Alleria

Alleria The Windrunner


Introduction

Hello sir or miss and welcome. If you don't know about me already, I'm happy to introduce myself as Ingolf, a guide writer. I like DotA a lot and I like to write guides a lot too. I'm mostly trying to give a breath of fresh air with new interesting playstyles and uncovered potentials for the heroes I describe.

Alleria is another lately introduced hero and it appears to me that lots of people don't truly know how to utilize her potential correctly. In this guide I will take you through basic builds, presented argumentations, in-depth strategies and hopefully exciting and nonetheless helpful tips on how to control her. Enjoy your stay.

Hero analysis

For more in-depth hero stats and abilities descriptions, follow this link to the Dota Allstars Wiki.

Let's first take a look on Alleria's abilities. She has a long lasting stun and an excellent long-ranged nuke. Both have rather low cooldowns. Her stun, however, suffers from being a bit unreliable by itself hence it does best timed with other stuns. An ally could do this job, but so could an item (here I speak of Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse). If Alleria wears this item she can lock a single target by a significant period on her own.
Her nuke goes fast and far. It takes a little practice to get used to due to its casting time, but it's not hard to use at all. Its damage is also high and though it gets reduced for each target it passes through, it's not something significant to notice. When timed with another stun(ner), Alleria can gank and kill excellently with one strong nuke and a long lasting (though difficult) stun.

For her two other skills she has an escape (or chase) mechanism in form of Windrunner and a burst damage ability in form of Focus Fire. The good and the bad part about Focus Fire is that it's based on Alleria's physical damage. In other words, the more damage she has, the more dangerous it gets. On the other hand, the less damage she has, the weaker it is. Anyway, these two abilities make Windrunner able to semi-carry decently. She can deal a good amount of damage instantaneously but she can't as such keep up with other carries like Spectre or Skeleton King, or deal as much damage as a Razor or Faceless Void because she suffers from being an intelligence hero who barely benefits from agility gains. She doesn't have any passive abilities like critical strikes, bashes or evasions that help her deal a lot of constant damage; she can deal good damage in an instant once she has items, but she can't maintain a constant flow of this.

To conclude, Alleria is a great ganker thanks to Shackle Shot and Power Shot; preferably with other disablers. She can semi-carry and deal good damage in a matter of seconds thanks to Focus Fire and she is hard to target because of Windrunner. But because of her main attribute intelligence and her relatively low agility gain, she isn't able to fully compete with other excellent damage dealers hereby fulfilling the job of a true, reliable, late game carry hero.

Skill build

Level 1 - Windrunner
Level 2 - Powershot
Level 3 - Powershot
Level 4 - Shackleshot
Level 5 - Powershot
Level 6 - Shackleshot
Level 7 - Powershot
Level 8 - Shackleshot
Level 9 - Shackleshot
Level 10 - Focus Fire
Level 11 - Windrunner
Level 12 - Windrunner
Level 13 - Windrunner
Level 14 - Focus Fire
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Focus Fire
Level 17-25 - Stats

Justifications

Windrunner will be taken at level 1 so you can avoid potential first blood ganks on you. From here, Powershot will be levelled over Shackleshot; Shackleshot is too unreliable at the beginning to be truly effective. Powershot's damage is tremendous so it's much better to rely on and it also allows you to harass your enemies much better. Finally it helps finishing off escaping enemies in ganks and whatsoever should you get in a such situation. However, Shackleshot will be maxed directly after because you will hit it in many situations once you learn to use it effectively and its duration is terrific once it activates correctly.

Add 1 level of Focus Fire after you've maxed Powershot and Shackleshot. 1 level is good because you can use it to shoot towers and other huge resting things (hi Roshan!), but leveling it from here is overdoing it. The 10% extra damage is not a negative thing, but a lower cooldown and longer duration on Windrunner is more important right here. Max that ability fast and get the rest of your skill points in Focus Fire when you're available.

Item build

Starting items



Core item build



Luxury items afterward



Justifications

Two Mantles of Intelligence, a Circlet of Nobility and a set of Ancient Tangoes of Essifation will be bought as your starting items because they give you good damage for last hitting purposes + some health and mana to harass/withstand harass. The Ancient Tangoes of Essifation will of course be used to neglect harassers too, so you can stay in your lane longer.

Later you will upgrade your two Mantles to Null Talismans so you have more health and mana for ganking + some extra damage to last hit and "general attacking" as well. Boots of Speed are mandatory as always.
Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse will then be bought so you can (almost) perfectly set up ganks yourself without having to rely too much on other disablers. Once you have your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse, positioning Shackleshot will be ten times easier hence this is why this item is your corner stone.

Once you have your sheepstick, you should buy Orchid Malevolence because it gives you excellent damage and attack speed, which is just what you need to fight with and without Focus Fire. Buying pure damage is not a completely good choice because you will shoot too slow when you don't use Focus Fire which of course you won't be able to all the time, hence you need attack speed too. Finally the buffer effect it gives neglects Focus Fire's reduced damage very well. This is also why you should buy a pair of Power Treads later when you feel like you can squeeze them in your build. Boots of Travel are good but not completely necessary; Windrunner will give you 518 movement speed when you have Boots of Speed alone, so you don't need the extra movement speed from Boots of Travel + you can get around more easily when you blaze fast. The attack speed on the Power Treads is really what we're looking for so you can deal greater damage "outside" Focus Fire.

Finally Stygian Desolator gives you excellent damage for your ultimate as it penalties a part of your target's armor, giving you more direct, raw damage.

Gameplay walkthrough

Early game

For lane assignments I usually prefer to either solo somewhere, or lane with a stunner, but it doesn't matter terribly much though.
Once you're in it, you should try to harass your enemies with Powershot from time to time when you're level 3 and above. If you're laning with a stunner, you can try to go for kills at level ~3-4 and above where he stuns first so you can position yourself for a Shackleshot.

See if you can stay in your lane for awhile and farm some gold for your items, but once you're level ~6-7 and above, you should begin to look for opportunities to gank. Try not to spend too much time roaming so you lose too much gold and experience without really succeeding in anything. Try to look for "obvious" gank opportunities with allies and something that you can finish successfully and quickly.

When you're not ganking you should try to farm a little gold for your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse. Don't spend all your time running forth and back because it will make you horribly outfarmed later.

Middle game

Still try to look for opportunities to gank. Ganking on your own is often not very smart because you won't have the capability to take your enemy down. Ganking with one or more allies (preferably someone with a stun) is way better, hence you should try to follow your allies around in ganks to make them successful.
Try not to get yourself in the spotlight; you're vulnerable to nukes and disables so getting in the front and in the center of the combats every time is mostly a bad idea. Try to let your teammates walk first and let them initiate. Then wait for a correct moment to catch someone with Shackleshot and/or finish them off with Powershot.

When you aren't ganking with your teammates and if you aren't pushing either, you ought to farm (lanes preferably) for your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse. In a decent game with decent farm and decent opponents, I usually have it around the 30th minute to compare. Getting it before is very common, but getting it later is not uncommon either. Just try not to get it delayed too much. If you get close to no gold and experience at all, you should stop attempting and failing too many ganks and instead try to farm a bit so you aren't completely no fool.

Late game

Around this time you will often have your Orchid Malevolence. Your job in the late game is to look for heroes in combats to disable with Shackleshot. It would of course be best if you could disable the ones that need focus, but seeing that it's not always possible, disabling anyone (or even double-disabling them) to nullify their combat powers for awhile is fine. You can and should use your Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse on the enemy that needs to be disabled (e.g. their carry hero or whatsoever, someone that is a great threat to your team).
When you fight, try to use your Orchid Malevolence first and then activate Focus Fire, because the amplified damage will neglect the reduced damage on Focus Fire greatly. Try to focus the hero that your team wants focus on. Mostly it will stand out in the combats whom you are focusing hence you should be able to determine it rather fast.

Again, try to avoid being focused when you fight. Don't stand in the middle of everything, don't be the first to run in and try to avoid as many bad ultimates and other abilities as possible. Try to stand from as far range as you can and do not get reckless. Survival is vital.

Your main job in the combats is basically trying to disable as many heroes as possible while using Orchid Malevolence/Focus Fire on a good target while staying safe from a distance.

Attaching the string - The art of Shackleshooting

Shackleshot is arguably one of the hardest single-targeted disables to use in the game. However, its duration is formidable and it has a chance to hit not only one, but two enemies. The far most difficult task, however, is throwing it correctly.
I will start with teaching you how it works and when it activates, because if you don't know how it works you won't be able to use it correctly either.

The Shackleshot is thrown like a Storm Bolt, which means it's a targetted ability. The missile will then launch from Alleria with a decent speed; notice that the missile speed isn't fast so if you stand from a long distance to your target, the line gets "bent". When the missile hits its target, it will check for other enemies or trees in a direct line behind the target in the angle corresponding to the position you shot it. If it finds any enemies or a tree it will lace the two units together. If it doesn't find anything it will ministun the target for 0,5 seconds (which works well to interrupt channeling effects by the way). Here's what it looks like:

Here I shoot the Shackleshot on the Ghoul in front of me. Now, imagine a straight line from where I shoot it to some distance behind the target. A Necromancer is touching that line, so the Shackleshot will bind both units together.


The easiest thing is to imagine the "shackle area" as a direct line behind the unit just like before, but it's in fact a very slim cone, which means it sometimes shackles a tiny bit to the sides. The cone I'm talking about covers about this area. On this picture, the first thing standing in my Shackleshot target's cone is a tree behind it. This is also the maximum distance the shackle line goes. Anything behind this target is "out of range". Notice that the range it checks for units is decently far, so units do not always necessarily have to stand one inch from something to lace onto.


If the Shackleshot has nothing to lace onto, the target will get ministunned but will not get bound with anything. Hence the Shackleshot will "miss", just like this picture.


This is the maximum range from which you can use Shackleshot. Notice that the range is pretty big.

Now that we have learned how to use it... then how do we use it correctly? The very first and basic thing you want to imagine when you're shooting it at someone, is the line from you to the target to something. If you see a straight connection, like to a tree or a unit, then shoot it. If you see there's no straight connection, then don't shoot it. Here are a few classic examples. When you shoot your Shackleshot, you ought to imagine the line I've drawn on these examples:

Target: Venomancer, Connection: Tree


Target: Furion, Connection: Necromancer


Target: Silencer, Connection: Tree

These examples are simple and very straight forward. However, not all opportunities will be as simple as these. First of all, the further you stand to your target and the faster he's running, the more oblique will it hit. Before you shoot the Shackleshot, you need to consider if it will attach to something the moment it hits.

I take a shot on Silencer who's running past me. If he had stood still, my Shackleshot wouldn't have hit him because in the moment I shoot it, there is nothing behind him. However, his movement "drags" the missile with him, bends the course it takes and hits a tree that collides with the "new" line behind him.

By now you should have an idea on how to use it as a "direct" shot on someone; how you need to imagine a straight line that should connect to a point behind the target and finally how you need to take your distance to the target and the target's movement speed and direction into consideration to find out if it shackles.

However, for the next part I will teach you how to take the situation into account. Sometimes it may not look like you can shackle someone where you in fact can. The first example I want to show you is that you can use a "middle-step" or a "secondary target" to shackle the one you really want to capture. Let me show it to you:

I'm about to shackle Furion, but as you can see there is nothing behind him. However, I've positioned myself so the Necromancer works as the "trigger". Hence I choose to shoot my Shackleshot on the Necromancer so Furion gets shackled as well.

You should always be aware of the environment around you and your target to see if there's an opportunity to hit anything with Shackleshot. Sometimes situations appear where it might not look like there's anything, but if you take a closer look you will often find a loophole.

At a first glance, it might not look like my target (Queen of Pain who is hexed), has anything to be attached to in the middle of the river, and I'm standing in a terrible position to do something. However, at a closer look you can see trees in the background. The distance between Queen of Pain and the trees behind her is far and the chance that I will shackle her is vague. However, I take a shot anyway, hoping that the Shackleshot will connect, which it luckily does.

Powershooting

To describe it shortly, Powershot is a very long and fast nuke that takes up to 1 second to build up and deals damage based on time channeled. In other words, it's just like Keeper of the Light's Illumination, but its width is much smaller, goes much more far and have some extra features like destroying trees it hits. Another noticeable thing is that its damage gets reduced for every target it hits.

It would be troublesome to take a screenshot of its appearance, so I'm not gonna do that. You will find out how it moves pretty quickly anyway. Instead I'll teach you some techniques with it.

First of all, taking aim and predicting your opponents path is the first thing you must learn and that is not something I can teach you through mere words. Practice makes perfect. It only has a 1 second channeling time so it's not terribly hard to use anyway, though you might of course miss it once in awhile.

The first and arguably most basic way you should learn to use Powershot is harassing one or more enemies in a lane. Here's a common example:

As you can (hopefully) see, I sent a successful Powershot directly on Admiral Proudmoore and it dealt quite some damage. While I'm at it I might as well teach you the next lesson. If you want to harass or in any way damage a hero or another primary target you should aim to bump that target up your Powershot-hierarchy. What I mean by that is that you should try to hit your Powershot on the hero before any other units. The more units the Powershot passes through, the less damage it deals. To deal as much damage you can on a primary target, try to let it pass through the smallest amount of creeps possible. That way it'll deal maximum damage. On this screenshot I hit Kunkka before anything else.

Hitting heroes with Powershot is basically all about training, so I'm gonna move on to the next point instead. Now I'm gonna teach you how to utilize the fact that Powershot destroys trees. I can think of tons of individual situations where you can and will use this and it's actually very simple. Let's first take a look at this:

Very straight-forward; I used the Powershot to cut down the trees and made me a shortcut. This is just an example, but from here on I could use this shortcut to backstab an enemy, escape from a backstab myself and lots of other things.

So basically you can create shortcuts through areas of trees and use it for different purposes. One of the most obvious things to use it for is surprising your enemy. Now, cutting trees is a rather simple thing, however, a more advanced (though not entirely hard) technique is to hit your target while cutting. If you can deal some damage while making a perfect route you're getting the most out of your Powershot as you can. Optimizing is a great.

When using Powershot, especially to cut down trees, then be creative. Figure your enemy's movements, think of alternative ways to use it, use it to scout and etc. It's first and foremost a damage ability, but it has got a lot more potential to it. Use it and try to get the most out of your situation.

thx to 1st post Ingolf@dota-allstars.com