LogFAQs > #963898486

85 - Elder Titan (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/1/2/AAAACbAADFXc.jpg
Basic Abilities: Astral Spirit, Echo Stomp, Natural Order, Move Astral Spirit, Earth Splitter
Shard Ability: Upgrades Echo Stomp to provide it with an autocast toggle. If channeled to its duration with this toggle on, Elder Titan will swap places with his Astral Spirit when the stomp completes.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Astral Spirit to provide 2 seconds of spell immunity per enemy hero struck by it when the spirit reconverges with Elder Titan.
Notable 7.31 changes: A slight amount of extra mana regeneration, addition of the "Move Astral Spirit" ability as a quality of life change (no more needing to select the spirit manually, though this can still be done.) Level 10 talents adjusted - +5 more attack speed on the attack speed talent, and the +15 movespeed talent was changed to an additional 2% movespeed per hero struck by Astral Spirit on reconvergence.

And right after "hate him and can't play him," from Storm, we have Elder Titan - an initiator I love to play, but am usually only okay at, and a rare pick in pubs yet more common in competitive. A lot of this is due to his relatively item-independent jack-of-all-trades status - but unlike other jack-of-all-trades heroes like Windranger, he has some huge holes in his playstyle and defense that render him obsolete for the entire game if he gets bullied early. The stats are a big one: his base/growth in agility and intelligence - and therefore his armor, attack speed and manapool - are crap, and his damage is slow and plodding. If he is played as a support, he absolutely needs backup for his lockdown, since both Astral Spirit and Echo Stomp are hugely choreographed, possibly even worse than a Doom trying to waddle up and hit you in the face. The upside, of course, being if Stomp connects - the enemy is slept for up to five seconds in a large zone both around the spirit and Elder Titan himself. The long windup period is a necessity, though, given how quickly Astral Spirit appears on cast. If it was any quicker, he'd be like release Tauren Chieftain back in ye olde Allstars days, where the five second stun was followed by a free divine rapier hit. No thank you. Following up this stun with Earth Splitter, a percentage based mixed-damage ability with a pi-second (no, really) activation time and a huge range, usually spells doom for anyone who falls into the crack.

Alas, we also have the dreaded human element come into play during Dota 2 pub games - you can get the perfect five-man five-second sleep, but then you have to wait the three seconds for Earth Splitter to chunk everyone down and oh no, your brainless PA jumped on the enemy Undying, woke him up, and he Tombstones and used a Lotus Orb on his allied Omniknight who Graces his carry and mashes on Guardian Angel and oh no half the damage from Earth Splitter is suddenly gone and his entire team is pummeling yours heedless of the heavy slow while zombies overwhelm and..

You know, hypothetically. This scenario definitely hasn't happened to me every other time I try to play him in solo queue.

Despite his low-seeming numbers, MAN does Elder Titan hit hard if he manages to get a couple of hero hits with Astral Spirit. Natural Order's very existence means that his enemies need to counterbuild flat armor and magic resistance items for it, lest they take pure damage in all but name when he or his spirit are nearby, and since part of Natural Order's power is tied into his spirit possessing the MR-lowering part of the aura, he's partially immune to break, which will only remove the armor reduction and not the magic resistance. Also, since talents are immune from break, a level 20 Elder Titan has the capacity to have 100% damage cleave on attack. A core-built Elder Titan with aim and Astral Spirit micro is extremely frightening if he builds around his plodding early base attack speed with, say, an Echo Saber and a shard, as he quite literally teleports behind you, instantly getting his Spirit benefits, and double taps you for physical damage rivalling a Tusk punch. It is exceptionally satisfying to slam a full Agility Morphling into the dirt this way.

If he had another quality of life fix or two, he might be higher up, but right now, his need to commit to a build path with some major holes in each playstyle (poor defense as a core, poor damage as a Mekanism/Greaves support, poor mana efficiency and choreographed initiation) leads him to have an unfortunate inability to do much for a team without queueing with others - especially if the enemy has the myriad ways to stop Stomp from going off.

Partied Elder Titan would probably be up a few dozen on this list. But hey, at least he doesn't absolutely have to build blink dagger!

Next hero hint: Two is quite enough, thank you.