Panda-Panda-P-P-Panda SHOOOW

[Who8MyRice1]

I am by no means the greatest player ever, and this guide was made from
countless hours spent in 5v5 pubs. Use at your own risk(though this build is sure to give success)
PM me your hatred if you had bad results.

Pandamonium

Awww yeah. Stuff gets real in this guide. Cute and fuzzy he looks, but
everything loses it's charm the first time he butt crushes you, the first time his bamboo stick flicks
you in uncomfortable areas and pushes you around, then your face gets smashed?! Yeah. ****
definitely gets real.

1. Way of the Warrior
2. Skillbuilds
3. Itembuilds
4. How not to get flamed while playing Pandaman
5. Laning phases
6. Replay
7. Questions and Answers.


Way of the Warrior

The looks of a serial killer.

Starting stats
Damage 48-57
Armor 5.38
Move speed 295
Attack type Melee (100)
Attack rate 0.59

Strength 23 (+2.7)
Agility 17 (+1.7)
Intelligence 15 (+1.8)

Now there's a couple of things to note here, Panda has amazing starting
damage as well as a great animation for excellent last hitting. The only
downsides he has would be his below average movement speed, which isn't
important due to flick. Really, his only downside would be his 100 attack
range.

What is Panda's role?
First of all, Panda is not a carry despite what many love to believe. Meaning
he will not be expected to farm for 50 minutes and then come out of the
forest to charge his team to victory. He is instead a powerful semi-carry,
initiator, disabler, and tank rolled into one fluffy package. Is he nub friendly?
Definitely no. Is he hard to master? Extremely, as a game with Panda you will
ALWAYS be changing your game style to fit that of the battlefield. You'll
hardly play a boring game with this hero, but that's what makes him exciting
to master.

Skills

Flurry
Your farming as well as DPS burst+mini disable throughout the game. Flurry is
the exact reason why Panda scales so well, as well as why you do NOT need
a Runed Axe to farm, as 2-3 good flicks will net you waves of gold easily. It's
awkward to aim at first, but I'll show you how to aim and use it.



Flick
Panda's primary setup for the rest of his skills to follow up, Flick is the perfect
tool for those pesky runaways or for that extra edge in ganks to make sure
everything goes smoothly. Notice in the image where you flick your opponent,
directly behind you. ALWAYS USE THIS SKILL FIRST BEFORE EVERYTHING
ELSE WHEN POSSIBLE.



Cannon Ball
Your AoE disable as well as massively powerful nuke early-mid game. 325
physical might sound scary as is, but combined that with Flick's armor
reduction and you're guaranteed easy kills as low as level 3.



Face Smash
Your ult. The best way of describing it would be a melee version of
Succubus's hold. I'll go into more detail about this later.


Skillbuild
1. Flick/Cannon Ball
2. Cannon Ball/Flick
3. Cannon Ball
4. Flurry
5. Cannon Ball
6. Face Smash
7. Cannon Ball
8. Flurry
9. Flurry
10. Flurry
11. Flick
12. Flick
13. Flick
14. Face Smash
15. Stats
16. Face Smash

The only thing you should ever be confused about when building
Panda would be whether to get Flick or Cannon Ball first. Both are equally good, the only difference is
that Cannon Ball will get you out of a gank better.
Leaving Face Smash at level 1 is because that early into the game, your other skills will do more
damage. Level 2 Face Smash is more mana for the same amount of disabling time.'


Items
Starting Out



This is your starting items for whatever the situation. Offers you a bit of
everything, enough for survival until you can get your core.


Core Items

Enhanced Marchers is absolutely needed and better than other boots.
You NEED that extra burst of speed for quick Flicks, it's the difference
successful or fail ganks. Power Supply for that quick burst of mana
when you need just one more extra Flurry. Shrunken Head to turn you
into the ultimate initiator. Bottle would be the only debating item, some
consider it optional, I however call it core.


Luxury's

Blink Dagger if you need to become THE initiator, disabling their most vital
players. Heart to become a tank, Riftshards for lolcrits.
Insanitarius if you're struggling and need a cheap route to more of everything. Out of these items,
I don't recommend getting neither Shieldbreaker nor Breastplate. There's a lot
better people out there who could get Breastplate, and Shieldbreaker is not
needed seeing how it adds no extra base damage to your skills.

How Not To get Flamed While Playing
Pandaman


Skills Indept
Flurry
-Note that when you use Flurry, it disjoints your body. Meaning you can use it
to dodge upcoming Valkyrie arrows, or even phase right through Pharaoh's
walls. It's like hacks but legit! Just kidding. This doesn't work anymore. :[
-Never use Flurry when chasing, unless you have Phase boots activated.
Even then I don't recommend it unless your enemy is sitting on 100 HP,
because if he survives, you would have only helped him by pushing him where
we wanted to go.
-As with all of Panda's skills, the best time to use Flurry would be after
a well placed Flick. Where with that armor exposed, your attacks
pierce right through.

-Aiming your Flurrys
-When you're using Flurry, it helps to spam/SMASH your movement button
on your mouse in the direction you want to go. It's possible to change
directions mid-Flurry doing this as well.
-The best way to connect with your Flurry is after you've flicked someone,
then you right click them once to stick on them and Flurry away.
-If you miss one Flurry, don't continue to just Flurry into the air and waste
charges, stop smashing the Q.
-Go into practice mode and get a good feel for how it handles.



Flick
-Always use this to initiate in a 1v1 situation. Hell, even in a 2v2, or even a 5v5. It's that good.
-Save your Flicks, it has the longest cooldown out of your spells aside from
ult. Instead, wait and watch your enemy team to slip up. A straggling pusher
that went to far, an initiator who fell far from his team searching for a rune, a
careless jungler who didn't have wards, these are the openings for your
Flicks.

Cannon Ball
-Your main nuke/disable in the game
-At level 1 Flick, your opponents still have enough speed to dodge your
Cannon Ball if he has any sort of brain power,
instead auto attack him down or Flurry him a bit, scare him off to the point
where he's just spam clicking to run away, that's your chance to finish him off
with a Cannon Ball and a few more autoattacks for the kill.
-Don't be afraid of how he gets disabled if he misses as a way to not escape.
Use it to jump up or down cliffs, or over forests or into forests.

Face Smash
-Use this after all of your other skills in a 1v1 for maximum damage output.
-In a teamfight, between all of your spells available you'll often find
yourself wondering just who the hell to disable or what to use them on.
Ulti their main disabler, or even the carry. Just whoever you need to shut
down.


What is Panda's skill
rotation?
-In a 1v1, it would ideally be Flick-->
Cannon Ball-->Flurry-->Face Smash

What to do in Teamfights.

Initiating
-Until you have your Shrunken Head, you are not THE initiator of the group
yet.
-Wait for a chance to Flick
-If that opportunity does not arise, Cannon Ball face first into the other team.
Be warned that until you have your Shrunken Head, this is almost fatal.
-In a dream simulation, you'll want to Cannon Ball in, Flurry their whole team,
followed by Face Smashing their main priority.
- Of course, this is almost impossible to do in most situations. So instead
Cannon Ball in, followed by just ulting their main priorty.

Farming

Lanes
-Last hit creeps, if you happen to miss just Flurry them for the gold.
-If you're pushing, Flurry the whole wave to wipe them out in 3 shots.
-Don't ever Cannon Ball to farm lanes, it's an overkill of mana.

Neutrals
-The same applies as above, use Flurry to wipe out camps.
-Panda is one of the best mass neutral killers. Meaning that 5-6 camp stack
is cheese for him to slice through. So stack as much as possible.
-This goes the same for Ancient creeps as well, though this is better off
left for the carry, if they're not going for a Runed Axe, take it.


Laning Phases
Early game
-Choose a lane, Panda is exceptional in any lane he's put in. I for example
NEED to solo middle as him.
-Aim to last hit, don't worry about harassment for now, you have a nice sum of HP and armor early game to take abuse, and you'll hand it out soon enough
-As early as level 3 a kill is easy, even by yourself! If your partner has a
disable, it's almost impossible not to. Start with Flick, autoattack then stun,
before or after their disable.
-If you're soloing as Panda in mid, be sure to ferry over a bottle ASAP to start
rune whoring, if you find a nice invis or haste be sure to gank. Panda's an
exceptional ganker.

Item Order
/==>


Mid Game
-Lanings over, no more of that. You're a full time team assistance now, you'll
get your Shrunken Head farm from assisting the team. Notice how little your
core was, now take this chance to disrupt their team who are still trying
to farm.
-Rune whore everything, gank their neutrals, lanes, everything. Everytime
your ult's off CD, is the time to kill someone.
-Defend your tower if it needs to be defended, push their tower if a push
is called. Move to where the team needs help, always, ALWAYS carry TPs
-If you're outta ideas what to do, start stacking some camps or ancients
and farm.

Item Order



Late Game
-This is where your power starts to slightly diminish since Cannon Ball won't be the once almighty nuke it was 30 minutes ago.
-Start getting some +strength items to increase your damage. A Heart if
you find yourself needing more HP. An Insanitarius if you're struggling to get
by.
-If you're absolutely dominating, I suggest you try out Portal Key. It's
an underused item on Panda, when it's freakin amazing giving him mobility
like no other.
-Heart+Insanitarius=Ungodly power with no side effects!
-Push like no other, you're literally glued to the team by this point.


Replays
-A funny game you'll definitely enjoy by me
31516424
-A pretty damn close game, I eventually turned the whole thing around with
my Shrunken Head completed.
30945103

As always, if you got a replay I'll gladly put it up.


Questions and Answers
Why is there no Runed Axe you NOOB?!
What's it needed for? You have Flurry to farm. The regen it provides
is unnecessary with your Bottle/Power Supply. you won't gain any extra damage from your skills
with Runed Axe neither, but of course you'll always have the die hard Runed Axe users.
So I present to them this.



What is the exact damage calculations for
Flurry? How much is it affected by items?
The great debate for the first 2 pages. the calculations for Flurry
is as followed (Base Strength+Strength from items)*1.45 + (Damage from item)= total damage for Flurry
Thanks to ElementUser for clarifying this.
Meaning, if you have nothing but straight attack items on Panda,
his Flurry's will only do his AUTOATTACK damage everytime you use it. So they
will NOT get the bonus 45%.


How much does strength give into each skill?

Flurry
1 strength = 1.45 damage


Face Smash
1 strength = 2.2 damage

Do attack modifiers work with Flurry, and if so
which one works best?
Attack modifiers do NOT work with Flurry.



Rice?! What about the RICE?!
I'm sharing some with my newfound Panda pal here.



Done for now with this guide, I rushed the end to just get it out.
Drop some comments and what not, I bid you adieu`

[AvengerO_o]

Awsome guide man

[Donn]

nice nice, but shieldbreaker DOES add 60 damage to your flurry and ulti

Flurry - Deals Physical damage equal to one attack with +15 / 25 / 35 / 45% base damage.

[Sauron`]

Basically agree with everything. thank GOD u didnt recommend runed axe

[Who8MyRice1]

nice nice, but shieldbreaker DOES add 60 damage to your flurry and ulti

Flurry - Deals Physical damage equal to one attack with +15 / 25 / 35 / 45% base damage.

Is that really the tooltip?
I feel somewhat ashamed now.

[[55]TheRedRager]

Omg Rice, what an amazing panda guide.

I cant play panda for ****, hopefully following this guide will help my play.

I love you.

[delanZia]

Is that really the tooltip?
I feel somewhat ashamed now.

it adds the 60 damage but doesn't get the +15 / 25 / 35 / 45% base damage, however the - armor makes up for that.

[Who8MyRice1]

it adds the 60 damage but doesn't get the +15 / 25 / 35 / 45% base damage, however the - armor makes up for that.

Ok good, so I wasn't wrong.
Sure it subtracts more armor, but that's overkill especially on a hero like Panda.
Well, at least I don't like it on him anyways. Insanitarius gives more for less.

[[S2]ElementUser]

If it helps, Flick moves the unit exactly 150 units behind your hero when you successfully start the actual movement displacement of the target.

Flick mechanics for those that are interested: http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=78948

Also, Panda's Flurry doesn't disjoint - there isn't any invulnerability or any disjoint code line in the code files for Flurry.

Oh and there's this too (Version 0.1.48):

Pandamonium
- Flurry no longer Disjoints

Shieldbreaker's armor debuff does not apply on the Flurry hits - only stuff that affects Panda's base damage (+Str items usually do this) gets amplified by Flurry's +% base damage, hence the direct +60 damage from Shieldbreaker will not be amplified by Flurry (but will still get added onto the Flurry hit)

[Who8MyRice1]

Ah yes, I was waiting for Element to come in and clarify some things with his knowledge :P
Also, if I'm reading those codes right, Flick makes Panda immune for exactly 1 second?
That sounds amazing.
And another thanks to settling the Shieldbreaker debate there.


EDIT: I just tried this in practice mode, but Flurrying does indeed phase you right through Pharaoh's Walls. Not sure if this is intended.
Doesn't work on Valk's arrows however. :[

[[iDmT]laserblade]

I like your take on the Runed Axe issue.

[Who8MyRice1]

I like your take on the Runed Axe issue.

It's my favorite part of this whole guide. <3

[[S2]ElementUser]

Ah yes, I was waiting for Element to come in and clarify some things with his knowledge :P
Also, if I'm reading those codes right, Flick makes Panda immune for exactly 1 second?
That sounds amazing.
And another thanks to settling the Shieldbreaker debate there.


EDIT: I just tried this in practice mode, but Flurrying does indeed phase you right through Pharaoh's Walls. Not sure if this is intended.
Doesn't work on Valk's arrows however. :[

No it doesn't make him immune, it simply means that Panda's Flick cannot be stopped once the check for whether the unit is <500 range is made.

Flurry can't bring Pandamonium into the Wall of Mummies, but if Panda is inside the wall he can Flurry outside - don't know the cause of this. I know Flurry offsets Panda but that doesn't explain why he can't Flurry into the Wall.

[[fray]RogerDodger]

+ Damage items do make flurries do more damage.

Get 2 pandas, 1 with nothing and 1 with 6 doombringers and see who flurries harder.

[cicoles]

I thought Panda's face Smash does not cause damage anymore? It was in the change list in 1.53. Acts only as stun. Or am I mistaken?

[Skull4er]

would suggest an alternative build:

1 Flick
2 Cannon ball
3-5 Flurry
will grant a nice amount of dmg early on if you hit your target with flick + cannon ball, should deal overall more dmg then the normal route with maxing cannonball.

another item worth of suggestion is the always ignored null stone. i bought it a couple of times when i started to play panda, runed axe was not needed but the stats on it (especially the manaregen) was quite nice.
if shrunken head is not desperatly needed and you buy a sustainer for the additional manaregen you can upgrade it to a nullstone, counters for example pyro ultimate or the annoying vindi ulti (well, his aura is actually worse, but better to block one silence then none)

[[PTTN]Tamachan]

No it doesn't make him immune, it simply means that Panda's Flick cannot be stopped once the check for whether the unit is <500 range is made.

Flurry can't bring Pandamonium into the Wall of Mummies, but if Panda is inside the wall he can Flurry outside - don't know the cause of this. I know Flurry offsets Panda but that doesn't explain why he can't Flurry into the Wall.

I'm goign to give this question a shot. Not got code but i think i know why you can get out but not in.

It's because of the distance in which flurry moves you. You only need to travel >the radius of mummywall when trying to get out, bt when trying to enter it you need to travel the radius of one mummy + 100 (the radius in which the knockback would apply) after each flurry there will be a check to apply any new aoe to panda i assume, this is why he cant get inside because one flurry does not push him > 100 range.
[i don't know the exact numbers]

Is this plausible ?

[milkheartyou]

nice nice, but shieldbreaker DOES add 60 damage to your flurry and ulti

Flurry - Deals Physical damage equal to one attack with +15 / 25 / 35 / 45% base damage.

um um um um

no it doesn't
go play some em

[[TGCH]DemoniWaari]

Aaaah what a great guide!
At last someone doesn't say "omg goes farm teh runed axe"; instead recommending going straight for shrunken head.
Exactly the same way I build my panda, and it works wonders .

[Skull4er]

um um um um

no it doesn't
go play some em

yes it does
it is only not amplified by the base dmg increase. the debuff will not be apllied by flurry.