Introduction
Since Icefrog remade Magnus a bit in 6.67 and I played him around 10 times in this short time so far, (and I’m bored) I want to give you a guide to the cool new Magnus. This time it won’t be a step-by-step because it doesn’t help explaining Magnus’ play style. It was just perfect for explaining Bloodseeker’s and Nightstalker’s one because you can clearly say what they should do at a certain point of the game. But I will try to keep up your motivation with pictures and videos in this guide.
Role
Teamfight
IIIII
Support
IIIII
Carry
IIIII
Ganker
IIIII
This new rating system looks pretty cool huh?^^ (I copied it from some TD) But before you all start disagreeing with me I have to explain my opinion about Magnus and his roles.
Teamfight: He is made for teamrapes. His new Skewer makes him more Dagger independent (what doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy it), allows you come close to your enemies and gather them a bit, your Ultimate stuns and sticks them at one point and Empower in combination with melee physical dps carries does the rest.
Support: Magnus doesn’t rape a team on his own. Just in really rare cases when he is feeded and overfarmed. His only carry skill is Empower that should rather be casted on melee physical dps heroes that have carry skills and/or are agility heroes. Magnus himself is just a tanky and slow attacking guy. So initiate and let the carries go rampage.
Carry: Empower can be maintained on 2 heroes. That means if there is just one other carry, Magnus can be the second candidate. Even without other carry skills he can farm better than other carries thanks to Shockwave and cleave what allows him to get some strong dps items faster than other heroes. But some empowered Kunkka is still more effective, even with less farm. Rather buff 2 carries.
Ganker: One of his roles, but his weakest one. Skewer is some amazing ganking skill because you can pull heroes to your team. Also you can create a path through trees for surprise buttsex But the cooldown is very high for a normal skill (45 seconds) and it needs good positioning and teamplay. Since teamfights happen very rarely in early/mid game, your ultimate can be used for ganking. Shockwave gives you burstdamage, what is never bad.
In general it’s that: You don’t go ganking very often, but you usually kill more than one hero.
In a nutshell: Magnus fits perfectly into clash oriented teams with one or 2 physical dps carries.
When to Pick
When your team needs an initiator
When your team has one or more melee physical dps carries
When your team has deals much AoE damage
Skills
For detailed descriptions look here Magnataur - DotA Hero Details.
Shockwave
Description
A very simple AoE damage skill that works good with your ultimate . The mana costs are low and even when your mana pool is too, mana regenerating makes it very spamable.
Use
-Farming
-Ganking
-Teamfights
AoE
*Note: The missile travels 350 warcraft meters farer than you click.
Empower
Description
This skill allows your team mates and yourself to kill a whole team while your ultimate stuns them.
Use
-Farming
-Teamfights
AoE
Skewer
Description
This skill allows you to land a good ultimate even without blink. It is also very useful for tactical ganks.
Use
-Ganks
-Teamfights
AoE
Reverse Polarity
Description
Your signature skill that is incredible mighty in teamfights and has great synergy with your other skills.
Use
Teamfights
Ganks
AoE
Skillbuild
1. Skewer
2. Shockwave
3. Shockwave
4. Empower
5. Shockwave
6. Reverse Polarity
7. Shockwave
8. Empower
9. Empower
10. Empower
11. Reverse Polarity
12. Stats
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Stats
16. Reverse Polarity
17-22 Stats
23. Skewer
24. Skewer
25. Skewer
Shockwave should be maxed first for obvious reasons, the new Empower is superior compared to stats, Reverse Polarity should be skilled whenever it’s possible of course. The only thing that could confuse you a bit is this one level of Skewer. For some reason (and I think Icefrog will change this, it’s very strange) just Skewer’s damage increases from 50 to 200 when you skill it out. Cooldown, slow and range stay the same. I think this is the skill that benefits least from skilling it more than one time in the whole game.
A short review: What did Icefrog change in 6.67?
In my opinion Icefrog did an amazing job here. He solved all problems and made Magnus a hero that is very funny to play.
Magnus had a big conflict between supporting and carrying because of his skills. Empowering a physical dps carry is always more beneficial than himself, but for some reason he had cleave, what was a reason for buffing himself. He can Empower yourself also. Yes. But when you pick Magnus, why shouldn’t your team pick 2 physical dps carries? Buffing this 2 is more effective than 1 and himself. So Mighty Swing (his cleave, I had to look for it because I always call it cleave^^) was waste.
The new Empower allows carries to benefit much more from Magnus’ other skills and Magnus doesn’t have this stupid cleave problem anymore.
The second problem was that he can’t land a good ultimate without buying blink. Tidehunter’s ultimate has insane range, Earthshaker has a long range stun to come closer, but Magnus had nothing. Skewer solves this problem pretty good and makes Reserve Polarity much more effective and turns Magnus into one of the best initiators of the game.
Items
Starting Items
or
GG-Branches give you cheap stats and can be used for Magic Wand, Tangos are needed to stay on lane. When nobody else does you should buy a chicken, if somebody does, buy Quelling Blade for better lasthitting.
Basic Core
Optional
Bottle is a very cheap item to stay on lane (the middle one the the best one for refilling the Bottle with runes) and spam Shockwave, Magic Wand and Boots are standard. Don’t forget: You have a courier. Let the poor little thing bring you the items.
If nobody does you can upgrade the chicken to a crow, it is very useful because you can let the crow refill your Bottle. 200 Gold and a bit micro can solve your mana problems quite well.
If nobody buys wards, do so. They are very important in every game. But you shouldn't be the main warder in general, you benefit far more from items than a for example a Demon Witch does. This Warding guide will help you:
Your first big item is still Dagger. Yes, you have Skewer. The new skill doesn’t make Dagger pointless, it makes it much cooler and more fun. You can do cool stuff like Blinking to someone and pull him ninja-like to your team with Skewer. Initiating with Dagger is still easier since Skewer’s 800 range aren’t that much.
Advanced Items
Your advanced itembuild dependents on the number of physical dps carries in your team. If there are more that 1 other carry, go for the supportive build. If not, go for the carry build.
Carry
Power Treads give you cheap stats and attack speed, the intelligence version will help you in cases where you don’t have enough mana for using all your skills.
Armlets perfectly fit your role: Dealing as much damage as possible in the seconds where your enemies are stunned. It’s quite cheap by the way. Empower just buffs bonus damage from stats, what means that you should cast it after turning Armlet on. If you want you can turn it off after that if you just want to farm instead of killing heroes. Always turn it on if you want to kill somebody.
Mask of Madness is an alternative item to Armlet. I made some test and found out that Armlet's and Mom's (+ 2 Blades of Attack, since Armlet is 900 gold more expensive) deal pretty much the same damage. You have to decide what you want more: Lifesteal or bonus damage (deactivating Armlet after casting Empower).
Battlefury is a your extremely manly cookie cutter item. Players that feel cool like to buy 4 of them. It gives you a bit mana regeneration that is really needed, damage and more cleave.
Fun fact: 6 Battlefuries and Empower give you 255% splash (and +435 damage).
Assault Cuirass gives a lot of damage and makes you tankier. It helps your team also.
Buriza is very strong for obvious reasons, splash crit is just amazing.
In late game Treats should be replaced by Boots of Travel since winning nearly always dependents on surprising the enemies with pushes and surprise group buttsex when some of their heroes are missing.
Orb effects
They are something that Magnus simply doesn’t need. He goes in and deals as much AoE damage as he can. The items I told you are much better for this than corruption or lifesteal.
Support
Shiva’s Guard gives your team some useful slow, makes yourself tankier, and you can deal a bit damage. And you have no mana problems anymore
Force Staff is a very useful item in any situation. You can save allies, chase enemies, initiate from a even longer distance and this stuff. With good timing you can hit Shockwave 2 times.
Vladimir’s Offering gives you the needed mana regeneration, allows you to push faster and buffs your melee carries even more.
How should you land a good ultimate when you don't see anyone? Gem of True Sight will help you.
Assault Cuirass’ attack speed doesn’t help you that much without empower, so it’s actually better in the carry build. The aura and the additional tankyness are still a reason for a support Magnus to buy it.
Guinsoo’s is an amazing item on nearly any hero (the most just need other items more). Hex is mainly to shut down a carry but it is also very useful for ganking in mid/lategame since all of Magnus’ disables and slows have a high cooldown. No more mana problems and more survivability are cool, too.
Pipe can be bought when you play against AoE strats, an early hood makes you quite tanky.
Arcane Ring is a good item when you run around with mana dependent heroes like Earthshaker or Tidehunter, what means when you are playing a high magical AoE damage strategy.
How can you be useful when you aren’t even there when you are needed? For that reason Travels should be bought. I explained it at the carry build already.
Last but not least Refresher Orb is a very imbalanced item on Magnus. 8 seconds of slow are more than enough time to kill a whole team in late game.
Eul's is a very useful item that solves your mana problems, helps you positioning for Skewer and Reverse Polarity in ganks and teamfights (more in ganks actually). Combined with Dagger you are very hard to kill.
The only problem: Your mana. You need Guinsoo’s AND Shiva’s Guard to handle the mana costs. Don’t worry you just have to spend 15.675 gold for all this stuff .
Gameplay
Ah, congratulations , you passed the theroycrafting part. Let’s start with the gameplay.
Early Game (1-7)
Step 1: Chose your lane
Let’s do what Magnus can actually add to your lane’s power.
1. A normal damaging skill without any stun or slow. This doesn’t really help your mate and is just useful in a burst damage combo. It makes you a potential solo since it can be spammed for lasthits and harass what results in lane control.
2. A ability to pull someone into your creeps or tower. This is much more interesting and actually needs a stunner or disabler to be used offensely. This is a pretty powerful dual lane skill, that can be useful for fleeing when you go solo.
In fact you can always go solo, dual laning can work pretty good with a stunner.
Step 2: Laning
Solo: You aim is actually not kill, but levelling and farming since you can’t kill smart opponents on your own. Usually you go mid.
The most important thing is fitting to your lane opponent. Lasthit with your normal attack as much as possible. Actually there are 2 situations:
1. Your opponent hero has high lane control and harasses you whenever it’s possible.
2. Your opponent hero is just mid to farm and level and is melee, like Balanar or Rexxar.
Managing you mana with Bottle
This is really needed. Your mana pool is low, you will run out of mana quickly even when Shockwave’s mana costs are low, but this low costs make filling up your mana with Bottle very effective since using your Bottle gives you more Shockwaves than for example it would give a Queen of Pain Scream of Pains.
1. Use runes to fill your Bottle: This should be done mostly when you are solo mid because you can reach both runespots easily, you shouldn’t run from bottom lane to top rune for example. Wards help a lot here.
2. Crow + Bottle: Let your crow take your empty Bottle, let it refill at the fountain, let the crow come back to you. Do that whenever your Bottle is empty. I think you know what I mean. This requires a bit micro management and is a bit annoying to do, but it is a way to keep your mana high. The only important thing is micromanagement without neglecting your hero.
Here is one of the lists I like so much:
1. Bind your hero on Strg + 1
2. Bind your courier on Strg +2
Binding makes it much more easy. Binding shops on Strg + 3-9 is a easy way to let your courier bring you new items.
3. Order your courier to come to a save area near to you (usually the tower) when your Bottle is empty and give the Bottle to him.
3. Now use courier’s skill to let it return to the fountain, press “Shift” and order him to give the Bottle to your hero, press “Shift” again and order him to return to the fountain. Now the courier will do all this stuff and you don’t have to micro him.
Oh my god, someone ganks me!
No problem, seriously. You have Skewer and Reverse Polarity which will help you fleeing.
The only “problem” is that Skewer pulls enemies with you. So there are 2 things that you can do:
Subject: Magnataur Hero guide 
Tue May 11, 2010 10:38 pm
