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Skillbuid:
1: Nightmare
2: Brain Sap
3: Brain Sap
4: Stats
5: Brain Sap
6: Fiend's Grip
7: Brain Sap
8-10: Nightmare
11: Fiend's Grip
12-15: Enfeeble
16: Fiend's Grip
17+: Stats
Item build:
Starting: x2
Extension/Luxury:
Gameplay tips:
Manage your mana carefully in early game
Go ganking from level 6
Use all your abilities and items before casting your ult in teamfights
Do not killsteal
Place wards and keep a TP Scroll
~Table Of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Story
3. Info and Stats
4. Skills
5. Skill Build
6. Item Build
7. Strategy
8. Hero Synergy
9. Screens and Additional Strategy
10. Conclusion
11. Replays
12. Credits
This is my first guide I decided to write it because Atropos is one of my favourite heroes in DotA and the only guide about him on this website is badly outdated. I hope you have fun reading it and that it will help you improve your skills. Please feel free to comment, rate, criticize and what not on this guide
Atropos the Bane Elemental is a disabler, whose role in team is centralized on ganking and supporting. Although being a powerful hero, he is unfortunately not very popular in neither public, nor competitive games. I'm not a competitive player myself, but I think there are three main reasons why Bane is seldom picked on tournaments: Firstly, bane sucks terrebly at pushing. No AOE skill, no physical damage output - nothing that will help clear a creepwave. Secondly, Radiance, a very popular item in competitive play, doesn't combine well with Nightmare. Finally, Atropos isn't very usefull in teamfights as all of his spells are single-target and ult tends to get interrupted fast when there are a lot of enemies around...
Anyway, Bane is really a very poferfull hero and in the right hands can do a lot of damage and contribute greatly to the team's success.
2. Hero's Story
Atropos is an elemental force personifying the nightmares and fear of this world. He manifests where there is promise of inflicting horror and feeding off dread. Sapping his foes' psyche heals him. Manifesting his enemies' fears, he greatly enfeebles their
ability to fight. He revels in disabling foes by sending them into dread slumber. When need be he can rip his soul and force it into his foes,
effectively immobilizing them with despair and pain. Atropos is, in one word, Fear.
Pros:
[+] A great support hero that all the teammates love
[+] A great disabler hero that all the opponents hate
[+] Strong early and mid game, (especially early-mid game)
[+] A strong ganker from level 6 on (and probably the best ganking partner in game)
[+] Not item-dependable
[+] Good Strength grow and starting Strength (for an Intelligence hero)
[+] Has a pure-damage nuke, which is a heal at the same time
[+] Ranged
[+] Cool backstory
Cons:
[-] Like most intelligence heroes, not that powerful in late game
[-] No AOE spells, thus sucks at pushing and at clearing creepwaves
[-] Relatively weak in large teamfights
[-] Mana problems early game
[-] Silencers are a pain in the ass
[-] Team-dependent
4. Hero's Skills
EnfeebleDescription: This is a rather powerful skill. It has a long range of 1000, which is very nice, and it's duration (20) is longer than it's cooldown (12), so two enemies can Enfeebled at a time. If cast at a right time, it renders one of the enemy heroes absolutely useless. However, it doesn't scale too well into lategame, so don't overestimate it: a lvl 25 Drow Ranger with MKB, Buriza, Butterfly and some other nice items will still rape your team, even if Enfeebled.
Good targets of this spell are:
and other damage-dealing carrys/DPSer's, I'm not gonna name them all.Be careful when casting Enfeeble on heroes like
as they can debuff themselves.
Brain SapDescription: I dare to say, this is one of the best (if not the best) non-ultimate spells in the game.. but only at early levels. It simply works wonders: it heals you, it damages enemies. This spell often turns 'you die, enemy survives' situation into 'you survive, enemy dies' situation. You know Sunder? Terrorblade's ultimate? This is our mini-Sunder. It's simply priceless.
The damage type is pure, so no matter how much magic resistance the enemy has, 300 hp (at lvl 4) will be removed from him.
There are two problems with this spell though: first, it's high mana cost which is, coupled with Atropos' low INT gain, the main cause of our mana problems in early game. Second, it doesn't scale into late game, coz when both you and your opponent have 2500 hp, you will hardly notice a difference after casting Brain Sap.
Use this spell to lasthit an enemy hero, to heal yourself (feel free to cast it on a creep if your hp are low and no enemy heroes are in range) or just as a nuke. I wouldn't advice to use it during early game to harass, because it will eat your mana very fast.
The cooldown is relatively long (14), so keep an eye out on it!
NightmareDescription: Another very useful spell. Simply put, it completely disables an enemy hero for 4-7 seconds. Don't be deceived by it's damage - it's symbolic (unless the hero level is very low).
The Nightmared hero generally shouldn't be attacked, because if he takes damage, he wakes up. This actually can be a problem, coz if you teammates are morons, they will often wake up a Nightmared enemy hero. Here I just wish you luck with your teammates.
About denying with Nightmare. It's very hard (as it requires perfect timing) and you have to be very lucky. Still it's worth a try, especially at early levels. Try to cast Nightmare on yourself(ally) when you(he) has below 20 hp. Otherwise it gives opponents time to react and to finish you(ally) off (and they will no doubt do so, unless they are complete idiots). Lasthitting with Nightmare is similar, but a bit easier. If there are no better options, cast Nightmare on a dying enemy hero. If possible, reposition so that if he wakes up alive you can finish him off with your basic attack (obvious things are obvious, lol).
Be careful when using Nightmare with guys like these on your team:
as their AOE skills are likely to wake up the Nightmared hero. Radiance is especially annoying *sigh*. Please note that I put Necrolyte on this list because of his Death Pulse. Heartstopper Aura does NOT remove Nightmare.
Fiend's GripDescription: Ah, the lovley Fiend's Grip, Bane Elemental's signature skill. This it what makes him such a wonderful disabler. Nobody likes to be standing still for 5 (6 with Aghanim's Scepter) seconds, being raped by the spell itself and Atropos' teammates. And as if that is not enough - it also drains mana! Wonderful spell.
But then again, it has two drawbacks: first, the manacost is rather high, but that is compensated to some extent thanks to the mana drain. And the biggest, the most annoying drawback: Fiend's Grip is a chanelling spell. That means that you can do nothing while Fiend's Gripping, but the worst part is actually the fact that it can be interrupted via stuns and ministuns (and other stuff that interrupts channeling spells like Vengeful Spirit's Nether Swap).
Before casting Fiend's Grip, if possible, try to make sure no one's gonna interrupt it. Because if you don't - well, have fun seeing how you held someone in Fiends Grip for one or two seconds. That means Fiend's Grip isn't as useful in teamfights as in ganks and other situations where you don't have to deal with an entire enemy team.
The cooldown is, I would say, not too long and not too short: 100 seconds. Don't be afraid to use the spell, but keep an eye out on the cooldown!
5. Hero's Skill Build
Level 1: Nightmare
Level 2: Brain Sap
Level 3: Brain Sap
Level 4: Stats
Level 5: Brain Sap
Level 6: Fiend's Grip
Level 7: Brain Sap
Level 8: Nightmare
Level 9: Nightmare
Level 10: Nightmare
Level 11: Fiend's Grip
Level 12: Enfeeble
Level 13: Enfeeble
Level 14: Enfeeble
Level 15: Enfeeble
Level 16: Fiend's Grip
Level 17+: Stats
Skill Build Justification:
As you can see, there is no fixed skill build for Bane.
We always take Nightmare at level 1, because aside from the obvious first blood prevention, it is a nice skill to have. It doesn't benefit very much from leveling, but extra duration is quite useful in teamfights. Stats can be taken insted of Nightmare at levels 8-10 if no teamfight occur.
Brain Sap is maximized as fast as possible (at lvl 2,3,5,7) because it works wonders early and mid game.
Enfeeble can be taken as early as level 8 if there are a lot of DPS'ers in enemy team, but generally enemy dps starts to get dangerous around level 12. In an unlikely situation, it is possible not to skill Enfeeble until level 22 if there are no dps'ers at all in the enemy team (unlucky '-ar' for them, for example).
Fiend's Grip is taken whenever possible for obvious reasons.
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