Itemization Overview

So, uh, did I mention that Razor is versatile? That plays into the items in a very significant way — I talked about identifying your role within the team and playing towards it earlier, and that becomes exponentially more relevant when talking about the items. You can fill just about any niche with Razor via your itemization — some obviously better than others.

I won’t go as far in-depth in this section as the previous — partly because I don’t really know enough to do so, and partly because you could viably pick up just about any item on this hero, so I’ll just talk about what your item progression should look like, and how to react to certain game situations through your itemization.

Starting Items

While Razor is a lane dominator, he’s quite squishy early on, so you’ll want a decent bit of regen.

Sidelane: 2x Tango, Wind Lace, Salve, Branch

This build allows you to get Link off early, while also providing you with plenty of regen for trading. You should avoid tanking creeps like the plague though — it’s okay to Link without right-clicking the enemy, especially before you sap 20+ damage. Just focus on getting the CS advantage. You can eat the Branch for extra regen in very trade-heavy lanes, or you can just turn it into a Wand later on. In lanes where you don’t think you’ll be able to get good Links off, or where you suspect your wave might get cut, you can opt for a Slipper or Circlet instead of the Wind Lace — or even more regen, but since it builds into a later Drum I like to grab it at the start.

Midlane: Faerie Fire, Branch, 2x Slipper, Circlet, 2x Shared Tango

You can substitute one of the slippers for a second Circlet if you don’t to get two Wraith Bands and instead want to get a Bracer. You want to ship out either Tangoes or a Salve with the gold from your team’s Bounties. If you don’t get shared Tangoes, just buy a set of your own and forego the Faerie Fire.

Early Small Items

Every hero wants to get early cost-effective items, and foregoing them is a mistake I often see from lower MMR players.

In sidelanes, I have plenty of regen to start with, so the first two items I generally get are Brown Boots and Magic Stick. It’s important to have what you need at the start, since you really really don’t want to take the courier from your midlaner before the three minute mark, and these two are easily available from the sideshop. If you get a kill and have plenty of gold, but your mid still needs courier to be available, you can get a Chainmail and/or Crown for your eventual Phase or Drums respectively from the sideshop as well.

When you do get courier access, you want to ship out one to two Wraith Bands, Blades of Attack for Phase, any missing Wand components, as well as any potential regen you might need — I generally ship out a couple Clarities with almost any courier usage to supplement my farm patterns. Against magic damage you’ll sometimes want a Bracer or two instead of Wraith Band; some people prefer Treads to Phase, if you want to push towers you might consider a Basilius, etc. — this build progression is mostly based around what I consider core and what I build in most games.

Core Items

After the small items, I’d recommend completing Drums. They give you movespeed, some small stats, a useful active and mana regen — all things you want on Razor. Other players get Euls or Atos first, which help you exert early-midgame pressure with the actives and passive stats. The only time I myself go for an Atos is when I want to catch slippery targets that don’t deal well with Roots, like Ember or Puck, allowing my teammates to follow up with their disables. I sometimes like to grab a Midas, especially when I have an excellent start and want to hit certain timings earlier — the fun part is that Midas generally doesn’t gimp your early fighting ability as much as some other heroes. Sometimes I go back for a Midas after Drums as well. I’d love to go more into detail on when and why I get Midas, but it’s honestly just about feeling.

After that, the world is your oyster. A teamfight or utility-oriented Razor might go for Pipe next when faced with magic-heavy enemies — you might also think about an early Hood; some games you just need a Force Staff, against heroes like Clock, NS or others, and you can eventually turn this into a Pike, though it’s not the most valuable of Razor items; it’s not that uncommon to see a BKB right after Drums when the enemy team has a lot of dangerous spells.

My general item of choice, however, is SnY — it adds to my already great movespeed, allows me to chase down enemy heroes, makes me very tanky and lets me right click pretty decently (especially with Link). It also gives me some status resist, and you can buy a Satanic later to stack onto that, making you very hard to kill off. After that, I do go for the BKB in almost every game. It allows you to chase heroes down and focus down targets, and you’re incredibly hard to kill for the duration.

This is what my inventory looks like in many, many games at the 25m mark.

Extension Items

After your core items, you have many, many options, and your next item is generally decided by your situation in the game at that point.

If you want to double down on being a strong teamfight presence, you can look at something like a Shiva, making your entire team essentially more survivable, while boosting your already good AoE damage output. In some games, like against multiple right-click cores or illusion based heroes, you can also get away with a Radiance. If, however, the enemy team has put all of their right-click eggs in one basket, you can get a Halberd and reliable shut down that core.

When you’re getting long links off and are able to right-click a lot in fights, you can turn into an even stronger right-clicker by buying items like Butterfly, Skadi, AC, or even a Mjollnir. Note that all of these items also provide defensive capabilities — at the end of the day, you’re still a Razor, so something like a Daedalus is reserved purely for when you’re balling out of control. If, however, you’re doing a lot of right-click damage against heroes with high evasion, you should definitely keep MKB in mind. Remember, the longer you’re in a teamfight, the more impact you have on it.

On the note of staying alive, the aforementioned Satanic works great when paired with your Lv25 AS talent, allowing you to get back up to full HP quickly. The status resist also stacks with SnY, so disables will last notably shorter in your BKB’s downtime. Another common option is Heart, which just gives you a massive amount of HP, as well as crucially allowing you to weave in and out of fights to regen up to high HP very fast. Another generally defensive item to consider is Manta, specifically in games where you need the dispel.

Razor has no innate disable (past the very short Plasma Field slow), and getting more disables is never a bad option. The main item to mention here is obviously Hex, and it’s an incredibly useful item on really any hero. If you don’t have other bigger priorities, a Hex can absolutely win you the game. Other items worth mentioning for CC purposes include Atos and Euls, though the latter’s main use generally isn’t as a disable.

Finally, the bit that everyone’s been waiting for — Aghs. I think Razor’s Aghs is absolutely brilliant, and the ability to melt down buildings is extremely valuable, but I consider Aghs a situational extension item (albeit one that I pick up more often than the other ones). The reason I say this is that you oftentimes have other priorities, and making sure your team wins fights is often more important than having the ability to kill buildings. You generally need to win those fights to get to the buildings anyway — and if the enemy team is dead, there’s no one to stop you from taking your time with destroying their towers and barracks. Still, the Aghs does contribute to your teamfights by giving you two strikes at a time instead of one, but giving up 4.2k gold for only that is generally not worth it. If you don’t really have any significantly more pressing needs, though, Aghs is completely fine, and can help you close out games, especially paired with a Refresher.

That concludes the items I consider most commonly on the hero, as well as a vague outline of when I’d recommend going for which. Other items I consider worth mentioning are Crimson Guard, in situations where your team needs a defensive item against lots of attack damage (especially against summons and illusions) and there’s no better hero to build it; in the same vein, Solar Crest, Vladmir’s Offering and Spirit Vessel are sometimes very necessary items for your team as a whole, and in some games, you’re the best hero to pick these up — especially as a mid (mostly with Vessel), or as an offlaner. Some players like to get Boots of Travel instead of Phase or Treads, but you should generally grab those in the late game once you’ve dealt with other priorities. I have also picked up Blade Mail a couple of times, though admittedly mostly against WRs who think they get to freely Focus Fire me. Honorable mention to Deso for when you’re hitting the throne and have 3.5k gold in hand and want to finish faster.