign to most players. Most are accustomed to the usual 5v5 battles, and when they face such a situation, they tend to make poor decisions. Sort of like a surprise strategy in a metagaming context.

Nope. One hero isn't sufficient to stop a Necro Lycan. Those boys are real beefy tanks, 800hp with 40% magic res requires 1333 magic dmg to kill. Sure the wolves die fast, you can always re-summon them though.

And nope. I did not advocate suiciding to take down towers. That should be used only for extreme cases. I don't really have much problems clearing towers, though I had one game where it was rather challenging. I went 0-7 but still won the game. Suicide was necessary. And I know very well I had a strong presence in that game.

I know there exist people who regard teamwork as the epitome of Dota. I'm not advocating otherwise. I'm just saying, well, sometimes a certain way works better than just pure teamwork. I'm here to open up people's mindset on the other possibilities besides teamwork, teamwork and more teamwork.

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Originally Posted by earlybird92 What are your views on getting Hotd. HotD gives lifesteal, decent damage and some armor in addition to the dominate ability. I think everyone knows that dominated creeps benefit from both lycans ultimate and howl. Dominated creeps may well be the solution to lycans lack of disables/slows, aiding him greatly while ganking. If you want to stick to your pushing gameplay style, creeps with auras are fantastic. Alpha wolfs and centaur khans greatly increases your "armies" dps and will def improve your pushing ability by a significant amt. While Vlads and MoM may be viable orbs, I feel that HotD increases your dps against towers for the least cost.

I'm not really a fan of HotD when it comes to Pushing Lycan. It just conflicts with your Necro/Wolves theme cos these guys are 'summon-on-demand'. A fat centaur + panda as pets for tanking and dps is nice but they will restrict my mobility (since I will be tp'ing and running around alot) and they just can't keep up. More pets comes with more attention. And these guys aren't expendable, i'd be worried to lose them even more so with the 6min cooldown. It'd just take away my focus of taking down towers.

Truth is, there isn't really much argument to it. If you think hotd is good for you, and you are capable of microing it, go ahead. I just ignored it altogether cos it'll add on to the burden of needing to micro which can really scare alot of players. Introducing a new lycan concept in itself is already daunting enough. They'd just stop there and not try it.

If you want an argument from a practical point of view. I'd say this; getting hotd early game will disrupt your flow in building Necro3, which is the core to this strategy. So hotd has to wait, but then you need BoT next. So hotd gets delayed again. By that time, you'd realise Vlad's 15%dmg bonus + lifesteal + bonus armor seems like a good deal to pass up. Again, delayed. By then, you just give up getting hotd as it gives nothing more than the ability to dominate. The lifesteal and +armor are already provided by Vlad's.

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Originally Posted by Estraz Really have to try this sometime. Read the guide and watched the 0-7 replay. I assume mathcraft is still coming up? A few questions/comments: 1) Do you think this, or a closely related strategy, could work against higher level players (assuming the lycan is also high skill)? 2) In your guide you advocated running away when defenders come, yet in the replay I noticed a lot of suiciding. Hell, your 3rd death or so was by running into fountain. I'd guess at the 3rd death running into their base was a mistake, and at that point the best you could do is kill courier and try to not let a hero get the kill on you? 6th death, you had like 100hp and were at mid in their base, then you used your BoT to tp to their lower lane, to get instagibbed there. Why on earth not go back to fountain? Seemed like overly suicidal play. 3) Opinion on Assault Cuirass? Downside is that the +armor aura doesn't stack with your vlads. However, it does increase attackspeed for you and summons, and the negative armor works on buildings. I haven't done the mathcraft on this but could this be a viable item? 4) Opinion on solo rosh? Seems to increase chance of succesfully pushing, as well as getting out alive. Lycan seems a valid candidate for it, but ofcourse it does take time that could be spent on pushing. If you'd rosh, at what point would you do it? PS Those saying broodmother does the job better... Lycan + Brood ftw? Buffed up spiderlings on one part of the map while lycan's owning the other. May be a bit too much, but hell, you could easily push 3 towers at the same time >.>

Hmm.. the mathcraft will come soon. It's not really that important that's why i left it last. I just don't feel mathcraft is convincing enough to prove the validity of this strat.

1) If you're speaking about a hit-and-run pushing tactic in a high level game, it may work. No doubt most of the time your team will have to make do with a 4v5 in teamfights, but you don't necessarily need to win or lose in a teamfight. Consider pitlord. He doesn't win teamfights, he stalls teamfights from happening. He can buy time for lycan to do his job.
2) oh well it's just a game. I was goofing around just to stress test the strategy. And no matter how much I purposely fail, it doesn't diminish my chances in winning. I can provide you with a 15-0 replay with emphasis on skills, or I can show you a 0-15 replay with emphasis on strategy where I won. I think the latter will have more impact on the guide.
3) AC works, if you have the money. But I don't know how the game will turn out 40min into the game. At that point in time, you might be needing BKB more, or a blademail, or even diffusal. Or your team requires you to build a dps carry because someone failed to do his job (It's not your fault if that BS or SF couldn't carry).
4) Necros can attack roshan now, so its good. I don't really like Aegis on lycan, cos when he dies, 4-5 heroes would be circling his corpse. Cheese is great on him however. You can always go for the extra cash + pass the aegis to someone else. But usually i'd roshan out of convenience rather than pre-planned. Like when we are passing by his lair together as a team, my as well kill him.

Lycan + Brood screams obvious pusher team. Nobody will suspect Lycan going Necro. It's a surprise strategy get it? The surprise factor wins you the game more than anything else.