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INTRODUCTION

Since Icefrog remade Magnus a bit in 6.67 and I played him around 10 times in this short time so far, (and I’m bored) I want to give you a guide to the cool new Magnus. This time it won’t be a step-by-step because it doesn’t help explaining Magnus’ play style. It was just perfect for explaining Bloodseeker’s and Nightstalker’s one because you can clearly say what they should do at a certain point of the game. But I will try to keep up your motivation with pictures and videos in this guide.

Teamfight: He is made for teamrapes. His new Skewer makes him more Dagger independent (what doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy it), allows you come close to your enemies and gather them a bit, your Ultimate stuns and sticks them at one point and Empower in combination with melee physical dps carries does the rest.

Support: Magnus doesn’t rape a team on his own. Just in really rare cases when he is feeded and overfarmed. His only carry skill is Empower that should rather be casted on melee physical dps heroes that have carry skills and/or are agility heroes. Magnus himself is just a tanky and slow attacking guy. So initiate and let the carries go rampage.

Carry: Empower can be maintained on 2 heroes. That means if there is just one other carry, Magnus can be the second candidate. Even without other carry skills he can farm better than other carries thanks to Shockwave and cleave what allows him to get some strong dps items faster than other heroes. But some empowered Kunkka is still more effective, even with less farm. Rather buff 2 carries.

Ganker: One of his roles, but his weakest one. Skewer is some amazing ganking skill because you can pull heroes to your team. Also you can create a path through trees for surprise buttsex But the cooldown is very high for a normal skill (45 seconds) and it needs good positioning and teamplay. Since teamfights happen very rarely in early/mid game, your ultimate can be used for ganking. Shockwave gives you burstdamage, what is never bad.

In general it’s that: You don’t go ganking very often, but you usually kill more than one hero.

In a nutshell: Magnus fits perfectly into clash oriented teams with one or 2 physical dps carries.

When to Pick

1. When your team needs an initiator
2. When your team has one or more melee physical dps carries
3. When your team has deals much AoE damage

SKILL BUILD

For detailed descriptions look here Magnataur - DotA Hero Details.

1. Skewer
2. Shockwave
3. Shockwave
4. Empower
5. Shockwave
6. Reverse Polarity
7. Shockwave
8. Empower
9. Empower
10. Empower
11. Reverse Polarity
12. Stats
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Stats
16. Reverse Polarity
17-22 Stats
23. Skewer
24. Skewer
25. Skewer

Shockwave should be maxed first for obvious reasons, the new Empower is superior compared to stats, Reverse Polarity should be skilled whenever it’s possible of course. The only thing that could confuse you a bit is this one level of Skewer. For some reason (and I think Icefrog will change this, it’s very strange) just Skewer’s damage increases from 50 to 200 when you skill it out. Cooldown, slow and range stay the same. I think this is the skill that benefits least from skilling it more than one time in the whole game.

A short review: What did Icefrog change in 6.67?

In my opinion Icefrog did an amazing job here. He solved all problems and made Magnus a hero that is very funny to play.

Magnus had a big conflict between supporting and carrying because of his skills. Empowering a physical dps carry is always more beneficial than himself, but for some reason he had cleave, what was a reason for buffing himself. He can Empower yourself also. Yes. But when you pick Magnus, why shouldn’t your team pick 2 physical dps carries? Buffing this 2 is more effective than 1 and himself. So Mighty Swing (his cleave, I had to look for it because I always call it cleave^^) was waste.

The new Empower allows carries to benefit much more from Magnus’ other skills and Magnus doesn’t have this stupid cleave problem anymore.

The second problem was that he can’t land a good ultimate without buying blink. Tidehunter’s ultimate has insane range, Earthshaker has a long range stun to come closer, but Magnus had nothing. Skewer solves this problem pretty good and makes Reserve Polarity much more effective and turns Magnus into one of the best initiators of the game.

GAMEPLAY

Ah, congratulations , you passed the theroycrafting part. Let’s start with the gameplay.

Early Game (1-7)

Step 1: Chose your lane
Let’s do what Magnus can actually add to your lane’s power.

1. A normal damaging skill without any stun or slow. This doesn’t really help your mate and is just useful in a burst damage combo. It makes you a potential solo since it can be spammed for lasthits and harass what results in lane control.
2. A ability to pull someone into your creeps or tower. This is much more interesting and actually needs a stunner or disabler to be used offensely. This is a pretty powerful dual lane skill, that can be useful for fleeing when you go solo.

In fact you can always go solo, dual laning can work pretty good with a stunner.

Step 2: Laning

Solo: You aim is actually not kill, but levelling and farming since you can’t kill smart opponents on your own. Usually you go mid.

Mid Game (8-14)

Step 1 : Ganking

Whenever Reverse Polarity’s cooldown is over, you can go ganking. Like I mentioned before: You don’t gank often, but when you do you usually kill more than one. Here is a little Video how me and Kunkka gank Traxex (ok, actually we just ran in and hoped for the best). It shows how we could actually could have raped a whole team, but there was just one hero .

Late Game (15-25)

Step 1: Always go with your mates, you are nothing without them.

Step 2: Teamrape

How to win a teamfight: Force it. Land it. Rape it.
Sounds gay, I know.

Step 3: Pushing

Pushing is quite simple: You clear creepwaves with Shockwave and Empower. It should be done to force a teamfight and after winning a teamfight. So pretty much always. But be careful and don’t push alone without Boots of Travel, your team needs you.

See the complete GUIDE here