Mana Tank

***This topic was made a sticky, because of all the information regarding mana shield in it ***

This is my Mana Tank build the skill set is

Off = Death Strike

Def = combat Mastery

Misc = Guardian Ward

Ult = Mana Shield

Ult 1st Priority
Misc 2nd Priority
Def 3rd Priority
Off 4th Priority (don't level till 28 )

Items Fire orb, then build Shell of the Mana Goddess ASAP,Cloak Of The Unseen Omega Staff, (Don't finish Shoulders because you will lose stats) ,Pantheon Armor Omega Orb (the rest of Immortals Shield Etc.) then finish both Shield and Shoulders at the same time.(Most people leave after this)

You Should now have a 10k Mana shield and 10k health decent armor
after this I usually build a weapon butchers cleaver light-saber etc. (it depends on the enemy.If the game has still lasted this long I like to get Immortals Ring. (If you have Rag is not dead by know kill him make Immortals armor) it's a nice addition if you can get get the second one to drop off the Lich Queen or Badger that make this build well unstoppable.(The game should not go this long)

Otherwise for use of the build its pretty damn easy just don't be dumb.

Enjoy

build with death strike that doesnt use it.... well see how long that build works for you =p

If you are going to make a build based on mana shield, you should get some better mana-based skills. What is the point of 10k mana if you arent using mana to level or anything? that build would work better on a passive hero, swapping mana shield for reinc or ava.

If nothing else, for a defensive, swap out combat mastery for evasion. Evasion and mana shield are a good combo.

Crits are better on STR heroes, who will life regen from it, and agi heroes, who have faster attacks, and will crit more. Mana shield builds focus mainly on mana, and intellect. Neither of those stats are boosted by having crits.

I'm sure this build works well against pubs; any skilled player can beat pubs with a randomly skilled build though.

To compete with the big boys (which is what you wanna do) you want all of your skills to work together. If nothing else, you want SOME of your skills to work together.

Look at my old favorite build that everyone copied...

Farseer, tentacles, spiked armor (some people used hex, but my spikes always won) rejuv, and reincarnate.
Farseer has slow, this is good for keeping ranged units near your tentacles. You have rejuv, you can force and opponent to run into your tentacles if they are attempting to purge you. You have rejuv, if an opponent has something like hex, soul burn, roots, or any other debuff, they will purge their own debuff while trying to purge your rejuv. Spiked armor, great for creeping, and completely destroys any melee. Also, more armor makes your rejuv that much more potent. Reincarnate allows you to survive from any nuking builds. Death orb is a biggy, if you reinc after it, they aint got shit. Also, you got rejuv, you can rez up, cast rejuv, and run/heal. then you get a windwalk cloak. Why? WW/rejuv, and 50% spell reduction. The best counter for this build is mana vortex, in which case, you level spikes faster and rely on ww/rejuv to heal, while auto attacking between heals.

^^notice how every skill in that build works together, along with the items. This build wasnt the "best" by any means, it just had all of the bases covered because it had 5 skills that all supported each other. Thus, giving the build no true weakness. Try using that as an example for the next build you make.

for the record you have put more thought into that build than i have put into any build...ever. You obviously have the commitment to becoming pretty good...with a little training you will soon be beating me...like about 20 other people lol

Yeah as it has been said, this build may dominate pubs, but when you face competition using a build containing skills that take a while to become effective, they are going to hammer you early. Try substituting at least one of your skills for something that gives you a safer early game.

well,
I went against a mana shield user in a 2 vs. 2 pub today
One guy from both team leave.
Being the idiot i am, I let him get enough mana to screw me over in duels

Being the pottymouth idiot he is, he tried to do rag quest
and he did well until Andy the giant golem.

Andy takes away mana so the guy tried hit and run. I killed andy in the end and got the tome. He was the host and left so the game was over.

How do you get past Andy with mana tank build on your own without risking a killsteal?

His build
Wisp hero
-Feral spirit
-mana shield
and that's all i remember

My build in this pub.
Assassin hero
-Corrupt Flesh
-spiked armor
-battle roar? forgot
-avatar

Nanny (not Andy) will only cast mana vortex if you cast a removable buff on yourself, or if you summon something. I have used many mana shield builds, and while doing rag quest I announce to anyone with me, `Do not cast anything, just auto attack, except for nukes`

Glorn2 wrote:

I have used many mana shield builds, `

gosh you're among the masses
:/

I actually reworked this build shortly after posting it now is

Offensive = Beetles

Defensive = Evasion

Miscellaneous= Guardian Ward

Ultimate = Mana Shield

Needless to say that the old version was a 2.1 adapted to 3.0 and Beetles with Ward are insane.

good call, i support this build.

more-so in faster creep spawning games though.

Just dont base it on noob mode type games. I still laugh when buying a Power Set not knowing the host put noob mode and seeing it give me +30 Armor. Or dear god pro mode and seeing it subtract my armor. In other words please dont put either of those modes until glorn fixes it in the next patch.

Builds wise very decent build. The Really cool thing is after a while you can go to another camp and let your beetles just camp the closer spawns, While your out taking the middle ones or ganking. if its enough of a lead 4 beetles one camp - 4 beetles another camps, warding and you at another a total of 3 camps at the same time. Only possible if your up 5 levels on every one.

Now the only problem I see in your build is a sever lack in killing it seems like the builds just made to farm and farm only. Being that you can get Evasion from items, Wind Walk Through items your defensive seems to be the right place to consider picking up a slaying type skill. May I suggest Hex? With Hex you have your slaying and get away and what some dont know is Hex Also Silences which is very good for boss fights.

I should really use beetles again havent used them since 2.1 dont know why either they fairly decent.

I agree the build dose only have farming.It can gank but not well.I think adding hex would be a benefit.I will have to change the leveling so it wont farm as well but then I will have actual ganking ability.The reason I haven't done this sooner is I'm not in clan so I play all public games and a level 10 build tends to scare the other team shitless in the first duel because they are mostly level 6.It's a massacre bottom line.I haven't needed ganking ability because if I do the other team just leaves.If I can get a decent match using this build I can see how hex can benefit,so thanks.

Just 1 level of it can serve your team a great deal. Sooner or later you will begin to see a burst of people using aoe skills like Tidal Rush or Star Fall or Wraith of Hell, any ways the point being if your quick enough you can stop them the very second of casting Hex has a pretty good range and from what I can tell is instant unlike the other stuns.

I see your point I'll play around with it and other skills to see if i can give it a ganking edge.The only real problem is that I level (ward beetles ward beetles) and so on throwing in mana shield at levels 8,16,24 then at 28 I straight level evasion except for mana shield at 32.So as of now I have a straight farming set up.(It owns extreme spawn).I have made 12 by the first duel before,(Needless to say that half the team left after that duel)The trick to making this work with hex will be leveling it but keeping the Beetles strong enough to mass.The whole idea is that (Beetles + Ward=Crack)But the balance is surprisingly delicate If you can't keep a mass of beetles the farm rate slows considerably.So I have my work cut out for me.

hmm, to increase your output...

go beetles, ward, beetles, ward... main leveling your bugs. Once your ward gets endurance aura (level 5 I think) stop leveling it and pump points into evasion. If your opponents start WWing, put 2 more into it for truesight. If you start hitting evasion a lot sooner, you are a lot stronger a lot sooner. by 28 you can have 7-8 points into evasion, giving you 30-34 evasion.

Lately i have noticed a lot of new mana shield builds popping up.Honestly I can't stand it.(I haven't used this build in a month or so.) So today I brought it out of retirement Unfortunately I forgot how hard this build was to use If you start using beetles too soon you won't be able to mass them because your ward will fade and you don't have mana to cast it again.Your beetles all die your mana is wasted and now you are behind only a bit but If you fail at this more than once you have fucked yourself because now you cant farm.Granted done correctly you can reach level 12 by the first duel but the timing is so critical.Anyway I forgot that little tid bit of information and ended looking like it was my first time to play the game.I think I am gonna start to use this build again.But more often im gonna run a hydra build. because i hate all these mana shield builds.

My Hydra build : Pulverize Vortex Stats (anything)
Rushing Mastery Ring and then Pantheon Because really I have gone into one game today that hasn't had a naga siren with a mana shield.Its starting to drive me nuts.

(Insert Insane laughter here)

Hey, I like your Vortex

It's certainly true that mana shield has become more popular lately, but that doesn't mean that all the people who try it are good at it, and it also doesn't mean it's the best...

But, I must say, it's a very good choice and can be terrifying to face if played effectively.

I am tired of all the idiots who rush shoulders. The items leading up to shoulders make you very strong. Then for some idiotic reason, they get the shoulders, and suck balls. STOP IT!

STOP BEING IDIOTIC! Do not make shoulders until you have 2-3 other, 15k+ in value items on your peon, ready to be put on your hero. On top of that, have a new weapon lined up and ready to go. Dropping that 500 damage when you upgrade makes you even stupider.

STOP IT!

lol yeah people seem to make the dumb move of upgrading to soon, in simple before you try to make the shoulders have at least 2 or 3 of the items you need to make ether the boots or shield or you will be raped when you upgrade. Normaly I wait till I have the speed set, the warriors set, or shield forget what it is called, and the warriors token. THe one that uses the key of 3 moons.

Lol, you would have loved this one guy I was arguing with, who claimed, alongside other nonsense such as "I have played EVERY build," that the shoulders were an OP item. "10000 mana!" he repeatedly cried, "I don't get how you don't see the OPness of that!!" I explained to him that the shoulders were probably the worst item in the game in terms of value for gold and should only be built once there was no room for anything else useful, but he became only more scornful. Such comfortable ignorance can be amusing, but when they are that silly, it's almost hard to keep your cool when talking with them.

Oh, and on the topic of mana shield's increased popularity: this same guy also made the claim that Mana Shield was NECESSARY to defeat the final bosses. This kind of ridiculous idea is why I like that some people are interested in learning to counter mana shield.

First of all I agree with everything said.This is also what gets under my skin I like using mana shield I'm not bad with it.But NOOBS who rush shoulders piss me off because your all right.If you have shell,staff and unseen you own but finishing it ensures your doom.Unless you have another item ready to go I like shield myself.If you want a few people to leave your game finish shield and shoulders simultaneously.Noobs freak (OMG HE JUST GOT TWO IMMORTAL ITEMS AT THE SAME TIME HES GOD RUN AWAY).

Thanks for letting me rant.

But I think all these noobs are gonna make me stop using mana shield all together.
I'm using Terra now few noobs know what it is.

lol, I was about to beat most of the people who use mana shield in pubs
I used builds with vortex like 2 times? then I stopped because it's a hit or miss.
Also, wolves have low cooldown.

I don't really like playing with mana shield itself though
shoulders are really pricey but the items leading up to it is nice.

Also, I tried terra.
i dont want having shoulders for a large amount of mana to swap

Yes generally Mana shield builds are generally easy builds to counter especially if you wait till everyone else picks.Then go vortex.That and light orb.stone orb or say butchers cleave death mage staff light-saber.All counter fairly well if you did not pick vortex as one of your skills.As for Terra I have been using it for the last 4 days and it seems to be working well,even without shoulders its still a nice heal,The trick is to think more like a tank rather than a int build.I have found that stacking armor works well (as long as that's not the only thing you get).

A while back Terraptus was my favourite ult; try it with consume, it's quite fun and effective.

terra is for the non-hp/mana massers. try getting like 2k hp and mana and 100 armor and see how you do (get spell reduction of course...) getting massive ammounts of mana regen is pretty smart due to the fact most people dont grab a light orb when they see terra, youll get about 1000 mana by the time they get through all your hp if you have any of the brilliance auras from the int path items. (or speed set)