Space Orc

So this is a Holy Armor Build which has a few variations

Offensive (Farmer): Personally I prefer Fire Ward on this build, don't really need ur farmer for duels, but Fire Ward makes them get an ams first at least first to first two duels or run away letting u attack a few extra times. Fire Ward also scales alot better in terms of being useful at lower levels than other skills such as frostfall. I usually main level this to 6 or 7 Points.

Defensive: Few options here, Unholy (my personal favorite), Hardened Skin and Spiked Armor. Despite what anyone else says Unholy for me is the most versatile of the three spells listed and allows for great survivability while farming, heavy regen in duels, and allows you to run and heal if need be or the opposite, your enemy cannot run away because you will heal up in the process. Secondary level this, until you stop leveling Fire Ward than Main Level this.

Misc: Darkness, This is key to the build, it works perfectly with Holy Armor, making the enemy miss more which procs the heal on holy armor, it slows the enemy down (anti-kite) and for late game it makes things such as Crit not proc which is Holy Armors real weakness late game. Get 1 point early (lvl 4ish), than secondary level this after you stop leveling Fire Ward.

Ultimate: Holy Armor - So Sexy


My Normal Skill Set

Fire Ward
Unholy
Fire Ward
Darkness
Fire Ward
Unholy
Fire Ward
Holy Armor
Fire Ward
Unholy
Fire Ward
Unholy
Unholy
Unholy
Unholy
Holy Armor
Unholy
Unholy
Unholy
Darkness
Unholy
Darkness
Etc...

Item Selection:

Usually early on I like regen items get a power gauntlets, kings token, regalia, set armor, wooden shield, warriors ring,

proceed to upgrade the items accordingly,

kings token goes nicely into warriors token or advanced avengers mail

I personally like getting a Standard Buckler to Iron Kite relatively fast as it provides much needed magic resistance and damage reduction/ life regen/armor

Magus Cloak works wonders aswell as a random 6th slot item until you can farm up Ring for evasion

Anyways thats about it

try shockwave on space orc instead. you'll deal more damage they cant run away from your casts (save jukes no pun intended) and you'll probably hit level 8 by the first duel using space orc. also your hinging on the ability to do well in the early game so you can auto attack with str after the phase and level 5 farmer is passed.

I like the idea of darkness + holy armor and unholy synergizes well with all of it.

while unholy and holy armor reap most of their benefits from str, i would try this on agi as they posses strong auto attacking. a few heroes like swiftblade or warden would be a good experiment

Farmer is just personal preference in my experience unless I am trying ridiculously hard Fire Ward is more effect as in theory shockwave is better but if you miss 1-2 creeps it can totally mess you up. Of course any farmer can be switched out, I just think Fire Ward does a lot of damage at 5-6 compared to a shockwave counter party and is still helpful for farming even once creeps are far out leveling the ward. Str is just my preference, agi is my weakest.

Good build, however it's a pretty go to build already for many people. Nonetheless, extremely good for team games.

Your weaknesses are going to be spell nukers, things like silent night builds etc are going to ruin you early and somewhat mid game. The clever man will be smart enough to never let you reach late game because they won't stand a chance. So watch out for those, carry around ams pots while farming if necessary. Also, Fire Ward and Tents are extremely easy to creep steal from, especially if they are running flamestrike / frost fall. So again, keep your eyes peeled and be ready to lose your middle spawn while running this. But the one thing I do like about fireward with this build is that you can off level and main level unholy making you romper stomp, especially with strength because you can stack an incredible amount of damage earlyish and mid game. for about 26,000 gold you have 310 damage. (Staff of speed; 125. Scepter 155, Helm of War God 70) So auto attack farming comes into play a lot faster, along with a nice bonus from fireward constantly going. Wards can be very nice for team games, as people generally don't go after wards in team games for some stupid reason, toss one of these down and watch their hp melt away...

On the shockwave ideal, I'm going to say this. It falls into the "Because Glorn says it's good / is good with it" fallacy. Yes, while running the numbers shockwave does do the most damage per point of mana. However, as Joox said, 1-2 mistakes can put you behind. You say make one mistake every 2 spawns. Thats say, 4 creeps you missed that you now must auto attack from 100%, or waste another shockwave to get, limiting you down a spawn possibly. Shockwave is good, but risky. To tell you the truth, besides Glorn and Yeti, I can easily outfarm anyone using shockwave with any other farming skill. The "Shockwave is always stronger" argument completely resides in perfection. Nearly no other spell has the risks associated along with it, you hit all of them 99% of the time. Thus, on average the other farmers are better, unless again you can hit perfection every time; which is seldom.

Quote :

I like the idea of darkness + holy armor and unholy synergizes well with all of it.

Darkness also synergizes with unholy aura unbelievably well. Its pretty much 7 seconds of straight regen.

I normally get a pretty fast Standard Buckler if they have more than 1 nuke even though it makes farming a bit harder b/c you lack damage, makes u really tanky mid game in terms of physical damage and provides the much needed spell resistance.

Spawn stealing always going to be an issue, anyways, you can always get bigger bombs to help vs mid game spawn steals, and do some stealing of your own, also if you get bombs most enemies wont have any magic reduction or even get ams by 3rd duel since ur ward is so weak, making bombs very effective.

Obviously with all builds there are counters,

My builds are basically all 1 v 1, if this was meant for team game I would max out fire ward and get only 1-2 points in darkness

I believe items re what limit you most in gmes (from the items ive seen you pick). I do not mean this as an insult or anything; but it is what can make or break a good build like this.

In general, dont get a shield early. On STR especially, you can get an ass ton of HP; then gloves of death. Late game, a stone shield is amazing on a STR build like this; but if you go for any shield before level 30; you will be missing out on a lot of DPS; which in turn is creeping, which is levels and gold; which ultimately transforms into your opponent being much stronger than you.

Something to keep in mind when running STR builds with a solid late game:
Sometimes you gotta lose early to win. I cant tell you how many times I havent even tried for the first 3 duels; because I knew my hero wouldnt stand much of a chance. I gave them away; saving my gold for items, and creeping until duel start. By the fourth duel; I put effort into it, which my opponent never expects; and win. bonus gold and EXp; BAM, take the lead with your insanely strong mid/late game build.

So long as your opponent cant gank you; you will win the game stacking DPS alone.

Very true items are my weakness, but I'm working on it Don't know why but personally I feel almost any strength unholy build isn't gonna lose first duel or two to a nuker, but yes if you feel like mid/late is going to be rough than by all means no need to get pots or ams for duels and continue farming while timer runs down. I see what your saying about the shield, I guess it just comes down to how well you are farming vs your opponent, if you feel like you are creeping up just as well as they are a shield probably is a safe choice in terms of you winning duels, however I agree if you are under leveled and have to make up for it pumping dps probably is the way to go.