How to use: Mana Shield

General Info:

Mana shield is unaffected by armor. This is both good and bad.

DO NOT RUSH IMMORTALS SHOULDERS! Get everything but the belt, the items not combined are BETTER than the shoulders. Keep the 4 items uncombined until you can get another cloak AND panths armor, or 1 of the above and working towards a speed set. Then combine for shoulders (at this point you should have an exceptional orb or two, shoulders, and 2 of any of the 3 above items) if you rush cloak, as soon as you get it, you will start failing. If you have the speed set, you have an additional 300% mana regen, the panths gives you armor so your entire life isnt reliant on 8k hp, and the most important thing, DAMAGE! Once you get the shoulders, you'll lose a good 400 damage! Go for immortals shield after you get shoulders.

The ultimate weapons burn 300 mana a hit, you can attack 2 times a second, draining 600 EXTRA mana a second with 1 of these items. they are late game, sure, but in 10-15 seconds your opponent will be out 20k mana.

Fire splash damage is pure, and im not sure if it goes through mana shield.. If you are being directly attacked, it wont. If the guy next to you is being attack, it might. If you are flicking your shield on and off to take minor damage to both HP and mana, then you are smart.

no, you cannot remove mana shield from a player. not even with the melee ints "debuff" ability. the best thing to do is stun lock them before they turn it on. Personally, i would rather burn all their mana and make them weaksauce!

Using the skill during a game:

early:
Normally, I dont even get the first level of this until I reach 15. You should be buying armor and some life because right now, you don't have the mana or damage reduction to support mana shield as anything more than a last minute flick to run away.

Mid:
Once you break level 20, you should have 3-4k mana, 6-7k if you are rushing immortals armor. If you still only have 3-4k then buy a shell of the mana goddess, if you have 6-7k then buy a panths armor. After this, you should easily be able to kill the fire boss. With the farming splash damage, you should be able to farm with mana shield on, and not have to worry about it.

End:
You should get immortals armor before shoulders, the 200 damage reduction is very nice. Your opponents should be smart enough to have mana burn by this point, either way, then in duels, have a scepter, allow them to attack you down to about 3/4 of your life before you turn on mana shield. After you turn it on, you will gain a lot of life from the scepter, while your mana is drained away. If you have high regen, and they dont have mana burn, you might be able to use mana shield a second time. The same strat should be used when fighting end game bosses.

I usually wait until level 21 to get Mana Shield. This is because I typically make Auroric on my MS builds. Also, evasion rather than spiked... much better.

there is a skill called mana vortex that will litterally make the opponent's mana shield useless the only side effect is that it affect your hero as well as your teamates who are in the vicinity. (however it costs like 50 mana to cast from whwat i remeber at all levels so its a skill worth having if you're facing mana shielders)

ps: upon activation it will drain all your mana opponents mana and any units be it teamate or creep's mana in an instant.

Indeed, and that is why I also get spiked armor. You see, spiked armor is the best anti-melee skill in the game, 12% damage return, pure damage. the only heroes that would really get mana vortex, are heroes that dont need mana. All the manaless heroes are melee. If an opponent gets mana vortex, you simply use mana shield only for bosses. That player will need to dump 8+ skills into mana vortex before it drains all of your mana anyway. This makes THEM very weak, and vulnerable.

In a mana vortex situation, I would suggest not getting shoulders. Go for shield, then boots. Use MS as a side skill. HOWEVER, in my next edit, you cant see what skills an opponent picks, so mana shield will be harder to counter

Good idea. i hate people who wait 4 you to pick and counter it.

Glorn2 wrote:

in my next edit, you cant see what skills an opponent picks, so mana shield will be harder to counter

Just my opinion but I don't like that idea. I think the skills in the shops should have a 0 sec cooldown that way when a skill is picked there's no animation in the shop letting you know what was picked. That'd prevent ppl from watching someone pick skills then picking counter skills.

**Meh, I'm leaving my incorrect post up and editing here to say DAMN I'M DUMB! Thank you for this change.

mark, re-read the quote you quoted me as saying :p