Hi, this is Librarian Husky, and today I have five new builds for you guys to try out in the current patch.

Introduction to New Builds

I’m excited! We have two builds for offlane, one safe lane build, one support build that I think can be used in either role, and one mid build. So, without further ado, let’s get down to business and talk about some new builds you can try out to have some fun and hopefully gain some MMR in the meantime.

Additional Platforms and Learning Resources

Before we get into the main part of the article, I do want to let you guys know that I’m not only posting articles here but also frequently post articles on the website. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, almost every single day, I’m posting a new article on the game league website where I’m going to teach you guys in-depth about how to get to the next level. So, if you want to become absolutely broken, click the link down below and sign up.

Support Build: Crystal Maiden Overview

Getting to the first build, we’re going to start with the support build, and that is Crystal Maiden. Crystal Maiden is a hero that I’m definitely going to make a full article on because Crystal Maiden is just an insane hero right now. It’s mainly based off the Shard. Honestly, Crystal Maiden’s Shard, if you guys haven’t read it, is one of the most broken things in all of Dota. It came out a while ago but has been buffed and buffed, including buffs in cooldown, buff in radius, and how you can activate it. This Shard is just insane.

Crystal Maiden’s Shard Mechanics

So, if you don’t know what it does, let me explain it quickly. It’s on a 10-second cooldown, 50 Mana, so practically no mana, on an extremely low 10-second cooldown. Then you slide backward, you disjoint projectiles—that is the big one people don’t know—you disjoint projectiles. So, if there’s a Sven stun coming at you, if there’s a shackle shot, a venge stunt, you can completely dodge it on a 10-second cooldown. Yeah, not kidding, right? You’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” Yeah, you probably didn’t know that; it’s insane.

Then it puts down this clone, and if that clone takes a certain amount of damage, right, or if you nuke it, it has 150 Health, it will explode and Frostbite in a 450 AOE, which is a pretty damn big AOE. This clone will explode by your ulti; it will explode by your Q, so you can use it next to a creep wave and Q, and that creep wave will instantly die. The same thing for creep camps.

In team fights, if you’re getting gone on, you click the Clone, you Crystal Nova over them, it will frostbite them, then you frostbite them again; they’ve been controlled for 6 seconds. Also, keep in mind, you can use it during your ulti, so you can slide back, place down a clone.

Crystal Maiden’s Ultimate Synergy

Then that clone will shatter because your ultimate will hit it, and they will get frostbitten in your ult. If you don’t understand why Crystal Maiden’s clone now is one of the most broken things in all of Dota, hopefully, you do. It farms, it kills, it disjoints projectiles; it’s broken, okay?

Other than that, in terms of the build, there’s one other thing that people have been doing that’s new as of late on this hero, and that is taking E at level two. It’s funny; it’s like the old new build where you take your Mana regen at level two. It’s been buffed quite a bit. To read, this ability gives 0.4 Mana regen globally, which is not terrible if your allies are close to you, right? So, if they’re within a 1,200 radius, they get three times that, so they get 1.2, which is a ton of mana regen. For heroes like Sven and other safe laners like Juggernaut, Crystal Maiden and Juggernaut is incredibly good right now, definitely a great combo, or CK, one of these safe laners that truly needs the Mana, the E at level two is really really great.

Crystal Maiden Skill Build

So, you take your Q at level one to secure creeps and just trade in general. Then you take your E at level two, Frostbite at level three, and you max Frostbite till seven. From there, you max out Crystal Nova. You take your health talent at level 10. At level 15, either of the talents are fine. I like Frostbite cast range personally. I just think that this ability’s cast range is its only limiting factor. So, right, it’s 600, which is kind of bad. So, you take that at 20, Freezing Field damage, Frostbite duration at 25 because of the Crystal clone.

Recommended Items for Crystal Maiden

In terms of items, just be tanky because your Shard makes you so useful if you stay alive, right? Because every 10 seconds, you just get a double Frostbite. It’s insane; it’s way too much damage. You just need to make sure you get your ultimate off, get your Crystal clone off, and your hero does some obscene amount of damage. So, just all you got to do is buy Drums, buy Wand, buy Raindrops, buy Glimmer; that’s it. Don’t buy stupid items and make this hero not OP. It’s OP if you stay alive and get your Shard off with your ultimate multiple times. Trust me, guys.

Midas Ogre Offlane Strategy

Getting into the second build, we have Midas Ogre offlane. I’ve been messing around with this. I just won my most recent rank game on it. Maybe I’ll do an analysis on the website of that game. I probably will because this hero is so fun, and that game was freaking hilarious. Literally, I was laughing. I watched the replay, and I was laughing because I was just igniting the safe lane Ursa off cooldown, and it’s so funny because if you get a multicast on it, it does like 700 damage or something.

Midas Ogre Offlane Explained

I don’t know, it’s so funny, it’s so funny, but okay, why Midas on Ogre? Well, you multicast it, right? So, you’re one of the heroes where you can get double Midas, and when you hit Level 12, you can get Triple Midas, when you hit Level 18, you can get Quad Midas. It’s pretty unlikely, the chance of that is very low, but the point being is that this hero can farm really fast with Midas. Now, it is a slow pace build, is very greedy, so keep that in mind, but after Midas, you’re going to go Orchid. Now, the intelligence from Orchid is completely useless, and I will admit that’s the downside of this build, but other than that, it’s insane. You get attack speed with Bloodlust and Phase Boots, you hit really hard.

Building Ogre with Midas and Orchid

So, you have like a ton of attack speed, you might be like, “This is too much attack speed. I have Bloodlust, Midas, and Orchid. Surely, it’s too much attack speed.” But let me explain, at level 15, you get a damage talent, you get an 80 damage talent, right? So, you hit like a truck once you get 80 damage. And when you have Orchid, you multicast Orchid, so in an AOE, you can multicast the Orchid. It’s a 75% chance, and then you’re silencing two targets. So in team fights, you walk up, you’re double Orchid, right? I mean, that’s so powerful.

Strategic Play and Itemization

It is so powerful, and then you have infinite farming potential. The Z does actually have mana problems, the Orchid really really helps with that. And then I like buying Harpoon. You can just be safe and buy a BKB because you have a ton of attack speed, you have Phase Boots with Bloodlust, you have a ton of movement speed, so you can get in there with your high attack speed, high movement speed, BKB, click click click. But I like buying Harpoon next, you get a ton of stats, and then you multicast the Harpoon. It’s really funny, it’s a bit wonky, like if you see it, it’s really wonky, but you pull everyone in.

Laning Stage and Further Development

It doesn’t pull everyone fully to you but it will pull the last person fully to you, but it will pull everyone slightly to you. So, it’s like a mini vacuum, and then you Orchid. So you mini vacuum, you Orchid everyone, hopefully, you know, it depends on the multicast, and then you just start beating with like 200-250 damage. And yeah, I mean, this hero, a big thing as well as the laning stage is really easy. You have 88 damage at level one. You just buy four gauntlets, then what I do after the four gauntlets is I buy four gauntlets, Phase Boots, Midas, Orchid, Harpoon, and then from there it’s just like whatever’s good for the game, BKB, you know, Hex, you can even buy, you could just go full right-click, buy a Basher. You can buy and be a bit of a mix spill, there’s so much potential.

Life Stealer’s Current Place in the Meta

And then, yeah, as I said, I think Life Stealer’s in a great place; it’s been in a great place for a while. There are just very few heroes that can get away with it. Life Stealer is, of course, one of those. Radiance is buffed, Sange and Yasha buffed. The Shard on this hero is insane. Like, I’m pretty sure Life Stealer is just a very, very good hero right now, and I highly recommend it if you’re counterpicking the off laner and they are a strength hero. Give Life Stealer a shot; by these items, you’re a complete menace. Your talents are insane. At level 10, you get rage movement speed; at 15, you get damage or health, both like 350 health or 30 damage, both great talents. The Shard is completely broken.

Bristleback’s Core Items and Strategy

I recommend Bracer, Bracer, Basilius, Mana Boots, Aghanim’s Scepter, Shard, Voodoo Mask, Bloodstone, Kaya, and then Octarine. However, the Octarine can be replaced with different items, such as Shiva’s Guard, for additional armor. So, what is so good about Bristleback right now? Well, what they buffed is a lot of things. Number one is Mana Boots. Mana Boots are so good on heroes that need mana, and Bristleback needs Mana Boots; it is huge. Basilius is massive for this hero; it allows him to just put out a couple more Quill Sprays per minute, two more Quill Sprays per minute. It’s a big deal. It really changes how the hero can farm, how it can interact, how far it can push its limits. The Mana Boots change is massive.

Early to Mid-Game Transition

Then you rush an Aghanim’s Scepter. Don’t buy any small items; I wouldn’t recommend buying any regen. Just buy a Salve if you need regen, and then try to get a Seeds of Serenity. Please, give me a Seeds of Serenity. And then after you get your Seeds of Serenity, you’re going to buy an Aghanim’s Scepter. So, you’re still going the old build. It’s still not bad; it does a ton of damage, you farm really fast. You still buy your Shard after that.

Item Synergies and Late Game

Then they buffed Voodoo Mask. This item gives 2% more spell lifesteal against heroes. Then you buy your Bloodstone, and the Bloodstone was changed to give more AOE, which is obviously insanely good on Bristleback because it works on your W, it works on your Shard, it works on your Quill Spray. It’s obviously really good. The AOE increase is so good for Bristleback, but it was added after he got nerfed. So, even though this is really great for a hero that loves spell lifesteal and wants to buy the AOE increase, it couldn’t really be used because the hero was just considered too bad.

But now, they’ve buffed Voodoo Mask, they’ve buffed Mana Boots, they’ve buffed Bloodstone recently; now it builds from Void Stone, so it helps the Mana cost. They buffed Kaya, right? So, this hero’s best items are buffed, buffed, buffed. It’s like this hero is a good pub hero; it’s always been a good pub hero because it scales, it’s obnoxious, it baits people to go on him, and then does like a billion damage.

So, I’m going to be excited to try out this build again. I really believe in Bristleback. It just got nerfed way too hard back in the day, and so it kind of fell off for a while, but it’s back.