Practical items on Lord Salforis?

[Eulich]

So looking through the guides on Salforis, I see a range of items that people seem to think work well on him. Some items seem to focus on a caster aspect (spellshards, hellflower, FFP), while the others are there to make lifetap stronger (riftshards, mock, runed axe). I was curious which of the two builds is usually more viable, and which items are practical for these builds. Does he need Helm, with his innate regen and lifetap? Are spellshards better than riftshards? Is Mock actually good on him (seems like aura overkill)? Insanitarius seems like it would be a good item on paper, same with abyssal skull.

Any input would be appreciated if you have experience playing these builds, thanks.

[Shocker420]

I always get a helm on him, its good for the hp and deflection mainly. In regards to builds I usually just build him tanky. Havnt really had a game yet where I felt I was tanky enough to build strait damage items like riftshards. I would rather just get a mock than other attack damage items. A strength hero with 2 heals (1 really low cd, 1 situational) that excels when in the middle of fights and chasing is just begging to be a mock carrier.

He does pretty good damage with just abilities so skipping mock and continuing to build tanky isnt bad. Kinda like some people skip mock on zephyr and get something like a heart so they can stay in fights longer while their abilities do the damage.

[Suture]

Played with a pretty decent salf on my team last night.

He went Marchers, Helm, Ring of the teacher, Portal Key.

And he completely demolished them. We laned and he had bloodbath pretty quickly.

[PrestonLee]

my personal build is: :EnhancedMarchers: :RingOfTheTeacher: [:GraveLocket: :PowerSupply:] :HelmOfTheBlackLegio :icebrand: :Hellflower: -> luxury [:ShrunkenHead: :FrostwolfsSkull: :BehemothsHeart: :Mock: Spellshards]

You want to abuse the fact that he can be a diving God early on with lifetap+aura, so you pick up ghosts+hotbl to emphasize on this. I personally take rott for the unlimited mana it gives for lifetap usage early on so you can just spam it everywhere for farming and harassment. I also like cheap stats via gravelocket+psupply as they just help me dive better earlier and allow me to easily come out on top, but that's just me and it isn't necessary; you can skip them and work on the other pickups earlier if desired.

Don't bother leveling nuke early on til you can afford the spamming, I used to be for leveling Q early but after playing salforis heavily I'm convinced spammable lifetap that does much more damage/lifesteal is much more useful early on than leveling nuke which you have to stop to cast.

Ice brand is picked up next for added survivability as well as giving you a slow that synergizes greatly with your lifetap + aura. Makes it so people have a really hard time getting away from you, and you have lifetap for lifesteal so attack mod slot isn't a worry. It also sets you up for fws later which is huge on his ulti and your lifetap, gives great strength and a big mana pool to work with.

Next pickup is hellflower. There are many reasons to get hellflower and I really feel it's core: it gives you practically unlimited mana to spam your Q freely with, it gives great attack speed which he lacks with a ghosts+hotbl+icebrand build, and it synergizes INCREDIBLY well with your ulti as your ulti and other skills does true damage and your lifetap+Q already do absurd damage, magnifying that with the extra damage taken from hellflower debuff makes salforis's damage output INSANE as well as being an extremely good anti-carry item, again especially coupled with his ulti. The build also works out so that hellflower is starting to get picked up around the time where you start leveling Q so you can have the mana regen for it.

After that it's really all situational. You'll want to finish that fws for the huge stats and slow to go with your ulti, but shrunken is also valued if you feel you need it to dive into a bunch of burst/disables in teamfights. If you feel you need more survivability after, disassemble hotbl into behe heart. If you like you can turn rott into abyssal.

To finish up the build you can pick up a mock AND/or spellshards, what this does is it lowers all your cooldowns, making everything even more spammable, ups your Q damage aT the same time, and it pretty much makes your mock do true damage. That on top of all your survivability (hotbl/heart/shrunken/fws) and your lifetap to lifesteal back makes salforis one mean mother trucker.

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You might think it's a lot of farm, but then again it really isn't because the first part of the game you're a diving God getting really easy kills and snowballing farm, second part of the game you farm up a hellflower which gives you unlimited mana to spam your Q on creeps and just Overfarm like crazy. So what you end up is a mega tank that does a truckload of auto damage burst and doubles as an anticarry and nuker with huge burst.

this build keeps you relevant throughout all stages of the game, and salforis never falls out of usefulness unlike other builds because he's able to output huge damage while being able to stay alive at the same time.

Just my 2 cents, I really got into playing salforis for a while as I was determined to prove that salforis is a strong pick despite what people say, and this was the best build I came up with, granted most of the testing was done in pubstomp 1600's. it's really reliable and strong in most situations providing salforis fits into your team lineup (his role is snowball semicarry/tank/nuker all wrapped up into one :p) hope this helps in some way for your salforis play :)

Tl;dr -

Early game:
:EnhancedMarchers: :RingOfTheTeacher: :HelmOfTheBlackLegio :icebrand: - go around dive-ganking people early on and just molesting them with lifetap slow->hugging them for easy kills.

Mid game:
:Hellflower: :ShrunkenHead: start transitioning into nuker/anti-carry and use your Q to help you farm easily by spamming it on creepwaves

Late game:
:FrostwolfsSkull::BehemothsHeart::Mock: finish fws, then pickup whatever luxury you feel is needed; doesn't necessarily have to be listed, can be daemonic or genjuro or some dps pickup as well if desired.

[Eulich]

Thanks for the responses, and also for the detailed explanation. Those were most of the items that I thought would be pretty strong on him, but I thought that mock was more of an early game farming item (like on zephyr). Just curious, did you ever try out insanitarius on him? It seems like it would give great burst to lifetap, and add some much needed armor and attack speed at the same time (salf has pretty crap agi and agi gain). Also, I think a blood chalice would fit onto him nicely, since you get free regen while standing next to creeps with your aura off.

[PrestonLee]

yes, I've tried insanitarius on him many times, it is viable and makes him do a lot more damage with lifetap. It used to be core in my build as well, but eventually I felt the block from hotbl for the diving potential early game is more important than more damage, and insanitarius is a bit risky.

It is great but I feel hotbl is safer, still gets the job done for survivability, and can be disassembled into heart later game which is always a strong pickup for salf(and nullstone later with the lifetube if you desire one).

Insanitarius is still situationally great, I'll pick one up over hotbl if armor is heavily valued and/or I feel it's safe enough to use it.

In my opinion chalice just isn't worth it, I find rott to be more than enough mana regen for my lifetap spamming early on, and it gives +3 armor for your team and pushing as well which is always nice. You can grab it if you like but I personally feel it just isn't necessary; if I want extra stats/mana regen more than rott I'll opt for a power supply instead as there's no risk and the mana gained from others casting spells is usually more than enough for his mana regen needs in sticky situations.

Again, just my opinion but I only feel chalice is worth it on bottle users that spam mana heavily early on; if you don't pick up bottle then I don't feel chalice is ever worth it anymore. If you're doing an early Q build with salforis mid and going bottle however, them sure chalice can be considered early on just for the extra stats and mana replenishment boost.