Plague Rider (Lich) Guide

Welcome to my Plague Rider or as known in dota, Lich, guide. Lich is a very good hero to start with if you are learning the game. His skills are fairly straightforward and his ult, with some luck, can wreck an entire team. On the other hand he remains viable for top level play and is one of the most dangerous heroes. Lets examine some of the strength and weaknesses of Plague Rider. Make sure to check out the hero page for detailed info.

Strength:

Very strong lane control. His nuke is very spammable which forces his opponent(s) to play very defensive and often suffer heavy xp and gold losses. This is only compounded by his creep deny ability that hurts enemy XP even more.Very good team support. Even though Lich only has one support skill, his shield, astrolabe is a core item which both provides further armor and healing. His shield ability, which is often overrated, adds +12 armor for the whole team when chain cast before a battle at skill level 4.A powerful ulti. Although his ultimate is situational it has the potential to cause obscene damage. The draw back is that it’s partially dependent on luck but that can be a positive for new players as they are still honing their skills. This makes him a very strong ganking hero.High mana pool compounded with his mana spell allows him to use abilities with impunity, such as astrolabe or puzzleboxNot item dependent. After getting boots, some bracers, and astrolabe you pretty much are set. Everything else is a luxury and you can spend your gold on wards, dust, etc whatever your team needs.Above average movespeed.

Weaknesses

Lich has terrible strength gain, 1.55 (only pyro and chronos are lower I think at 1.50 and 1.40). This means you are a glass cannon, and if focused early on you will die. The silver lining is with astrolabe and your shield you should become quite resilient. After you have used up your ulti enemy teams will also tend to ignore you, so use that to your advantage.Your ulti is situational. When facing a single hero with no creeps around him your ulti is useless. It becomes another contagion (nova). Your ulti will chain with creeps and heroes which could mean it jumping right when you wanted it to jump left. Barrier Idol also will negate your ulti.Weak late game. The enemy team has wisened up to you, they either got shrunken heads or barrier idol. With your nukes rendered weak you become nothing more than an auto-attacking bat.  Luckily Lich has one of the highest wins of all heroes so most teams will ignore that, and just stack your path to victory with damage items and elder parasites.

This is your bread and butter. It has relatively high mana cost but the damage and movement slow is great. At level 4 you will deal 325 damage to your target and an additional 150 damage and the slow effects to units around him. This is your main harass skill and should be spammed. Note that you should take advantage of the slow when harassing by using it when the enemy hero is close, then attacking as they run away.

It’s not a great ability for creepy since it’s effectively a single target nuke and the AOE damage isn’t enough to kill the other creeps. If you do find yourself with max mana and no hero is nearby and your mana ability is ready then cast it on the ranged creep to kill them and immediately ‘extinguish’ one of your own creeps to regen the mana.

Think of this ability as a way to slowly erode enemy heroes, effectively destroying their consumables until you can finish them with your ulti.

Cursed Shield is a great ability that is taken over stats as soon as we max our other spells. It really transforms you and your team, adding 12 armor and slowing anyone who attacks you (melee only I think) by 30% and slowing their attack speed by a negligible -20. This balanaces out your weak strength gain against physical damage and gives excellent team support.

As the description indicates, Extinguish will kill a friendly target and convert its hitpoints to mana for you. The deny and mana cost remain the same through all the levels, but it’s important to max out for two reasons. The cooldown which decreases by 15 seconds and the mana converted. At level one you are only getting 15% mana for a 500hp creep that’s  75 mana. But at 60% you are getting 300 mana.

This is really what defines you. First obviously it gives you mana to spam your abilities, which means you don’t have to worry about mana regen so much. But also you are completely denying one creep hurting your opponent’s xp gain. ON TOP of that the lane gets pushed into your side, forcing your enemy deeper into your side and making it easier to kill them.

This is why lich is so dangerous. This ulti can genocide a whole team. But it’s very situational. One thing to note is the damage is AOE so heroes next to each other will basically take double the damage. The problem with the ulti is that it takes time to travel and good players will split up once they see it. The key to using it is when the battle had started and everyone is clumped together. Or simply entering from the forest/fog, casting it immediately, with extinguish at the same time to slow the heroes while it travels.

Your ulti synergizes great with several heroes, especially ones that can lock heroes down or clump them together. If tempest grabs all five enemy heroes in her ultimate and you cast yours they will surely die. The same with chronos ult, or behemoth. Even the new forsaken archer can help with her arrow disable. The key always is to minimize the distance traveled and casting it when there are heroes close to each other.

Note that it will still bounce off magic immune targets, just not damage them. So even if swiftblade spins, his ally might not be so lucky.

Now that you know what his skills do, how do we build him.  You want to max out Contagion as soon as possible to dominate your lane and you will need Extinguish to support your mana. We delay getting Cursed Shield until we maxed those out although theoretically you can put a point in it before maxing out Extinguish for the slow effects.

Contagion (Nova)

Cursed Shield

Extinguish (Deny)

Plague Carrier (ULTI)

Level 1: Contagion / ExtinguishLevel 2: Extinguish / ContagionLevel 3: ContagionLevel 4: ExtinguishLevel 5: ContagionLevel 6: Plague Carrier (Ulti)Level 7:  Contagion (Maxed Out)Level 8: Extinguish Level 9: Cursed Shield/ Extinguish (Maxed Out)Level 10: Extinguish (Maxed Out) / Cursed ShieldLevel 11: Plague Carrier (Ulti) level 2Level 12: Cursed ShieldLevel 13: Cursed ShieldLevel 14: Cursed ShieldLevel 15: StatsLevel 16: Plague Carrier (Ulti) Maxed OutLevel 16-25: Stats

You either get Contagion or Extinguish at level 1. If you are just going to your lane then the early creep deny will help more than a nuke that you probably won’t use. Of course if are expecting a rune battle or see a window for early harassment go for Contagion. From there we just max out our two main skills and get our ulti whenever we can. Only at level 9 we can either get one level of Cursed Shield or max out Extinguish. After that we max out Extinguish and get Cursed Shield until it’s maxed out then we get our last level of the ulti and stats.

Starting Items

Even though you will most likely take middle lane you should buy your own courier. Unlike most Intelligence heroes you don’t need mana regen items early on and your only concern is for health. So your starting items will reflect that. The 2x runes of blight will guarantee you have enough health to harass and you can either go crushing claw for hitpoint boost or pretender crown.

By midgame you should have your astrolabe as it is the core item on Plague Rider. Finish it first before getting treads. Wards you always need them, they get you kills and save lives. Bracers are to further raise your hitpoints, making you much more resilient. After astrolabe finish power treads, keep warding and make sure to keep a teleport with you at all times to gank or defend.

Obviously no game will you have all these items but these are items I recommend. As you notice, 4 items support your team. We already talked about astrolabe.

Nome’s wisdom is good if you have a team with a lot of casters, otherwise don’t bother with it. It’s a cheap and easy to build item but situational.

Puzzle box can be a great item for the team support, added DPS and various buffs they give as well as true vision – can detect invisible- but you really need good micro to make the best out of it and it starts to lose effectiveness as the game progresses. If you can get it quickly after astrolabe then great, otherwise skip ahead.

Frostfield plate synergizes well with Cursed Shield giving you a total of +28 armor, making you ridiculously resiliant against physical attacks. The -25% attack speed aura stacks with your ulti and nuke to give them a total of -40% attack speed.  But the real reason we get this is for the slow, when stacked with your ulti the enemy team will be crawling to a standstill getting ripped to shreds.

Sheepstick or Totem of Kuldra is one of the best items in the game also one of the more expensive ones. This item gives +10 agility +10 strength +35 intelligence and +200% mana regen. The intelligence is only relevant for increased auto attack damage and the mana regen isn’t very useful for Plague Rider. The strength and agility is nice for hps and armor. But the main thing we get this for is the 3.5 second disable. This allows you to gank at ease, and completely nullify non-magic immune heroes. Most team fights are determined by the first 3 seconds so disabling a key hero for that amount will turn the tide of the battle your way. This is a great item regardless of the situation.

Plague Rider does fine in any lane but usually he is given middle for his strong harass and lane control. Another reason Plague Rider should take middle is he has a game breaking ultimate that gets extremely strong midgame and then tapers off. This is why its important for Plague Rider to get to level 6 quickly and start setting up ganks whenever the ultimate is ready. With his strong farm he can build a quick astrolabe allowing for early pushing.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t viable in a sidelane. Plague Rider can be a great babysitter, denying friendly creeps and harassing enemy heroes. This is inferior to mid since in a lane you lose the element of surprise and his ultimate is dependent on that. The role Plague Rider will play midgame is roaming and ganking, but that’s almost impossible to do if you are trying to babysit another hero since when you gank you leave your teammate at a disadvantage.

This game we’re assuming you are playing solo mid

Begin with the item build shown in the beginning and head near the rune spawn. Don’t pick your first spell yet, wait till the creep start coming. Stay on elevated grounds near the river to spot any ganks. If you see any heroes its a good sign they might be ganking so be cautious. If you have an ally with you or two, get Contagion (Nova) and attempt to gank the hero waiting for the rune. Otherwise Extinguish and deny a melee creep. Don’t be too aggressive and wait until level 3. Focus on last hitting but also damaging your creeps when they are below 50% hps will the lane more to your side giving you the highground.

At level 3 you have 2 levels of Contagion and a level of Extinguish. Begin harassing the enemy by nuking them when they come close and following up with several auto attacks. Learn to cancel the attack animation so you can attack and move quicker. Right click the enemy and just as the projectile is leaving your hero issue a move command closer to the enemy, the projectile will still connect but the attack took less time. Keep denying your creeps with Extinguish whenever you can aim for full hp ones to get the most mana.

At around level 5 unless you made a lot of mistakes the opponent hero should be playing very defensively or has died. Keep spamming your nuke as you should have no problem with mana. If your opponent has a bottle and he’s rune checking, make sure to try and steal some runes from him. Wait 10 seconds before an even minute and head to a random rune spawn, or get wards from your courier. At this point you should have your boots which your courier brought.

When you reach level 6 your opponent will be playing even more defensive or risk a death. Your ulti will kill most heroes at max hitpoints if landed properly. Don’t cast it at max distance as the enemy hero will surely run away. A good tactic is to open up with Contagion, slowing the hero and damaging them, then casting the ulti. Now you have a decision to make, either stay in the lane or go gank. If you just pushed mid back to the fountain and your ulti is up then go to a sidelane from the jungle or river and attempt a gank. On the other hand, if mid is doing really well against you somehow, I recommend you stay a bit more and harass. The reason being is if you are playing against soulstealer your 2-4 minute absence will allow him to farm a lot, making him an even bigger danger. Use your judgment.

At this point I like to get refreshing ornament (+2 hp ring regen aura) because I will later turn it into astrolabe and it saves me money on hp consumables. If you are facing burst damage get 2 Crushing Claws (+3 strength) and turn them into Fortified Bracelets.

Around level 7-8 you should leave your lane and gank. Your nuke is maxed out and you have your ulti. Head behind the trees and wait for the enemy to push, get as close as you can before using your ulti. Once you know they saw you ulti and cast Contagion immediately. If there are 2 heroes clumped together they will not survive. Ping the map for your allies when you are setting up a gank so they see you and help you.

At level ~10-12 you should finish your astrolabe and begin pushing. Gather your team and start pushing aggressively. Destroy towers and retreat while you are ahead. This will greatly increase your income as well as put pressure on the enemy to defend causing them XP and Gold losses. They will be powerless to stop you unless they have huge AOE heroes like Behemoth or Tempest and even then if you don’t clump up you should still come ahead.

After that just focus on keep wards up, finish your steamboots for more survivability and movespeed boost and start working on your lategame items.

The key to Plague Rider is being aware of the map and helping your team. You are a force multiplier, basically you give your team more damage, hitpoints and armor, that’s about it. You should always to try and finish games early as late game heroes will give you a hard time. Hopefully your carry was able to farm to counter them though.

Here is a video of a game I played recently. I didn’t follow the build and made some mistakes but it showcases the strength of Plague Rider. I opted to go for post haste as I wanted a strong map presense and we were already winning.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 7th, 2009 at 12:21 am and is filed under Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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