LogFAQs > #961872881

119 - Keeper of the Light (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/8/9/AAAACbAAC0ox.jpg
Base abilities: Illuminate, Solar Bind, Chakra Magic, Blinding Light, Spirit Form
Shard upgrade: New ability Return, which is only usable in Spirit Form; targets an allied hero globally and yanks them to KotL's position after a delay so long as that ally doesn't receive player-based damage.
Scepter upgrade: New ability Will-O-Wisp, which summons a destructible Ignis Fatuus, which pulses every few seconds and draws heroes towards it.

Kotol giff mana or I keel you

Yeah, nah, not linking that video here, and... holy hell, it's 8 years old. Anyways, Keeper (aka KotL, aka Ezalor) is one of the first ones on this list where he's going to be awful to play against, awful to play with one on your team, and never as effective as you want him to be if you're trying to play him in solo queue. He is notorious for being a greedy support and he can very easily farm waves, often to the detriment of his own team. Meanwhile, he'll simultaneously be annoying the enemy's through Illuminate, a long-channeling ability that provides vision until released in a slow, high damage wave based on charge time.

Unfortunately, apart from the obvious wave equilibrium ruining, Illuminate eats a lot of mana, of which KotL doesn't have much to spare throughout the early game. Enter Chakra Magic - this ability is simple target an ally, and that ally (including yourself) gains mana and lowers cooldowns of all non-ultimate abilities. Use it on yourself? Great, you're back to spamming Illuminate and annoying the crap out of everyone else. Use it on yourself with an out-of-mana lane in sight? You're probably about to be verbally assaulted because people are self-entitled pricks. Ahem.

The real draw of current Keeper of the Light is Solar Bind, which if maxed out at level 7, gives the targetted hero negative magic resistance and a huge movespeed slow the more they try to move with the buff on. Ostensibly, this is supposed to allow you to set up a full-power Illuminate. Realistically, they'll see this coming, move juuust enough to get out of the way of an Illuminate (or tank the hit) and fire off everything they can to kill your fragile ass.

Lots of these work well together, so why do I have him so low down? Mostly because his ultimate is underwhelming. Yes, it's effective on paper, given it provides access to a knockback and blind, but fitting in with the annoying theme of the hero, you could land the perfect five-man blind and get screamed at by the Enigma offscreen whose mind you can't read as you knocked basically everyone out of his perfect Black Hole setup. For a support to be extremely fragile with no access to a hard CC better have some guaranteed damage, and Illuminate, short of an initial surprise blast, just isn't going to cut it early. Yes, Keeper in the lategame is still useful, especially when he farms up a Scepter for Will of the Wisp, but for being a hard support your early game boils down to: ruin your lanemate(s) early game with levelling Illuminate to be useful and selfish with Chakra, ruin your own midgame by constantly running out of mana, or ruin your lategame teamfights by trying to helpfully blind someone out of an important engage. But hey, at least Ignis Fatuus is good! Good luck farming it early without having your team want to kill, you though - to sum it up, pub KotL is giff mana or gtfo, Solar Bind and Will-O-Wisp's effectiveness be damned.

(Keeper would be much higher on this list if he still had Mana Leak and didn't need a shard for Return, which again ties into annoying but also made him more effective, as enemies would get stunned when they ran out of mana, and as for Return, well, there's still the option to farm a Blink Dagger and the Shard, hop onto a cliff, and recall the jackass that's been screaming at you every ten seconds for mana all game. Even if it's reportable.)

As an aside I mentioned yesterday, I dealt with three different Ezalors that ruined my games
- the first one was an allied one, who starved me out of a bunch of early game experience and money as a Spectre, didn't buy any Sentry wards so the enemy saw all his Illuminates coming from a mile away, and he proceeded to try and Dagon rush, only to get three-shot by a Drow.
- the second one was an enemy one who went midlane instead of support, and wound up with a Scepter and Travels before the fifteen minute mark. The game didn't last very long after that, but checking his post-game inventory he was on his way to a Refresher Orb, and oh my GOD Refresher Will-O-Wisp is hilariously evil.
- the third one was an ally who went Solar Bind and queued with his buddy Lion. Finger of Death at negative magic resistance is... um... painful. Unforunately, neither of them were paying attention when the game got to midgame, because I saw Lion blow himself up on a Lotus Orb no less than three times (though that one is hardly KotL's fault, but again, he was ruining the enemy team for a little while before dropping off completely.) If only KotL had gone scepter that game...

Hint for next hero: I stared into the abyss and all I got was this lousy T-shirt... and it doesn't even fit me!