New Skill Guide for CHAU2

Will update it asap but i really recommend getting summons and nukes as they are more buff in a way that lets you out farm and out level str, agi heroes who would usally go for passives. **in new CHAU2 only**

Offensive skills

Carrion Beetle: useful when farming, however you cannot use this in the duel ecause there aren't any dead bodies available to summon it with. (unlike other summons has no expire limit)

Moonsoon: a channeling aoe nuke, good farming skill.

Death Pulse: Best farming nuke in my opinion, at level 12 does over 2k damage over 5sec around your hero, it can damage magical immune units AND it goes through avatar. (somewhat moderate mana cost, recommended for int melee hero as you would have to get close to do some damage, and the caster cannot use anyother spells as long as the spell is active.)

Life Drain: haven't used it yet, seems superior version of consume.

Pulverize: This is a must skill if you hope to out farm your oppnent who has mass nukes if you are a passive agi, str hero.

Healing wave:I wouldn't recommend this skill at all early game beacausethis will hinder your farmming capabilities, unless of course you decides to combine this w a summoning skill in which case it becomes a must. (also great for teambattles)

Tantacles: sort of like mass ward skill cept its tantacles, not great damage, i would prefer fire ward to this skill.
(acts as sort of tank against creeps as they are attracted to it.)

nova: simply great nuke at farming and such, extremely useful because in extreme mode spell will help you creep faster, and unlike chau1 melee heros can't catch up.

chain: same as above but more useful than nova because you farm faster.

Magic Volley: same as above (can be awsome counter to lesser summons)

vampiric: added over 100 damage at lvl 12 and gives about 45% lifesteal for long duration, however can be purged by other players, use it at your own risk. (simply great move against creeps and bosses alike, however not so great against smarter players as they will most definately purge it off.)

Thunder Clap: a decent skill early to mid game with the fast cool down and slowing effect, however late game it will not affect your opponent's attack speed AT ALL. ( even if you stack this with slow ward and psn strike it WILL NOT slow player's or bosses like rag, ? and badgers attack speed.) however this can be used as ganking skill early on if you choose to.

Death strike: Decent Skill later on (in many cases if you are lucky n gets few hits of this it can actually be more powerful than reincarnation.) its an ok skill, do not up this skill first if you have farming skill.

soul burn:pretty awsome move, slows, silences, lowers damage and deals damage over time for up to 10seconds.

use this skill on bosses or players to gank them or help in team battles ( not so great at gank early on because of short duration at lower levels).

Frenzy: very useful early game to mid game, however it becomes useless after your opponents gets farmed enuff to get exceptional orb of lightening.

Stormbolt: only get it if you are looking at mid to late game depending on your stretagy as the damage is crap and it will only be used for disable purposes. ( if you are looking at late game ownage try combining this with static field and demon spawn, at level 40 you will do 10 seconds of spammable stun.)

shockwave: narrow aoe but more useful in chau2 because if someone has nukes its harder for melee and passive builders to catch up late game. ( same goes for disablers, all nuke is way more effective because you level faster and creep spawn faster and at higher level because of it.)

Fire ward: awsome skill against regular creeps, crap against players and bosses alike.
(NOTE VERY SLOW ATTACK SPEED ON AT ALL LEVELS FOR AIMING SINGLE TARGET) also most smart players will kill the ward as soon as its summoned, and the bosses will naturally target any summoned ward/summons first before they target player. (again quite useful because lets you other farm other person.)

Corrupt Flesh: useless early on, however in mid to late game it becp,es extremely useful if you stack this with a corruption weapon. (apparently Glorn took out Degenerating talon in new v so i don;t know if it will be as effective as it used to be.) + has aoe when cast on packed units.

Defensive Skills

Devotion Aura: pretty decent skill in team games, wouldn't recommend it for 1 on 1.

Holy light: probably one of best skills in game.

Hardened skin: good skill on tanks and hybrids.

Defend: good skill on tanks and other builds, but slows movement speed and attack speed, decreases damages taken both physical and magical. ( i would recommend you pair this with a endurance aura or endurance aura giving items to negate the -speed debuff.)

Water summon: purely for tank against creep, has very narrow taunt range and crappy damage, does not work against nukers as well. (do not use this skill if you arent great at microing.)

combat master: nice all game (evasion and critical give you leaway into more items because you already have a critical and evasion) its an ok skill, do not up this skill first if you have farming skill.

Evasion: nice all game, becomes extremely useful later. (its really really useful at level 12 will provide about 54$ evasion and what i said above) its an ok skill, do not up this skill first if you have farming skill.

Shadow Strike: slows and damages over time, if you like slowing ppl get slow ward instead.

Spirit Link: very useful if you are using summons and or are playing a team game. ( not as effective on summons because they have expire timer.)

Unholy aura: you can't find crappier skill than this, the regen is awful, ms is decent but ppl mostly consider this skill for regeneration purposes. (supposedly you are supposed to gain 1 hp regen every 100 str point, or so i was told by someone and that means that you can only get about 20regen late game.)

Spiked armor: nice skill you can use this instead of evasion or combat master. (very useful early on as survival skill as well as late game because it reflects up to 12% of melee damage back to the attacker.)

Mana vortex: tired of people spamming mana shield? no problem just use this skill to instantly reduce YOUR AND THEIR MANA TO 0. ( this isn't only for mana shield, it can also be used to instantly debuff all units in its vicinity as well as killing their mana, and has really low mana cost so you can spam it if you want.)

Befuddle: decent skill silences and gives chance to miss. ( very high chance to miss late levels, use this in duel and it will come in handy against casters and dpsers alike.)

Hex: semi useful skill in 1 on 1 somewhat useful in teamgames

windwalk: only get this if you are going to gank your foes early to mid game, other than that use it to escape.

frost armor: decent early game, becomes crap after it becomes purgeable by oppponent. (however in team battle early on this will really help you because on top of the armor it provides, it also slows the attack speed of the attackers.)

slow ward: (gank skill) extremely useful against melee units only, will reduce ALL OPPONENTS MS TO TURTLE LIKE STATUS, however don't even think about using this skill late game IT WON'T AFFECT ATTACK SPEEED AT ALL. ( like i said late game not so good, but it is pretty effective early and mid where it can actually decrease attack speed of opponents.) o and the slow ms thing really works great all game against melee units, use this in the center of the duel spot and watch as you pummel them w nukes and what not while they try to actually reach and attack you.

static field: useful in team battles useful in 1 on 1, stuns all foes surrounding you.

Terrify: Extremely useful skill, able to reduce ALL OPPONENTS DAMAGE FOR 10 SECONDS AT ALL LEVELS, also can be used to escape when trapped by foes. (combine this with soul burn n u will make an opponent do no damage for 10seconds at max level.)

misc skills.

Consume: pretty good on any hero, can be used to counter nukers and summoners and healers, its even more useful on a hero that has innate wind walk ability.

Battle Roar: good skill, if you are going to be a tank and dpser it is a good skill to have, excellent in team game as well have buffing up your summons.

Fairy Fire: Awsome skill late game, sort of helps you creep early if you get it but not that much, use in combonation with corrupt flesh and degenerating talon to reduce your opponents armor by whopping 30+24+68-
122. (however i don't recommend it as it will hinder your farming and leveling speed.)

Sleep: use this to cancel channel and isolate and gang bang a hero in duel.

Stats: not bad skill however i wouldnt recommend it as it won't make much difference late game.

Brilliance aura: so you thought mana shield was imba? now it can be even more imba paired with this skill.

Endurance: decent early game, crap late game because you can just as easily get a auroric set or speed set to get very high endurance aura among other things.

rejuvination: hm... imba early, however gets useless as soon as it becomes purgeable. (however it is only against oponents, it is pretty awsome against bosses and creeps.)

Darkness: supposedly cancel special moves such as critical n evasion but doesnt seem to work for now.. can also slow a single target and make it have a chance to miss attacks,

immolation: a unpurgeable skill, however will turn to crap late game. but can be used early for farming purposes if you upgrade this skill mainly. (i think the damage it does at max level per sec is about 70ish and late creep have like 3-8k hp so its not really useful.)

banish: decent skill however only get it if you are aiming to get 10k nuke from mask, and 6k nuke from the staff.
(i forgot to mention that this skill can also be used on heroes to seperate them from rest of the fight in duel, so if you use this on a dpser they won't be able to attack your team for a short duration, so its sort of like disable)

anti magic shield: Omfg, get this skill to simply fuck your nukers, can also be used on team has no cool down and spammable with low low mana cost. (i wouldn't recommend this skill against disablers, instead get supersonic ring's immunity or avatar.)

slow psn: well.. to each his own.. this skill is practically useless late game and cannot be stacked with other orb effects other than lightening orb. ( should be used to gank, also can be pretty effective early-mid game if you invest alot of points into it.)

Summon skellies: Wheee... Skellies... useful early-mid game, not so great late game. (if you are aiming to get this skill i suggest you mainly put points into it to help win duels, can be used to surround your foes.) also this will prevent spawning of creeps for you and your opponent if you put them on their creeping spot.)

Summon Goblins: hmm multiplying goblins.. useful in 2 vs 2 or 3v3 however they have low hp and only summons about 2-4 of maximum, but they do have critical and evasion. (i wouldn't recommend this skill on 4v4 or higher because unless 1 or more of your teammates are also getting this skill the summons will get slaughtered in duel by your opponents before they get the chance to multiply. ( each goblin has to land independant 5 successful hits on a unit to multiply.)

Ultimates

Doom Root: nice immobilizing ult, decent damage and long duration, however its purgeable i think. (seems to have shorter cd than other ults,)

Reincanation: Nuff said (double tank anyone?)

Avater: anti disable anyone? can be more effective than reincarnation early game because reincanation only revives you with about 20% of you original 100% hp.

demon storm: a tornado.. wheee... does shit damage and the cyclone effect lasts short duration.

Volcano: imba early game, mid to late game use it on creeps only. (although i must say if multiple of your teamates got this skill it can be deadly even at late game because of its stun.)

Meteor: use it on creeps ( you may use it in duels but i wouldn't recommend it because it rarely lands on desired target,)

Tidal waves: creeps yet again. however it is good skill in team battles early on to mid game. (more chance to hit targets, but less damage than meteor individually.)

Demon spawn: Ooooh a lackie that will follow you around.. use it to stun your foes and killing bosses, very useful all game. (don't underestimate its stun, it can be quite annoying if you use this in combo with other disables.)

dread ritual: crap ultimate anyone? DO NOT GET IT THE DAMAGE IS CRAP THE AOE IS CRAP AND THE COOL DOWN IS CRAP. (other spell from the offensive tavern is much better than this beacause at lvl 12 most of them will do over 1k damage and actually spammable unlike this crap of a skill.) i really wouldn't recommend this skill because after you get it you will be dissapointed by its pathetic aoe and low damage increase per level.(with long cool down no less)

Locust swarm:useful if ur opponent has many summoining moves, otherwise DO NOT GET THIS. (this is a godly counter to any and all summons, upon activation will kill all enemy summons near you instantly.)

Mana shield: get this, nuff said. (has rigged regeneration late game, however consider subing it with reincar if your opponent has mana vortex.)

I think your a little unfair to a few skills. Take Shock Wave for example you said its not worth getting yet you fail to mention in earlier stages of the game it actually farms better then chain lightning. Its cheaper mana wise and does the same damage, and unlike chain it doesnt have a limit on the units it can hit, this nuke is made primarily for Strengths and Agility heros to use. Draw creep agro, they run in a pretty straight line let loose and 2 shot the whole wave.

Demon Spawn you claim is good all game long when in truth late game the thing dies in two seconds, followed by you. The skills only extremely great when you have many players stacking this as their ultimate.

Death Strike you claim to be imba when in truth it is just about the worse crit in the game mathmatically speaking. Not only that by putting just one point into this baby you pretty much make any item you get override it when the crits scramble. Holy shit DS and Ring of Speed demons crit collide what wins? Speed Demon does.

Dont get a stun? Unless its late game? WTF are your talking about? Stuns are good all game long, its either an escape or no escape.

Corrupt Flesh useless early on? WTF am I missing something early on most players armor is crap this skill is an early mide game skill, I can understand if you only want to use it on bosses but to say its crap early on makes you look bad.

I kind of agree with you about the misc skills but you forgot something about summons they help you get quick levels and in extreme spawn they come close to stopping spawns from spawning (Hint Hint see an abuse there yet?) Means kill the spawns quickly and leave all those skeletons near their sides creep camps so their creeps dont spawn. This forces them to go further out only to get ganked.

All in all this is well thought out and thanks for the effort.

Shockwave: Sure it has short cool down and i agree it CAN be quite useful in farming creeps early game. But do you really think that it is better than chain lightening? the aoe on this is so narrow you would have to put all creeps in one line to hit em all, and also creeps spawned on a spot is limited to 5-6 which means that chain will be much more effective because it will do MORE* damage each level you upgrade it and also you would be able to hit all creeps with the bounce effect.

Death Strike is semi imba, if you played this game alot you will notice that as game goes on the chance for it to work on opponents increase Dramatically regardless of 5% chance to proc as your attack speed increases.
(i don't understand how you don't know how effective this move is mid-late game if you were wise enough to put points on it early on.) note: because in late games where duels lasts for minutes instead of seconds, death strike tends to be better than many other skills in offensive tavern because it isnt magic damage, and cannot be purged unlike vempiric aura. ( in cases of nukes you can get magical reducing items like shoulder or high armor to dramatically reduce the damage taken by the spell.

Demon spawn: Good all game i don't mean it by it self of course, but by using it with other skills. mostly stun skills because for example if you have 1 or 2 stun skills in combination with the ult you will be able to kill them and help in team fights. (Don't understimate the Summon stun + stun skill on the demon it is very useful)
I also agree that demon spawn CAN be killed easily late game however for it to be killed in 2-3 shots it would have to be very late game which would last longer than 1hr which most games don't last that long.

NOTE: I didn't mention it in this post however i mentioned that stuns and demons spawn can be quite overwhelming late game because even if you took avater as ultimate to counteract this effect, in late game it is pretty obvious anyone who can farm well can out last the onslaught of you opponents for much more than 25 seconds and stun them to death with the stun/disable demon spawn combonation. (AND NO YOU CAN'T USE AVATAR BEFORE DUEL TO MAKE IT LAST LONGER, WHEN DUELS START EVEN IF YOU USED AVATAR IN BASE YOU WILL BE REVARTED TO YOUR OWN SELF AGAIN AND WOULD HAVE TO USE IT AGAIN IN THE DUEL.)

Stuns: sure they are ok early game when ganking people with red hp but other than that it isn't much of an escape tool if other guy has slow and or faster ms than you.

Corrupt Flesh: WTF Have you ever used this skill early before? this is a spell that lowers SINGLE target unit's armor by depending on the skill level, at level 1 it would only lower it for 3. and it will cost lots and lots of mana to cast each time, ATLEAST TWICE THE AMOUNT YOU WOULD NEED TO CAST REJUVINATION LATER. (which means it isnt spammable because of cd mana cost and of course common sense.. because if you spam it all on creeps.. wtf r u gona do with all the wasted mana?)

Summoned units: Yes, i also agree with you on this point however as you said in Extreme mode the not spawing of creeps can be said for you as well. because normally after you clear a spot a creep will spawn immediately thereafter however if you used summon* to klll them it will take longer for it to spawn thus forcing you to move farther away from base in order to creep and with farther distance more chance of getting ganked. ( you have to move ur Summons* away from your creeping spawn skellies and goblins alike to gain more summons)

btw the skellies and the goblins are very very easy to kill early and they also give experiance to the opponent, why would they go to other creep spots unless you are staying in the enemy creep spot with your summons thus
losing experiance in the process.

And yes i did 4get to put something about this, but i will do it now since i got time.

PROS

ABLE TO KILL FASTER FOR A SHORT WHILE, ATLEAST UNTIL CREEPS BECOMES STRONGER.

ABLE TO STOP UNITS FROM SPAWNING IN ENEMY SPOT

ABLE TO SURROUND THE OPPONENTS IN EARLY STAGES OF GAME

CONS
STOPS UNITS FROM SPAWNING ON YOUR SIDE OF IF A SKELLIES OR GOBLIN ALIKE ARE NEAR A CREEPING SPOT. ( IT WILL ALSO SPAWN CREEP SLOWLY IF YOU USE THIS SKILL)

EXTREAMLY EASY TO KILL AND ALSO GIVES THE OPPONENTS EXPERIANCE

PRACTICALLY USELESS AGAINST ANY AND ALL BOSSES AS THEY WILL 1 HIT KILL LESSER SUMMONS EVEN AT LEVEL 12.

CAN BE KILLED IN 1 SHOT MID TO LATE GAME EITHER BY SKILL OR JUST PLAIN ONE CLICK AWAY.

(NOTE*** REALLY CRAP THEY WILL DIE LIKE FLIES IN EXTREME MODE IF YOU USE THESE AFTER CREEPS REACH ABOUT LEVEL 10,11,12 AND HIGHER BEACUSE SURPRISE SURPRISE YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY THING THAT CAN USE NUKES, CREEPS CAN USE STOMP, CLAP, CHAIN, ETC COMBINE THAT WITH HIGH HP AND DAMAGE WITH FREZIED MONSTER AND WHAT YOU GET IS WASTE OF SKILL SPACE.

dm_knight wrote:

btw the skellies and the goblins are very very easy to kill early and they also give experiance to the opponent, why would they go to other creep spots unless you are staying in the enemy creep spot with your summons thus
losing experiance in the process.

And yes i did 4get to put something about this, but i will do it now since i got time.

PROS

ABLE TO KILL FASTER FOR A SHORT WHILE, ATLEAST UNTIL CREEPS BECOMES STRONGER.

ABLE TO STOP UNITS FROM SPAWNING IN ENEMY SPOT

ABLE TO SURROUND THE OPPONENTS IN EARLY STAGES OF GAME

CONS
STOPS UNITS FROM SPAWNING ON YOUR SIDE OF IF A SKELLIES OR GOBLIN ALIKE ARE NEAR A CREEPING SPOT. ( IT WILL ALSO SPAWN CREEP SLOWLY IF YOU USE THIS SKILL)

EXTREAMLY EASY TO KILL AND ALSO GIVES THE OPPONENTS EXPERIANCE

PRACTICALLY USELESS AGAINST ANY AND ALL BOSSES AS THEY WILL 1 HIT KILL LESSER SUMMONS EVEN AT LEVEL 12.

CAN BE KILLED IN 1 SHOT MID TO LATE GAME EITHER BY SKILL OR JUST PLAIN ONE CLICK AWAY.

(NOTE*** REALLY CRAP THEY WILL DIE LIKE FLIES IN EXTREME MODE IF YOU USE THESE AFTER CREEPS REACH ABOUT LEVEL 10,11,12 AND HIGHER BEACUSE SURPRISE SURPRISE YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY THING THAT CAN USE NUKES, CREEPS CAN USE STOMP, CLAP, CHAIN, ETC COMBINE THAT WITH HIGH HP AND DAMAGE WITH FREZIED MONSTER AND WHAT YOU GET IS WASTE OF SKILL SPACE.

its true that they are easy to kill late game but like you said they are good for farming and traping heros early and late game every het a skelly takes even if its 1 hit per is 1 more hit you dont take and that much more time for you to do some dmg

yes, you can think that however reality is when you use your summons anytime the monsters that normally wouldn't use skills will use it on them and you because simply there are more than 2 or 3 units in a place which of couse would mean you taking more damage in the aftermath but also you wasted mana which could have been used in different ways.

No, i didn't mention is specifically late game, for example creeps spawned at level 10 and above are from mid game most of whom has castable spells such as infernal spawn, stomp, clamp, etc.. and because even if you invested points on this particular summoning skill they would be annilated in seconds if you are unlucky and get many clampers or stomps or in 8-10seconds by pure force of the creeps. (the summons don't have much hp to tank with its just their number which of course would share damage from aoe nukes)

Spawns farm pretty decent so does Acid Rain although it becomes useless pretty quickly same goes for spawns.

Okay Im not saying you depend on Corrupt Flesh as your main must level up skill but it makes an okay level up second skill. Lets say you went for example Spike Armor and Corrupt, of course you level up the spike armor first. Even if your oponent went something along the lines of spike armor too the difference between their armor and yours would be somewhat significant. Not to mention if you and your allie focus all fire on them. Ideally when you do a Corrupt Flesh build you do something along the lines of a farming skill lets say Acid Rain maybe, pick a late game skill you put one point into to start with perhaps stunfield or evasion or befuddle or whatver. So lets say your level 8 right your skills should look like 2-1-4-1 refering to Offensive, Defensive, Misc, Ultimate. -8 Armor will make a slight dent although fairly unnoticable and when you ditch your farming skill for lets face it any misc farming skill loses its power after about 7 level points, and in some cases lower. Which means you focus on corruption. But if a person played lets say Siren plays her with the most idiotic build like Corruption and went gankomatic she can definately roll up the kills against your typical public gamers.

yes, i also agree that it makes slight difference early game and makes huge difference late game, but what i would suggest is that if you are planning to use a hero w passive but very short duration wind walk, that would force you to get frost orb because you can bet other guy won't just stand around and let you kill him early gam.
problem with getting ice orb early is

1. wouldn't be able to farm as fast as when you are creeping
2. if you are focusing on ganking them, they will soon recognise you a threat and be ready to counter you
3.even if u suceed in getting a first blood, the chances are 1. he will revive instantly 2. if he fought back you would have to go back to heal or could be ganked by other players because you *used* flesh and ww on a player thus no mana or out of cd to run away.

what i propose what you do is that you farm as much as you can early game and try get degenerating talon asap because this item is simply awsome paired with corrupted flesh in single weapon mode and you will be able to kill any units with ease as well as being able to farm just as fast against creeps.

btw the static field thing is good idea, but 4 me i usally go with corrupt/evasion if they range spiked armor if melee/rejuv for early farming purposes and avatar and or mana shield depending on the hero i choose such as agi or int.

you should think about combining static field with storm bolt and demon spawn, that combo will litterally imobilize your opponents indefinitely in 1 on 1 or in team game annoy the hell out of your opponents.

Acid rain? i wouln't recommend it because lets face it after it reaches level 3 it does barely 1/3 damage on the creeps espcially in extreme mode where creeps tend to get strong really fast.

degenerating talon is no longer in the game. (isnt in the public beta)

you guys havent played my clan beta, but trust me, summons work. Someone... I cant recall who.. Has an all summons build, and it is good. It kicked my ass! later in the game, his summons couldnt do much, but he had so much more gold than me, I could barely creep, and he was farming bosses.

dm_knight i must applaud u, i dont know if anyone else has yet. But your info is awesome. please keep posting