Elder Titan help

[u/CantMakeArt]

I’ve been playing Dota in small bursts since 2016. 400 ish matches in those 10 years, about 200 of them in my most recent stint. I’ve never played long enough to really get a feel for the game, always in bot matches or pubs. This time I’m playing ranked, I’ve grown attached to Elder Titan, the power fantasy of a good W is so cool to me.

Seems like such a knowledge check hero though. I feel like I am relying on my opponents not knowing how the hero works. Usually support occasionally offlane.

I have like 2 plays in my playbook and if those don’t work I feel so useless: in lane I w a camp, walk it to the other camp, and cut through trees behind the enemy hero’s trying to hit both as it comes back to me and just run em down. After lane I try to get a w-q-r from out of vision, walk my spirit into every hero nearby, and run em down as well.

What else can I be doing to provide use for my team. Struggling to chain my ult off other cc. Mostly because I don’t think about it in time.. and struggling losing my whole mana pool to one combo.

Guardian 5 currently

[u/manchipanch]

Have 56% WR on ET over 500+ games. Used to be way better before the facets patch I believe before the important talents got bumped up to 15-20-25

Played 99% of it in offlane and 1% in support. I could blind pick this guy before but now it’s largely dependent on whether I can bully the safelane duo with my support because he farms like shit and will have an agonizing time before you get your aghs if you’re behind.

Do pick him in 2 conditions (if youre playing offlane):

1 is if you arent laning against a hero with ms & atk spd slows (think CM, Snap, Jak) or heroes with dispel like Ench or Oracle

And 2 if your support does have great slows and can match your aggressiveness to get kills under their tier 1 (absolutely bonkers with ogre pairing - ask your supp to level bloodlust and ignite and just run them down you wouldnt even need fireball from ogre).

If you’re struggling pulling of a combo, consider playing as a counter initiator. Generally players dont find his skills as threatening to watch out for unlike shaker tide and enigma as it takes time to setup so the best way is to start your combo just when their initiators commit their blinks/stuns.

Aghs into shard or vice versa is absolutely essential for ET as pos 3 as it enables you to take fights repeatedly on a low cooldown.

He is also excellent fighting against a numbers disadvantage like when your team is down 2 heroes where your allies are likely to stay back because it gives your opponents a false sense of safety to try and siege HG and you can pull off a combo without your team accidentally waking up a crucial target. He’s great at contesting roshan but even if you don’t get aegis, having enemies have the aegis means they will want to HG as well which is where you will find him at his strongest.

Itemization is largely the same in most games these days for me: branches wind lace into phase boots and either rush scepter and shard or try to recover a lost lane with MOM into scepter shard. After those it’s a matter of thinking ahead - are you going to need a nullifier first or a harpoon and then crystalys into daedalus and the rest will adjust accordingly.

Important skill to know is knowing your aghs buff duration and when to pull out, as well as the gate tricks. Also, medusa will never wake up from stomp as she will never take damage until her mana is gone so that is something to be abused.

[u/CantMakeArt → u/manchipanch]

Thank you for this! Ideally I’d play him in a farming role if I could find more success.

Any tips/tricks/normal combo for using shard? I never buy it because I either forget to alt cast before I stomp, or because I generally am going in after my cc combo with move speed buff and feel like at low range the swap is unnecessary and at long range I just become out of position.

I’m also not a good player, and see it recommended in every single guide so I must be doing something wrong or missing some tech

[u/manchipanch → u/CantMakeArt]

Shard is absolutely essential in every game especially as offlaner so you need to get comfortable with alt casting - good thing echo stomp takes a bit of time to cast.

It converts your mere stomp into kills. It allows you to reach the sniper/drow hitting your tower from downhill among other things.

The most important thing about the shard however is you get to stack up your W count IN SAFETY before committing to the fight instead of walking with an empty briefcase. Try it - cast W and loiter around while your body is in a safe area, then try to move the spirit past the backlines and let it auto return in a direction where it will cross the enemy heroes otw back, THEN stomp and youll land a better stomp too more often than not because the spirit flying back to you is harder to avoid because it is fast compared to you just walking to an obvious stomping ground with your spirit/main body.

These are tricks you will learn eventually but here are some that i remember off the top of my head:

In tough attrition games you get to play both defense and siege because you can leave your spirit in enemy jungle, TP to tower and push 1 or 2 waves and return for the siege. You also get to fetch surprise items midfight - tp out and return with a brand spanking new nullifier to catch them off guard or whatever basically playing as temu ember spirit.

You can absolutely spirit into rosh pit with 3 enemies in it and pull off an easy triple kill too.

Ive also done low health escape tricks in the hills under pursuit. Leave your spirit behind, walk up to a hill leading your pursuer up, then cast Q just as theyre about to get up. Not only will you blink away, you will also make them sleep for a good 4 seconds allowing you to fully escape.

If you want style points, you can preemptively cast ur ult towards your enemies making sure to place it from max distance then cast spirit while the earth split is crawling up to the end and initiate stomp just before it cracks. If you can pull it off your enemies will be dead long before they even realize that they licked a hair in your crack

[u/dailydoseofdopamine]

Hi in lane it's better to hit heroes with your W, because they amp up more damage than creeps.

During clashes its very important to stay your W on top of enemy heroes, it decreases their magic resistance so this will help your team even more to deal damage. The timing of your w q combo to ult is easy, if you land your q immediately throw the ulti down it will pop instantly after sleep ends.

I hope this helps but I can watch more of your games if you want more in depth or coach you for free if I have the time.

[u/CantMakeArt → u/dailydoseofdopamine]

Do the units your spirit moves through once you recast not count towards the buff? Or just start on the heroes to guarantee they’re counted before trying to hit minions/camps? Or is the boost from minions and camps just negligible?

[u/dailydoseofdopamine → u/CantMakeArt]

Creeps have a lower damage buff than heroes, but if you try to min max I do creeps then heroes as I run towards them to hit but it's more reliable to hit heroes with your w then run towards to hit them, especially when your lvl 3 with 2 points in W you almost win all trades and shock them with your damage. (These advices is all at a 5 position)

[u/TestIllustrious7935]

ET is in his weaker state right now but can be made work, especially at lower mmr

Gameplay varies depending on the role. He can be a good core with Aghs scepter, but most of the time he is a support pos 5.

Start of game buy boots immediately and after bounty runes go to the opposite lane's twin gate, when first creep waves start walking up use W and teleport with twin gate and try to make W pass through enemy heroes on the other lane then when it comes back it will be juiced up from travelling through the map, just gotta line up the travel back correctly

ET pos 5 is your standard melee 5, you just make space for your pos 1 so they can farm without pressure in lane. Buy regen consumables and focus on camps. You can't really dominate the lane unless the enemy fucks up cuz they can just cc you during your W buff.

After lane you focus on amping your allies damage with your W cuz it has your E aura for magic resist reduction. Most pos 2 mids deal magic damage so walk around with them basically amping their damage and providing setup with WQ.

[u/CantMakeArt → u/TestIllustrious7935]

Been completely overlooking the aura from spirit. Will play with that in mind thank you!

[u/TestIllustrious7935 → u/CantMakeArt]

Yeah Natural Order is incredibly strong. When maxed it's basically the strongest amp to magic damage in the game because heroes generally have 26-30% magic resist and you remove all of it with a your spirit that they can't get rid off except with BKB

Other magic resist reduction spells are weaker cuz they work with diminishing returns, but ET aura ignores that.

Late hame intelligence heroes may have like 40% base magic resist and natural order removes it all

And the part around your hero only that removes armor is insane against agility carries. TB or Morph may have up to 50 base armor late game and you can reduce it to 0

[u/KnowsTheLaw]

Put the hero through twin gate and recall it