kingcomrade
09-13-2009, 02:25 AM
Okay. Now that Barbed Armor has been updated to reflect DotA, it returns pure damage, it is now a great item. It's one of my favorite items in the game in DotA, but it is a situational item that is only "core" on certain heroes.
The first thing to understand about Barbed Armor is that it had two different uses. One is stopping the enemy from attacking you with physical attacks, the other is reflecting damage from magical attacks.
Another thing to understand about Barbed Armor is that it gives GOOD STATS. It gives armor, damage, and mana, and it gives more than its ingredients gives you with no recipe cost attatched.
It has a low cooldown, very low, so you can use blademail almost any time you feel like you need it. This makes it a good utility item.
Stated simply:
Against physical attacks, barbed armor is a deterrant, unless your enemy is an idiot you won't be using barbed armor to reflect physical damage. This is very cool on DPS carries who have to fight other DPS carries. Relative power of heroes aside, if you DPS heroes go at it the one with barbed armor will probably win. Either the enemy can attack you and do all the damage he is doing to you also to himself, or he can stop attacking you and let you get in some uncontested hits.
The damage return is most effective against magical attacks, specifically DoT, AoE, and certain other spells that you can see coming. The reason for this is pretty simple: To reflect damage, you have to turn blademail on. Against Thunderbringer, for example, barbed armor is not terribly useful because you cannot reliably predict when he is going to nuke you. You can, of course, in certain situations, but as I said it is not -reliable-. On the other hand, against Magmus's ult, you can see it coming and Magmus cannot stop it from hitting you if you are in the AoE. Another example is Defiler. Her ult is a pain in the ass to deal with, but with barbed armor you will make her cry.
The heroes Barbed Armor could be considered "core" or at least "recommended" are often the same heroes who it is used to fight. If you are playing a very dangerous hero that everyone wants dead (e.g. Defiler) that Barbed Armor can punish them for focusing you. One of the carriers of Blademail in DotA (in my opinion, anyway, blademail is never bought in competitive dota because I think it just hasn't been "discovered" yet) is Dirge, since he becomes a giant scary golem that everyone feels the need to kill.
Like I said, however, Blademail is best bought against those DoT/AoE heroes. Magmus, Pestilence. I've played a game of DotA where I managed to convince another player to get blademail against sand king (magmus) and his ult would kill him before it killed any of us. It is useful against Pollywog Priest when he has wards up in a battle area, Glacius when he uses his ult, it's GREAT against Moon Queen especially if you have more HP than she does. Oh, killing Lunas/Moon Queens with their own ult is satisfying in a way I can't describe, really. It's good against Slither and Blood Hunter, especially Slither. As you can see I'm just listing heroes who have AoE DoT ults
It does NOT work against Swiftblade since he is invulnerable while using his ult and if you do get it his whirl won't do noticeable damage by then anyway.
Summary:
I'll summarize my points real quick since I hope you've gotten the picture by now. Barbed Armor is good against heroes who have those high damage, aoe, dot spells. It's mostly used to reflect spell damage, not physical attacks. It's second effect is to discourage DPS heroes from attacking you. This is useful in carry vs carry showdowns, or if the enemy is focusing you during team fights. Barbed Armor gives you fairly good stats in a single slot. Barbed Armor is not reliable against instant-hit nukes and is not good against stuns simply because you won't be able to activate it in time.
I think Barbed Armor is underrated. It's almost never bought in DotA. Before, it was because it was useless. Now, even though conceptually everyone can agree it's a pretty good item, people still don't get it. The big problem with Barbed Armor is: where does it fit into your item build? My opinion: after your first major item. Barbed Armor is also a very neat item to get on item-independent heroes. If you are playing Madman, Barbed Armor is probably not for you until you have two major items. If you are playing Demented Shaman against a Magmus, on the other hand, you can actually get this as your first item.
Try out Barbed Armor. I'm often surprised by how much it helps and I almost never regret buying it. If you want to look at it another way, Blademail can be one of the best DPS boosting items in the game if used correctly.
edit- I should note: if you are fighting in team battles against those heroes with AoE wave attacks, it's also good then. Pyromancer, for example. If you go into battle where you know spells like that will be flying around, turn on your blademail. Pyro can't stop all his AoE from hitting you. This isn't really a reason to GET Barbed Armor, though, due to it's relatively short duration, it's just one of its uses.
The first thing to understand about Barbed Armor is that it had two different uses. One is stopping the enemy from attacking you with physical attacks, the other is reflecting damage from magical attacks.
Another thing to understand about Barbed Armor is that it gives GOOD STATS. It gives armor, damage, and mana, and it gives more than its ingredients gives you with no recipe cost attatched.
It has a low cooldown, very low, so you can use blademail almost any time you feel like you need it. This makes it a good utility item.
Stated simply:
Against physical attacks, barbed armor is a deterrant, unless your enemy is an idiot you won't be using barbed armor to reflect physical damage. This is very cool on DPS carries who have to fight other DPS carries. Relative power of heroes aside, if you DPS heroes go at it the one with barbed armor will probably win. Either the enemy can attack you and do all the damage he is doing to you also to himself, or he can stop attacking you and let you get in some uncontested hits.
The damage return is most effective against magical attacks, specifically DoT, AoE, and certain other spells that you can see coming. The reason for this is pretty simple: To reflect damage, you have to turn blademail on. Against Thunderbringer, for example, barbed armor is not terribly useful because you cannot reliably predict when he is going to nuke you. You can, of course, in certain situations, but as I said it is not -reliable-. On the other hand, against Magmus's ult, you can see it coming and Magmus cannot stop it from hitting you if you are in the AoE. Another example is Defiler. Her ult is a pain in the ass to deal with, but with barbed armor you will make her cry.
The heroes Barbed Armor could be considered "core" or at least "recommended" are often the same heroes who it is used to fight. If you are playing a very dangerous hero that everyone wants dead (e.g. Defiler) that Barbed Armor can punish them for focusing you. One of the carriers of Blademail in DotA (in my opinion, anyway, blademail is never bought in competitive dota because I think it just hasn't been "discovered" yet) is Dirge, since he becomes a giant scary golem that everyone feels the need to kill.
Like I said, however, Blademail is best bought against those DoT/AoE heroes. Magmus, Pestilence. I've played a game of DotA where I managed to convince another player to get blademail against sand king (magmus) and his ult would kill him before it killed any of us. It is useful against Pollywog Priest when he has wards up in a battle area, Glacius when he uses his ult, it's GREAT against Moon Queen especially if you have more HP than she does. Oh, killing Lunas/Moon Queens with their own ult is satisfying in a way I can't describe, really. It's good against Slither and Blood Hunter, especially Slither. As you can see I'm just listing heroes who have AoE DoT ults
It does NOT work against Swiftblade since he is invulnerable while using his ult and if you do get it his whirl won't do noticeable damage by then anyway.
Summary:
I'll summarize my points real quick since I hope you've gotten the picture by now. Barbed Armor is good against heroes who have those high damage, aoe, dot spells. It's mostly used to reflect spell damage, not physical attacks. It's second effect is to discourage DPS heroes from attacking you. This is useful in carry vs carry showdowns, or if the enemy is focusing you during team fights. Barbed Armor gives you fairly good stats in a single slot. Barbed Armor is not reliable against instant-hit nukes and is not good against stuns simply because you won't be able to activate it in time.
I think Barbed Armor is underrated. It's almost never bought in DotA. Before, it was because it was useless. Now, even though conceptually everyone can agree it's a pretty good item, people still don't get it. The big problem with Barbed Armor is: where does it fit into your item build? My opinion: after your first major item. Barbed Armor is also a very neat item to get on item-independent heroes. If you are playing Madman, Barbed Armor is probably not for you until you have two major items. If you are playing Demented Shaman against a Magmus, on the other hand, you can actually get this as your first item.
Try out Barbed Armor. I'm often surprised by how much it helps and I almost never regret buying it. If you want to look at it another way, Blademail can be one of the best DPS boosting items in the game if used correctly.
edit- I should note: if you are fighting in team battles against those heroes with AoE wave attacks, it's also good then. Pyromancer, for example. If you go into battle where you know spells like that will be flying around, turn on your blademail. Pyro can't stop all his AoE from hitting you. This isn't really a reason to GET Barbed Armor, though, due to it's relatively short duration, it's just one of its uses.