Guide: Pyromancer - Flame On!

[[PDNO]frtzarn]

how about nomes wisdom on him for support? its one of my favorite items to get on intel supports

[[GR]Croutonman]

With Plated Greaves introduced a couple patches ago, would you still stick with Steamboots or move on to Plated Greaves?

[Chimmchar]

Portal key on Ophelia is rape

[SupFresh]

Nome's Wisdom is not a bad item although I feel that its situational to your team. A few things you may want to consider before getting Nome's wisdom is how much it will actually help your team. Does your team have a lot of activate/mana cost spells or are they mostly passive aura's and low mana cost abilities eg. arachna. Its good for pyro sure but there's better items when it doesn't help your team that much.

Plated Greaves are pretty debatable, 7 armor and some stats plus 10 extra movement speed is good but steam boots attack speed boost synergies well with fervor.
My advice is that if their isn't another set of Plated Greaves on your team then pick them up. If there is then pick up steam boots, the ability to change them to int when last hitting creeps then back to str when a fight happens plus the extra attack speed is to good to pass up imo.

[Farkon]

I've seen a pyro outrun a CD with phase boots after casting 3 of his spells.... ha ha ha.

[SupFresh]

I've seen a pyro outrun a CD with phase boots after casting 3 of his spells.... ha ha ha.

yes that would be quite funny.

edit: updated guide

[Electroid]

I can assure you that i know how to play. And Pyro is one of my strong heroes. I've got a total 72-11 (all non EM games) with Pyromancer. I can't say of course that every time my enemies were at my level, but i can't choose them most of the times. Codex (Dagon) would be awesome if it added surviveability and some mana, but it doesn't. That's why i dont prefer it. I usually get SotM on lvl 10-11, and it really counts that extra 150 dmg.
Maybe i can't provide an argument that will persuade you, but i think experience values more than arguments. I've tried Kuldra rush, I've tried Harkon's rush, Hellflower rush, Portal key+Stormspirit rush, out of all these, the most effective turned to be, SotM.

+Another reason for not getting a Codex (Dagon) is that you clearly provoke your enemies to get Headress or Shrunken's. It's like having a Night hound on your team and you buy Assassin's shroud. You might think of this as a stupid reason, but it's not.


Anyway, wana get Kuldra over SotM? go ahead, I've told you my experiences, and it would be best for all who read the guides, to try both and decide on their own.

your prob one of those kids who tried to get kuldra once, and it failed becuase u had a bad team or didn't know how to survive w/o staff, and then lost and assumed KULDRA IS DUM I NEED MY STAVV.

i just tried out this build and it worked marvels even check it out, (not this acc, I_AM_PH33R)

also i've used this build on a diff acc, (I dont think the replays are still up yet)
you prob also get staff w/ tb as well and a refresh orb hey? and get your score to 20 and 0 and say taht your amazing.

[[ysGG]Voulture]

I dont really see a point of taking additional levels of stun. It does not increase stun duration, Phoenix Wave damage is scaling much better and got bigger aoe and its easier to hit. usually i am going: Stun/Wave/Wave/Fervor/Wave/Ulti/Wave/* and depending on game Max Fervor than stats and ulti only or stun at 8/9/10.

Also - wards + nomes wisdom (+ astrolabe) + graves is awesome build as well. Or stormspirit. New pyro is a great pusher after all. And yes both codex and sotm are terrible pyro items (codex is still better than sotm btw). I would never take them over Portal Key / Harkons / Kuldra / Puzzle.

[Nightmxre]

I dont really see a point of taking additional levels of stun. It does not increase stun duration, Phoenix Wave damage is scaling much better and got bigger aoe and its easier to hit. usually i am going: Stun/Wave/Wave/Fervor/Wave/Ulti/Wave/* and depending on game Max Fervor than stats and ulti only or stun at 8/9/10.

Also - wards + nomes wisdom (+ astrolabe) + graves is awesome build as well. Or stormspirit. New pyro is a great pusher after all. And yes both codex and sotm are terrible pyro items (codex is still better than sotm btw). I would never take them over Portal Key / Harkons / Kuldra / Puzzle.

You go extra 'stun' because of the extra damage. Your 1 2 3 combo is devastating early - mid game. Fervor is totally unneeded that early and will just gimp you. If you're owning real early, SOTM keeps you owning for quite a while, not to mention the survivability it gives.

[SupFresh]

I dont really see a point of taking additional levels of stun. It does not increase stun duration, Phoenix Wave damage is scaling much better and got bigger aoe and its easier to hit. usually i am going: Stun/Wave/Wave/Fervor/Wave/Ulti/Wave/* and depending on game Max Fervor than stats and ulti only or stun at 8/9/10.

Also - wards + nomes wisdom (+ astrolabe) + graves is awesome build as well. Or stormspirit. New pyro is a great pusher after all. And yes both codex and sotm are terrible pyro items (codex is still better than sotm btw). I would never take them over Portal Key / Harkons / Kuldra / Puzzle.

The real reason you get stun early instead of maxing wave is because you are min/maxing the mana cost and damage of both abilities as you level up. This means that the build provided will give you the most damage for the least amount of mana while leveling increasing your longevity which is vital in the lanning phase.

[[LoSt]Darkalbino_]

The real reason you get stun early instead of maxing wave is because you are min/maxing the mana cost and damage of both abilities as you level up. This means that the build provided will give you the most damage for the least amount of mana while leveling increasing your longevity which is vital in the lanning phase.

And thats the words of the wise.

[Lii1]

I can't believe people still talk about codex and sotm on witch slayer and pyro... I thought these times were over like 3 years ago in dota...

pyro and witch slayers are all about portal key or harkon...
that's the real debate... harkon for dps or sheepstick?

If you go the harkon way, isn't phase boots better than power treads? additionnal damage over attack speed, since attack speed costs more mana via harkon..

But yeah, the strength from power treads does sound good, pyro is squeeshy

[Lii1]

With Plated Greaves introduced a couple patches ago, would you still stick with Steamboots or move on to Plated Greaves?

Obviously steamboots, with his high intel gain and his passive, pyro is able to dish a lot of dmg with normal attack.

blink, stun, attack, attack, chase, attack, attack, wave = kill

In bigger fights, combine that with ulti, more stuns and more waves.. in between you get the attack speed charges.. that's why it makes sense to try some dps on him.. like harkon and steamboots.. too bad they recently nerfed harkon's.

[Griddler]

Weird guide...

I like pyro in lane because as mentioned you can easily harass both enemies with wave, and when paired with a guaranteed stun (or near guaranteed like magmus) its ownage.

My usual build is just 1 rank in his stun, then max wave and fervor. I don't have the math but I'm guessing the +dmg you get from fervor is comparable to the +dmg you'd get from higher ranks of stun, without costing you extra mana. The movespeed boost will also help you escape and hunt down runners, and the cast speed reduction should help landing the stun.

Items is where I'm less sure...

I feel like he should have a bottle for sure and a portal key for sure. I have no prob running around with normal marchers as I farm up my pk.

He probably needs a bracer or two for survivability.

I was wondering if Nome's is a core-ish item for him or if it should only be in certain situations. A RoT early on helps you keep mana up to harass with wave.

Also bracer vs talisman? I like sometimes taking 2x mark of the novice at the start for the mana, regen, and last hitting they provide - then turning them into talismans

I'd say a normal-ish start for pyro is some combo of:

- courier/ward
- guard ring (buy scarab in lane asap for RoT)
- runes of blight / hp pot
- minor totems / mark of the novice

[Shuffl3r]

I play every game with pyro like this:Nom's wisdom,Staff of the master,Steamboots,Behe's hearth,Harcon's Blade and Portal key.....and i have won 95% of the games ive played with him....trust me Pyro is the hero i play the most...12% of all games

PS.I use pyro when im playin 5v5 with 1650+ PSR and k/d/a is almost every game 25/6/18

[Griddler]

If you get all those items you're playing EM. And SOTM is trash item for him.

I would probably focus bottle-boots-bracer-portkey.

Luxury could be harkons or behe heart. Kuldra/stormspirit are possibilities but generally better on other support heroes.

Again just not sure where nome's fits into all of this - maybe go for it if laning since the RoT is good early? Should it be gotten instead of a bottle?

[FireCross23]

you might want to include accursed in the people to watch out for list because while ur ulti is flying towards him he can just use his ulti and basically go back to full heal

oh yeah BUMP!

[[BUZZ]d1sco]

thanks for this guide!

[XaLOpAbLO]

nice guide

[[aveJ]Tyg]

level fevor before the stun, phase boots are also a good option