The Dark Lady

[[S2]ElementUser]

I find Taint Soul level 2 to be better for last hitting than level 1, but that's player preference. 60 damage vs. 90 damage on creeps and heroes are going to get 90 damage when they hit ~level 8 (without items). They have ~60 damage starting from levels ~1-4 depending on who they are.

Thus I almost always get 2 levels of Taint Soul early on. Oh and I like getting Charge to level 3 then getting Dark Blades maxed ASAP because I feel that 13s CD with 800 range & +60 AS is good enough - but that's a preference thing again.

If you get Blood Chalice early enough (while having a Lifetube to cover for the HP loss), Chalice allows you to participate in ganks/counterganks a lot earlier than if you didn't have it. Gives you sufficient mana for Charging Strikes/Dark Blades when you need to use them. Also good for some hidden power against enemies in lane because most think that TDL is weak early on (unless she has enough mana to use her skills).

[[S2]Vahn]

60 damage is enough to outlast hit ranged heroes, melee ones you can go use your normal attacks to last hit against. But as with every skill build, personal preference is there.

For a bit more you can get a mana tube and make a sustainer instead of getting a Chalice, once i get a sustainer I never have problems with my mana running out again.

I'll add in Chalice in as an optional item as I've had multiple people say they think its good.

[[S2]ElementUser]

I suppose, I'm not really a fan of Sustainer just for mana regen on non-Int heroes is why :P

Anyway, Steamboots can be abused with Bottle/Blood Chalice which is the other reason I get Chalice. Strength steamboots give you the lowest % in HP loss and max % in mana gain, for when you convert Steams to Int to cast spells and then switch back to Steams to get max durability.

[[S2]Vahn]

You need a sustainer for your runed axe anyway. Though Steamboot swaping does make Chalice more appealing.

Most games i tend to try and finish my runed axe before the steam boots though, so it wouldn't be used too much there.

[[MDKP]What9000]

I personally prefer to grab Alchemist's Bones as my farming item and then use that farm to get frostburn and then abyssal skull. I prefer this over Runed axe because of runed axe's inefficiency during steam fights, with Frostburn a well placed charge you can slow most of the enemy team, while leaving you with enough MS to chase down any stragglers. while with runed axe it just buffs your damage which Dark Blades already boost tremendously.

Also with Frostburn You actually recieve a larger Damage boost from Dark blades than with RA. Dark Blades increases your damage based on a % of your BASE DAMAGE. Base damage is only affected by your AGI points and damage gained from them, static damage from items does not add to your base damage. Because of Frostburns sizeable AGI boost it will actually synergize with Dark Blades more effectively.

Before you call me a dumbass for grabbing abyssal skull; i do not grab it for LS i grab ot for the scaleable damage boost. Because of the 15% boost it scales well with Dark Blades. Making your skills all the more effective. Since abyssal skull directly adds damage to your base damage it changes dark blades from a massive 110% increase to a even more gargantuan 125%.

[[MDKP]What9000]

I suppose, I'm not really a fan of Sustainer just for mana regen on non-Int heroes is why :P

Anyway, Steamboots can be abused with Bottle/Blood Chalice which is the other reason I get Chalice. Strength steamboots give you the lowest % in HP loss and max % in mana gain, for when you convert Steams to Int to cast spells and then switch back to Steams to get max durability.

In early to mid game with TDL you should not be worrying about your % of health, you should be worrying about your static health and static damage from abilities like fayde's stun(s) and SS's triple nukes. These will wreck you in a matter of milliseconds.

But other than that i completely agree with your distaste for sustainer. The only AGI hero i would grab sustainer with is scout, because his stealth drains mana i would grab sustainer to try to retain as much mana as possible for his snipe

[[S2]Vahn]

I personally prefer to grab Alchemist's Bones as my farming item and then use that farm to get frostburn and then abyssal skull. I prefer this over Runed axe because of runed axe's inefficiency during steam fights, with Frostburn a well placed charge you can slow most of the enemy team, while leaving you with enough MS to chase down any stragglers. while with runed axe it just buffs your damage which Dark Blades already boost tremendously.

I don't think you are considering how deadly runed axe makes Dark Lady, you can clear an entire creep wave just by charging into it, Alchemist's Bones isn't going to do that. Chasing power is not really needed due the Taint Soul.

Also with Frostburn You actually recieve a larger Damage boost from Dark blades than with RA. Dark Blades increases your damage based on a % of your BASE DAMAGE. Base damage is only affected by your AGI points and damage gained from them, static damage from items does not add to your base damage. Because of Frostburns sizeable AGI boost it will actually synergize with Dark Blades more effectively.

65+ damage from runed axe.
+16 Agility, + 10 Damage from Frostburn.
with dark blades active you get 16+(16*1.1)+10= 43.6

Even with Dark blades active, Runed axe gives more damage than frostburn, but has i've stated in the guide, Runed axe is core because of the splash effect, which splashes on every single unit you hit during charging stikes, this does massive damage to all near by units.

Before you call me a dumbass for grabbing abyssal skull; i do not grab it for LS i grab ot for the scaleable damage boost. Because of the 15% boost it scales well with Dark Blades. Making your skills all the more effective. Since abyssal skull directly adds damage to your base damage it changes dark blades from a massive 110% increase to a even more gargantuan 125%.

I wouldn't call you a dumbass for grabbing abyssal late game, though another hero could get it for you since its an aura. but direct damage is generally much more cost effective than +agility, while yes +agility will scale much better, few items give a good amount of it.

100 agility only ends around 140 base damage, 15% is only 21 extra damage. Again there are many other items that are better for direct damage.

[MightyOmduil]

Very well written guide Vahn! I played TDL alot and I agree with you in almost every point. There is just few things I want to reply to:

Thunderclaw/Charged Hammer:
you may be right about a 2nd runed axe offering additional regen unlike CH. but u didnt mention CH's upside: a big AS boost!
another point is your argumentation on the proc it provides you with. 4 procs out of max 10? well the main difference between the runed axe cleave and CH cleave is that RA gives you a certain amount of splash dmg depending on your basedmg while CH cleave is more or less luck. you can also end up killing all 10 creeps with 10 procs. theres no guarantee for that and imo, thats whats making it fun to use.
oh yeah. you also didnt mention the buff CH provides. i know its not rly the hell of a buff, but still its not useless.

Elder Parasite:
Ye, ye i know. Noob item, blablabla, getting nuked in an instant, bla.
i agree that its a pretty bad item on most heroes, but TDL is not one of those.
in 50% of my games with her, i go for Elder. boots, runed, shrunken, elder.
OMG U GET NUKED! i dont.
its about minute 30-35 when i completed this build so if your enemys carry isnt farmed way better then you, there is no source of dmg except magical nukes (shrunken ftw) that can nuke you down before you could escape if it rly looks bad for you. and the upsides, especially for tdl, are huge.
look:
the main goal of tdl ganking somebody is to keep the silence up and finish your target before your dark blades expire.
what does elder parasite provides you with? right. movementspeed and attackspeed.
activate dark blades, charge in, activate elder, rightclick the hero youre about to gank and relax. noone can escape you if u also have ghostmarchers (ghostmarchers + elder = 495 ms).

ofc in lategame elder is a wasted slot, but who cares of 900 gold if u sell it and go for the luxury slot of your choice?

[[S2]Vahn]

well if you charged through 10 units you should be expecting 2 procs as it is 20% chance, this would be 200 damage magic to 6 units, where with a runed axe you would be hitting up in the 1000's to each unit with just 150ish damage.
70 attack speed, while very good isn't as amazing as you make it out to be, getting over 2 attacks a second takes alot. If you were looking to have more attack speed going for wingbow, which gives attack speed damage and evasion, would be a better choice.


Yes eldar parasite is good for chasing lone targets, but even if you have magic immunity, when it comes to a team fight they can all just auto attack you and will drop very fast, especially if you have ghost marchers as well.
Hopefully you will have at least 1 stunner in your team, if they stun the target that is easily long enough to kill the target.

[[S2]ElementUser]

Basically:

Runed Axe + Charging Strikes = mini Behemoth Ult

[[MDKP]What9000]

well if you charged through 10 units you should be expecting 2 procs as it is 20% chance, this would be 200 damage magic to 6 units, where with a runed axe you would be hitting up in the 1000's to each unit with just 150ish damage.
70 attack speed, while very good isn't as amazing as you make it out to be, getting over 2 attacks a second takes alot. If you were looking to have more attack speed going for wingbow, which gives attack speed damage and evasion, would be a better choice..

I agree, Wingbow is a far better choice, and the 70 AS doesnt help as much as some people think, personally i go for straight dps, which with my build
Frostburn
Wingbow
Riftshards
Abyssal Skull
Steamboots
Alchemists bones

I don't think you are considering how deadly runed axe makes Dark Lady, you can clear an entire creep wave just by charging into it, Alchemist's Bones isn't going to do that. Chasing power is not really needed due the Taint Soul.

With that build i have gotten up to over 2400 DPS, thats nothing to scoff at, although you did make a good point about runed axe, i shall consider that instead of alchemists bones, but i will never let go of frostburn, even though Taint Soul does have a good slow it takes up mana i would much rather have for multiple chains of charge and DB, trust me, 35 mana has gotten me killed so many times its unbelievable. Not to mention the sizeable increase in AS and MS from Frostburn.

[[S2]Vahn]

Runed axe gives 150% mana regen, so with that you won't have the problem with low mana anyway.

Not going to argue with getting frostburn, its on the list because it does work well.

[MightyOmduil]

Yes eldar parasite is good for chasing lone targets, but even if you have magic immunity, when it comes to a team fight they can all just auto attack you and will drop very fast, especially if you have ghost marchers as well.

Youre right. But TDL is no hero to charge into 5 heroes regardless of what items you may have. Neither wingbow nor any other item wont save your *** in there.
Use your ultimate for distraction, pick out someone whos not standing in the middle of the teamfight first and you wont find yourself getting autoattacked to death. Thats what her ulti is made for anyway.

And about CH again: dont misunderstand me. im not trying to make CH look better than RA. its just that you made it look like a rly crapy item for TDL and thats just not true. its relatively fast to farm and provides moderate bonuses and a buff. thats all i wanted to point out here.


Ah and i wanted to add another point: brutalizer. right, crapy bonuses, no real lategame item. But in pub games i often find my TDL fight a chronos in lategame.
have you ever autoattacked those two till only one is left standing?
with the same level of farm its often chronos whos still alive.
that bash of his is just pretty nasty. and i often thought how to counter that little b******. wingbows evasion? works out sometimes, but no guarantee to win that fight. so brutalizer came into my mind. beating him with his own weapon you may say ;P
this is only a special case, i got that, but in this carry vs carry situation u will find brutalizer way more helpful than any other item. not as your coreitem but assuming
that you alrdy have decent attackspeed etc.

[[TECH]YawningAngel]

Nullstone is spectacularly meh on TDL because you're already covered for regen. A BKB is flat out better 90% of the time.

[[S2]ElementUser]

^Unless you're getting Harkon's Blade.

Oh and kirbyruled said to max Charging Strikes & Taint Soul by 9 if you're in 1 of those defensive lanes/against heavy gankers where you're afraid of getting ganked/dying

[[S2]Vahn]

Nullstone is spectacularly meh on TDL because you're already covered for regen. A BKB is flat out better 90% of the time.

Agreed on that, added in a little bit about that.

^Unless you're getting Harkon's Blade.

Oh and kirbyruled said to max Charging Strikes & Taint Soul by 9 if you're in 1 of those defensive lanes/against heavy gankers where you're afraid of getting ganked/dying

I still would never get more than lv2 Soul early, 90 damage is plenty to last hit with, if you are in a really hard lane you could try swapping lanes, or getting your team to gank the lane giving you free farm for awhile, you only need to rice a lane untill you get the runed axe when you can just clear the whole wave, then go clear the jungle and other lanes.

[[PeV]Soul_Thirst]

Why does a premium guide have no replays? ...

[[S2]ElementUser]

Vahn1670, I sense TDL nerf in test patch



I am sad too.

@Above Poster:

Replys

Match 10731389
This game went fairly well, was soloing the lane mostly thanks to predator jungling, got a fair amount of last hits but was ganked once and tower dived another time, finshed my core items for 23 minutes. Join in team fights and ended up with 33 minute frostburn. proceeded to carry the game.

Match 15015823
Despite vindicator do fairly terrible in the lane I manage to get a good farm in the lane, completing runed axe for 23 minutes and core items at 26 minutes. Continue farming and join in some team fights end up carrying the team.

Match 15082502
This match shows the power of witch slayer babysitting, fair few early kills thanks to his disables, leading to a 21 minute runed axe and core finshed at 23 minutes. couple fights I forgot to use my ult which turns out badly, opted for a shrunken head as corrupted conduit was destroying me. Ended up carrying the game to a win.

Looks like it's just a typo.

[[S2]Vahn]

Why does a premium guide have no replays? ...

As ElementUser pointed out, there are replays.

Vahn1670, I sense TDL nerf in test patch



I am sad too.

A TDL neft would make me very sad as well

[[S2]ElementUser]

You really should fix that typo on "Replys" (should be "Replays")