And team spirit is able to disengage after the wrath of nature rooted them all, which means he wants to go back. He’s got an opening here, looks for it with the chronosphere. There’s so much at stake, and the gladiators are GED up, but they do have vision.
Strategic Insights on Faceless Void
He’s on the other side, gets a well-timed move, so much at the edge, and now the gladiators have to play it a little bit slow. They have to respect the outline they find themselves in with the ghost. That silence is now gone; the soul bind is away. He’s still waiting for this opportunity to get that perfect moment, with two or three in the back, two in the front. That’s going to be the agent down for the second life for hello, it’s critical.
Mastering Chronosphere
When it comes to succeeding with Faceless Void, it’s about understanding your chronosphere: when to use it in a fight, who are your key targets, who are your blockers, and really how to build enough power to take advantage or be effective with it. chronosphere has always been one of the best abilities in Dota 2, especially late game, where trapping your opponents can lead to huge comebacks or victories.
All the items that Faceless Void builds seek to maximize his time during chronosphere and his output with time lock, whether that’s an attack speed, even more damage, or even just defensive items to prevent him from being disabled during such a crucial moment in a fight.
Faceless Void’s Versatility
Faceless Void is especially strong because he deals good physical and magical damage thanks to time lock and scales decently throughout the game, making his chronosphere a real threat throughout. He is a stable carry hero that combos well with a lot of other allies and abilities and is probably one of the best late-game carries in the game. Think about picking Faceless Void against hard-to-catch heroes like Ember Spirit or Storm Spirit, and be wary of heroes that can outlast your chronosphere like Wraith King, Abaddon, as well as heroes that can easily prevent you from fulfilling your responsibilities during your ultimate. Annoyances like Winter Wyvern and her Winter’s Curse and Vengeful Spirit’s Nether Swap are immediately concerning.
Laning Phase Strategy
Faceless Void is also heavily reliant on items, and so his farming cannot be interrupted. Heroes like Treant Protector, Clinkz, and other ganking heroes that prevent our favorite hero, Faceless Void, from escaping with Time Walk, can be quite daunting to play against.
During the laning stage, we start with a Tango and some Iron Branches for stats, Circlet, and Slippers of Agility to make Wraith Band, and Quelling Blade to help with your last hitting. Early on, if you’re dealing with an especially magic-spammy lane, like against a Bristleback, consider a Magic Stick instead of Slippers of Agility.
Laning with Faceless Void has always been pretty stable, thanks to Time Walk. The hero never really feels threatened unless you’re up against enemies that deal periodic damage like Viper, who can chip away at your health. These kinds of heroes force adjustments in your approach.
Laning Strategy for Faceless Void
You might find yourself in a conundrum where, if you use Time Walk to reverse the damage, it would put you in a position to get nuked by magic spells. Against probably most other harassment, your ability to Time Walk back the damage is especially important and probably one of the reasons why Faceless Void is a very stable early-game laner for position one carries. Your goal during this stage is to focus on last hitting as well as denying your opponent. If your opponent is sitting near the wave as a melee hero, feel free to hit him a couple of times in hopes that your Time Lock occurs and deals additional damage to them. If your laning is especially difficult or aggressive, feel free to leave the lane and pick up an early Morbid Mask.
Early Itemization
Your first two major items are Mask of Madness and Maelstrom. These two items allow you to farm the jungle and creep wave quickly, and they also provide your first attack speed item to gank foes during your chronosphere. With the Morbid Mask, you can start immediately taking nearby jungle camps when your safe lane is pushed in. Once you have the Mask of Madness, you can comfortably start grabbing some nearby kills with your chronosphere. With great support, you might even be able to do this before obtaining Mask of Madness, but you have to use your discretion to determine if someone is killable.
Using Chronosphere Wisely
In the early game, it’s okay to use your chronosphere for one enemy target if it means easy gold and a convenient kill. However, don’t waste too much time looking to use your chronosphere when you could be using that time to farm. You have to determine when and where you can actually pull off a kill without it being a huge delay in getting those necessary items. When farming the jungle, make sure to have your Power Treads set to agility, but when activating your Mask of Madness, set it to intelligence to mitigate the cost of using that item regularly. Over time, Mask of Madness will sap your mana, so it is important to manage it by changing your boots to intelligence for a slightly larger mana pool.
Optimizing Skill Build
In terms of skill build, you usually want to max your Time Lock to increase your farming potential throughout the early game. You can max out Time Walk if you find yourself getting harassed a lot, but be warned that your mana pool will severely limit how many times you can Time Walk back any damage you take. Before level six, grab one point in Time Walk to reverse any damage taken in the lane, and one point in Time Dilation to utilize your mana. Time Dilation is also a great slow against harassing supports who spam spells against you. It allows you and your support to follow up and deal significant damage to them as they try to flee, especially with the right ally lineup.
Mid-Game Strategy for Faceless Void
You can probably actually maybe snag a kill with your combined debuffs and slows. In the mid-game, your strategy is similar to your early game: when chronosphere is up, you fight; when it is down, you choose to farm. It would help if you had stacked jungle camps from your allies to make your farm all the more faster. With Maelstrom and Mask of Madness, you are hastening your farm even further but also building towards additional output from your attack speed. When you choose to fight with chronosphere, generally your goal is to use it when your team is either defending against an attack and you can easily teleport to defend, or your team is preparing to smoke and knows exactly where the enemy team is.
Itemization and Chronosphere Usage
You don’t want to waste time looking for a kill with chronosphere if it seriously stalls your pace of farming. Faceless Void is not really that fast of a farmer, but he needs a lot of items to succeed into the late game, so you need to balance out your time, ironically enough, to make sure that you can reach all your itemizations on time.
Speaking of itemization, Black King Bar is a very common pickup for the hero as it allows you to physically attack enemies within your chronosphere without fear of getting stunned or disabled. Mjollnir is a natural pickup for Faceless Void because it gives him more attack speed, which means more Time Lock procs. Items like Manta Style can be great for additional dispel, like against silences, but also provides great damage inside the chronosphere, even if the illusions can’t proc Time Lock.
Focusing on Priority Targets
When it comes to using your chronosphere, you’re aiming to kill priority targets. That can range from rivaling carries or even heroes that can easily disrupt you without your BKB, or heroes that have abilities that stall you during Chronosphere and go through BKB, like Winter Wyvern and her Winter’s Curse, or Enigma’s Black Hole. Sometimes, it makes more sense for you to counter-initiate with Chronosphere rather than be the first one into a fight, knowing those high-value interrupting spells have already been exhausted.
Spell Combination and Engagement
Using your Chronosphere for one hero and a kill is not really an issue, just make sure it’s the right hero and that you’re not behind on your item timings. There’s no point in really forcing a fight with your Chronosphere if you can’t actually kill an enemy without being stunned or interrupted by any enemies outside your Chronosphere. You’re the carry, so focus on what you need to succeed, not when you’re needed if you can’t actually succeed with it. Your spell combination is simple: use Time Walk to initiate, closing in on your enemy, and cast Chronosphere in a way that grabs as many enemies as it can but also avoids ensnaring your allies.
Optimal Chronosphere Engagement
If you have Black King Bar, be sure to use it before jumping in so opponents cannot prevent you from casting Chronosphere. As a follow-up, within the Chronosphere, pop your Mask of Madness and go to town on your targets, hoping for Time Lock to stun and deal additional damage. When you know your Chronosphere is about to run out, cast Time Dilation for additional damage and slow to prevent them from escaping, and to stall any abilities that are on cooldown. If need be, you can use Time Walk to either stay on top of an enemy, to flee, or to reverse any damage you may have incurred post Chronosphere.
Advanced Skill and Item Usage
Your skill build is also very simple: you should max Time Walk second to help you escape from ganks, jump around different jungle camps, and it also increases your range, as you’ll need this to get the jump on enemies from afar and out of sight. If you need even more range, Aghanim’s Shard is a good situational item that enhances your Time Walk’s range but also allows you to do those fake initiations to cause enemies to panic and make a mistake.
Talent Choices and Their Impact
For your talents, we pick up the Time Walk backtrack duration talent, as well as the Time Lock damage at level 15. The reason we pick up our level 10 talent later is that we honestly haven’t really leveled up Time Lock enough, and it would make more sense to do that first. The Time Lock damage goes along with your initial goal, which is to build up attack speed to incur more bashes, so more bash damage only enables that.
Late Game Itemization for Maximum Impact
Late game, your items are really going to determine your success in team fights during Chronosphere. No matter what, your final item should usually be a Refresher Orb because being able to reset your Black King Bar, Time Walk, and more importantly, your Chronosphere, really means that you can sway late-game fights in your team’s favor.
Two Chronospheres means you can either choose to hold down enemy carries to spend extra time taking them down, or to target a lot of range supports and heroes that you typically couldn’t get in the first Chronosphere, and to eventually push fights to become a five versus two or three enemy lineup that are usually left over after your successful Chronospheres.
Just make sure you activate Refresher Orb before your first Chronosphere runs out, so you can chain the two Chronospheres and Black King Bars back to back. Another major item is Butterfly, which again gives Faceless Void great attack speed and damage, since he is an agility hero, and some evasion to better survive against other physical carries.
Advanced Item Choices for Faceless Void
I also think a Disperser, which gives Faceless Void speed and damage but also another dispel and movement speed, is crucial as enemy teams are going to start seeking you out to disable you continuously in fights. This gives a little bit of more wiggle room on when you need to use your Time Walk. Other situational items can include Satanic to beef up Faceless Void and to use the Mor Mask from your Mask of Madness when disassembling. Eye of Skadi is also pretty good to punish rivaling carries and reduce health regen against beefy boys, and maybe you could even pick up an MKB versus evasive heroes.
Talent Optimization
In terms of talents, the extra attack speed during Chronosphere is really the only logical choice at level 20, and level 25 has a really cool old school Faceless Void ability called 20% Backtrack. That means any damage you receive has a 20% chance to be reversed automatically, which makes playing against Faceless Void late game a full-blown nightmare for enemies. The hero can evade physical attacks with Butterfly, has Time Walk to reverse any damage he does take, and now at 25, he may have a chance to backtrack any damage too.
Adapting to Enemy Strategies
That said, if dealing with especially long-range enemy heroes or lineups that play really spread out, the larger Chronosphere AOE talent can actually make a lot of sense to consider. Don’t forget Nullifier can be worthwhile against Ghost Scepter, Eon’s Disk, Glimmer Cape, or Eul’s, very common items to pick up against Faceless Void.
Pro Tips for Mastery
Here are some final tips: Tread switching is especially important to utilize on Void since Time Walk restores flat HP, so you actually stand to benefit a lot by switching your boots to intelligence for the mana, going back to strength and agility after rewinding the damage. Time Dilation makes Void really annoying against heroes with low cooldown or combo spells. Heroes like Bristleback and Timbersaw absolutely hate Time Dilation. Invoker or Weaver are heroes that Void really likes to use Time Dilation against. Lastly, if you didn’t know already, Chronosphere reveals invisible units, so it’s pretty good against Riki or Bounty Hunter, or just a common support player using their Glimmer Cape.
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