Armadon...

[GlowingStick]

So.. every time I see an Armadon on the other team at 1500~ MMR Casual or Normal I know my lose the game..
His deals a ridicously amount of damage at early levels and is probably even more tankier than Cthulhuphant at late.
So far the team who had armadon in his team won the game and I played about 500 games in total now (probably 200 with an armadon in it).
He easily dives me at level 3
So how do you counter him? Doesn't matter if I'm playing as ranged or melee, agi, str or int I always end up getting spinebursted on the balls. I played him a few times myself and ends up winning the game.

[cockstrong]

Predator + Shieldbreaker + Abyssal Skull = gg Armadon.

I play Armadon almost 24/7 on this account.

Also Search.

EDIT: Pebbles also puts an ass whoopin on Arma.

[Syzymy]

Farmadon have ridicously low amount of mana.

Pick Witch Slayer, drain his mana

stop farmadon farm

stun and disable him nonstop with his own mana

kill him very easily

[Sell]

Stack armor auras. Problem solved!

[tbarr1991]

mana battery/powersupply early on
hellflower later in the game

[Tommysmamma]

He's still vulnerable to spells early on, so focus on picking up some easy armor to help with spines (RotT, greaves, supply) and just harass him as much as you can. If or when you get some stacks of spines on you, just hold back for a few sec and then keep at it again. Most armas, at least on 1600~ games have a tendency to overestimate their own survival skills early on.

As for lategame: Stacking armor sure works well, but do it to a certain extent. There is no reason for you to pick up 500 tank items on a carry for example. Also, as mentioned, hellflower, sheep and cyclone to cc him is very important and extremely efficient. The most important thing however is to never attack him from the rear or sides. ALWAYS attack him from his front.

[Uroefl]

There are several counters to armadon, the most common ones are "Disables" this allows you to take down armadon quite easy if you attack from the front.
Another thing is picking up specific items or heroes against him, as example a corrupted disciple would rape armadon hard by using conduit if he chases you and your ult lowers his armor.

Another thing to mention is kuldra sheepstick or hellflower, this makes him so vulnerable and you'll be able to get him down quickly.
And last but not least Harkons blade if you have an hero like Puppet master or aluna on ur team, even the dark lady could pick it up at late.
Never attack armadon from the back, it's no use, don't even try chasing an armadon.

[Midonsmyr]

Early game you can just beat him down.

Recently played Aluna+Hammerstorm vs Armadon+Midas. As soon as Arma came in for his annoying spine harass we react and burst him down.

At lvl 1 and 2 neither side was going to kill the other but we'd both drain our mana. Then at 3, boom he harasses, we react and he dies. We just ignored Midas, the softer target, with escape.

That's the thing with Armadon you can't ignore him early game, not because he farms well, but because he relies on being ignored to get his spine stacks in and punish you. So just kill him early to piss him off, then grab disables later and ignore him. Or if you're farmed with good pred or soemthing, just kill him. The faster he dies the less AoE physical pain he dishes out.

[GlowingStick]

Thanks for all your help, tried few games on a Facc. Played against Armadon.. Lost the game, GG. In my eyes he will always be overpowered and just silly

[MrBigMac]

if u have armadon on your lane, buy mana battery with the first gold u get.
200 gold is so cheap for u getting good health back, and more important:
with spamming spines he gives u endless mana for your spells

make sure to have ring of teacher on your lane, the armor is really good, and even more mana to use your spells

he is really strong, but really not undefeatable in lane
mana drainers will help a lot, as early his mana pool is very low, and a no mana armadon is a useless armadon

[Jenova26]

Most people lose to Armadon because they assume they need negative armor (Shieldbreaker) to counter him. As most of the posters above me have said, slows and disables destroy Armadon, not negative armor. His armor is really high to begin with. You do want some plus armor for your team to nerf his spine damage. FWS, Sheep, and HF are the best items against an Arma.

Otherwise, the best counter is just to harass the hell out of him early game. Before lvl 6, Armadon is shockingly squishy and he needs a good amount of farm to become a problem. If you destroy his early game, he'll be a waste of space going into lategame.

[kryptikk]

Most people lose to Armadon because they assume they need negative armor (Shieldbreaker) to counter him. As most of the posters above me have said, slows and disables destroy Armadon, not negative armor. His armor is really high to begin with. You do want some plus armor for your team to nerf his spine damage. FWS, Sheep, and HF are the best items against an Arma.

Otherwise, the best counter is just to harass the hell out of him early game. Before lvl 6, Armadon is shockingly squishy and he needs a good amount of farm to become a problem. If you destroy his early game, he'll be a waste of space going into lategame.

^ this. If you let an armadon farm helm/headdress/sols in the first 20-25 minutes, you're screwed. Harass/gank him early with RoT/Mana Battery if you're laning against him, and get disables for late game. A demonic breastplate/positive sols and RoT combo generally helps for team fights.

[Uroefl]

Hard counter = Corrupted disciple.

He chases you, you conduit + dmg from passive and slow.
You chase him, ult (reduces his armor) and conduit.

[Salem1]

Hard counter = Corrupted disciple.

He chases you, you conduit + dmg from passive and slow.
You chase him, ult (reduces his armor) and conduit.

When will this misconception stop spreading?

Armadon is the counter for CD. Snot storm on CD means he can't chase Armadon, he gets much easier to focus down due to -armour, other heroes have an easier time running away from CD since he's so slowed and if spine burst will kill him CD can't get away because he's so slowed and has no escape or disable. If you hit Armadon when you've got charges on conduit all you'll do is expose yourself and anyone near Armadon to more spine procs because he's taking more damage to the sides or back - unless your team has disabled him in a good position and you're hitting him from the front (which is not easy against a good Armadon player and also means that it wasn't CD who did the job).

1v1 CD gets beaten by him, in team fights he still can't beat Armadon unless he focuses him down from the front after Armadon is disabled and conduit has charges up (just like any other hero/carry which makes it being CD irrelevant, you might as well say that Madman or Scout counter him if you're gonna argue like that). CD is only ''good'' against Armadon if you've outfarmed him so you can kill him faster than he can directly or indirectly (something I don't think most people are considering) kill you. Armadon doesn't need auto-attack damage to kill you so conduit doesn't affect him much. The slow from your passive lasts too shortly for it to have an effect - thanks to the speed boost from Restless and you actually getting slowed after he snot storms you, it still works way in Armadon's favor.

I've played 243+ matchmaking games as CD, if it's a hero he's good against it's not Armadon. A similar thing is people suggesting CD counters Predator which is just as if not more wrong as CD countering Armadon.


To the topic at hand, Armadon is overpowered. Let him get his farm and chances are you won't stop him. This is usually the problem, especially in non-ban pick games - Armadon either farms or both farms and kills his enemies. It's just like laning against Swiftblade, Predator and so on, you need a setup which is good against them. A setup like Gunblade + Rhapsody doesn't stand a chance against Armadon + anything. Now as I said I think Armadon is overpowered to begin with and especially so in non-organised games and/or non-ban pick games but if you want to counter him then you want to dominate the lane vs him.

I'd get Pestilence + Martyr against him. Get a level of gore before you max flight and use your hatchet to compete for last hits (that's why you want a melee hero against him). Make sure that Martyr is standing in range of spine burst if he uses it. Whenever Martyr gets low for whatever reason, Pesti stuns, Martyr gets in front of Armadon and nukes him. Pesti has a 2,5 second aoe stun on an 8 second cd, a passive stun, a movement speed boost and -armour & anti-juke vision - everything he has is great for taking out Armadon but it's the package of it on one hero that completes it. Martyr is there because he doesn't need pesti's farm, he's great at winning harass wars, he's got a great nuke when Pesti stuns (or against a chasing Armadon who doesn't turn his back when Martyr uses it when he's low) that synergises with Martyr being low on hp and he can save himself or an ally from death by Armadon because Armadon deals escalating damage instead of burst damage.

[ceystel]

Once i pissed an enemy Arma really off with the vj/polly combination. Polly ults and traps and Voodo curses. He cant turn his back to all wards and we can stay in safe distance. I did this tactic just once so i dont know how well it actually works. Enemy team may just counter that easily.

[Ackwell1]

Have psupply and rott+armor boots in your team. It is enough to counter arma, imo he is no where near op he wasnt even op before they slightly nerfed spines.

[Salem1]

Have psupply and rott+armor boots in your team. It is enough to counter arma, imo he is no where near op he wasnt even op before they slightly nerfed spines.

This isn't enough... if it was so easy to counter Armadon he would never see competitive play for one nor stomp pubs so effectively. Psupply makes you last a few seconds longer against spine burst but that's it, it won't save you if you'll just die anyway. Rott and armour boots don't ''counter'' Armadon just like they don't ''counter'' any other physical damage dealer or vestments counters tempest or whatever... it just helps.

[Ackwell1]

^Your doing something wrong if you think armadon is uncounterable op hero....

[Salem1]

^Your doing something wrong if you think armadon is uncounterable op hero....

You're reading something wrong if you think I said Armadon is an uncounterable hero.

[Ackwell1]

^Then you must be somekind of a god farmer cause early game you dont normally have items like bulwark, fws, hellflower, shivas or hex...

[Salem1]

What's those items or how good I am at farming got to do with anything I said?

[endoh69]

Hello, u can look for my stats ingame, Armadon its my Top pick in casual and normal mode, i can tell you that people that use Mana batery is'nt a big deal for me, spells neither (i laugh at heroes like pebls, witch slayer or Pyromancer trying to nuke me haha), in all the games i played with arma there is no much things that can counter me, but ofcourse there is counters againts arma:

- Armor Stack items: plated graves + Sol's bullwark (+5armor aura) + ring of the teacher, That items can significally reduce armadon damage
- Silences: Emerald warden, Defiler, maybe Vindicator, Hellflower
- Drain mana stuff: witch slayer, nullfire blade, Magebane (i hate this last oen <<)
- and hes biggest weakness: low Hp pool, so u can easily counter /kill him with -armor debuffs / items: Pestilence, Shield breaker, Soul Stealer aura, etc.

Put all of those things together and Goodbye arma ^^

[OneSantaPlz]

The most important thing is an early ring of the teacher in lane, and plated greaves on your support later on. (Plated are better then steamboots anyway, if you decide you do not want to get striders).
Later on you finish your Nome's Wisdom which is a great item anyway.

Later on get a Sol's / Deamonics, and stack some armor for yourself. (Frostfield plate on gankers, Barbed on support)


After that ignore Arma, he can't deal that much damage anymore, focus down his team first, then go push while he is still alive. He will be running around spining, doing a little damage.

[Whurthic]

When will this misconception stop spreading?

Armadon is the counter for CD. Snot storm on CD means he can't chase Armadon, he gets much easier to focus down due to -armour, other heroes have an easier time running away from CD since he's so slowed and if spine burst will kill him CD can't get away because he's so slowed and has no escape or disable. If you hit Armadon when you've got charges on conduit all you'll do is expose yourself and anyone near Armadon to more spine procs because he's taking more damage to the sides or back - unless your team has disabled him in a good position and you're hitting him from the front (which is not easy against a good Armadon player and also means that it wasn't CD who did the job).

1v1 CD gets beaten by him, in team fights he still can't beat Armadon unless he focuses him down from the front after Armadon is disabled and conduit has charges up (just like any other hero/carry which makes it being CD irrelevant, you might as well say that Madman or Scout counter him if you're gonna argue like that). CD is only ''good'' against Armadon if you've outfarmed him so you can kill him faster than he can directly or indirectly (something I don't think most people are considering) kill you. Armadon doesn't need auto-attack damage to kill you so conduit doesn't affect him much. The slow from your passive lasts too shortly for it to have an effect - thanks to the speed boost from Restless and you actually getting slowed after he snot storms you, it still works way in Armadon's favor.

I've played 243+ matchmaking games as CD, if it's a hero he's good against it's not Armadon. A similar thing is people suggesting CD counters Predator which is just as if not more wrong as CD countering Armadon.

Armadon basically guarantees CD +200 damage in fights. Hard to win a teamfight like that. Ulti and passive being insanely good against him is just a bonus.

[Salem1]

Armadon basically guarantees CD +200 damage in fights. Hard to win a teamfight like that. Ulti and passive being insanely good against him is just a bonus.

How does Armadon guarantee conduit stacking up?
How are the passive and ultimate ''insanely'' good against him?

[Ackwell1]

Armadon basically guarantees CD +200 damage in fights. Hard to win a teamfight like that. Ulti and passive being insanely good against him is just a bonus.
Tbh armadon counters ranged carrys, he can just kite then and if you actually see armadon whos letting you to stack conduit to anyone you must play in the 1300s or lower...

[TattyJangles]

I used to have real problems against arma before I learned to counter him. It's as easy as: burst him down fast in the early game, also build psupply and RotT, possibly greaves (at least someone should have them) and carry a homecoming stone for if he starts chasing you. If he's on his own chasing you, then TP straight away. You won't outrun him, you won't kill him, and if you have more than half HP he's not going to do enough damage to kill you before you TP, and he has no way to stop your TP. If he's not on his own just blow everything on the other hero and try to get at least a kill out of it, and quickly buy stuff before you die so it's not so disastrous. (Of course you can try and juke and TP, especially if the other hero has no stun)

Later in the game, if you haven't managed to shut down his farm, or he's recovered, your team needs armour auras (greaves, nomes, deamonic/at least sols) and disables (sheep and HF). You pretty much silence him with hellflower at the start of a fight, then ignore him for the rest of the fight and he will do absolutely no damage until the rest of his team are dead. Now you can chain disable him and hit him in the face until he dies.

Mana burn is OKAY for the start of the game, but he'll farm RotT pretty fast so it's not really that useful.

-Get mana battery->psupply and some =armour early (rotT, greaves)
-Carry TP
-Get HF, disable and stack armour late

[TheShiny]

My tip to counter Armadon is to gank him alot from very early game. Shut down his farm as much as possible. He is a great tank, but still needs farm to really become OP. Shut him down early and he will be easier to drop lategame. Give him free farm and he will rush down the entire team if played right.

[muyfeo]

if hes trying to solo kill u just tp out

[Warhippo]

guy s arma is very storng e imba like bloodhunt

[jevelen]

Shut him down early and buy power supply and he would be no problem.

[Necroth]

Cheap armor and powersupply usually does the trick.


If you hit Armadon when you've got charges on conduit all you'll do is expose yourself and anyone near Armadon to more spine procs because he's taking more damage to the sides or back

Armadon can not proc his spineburst from the sides. He only has damage reduction from the sides.




<ondamaged>
<targettype type="Tower" />
<else>
<condition test="back_impact_angle le 75">
<condition test="back_impact_angle le 45">
<compare a="accumulator" b="250" op="ge">
...
... //removed some code here to make things more clear
...
<playeffect effect="../ability_02/effects/cast.effect" source="source_entity" target="" />
<spawnaffector name="Affector_Armadon_Ability2" target="source_position" level="4" />
</compare>
<scaledamage scale="0.90,0.80,0.70,0.60" />
</condition>
<else> //this code applies to the sides
<scaledamage scale="0.95,0.90,0.85,0.80" />
//notice how there is no spawnaffector here.
</else>
</condition>
</else>
</ondamaged>

[Salem1]

Armadon can not proc his spineburst from the sides. He only has damage reduction from the sides.

Roger that ;)

[TattyJangles]

guy s arma is very storng e imba like bloodhunt

BH is a trash hero, he has the same 135gold counter as armadon and he does no damage late game, but he's not even tanky like arma. In anything other than <1500 pubs, he's utter garbage.

[Fred_HUN]

Yesterday I played against an Arma with Magebane, and he was useless against me, even with those spinebursts. Later in the game, i just drained his mana and he couldn't do anything.

[Myzreal]

Having played this game since the beginning (beta) and having over 4000 matches played (not only this account was used) this is my advice on the topic. You decide whether you want to follow it or ignore it.

1. Armadon is NOT countered by Shieldbreaker. His tankiness comes mainly from HotBL, magic armor items and passive damage decrease. Think for yourself - how does decreasing his armor help for that? Sure, Armadon often tends to get some armor after those items but your -6 armor from Shieldbreaker won't work if Armadon has more than 10 armor. It also won't remove the passive damage decrease.

2. Armadon is not a hard carry and has no scaling damage abilities. He doesn't have a crit-chance passive or anything boosting his offense. This means that his possibilties in making damage grow to a certain point (once he gets some -armor items if he plans to do so) and stops there. This means that the longer the game goes the easier it is to ignore him.

3. We already know that Armadon does not excel in dealing raw damage by hand and steroid skills like hard carries do. So what makes him kill everybody around, you ask? I answer - his survivability. Armadon's skills are based around 2 thinkgs. One of them is: how long can he survive around enemies. Think about it - his spine burst damage scales according to how long the enemy sticks around. The more stacks of his spines you get, the more damage it deals. His survivability is also boosted by his passive skill. What does this tell us? It tells us that before late game (when he can just basically remain ignored) he needs to be disabled in team fights and then ignored.

4. The second thing which Armadon's skills are based around is focus. His passive ability adds spine bursts when he gets focused in his back. That means that he wants to be hit and he will do whatever he can to make you feel "that guy's such a freakin pain in the ass, let's just focus him and take him down". That sort of thinking is the first step towards a genocide for the enemies' favour. Once again: Armadon should be disabled and ignored mid-game and plainly ignored late game.

5. You might ask me now "ok, Shieldbreaker does not counter Armadon, so which item does?". Well to be honest every disabling and +armor item is useful obviously but if I were to point a direct counter item for Armadon I would point Hellflower. Why, you ask? Because it silences, perplexes and makes him receive 20% more damage for 4s. Now this (in opposition to Shieldbreaker) not only diminishes his passive damage decrease by adding a percentage received-damage increase but also prevents him from shooting spines both by W skill and by his passive. Someone told me it makes his passive totally inactive (so that it does not decrease damage anymore) but I'm not sure about that and I'm too lazy to check that in practice mode. Hellflower, therefore, makes him unable to use spine burst, makes him unable to use Shrunken Head if he has it and diminishes his tankiness by increasing damage he receives by 20%. Hellflower him and take him down fast if he is out of position or just disable him and ignore and destry him after the teamfight.

6. Armadon excels in mid-game and gets weaker as late game approaches. Read point 2 for why it happens so. This means that Armadon is a huge asset in mid game but in late game his team basically plays 4 vs 5 if you know how to counter Armadon and render him useless. I repeat: disable and ignore mid-game; completely ignore late-game. Shut him down with a Hellflower and nuke him down if you think you can make it.

7. Avoid hitting him in the back if possible. That's just waste of damage. This is why you should've made tons of disables against him. If you happen to find him out of position or his team is dead and he is the only one around and you wonder how can u kill him without him genociding you all with his spines. If you followed my advice and build lot's of disables then just disable him, approach from the front and hit him there. He will obviously turn his back again as soon as the disable goes out so just disable him again and repeat. Long, channeled disables are the best for this (Succubu's ultimate, Pollywog's Tongue Tied, Electrician's Grip). I heard that Kuldra makes his passive not work so you can just use it and hit him from wherever you want to but again, I didn't check that in practice mode.

TL;DR: There is not tl;dr, if you want to try to counter Armadon you have to go through the pain of reading the above text.

Again, I played enough games to know that this counters Armadon well. It is hard to pull-off because it requires teamwork. You won't counter him solo unless he is incompetent.

You decide whether you consider this advice good or trash. I just share my long experience here.

Good luck!

[ikir]

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[Myzreal]

It so sad that people nowadays can't even express their opinions without invading other people's opinions. One would think that development of education would lead to that. Couldn't be more wrong.

Yes, having a lot of armor makes -armor items less effective. Think about it. You face a 40 armor Leggionaire with a Shieldbreaker. So he has 34 armor when you hit him. Wouldn't Hellflower + Harkons be better here? I leave that for your own interpretation.

You are familiar with the EHP as I can see therefore I assume you have read the topic with diagrams of EHP and all such. The same topic has a diagram showing how -armor items' effectiveness diminishes when enemy armor increases. You could have missed that, maybe you would like to recheck that topic again.

Also, as I mentioned, I just leave my experience-driven advice here. Though I forgot to mention it is only appliable to competent Armadon players. Less skilled Armadon players can be countered by Shieldbreaker (or by anything for that matter since they must be really low skilled).

I am in the 1700 bracket currently. The best I reached was near 1800.

Less hate man, cheers.

[Ackwell1]

Myzreal is completely right, armadon is countered by armor not -armor.... Another thing which counters armadon is harkons, I had so much fun with scout + harkons and completely destroying armadon.

[ikir]

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[Ackwell1]

It helps a bit, but valk is good counter if you can land a good arrow and get your whole team positioned in front of armadon.

[ikir]

---------------

[TattyJangles]

As I said, HF. Given that hag is one of my most played heroes and that my core build on her is HF+Harkons, I generally don't have any trouble with armadon.

[tazmohanna]

during laning phase:power supply/ring of the teacher for laning phase (also let him do a few spines and then back off till the counters are down)
during ganking times: post haste and tps, just leave if he ganks you (if there's a stunner with him than it's not "op arma's" fault you died, **** happens)
during team fights: plated greaves abbyssal and sol's are cheap and can be bought on seperate heroes=+11 armor if you stick together

heroes to fight him with
support: ws, polly, other disablers
gankers: pebs, gaunt, other heavy stun burst combos
carries: dark lady, ew, puppet, mb, silences/mana drain/disabling etc + damage output to follow up

arma is strong, but he's only in competitive play to be put in a solo and he rarely does much except leech xp

[GlowingStick]

Lets say its all random, they get Armadon we got SR, Gravekeeper and MB how do we counter him if he's already 10-0 ? there is no way. Nerf the **** out of him, saying he's balanced etc is just bullcrap.

[Infamous23]

Lol armadon is one of the most squishiest meleee heroes in the game early on, just harass him out of lane and kill him. I love me some armadon in lane, he's just ridiculously easy to kill in lane :D. Ring of the teacher and power supply, once armadon commits for a kill and if he fails he's screwed since he barely has any mana to start with, if you let him farm a early chalice and lifetube early on IMO you deserved to get owned. Just harass him in lane to not let him farm. Play amuna Ra, for some reason Ra's 1st and 2nd at about level 4 take off 3 quarters of Armadons health, the aura rapes him.

Edit: just que with me and i'll show you first hand how to single handedly own a armadon :P jk

[GlowingStick]

No he's not squishy at all early on. He stomped me when I was playing gravkeeper doing nothing but denying and harassing him.. your argument is invaild

[Infamous23]

No he's not squishy at all early on. He stomped me when I was playing gravkeeper doing nothing but denying and harassing him.. your argument is invaild

The only way he wouldn't be squishy early on if he had a lot of levels into armadillo, which is super highly unlikely, in 99 percent of the games he is played he probably have 1 point in it tops early on. can't harass a armadon out of lane with GK? what were you doing hitting him once here and there hoping he would just magically back out of lane... Look at armadons stat gains, for a STR hero 2.2 str per level and 22 starting str with horrible agi gain as well, he's only tanky with items or with 4 levels of armadillo. You probably let him farm up a helm and couldn't harass him out of lane.

[Infamous23]

The only way he wouldn't be squishy early on if he had a lot of levels into armadillo, which is super highly unlikely, in 99 percent of the games he is played he probably have 1 point in it tops early on. can't harass a armadon out of lane with GK? what were you doing hitting him once here and there hoping he would just magically back out of lane... Look at armadons stat gains, for a STR hero 2.2 str per level and 22 starting str with horrible agi gain as well, he's only tanky with items or with 4 levels of armadillo. You probably let him farm up a helm and couldn't harass him out of lane.

Edit: actually i wanna see this replay right here right now, where you were gk and u laned against a armadon

[Infamous23]

Lets say its all random, they get Armadon we got SR, Gravekeeper and MB how do we counter him if he's already 10-0 ? there is no way. Nerf the **** out of him, saying he's balanced etc is just bullcrap.

Look bro, I can safely say that Armadon is far from OP. If you wanna whine about something OP look at Oogie or possibly even magebane. Armadon is super easy to counter and he kills people who are only under farmed and out of position. I think your just getting out played by armadon players and you don't know how to counter him. I play a lot of armadon and he's nothing more than a noob stomper.

[Syllab]

Buy a power supply, sacstone, and make a puzzlebox 3. OOM armadon, then ignore him the rest of the fight, then kill him later in a 5v1 after you wiped out his team.