DotA Magina – The Anti Mage

Primary Attribute: Agility
Primary Role: Hero Killer, Harasser

Introduction:
Magina is a difficult hero to master. Timing and speed are the two key elements when playing Magina, and if you’ve mastered those two aspects of his game there’s no stopping him. This speed demon’s attack speed goes over the roof, just by giving him a set of Power Treads. When combined with Mana Break (which burns away mana per shot), you can rid almost any hero of his mana within seconds, making them easy prey for you. He is very fragile in the beginning, but to compensate for that, you get the Blink spell which allows you to move around really quickly. Mana Break and Blink allows you to harass enemies, and get out of harm’s way with ease.

The Good:
Awesome movement and attack speed
Really good at chasing heroes
His agility growth is awesome
His spells work very well with each other

The Bad:
Very vulnerable early on
Strength growth is kind of less for a melee hero
Stunners can ruin his early game
Is a weak farmer

Mana Break (Mana Cost – N/A / Cooldown – N/A)
Description: Each shot dissipates mana and causes extra damage. The mana burnt is 16 at level 1 (along with 10 damage); while at level 4 this skill burns 64 mana (along with 38 damage). This is an Orb effect.

This skill is what makes Magina a pain in the ass for any heroes that use mana (which is almost all of them). A few shots from this can reduce any strength hero’s mana pool to 0, pretty much disabling him.

Blink (Mana Cost - 60/ Cooldown – 12Sec. / 9 Sec. / 7 Sec./ 5 Sec.)
Description: A teleport skill that allows Magina to travel short distances.

Once this skill is maxed out, its cooldown becomes so fast that you can walk in and out of battles when you choose to. Coupled with Magina’s high movement speed, this skill ensures that almost no heroes get away when you’re chasing them. Additionally, if a hero has a slow stun animation (such as the Skeleton King), you can escape their stun by Blinking right when they cast it. This takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll really frustrate your foes and save you some precious HP.

Spell Shield (Mana Cost -N/A / Cooldown - N/A )
Description: Magina gets protected by a shield that dampens magical damage done to him. The spell damage reduction ranges from 33% at level 1, to 55% at level 4

Spell shield should be maxed out early in games where you have multiple nuke heroes in your opposing team. If there aren’t too many nuke heroes to fight against, don’t bother with this skill too much, since it will just slow down your harassing ability. Whatever you do, do not take stat points before maxing all spells out, since the skills Magina boasts of work together perfectly.

Mana Void (Mana Cost -150/250 / Cooldown - 120 sec.)
Description: Magina deals damage to a unit based on how much mana he lacks. At level 1 it does .6 damage per point of mana missing, to 1.1 damage per missing mana point at level 3.

This skill is a pretty powerful nuke against intelligence heroes. In your mid/late game, the intelligence heroes have a pretty large mana pool, so wait until their HP’s a little low and their mana’s slightly consumed; jump into battle when you see this, whack him a few times, use this spell when his mana is almost empty, and watch him die a helpless death. This doesn’t work too well with strength heroes though, since their mana pools are quite small. During the early stages of the game, use this only as a last resort to kill heroes.

Skill Build:

Level 1 - Blink lvl 1
Level 2 – Mana Break lvl 1
Level 3 - Mana Break lvl 2
Level 4 – Blink lvl 2
Level 5 - Mana Break lvl 3
Level 6 - Mana Void
Level 7 – Blink lvl 3
Level 8 – Blink lvl 4
Level 9 – Spell shield lvl 1
Level 10 - Spell shield lvl 2
Level 11 – Mana Void
Level 12 - Spell shield lvl 3

Early Game:
Items you should buy:

Start the game by buying 2 sets of Ancient Tango of Essifation, a Stout shield and if you have some spare cash, a Gauntlet of Ogre Strength. If you’re against a high spell damage hero (like Zeus) take only one level of Blink and then start maxing out your Spell shield & Mana Break. Get to your lane and play defensively, since you have barely any HP and can’t survive too many hits. Farming is a real bitch in this stage of the game, but try and get at least a few last hits on creeps to make some gold, since you’ll need it for your next item – Ring of Health. You’ve probably guessed what our first complete item will be – Vanguard. Once that is made, you can afford to be a little aggressive and really start harassing the hero in your lane. The way you do this is, blink behind an enemy hero, give him a few shots and run/blink back. This can become a little hard to do if the hero has a stun or a disable, so be sure to run back after a stun, and use it again when he doesn’t have mana for another stun, or his stun’s on cooldown. While harassing, be sure that you never get hit too much in the process, since it’ll make the entire process quite inefficient and the purpose of harassing won’t be achieved. If you can, get yourself Boots of Speeds soon, since the movement speed really helps in the mid stage of the game.

Mid Game:
Items you should buy:

Your objective in this stage of the game, is to farm a little, harass a lot, and hopefully kill a few heroes in the process. Get yourself hooked up with a set of Power Treads, which will give you some amazing movement and attack speed. Place Observer wards at the rune spots, so that you can spot them and hopefully get a double damage or haste. This will also help you scout out for possible prey, so that you can setup your ambush on them. The next item you should collect, is a Mithril Hammer, so that you can combine it with the Gauntlet you already have, and make yourself a Cranium Basher. With your high attack speed and bash chance, you can be certain that it will be really hard for heroes to escape from you. Now it’s time to start farming like hell, with your mobility, high attack speed, and great damage, you should be able to farm for an Eaglehorn without too much difficulty.

Late Game:
Items you should buy:

If you’ve played your cards right so far, almost every hero should fear you at this point. Your hero should have unparalleled mobility and some awesome damage dealing capability; make the best use of this by pushing any lane that’s lagging behind and harassing heroes all over the map, as and when you can. You should be able to farm a good some of money in no time by doing this, so get yourself a Butterfly to improve both your survivability and your damage. The next item on your shopping list should be either a Buriza-do Kyanon, or a Monkey King Bar, depending on whether the opposite team has heroes with channeling spells or not. Alternately, you can buy another Cranium Basher to improve your stuns, making sure that your prey doesn’t escape.