DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

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nitromon
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DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby nitromon » Sat Feb 09, 2019 12:35 am

I am still very impressed with seeing so many players now carrying TPs to evade early kill heroes. Good for you guys! Keep improving! Keep practicing! ;)

Hero Guide to Ember Spirit:
Now Ember Spirit is a little more difficult to play for some, primarily b/c the lack of understanding hero fundamentals and choosing wrong items for the wrong stage. I didn't play him as much as the previous 2 heroes, but again at one point he was my main. I was able to manhandle Slarks and Geos with him easy. He is a unique hero and thus require a certain understanding of fundamentals. He is one of the few considered "All around" heroes, carry early, mid, and late.


Early Game: First 15-20 minutes
Common misunderstanding of Ember is not knowing what type he is. He is agil, but a caster early on, a rare combination. This means item choice need to reflect his abilities and which stage. Many already know his best ability may be "Sleight of Fist," but that ability is only good in lategame. Hence early game, you should build him and focus on him as a caster. Do NOT rush battlefury or weapons, unless the game is tipping in your balance early and your team is way ahead. What you need is supplement his weakness, low mana and low hp.

Starting items, again one of the few heroes I recommend soulring b/c he is agil and you want STR tread for IAS and hp. Soulring with Ring of Aqu (ROA) is enough mana reg for him early game. If you really have problem with mana control, you want to get a perseverance since you will need a fury later. However, that's money taken out of your 1st core item, which is actually skadi.

In early stage, he is a caster, utilizing flame guard, his stun, and his ult. Save his ult and use it wisely. If you are in a difficult game with farming, always set a remnant somewhere safe so you can farm in lane, immediately use your ult to escape when you see enemy coming. Keep staying alive and farm. When you engage, use your ult and go in with flame guard on, doing massive damage to early heroes. But always remember you are an agil, not a tank. Use your team's tanks to set up your ganks. Now, I haven't played him for a while, but memory serves me, if slark pounces him, you cannot run away using his ult. In such cases, simply wait until the pounce link is gone then use your ult to escape. Don't panic and activate it while it is linked.

To evade geo early game, requires practice and timing. When geo is ready to poof, you activate Sleight of Fist and you will evade all his poofs. Then depending on the situation, if you need to run, run with your ult. If you have advantage, use flame guard and your abilities to take him out. If you let him poof on your flameguard, it will instantly used up the shield and then he will easily kill you. So it is all about evading the poofs and retaining your flameguard. Lategame it is even easier to deal with Geo, but I'll talk about that later.

Skills: Flame Guard (FG), Searing Chain, FG, Sleight of Fist, FG, ult, FG... then it depends on you. I prefer getting searing chain b/c again, nukes are good early, Sleight of Fist is good lategame and can wait. But you can go Sleight of Fist before searing chain if you prefer, sometimes I do.


Mid Game: 15/20-30/35 minutes
His one early weakness is HP, so his 1st core item is skadi. In midgame you want to get skadi first, which also takes care of your mana needs. With skadi, he is much stronger and you can be more aggressive, however he is still using his casting abilities. As the game progresses, you need to build him as a DPS carry all the way through. I've seen people do fun stuff with Euls or blink, but for a straight lategame carry, just get damage items.

Sleight of Fist differs from Jugger's ult in a key way, it works with cleaving damage from battlefury. This makes Ember one of the greatest lategame counters to image heroes, summon heroes, and Geos. Every creep and hero and image he hits, the battlefury cleave is passed on. The more enemies, the stronger the fist. This means battlefury and buriza are your first 2 weapon items. Now, to counter ember, your opponents will get orchid. You may want to counter with a linken, but if you play this hero enough, you'll realize you don't need to counter the orchid. Why? Because fundamental game of DOTA is a team game. You need to know your hero's role. You are not a tank, let your tanks do their job. You are an agil DPs, while tanks tank, you engage. Always have a renmant for escape if you are facing a strong team, and by lategame all you're doing is spamming Sleight of Fist with its ridiculous short CD and then use your ult to engage when they're all redlined.

Sleight of Fist has a short CD, increases your damage, and a massive AOE. Stay back and use Sleight of Fist, in a mere few seconds you can use it again, meanwhile your tanks do their job and your other teammates do their job. Usually I use it 2 times if you have fury and crit, that's enough to then cast a 2nd renmant (1st one already cast for escape) at your enemy and move in with your flameguard and searing chain. Once you're in the enemy, you can cast seige a 3rd time again. And with skadi, you are a pretty tough agil. Use your 3rd renmant to clean up any heroes that are running away.


Late Game: 35 min +
By lategame your items should be: Boots, skadi, fury, crit, leaving 2 slots for your choice. A 2nd fury would greatly increase the AOE of Sleight of Fist, however only do so if your team is doing well. If you still need more bulk and you may need to tank, you might want to consider a satanic or butterfly. I also prefer an abyssal blade, in Sleight of Fist he can bash the enemy and that item is a 100 damage item. Or of course you can get mkb if they have evasion, or radiance/mjolnir/cuirass even. My preferred last 2 items is abyssal and satanic, as again, I prefer a more rounded hero that doesn't solely rely on abilities. But there has been games where I went abyssal and a 2nd fury.

If you want to be more risky, get a fury + a divine and really do some damage. But you really have to be careful not to lose the divine. Always have a remnant for escape and only use Sleight of Fist, try not to use your ult to engage unless you are 100% sure it is safe.


Conclusion:
I think it is fairly common now that people know about Sleight of Fist with fury and crit. However, the reason you don't see many Embers is because most people rush fury and crit but gets killed early too many times or the game never reaches late. Understanding the fundamentals of DOTA helps you understand this hero's roles at different stage so you get the appropriate items for each stage. This hero is one of the most difficult heroes to kill, and is a very dangerous hero in all 3 stages when played and built properly. Against a Slark, he is better early and keeps slark down. Lategame against slark is much more difficult, but with the appropriate items I still consider him having the edge on slark. In lategame and all 10 players are equally skilled, slark is only formidable if he can collect AGI from killing heroes. Ember doesn't have this requirement and can devastate all 5 enemy heroes continuously.

Now against a Geo, Ember is Geo's worst nightmare. Well, 2nd worst, the worst nightmare for Geo will always be Winter Wyvern and I'll write a guide for him next time. But against Geo, I noticed EdgeofChaos (pretty much the best Geo I've ever seen) wrote a Geo guide and recommended blink and guinsoo to counter Ember. It works if he catches you, blink in and guinsoo Ember. The thing about Sleight of Fist is the AOE and range is huge. It is very hard to get him especially if he is defending raxes. This is the importance of renmants. When you fist, Geo will be ready to net you if he remembers where you started (he can't blink since you hit him with the fist). However, you can use your ult and escape "while" you are fisting. You don't even have to use the shift command, just spam the hotkey. The moment the Sleight of Fist completes, you will already instantly ult to your remnant. Then set a 2nd escape remnant and repeat the fist. Also, if he does catch you, this is where satanic+skadi or a butterfly will make the difference. You just need to survive the Guinsoo. Once Guinsoo is over, you instantly fist even though you are netted and then same thing, spam your ult or shift command it to escape. He has 3 renmants to use, if you do it right, I doubt a Geo can survive 2 fists.

This hero's difficulty level is slightly harder than others but is still quite doable for mid-level players. But like any hero, don't expect to go in and ownage on your 1st try, you require to play him a few times, get to know him, know the rhythm, and know how to balance his mana usage early game to really be effective. When you get good with him, you'll come to know why he should be considered one of the monster heroes such as LC, Slark, Spec, etc...

Good luck! ;)
Last edited by nitromon on Tue Feb 19, 2019 6:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby xSAINTx1 » Sat Feb 09, 2019 1:23 am

Nice guide. Skadi is a super good item on ember bro. Might as well get meka, heart, and vanguard too, since he is lacking hp, and armor in the early-mid game. I can't wait for the ww guide too! Please make sure to make it ultra-hard carry build. Appreciate your effort here!
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kunkka (Sat Feb 09, 2019 5:44 pm)

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby MageOfTime » Sat Feb 09, 2019 5:21 am

lol beef 1v1 sf yo

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby kunkka » Sat Feb 09, 2019 5:45 pm

You need bloodstone too so you have enough hp and mana and you heal whole team after tanking for them with 3 skills to dodge spells

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby xSAINTx1 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 12:34 am

A common take on Ember in DotA 2 is using his talent tree to allow him to become a magic dealing hero, which scaled late game, differing from the classic physical dps route. I still like to play ember as a magic damage hero against some matchups. When playing against void, slark, terrorblade, and other high physical damage, and ridiculous mobility/armor, magic may be the best way to deal with them. In chrono, if you have 30 armor, he won't be able to kill you reliably without 6 slots himself.

Try this build for a change. Rush BOT as fast as possible, then get veil of discord. Veil provides 5 armor, lot's of intelligence and other stats which bolster your damage in the early-mid game d/t all your spells magic based: also synergizes well with other items and team composition. Next item should be radiance or shivas guard, both to increase farm speed, or to provide more int/armor, 200 damage nuke, and effect slow/debuff. If you got radiance before shiva, or vice versa, the next route is to finish the other. Many heroes will purchase a orchid or hex to initiate on ember, so if this is the case, the next item should be manta or linken to provide additional defense. The last items should include mjollnir, for more dps and active which can be used to clear waves or deal strong aoe damage, or a eblade to save yourself from high damage physical burst, or to allow your combo to do even more damage.

Many people don't know, but you can use all 3 remnants in half a second, and jump to them all, to provide a ~300 damage nuke early on at lvl 1, and scales accordingly with each corresponding level. If you use all 3 remnants to burst an enemy, it may be wise to avoid further engagements without flame guard, or all support, as you will no longer have a means to survive. One more note, is that you can cast items while in sight of fist, as well as other skills. The most obvious one is to cast searing chains while you fist an enemy, but you may also cast remnant while you are in mid fist animation. This can be especially useful if you are being ganked by many enemies, or are chained stunned. If you are able to survive and cast a fist at the last second before being killed, and are next to a big creep wave, or many enemy heroes, using remnant while being invulnerable in sleight is fist, may be the only way for you to escape in time.

Have fun playing ember, as he is my favorite panda to play with. Here's a few replays of me playing ember with magic/physical build:
https://entgaming.net/findstats.php?id=11668527
https://entgaming.net/findstats.php?id=11666581

PS. @nitromon the skill is called slight of fist, not seige of fist xD

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby Sylvanas » Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:41 am

Sleight. Like sleight of hand, but with a fist. Personally, I just call it the forbidden technique of swiftly and brutally fisting everyone within a large perimeter.
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nitromon (Tue Feb 12, 2019 4:31 am)

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Re: DOTA Guide - Ember Spirit

Postby nitromon » Tue Feb 12, 2019 4:30 am

lol I've always thought Siege of Fist sounded a little too kinky. Thanks guys. Corrected.


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