By now many of us have seen the skillful and fortuitous armlet toggling mastery of Dr. Lee:

Before the nerf that no longer granted instant HP for toggling, Armlet was a core item on nearly every strength hero. We saw it often on heroes such as Nightstalker, Sven, and Alchemist when now it is only a situational choice. Today, it is core for a few heroes with life steal, such as N'aix and Wraith King. Even then, professional players have opted for other items. In competitive play for patch 6.81, Drums has overtaken Armlet as the most bought item on N'aix. It has been awhile since we saw WoDota Armlet toggling plays until Dr. Lee reminded us that they can still happen.

Mistakes Were Made

Armlet gives you an opportunity that other comparable strength items do not: it allows you to outplay your opponents. Similar to magic wand, players often underestimate the extra health when they're calculating how much damage it would take to kill a hero. Though you'll have countless opportunities in pubs, we've seen it pro games as well, such as at TI4 when Yamateh's Wraith King, with his ultimate on cooldown, baited iG into a losing fight:

Armlet lost its popularity because of the nerf to it's toggle. While it did hamstring the item, we can see that skillful toggling can still be game changing. Aside from the nerf, Armlet still retains the same stat benefits it's had since 6.78. Armlet is still one of the most cost efficient items for the stats it provides, if you can sustain the HP loss. 2600 gold for +31 damage, 10 attack speed, and 25 strength -- essentially better than a Reaver and Mithril Hammer. It buffs Sven's ultimate, N'aix's Feast, Chaos Knight's Illusions, yet the item has fallen out of favor more than it deserves.

Unconventional Builds

Armlet is most intriguing on Agility heroes. It may seem like a terrible idea to use a core strength item for an Agility hero, but if it works then you're a genius. If we never saw Dr. Lee's auspicious Sniper rampage, we would be flaming every pub Armlet Sniper. We still do, but part of us realize there is some merit in the build.

Armlet is such a cost efficient item that it benefits heroes who do not gain damage from Strength. It still gives a sizable damage boost and health for heroes that require it. Sniper is one of them, with Mask of Madness as core to regain HP loss. Another hero that benefits is Slark, whose passive synergies with the HP loss of the item. Armlet is rarely used on Slark, but it does retain a 54.64% win rate in pubs.

I enjoyed seeing these recent Armlet highlights because it opens our creativity to imagine new item builds. No one item is 100% bad on a hero, nor is another item good, but we often believe that is the case. Boots of Travel on Tinker was once unheard of, and so was Blink Dagger on Slark and Nature's Prophet. Those items are now core. What will be next?