Sven - Rogue Knight

I'm here to tell you about Sven.

Now you may think that Sven is not the best hero in the game. Now everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but my opinion is right and yours is wrong, unless of course you think Sven is amazing, in which case you're right too.

The scope of this guide is to give amateur players an insight on how to play sven in a matchmaking setting. This guide is not intended for competitive use, although many of the concepts may apply. In fact, if you for some misguided reason decide to run Sven in a competitive game, the best way to play him may be exactly as described in this guide.

Here is a huge list of games with me playing Sven, and most of the recent games follow the ideas presented in this guide. Feel free to laugh at how bad I am by downloading these replays. I maintain a 70% win ratio with sven at normal or high skill matchmaking levels, so he is my strongest hero.

Basic Information

Liquipedia Page!

Lore:

Sven is the bastard son of a Vigil Knight, born of a Pallid Meranth, raised in the Shadeshore Ruins. With his father executed for violating the Vigil Codex, and his mother shunned by her wild race, Sven believes that honor is to be found in no social order--but only in himself. After tending his mother through a lingering death, he offered himself as a novice to the Vigil Knights, never revealing his identity. For thirteen years he studied in his father's school, mastering the rigid code that declared his existence an abomination. Then, on the day that should have been his In-Swearing, he seized the Outcast Blade, shattered the Sacred Helm, and burned the Codex in the Vigil's Holy Flame. He strode from Vigil Keep, forever solitary, following his private code to the last strict rune. Still a knight, yes...but a Rogue Knight.

Stats:

23 + 2.7
21 + 2
14 + 1.3

Starting stats:

Hit Points: 587
Mana: 182
Damage: 54-56
Armor: 1.94
Attacks / Second: 0.71
Movement Speed: 295
Attack Duration: 0.4+0.3
Base Attack Time: 1.7

Skills:

Storm Hammer

The Rogue Knight's iron gauntlet, taken from the school of his father, strikes his foes to their core.

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Range: 600
Radius: 255
Duration: 2
Damage 100/175/250/325
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Mana Cost: 140

Great Cleave

The Vigil Knights still seek to reclaim the stolen Outcast Blade from Sven, a weapon capable of cutting wide swaths through lesser warriors.

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Radius: 200
Cleave Damage: 30%/40%/50%/60%

Warcry

Calling a few lines from the Vigil Codex fortifies Sven's obedience to his rogue code.

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Bonus Armor: 3/6/9/12
Bonus Movement Speed: 12%
Radius: 700
Duration: 8
Cooldown: 36/30/24/18 Seconds
Mana Cost: 25

God's Strength

With the strength that shattered the Sacred Helm, the Rogue Knight stands unopposed in melee combat.

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Bonus Damage: 100%/140%/180%
Duration: 25
Cooldown: 80 Seconds
Mana Cost: 100/150/200

Discussion about Sven's place in dota

Now we have all the information we need to start thinking about how we might play Sven in a game of dota. A common mistake, in my opinion, is to look at his skillset and attempt to play sven as a semi-carry due to his cleave and ultimate. It is perfectly true that he can easily carry games, but it is not the most effective way to play Sven. The pool of heroes that will outcarry him is simply too deep. Even with his good animation and very little variance in his attack damage that makes last hitting a breeze, he simply cannot outcarry even other strength heroes, let alone true agility carries.

Next time you think about carrying with sven, stop for a second and ask yourself, "why am I not just picking Chaos Knight?". Chaos knight has a stun, his ultimate is even better than sven's for damage, he has a better distance closer and better scaling, in form of his critical strike. Even Skeleton King is arguably better suited to carry a game than sven. His stun has a lower cooldown and he's much tougher.

What sven has, over the two heroes mentioned here, is his lack of reliance on big items to contribute, his ridiculously powerful gank, and his ability to contribute to larger ganks through his warcry.

It is my firm belief that Sven should be played as a Ganker and Support.

Sven should not farm, Sven should be killing something. Always. He does need some items, unlike pure hard supports, but he should not take significant amount of farm from the team's carry.

Skill Build

Storm Hammer
Stats
Storm Hammer
Stats
Storm Hammer
God's Strength
Strom Hammer
Warcry
Warcry
Warcry
God's Strength
Warcry
Great Cleave
Great Cleave
Great Cleave
God's Strength
Great Cleave
Stats
Stats ...

There are two variations to this I can recommend. Get a single level in warcry at level 2, if you feel you are very safe and are getting good farm to reach your soul ring fast, it will help you gank harder.

The other is to skip Cleave completely and take stats instead. This is good when you have very little items but need to act as an initiator for your team.

The reason we take early stats is to boost your mana and health pool, making you tougher and more able to cast your spells.

Gameplay and Item goals

The rise of a Knight

The first thing you need to check in the early game is how are you going to lane, and what does your team need. While unfortunate, it is not uncommon for your team to completely lack any support roles, in which case you should take the plunge and buy a courier. This will help you later on. Do not go for courier and wards, it's not worth it. Better ship the wards to yourself when you can afford them, you need the regen in lane.

If there is another support player on your team, you should offer to buy the courier, because it's cheaper, and ask the hard support to buy wards.

This means that your starting item build should look like this:

Salves are better hitpoints per gold than trees, and due to Sven's high health, boosted by the fact I recommend taking stats at level 2, he can afford to drop 400 hp without being in serious danger of dying, and will therefore get more out of the salve.

Most often you will be playing in your team's hard lane. The exception being when you have a ranged carry hero that is powerful early. If you're going for a relatively fast win, carried by Leshrac, Viper, or any other powerful hero that can dominate a lane supported by you, you may play in the easy lane.

In a normal 2-1-2 hard lane, you will most often be facing the enemy carry and his support. Often they will have a third player in the jungle whose presence may be threatening to your lane. If you are paired up with another disabler, or a hero with a good slow, you can easily get kills in your lane early on. Sven's stun is an excellent setup for non-targeted stuns like lina's or leshrac's. Crystal Maiden is another very strong hero, due to her disable and slow. Venomancer and Viper can both make it impossible for anyone lacking a blink to get away from you after a good stun setup.

Don't forget to grab a few last hits. You have a great animation, and your goal is to farm a bit of gold early on to buy your core items, these will make you much stronger ganking.

To summarize, you should play aggressively in your lane, protect yourself from ganks out of the jungle with wards, and try to force the opponent to play passively and cut down his last hits.

A note on suicide lanes

Every once in a while you will face a team that knows what's up. And what's up is you being completely owned in the hard lane. Their supports will chase you away from the creeps, their pulling support or jungler will constantly threaten ganks, even counterward your ward to make you blind, and in general be massive dicks to you. The hard lane just became the suicide lane. A place no one can survive except a select few individuals. You are not one of them.

The good news is that this situation can be easily solved. The bad news is that you need to convince your team to do something about it. There are two options in this situation.

1: If you have a carry that is alright on his own against the enemy hard lane, (think Brewmaster against a Windrunner, or a Morphling against a Dark Seer), you can ask your hard support to come join you and your partner for a counter-trilane. With Sven's stun, and hopefully some other options for disables you can really screw over the enemy team.

2: If your carry needs the support, or your hero has little disable and nuke. You should identify which one in your dual hard lane has more chance of not dying in the suicide lane, and the other should go roam. Very often it will be you, Sven, who goes roaming. Try to get ganks on their midlane and hard lane. Start stacking creeps in the forest whenever you pass by, and grab xp wherever you can. Once your soul ring is up, you can even start using your stun to grab last hits. This is okay, because the stun has a low cooldown.

If you're forced to stay in the suicide lane, ask for help with buying wards and just stay safe. Last hit with Storm Hammer if you need to, and don't go anywhere you're not safe.

Item goals

You should always aim for the same items as sven. He is a complete gank-machine from level 7 onwards, but he needs items to maintain the ganking-spree. Here is the item build you MUST reach to be able to fulfill your role.

This honestly isn't too much. Remember if you get first blood, which should happen regularly, to just spend your initial gold on a flying courier. In fact, you should always make it a priority to get your team one if no one else is buying it.

The reasoning for this item build is very, very simple. Soul ring is brilliant on sven. It gives you 150 mana, which is very convenient seeing as your stun costs 140 mana. In almost every scenario, you will have 15 mana already, so the soul ring enables you to cast your stun and warcry combo whenever you want. Due to Sven's high healthpool, and the fact that we take stats early, Sven can safely use soul ring in most situations.

Soul ring also allows for ballsy escapes. Remember, that it never kills you, just drops you to 1 hp. If you time a soulring+stun combo correctly, you can escape certain death by stunning the hero that's chasing you and then warcry-running away from him. It is very often worth the risk to try to time this combo between the auto-attacks of a chasing hero, because you wouldn't have gotten away anyway if you fail.

Soul ring also means that sven should never straight up bail out of combat and run to base. If you lose some health and get out of the heat in a teamfight, hang around behind your teammates. Who knows if you might secure a kill or two by playing like a ranged caster. It's often worth giving up your own life for one of theirs.

The boots of speed allow you to roam more effectively and get more auto attacks in. The wards are very important to keep your team safe.

Equipped with this core of items you should forcibly take map control from the enemy team. It is an absolute must to attack them where it hurts. Don't let them farm, don't let them take your towers. Be an omnipresent crazy blue guy with a dangerous stun on a low cooldown.

The Grand Crusade

Once the game starts to close in on the true mid-game, towers start falling and ganks become ever bigger, this is your time to shine. Sven is one of the strongest heroes in the game around levels 8-12. His stun is an AOE nuke with a 2 second disable for 325 (-25%) damage. He has a speed boost and armor boost for his team, allowing ballsy ganks, and his ultimate makes him whack stuff like a much better farmed hero.

Only experience can teach you when you can dominate a game, but a general idea should be around the time when the game is starting to move out of the basic laning phase. While your lane presence early with a stun is threatening, your aggressive early midgame is terrifying. A Sven player in the early mid-game should constantly be thinking about what he can kill next.

Don't forget to keep your team safe. If your carry is happily farming away, make sure he stays happy. Get wards and roam to his lane, counterganking anything that comes close. Keep pressure on the enemy midlane. A early gank on the midlane (level 5-7 ish) can be devastating and secure a winning midlane for your partner.

If their carry is farming, rally your supports and gankers, grab a smoke and go murder them. Nothing can stand against Sven at this stage of the game. Your soul ring should keep you in the game for long periods and your dominating presence on the map is the key to securing a win later.

The goal of the midgame is to slow down the enemy team as much as you can, while helping your own team stay safe.

The items you should be aiming for in the midgame are the following

The ogre axe can be changed to a bracer (into drums) if no one else is building them on your team and you're for some reason desperate for an item before BKB. If you're doing an all-in timing push against the enemy base, you may not have time to finish a bkb, so that route might work. But in most situations you want a BKB, so the ogre axe builds well towards that.

A question of footwear

Everyone will try to convince you treads are good for sven, and why wouldn't they? Treads give you health, attack speed, a decent speed boost, and they scale with God's Strength! But the problem is that they don't give Sven what he needs and truly wants. Sven wants to get in his enemies' face and hit him with a big sword. And the best way to get to an enemy is to be fast. Phase Boots allow you to chase to finish heroes, and combined with warcry you're incredibly fast. Phase boots are easily the superior item because of how this guide suggests you play Sven.

Arcane Boots is another option I've heard. This should not be an item Sven carries. Unless your team desperately needs the arcane boots and no one else is capable of building them, phase boots allow you to do your job better.

In fact, if you're really hurting for cash, I'd recommend tranquil boots as the best backup option for phase boots. The heal will help sustain your ganking power, and the speed will help you roam more efficiently. The heal also allows you to grab some of the easier camps in the jungle while you move over the map for killing more heroes.

Shadows of your past

If you did well in the early and mid-game you should be ahead now. If the game did not go your way, you may be in trouble. No longer is the map yours. There are now heroes in the game that will not be afraid of standing up to you, this is the time for carries.

The way you played in the early stages of the game controls how you can contribute to the late-game. In some cases you may enter the later stages of the game holding a BKB and even a Satanic too, making you a carry on your own. More often you will have struggled to finish your bkb, but it's really all you need to keep contributing.

In some cases you may even be very poor, and wards will have drained most of your income.

You will not have the same impact as other strength support heroes in the late-game, and in teamfights. This is why the competitive scene prefers other support strength casters over Sven. Sand King, Earthshaker, Tidehunter all do your job better later on. You need to use the advantage you have in ganking and snowball your team from that.

Remember though, your stun is AoE, and your Warcry is still an incredibly powerful spell. No matter how poor you are, getting hit in the face by the God's Strength is still going to hurt support heroes, and with the low cooldown and soul ring's ability to sustain your mana you can often stun more than once in a fight.

Keep your carry safe. Stun whatever wants to disable him, or his target before it gets away. Stay active with smoke, wards and counterwards. Help your team and don't be afraid to die. In teamfights you should stun as soon as possible and warcry as much of your team as you can. Hit your ultimate and whack whatever you can reach. If you can bail out to soulring and stun again, do so. Be smart.

The final item build for Sven looks like this:

Core

If you have the Luxury of an extra item pick up something that helps you take punishment and kill stuff. Satanic, Shiva's Guard, Heaven's Halberd, Assault Cuirass, Pipe of Insight are all good choices. Scythe of Vyse is a good item to keep in mind too.

Hopefully your past will carry you to victory...

A mini-guide to stunning

Your stun is AoE, calculated at the time of landing. Get used to casting it in anticipation of enemy movement to hit more than one hero.
Your stun will always follow people. It cannot be dodged by blinking away. It can be dodged by going invisible though.
If a target has Linken's Sphere, stun his buddy next to him
Your stun does approximately 245 damage to a hero.
A Sven at 100 hp and 40 mana is worse than a Sven at 1hp and stunning away. Man up and soul ring.
Your stun provides vision that lasts for about 3seconds after hitting the enemy hero. This can be surprisingly helpful.
Always try to stun the target when you're as close to it as possible without allowing him to move towards safety. This allows you to get more sword-whacks in.
Be very, very, very mindful of other disablers on your team. Don't overlap them and thus waste the duration.

Sven's best friends

Anything that can combo well with you in lane to make your opponent's life hell!

Remember that you also need someone to carry you through the lategame, although some of the mentioned friends can carry you to an extent. It's important to have a strong carry or semi-carry on your team to take advantage of the safety and dominance you provide in the midgame.

Closing thoughts

Sven is a good hero. He's not relevant in the current metagame because the midgame tends to get overshadowed by a very strong push. But he is great fun to play in public games and can be played very successfully as a strong ganker.

The most important part is that he's very fun to play if you like to play aggressive and take the game into your own hands. He's a high risk, high reward hero that unlike playing carries in public games where you're forced to rely on your teammates to protect you, you can take the enemy team and punch them in the face repeatedly hoping your team will pick up on the advantage.

Not to mention, he's a badass blue dude with a big sword.

Resources

None yet, I will work on this!

Last edit: 2012-09-01 00:13:21

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

Zagger Portugal. September 01 2012 00:26. Posts 11

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Good guide, only thing i have to point out is the fact that you're not mentioning how good a Blink dagger can be on him. If im supporting with Sven, i''d rather have a blink to engage than a BKB (the ideal would be having both but since we most likely spending money on wards...).
I know it's really not that easy find the time to farm up 2150 gold when you're supporting but i still think it's worth mentioning.

Meta United States. September 01 2012 00:28. Posts 5802

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Nice guide, super late game items should include Daedalus. I've seen Blink Dagger as a good situational pickup, it sets you up for really good initiation. In pubs Sven will often be better played farming since his ganking potential relies on teammate follow-up, but if you have realiable teammates that can chain stun with you then pure gank/roam can be quite powerful.

Sven is fun, easy and powerful. I'd suggest him for new players.

Last edit: 2012-09-01 00:31:25

Pure, immaculate, clean, omnicidal god machine

meegrean Thailand. September 01 2012 00:31. Posts 6007

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Nice guide about Sven. I'm a Sven fan myself too.

I have to disagree about getting soul ring for Sven though. While the item gives you unlimited mana in the early game, it doesn't give stats/damage and rapidly loses effectiveness in the mid and late game. Buying items that gives stats such as drums will already ensure that Sven can stun multiple times from mid game on. If your team doesn't have arcane boots, then it is better to skip soul ring and buy arcane boots for Sven to better support the team. I also prefer to buy urn of shadows over soul ring.

I think that power treads are still the best boots for Sven simply because it is more cost-effective/versatile, benefits his ultimate, boosts his hp and low attack speed. I guess phase boots could be suitable if you play Sven as a hard ganker and need to chase/run away a lot.

Check out this guide. I think it is the best Sven guide out there at the moment. There are two builds, where you can either play Sven as a support or a carry, depending on the situation.

Brood War Forever!

Empyrean September 01 2012 00:31. Posts 16299

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Can't Sven's ultimate be purged? :<

Jergen United States. September 01 2012 00:31. Posts 132

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Not a bad guide, thought I would tend to argue in favor of: Getting a tango instead of a salve (More precise healing, can be used in combat, won't overheal or be lost through taking damage, so you can stay in exp range), Arcanes over Phase (already have a gap closer, Sven's mana pool is very poor, allows him to gank more consistently), and taking advantage of your strength a lot earlier than 8-12. Sven's stun makes him just as strong as a roamer as ES or Venge, and it's damage is ridiculously high if he's running around at levels 3-7. Early roaming also allows you to place your wards more effectively, and affect the psyche of enemies in numerous lanes. The worry with it is being way behind in exp, but hopefully you can make it up in teamfights anyway (and if not, Sven's got some natural tankiness, so at least he won't auto die like, say, a roaming Venge can).

On September 01 2012 00:31 Empyrean wrote:
Can't Sven's ultimate be purged? :<

Not anymore. :D

Last edit: 2012-09-01 00:35:51

Jergen United States. September 01 2012 00:33. Posts 132

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Edit: Double post.

Last edit: 2012-09-01 00:35:19

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 00:36. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 00:26 Zagger wrote:
Good guide, only thing i have to point out is the fact that you're not mentioning how good a Blink dagger can be on him. If im supporting with Sven, i''d rather have a blink to engage than a BKB (the ideal would be having both but since we most likely spending money on wards...).
I know it's really not that easy find the time to farm up 2150 gold when you're supporting but i still think it's worth mentioning.

I did consider having a section specifically dedicated to discuss the controversial item that is Blink Dagger on Sven.

It is an excellent item on him, there is no denying it. It's possibly the best item you can get for him, assuming you get it early enough, but there are several tradeoffs.

It's first and foremost a ganking item for Sven, and it means he needs to move in a very specific way (to Warcry his team, then blink and stun). It is also, as you mentioned, very expensive, and it's questionable if it's viable to farm it as a core item on Sven, seeing as you're giving most of your farm away.

Another problem is that you're not really tough enough without a bkb to initiate a fight like that and withstand the onslaught until your team comes in. With the BKB you're fine, but that's so much extra farm.

I guess the way I'd put it is that if you get a few good kills early and some quick cash, it's great for snowballing your ganks even harder. It is not a core item on him, but it is an excellent item. It's not the item we need, but it's the one we want.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

prplhz Denmark. September 01 2012 00:50. Posts 3946

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if you make a section for controversial items make sure to include dagon :D

good work on this guide!

Please don't hurt me...

meegrean Thailand. September 01 2012 00:50. Posts 6007

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+ Show Spoiler +

Yep, you really need BKB before you buy a blink dagger or otherwise you would just blink in and die, haha. I rarely buy a blink dagger for Sven because whenever I can afford it, I immediately buy an item from the secret shop, like Hyperstone.

Brood War Forever!

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 00:53. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 00:31 meegrean wrote:
Nice guide about Sven. I'm a Sven fan myself too.

I have to disagree about getting soul ring for Sven though. While the item gives you unlimited mana in the early game, it doesn't give stats/damage and rapidly loses effectiveness in the mid and late game. Buying items that gives stats such as drums will already ensure that Sven can stun multiple times from mid game on. If your team doesn't have arcane boots, then it is better to skip soul ring and buy arcane boots for Sven to better support the team. I also prefer to buy urn of shadows over soul ring.

Urn of shadows will not allow you to cast two stuns and your ultimate on it's own. You are correct that the soul ring loses _some_ of it's effectiveness, but Urn doesn't give you any burst mana at all. Also remember that you're suggesting I replace a lean 2200 gold item build (phase boots and soul ring) with a substantially fatter 4050 gold item build (Urn+Drums+Treads). Of course your build is stronger, it's because it costs almost twice as much.

I have found that the soul ring allows you to start ganking faster than anything else (soul ring + boots is 1300 gold). While also making sure you can support your team very nicely.

I do agree with the Arcane boots thing. It's not the best choice on Sven, but when no one else has them you can grab them (and skip soul ring in the process).

On September 01 2012 00:31 meegrean wrote:
I think that power treads are still the best boots for Sven simply because it is more cost-effective/versatile, benefits his ultimate, boosts his hp and low attack speed. I guess phase boots could be suitable if you play Sven as a hard ganker and need to chase/run away a lot.

This guide focuses purely on building him as a hard ganker. phase boots will probably get you more hits than treads due to the speed and the ability to run through creeps. Even if treads allow you to attack slightly faster. Sven has good enough strength gain without needing additional hp.

On September 01 2012 00:31 meegrean wrote:
Check out this guide. I think it is the best Sven guide out there at the moment. There are two builds, where you can either play Sven as a support or a carry, depending on the situation.

It's a good build, I don't think it's optimal for the playstyle I described here.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 00:53. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 00:28 Meta wrote:
Nice guide, super late game items should include Daedalus. I've seen Blink Dagger as a good situational pickup, it sets you up for really good initiation. In pubs Sven will often be better played farming since his ganking potential relies on teammate follow-up, but if you have realiable teammates that can chain stun with you then pure gank/roam can be quite powerful.

Sven is fun, easy and powerful. I'd suggest him for new players.

I have found it very easy to get people to follow in, as long as it's me who initiates the gank.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 00:59. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 00:31 Jergen wrote:
Not a bad guide, thought I would tend to argue in favor of: Getting a tango instead of a salve (More precise healing, can be used in combat, won't overheal or be lost through taking damage, so you can stay in exp range),

I think I specifically addressed this. It's not the end of the world to back out from the creepwave for a few seconds. And the salve is better in terms of health per gold gained. On most heroes I take the tangoes, but Sven has the health pool to support taking salve.

On September 01 2012 00:31 Jergen wrote:
Arcanes over Phase (already have a gap closer, Sven's mana pool is very poor, allows him to gank more consistently), and taking advantage of your strength a lot earlier than 8-12. Sven's stun makes him just as strong as a roamer as ES or Venge, and it's damage is ridiculously high if he's running around at levels 3-7. Early roaming also allows you to place your wards more effectively, and affect the psyche of enemies in numerous lanes. The worry with it is being way behind in exp, but hopefully you can make it up in teamfights anyway (and if not, Sven's got some natural tankiness, so at least he won't auto die like, say, a roaming Venge can).

Soul Ring provides all the mana you need. Phase boots makes your ganking stronger. The only situation I'd recommend Arcane boots is when no one else on your team builds them naturally. Soul Ring and Sven is a match made in heaven.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

xXAVx Spain. September 01 2012 01:03. Posts 5

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I have a question, not really related to Sven, but more general: what makes a carry better than other?

Let me tell you what I mean by "better". The way I see a hero pool is simple: all heroes are exactly the same (let's assume all base damages, armor, and delays are the same). The only difference between heros is that they get "free gold", in the sense of they getting 4 "free" abilities. For example, Sven and AntiMage:

1.- Sven: he gets a stun (free basher), a cleave (free battlefury), a speed boots (free phase boots), and a damage boost (free double-damage rune).

2.- AntiMage: he gets a blink (free blink dagger), mana burn (free diffusal), magic resistance (free hood), and a magical nuke (free dagon).

My point is: Sven with blink dagger, difusal, hood, and dagon is just as good as Antimage with basher, battlefury, phase boots, and a double-damage rune. What makes AntiMage such a good carry, when Sven can do exactly the same with the right items?

I am not blind though: answering my own question, Antimage's blink is much better than a blink dagger... and you can get it at level 1, which makes Antimage better at escaping. I guess it all depends on the team compositions. For example it's much easier to gank Sven than it is to tank Antimage, and Antimage can farm much faster than Sven. It's all these very minute differences (like cooldown on blink, timing on the abilities, being STR instead of AGI, etc.) what makes the difference between a good carry and an excellent carry.

But still, you get my point: 60 minutes into the game, I say that every right-click hero is as good as every other right-click hero!! Any thoughts are welcome!

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

xsevR United States. September 01 2012 01:12. Posts 218

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Hmm, I'm a little skeptic about the soul ring + phase build (treads+drum for me usually, with warcry chasing isn't a problem) but it is cheap and cost efficient. My one issue is with the phase boots, as I'm not sure they're entirely needed, and pure dmg isn't the best on Sven. Tranquil + Soul ring could be good when you're not farming the best. I can see the validity in either style, I just like being stronger in the midgame and building more into a carry, which stats help with.

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 01:13. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 01:03 xXAVx wrote:
I have a question, not really related to Sven, but more general: what makes a carry better than other?

Let me tell you what I mean by "better". The way I see a hero pool is simple: all heroes are exactly the same (let's assume all base damages, armor, and delays are the same). The only difference between heros is that they get "free gold", in the sense of they getting 4 "free" abilities. For example, Sven and AntiMage:

1.- Sven: he gets a stun (free basher), a cleave (free battlefury), a speed boots (free phase boots), and a damage boost (free double-damage rune).

2.- AntiMage: he gets a blink (free blink dagger), mana burn (free diffusal), magic resistance (free hood), and a magical nuke (free dagon).

My point is: Sven with blink dagger, difusal, hood, and dagon is just as good as Antimage with basher, battlefury, phase boots, and a double-damage rune. What makes AntiMage such a good carry, when Sven can do exactly the same with the right items?

I am not blind though: answering my own question, Antimage's blink is much better than a blink dagger... and you can get it at level 1, which makes Antimage better at escaping. I guess it all depends on the team compositions. For example it's much easier to gank Sven than it is to tank Antimage, and Antimage can farm much faster than Sven. It's all these very minute differences (like cooldown on blink, timing on the abilities, being STR instead of AGI, etc.) what makes the difference between a good carry and an excellent carry.

But still, you get my point: 60 minutes into the game, I say that every right-click hero is as good as every other right-click hero!! Any thoughts are welcome!

I'll give the short version, as this thread is for discussing a particular playstyle of Sven, not carries in general.

Antimage is an agility hero, which means his primary attribute will increase his damage and his attack speed. Sven's primary attribute is strength, which means he will gain damage and health from his primary attribute. This is obviously less damage than the agility hero stands to gain.

Antimage's blink cannot be compared to blink dagger because he can get out of trouble in teamfights.

Antimage's orb scaling with manta means that other heroes are in big trouble against him.

Antimage has the lowest base attack speed in the game, as far as I know.

I don't want to derail this thread by talking about carries but trust me when I say:

But still, you get my point: 60 minutes into the game, I say that every right-click hero is as good as every other right-click hero!! Any thoughts are welcome!

This is completely wrong. Play the game a lot, read guides and mechanics and you will understand why.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

aintz Canada. September 01 2012 01:15. Posts 2909

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treads + drums is just much better. and how dare you not get a magic stick.

1 level of warcry should be taken at 4 if you have a decent lane and has the probably of chasing and killing.

xsevR United States. September 01 2012 01:18. Posts 218

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double

Last edit: 2012-09-01 01:19:51

xsevR United States. September 01 2012 01:18. Posts 218

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You need to look a little more in depth. A big part of it is the agility of AM, and his BAT. He's going to attack a lot more than Sven, with higher natural armor. The fact that he has access to blink makes him safer throughout the game, and able to farm better, which is impossible to compare to the effects of a 2150 gold item. You rush a battlefury on AM because he can take advantage of the cleave, you put off cleave on Sven until 21-25 because you can't do anything with it. Also AM''s ulti is not comparable to a Dagon, as it scales against mana-based heroes into the lategame. Manabreak is several degrees better than a diffusal. Finally, Sven's stun is not comparable to a basher, at all.

Last edit: 2012-09-01 01:19:27

Palmar Iceland. September 01 2012 01:25. Posts 7607

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On September 01 2012 01:15 aintz wrote:
treads + drums is just much better. and how dare you not get a magic stick.

1 level of warcry should be taken at 4 if you have a decent lane and has the probably of chasing and killing.

I agree with your second sentence, although my personal preference is level 2 to grab a kill at level 3 (which you can often do).

The first one I just don't understand how it's even comparable.

In what order do you make those items? How do you sustain your mana for ganking with no mana regeneration items?

I am suggesting Boots+Ring into phase+ring = 2200 gold (plus 500-800 ish for wards, tps, smoke and other support/gank items).

You're suggesting treads+drums+stick which is 3684 gold (plus the same for wards tps, smoke and such).

And all the while you have no option for regenerating your mana other than going back to base or getting clarities shipped if you go low once.

♥ http://www.iron-edge.co.uk ♥

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