Jungling Armadon - Viability?

[Kaelillidan]

I have just recently played a Jungling Armadon and have discovered that he was quite the Jungling potential, even right from early game with his ability to quill stack. In the Legions' Jungle I was creep stacking + Quill stacking 3 locations; Chop bottom creep spawn tree down, and continue to quill stack the 3 closest locations. What is best about his ability to Jungle is that he doesn't have to tank any damage from the creeps as he continues to run around pulling creeps, stacking quills. It's actually quite easy. Does he have the mana pool to pull it off? Well, if you play a pro Armadon and go Quills / stats, Etc etc...then yeah, he's definately goign to have the mana pool to jungle, and he's going to have the HP pool + the mana pool to tank enemy heroes, quill stack and get hero kills.

[Skull4er]

strategy --->guides ---->blocks armaddon guide, there is a jungle section.

[Kaelillidan]

Ah, I have never seen anybody ever do the same thing before so I thought I was the first to discover this method.

[NwGRich]

yea best jungle in the game if you have the mana

[Kaelillidan]

Oh yeah, I raped face on the game I played when I originally discovered this tactic. I was already maxing quills, 1 point in armour, and rest of the points into stats and ult, no points into poison.

Grabbed Ring of the Teacher, 2 extra scarabs - I did get first blood double kill, so that contributed a massive amount of gold to my farm, I didn't want to push the lane 2 minutes in the game so I triple creeped spawn points for like 5 minutes straight and picked up like 1,600 extra gold grabbed treads finished vlads and started raping the enemy nukers.

^^ What he said, is why I had so much mana regen, which only scales from how much intelligent you have, which if you're stacking stats...you aren't setting yourself up for failure thats for sure.

[Garche]

Old. Can you follow the jungle Bristleback video guide for Armadon? :)

[LuckyStar]

Glacius can do this too :)

[Kaelillidan]

Old. Can you follow the jungle Bristleback video guide for Armadon? :)

Sadly the last time I played Bristleback, the infamous DXD legend went 15 - 0 with Tiny, and declined my will to assist him, just telling me to continue farming. :P

[xMarauder]

He can jungle, but I've found his fantastic early-game presence should not be wasted. The harassment he can do with Spines is easily one of the best in game. Armadon in lane creates a dead-zone that other players would best avoid, having Armadon jungling wastes a great portion of his potential.

[Marylinn]

He can jungle, but I've found his fantastic early-game presence should not be wasted. The harassment he can do with Spines is easily one of the best in game. Armadon in lane creates a dead-zone that other players would best avoid, having Armadon jungling wastes a great portion of his potential.
Until they buy mana batteries, then you go from SUPER OBNOXIOUS to your enemies being like "hey we have all this extra mana to harass them with now"

Depending on the lane you're against, it could actually kill you if your enemies can spam spells and mana battery themselves to repeat the process. One lane that comes to mind would be Pebbles/other stun here.

[xMarauder]

Why do I have to keep repeating myself in threads? Mana Battery, nor Power Supply counters Spine Spam. Completely full (15 Charges) Power Supply provides 225 Health and Mana. In order to get these 15 charges you need 15 Spine Bursts (Assuming you haven't use Snot to harass with a partner). At differing levels Spines offers 20/40/60/80 physical damage per charge. That's an average of 50 Damage spread across the laning phase. 15 x 50 = 750 physical damage, without reduction, take 30% from this (That's being generous) and you end up dealing 525 damage to a single hero, 1050 across 2 heroes. Please note that this is without the Spine Burst debuff, which can add to dangerously high amounts of damage alone.

Last time I checked (20 seconds ago) 225 Health and Mana does not counter 525 physical damage. And before anyone says 'but you won't always land all your Spines.' A good Armadon CAN and WILL, if the enemy wants so much as a single creep kill they're going to have to pay for it. Even a ranged hero with an attack range of 600 would need impossible reflexes to dodge spines and attempt to last hit and deny simultaneously.

TL;DR Armadon's lane presence is so incredible because Power Supply doesn't counter him, not even close.

/Nerdrage

[Benny`]

You're forgetting that 225 mana on a nuker equates to an extra 400 or so damage you're gonna be taking.

[xMarauder]

You're forgetting that 225 mana on a nuker equates to an extra 400 or so damage you're gonna be taking.

This is true. However in my experience when playing Armadon the heroes that are of greatest threat are those who can absorb damage, rather than dish it out. Say you were laning against Witch Slayer/Pyromancer, I'd be far more intimidated by a Pestilence due to his natural damage absorption and auto-attacking capabilities, whereas Witch Slayer without bracers will take a lot more punishment from Spines, forcing him to use regen and his battery at inopportune times (E.g. when he's full on mana).

[YawningAngel]

Witch Slayer doesn't have mana issues anyway though.

[xMarauder]

'Twas merely an example.

[Quickfix]

If Armadon attempts to stack all that damage early, the lane will likely be pushed to the other end. If it's gradual and the other heroes have batteries, Armadon will have a slight advantage but the battery does in fact wear out Armadon's intense spine harassment. In a heavy stun/nuke/disable lane though, Armadon could readily be spelling his doom by filling up those charges and regening his enemy's mana pool.

[Danielvutran]

You're forgetting that 225 mana on a nuker equates to an extra 400 or so damage you're gonna be taking.

this is all very true, but remember if they are nuke heavy and since this is the earlier levels, they will most likely only have 800 hp (and this is being generous as well, assuming they've bought a ****load of str items to increase hp lols), and so 525 being taken away, and not only that, but including armadons team mate who I will assume is present will also scare any potential enemies. however, in a 1v2, then yes, i would agree, spamming spines is a horrible idea, but then again, 2v1 with nukers = gg anyway lols

[MAAATE]

back in dota bristleback with a bottle jungling was totally viable, as was rexar.

god i miss those days.

armadon is just such a good laner imo, dunno feels like a waste for him to jungle

[Yoda``]

Why do I have to keep repeating myself in threads? Mana Battery, nor Power Supply counters Spine Spam. Completely full (15 Charges) Power Supply provides 225 Health and Mana. In order to get these 15 charges you need 15 Spine Bursts (Assuming you haven't use Snot to harass with a partner). At differing levels Spines offers 20/40/60/80 physical damage per charge. That's an average of 50 Damage spread across the laning phase. 15 x 50 = 750 physical damage, without reduction, take 30% from this (That's being generous) and you end up dealing 525 damage to a single hero, 1050 across 2 heroes. Please note that this is without the Spine Burst debuff, which can add to dangerously high amounts of damage alone.

Last time I checked (20 seconds ago) 225 Health and Mana does not counter 525 physical damage. And before anyone says 'but you won't always land all your Spines.' A good Armadon CAN and WILL, if the enemy wants so much as a single creep kill they're going to have to pay for it. Even a ranged hero with an attack range of 600 would need impossible reflexes to dodge spines and attempt to last hit and deny simultaneously.

TL;DR Armadon's lane presence is so incredible because Power Supply doesn't counter him, not even close.

/Nerdrage

From your point of view, Mana battery / Power supply is a **** useless item against any hero as you would be dead before getting the option to use it at max power. 5 andromeda stun should kill you but they'll only give you 5 charges.

Spine burst is one of the most spammed nuke with an equally low damage (at start). Mana battery is probably the most effective against this kind of attack because a) it stacks charges quickly and b) it does take away a decent portion of the damage at low stacks.

Mana battery is meant to be used when you're low on HP and you're going to die or when you're low on mana and need to finish off someone. The rest of the time, you use other ways to regen yourself just like you would do against any other hero.

If you're not an idiot, you will make sure to get out of range after 2-3 stacks and let armadon waste his (low) mana. Now you have a fully charged battery, 75%+ HP and he's out of mana.

The last thing thats great with mana battery is that since Armadon is a chaser that spams abilty, you can easily use 2 full charges of battery while running. Sure you're taking a **** load of damage (reduced after armor) but you're 500ish gaining HP (not reduced obviously) and you're getting safer every second you get closer to tower/teammates.

Now, please stop saying it doesn't counter Armadon. Mana battery is one of the most amazing early/mid items to get - especially against a spammer like Armadon - and you should be getting it on every support/roamer and quite a few carrys.

[Yoda``]

This is true. However in my experience when playing Armadon the heroes that are of greatest threat are those who can absorb damage, rather than dish it out. Say you were laning against Witch Slayer/Pyromancer, I'd be far more intimidated by a Pestilence due to his natural damage absorption and auto-attacking capabilities, whereas Witch Slayer without bracers will take a lot more punishment from Spines, forcing him to use regen and his battery at inopportune times (E.g. when he's full on mana).

Witch will take you to 0 mana before level 3. Good luck with that.

[Gipp]

i havent seen level 1 jungle in dota since they nerfed his armor gain.

i havent tried level 1 jungle in a real game yet.
but i do triple stack and start jungling around 5 or 7 usually.

a level 3 armadon can easily force a double lane back or even kill them.
power supply doesnt really counter it.
it only counters it when the armadon is one of those noobs who uses quills only once in awhile without the debuff.
but a full mana quill spam at level 3 will pretty much kill most lanes. only way it wouldnt is if the armadon has been harassed heavily by an offensive lane at level 1 such as pyro+magmus.
this is also considering you are in the short lane.

as for the jungle part.
it becomes pretty risky especially vs roamers.
if people know what you are doing, you dont stand a chance.
i have had a game where a roaming pyromancer found me, chased me out and then cleared the stacked hard camp that was nearly dead.
while other games i have had a great success with jungling.
it all depends on map and lane control in the beginning since his jungling is a delicate process.

he has the mana to do it with bottle. either control the runes are just ferry it.
i like 1 point in his armor skill so you can have a little extra burst whenever you take enough damage

[Kaelillidan]

Physical Damage Reduction, is your best counter to Armadon.
And as I may or may not have mentioned, I only began to Jungle with my Armadon after I had already double killed my lane. If you double kill your lane 3 minutes into the game, you're generally not going to push the lane or try to take the tower. You and I still might do it true, but we're generally not going to do it that early on - as we don't want anybody to Deny the tower.

[xMarauder]

Please ensure you read the math, reasoning and justification in my above post before commenting. That is all.

[hulahula]

This is true. However in my experience when playing Armadon the heroes that are of greatest threat are those who can absorb damage, rather than dish it out. Say you were laning against Witch Slayer/Pyromancer, I'd be far more intimidated by a Pestilence due to his natural damage absorption and auto-attacking capabilities, whereas Witch Slayer without bracers will take a lot more punishment from Spines, forcing him to use regen and his battery at inopportune times (E.g. when he's full on mana).

I find it funny that you think an armadon can honestly quill ranged heroes without getting harassed for more than the damage hes dealing

[Pipin]

mana batery should be a basic item for every hero unless you get bottle... and even then maybe. Why buy bracers if mana battery does the same stat job (-3 stat in str) but in return heals and replenishes mana.

Imo its far superior. And people who cant wait for quill spine charges to wear off deserve to die to that spamm.

[eyesis]

I find it funny that you think an armadon can honestly quill ranged heroes without getting harassed for more than the damage hes dealing

Are you serious? Quills stack FAST, not to mention you will be hitting them as well if you have any points in slow...

[Dashiva]

Are you serious? Quills stack FAST, not to mention you will be hitting them as well if you have any points in slow...

Then Armaddon is good in lane against ranged, only in the easy one, and only until your lane is pushed.

So, maybe for a push strategy or against melee ?

Doesn't seem that much of a Laner to me.

[Jayrod]

better in lane

[Marylinn]

I'm just saying, never have I ever felt threatened when laning against Armadon. Not even once.

[Jayrod]

if thats the case you're playing against some low skill armadons... he has great first blood potential... very dangerous when you put him in the safe lane so he has a little room to run. Most bad armadons I see start using their spines too early and go oom before they can fb.

[Ricotta]

The problem i have with jungling armadon is how easy it is for people to come steal your creep stacks.

[TopparWear]

Why do I have to keep repeating myself in threads? Mana Battery, nor Power Supply counters Spine Spam. Completely full (15 Charges) Power Supply provides 225 Health and Mana. In order to get these 15 charges you need 15 Spine Bursts (Assuming you haven't use Snot to harass with a partner). At differing levels Spines offers 20/40/60/80 physical damage per charge. That's an average of 50 Damage spread across the laning phase. 15 x 50 = 750 physical damage, without reduction, take 30% from this (That's being generous) and you end up dealing 525 damage to a single hero, 1050 across 2 heroes. Please note that this is without the Spine Burst debuff, which can add to dangerously high amounts of damage alone.

Last time I checked (20 seconds ago) 225 Health and Mana does not counter 525 physical damage. And before anyone says 'but you won't always land all your Spines.' A good Armadon CAN and WILL, if the enemy wants so much as a single creep kill they're going to have to pay for it. Even a ranged hero with an attack range of 600 would need impossible reflexes to dodge spines and attempt to last hit and deny simultaneously.

TL;DR Armadon's lane presence is so incredible because Power Supply doesn't counter him, not even close.

/Nerdrage

Soul Reaper or anyone with heal/dmg. Get a STR hero like pebble, behe or magnus and ur lane pressent is zero.

[xMarauder]

You all keep forgetting that Armadon has support from another hero. He isn't doing this alone, nor should he unless he's laning against double melee.

[deweylewie]

Jungling arma requires lots of spawn stacking and slow killing so it's risky, although he's one of the fastest junglers from around L1-8.

Trying to play Armadon in the safe lane in a pub will get you triple-laning since the general consensus is that you put your agi carry + int/ranged babysitter there and i'd say most pub players (who never play arma), don't consider him a carry.

[Killstealing]

battery/supply has 1000 range
So yeah.

[Yoda``]

I will put in a bit of very simple maths to calculate the value of mana battery.
It is far from accurate by not counting armor reduction thus it tends to favor the "mana battery is bad against armadon" line of though. In addition, we will assume your target has infinite HP, 0 regen and that Armadon has infinite mana(so you can stack indefinitly).

The goal is to compare an average max level nuke to armadon's max level nuke. We will assume the average max level nuke deals 300 pure damage and the armadon's deal 80+30x = sum_i=1-to-x_(30*(Xi-1)+80). A mana battery charge is 15 pure healing.

Let's see what benefit we get out of mana battery vs the average nuke :
15/300 = 5% "mitigated" damage

Now we want to find at which point mana battery is more efficient against the average nuke than against Armadon's ability:

sum_i=1-to-x_(15i/(30*(Xi-1)+80)) <= 5%

I found that for x=16, you will have done 4880 damage to your target. 16 charges will negate 240 of that damage. 240/4880=4.92%.

Conclusion :
Under 16 stacks, Mana battery is more effective vs Armadon than the average nuker without factoring armor, which would raise the bar even higher. Doing 4880 damage will take between 48 and 160 seconds being in range at least once every 3-10 sec. That's between 30.5 and 101.67 dps. It will also require 560 mana to do so. By the time you can support 560 mana worth of casting, your opponent will be strong enough to do more than 101.67 dps too. So yes, mana battery is very effective against Armadon.

[Acinod]

Armadon can constantly do triple stacks right from the start of the game. The problem is even if you have an unlimited supply of mana/HP from bottle/crow, you will still not be able to kill them fast enough and will be behind in levels and gold.

[o_herro]

He can jungle, but I've found his fantastic early-game presence should not be wasted. The harassment he can do with Spines is easily one of the best in game. Armadon in lane creates a dead-zone that other players would best avoid, having Armadon jungling wastes a great portion of his potential.

:PowerSupply:

[Phase1Skeith]

Actually, if you can pull of the jungling top-notch you won't be behind in farm and gold exept for the first few minutes.

The problem is that you need people to leave the courrier to you and top lane must be able to kill the lane with you in case they go for a jungle gank.

Basicly on Hellbourne side you can trippel stack -> pull top lane -> double pull top lane on left camp -> stay in lane for a few exp -> tripple stack -> etc. until you can kill the stacks and it will grant you mock at about 18 minutes if you did a great job.