Welcome to my guide to the hero Scout. In my opinion he is a often misunderstood hero. People build him as a carry with pure dps items and some survivability. In my build that is not the case. Once you read this guide I can guarantee you that you will realise the true power of Scout.
Strength: 20 + 1,7 per level
Agility: 21 + 3,0 per level
Intelligence: 16 + 1,4 per level
Looking at Scout’s stats we can see that he has decent damage, but has quite a big spread between the minimum and maximum damage, however if you add on a hatchet you can take those crucial last hits in lane with ease. Another notable thing at scout’s stats is his high movement speed and armor, which coupled with his invisibility can offer decent starting survivability.
Scout’s starting attribute stats are quite mediocre, though the gain per level is decent. The one thing standing out is his low intelligence and therefore low mana pool and mana regeneration, which are crucial late game to support his ultimate and invisibility. We will compensate that lack of intelligence with item and skill builds that I will explain later.
Abilities
Vanish
This is your invisibility skill. It has two different uses – to get away and to get into position for your ultimate. The extra movement speed from the skill will allow you to do that very easily, but in the early game be wary of the high cool down at the early levels and the high mana cost. Later in the game you can stay invisible the whole time due to the item build I will explain later.
An example of wrong skill usage:
A teammate is under attack, you use it to get to him quicker and assist him. – Wrong
If you see a teammate under attack check the enemy health and if anyone is low use the skill to quickly approach them from a area where they won’t notice you and once you’re in position use your ultimate ability to finish off the lowest hp hero.
Electric eye
This skill has no special importance to you. You only need one level of it early in case your enemy is chasing you, due to them spotting you when you finish off a low hp hero with your ultimate. Then quickly place it on the ground and press e to detonate it to silence your enemy.
DON’T EVER use this skill to help a teammate or in the beginning of a team fight because it might get you killed and thereby ruin your killing streak. You should never use it for map vision either, since the skill has a fairly long cooldown and you might need it before it recharges.
Disarm
This is a completely useless skill. Don’t bother putting skill points into it until the very end when you have nothing else to spend them on.
Marksman shot
This is your bread and butter skill. It has a very clear purpose: it’s used to finish off your enemies which are low hp. Don’t use it on an enemy your team is fighting until you are sure that it will grant you a kill, but be wary that it has a channeling time and that if you use it to late your target might already be dead before you can finish him off.
You must always max out your invisibility for survivability purposes and for the ability to get some extra creep kills on the lane. You take one level of electric eye early only to increase the ability to get away from enemies chasing you. You don’t get any more levels in it until you have maxed out your stats, since you only need one ward at a time due you not using them for map vision. You also don’t spend any skill points for disarm because scout doesn’t benefit from this skill at all since you aren’t supposed to be auto attacking anyway - you would only expose yourself to danger.
Item build
Starting items:
Logger’s hatchet
Iron buckler
1x runes of the blight
With these starting items getting last hits on lane should be easy due to your decent base damage. You will also get increased survivability because of the iron buckler.
Core items:
Post haste
Codex level 1
With these items you are able to farm anywhere on the map and if you see your team chasing an low hp enemy you can easily get to them with the use of post haste and finish him off.
Note: you can finish of squishy heroes like glacius by yourself now by combining codex with marksman shot.
After core items:
Spellshards level 3
Codex level 5
Portal key
Later on in the game heroes will start getting more and more hp and therefore it will be much tougher for you to finish them off with the measly 400 damage (- magic armor damage reduction) on your level one codex. By leveling up your codex you will make your job of reaching that 15 kill killstreak much easier. By getting spellshards level 3 you increase the damage of the codex by 25% since no one ever gets magic resistance items. By getting a portal key you will, combined with your post haste, never miss out on a kill that your team is about to take. You can also use it to get into a good position in a team fight where no one will be able to spot you but you will still be able to finish of your enemies.
Luxury items:
Hellflower
Assassins shroud
Tablet of command
Restoration stone
You get your hellflower so that you can further amplify the damage of your ultimate and codex to an enemy.
The assassins shroud serves the purpose of having a secondary invisibility when you break you invisibility to finish off an enemy but find yourself in a bad position with the enemy team right at your feet.
You can also get the tablet of command to add some mobility to your codex invisibility and post haste.
Another viable item would also be the restoration stone (thanks for the idea Kruegges). Once you have enough mana to support it you can cast both you ulti and codex twice in a teamfight and therefore get more kills.
Closing notes:
Scout has always been my favorite hero and it always breaks my heart when I see him being played the wrong way. I hope this guide gave you guys some insight on how scout is truly supposed to be played.
Legal notes:
I am not responsible for any amount of stress you bring to your teammates and furthermore do not take any responsibility for you losing the game.
Your skill build is physically impossible to do and leveling Vanish costs more mana upkeep per level. Trade Runes of the Blight for mana pots and keep Vanish at 1. The longer you can stay invisible, the higher your KDR will be.
I've corrected the skill build.
You level up the invisibility for more survivability due to the shorter cooldown. Once you get your ult off you still have to get out of there
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