Guide Description
This is an in-depth guide on the workings of Fayde, one of S2's recent creations. The information in here can be applied to both competitive play as well as public games. If the information in this guide disagrees with you, kindly, and I'll repeat, kindly point it out as to why such information is vague, misleading, or just outright wrong. I apologize in advance for poor wording on my part, I can't articulate my thoughts on paper well.
Table of Contents
Clicky Clicky!!
- Introduction
- Abilities and Descriptions
- Skill Build
- Item Build(s)
- Gameplay
- Friends and Enemies
- Dealing with your Problems
- Replay(s)
- Changelog and Credits
Shadow and Scythe woman. Be very afraid!
Hero Description
Fayde is one of S2's recent creations whom was intended to specialize in ganking the opposing team. Her skills revolve around controlling the very shadows around her into deadly creatures ready to doom those who oppose her. There is a misconception that she has the ability to carry and is thusly built so, however, due to the nature of her abilities, players often find that she lacking greatly in that department. Her poor stat distribution makes her better suited to ganking the opposing team while serving a damage/disabler support role during team fights. She is a near identical copy of the pre-change Nerubian Assassin from DotA with better perks. To make this clear, Fayde is a
Ganker/Support hero.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
- Very strong ganker
- Powerful nearly all game
- Strong lane presence
- Capable of solo mid
- Semi-Fragile
- No scaling damage
- High mana cost abilities
- Low mana pool
- Semi-Item dependant
(At level 1)
- Agility: 19 (+2.15)
- Strength: 18 (+2.0)
- Intelligence: 20 (+2)
- Damage: 51-55
- Armor: 3.94
- Move Speed: 300
- Attack Type: Melee (128)
Attack Rate: 0.59
With a very even Str/Agi/Int gain its pretty obvious she isn't a strong carry. If it isn't obvious look again, now look at Dark Lady, and then look at Madman, followed by Chronos. All strong agility carry heroes usually have a high agility gain per level, a decent/low strength gain, and a decent/low intellect gain. Fayde gets even stat gains across the board with strength actually gaining at a faster rate. This will lead to a lower attack damage late game but a decently sized manapool and health pool. She ain't no carry boyz.
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.2
Abilities and Descriptions
Cull
"I need my personal space."
Fayde swings her scythe in a wide arc, dealing heavy damage to enemies while the darkness in its wake and destroys their mana instantly.
Details
Action: Self Position
Target: Organic Enemy Units
Type: Magic
Mana Cost: 100/110/120/130
Cooldown: 11 seconds
Area of Effect: 350
Description: Fayde swings her scythe in a wide arc and all enemies in the radius take 100/160/220/280 Magic damage. Each enemy hit has 7/14/21/28% of its mana destroyed instantly. Fayde gains mana equal to half the mana destroyed this way.
Notes
As seen in the picture below, the AoE effect of
Cull is roughly the size of her swing animation. Learn how large this is and memorize it.
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"The darkness can put you beside yourself..."
Fayde summons a wave of darkness, stunning all enemies hit and causing their shadows to turn against them for a short time.
Details
Action: Target Dual
Target: Enemy Heroes
Type: Magic
Mana Cost: 85/100/115/130
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Cast Range: 500
Description: Fayde creates Burning Shadows for 800 units in the target direction. All enemy heroes hit are stunned for 1.6/1.9/2.2/2.5 second(s) and a Shadow Copy of them is created. The Shadow Copy is uncontrollable, invulnerable, has max movespeed, and attacks only the target. Each attack a Shadow Copy does deals 70 Magic damage. Shadow Copy will attack 1/2/3/4 time(s).
Notes
While the cast range of this spell is 500 units you can actually catch players at a much greater range (shown below).
Shadows spawned from this ability also gain all the passives of the copied hero. Magebane will find himself mana burned by his own shadow, Scout disarmed, Soul Reaper's aura ticking away everywhere, etc.. If the opposing team has any such heroes the value of this ability just increased tenfold.
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Deep Shadows
"Black as night."
Fayde summons pure blackness in a target area, causing enemies to be wary and have to slow down while Fayde feels right at home, moving faster...
Details
Action: Target Position
Target: Ground
Type: Magic
Mana Cost: 75/80/85/90
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Cast Range: 600
Area of Effect: 300
Description: Fayde targets an area to summon a Deep Shadow there for 5 seconds. Enemies in the radius have a 15/20/25/30% movespeed slow applied to them while Fayde's movespeed is increased by 15/20/25/30%. The movespeed effect lingers for 1 second after exiting the area of effect.
Notes
You will get your most use out of this during teamfights as you use it to control the movement of your enemies.
Amazing synergy with Puzzlebox making it THE second best item you can obtain on her after Codex 1.
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Reflection (Ult)
"My Shadow is my best friend..."
Fayde becomes one with the shadows going stealth for a short time. When Fayde attacks from stealth she cripples the enemy, dealing heavy damage over a few seconds.
Details
Action: Self
Mana Cost: 150/175/200
Cooldown: 90/75/60
Duration: 20/35/50 seconds
Description: Applies
Reflection to Fayde for 20/35/50 seconds. When Fayde lands an attack,
Shadow Cripple is applied to the target for 3 seconds. While invisible Fayde gains 800/1000/1200 clearvision around her.
Reflection Effects: Unitwalking, Treewalking, Clearvision, +10/15/20% Movement Speed, Applies
Shadow Cripple on attack.
Shadow Cripple Effects: 75/125/175 Damage per second over 2 seconds (3 total ticks). While active
Shadow Cripple reduces all healing done to the target by 50%. Not able to be dispelled.
Notes
Because of the recent change causing Shadow Cripple to reduce healing received by 50% this makes facing teams with support/healing heroes much easier to defeat. (?Not sure if still active?)
Don't hesitate to use this as an escape tool as well.
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Skill Build
The, now, one and only
- Burning Shadows
- Cull
- Burning Shadows
- Cull
- Burning Shadows
- Reflection
- Burning Shadows
- Cull
- Cull
- Deep Shadows
- Reflection
- Deep Shadows
- Deep Shadows
- Deep Shadows
- Stats
- Reflection
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
- Stats
Fayde only has one justifiable skillbuild. She lives off her damage and needs to be able to kill people in the duration of her stun or risk death herself. Burning Shadows is taken over Cull for the reason that its both ranged and a stun. Deep Shadows is taken last (before Stats) simply because it does not do any damage. Reflection is taken when available as it is what makes Fayde a threat.
Handy Dandy Damage Chart
"By following the above skill builds you too can put out the shown amount of damage!"
I apologize for the small text but it was a lot of numbers getting put into a small picture.This spreadsheet does not take into account auto attacks. So when ganking realize you can kill heroes within ~200 or so damage (varying based on attack damage) of the values shown above. It includes both Codex and Spellshards values as well but not gold efficiency. You will likely find little to no use in this, however it does serve as a useful reference for me.
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Item Build
Starter Items
Or 
When starting off you can get a variety of items. I personally prefer the hatchet/shield combo but others may prefer getting minor totems for the stats.
I call this pre-core because its when you make a decision. Has your farm been up to snuff? Have you ganked a few times giving you a surplus of gold? If you have said no, then you need to try harder. Iron Shield and Power Supply are technically optional. I prefer getting them as they vastly increase your survival during teamfights and they are not expensive at all. They do set you back on codex by about 900g so use your best judgement. Regardless, if at this point you are rich you should go buy some goodies. Boots should be near the top of your list so here are all to choose from.
Striders
A new addition to the footwear category, these are the jogging shoes of kings. For their price (800) they give you a huge +150ms bonus while not in combat. Playing Fayde you will often find yourself running long distances between lanes and the faster you do it the better. This solves most of Faydes mobility issues early game that she lost a few patches ago. Just keep in mind that once you do enter combat that these are just a normal +50 bonus so choose wisely.
Ghost Marchers
More expensive than the Striders, these marchers are not your best option in terms of boots but they get an honorable mention. When Codex was changed to requiring 2 Punch Daggers these boots just became better. You can now throw off what items you are building by making these boots and disassembling later to finish a ninja Codex. You get the added damage and a nice burst in movement speed. Upgrade them to something more useful later.
Steamboots
A good all around pair of boots for Fayde. They offer whatever stat you may want and give you a good bonus to attack speed to get those extra few attacks off during a gank. These have recently been outshined by the addition of Striders but still hold the title as the best of the 1500g boots.
Plated Greaves
These are situational and should probably be overlooked. See the section on Puzzlebox for more info.
Post Haste
Fayde's number one boots, however, they are also the most expensive boots in the game with a whopping price tag of 2700g. These provide three invaluable things, first you have +105 movement speed. That alone is good and then when coupled with a free teleport every 60 seconds it becomes amazing. Thirdly it provides an extra item slot, and by that I mean you don't have to carry around a Homecoming Stone all the time. If you have the money and feel comfortable with a delayed Codex, by all means, buy these first, but if you think that you are going to be needing more damage output sooner than later then you should look to invest in a different pair of boots (namely Striders).
Any boot type is viable on Fayde.
So, you have farmed up a Codex at this point, but do you have Post Haste? If not, did you at least get a different pair of boots? If you said no to both of these questions then I ought to slap you upside the head.
Once you finish both Codex and [Insert Boot's Name Here] you should either upgrade Codex, get Puzzlebox, or work towards a later luxury item. For an in-depth analysis of leveling Codex vs Puzzlebox see the following section below.
Also here is the range of Codex per level starting at 600units (lvl1)
"Ze Range! She iz too great!"
:PlatedGreaves:
Puzzlebox is more utility than anything else. With it you can drain an alarmingly high amount of mana on a target. The possible added damage, movement speed, and true sight is nothing to scoff at as well. It is a strong item or Fayde and should not be overlooked in favor of a later luxury item.
If you do intend to get a Puzzlebox the option of getting Plated Greaves opens up. You give yourself another button to press but it gives both of your minions 20% bonus damage. It would probably be more efficient/convenient to just pick a different pair of boots, but if no one on your team has these they are a very useful tool when pushing down lanes.
Codex Vs Puzzlebox The age old questions of is it worth it to get Codex? Should I level Codex? Is Puzzlebox better? Well here is your answer, and guess what, its not that definitive.
First lets take a look at their respective stats.
:Codex: Codex gives you;
:Puzzlebox: Puzzlebox gives you;
- +6/10/14 Strength
- +15/21/24 Intelligence
- Active ability for 50 mana on a 90 second cooldown. (With added True Sight!!)
Lets start with the similarity. Both Codex and Puzzlebox give roughly the same amount intellect resulting in about the same amount of mana to cast spells.
The differences are greater however. Codex has almost no strength in comparison to Puzzlebox, aka less health. It does however provide a small amount of agility and a small amount of attack damage to increase the damage your melee attacks by a combined +21 damage. It's not an outstanding number and it remains static through all the levels of Codex so in this regard Codex 1 is the same as Codex 5. However it is attack damage and you can add it to the 3 or so attacks you will be making on your target.
To summarize the above; Codex does a better job of killing the target faster, but lacks the amount of health and utility that Puzzlebox would provide.
Moving on to their active abilities and the reason we buy these items, see the chart below.
The above chart does not take account for the +damage received from Codex or the actions of the enemy hero. The +damage in parenthesis is the on death effect of the Puzzlebox Mauler. These numbers are grossly skewed in favor of Puzzlebox.
This spreadsheet is a simple examination of the potential power of each item and their varying levels. Just from looking at the picture you can see that the potential damage from Puzzlebox from a single use completely annihilates Codex in all levels. It also beats it out in the Damage/Gold spent department as well. But this is a single use and takes into account Puzzlebox's 35 second duration. It also does not account for human error, resistances, and a myriad of other variables (like the fact that fights don't last more than a few seconds). It's one of those "looks amazing on paper, but does not perform the same in game".
The following are Hypothetical Situations. Damage Totals for scenarios 2 and 4 are rough estimates after taking attack animations into account.
- Lets assume that we have 5 seconds to attack a hero with infinite health, mana, and no armor. Puzzlebox 1/2/3 will do 460/835/1210 damage (5 attacks + Mana Burn). Codex 1/2/3/4/5 in that time will do 400/500/600/700/800 damage.
- Now, assume that the target hero casts a non-damaging AoE 1.5sec stun after your stun fades away (2.5seconds in). Puzzlebox would do ~344/607/869 damage (2 attacks before stun, 1 after + Mana Burn). Codex still does the same damage.
- Now, assume that the Puzzlebox minions die near instantly do to enemy AoE (think The Dark Lady's charge + splash or Behemoth ult). Puzzlebox does 600 true damage from the on death effect to the hero who dealt the killing blow. Codex does the same damage to the target hero.
- Finally, if your opponents are moving at a speed greater than 327 then Puzzlebox will do ~292/505/717 damage (2 or 3 attacks + Mana Burn) because they would not be able to catch up to the target after your stun fades. Codex does the same damage.
All dem' maths tell you two things. Codex is very consistent damage for a much higher price (it's almost as much as Doombringer fyi) and Puzzlebox has more inconsistent damage potential, at a cheaper price. The earlier graph is adjusted below to fit in the 5 second window.
These numbers are more realistic but still favor Puzzlebox. This chart is you attacking an unmoving blob.
Just keep in mind; Puzzlebox can do more damage in 5 seconds but your opponents will have some time to react to it unlike Codex.
Now the above is in no way attempting to dissuade you from using Puzzlebox, but I am trying to show that its damage is varied greatly based on the circumstances each game. If your opponents lack strong AoE damage or disables then this item becomes even more amazing than it already is, however if AoE damage and stuns are flying around like candy then the strength of this item diminishes (however still remaining a strong choice).
Based on the above "math" do you want to level Codex or not? This is based on both your skill as a player and preference. If you have amazing micro skills and feel comfortable controlling two minions then opt to not level Codex and go right into Puzzlebox. If you like Codex's burst power and feel so-so in regards to Puzzlebox possibly level Codex to 2-3 and then grab Puzzlebox. If you just don't want to deal with anything beyond your hero; never level codex and get a luxury item or level it to 5. Regardless of anyway you play, level 1 Codex is necessity for Fayde to compliment her burst and everything else is all preference!
Verdict : Codex 1 + Puzzlebox 3 is the best bang for your buck. Upgrade Codex later in the game if you have nothing else to buy.
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