Hey gamers! It’s Librarian Husky here with some top tips for dominating with Lena. We’ll cover everything from talents to Item Builds and laning strategies. Whether you’re new or experienced, this guide will boost your gameplay. Let’s get started!

Talents Overview

The first thing I want to cover is the talents. Her talents are crazy. At 10, you get 25 damage on a hero that has absurd Attack Speed. Then at level 15, you have maybe the best level 15 talent in the game. And that might sound like an over-exaggeration, but let me explain it to you guys.

Level 15 Talent Breakdown

It’s five Fiery Soul Magic Resist per stack. So, if you have seven stacks, you’re getting 35% Magic Resist. Now, it doesn’t stack additively, so it doesn’t put you to like, what would that be, 64%. It puts you actually more towards around like 59-58%, but that’s insane.

Ultimate Interaction

And if you ulti with your Facet Thermal Runway, you get 12 stacks for 5 seconds. Then you’re getting technically 60% resist distance from your E, and I’m not kidding, that is straight up how it works.

Additional Talents

The other talents, the Fiery Soul per stack is unbelievably good at 20. And then this level 25 talent is unbelievable as well. She has four broken talents.

Conclusion

The 150% crit on target effects by spells works through BKB. This makes Lena an incredibly strong hero in the current patch, with talents that significantly boost her performance.

Understanding Lena’s Critical Hit Mechanism

If you don’t know what it is, if you hit someone with a Q, a W, or an Al for 3 seconds, you get a 150% crit. That’s pretty good, right? Just for some perspective, Daedalus is obviously much higher, but it’s 225%, and Daedalus crits hit like a truck. This is a 150% crit on every attack, all of them unbelievable, and it goes through BKB.

Why Lena Carry is Effective

I definitely think Lena carry is one of the best strategies in the game. Let’s go through how to do it because it’s mechanically a little difficult, but if you can get it down, you’re going to have a lot of success.

Laning Stage Strategy

In the laning stage, you’re either going to take Q or W at level one. Against melee heroes, I recommend the W to stun them when they go up for last hits and hit them. Against ranged heroes, I would take the Q. The only argument for Q regardless of the matchup is that it’s better at hitting more units, so it gives you more stacks for E at level two.

Starting Items

In general, if you want to keep it simple, Q against range and W against melee. In terms of starting items, it’s generally either W and three branches against lanes that cast a lot of spells, or you can go Blades of Attack and three branches. This hero’s base damage is not the best—not terrible, but not the best. With the high Attack Speed from E, you get a lot of value out of the Blades of Attack.

Early Itemization

Blades of Attack are going to turn into Falcon Blade, and the branches will generally turn into Wand. This setup helps you dominate the early laning phase.

Maximizing Lena’s Laning Phase

What I really recommend is keeping your stacks up and then putting a lot of pressure on the enemy. The main advantage of Lena in the laning stage is that she has a 670 attack range. This is much higher than the average ranged hero. For instance, Razor has 475 attack range, something like Windranger has 600, and Vissage has 600. So, you almost always have a range advantage outside of a few specific matchups.

Utilizing Range Advantage

As a result, you can hit people without them being able to hit you. The main way you want to do this, and we’ll see if he actually does it in this replay, is without pulling aggro. The way you do that is you issue the attack command before you’re in range of the creeps.

Executing the Attack Command

Best case scenario, you’re not attacking like this: you’re not clicking on them like this when you’re already in the wave. You would want to position here, issue the attack command, and then when you walk up to the creeps, because you’ve already issued the attack command for 3 seconds, you can’t pull aggro. If you pull aggro “before” you’re in range of the creeps, you actually have a small window where you won’t tank the creeps. This is really broken on ranged heroes like Lena, Razor, and even something like Windranger.

Optimizing Lena’s Abilities

I know this isn’t super Lena specific, but it’s really OP on Lena, and so I wanted to explain it quickly. Hopefully, you guys understand. At level three, what he does here is one point in Q and then two points in E. The E scales really well; it’s eight more Attack Speeds per stack, which is a ton. It’s a double, and see, he goes in here and gets only three stacks, so he’s not hitting nearly as hard as he could be.

Building Up Attack Speed

You can see he does a lot of damage to Spirit Breaker here. You generally have very high Attack Speed once you build up some stacks, and he pushes the Razor out of the lane as well. Something to keep in mind is how this ability works. If you don’t understand it, it gives you a stack per creep hit and per hero hit, so make sure you’re hitting as many things as possible when you’re trying to build stacks.

Refreshing Stacks

If you hit anything, it will refresh the previous stacks and add on what you’ve hit. For instance, if he were to nuke, he would have five stacks with the new duration. He isn’t going to do it here because there’s nothing to actually use the stacks on, but that is what you want to think about.

Lena’s Weaknesses

The main weakness of Lena is absolutely her inability to stay alive against ganks. This hero is very squishy, and so you have to keep this in mind. The main thing is to always be aware of the enemy’s movements and position yourself accordingly.

Early Game Itemization and Strategy

I would say if it’s a good W lane, absolutely buy a W and buy Raindrops. You also need a lot of mana on this hero, so both of those items help out a lot. In this scenario, even though he goes on the Spirit Breaker and gets him low, he ends up dying to a Razor plus Monkey King gank, and there’s not too much he can do about it.

Handling Ganks

Typically, you just want to fight back, and he actually gets the Razor really low here. I like how he reacted. When you get ganked on Lena, just try to man up. Do as much damage as you can, get out the damage you can. You’re not going to be able to run away most of the time; it’s just not feasible. Just man up.

Recovering from a Hard Start

Now, he ends up getting ganked again and he’s 0-3 at this point but still manages to carry this game and be top net worth very soon. So, what is the way he does this? It’s very simple, actually. If the game is hard and your safe lane is very scary, you either farm backwards, farm these two camps, and wait for them to push in the wave, or you can go mid.

Optimal Farming Strategy

I would not recommend taking ancients yet. I would take ancients when I have Maelstrom. Until then, it’s possible but pretty inefficient; it doesn’t feel very good. Try to take ancients with Maelstrom. Until then, you want to either hit these back camps and wait for the wave to push in, optimally.

Optimal Lane Management

If you’re winning your lane and just farming your area, that’s the best-case scenario. However, you can also go mid, because the mid plus these two camps are very efficient and an option you should keep in mind. He also opts to TP into this bottom fight, and it’s not like you’re completely useless. At the end of the day, you have an ulti that does 500 damage and gives you 12 stacks of your E. It’s pretty scary, right?

Using TP Effectively

This hero does a lot of damage early on. The problem is you just can’t get gone on, so you want to TP into fights and look for opportunities to TP in and clean up. However, you definitely don’t want to be holding your safelane tower and be the brunt of the gank. Don’t be afraid to give up your tower and move areas. You’re not TA or Windranger; you’re a hyper carry, more like a Luna than anything.

Item Progression

Beyond Maelstrom, the hero just begins to go crazy. He’s maxing out his W, by the way, and the reason why is it goes up in stun duration, so it helps you man up. Once you have Mjolnir, you just farm ancients faster than most heroes.

Sustain and Utility

You do have some sustain issues, so in most games, you want to take Seeds of Serenity. It is really nice to be able to take something like Spark of Courage that gives flat damage. Of course, with the Fiery Soul, damage is OP, but it’s kind of tough.

Maximizing Early Game Efficiency

You generally want items like Royal Jelly or Seeds of Serenity, in my opinion. Once again, this really stresses what makes players like this good: how they read situations and react. They don’t panic; they just make the best play. So, he gets ganked here, and it looks terrible, right? Obviously, he’s getting ultied into a Monkey King ring, but the Tinker support buys him some time.

Reacting Under Pressure

Instead of panicking and trying to run away, he realizes that he’s dead and gets off his W and ulti onto the Monkey King, getting him really low so that some return kills can happen. This is really important. Once again, I’m repeating what I said before, but I just want to make it a main point. You’re going to get ganked, and you’re going to feel like you’re dying a lot in some games if they have a lot of gap closers.

Dealing with Ganks

It’s okay; just get your damage out and help your team turn the fight. From there, guys, just hit ancients. I can’t stress this enough: you will be level 1 billion if you just hit ancients. You do need to kite the camp a lot. If you take a damage-neutral item or Seeds of Serenity, you still need to kite it, but a little bit less.

Item Build and Farming Strategy

You can afford to tank some hits and go back and forth between the top wave and the ancient camps. If you copy this exact Item Build, I recommend aiming for around a minute 14 to 15 timing on that. With 123 CS at minute 15, and keep in mind this is with four deaths. Deaths should not make you poor on this hero because you farm way too fast.

Maintaining Farm Efficiency

I don’t want to hear, “Oh, there’s no space; my game was too hard.” Guys, you can always find farm on this hero. It can farm any part of the map, any neutral camps, anything. As he sets up a kill, it is pretty simple.

Addressing Mana Issues

Once you have Gleipnir, you need to scream at your teammates to mana boot you off cooldown because this hero has insane Mana Problems. In fact, there are some carries that will even buy mana boots at this point of the game. I actually really like that he’s going to opt for Boots of Travel this game and play a really fast-paced tempo.

Alternative Mana Solutions

If you’re not opting for Boots of Travel, I would highly recommend mana boots on this hero. You can drop Gleipnir due to the fact that it gives 24 intelligence, pop your mana boots, and get a lot of value out of it as a result. If you’re not going to do that, going for Boots of Travel or some other item, you have to spam clarities or buy something like Linken’s and buy the void stone immediately with more clarities. You need clarities no matter what, or you need to scream at your support Tinker to bring you a filled bottle every three seconds.

Managing Lena’s Mana Problems

I honestly don’t know; this hero just has Mana Problems. In this upcoming team fight, I want to highlight the execution. First of all, he has Grove Bow. This item is completely broken on this hero because attack range is key on a positioning-based hero, and Magic Resist reduction on a hero with a bunch of nukes is really great.

Item and Skill Prioritization

Keep in mind he’s taking stats over Q. The reason why he takes stats over Q, even though it scales well in terms of damage and cooldown, is because it goes up in mana cost. You have Mana Problems, and you actually want to use the Q to keep your E going. You prefer to use the level one Q over the max W to keep stacks up because of mana purposes. This is what these top players do.

Executing Team Fights

In this team fight, at level 13 with two points in ulti, he feels good. I like how he waits on the outside; very, very good positioning. You do not want to get caught in the middle. He kites around, finds a really nice scenario here on the three. In my opinion, this team fight looked over. Unfortunately, he ran out of mana, and this is where the problem lies.

Itemization Strategy

I actually disagree with his items a little bit. Either mana boots or the Magic Wand would allow him to just straight up ulti here and cast his Q. The ulti is a big deal because it gives you 12 stacks of your E, right? Of course, it’s just good for bursting heroes like Monkey King, but it gives you 12 stacks of E. So, when you hit a big stun like this, you want to instantly ulti so you can burst people during the stun.

Impact of Mana Issues

I actually think he would have been able to kill the Jakiro here. The Jakiro lives on 1 HP; he absolutely would have killed Jakiro if he could have used the ulti immediately. He had to wait because of Mana Problems again, right? Running out of mana cost him two kills. That’s pretty crazy.

Boots of Travel Utility

The reason why Boots of Travel are good on this hero is because you farm the entire map at flash speed. You can cover a lot of ground quickly and maintain high farming efficiency, but managing mana remains a critical issue that needs to be addressed with proper itemization.

Efficient Farming and Mobility

It’s ridiculous; you just farm everything, and so the Boots of Travel are great. I would just buy one. Moving on from there, you just want to show up to fights late. Basically, we see him clean up a mid fight here. After this mid fight, he’s going to go back to farming, and you just rinse and repeat. It’s just ancients, and then if you have Boots of Travel, you TP into a fight and rinse and repeat.

Maximizing Fight Impact

For instance, here, you TP in late, you just basically respond to ganks. Love this—boom, hits a two-man stun, and I mean, the damage is there. This hero’s damage is insane. There are not a lot of heroes that do as much damage as Lena in the early game. It’s ridiculous.

Leveraging Magic Resist Talent

At this point, at level 15, he now has the talent and so he has 59% Magic Resist, which is just some funny stuff. I mean, 59%—this is what heroes have when they buy Pipe. Just so you understand, it’s actually less when you buy Pipe, because Pipe gives 30%. This gives 35% when you have max stacks, so it’s just funny stuff.

Synergy with Armor-Buffing Heroes

You might be saying, “How do you kill Lena then?” Well, she has 11 armor, and that is why if you’re picking Lena, it’s actually best to pick this hero with heroes that give armor. A couple of the meta examples are Sven support, which is absolutely fantastic.

Synergistic Lane Combos

It’s a great lane as well—stun into stun plus War Cry in the mid-game, or Treant Protector, which is also a great lane. Living Armor gives 10 armor in the mid-game. These combos, the armor plus Lena’s level 15 talent, make her unkillable. She will truly have 60 to 70% resist depending on whether she’s ultied or not in both magic and physical resist.

Innovative Build Strategy

What’s cool about 23Savage’s build this game is he doesn’t do some sort of standard Pike. I really expected him to buy Hurricane Pike this game to get away from the Monkey King or the Razor, but no, he goes full Chad build. This Chad build is really good in average pubs as well because even if your team is playing poorly and not finding team fights, you can just use the Shadow Blade to Split Push or get solo pickoffs, which is really high value and easy to do on Lena.

Creative Use of Abilities

In this team fight here, I think he Boots of Travels onto the Vass Birds, which I didn’t even know you could do when they’re in stone form, but apparently, you can. He goes in, pops the Shadow Blade so he can’t get stunned, drops the ulti, and relies on Maelstrom Procs because they go through evasion. He relies on Maelstrom Procs to try to kill this Windranger through Windrun. That was really clever, and it actually works. That was an awesome, really heads-up play.

Impact of Lena’s Damage Output

Then from there, look at the damage on the Razor here. Just strict auto attacks almost kill him from 2/3 HP, and they end up winning the fight as a result because the V was able to finish off the Razor. It’s just crazy. There isn’t even that much magic damage this game, which is kind of a shame because I can’t exactly highlight how good this level 15 talent is.

Effectiveness of Level 15 Talent

In your average game, like let’s say there’s some Zeus nuking you, you’re going to quickly realize that it’s just not doing that much. So in terms of your next items, generally, it’s going to be BKB. The most common build on this hero is Gleipnir, Boots of Travel, into BKB, which I used to agree with. But now that you have this level 15 talent, I would actually try to shy away from BKB.

Rethinking BKB Usage

It is greedy and it can cause you to get chain stunned, especially by heroes like Sven that might go on you with a stun plus physical damage. It feels very cringe not to have BKB in games like that. Sometimes people just look at BKB as a Magic Resist item where it’s actually more of a stun resist item.

Item Build Recommendations

Moving on ahead, consider alternatives to BKB when utilizing Lena’s level 15 talent. This approach can maximize her potential and adapt to various in-game scenarios effectively.

Adapting Item Builds to Game Situations

I like what he does here, which is buying Linken’s against Windranger, Spirit Breaker, and Razor. Personally, I would buy Pike this game. I’m usually more of a type of player that likes buying Linken’s and Pike. I just feel that this hero does more than enough damage, especially now that you hit level 20 and get 10 more Attack Speed per stack.

Choosing Between Damage and Survival

You do more than enough damage, so I lean towards just staying alive and being able to siege. If you want to siege early game, the Dragon Lance from Pike and the mobility it provides will allow you to do that. This build that he’s going for is far more of a Split Push and pickoff build.

Evaluating Split Push vs. Siege

Feel out the game. If your team wants to end and hit buildings, you should have Dragon Lance at a minimum; Pike is even better. If you’re playing more of a Split Push and joining the fight late type build, this is wonderful. The Shadow Blade and Linken’s build is better for that.

Adapting to Game Flow

Just adapt to how the game is playing out. It’s pretty hard and definitely one of the difficulties of Lena, but it’s also one of the strengths of the hero. At this point in the game, with the Tinker support and the level 15 talent, you can maximize Lena’s effectiveness.

Tanking and Survivability

I don’t want to say he’s invincible; he could die to physical damage, but man, is he tanky. He also has an AC from Vissage behind him, Vlad’s armor, and Solar Crest armor. He’s got the buffs. The aura meta with something like Lena, which doesn’t have to buy BKB due to her level 15 talent or sometimes doesn’t have to buy BKB, is super OP. I think this hero just fits the meta perfectly.

Meta Compatibility and Weaknesses

Her only weakness is Crimson Guard, but that’s the case for a lot of heroes, you know, so it is what it is. A team fight breaks out, and I think it’s really cool how much he hits Windranger this game, completely relying on a 30% chance to proc Maelstrom. It’s not something I’ve seen many players do, but he’s actually doing it and it looks good. It’s pretty shocking how much damage you can do, even killing Windranger by hitting her 30% of the time.

Evaluating Item Effects

He got this item, which is cool. The Attack Speed is pretty terrible, the slow resist is mediocre, but the 20 armor when stunned is really good on this hero. Definitely something to keep in mind.

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