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Looking for some discussion on items for blacksmith.
My main thinking is whether you should try to use smith's autoattack as a damage source or keep him as a ranged nuker. It seems like you're missing a lot of potential if you just cast your 2 spells and run around until cooldowns come up.
The other thing is I love ganking and roaming a lot with blacksmith.
1. Starting items
1x runes
1x courier
1x guardian ring
2x minor totem (sold later)
2. Boots.
Striders v g.marcher v steamboots
It's a really tough call here. Striders are so cheap and help your roaming a tonne that it seems like they're the right choice in most situations. I usually find my nukes are followed up by teammates so even if I can't get in range for attacks someone will.
Any reason to take ghost/steam? Ghost would help rushing in for ganks, steam give 10int and attackspeed which contributes to that autoattack plan.
3. Early Regen items.
I always make a ring of the teacher but never make power supply. I have been buying a bottle but questioning its value as I am usually fighting against too many people for runes and it sits empty far too often. Should bottle just depend on whether your mid is taking runes or not?
4. Mid/Late items
I have found that I usually go sustainer into either nullstone or sac stone. Other items I've seen recommended though:
hellflower - I don't get this. Are you using it before your spells to increase damage? After for the silence? It doesnt seem like it fits well.
codex - if your stuck trying to do solo ganks maybe, but generally you + teammate is enough to burst someone down and codex is just a waste of gold.
Stormspirit - smith runs fast enough with frenzy and boots, you don't want to spin people when they have flaming hammer on them. Not sure if it would work to go fireball-hammer-auto, then stormspirit for the last 2.5s before a 2nd fireball?
tablet of command - love this item but don't really see the synergy with blacksmith. I guess if you need the push to break channels and push out of chronos ulti etc?
spellshards - didn't think this stacked with flaming hammer very well - but perhaps someone who knows it better could comment?
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So yeah my usual game goes like this:
starting items
scarab (rott)
marcher (tp stones for ganks)
striders or g.marchers (upg courier / ward)
manatube
lifetube
sac stone or nullstone
tablet of command for fun if game not over.
Originally Posted by Schobbo
No love for the lucksmith?
Striders and chalice are all you need to gank effectively. Ghost marchers are unneccessary, you're pretty tanky so you don't really need the mobility (read: survivability) that ghost marchers provide in teamfights. Standard INT luxuries apply. Buy wards if your team needs them.
Striders+Chalice is core. The reason why you get striders is that its great for ganking, and with frenzy you can get a decent MS even off cooldown.
Puzzlebox is my choice of luxury. The minions are balanced around having 0 attackspeed, and the nature of the attackspeed formula is that the lower your current attackspeed the bigger the increases when +attackspeed is added. This means when you frenzy the minions they go ape-****. You now have 250+ DPS minions (that is about the same DPS as a madman with runed axe and his ultimate up). You also have sexy manaburn, truesight (for counterwarding/invis heroes), MS aura, IAS aura, explosive minion rapes cleave carries, absorbs omnislash/MQ ultimate, etc. With your slow+frenzy you can just throw them on someone and they die.
chalice->striders->Pbox?
Gonna try that some time.
I ususally get::chal::stri::Lifetube: as early game and gank gank gank.
Then either :Nullstone: :Stormspirit: or :KuldrasSheepstick::TabletOfCommand:
With stormspirit btw, you get 406 run speed with buff when striders are down and max run speed when they are up.
ghost marchers resto stone codex
wards
courier
at start mid and end
hhe only needs lvls
why get items
The problem I find with puzzlebox in general is micro managing the minions can be nightmarish.
after you click the box you need to group them with your mouse and give them a command. That's probably going to take 3 seconds - more if you misclick at all. If the enemy ducks into the fog you're probably screwed.
I would assume you would go flaming hammer - fireball - activate puzzle and chase them down so that might make it a bit easier.
Of the other items - does it ever make sense to get hellflower or spellshards?
This should take like 1 second unless you're just horrendously slow with like 40 apm average lol. Button presses: 4, 1, 1, (box highlight BS and minions), ctrl+1, right click.after you click the box you need to group them with your mouse and give them a command. That's probably going to take 3 seconds - more if you misclick at all. If the enemy ducks into the fog you're probably screwed.
Put your items on hotkeys. Mine are on
2 3 4
5 6
I put my Puzzlebox on 4.
Gank:
Press 4. (Summon Puzzlebox minions)
Highlight minions and self, hotkey to 1.
Frenzy self or Puzzlebox minions, your choice.
Right click target hero of choice to issue auto attack.
Throw Flaming Hammer.
Stun.
Press tab, press Q, mana burn target with ranged minion.
Press 1 (to go back to Blacksmith).
Stun again.
The target should be dead in most cases.
This shouldn't be that hard, if you can't learn this then I suggest you uninstall the game because you're just never going to play the game that well.
Obviously if you take your minions out and hotkey them BEFORE combat even starts its a piece of cake.
How about when you're walking along and the enemy jumps you.
Now you need to stun and slow, and probably juke, and use puzzlebox, and group minions, and give minions attack orders (else they will attack creeps) and tryt o use the mana burn of the wizard.
Easily done in 1 second imo.
If you get the minions out and hot key them, the hotkey will still work the next time you get the minions out.
The same is true of other summoned minions like, for example, Balphagores.
I prefer phase boots just for the 470 in-combat move speed. At low-level play (<1700ish), you can win some teamfights with just pure balls -- dive two towers like you don't give a ****. You don't have that option with striders.
Hellflower is situational. You should probably get it if the enemy team has a blinker. BS is one of the few heroes with the natural strength gain to support a hellflower.
Puzzlebox micro is annoying, but it's really not that hard. HoN timing is dominated by cast times. You should be able to click and react faster than it takes blacksmith to cast fireball.
I like getting team-items on Blacksmith whenever I play him. Ring of Sorcery/Nomes/Astrolabe are all great choices.
i get storm spirit usually
after that , depends
codex if i feel like a jerk and am playing a pub
null depending on the situation
I was actually thinking if it would make sense to convert a ring of the teacher into a ring of sorcery + something using scarab (spellshard / hellflower / stormspirit)
:Puzzlebox::KuldrasSheepstick::Codex: Spellshards
Don't go for defensive items that's like going for defensive items on. There really isn't any reason to target BS in a fight because he's almost always going to get his combo off, then he is useless for quite some time so no intelligent enemy will target BS in team fights making defensive items useless. He also has one of the highest Str gains in the game so he isn't exactly easy to take down. Keep your burst as high as you can throughout the whole game.
Is BS's autoattack laughable or decent? I was wondering if its worth getting right into the fray of fights or if you're better off hanging back and waiting for cooldowns after nuking
If attacking makes sense there are certain items that start to look better (steamboots)
tried puzzlebox last night and it sucked hardcore. I mean I got a few kills from the melee dude exploding but that was about it.
Getting frenzy on them is yet another spell to cast, and no guarantee it will bounce to the 2 of them even if you multicast.
I would say you need to be very good at micro during teamfights to make use of this item. I would just tell them to attack someone and then forget about them. If the person stayed they hit him, if he ran they chased him. I couldn't be bothered trying to change their orders mid-fight, too busy positioning and casting and autoattacking.
I also greatly missed my sustainer.
Strider seem to go from good to awful real fast if your team isnt dominating. Being unable to ever escape a bad situation hurts.
Still need to try ring of sorcery
my favorite item on BS is hellflower. I slow them with hammer, then stun and then silence. If I get a multicast I often end up killing them. By the time the silence is over the cooldown on my fireball is just about over and I finish them off.
Silence then hammer from the fog. Walk out and stun. Frenzy yourself. Hit with little hammers until dead or until fireball cooldown is done. Stun again. Continue hitting with little hammers.
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