Cubed's Analysis of Legion Commander for 6.84

Hello I'm Cubed. I play Tresdin quite a bit.

249 games, 54.62% win rate.

I'm not the best. I'm not the worst, Just my opinions, how I'd like to see Legion implemented, and her changing role in dotA.

LEGION COMMANDER

Base Stats

26 +2.6STR

18+1.7AGI

20+2.2INT

644hp, 260mp, 2.52armr At level 1

320ms

1.7 BAT

[+] Above average movement speed

[+] Excellent base damage

[+] Highest starting strength of all the heroes (tied with Doom)

[+] 3rd highest intelligence growth for a strength hero

[+] One of the best single-target disables in the game

[+] Decent AoE nuke that increases movement speed

[+] Can jungle and free up a solo lane

[+] Can snowball

[-] Subpar agility and agility growth, and consequently, subpar armor

[-] Melee

[-] No spammable nuke

[-] Item dependent (no tank items = food)

[-] May feed enemy carry damage if careless

[-] Requires awareness of who to disable and who to debuff

[-] Requires team awareness to follow up his disable

Item Suggestions w/ A little commentary.

Core

Teleport Scrolls - Self Explanatory.

Magic Wand - never know when you'll need that sick +225hp and mp.

Blink / Shadow Blade - Pick up to foster normal legion nature; Highly mobile, predatory ganker.

Power Threads/Phase Boots - Damage, attack speed, and ability to switch attributes. Phase taken over Threads when picking up a separate farming item/going mid.

Blademail - Stop Hitting yourself.

Black King Bar - So you actually get to your duel

Luxury/Situtational

Assult Curriass - Fixes Armor problems due to low AGI gain. AOE buff for team, and IAS for duels

Desolator - Generally bought against high armor agi heroes, and for pocket push strats. Blows up supports. Snowball item.

Skadi - Stats to tank up, slow to help chase and control fights. Preferred over Heart.

Linken's Sphere - When single target spells become an issue.

Mjollnir - Farming item, better for pushing teams

Battle Fury - Farming item, better for longer games

Abyssal Blade - Taken to disable general BKB users

Guinsoo's Scythe - Picked up when requiring another disable at greater ranges than abyssal, or if no one has one on your team.

Heaven's Halberd - Taken when high physical damage heroes are present. (TA, PA, Stealth Assassin, etc)

Vladmir's - Taken when doing push strats. However is generally fine to pick up at any time

Satanic - Look at me, I'm the carry now.

Medallion - For early rosh timings, and fighting

Daedelus - When you are snowballing

Monkey King Bar - Evasion makes you sad

Armlet - Easy build up, immediate benefits. Cheap too. and it Got buffed.

Sange and Yasha - Good all around item. Gives you a little bit of everything you need.

Necronomicon - When you absolutely need to kill all the towers. Also pseudo spectators for your rage cage.

HoT (Heart) - Look at me. I'm Pudge. now.

Rejected Items

Mask of Madness - No.

Ethereal Blade - You don't do magical duel damage. You're just an angry living commander.

Bloodstone - You're not a caster, nor does bloodstone give you anything you need but regeneration.

Hand of Midas - If you have the gold to buy this, just buy a blink dagger. You'll be more useful.

Veil of Discord - Again, not a caster. Good item, but not for LC.

Dagon - Want some wine with that cheese?

Special Mentions

Divine Raiper - Got a 10% buff. Always viable. No objections. Most cost efficient damage item in the game

Refresher Orb - Good when against primarily melee teams, as you actually are in range to get double duels off.

Radiance - A long and difficult build-up, however the burn damage and returning addition of evasion to the item; can be useful in disrupting other blink carriers and enemy right clickers.

Legion Commander had an odd place in 6.83, and was rarely seen in the competitive scene, because even though highly versatile, wasn't specialized enough

to deal with the focused meta strengths.

6.84 Brings a host of options for Tresdin, with its heavy focus on being active and ganking, with new items and rewarding active commanders with higher bounties.

Be active with Tresdin, set up ganks and plan you means of attack.

6.84 Changes to LC

Legion Commander

Moment of Courage counterattack chance from 16/18/20/22 to 25%

Moment of Courage lifesteal from 20/40/60/80% to 55/65/75/85%

Moment of Courage cooldown from 0.9 to 2.7/2.1/1.5/0.9

Added Aghanim's Scepter upgrade to Legion Commander: Duel lasts until either Legion Commander or her target dies. Ends if duelists are ever more than 2,000 range apart.

Moment of Courage Changes

Legion Commander has been given a rescaling to moment of courage to a flat 25% PRD proc chance with higher early lifesteal percentages,

to counteract this strength, the cooldown on the passive now scales from 2.7 back down to its 0.9 at level 4. This means early on, she's weaker, but late game

she is significantly stronger. This significantly impacts her early game in lanes however. The longer cooldown on procs means you can no longer effective tank creeps

undertower unmitigated, stealing back health. As well, it discourages early aggression from LC, because you can't just man up and hope you get some lucky procs. the change has made taking early

fights with LC require significant more forethought.

[+] Stronger and more consistent procs means more viability and survivability in fights after getting more ranks

[+] Slightly safer jungle, as damage was never legion's problem but hp conservation, and speed.( Though you should try to lane as often as possible)

[+] More positive lategame fight interactions.

[+] Encourages LC players to think about trades.

While an overall power creep on Legion, I have not done extensive testing with the new MoC, and have yet to do the math. I'll update later.

Legion Commander has been added to the list of heroes with Aghanim's upgrades. Her new upgrade now puts you in permanent duels, until death of either party.

In all honesty, I wanted, and dreaded this change. In its current state, though untested by the majority of the community, I believe Legions Aghs is more a hinderance than a buff.

Things to consider with Aghanim's on LC.

1. It doesn't additionally disable passives, like i hopped would be added back.

2. Aghs is a 4200g investment and should be considered extensively before blindly buying. Make no mistake, it is a situational item like all aghs upgrades, and is not a core buy on a normal LC.

3. Aghs gives legion the ability to take heroes out of teamfights entirely now, but you as the duelist are also out of the fight

4. I have concluded that this is not a item to buy if you are behind, instead invest in more team centric items to buff up everyone else.

5. LC is already a slow farmer without specific farming items. Investment into an Agh's will delay her core function alot longer than if she spent it on more aggressive item choices.

6. It is not good, but it is not bad either. At one point in time, Tresdin was build to be the tankiest mother-fucker on the planet. In a scenario where you as LC effectively become a damage soak for your team

Agh's shines.

Old To New Builds 6.83 -6.84

For a long while the standard core for Legion Commander has been pretty rigid, though having some options.

First and foremost Legion must secure some early damage, and ways to successfully chase and catch heroes for duel damage, and locking down

intiators, carries or disruptive heroes during teamfights. This is generally achieved by purchasing items that directly increase your mobility, and early damage

such as power treads, and either a blink dagger or shadow blade, and extending to her first defensive item, blademail or bkb. To acquire such wealth, more often than not you will need to place LC

in greedier farming roles, such as mid or safe lane.

Note that if you're making good time, you can have treads, blink by 12 minutes.

20:00 Builds : Costs and Stats

Treads, Blink, BKB - The Standard balanced approach.

[+] Gain ability to reposition self 1200 units in any direction.

[+] Magic Immunity

[+] Variable stat increases for situations calling for tread swaps

[+] decent hp pool increase

[-] No flat armour gain

[-] No intelligence gain

-Cost: 1450 + 2250 + 3975 = 7975g

Stats Gained

+19 STR from Treads and Ogre Club (resulting in 361hp)

+43 DMG from Treads and BKB

+50 IAS

Treads, Blink, Blademail - Against burst damage, generally taken against physical burst instead of magic.

[+] Gain ability to reposition self 1200 units in any direction.

[+] Gain ability to reflect damage received as pure damage to attacker.

[+] Variable stat increases for situations calling for tread swaps

[+] Flat armor gain

[+] Flat Int gain

[+] Cheap

[+] can be used to snowball

[-] Less flat hp than bkb build

[-] less flat damage than bkb build

[-] No immunity to magic

- Cost: 1450 + 2250 + 2200 = 5900g

Stats Gained

+9 STR from Treads (171hp)

+10 int (130mp)

+6 armor (36% EHP)

+31 DMG from Treads and blademail

+50 IAS

Treads, Lothar's Edge, Medallion of Courage - Generally for roaming, and when performing in roles lower than 2.

[+] Unpredictability from invisibility, and safer scouting on unaware enemies

[+] Flat Armor Gain

[+] Variable stat increases for situations calling for tread swaps

[+] Assist in taking roshan as an objective

[+] Castable buff to allies, negative buff to enemies

[+] Cheap

[-] Less flat hp than bkb build

[-] less flat damage than bkb build

[-] No immunity to magic

[-] Countered by cheap consumables

- Cost: 1450 +2800 +1200 = 5450g

Stats Gained

+9 STR from Treads (171hp)

+7 armor from medallion

+80 IAS

+31 DMG from Treads and Lothar's - potential +206 physical burst

Obviously everything in DotA is situational, and every situation should be treated individually. But this gives you a decent idea of where to be generally gold wise

by 20:00 mark.

6.84 Item Discussions for Tresdin

6.84 has shifted the meta from a focused strong core of heroes, and blown it quite open to higher viability of active ganking heroes.

The additional gold gain from kills encourages this, as do the new items. And this directly figures into general LC playstyle.

I will be going over the msot notable items that i felt were incredibly relevant to LC's midgame presence,and when to by and cost, timing and situations.

Enchanted Mango -150g

An interesting new consumable, giving +1 hp regeneraiton and can be eaten to instantly give 150mp, and cost 150g.

While a good new consumable for supports, and mana hungry heroes, I wouldn't really consider buying these unless I had random gold.

They do no stack into one slot, meaning they are inventory inefficient, as well as cost inefficient compared to the other flat mana regeneration consumable,

clarities, which are 1/3 of the cost, and restore 13% more mana. They definitively serve a purpose in the game, and will make early game interactions

more exciting because of the ability for more constant harassment by spells, but i can't justify buying them on legion, as you can slot better regeneration

for better price points.

Mangoes are fucking delicious though.

Lotus Orb - 4050g

The most interesting item in the patch for me. Gives the ability to reflect targeted spells to casters. It fulfils a few requirements for LC you should

think about. For one, it reflects targeted spells, and last longer than max rank duel, assuming you didn't buy an aghs. While not quite giving you an

uninterrupted duel, its presence on you discourages supports to use spells and disables on you, because they get disabled as well.

Gives good regeneration, good armor, and 10 flat damage, and can be dissembled.

The Lotus Orb allows for more risk reward play with Legion, and allows her to take a more initiative role than before, and can be coupled with other items for interesting interactions.

Buying in tandem with a blademail means that opponents will receive double damage when returned, if not carrying a BKB.

Echo shell (the active) can be cast on allies as well.

Glimmer Cape -1950g

A gimmicky item, best suited for a few key supports. Costs too much and takes a slot that, if need be, would be better suited to Pipe of insight with its new 10% resist aura.

I do not forsee much use of this on LC. However, it can be dissembled, and if you are dealing with a particularly nasty caster in lane, it might be of use to you, but at the same time,

it gives the same resistance as a base cloak which only cost 550g, so the upgrade to the cape is unneeded.

Gaurdian Greaves -5300g

We're going to get a little new meta here, you ready?

I think guardian Greaves are one of, if not the best new items for LC, but their very nature makes it unlikely to be purchased on a role 1 or 2 LC.

However, for the more team fight oriented support LC, which I think is now significantly more viable with 6.84 being more attuned to supports, and rewarding supportive play.

Now, its absolutely bloody expensive. It is 5300g which passes into the territory of extreme late game and luxury items, but it has a good build up. The most expensive chunk in one

go is the recipe for the item itself. Everything else is pretty easy to obtain by an offlaner getting mediocre farm. Mek has always had a easy build up, because of its support nature, and

arcane boots got a price reduction, and now are the same price as phase boots.

Now, onto why I think its fantastic for Legion. Guardian Aura. Since LC's duel only mutes activation of items, and not the passives given by them, you can safely duel someone, and if you drop to 20%,

take solace in the fact that you suddenly just got pipe regeneration, along with 90% EHP to physical damage, which can absolutely turn tides of close duels.

Even better still, the active heals everyone around you in force staff range, and gives a nice 160 mana to boot, purges all negative de buffs off you on cast, and doesn't cost mana to activate, meaning you don't have

to worry about itemizing harder for intelligence items, and you can actively keep team mates safer, and take pressure off of your hard supports and allow them to get more impactful items earlier.

Greaves rewards playing LC in a different way, where you play her like a older jungle doom, acquiring auras to bolster your team, and still disabling out key heroes safely.

In addition, because the greaves function as boots, it is inventory efficient, as well as mana efficient. Its an incredibly strong item, and i hope to see it utilized to its fullest.

Moon Shard - 4300g

+120 attack speed. Highest in the game. Buy an AC. Its only 950g more. And gives you better value for LC because of the armor.

Consuming one is advised when you have nothing left to buy.

Silver Edge - 5200g

The new de-facto ganking item, and all-round excellent pick up to the LC's who go Lothar's. +48 Damage, 304hp, and the always needed attack speed. Has a even higher burst potential now with shadow walks damage being buffed

to 225, and the disabling of passives on heroes for just about the duration of a L3 duel, as well as keeping you safer against higher damage right clickers with the 40% reduction to damage

makes Silver's edge an excellent addition to the LC arsenal. Although decently expensive, its component parts have easier builds, and it has a cheap recipe. The fact that the shadow strike can't miss, and

still has the ability to maim is icing on the cake.

Do be aware though that as good as this item is, it is 2x times the cost of a blink dagger, meaning it could be a while before you acquire it. It may be common sense, but in this instance you'd build the shadow

blade component first, and supplement your income with more frequent ganks. Duel is off cool-down every 50 seconds. Use it.

Solar Crest - 3000g

A much needed update to make medallion a more relevant purchase again. A excellent price point for what it gives, 10 armor and 30% evasion, 5 more than Halberd, and just 5 less than butterfly.

as well, it makes taking roshan a heck of a lot easier, seeing as he can't hit you, and he mysteriously lost all his clothing.

Octarine Core -5900g

Expensive as fuck and the spell lifesteal is wasted on LC, who only has one active magic damaging ability on a longer cool-down.

However it knock 12.5 seconds off of duels cool-down, and makes you smarter and significantly more courageous than Rincewind.

Probably won't see this on LC after the patch buzz dies down. Doesn't give LC enough relevant stats to buff her damage, an incredibly difficult build up, even for the heroes its probably designed for

Buy a skadi instead, its 275 gold cheaper, and gives you more mana and health, in addition to the slow, 3.5 armor and 25 damage.

6.84 Centric Builds

There arebuilds I significantly want to do a little delving into here and that is the Guardian greaves, Solar Crest build, I guess I've devised.

first up:

Solar Greaves - In situations where you are playing role 3, or possibly lower, and are against high physical DPS teams.

The whole thing revolves around the fact that Greaves and the crest have excellent synergy together, and both of them do not cost mana to activate and use, while giving you and your team significant buffs to survivability

and giving LC decent utility.

Two awesome active abilities, Mend, and the Solar Crest's activation.

[+] High EHP

[+] No Mana Cost

[+] Evasion

[+] Team buffs

[+] Panic button like passive, panic purge active

[+] Potential for fast roshan timings

[-] No additional bonus damage

[-] No Bonus AS

[-] Expensive

[-] No blink, no sb, so unsafe initiation periods, and possibly catastrophic being out of position.

[-] Solar Crest debuff and buff are dispellable.

- Cost - 8300g

Stats

+55 movement Speed

+315mp

+95 hp

+15 armor (increased to 30 under 20%)

+30%evasion

+2 Armor in Aura (+15 under 20%)

+4 hp regeneration in an Aura (+15 under 20%)

A Note about Jungling

Since the price of stout shield went down, you can now buy with 625 starting gold, quelling blade, stout shield, tangoes and one branch.

quelling blade is a must, since it scales off base damage now. At level 1 QB provides an additional 24.4 damage to creeps with no armor bringing her effective dpa to around 85 (averaging withstanding)

Now legion's base AS is 1.7 like most heroes and she starts with 18agi meaning her attack rate is about 1.44 between attacks. with the recent buff legion went from level one having a potential of 3355DPM to 3558.3, an increase of 205,

3.338dps.

I say all this to say, that when you do your first camp, level Press the attack over MoC.

Final Musings

Don't really have much more to say. 6.84 In my opinion will focus more on impact of supports, and LC being a bit of a jack of all trades should work towards fitting in the mold, with her own spin.

She's definitively stronger now, her aghs although immediately hilarious, needs work or better implementation to change the way she's played, or improve upon a different style based around being