- Tittle: The Frost Wyrm
- Author: Masterja
Pros
- Excelent AoE Damage spell
- Great AoE disable
- Excelent Ultimate makes enemy heroes kill their ally
- Nice Inteligence
- Big attack range, especially with Arctic Burn
- Free healing spell
- Pretty tanky for an INT hero
- Great escape mechanism
Cons
- Low movement speed
- Hard to use correctly
We can see that this hero is mostly crowd controller, that can mindtrick and confuse enemies, can tank, heal, gank, even semi-carry later on.
Skills:
Arctic Burn
Imbues you with a deathly chill, causing you to gain bonus attack range for 6 seconds. Your attacks place an arctic burn on enemies that slows them and burns a portion of their health away.
- 1. Mana 120 / Cooldown 50 / Duration 6 seconds, 5 seconds slow / Increases range to 700, attacks slow for 25%
- 2. Mana 110 / Cooldown 40 / Duration 6 seconds, 5 seconds slow / Increases attack range to 800, attacks slow for 30%
- 3. Mana 100 / Cooldown 30 / Duration 6 seconds, 5 seconds slow / Increases attack range to 900, attacks slow for 35%
- 4. Mana 90 / Cooldown 20 / Duration 6 seconds, 5 seconds slow / Increases attack range to 1000, attacks slow for 40%
- The ability that allows you to semi-carry later on, and gives you the ganking potential you have. How to best describe this spell... imagine Dragon Knight in his level 16 true form, with more range than sniper. It doesn't have splash, but allows you to attack from up to 1000 range, slow enemies, and fly over cliffs and trees!
- Because of range of this spell, Wyrm can focus on DPS items if there are a lot of supports / not enough carries, and snipe enemies from insane range in fog. Furthermore, you can always escape sticky situations by flying into trees and TP-ing.
Splinter Blast
Fires a passive shard of ice at an enemy unit. Upon impact, it gains new life and splits off into active shards that deal heavy damage and slow to all other enemy units. Initial target is unaffected.
- 1. Mana 120 / Cooldown 7 / Duration 4 seconds / 100 damage to secondary targets
- 2. Mana 130 / Cooldown 7 / Duration 4 seconds / 180 damage to secondary targets
- 3. Mana 140 / Cooldown 7 / Duration 4 seconds / 260 damage to secondary targets
- 4. Mana 150 / Cooldown 7 / Duration 4 seconds / 340 damage to secondary targets
- Great AoE damage spell. This can be used to farm, push, gank, slow, but is quite situational, it is a bit easier to land than Shackleshot, but is easily evadable. What it does is - when you shoot it at target enemy, it does nothing to it, however splits into a lot of parts, and deals 340 magic damage to all enemies nearby, and slows them. Not much else to say about this spell.
Cold Embrace
Reduces an allied hero's body temperature by encasing him in ice, sending him into a deep sleep and regenerating a percentage of max HP for 4 seconds, in addition to blocking all physical damage for its duration.
- 1. Mana 75 / 17 / Duration 4 seconds / Regenerates 20 + 3% of max hp per second
- 2. Mana 75 / 16 / Duration 4 seconds / Regenerates 20 + 4% of max hp per second
- 3. Mana 75 / 15 / Duration 4 seconds / Regenerates 20 + 5% of max hp per second
- 4. Mana 75 / 14 / Duration 4 seconds / Regenerates 20 + 6% of max hp per second
- My favorite spell on this hero. This is what makes him such deadly opponent to lane against. Using this spell on level 1 heals around 1/3 of your max HP, for only 75 mana, and lets you survive very sticky situations.
- This spell is also used to play mindgames - imagine you are on lane against Crystal Maiden and Huskar (quite hard harass lane). Now, you embrace yourself, and since animation is pretty similar to Frostbite, Huskar will rush in, and start doing nothing to you. Meanwhile, your mate focuses huskar, and he goes down in all the confusion. This also works when someone tries tower diving, you freeze ally or self, and chill while enemy gets raped by tower.
- NOTE - this does NOT add magic immunity!
Winter Curse
Winter Wyvern strikes the battlefield with a maddening chill, cursing a targeted enemy unit and freezing it in place. All of the target's nearby allied units will go into an uncontrollable frenzy, attacking the frozen ally for a short duration.
- 1. Mana 250 / Cooldown 90 / Duration 2.5 seconds / Frenzies enemies
- 2. Mana 250 / Cooldown 80 / Duration 2.75 seconds / Frenzies enemies
- 3. Mana 250 / Cooldown 70 / Duration 3 seconds / Frenzies enemies
- One of most awesome spells in game. This little dude makes all enemies focus given target for around 3 seconds. Make whole enemy team focus Mortred, and watch them mashing the stunned bitch. Or even better, make Mortred focus Crystal Maiden, and oneshot her with her huge damage!
- Endless possibilities here, but be very careful, spell only affects enemies that are in AoE in the specific moment, not ones that rush inside after you cast it.
Skill Build:
There are few skill build, depending on situation:
This is normal build, one level of heal to prevent first blood attempts. One level of Slow to help ganking and killing, then maxing Splinter to deal damage. This is best used in side-lanes, where you could use splinter while chasing, and not rely on creeps to be there for damage.
- 1. Cold Embrace
- 2. Arctic Burn
- 3. Splinter Blast
- 4. Splinter Blast
- 5. Splinter Blast
- 6. Winter Curse
- 7. Splinter Blast
- 8. Arctic Burn
- 9. Arctic Burn
- 10. Arctic Burn
This build is used against Solo lane, since you won't have to rely on Splinter to kill enemy, and will have slow instead. One level of heal is a must. Splinter is maxed after Slow for killing potential.
- 1. Cold Embrace
- 2. Arctic Burn
- 3. Arctic Burn
- 4. Splinter Blast
- 5. Arctic Burn
- 6. Winter Curse
- 7. Arctic Burn
- 8. Splinter Blast
- 9. Splinter Blast
- 10. Splinter Blast
If you are facing extremely awful harassment team, and cannot survive easily, you will need to max Heal ASAP and have arctic burn at hand, to harass back and survive, or even kill those harassers.
- 1. Cold Embrace
- 2. Arctic Burn
- 3. Cold Embrace
- 4. Arctic Burn
- 5. Cold Embrace
- 6. Winter Curse
- 7. Cold Embrace
- 8. Arctic Burn
- 9. Arctic Burn
- 10. Splinter Blast
Items:
Core items:
Arcane boots: Other boots are simply not good enough for Wyvern. He is constantly ganking, and needs more mana. Later replace these with Boots of Travel.
Urn of Shadows: Gives some much needed health, and free salves. Get it if noone else in team has Urn. Its mana regeneration comes in handy on lane.
Magic Wand: Instant heal is imba. In team battles, charges fill in like mad with all the spells flying around.
Null Talismans: Some stats arent bad. Later can be turned into Dagon.
Lothar's Edge: This hero has escape mechanism, however, he needs positioning and damage as well. Lothar gives him both, and is especially useful after its cost decrease! You can use 150 extra damage to snipe off enemy from 1000 range. You will mostly use it for escape and initiation though, since Arcane Burn lasts only 6 seconds, that will make you vulnerable often.
This guy can farm very well, thanks to his Splinter shot that one-shots all ranged creep enemies in early-mid game, thus earning a lot of cash for late game.
Guinsoo's Scytle of Vyse: This is very useful item, you can't go wrong with it! Besides, you lack disable, aside from Ultimate, so you should get either this, or Eul.
Eul's Scepter of Divinity: Guinsoo's little brother, but still very useful. Get either this, or Guinsoo every game.
Orchid Malevolence: This item comes in small, cheap components, and is useful against spellcasters, or heroes that have gamebreaking skills. It can also be used to counter blinkers.
Shivas Guard: One of my favorite items ingame. You will one-shot whole pushing wave with Splinter + shiva, and slow enemies even more, so its definitively a must item in late game..
Dagon: Item great in ganking. It loses effectivness later in game, so if you fail to get it by minute 20, focus yourself on getting shiva instead. Never upgrade dagon. 100 extra damage (plus reduced by magic resistance) isn't worth 1350 gold!
Veil of Discord: Very nice item, amplifies damage by Splinter. Get it if your team is composed of spellcasters, and someone already bought Meka.
Mekansm: You should try to rush this item if you are support. If you decide to take semi-carry role though, focus on one of other items.
Khadgars Pipe of Insight: Great against Spellcaster team.
Black King Bar: While i don't recommend getting this item, there are some situations where you should get it. If enemy has heavy disable team, that prevents you from unleashing your potential, this is item for you.
Vanguard: You are tanky already, have heal and tower diving tool, so you don't need this. Get it at your own risk.
Linken Sphere: Against single disabler it can work ok. Gives some nice stats and regen. Get it if you can aford it.
Refreshers Orb: Very powerful item towards end game. This item will provide you with another ultimate, and that means 6 seconds of enemies fighting eachother total! However, as ultimate is hard to land, be sure to think wisely before using refresher, else you waste both its CD and mana.
Blademail: Enemies simply love to focus you, especially after you freeze friend they are attacking. Plus, blademail animation is hardly noticeable on you, so this item could be considered second core.
Mobility is also an important factor. Both Dagger and Force staff are very useful. With dagger you can easily blink, evading stuns, chasing enemies, etc. Force Staff has little less uses (you can't evade stun with it, but you can push self even if you were hit within last 3 seconds), but gives stats, and comes in small pieces. If enemies have invisibility detector heroes, get these instead of Lothar.
Bloodstone and Heart are good survivability items. Get them if you are focused down in team battles. Heart is far better choice though, soulring and arcane cover all your mana problems both early and late game.
Skadi is ultimate item Frost Wyrm can have. It gives additional slow, stats, and makes you beast. However, i advise you to get some items like Shiva and Guinsoo first.
Radiance is useful in combination with slows, cold embrace, however it will be useful only if you get it in first 25 minutes.
REJECTED ITEMS:
While you CAN semi-carry, you should do it with INT items such as shiva, Guinsoo or Skadi, not direct physical items. You can however get them if you plan on doing imbazilion damage with your 1000 range slow.
You need no orbs. Perhaps Mjolnir could prove useful as you can be tank as well, other than that, nothing.
You got farming spell, and its enough for your needs!
Wasn't implanted yet...
Gameplay:
Lane:
Wyvern can go any lane. He can go mid, to get quick level 6, and outharass their mid. It works pretty well, you have heal, taking a bit of damage, or even towerdiving wont hurt at all. Take all farm you can, you will be semi-carry of your team.
He can also go side lane, and support carry. In this case, you will keep healing ally, and harassing enemy. Also, it won't hurt being ward bitch, especially after the wards became cheaper (from 200 > 150 gold).
Early Game:
OR
You start your Early game with combination of mantles, branches and tango/salves/clarities. This is mostly used for mid or lanes. You can also get soul ring recepie, sobi mask, some heal and mana, and head of to side lane (or mid if team has courier).
Do not atempt to make First Blood! You are defensive hero, at least in beginning, so just stay back, harass a bit, farm, and simply wait till you get slow and/or nuke.
Mid Game:
When you reach level 6, you should have Urn and Arcane boots (or just arcanes, if you let carry farm). At this point, you should gank other lanes, since you became quite scary now.
When you start ganking, always initiate by casting Splinter on creep nearest to enemy. Then use Arctic Burn, slow enemies, and keep whacking. Don't be afraid to use ultimate, it has low CD, and will be ready soon. If there is noone to gank, stay in lane, and make enemies go back. You wont even need to go to base, since you have heal and mana.
Late Game:
This is part where little cold wyvern becomes badass Frost Wyrm. This is part where you shine most, unlike most of other INT heroes. How so?
First off, you have massive teamfight presence. If correctly used, your ulti can one-shot any enemy, while stunning everything around it. Then, your Cold Embrace became far more powerful, since its % scales into late game, and so does physical damage. Then, you got 1k range, with some DPS items, you can pick off supports without a problem. If you have carries, don't be afraid to turtle a bit, both you and carries are getting scarier later on.
Abusing your Spells:
This hero has very interesting spells, which he should abuse in some situations. Learn to abuse them. Let me give you some examples:
You are being chased by 5 heroes. They are approaching from every side, so you can't run anywhere. Pop up Arctic burn, then fly over trees and TP home.
You are chasing 150 HP mortred back home. You are out of range ultimate, and there are no creeps around. You pop up Arctic burn, to shoot mortred from afar, slowing her. Then, Crystal maiden appears to freeze you, thus saving Mortred. But wait a second, you use ultimate on Crystal, forcing Mortred to fight her. At same time, you Splinter Crystal. In those 3 seconds, mortred will rape Crystal maiden, and your Splinter will rape her. Double kill for you!
You and your idiot teammate are running from 5 enemies. It is clear that neither of you will make it. Since he flamed your earlier, you freeze him, and enemies will stop chasing you, and wait for freeze to pass instead. Its a good deed actually, that freeze gives him a heal! Mwahahahahha! Okay, seriously now, don't do that...
Where did Wyrm fly?:
Your mate called solo mid. Two guys went suicide lane. Safe lane demands solo. Then someone says "i dont care where you go wyrm, gtfo off lane, go jungle or something". You say "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!".
Seriously, this dude can jungle quite fine. How so? Early, get 1 level of Arctic Burn, and fly over to the so called "Furion's Hill" Just keep shooting jungle creeps from above there for first 2-3 levels. After you reach level 3, you can, however slowly kill other camps as well, thanks to your heal. Although, at this point, i recommend ganking side lane or mid a bit.
Edited by basicdotaguide.blogspot.com