Witch Slayer help

[SilentSauce]

, yes I need help with witch slayer/lion, in terms of playing him. I pretty much fail with him, not the support part as in warding and such, but how to actually play him. For laning, should I harass with graveyard whenever I can? Should I just save it for emergencies, or is this all situational? q-q It really doesn't do too much damage and pushes the creep wave. All I hear all the time during the laning phase, is "wtf why don't you stun", and it's not even in a situation where we can kill them. For using mana drain, when or how should I use that? I'll just get auto attacked if I'm trying to drain the ranged creep. Also, what's a strong item build at the start, a ward for sure but what else? He's really squishy and that's a reason why I sometimes end up dieing so much with him. Also what kind of boots? I generally like striders since it gives a good amount of movement speed so I can move around the map and ward and gank. Some people say it's just crap, don't blame them though, steamboots would seem like the best idea? Would plated greaves be any good? I rarely see this item q-q, but then again I'm only in the 1600 bracket . And of course for his ult, I know I'm not supposed to use it to ks, but should I use it immediately whenever there's a big fight beginning? There's no actual guarantee that target will die still. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[[Loli]N`Hydrolisk]

Spam stun and mana drain if you're facing short ranged/melee foes. Otherwise, Stun+hex is safer and ver reliable.

Supplement your mana pool with a talisman of exile or 2, always.

Boots are your preference and also situational. If you need to gank, get Striders or Phasers (I prefer farming phasers). If playing defensively, Power Treads for HP and mutable stats. If pushing hard, Plated is good (esp with a racer or two, or astrolabe).

Game start item build should consist of 1/2 wards, runes of blight, hp pot, 2-3 minor totems (preferably 3).

Alternatively, if you decide to take mid, two +3INT items are good. +3 STR more useful for Hp against other gankers though.

Ulti should be used so that the target has a sliver of HP left for an easy/guaranteed finish by the carry or semi-carry or otherwise USUALLY. If you die a lot or are in doubt, use it first on enemy carries or supports.

KS if your team is not competent.

PK is a good pickup to initiate/kill stragglers.
Codex is good if your team is in dire need of additional damage output.
If you're Chinese, farm Shrunken Head and Sheepstick so you can carry your team to victory. (Ask Jill for more info on carry WS Chinese style.)

[[Loli]N`Hydrolisk]

Astrolabe is also a good pickup. Void Talisman is good to prevent rape by physical dps. SH is good to prevent rape by magic/stuns/etc.

WS CAN be played extremely effectively as a mid, but it's risky if you're up against bursty range or nukers. Just be careful and gank hard with runes, 3-0-2 or 3-1-1 by level 5 (abilities).

[Anakha]

Mana Drain in lane is to support constant Graveyard and autoattack spam. This doesn't work too well in a dual lane, as conservative use of your abilities along with autoattack harass works out much better and disrupts your lane less with good positioning.
Mana Drain is pointless to take in lane if you aren't either a) using mana constantly or b) getting anything out of the skill to spam more Graveyards

Harassing with Graveyard is best done with the number of followup attacks that you get over an opponent as well as the small amount of damage from the stun itself. Animation cancelling and proper awareness/positioning is key here. When the other hero in your lane and/or your creeps are hitting the hero you could stun makes it an even better opportunity. 300 total damage from a level 1 stun in the right situation more than once will win you a lane, as they have less regen than you and you can then bully them out of exp range or kill them.
If you must stun through creeps to get a good effect out of it, just hard deny your creeps back to a safe place again. Hard denying is denying the creep when it gets below half hp, not just aiming to get the lasthit to complete the deny. This pulls the lane back quite drastically if left unchecked, and allows you superior lane control.

Striders if you have no money, Steamboots->PK if you can afford it ALWAYS.

Ult softer targets if you can, to just remove them from casting their spells in a meaningful way in teamfights and intimidate them to retreating if possible. To put this in your perspective, how much more useful are you when you stun 3 people as opposed to just stunning 1 person? Same thing applies to wanting to bully other soft, yet potentially dangerous supports out.

KSing isn't a big deal. If they want the gold that badly, then they can farm ONE (1) creep wave to make it up, which you can let them safely do with proper warding. Don't bother listening to pub crybabies.

If you can't obliterate someone before they make a difference (read: before they cast their spells because you can blinkmini on someone and shut them down) then disable the most important target, who will most likely be their best/most farmed hero (not always the carry). The amount of time you can disable them for when done properly will win you fights constantly, as well as positioning correctly so you live to cast your disables yet again in the fight.

[[EHOP]Epidemilk]

KSing isn't a big deal. If they want the gold that badly, then they can farm ONE (1) creep wave to make it up, which you can let them safely do with proper warding. Don't bother listening to pub crybabies.

1000x this omfg.

Pub crybabies will call KS whether you did it on purpose or not, DOT effects and auto attacks included. This isn't limited to carry behavior either, you will get it from any Deadwood or Devourer mid.


But don't compete over creep farm with a carry. That is not cool.

[Antimodus]

As for the whole side-laning with witch slayer. I play him a lot, in 16xx bracket. When I was a newer player I used to go for stun/drain (q,e,q,e,q,r,q) but now I get stun/hex (q,w,q,w,q,r,q) maxing w and taking a point in e mostly for nullstone-breaking purposes.

Over time, early mana regen has been buffed big time. Mana potions and Chalice primarily. WS can do just fine with just a couple potions and battary. Hex is not meant to be spammed, you save it for emergency. You use graveyard only at its second level and only if you can hit both heroes OR you are focusing down someone with your lane mate OR you can make him take a ton of creep damage just then (common mistake in 15xx and 16xx is to disregard creep cover).
You use hex only in emergency or to finish a kill.

Part of the payoff from graveyard involves getting free autoattacks in for the stun duration. If you can't do it just then, don't waste the mana for it. It's just not worth it for the damage it does.

and yes, kill gold is insignificant. The most significant factor by far for gpm income is the ability to free farm creep waves. The reason that RA comes at you with 350 gpm 10-15 min in is not because he was "fed" but because he "farmed". learn the difference. I've went x/0/0 with supports and roamers before, 4-5/0/0 mostly through unintentional circumstances, and I still get crap gpm on them. 5 kills 10 minutes in (which is a lot) is worth ~1200 gold before taking into consideration all the TP's, hp pots and mana pots you had to use to get those kills. probably 700-800 gold net or 70-80 gpm. A solid freefarm of 50ck in 10 minutes is worth over 2k gold without any kills or assists. and it doesn't cost you regen or TP's. and you get a ton more XP for it.

[Codex_4u]

I would add in, that if you do grab a level of mana drain, you can use it on jungle creeps without aggroing them. If you are laning, you can do this when you go to stack them or pull them into the lane.

[[OPF]Kyoteey]

1000x this omfg.

Pub crybabies will call KS whether you did it on purpose or not, DOT effects and auto attacks included. This isn't limited to carry behavior either, you will get it from any Deadwood or Devourer mid.


But don't compete over creep farm with a carry. That is not cool.

That, I was getting trolled by someone last night when he kept complaining why do i have so many kills, hard to argue my way through a thick skull that the only reason they are surviving team fights is cause died first.

[[E]Undutchable]

That, I was getting trolled by someone last night when he kept complaining why do i have so many kills, hard to argue my way through a thick skull that the only reason they are surviving team fights is cause died first.

However, after your graveyard, did you first auto attack and then ult, or graveyard, animation cancel > ult > auto attack?

Just sayin

[dreta]

Mana Drain in lane is to support constant Graveyard and autoattack spam. This doesn't work too well in a dual lane, as conservative use of your abilities along with autoattack harass works out much better and disrupts your lane less with good positioning.
Mana Drain is pointless to take in lane if you aren't either a) using mana constantly or b) getting anything out of the skill to spam more Graveyards

Harassing with Graveyard is best done with the number of followup attacks that you get over an opponent as well as the small amount of damage from the stun itself. Animation cancelling and proper awareness/positioning is key here. When the other hero in your lane and/or your creeps are hitting the hero you could stun makes it an even better opportunity. 300 total damage from a level 1 stun in the right situation more than once will win you a lane, as they have less regen than you and you can then bully them out of exp range or kill them.
If you must stun through creeps to get a good effect out of it, just hard deny your creeps back to a safe place again. Hard denying is denying the creep when it gets below half hp, not just aiming to get the lasthit to complete the deny. This pulls the lane back quite drastically if left unchecked, and allows you superior lane control.

Striders if you have no money, Steamboots->PK if you can afford it ALWAYS.

Ult softer targets if you can, to just remove them from casting their spells in a meaningful way in teamfights and intimidate them to retreating if possible. To put this in your perspective, how much more useful are you when you stun 3 people as opposed to just stunning 1 person? Same thing applies to wanting to bully other soft, yet potentially dangerous supports out.

KSing isn't a big deal. If they want the gold that badly, then they can farm ONE (1) creep wave to make it up, which you can let them safely do with proper warding. Don't bother listening to pub crybabies.

If you can't obliterate someone before they make a difference (read: before they cast their spells because you can blinkmini on someone and shut them down) then disable the most important target, who will most likely be their best/most farmed hero (not always the carry). The amount of time you can disable them for when done properly will win you fights constantly, as well as positioning correctly so you live to cast your disables yet again in the fight.

What you wrote here is genuenly awful, but probably works in 1600s.

Mana Drain can be taken early to control the mana of your enemies, it depends how much they need it, Hammerstorm f.e. Also if you're babysitting and just want your partner to be safe, you can take it to level 4, it depends on how the lane's going though. It's not pointless the way you said it.

Pulling creep to your tower with mindless autoattacking is not good, what matters is the equilibrium, you want the wave to be near your tower, but not at your tower, towers push the wave.

KSing is a big deal, the way you said it it means you aren't using your ultimate properly and only use it to finish off enemies. As a support you should be leaving kills to the carries whenever possible. By your logic it's fine if you give them kills and go farm. If you don't want to play a support properly then don't play support.

[Antimodus]

KSing is a big deal, the way you said it it means you aren't using your ultimate properly and only use it to finish off enemies. As a support you should be leaving kills to the carries whenever possible. By your logic it's fine if you give them kills and go farm. If you don't want to play a support properly then don't play support.

No, all it means is that you are not timing your autoattacks to avoid KS necessarily. you're just throwing whatever you have as fast as you can. Better make sure they're dead than having to explain "I tried not to ks" as you're left there herping your derp. Saving ult for last is retarded as a matter of efficiency and that has nothing to do with leaving farm for your carry.

The outcome of the game does not hinge on if the carry got 240g kill gold instead of 100g or whatever assist gold. What matters is if you won the lane for him and he can freefarm it vs having to throw hatchet from the back to get a bit of farm.
but ya gotta have something to QQ about even in those times the support wins the lane for you.

[Anakha]

What you wrote here is genuenly awful, but probably works in 1600s.

Mana Drain can be taken early to control the mana of your enemies, it depends how much they need it, Hammerstorm f.e. Also if you're babysitting and just want your partner to be safe, you can take it to level 4, it depends on how the lane's going though. It's not pointless the way you said it.

Pulling creep to your tower with mindless autoattacking is not good, what matters is the equilibrium, you want the wave to be near your tower, but not at your tower, towers push the wave.

KSing is a big deal, the way you said it it means you aren't using your ultimate properly and only use it to finish off enemies. As a support you should be leaving kills to the carries whenever possible. By your logic it's fine if you give them kills and go farm. If you don't want to play a support properly then don't play support.

So you can't read, make baseless assumptions off what I've said AND you're awful. Funny that.

[Shadeward]

KSing is a big deal, the way you said it it means you aren't using your ultimate properly and only use it to finish off enemies. As a support you should be leaving kills to the carries whenever possible. By your logic it's fine if you give them kills and go farm. If you don't want to play a support properly then don't play support.

I keep it until I've used graveyard and minimize, using autoattacks to maximize damage while they'Re disabled. Simply because it has the longest range and the safest bet someone won't be walking away alive.

Trying to save kills for your carries sounds great on paper, it just never works it's way into the game, from my experience, except in very rare occurences. You'll find yourself letting people run away or letting a teammate get killed by the one you saved for your carry. Saying you shouldn't use Silver Bullet to finish off people is probably the worst advice you can give to someone trying to learn to play WS. Barring anyone saying max mana drain first.

Now, saving it for kills is not good advice. Just use up your disable time before blowing it in circumstances where you're chain disabling someone.

[[EHOP]Epidemilk]

I keep it until I've used graveyard and minimize, using autoattacks to maximize damage while they'Re disabled. Simply because it has the longest range and the safest bet someone won't be walking away alive.

Trying to save kills for your carries sounds great on paper, it just never works it's way into the game, from my experience, except in very rare occurences. You'll find yourself letting people run away or letting a teammate get killed by the one you saved for your carry. Saying you shouldn't use Silver Bullet to finish off people is probably the worst advice you can give to someone trying to learn to play WS. Barring anyone saying max mana drain first.

Now, saving it for kills is not good advice. Just use up your disable time before blowing it in circumstances where you're chain disabling someone.

I wish this discussion was going in GD where more people would see it, crying KS is so pointless (not to mention arrogant, immature, faggy, detrimental to team morale, and lots of other bad things)

[Zgery]

, yes I need help with witch slayer/lion, in terms of playing him. I pretty much fail with him, not the support part as in warding and such, but how to actually play him. For laning, should I harass with graveyard whenever I can? Should I just save it for emergencies, or is this all situational? q-q It really doesn't do too much damage and pushes the creep wave. All I hear all the time during the laning phase, is "wtf why don't you stun", and it's not even in a situation where we can kill them. For using mana drain, when or how should I use that? I'll just get auto attacked if I'm trying to drain the ranged creep. Also, what's a strong item build at the start, a ward for sure but what else? He's really squishy and that's a reason why I sometimes end up dieing so much with him. Also what kind of boots? I generally like striders since it gives a good amount of movement speed so I can move around the map and ward and gank. Some people say it's just crap, don't
blame them though, steamboots would seem like the best idea? Would plated greaves be any good? I rarely see this item q-q, but then again I'm only in the 1600 bracket . And of course for his ult, I know I'm not supposed to use it to ks, but should I use it immediately whenever there's a big fight beginning? There's no actual guarantee that target will die still. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Starting Items:
- 1:HealthPotion:
- 2:RunesOfTheBlight:
- 2:MinorTotem:
- 2:WardOfSight:

On the laning phase I am usually facing the other team's carry so my early game build is this:

lvl1 - 1/0/0/0
lvl2 - 1/0/1/0
lvl3 - 1/0/2/0
lvl4 - 1/1/2/0
lvl5 - 1/1/3/0
lvl6 - 1/1/3/1 (at this level I usually kill the other team's support with Stun - 2 Auto Attack and a Silver Bullet)

This build is incredible irritating and powerful because you can constantly harass with Graveyard and use Drain Mana on them! Almost always lvl 3 Mana Drain burns the whole Mana Pool of the other team's carry. This means, they can't initiate without mana = Safe and Easy Laning phase!
Of course don't forget to ward so mid can't gank you when they call for help. (Tip: Look on the mini map every 3 sec!!)

I am usually build a :PowerSupply: and a :stri: at this time.
Now you can focus on getting your :Portalkey: !

At lvl7 till lvl lvl9 I max out Graveyard and at lvl10 I put 1 in Morph. After that your build is obvious.

After PK my build is depends on the other team's set up...Mainly I am choosing between these :TabletOfCommand: / :BarrierIdol: / :RingOfSorcery:

Mainly I am getting All of them and with those items you will be very hard to catch if you play well! You will be mobile as hell!

Late game build is this for me (if other team isn't conceded yet)

:stri: / :Portalkey: / :TabletOfCommand: / :BarrierIdol: / :Nullstone: or :RestorationStone: / :FrostwolfsSkull: or :BehemothsHeart:


Reason for :RestorationStone: :
2 Ultimate is devastating! Ofcourse you will only have mana for 1 more Graveyard but when you are defending this is so much helpful! It saved my team many times!!! Or just in huge team fight with this item you have 2 Incredible stun and 2 Morph! and one Ult!

Tip: Always change down :RingOfSorcery: for :BehemothsHeart: or :FrostwolfsSkull: LAST!

I hope my little build/guide helps!

[dreta]

u guys r rly bad if you can't give away kills properly, there are occasions where it can't be done, but most of the time you're ganking and giving away kills is easy, i daubt you even understand what KSing is, lol, it's stealing kills, basic english required to understand

Anakha, scrubbie i know what u ment, it's just that you're trying to give ur pubbie advice to someone who wants to improve their play and you don't understand how the hero works outside of 1 strat that "everybody" r doing, great insight on ur part

[Sen]

One simple tip for WS. Be Active.

You should either be supporting with stacking/pulling, warding, assisting ganks, Tping to defend, w.e. ALWAYS be ACTIVE somewhere.

He has 2 very reliable crowd controls. He has a monster Single target Ult. If that Ult is off CD you should be thinking about where you are going to use it next. Move, move, move, move, gank, gank, gank.

If you are staying in one lane just supporting a carry then you are wasting his full potential.

You need to be going for the good cc/positioning items like tablet, Stormspirit, Sheepstick. A Portal Key is great on Witch, especially if you have minimal initation within your team make up.

[Shadeward]

u guys r rly bad if you can't give away kills properly, there are occasions where it can't be done, but most of the time you're ganking and giving away kills is easy, i daubt you even understand what KSing is, lol, it's stealing kills, basic english required to understand

If you're not using Silver Bullet after all your disables or to eliminate someone with roughly the amount of total health of a Silver Bullet post-mitigation, you probably shouldn't be using it at all.

Which is why, if you're using Silver Bullet, it's not a big deal if it actually finishes off someone.

[Barghest]

I just want to add a question about the play stile of WS:

Who should be stunned, who should be morphed? When is a moprh wasted?

[HollowMask]

If you're having difficulties playing Witch Slayer, I highly suggest watching some professional matches which in where he is used.

I STRONGLY suggest watching Tarano play Witch Slayer. as i've never seen anything like it before.