Hello. My name is September, and I am currently working as a Dota 2 booster at Immortal Boost. Today, I will share a perfect build of Antimage. This guide will cover all the dos and don’ts of Antimage in the current meta. This hero can only be played as a safe lane carry. The guide will help you win the most games and assist you in climbing up your MMR easily.
Introduction
Antimage slashes his enemies with mana-draining attacks. Anti-Mage has the opportunity to gather his full strength, but few can stop his assaults. Draining mana from enemies with every strike or teleporting short distances to escape an ambush, cornering him is a challenge for any foe.
Tip: Anti-Mage can be very easily shut down in team fights, especially when the opposing team has an equal farm to his. Generally, to win fights as Anti-mage, you need to have way more farm than the enemy. For this reason, you need to get Battle Fury as early as possible and get ahead of the enemies, especially the enemy carry
Type
Melee, Carry, Disabler, Escape
LANE PRESENCE
| Period | Presence | Win Rate | KD | GMP | XPM |
| Safe Lane | 90.75% | 50.20% | 3.23 | 638 | 763 |
Hero Attributes
| Movement speed | 310 |
| Sight range | 1800/800 |
| Armor | 4.36 |
| Base attack time | 1.4 |
| Damage | 53 – 57 |
| Attack point | 0.3 |
Pros and Cons
| Hard to catch | Low stat gain |
| Good attack speed and farming speed | Low health and mana pool |
| Good against heroes who require mana. | Depended on Battlefury to farm |
| High magic resistance | Requires good support in the lane |
| Good at split pushing | Useless when not farmed. |
Item Build & Skill Build
According to the current patch 7.35d, this is the skill build you should make.
Skill Build
- Take the Mana Break on level 1.
- Burns an opponent’s mana on each attack and deals damage equal to a percentage of the mana burnt. Enemies with no mana left are temporarily slowed.
- Further, upgrade the skill according to the following sequence (3,5,11)
Tip: Mana Break isn’t that effective with heroes with a small mana pool, since they will take much less damage from Mana Break
- Blink should be taken on level 2.
- Short-distance teleportation that allows Anti-Mage to move in and out of combat.
- Relative to Anti-Mage’s mana pool, Blink is somewhat costly in terms of mana. As such, you should refrain from freely employing the spell in the early stages of the game unless you feel like you are out of position/about to die
- Further, you can upgrade the Blink Stike according to the following sequence (7,8,9)
- CounterSpell should be taken later on Level 4.
- Passively grants magic resistance. Counterspell may be activated to create an anti-magic shell around Anti-Mage that blocks and sends any targeted spells back toward enemies instead.
- As Counterspell has no cast point, Anti-Mage should wait to use it when enemies are playing their abilities’ cast animation.
- You can upgrade this ability according to the following sequence (13,14,16)
Note: Try to guess as to when an enemy hero will use a spell. If you are at low health, you might want to use it to block certain spells that deal massive damage, like Finger of Death or Laguna blade
- Mana Void is a powerful spell when enemies have low mana For each point of mana missing by the target unit, damage is dealt to it and surrounding enemies. The main target is also mini-stunned.
- Note that it does have a short stun, allowing you to cancel spell casts and channels. This is particularly effective in the early game when most heroes don’t have spell immunity.
- Always level up to this ability whenever it is up on level 6, level 12, level 18
Tip: If there’s a solo intelligence hero in the lane against you, you can potentially kill them once you hit level 6 and empty their mana pool. However, you should rarely attempt a tower dive, as you can’t tank the damage at all.
Note: Buying Aghanim’s Scepter on Antimage which grants him a new ability called Blink Fragment. Upon use, it spawns an illusion to the target enemy or location, which attacks for a brief time. Counterspell is replicated on the Blink Fragment illusion. Has 3 Charges.
Tip: Get Aghanim’s Shard on Antimage which grants him a new ability Counterspell Ally that can be activated to create an anti-magic shell around an allied hero that blocks and sends any targeted spells back towards enemies instead. Any time a spell is reflected by Counterspell or Counterspell Ally, an illusion of Anti-Mage will be created next to the enemy.
Talent Tree Choices
- Level 10 Select +9 Strength.
- Level 15 Select -1s Blink Cooldown.
- Level 20 Select +150 Blink Cast Range.
- Level 25 Select -50s Mana Void Cooldown.
Item Build:
Starting items
- 1x Tango
- 1x Quelling Blade
- 1x Healing Salve
- 2x Iron Branch
Early game items
- Cornucopia
- Power Treads
- Orb Of Corrosion
- Magic Wand
Mid-game items:
- Battle Fury
- Manta Style
- Diffusal Blade
Late-game items:
- Eye of Skadi
- Butterfly
- Disperser
- Abbysal Blade
- Boots of Travel 2
Situational items:
- Monkey King Bar
- Assault Cuirass
- Linken’s Sphere
- Black King Bar
- Heart of Tarrasque
- Bloodthorn
- Aghanim’s Scepter
- Aghanim’s Shard
Early gameplay / Mid game / Late game
Early gameplay (0:00 – 12:00)
Antimage is weak at the beginning as he has low health points. Focus only on your farm and last hits as much as you can. You should begin working on your Battlefury now that the early laning phase is over. A battlefury is an important item for anti-mage since it allows you to do a lot of farming with Blink. An Anti-Mage equipped with Blink and a Battlefury may flash-farm the jungle in 45 seconds and then repeat the process indefinitely. You can also simply push your creep lane with a Battlefury because you can kill creeps quickly. Blinking far ahead of your creeps and clearing away a whole opposition creep wave is a typical approach, allowing the creeps to push on their own.
Mid gameplay (12:00 – 25:00)
Anti-Mage should depart the lane for the jungle after a Battlefury. You are still quite weak at this time and should avoid team fights. Feel free to Blink in and utilize Mana Void to steal kills if your team is destroying the enemy team. Any kills directed towards you as an Anti-Mage, rather than a Pudge or Bloodseeker, will benefit the squad. A Manta Style is a great match for Anti-Mage because your illusions will also benefit from Mana Break. Because all three illusions hit for 64 mana burn, Anti-Mage will be able to burn 192 mana per hit with a Manta. The illusions will additionally receive a bonus of 38 damage, resulting in good damage being inflicted. A Manta will also provide much-needed movement speed, as well as large quantities of extra Agility, owing to Yasha. It also allows you to Manta-dodge or utilize the Manta Style for a fraction of a second before missile impacts. Because utilizing the Manta makes you invulnerable for 0.1 seconds, this will stop the harm. Any negative debuffs, such as Desolator’s Corruption, will be removed when using the Manta. Feel free to join team fights once you’ve obtained your Manta. You should be able to solo most heroes with illusions due to their enormous Mana Break and damage. Of course, use caution and avoid initiating! You’re still squishy, and if you begin with Blink, you’ll almost certainly get busted down. Allow the other team or another hero to take the lead. Always keep your Blink for when you need to get away. Everything might be ruined by a single death.
Late gameplay (25:00 – 60:00)
At this stage of the game, Anitmage is a powerful hero as he has all the required items to show his full potential and most likely can’t be easily killed unless enemies have a strong lockdown against you. Keep pushing the lanes and towers to force enemies to teleport and defend that will make them frustrated and make sure in the team fights just cut off the supports as they are easy to kill with your Mana Burn + Manta Illusions + Mana Void. dont be too overconfident as your positioning and initiation matters. Focus on barracks once you wipe the enemy team and finish the game as soon as possible.
Counters of Antimage
Axe
- Berserker’s Call prevents Anti-Mage from escaping with Blink and works well with Blade Mail against Anti-Mage’s relatively low health.
- You can check Axe guide here
Bane
- Fiend’s Grip prevents Anti-Mage from Blinking away or using Manta Style. It also pierces spell immunity.
Disruptor
- Glimpse brings Anti-Mage back after he Blinks away.
- Static Storm stops Anti-Mage from Blinking.
Doom
- Doom shuts down Anti-Mage’s escape capabilities with Blink. The ability also deals pure damage, which ignores the protection from Counterspell.
Grimstroke
- If Grimstroke has Aghanim’s Scepter, Dark Portrait can reflect Anti-Mage’s Mana Break, making it useful in team fights.
Legion Commander
- Duel doesn’t allow Anti-Mage to escape with Blink and using Counterspell is useless.
Slark
- Pounce prevents Anti-Mage from using Blink and lets him disengage from Anti-Mage if needed.
- Essence Shift allows Slark to steal agility from Anti-Mage permanently.
Mirana
- Moonlight Shadow can help her allies avoid Mana Break and Mana Void.
- Counterspell does not protect Anti-Mage from Sacred Arrow.
- To check how Mirana can counter Antimage, read the ultimate guide.
Outworld Destroyer
- Sanity’s Eclipse will hit Anti-Mage while he is disabled from Astral Imprisonment and force him to take heavy damage due to his low intelligence.
- Outworld Destroyer can counter Antimage easily, you can read the guide here.
Phantom Assassin
- The Anti-Mage’s low health pool makes it vulnerable to Phantom Assassin’s burst damage and Coup de Grace critical strike while Blink is on cooldown.
- In a man fight, if Phantom Assassin uses her Aghanim’s Shard ability, Fan of Knives, it will be a nightmare for Antimage, as his passive ability, Mana Burn, won’t work.
- To find out how PA can counter Antimage, you can have a look at this PA guide.
Summary
Antimage is a hero from which you will control your farm and make items on time. This guide will help you learn how to play Rat Dota and burst down enemies. Try this Antimage guide and let us know in the comment section.
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