General DiscussionHelp me with my shitty AM play

skill doesnt matter for the am player, its all about your teammates holding off in 4v5s for 30 minutes

Am is out of meta, dont play am atm.. there are alot strongest carrys and more team depented

When you are winning as am, your team is the one who deserve the credit.

1) Last hit better (am is all about lasthitting creeps, heroes and towers, so learn to last hit).
2) Don't use blink to initiate and die stupidly, dying as am is the most awful thing can happen to you - so everytime think about positioning yourself and search for fragile mages out of position to slay.
3) With ulti you can easily kill mages lol.
4) At lanestage burn their mana so they can't do shit to you (there are some exception but they are exceptions) and to prevent cogs/leap/windrun when slaying them.
5) Consider buying vlads when playing from behind.
6) Don't just rush bfury with plain boots - buy pt pms roh quelling blade first, they matter in early clashes and you can easily farm neutrals if you can't farm lane for some reason.

But to be honest - he is out of meta, strong only in certain lineups vs certain lineups, if somebody simply goes agressive and don't let you farm - you fokken lost.

52 cs at 10 minutes is pretty good. However, if you had virtual free farm, you should do a little bit better.

I like building PMS > Boots > Ring of Health > Power Treads > Battle Fury before 16 minutes.

Your skills should be 2/1/1 at level four. At level five, depending on your lane, you can take an extra level of Blink (I like the shorter cooldown), or Mana Break. It's pretty unlikely that you need more spell resistance when one point almost doubles it. You'd be better off with the other two skills.

Ultimate is taken at level six all the time. After Battle Fury, buy a TP scroll because you will be heading into the jungle with (hopefully) stacked camps. Tread switch to intelligence when you blink to conserve mana. You don't quite have the stats yet to Blink at your heart's content. Be ready to jump into a fight to defend a tower at a moment's notice.

You probably can't kill a stacked Ancient camp until level ten or so because you don't have enough health/armor. Keep killing large camps and hug a lane for creep kills/gold.

If a fight breaks out and you can't get to it in a reasonable amount of time (whatever the excuse), start to split-push HARD. It goes without saying that you need a Battle Fury first.

You can six slot really quickly with Anti-Mage (<40 minutes), but your job is not to AFK farm all game. Your job is to be a huge pain in the ass for the other team by taking down towers or at least forcing them to defend one.

Your next item should be a Manta Style for several reasons. Illusions are great for confusing the enemy. Put one in the lane you're trying to split push. Meanwhile, you can farm the jungle or ancients. Don't reveal your real self because they might be trying to gank you. The best way to shut down Anti-Mage is early in the game. The other big reason for going for Manta Style is because enemies will try to silence you. If you are silenced, you will die. You do not have enough health to sustain a few stuns/hits before your silence is up. Immediately remove the debuff with Manta Style's active and get the hell out of there.

At this point, you have several options. You can go straight for a Heart of Tarrasque if you want to take towers or you can more affordably add a Skull Basher to your inventory. The SB is better for team fighting and locking down out of position heroes. If you get one bash off an enemy hero, you can safely use your Manta Style illusions to drain his mana quickly and finish him off with a Mana Void.

Late game is really situational. If you feel you need a Black King Bar, grab one. If not, start a Butterfly. Even if the enemy wants to build a Monkey King Bar, the stats give you a lot of armor and a ton of DPS. If you did not build a Heart earlier, you can also start that. Finally finish your Skull Basher into an Abyssal Blade. That 2 second magic-immunity piercing stun is incredible.

If the game goes really late, you can grab Boots of Travel, but pray that it does not. When enemy hard carries become six slotted, you will probably die 1v1.

General tips:

1) Try to blow up supports first because they have the most devastating stuns/debuffs/etc. that fuck your day up. Also, they tend to have the most mana and least HP which means they are prime targets for your ultimate.
2) If you are behind, Vladmir's Offering is a safe pickup for the armor and the lifesteal you could not otherwise get (Mana Break orb).
3) Always know the enemy's location on the mini-map so you can judiciously use Blink. If it's on cooldown and you don't know where the enemy is, you could be in trouble. Conversely, if you know one enemy is out of position, you could surprise them with a Blink and kill them before they run for cover.
4) If you are dual laning versus the enemy, be extra careful. You are better off being passive and not feeding. Your core items will be delayed, but you won't be hurting yourself (losing unreliable gold) or your team (giving the enemy reliable gold) in the process.

I disagree with wink, AMs that farm exclusively, avoid fights etc tend to lose the game. That's what i see anyway.
Mana burn early on is so strong, if you join the fights in the right time you can blow people up and blink away. Blinking in is generally a bad idea unless you have a BKB and a team backing you up. That kunkka should have fed you. AM wrecks melee 1v1.

Regarding skill build, if you're up against a lot of magic damage, it's useful to grab that lv 1 spell shield, i always get it actually, really like it. I usually max mana burn then blink, and build treads with ring of health then farm battlefury. A good time for you to finish is 13-14 minutes if you're getting absolute free farm. A maximum of 82 creeps or 81 are spawned by 10 minute mark, so you should always be aiming at that.

PS: For fun: If enemy team picks pudge, grab am and go mid. You'll wreck him so much, you have mana burn, spell shield against rot and dismember and blink away if he ever hooks you

PS2: I suggest watching DK.burning playing it. That'll give you a pretty good idea of how the hero is supposed to be played.

PS3: I don't like building PMS on him, you'll sell the stout shield early and keep the quelling blade, so kind of a waste of 300 gold.

Why do you need a Quelling Blade? You can blink throughout the jungle.

Quelling blade gives you 30% damage bonus, which will let you clear the jungle and lane faster. Damage block becomes almost useless after the early laning phase.

Not to mention if you blink incorrectly you can eat a tree, also you can spare using a blink in some camps. You can eat your way out of sprout if blink is on CD.

My comment was a bit of a rhetorical remark. I know the benefits of a QB.

You can clear the whole jungle fast enough with just your Battle Fury.

Damage block may or may not be useless after laning. It depends on if you get paid a visit by a smoked hero trying to disrupt your farm. Also, if you're fighting early with just a Battle Fury, I'd rather invest the difference (+75 gold) in a PMS to have +6 damage, +6 IAS and guaranteed damage block on a squishy hero.

The only time you should be "accidentally" blinking into a tree is because you're trying to hide before TPing away. If you blink incorrectly when someone is not trying to gank you, you can spare 5-9 seconds.

Chances are PMS won't save you from a gank. The benefits of a QB far outweigh that of PMS imo. Not to mention you already build it so that's 300 gold saved.

^PMS does still minimize harass. AKA You don't buy PMS just to survive a possible gank, rofl.

I see a lot of shit here, but I'll not point it out.

As people says, AM is not in meta therefore rather not pick him.

Skill builds depends on game, but if you're freefarming you could likely go 1-1-1 and put some stats till lvl 7 or 8, then procceed to max blink. (In a freefarm lane you should have battlefury around ~11minutes, so if you don't manage to do it you should probably go pratice lasthitting in lobby.)
If your lasthitting is bad, picking up quellling blade will be much worth it.

Just keep in mind AM is one of those heroes who fights the less. Don't listen to you teammates in 3k scrub bracket telling you to come fight, just push and force teleports. If they're not coming to defend you'll take the tower for free and will then give your team much needed gold. By just splitpushing and taking towers you both destroys the enemies econemy for mass teleports.

When I played AM (when he was in meta, now I just lose with him) I went for:

PMS>Boots> RoH>Treads Battlefury>Yasha Vit Booster>Manta

I used to have around 70% winrate with AM, but it fell of as I continued playing him as I got in higher bracket whilst it was out of meta. So I've dropped, but the hero itself is still one of my favorites.

tired.

A quelling blade is core on am to farm faster in the mid game.

First nice pic I used to have a vintage spy token
When I used to play AM I learned usually the best way to win is rushing boots-> bfury with a quellingblade and stout shield and just jungle/splitpush when safe

Typical am picker normally get 0 kda, they farm till game ends.
So you got better KDA, you are a good am.

Some info for people who didn't check the replay:

There were no stacked camps D:

The kunkka maxed his passive and spammed lv 1 torrent so mana break didn't do much

I should've gotten treads first 100%

IDK about pms because iirc cleave isn't blocked

Dude, it doesn't matter. You should win vs kunkka in any situation. Your mana burn does so much damage, if he comes anywhere near the lane right click him. He gets low enough blink and kill him if he dares come near the creep. Also ring of health should help mitigate any damage he does to you.

FYI Cleave damage is blocked by damage block.

http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Cleave

"Damage dealt by cleave is reduced by armor type and damage block, but not armor value and can't be evaded."

someone please look at my most recent game and tell me what i could have done better? i never play am but i feel i could have won this game.

*did i make the right choice not fighting? it seemed impossible when my team wouldnt initiate (not really blaming them) and they have rubick, rhasta and es

Your items are fine. Why did you decide to max Blink first? That doesn't make sense.

Was your team constantly fighting 4v5 or did they simply suck? Their collective KDA is awful.

I've never seen a Juggernaut go hardcore caster and have that kind of KDA.

First of all:

AM is not in the meta, so winning with him is not easy.

Second:

You can win with antimage on a regualr base, but it is harder than with other carries that are part of the meta (Luna, Naix, Terror etc.).

52 in 10 mins is ok, but not awesome. With freefarm you need at least 60 with am. I brought him to 50% winratio in soloque recently (started with 9% out of 11 games) and have 60% in the last month (3.8 K MMR acutal status).

Buy 2 pair of tangos, 1 salve and stoutshield. You can buy your QB on lane. Its not important for lanecreeps, only for jungle (still more comfortable)

Go PMS if you face hard harrass. Next item you go is boots. With 8 tangos you should be able to manage your regen until Roh. If you face a hard duallane go Roh into Full Boots and buy a ring of regen. The 3+ extra health regen pays really of. And you can upgrade it into vlads. Many ppl will flame u for vlads, but even burning and black built it in publics. It allows you to farm ancients and solorosh with a yasha. With Roh+RoR, fullboots and pms you are allready pretty tanky.

After your Bf+Vlads you go yasha into manta. Depending on enemy lockdown you go BKB or heart. last item should be butterfly or bash.

Timemarks for this (with freefarm)

12-14 Min: Brown boots, battlefury, pms

14-18 Min: Fullboots

16-20 Min: vlads

22-25 Min: Yasha

23-27 Min: Manta

28-30 Min: Heart

For the skills there is only 1 built: Burningbuilt.

Before you have farmed your BF you do not ever join your team, no matter how much they beg for it. After your vlads/yasha you can start joining teamfights. Your mainaim should be still farming and splitpushing. Farm, and push. Rat doto is antimagedoto. If the enemy team pressures your tower and your team holds them, just keep pushing. Sometimes enemy team will go in and overextend you can even take a rax.

The feeling for the right time and the right way to join is the hardest part for antimage. Teamfights are the part where the good am's fall apart from the bad ones. The targetpicking in teamfights and positioning is the key for winning (beside splitpush). You need the expierence for the moment. You need to have a feeling for enemy cooldowns, and knowledge about manacosts and the spells that are cast.

Jump in after no dangerous lockdowns are available and someone of the enemy team casted manyintensive spells (zeusult/rhastault/sky). Ult him. After this move you hit him to death. Proceed with hitting, if enemys are low hp and no dangerous stuff available. otherwise blink out. Never go in, if you feel unsafe. if you see a 30% chance of death, do not go in. Am needs his farm. Your carrypotential is the ability to outfarm every other carry. In 1v1 situation many carries are harder then you. So never die.

Watch Blacks, Burnings and Beesas replays of antimage. You can laern alot of them.

http://dotabuff.com/players/43908335

http://de.dotabuff.com/players/90892734

http://de.dotabuff.com/players/21289303

they did fight several times, the axe was a friend of mine whos new and that wd was awful. a few of the fights i came in and picked off jugg or rhasta once it ended, but they would just push us in really hard because my entire team died

There were at least 2 fights early where i was unable to tp and help. Most of the time i tped, but i just ended up cleaning up

Cleaning up kinda describes all i did for the first 30 minutes, I just took towers and tped to fights, took 1 kill with ult and chased easy kills. Probably why everyone else has so few kills tbh

I had no clue damage block stops cleave. Next time I'll go PMS

Key things for that lane that could've been improved:
* Against a Kunkka, a PMS isn't going to do much. You will take occasional harass however it's nothing considerable like if you were laned against a ranged hero. Most of the time if he attacks you, you attack him too.
* Early levels in stats increases your survivability in lane. Maxing your blink isn't going to give you more kill potential.
- Look at the lane. You are against a solo kunkka with a Mirana supporting you. The way you are going to get a kill there is if she hits an arrow and you blink on him. Being able to blink again when you have a higher base movespeed as well as leap additional movespeed is not going to effect whether or not you get the kill.
The extra levels in stats will increase your survivability while you farm up your battle fury.
- Once you're about 2k gold away from your battle fury (halfway there), start to max out your blink. All in all this should give you a timing window where you get your battle fury and have max blink (or almost have it)

Once your battlefury is up your focus is not on what your team is doing and you need to communicate this with them. Tell them to group up and push bottom while you push top, but don't show yourself in top until they show themselves in bottom. The thing about pubs is people like to ride the pub train, your enemy will see a heap of heroes in bot and react there. That's when you get freefarm top, and a tower.

Remember to farm the enemy jungle. This gives you a large gold boost, and detriments your opponent because it's ~700 potential value that was lost for the minute.

The key component to playing anti-mage is that you are away from your team. You defend towers by pushing their towers and forcing them back. If they group up and push a tower as 5, you make sure they trade it for a tower of theirs.

After you push a wave, farm the jungle before the next wave. There should be no down-time with your farming. Rotate around the map to keep all lanes pushed in while farming woods.

Push out bot, farm their jungle, push out mid, farm their ancients and your jungle, push out top.

It's not great to have 50cs at 10 minutes by any stretch, but the key thing is what you do with it after that time. I played a solo anti-mage against an aggressive trilane and a NS mid who ganked me hard. The key thing was to not die, then recover the farm. At 10 minuets I had about 25cs, I died once, picked up my battle fury about 19-20 minutes, then farmed all across the map. Don't stress too hard if you lose out the early game, that is expected unless you are heavily defended. The key thing to playing anti-mage is map awareness, and taking favourable trades.

Hate magic. If you hate it hard enough you'll eventually win the game.

Am is a selfish pick.

From all my AM experiences, all I can say is, you need good lane support and other people not losing their lane in the first 15 min.
Usually it's kind of easy to secure your lane with AM with high levels of mana burn. If enemy doesn't have any hard CC you can occasionally blink behind them and hit'em 3 times and they will get scared and back off. I personally recommend finishing PT before BF due to the IAS and most importanly HP the PT give you. Vlads is kind of optional, usually you want to rush a manta after BF and a vit booster, then, if you're tanky enough you can go for basher before finishing heart.

Usually when I love with AM is because either I have absolutely 0 lane support or my team just fails their lanes so hard the enemy team just decides to go 5 man at 10 minute mark.

I definitely think AM needs a sort of buff to fit into the meta a little more (he actually was never very popular due to his high farm dependency, except for 6.75 I think when he had very low BAT and high armor and could fight early on).

I'd really like to see a change to his skill set / stat gain. Maybe make him a little more like MageBane from HoN. Giff his mana shield another components like the nether ward to make him more of an anti-mage. And a little higher STR gain/lvl wouldn't be bad either.