Backstory, I've spammed Wyvern for the past two months in ranked, first. Item (I believe) should come after at least one defensive item unless.
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Backstory, I’ve spammed Wyvern for the past two months in ranked, first picking the hero with a 63% winrate, getting me from ancient 3 to ancient 5. I think Wyvern is possibly the best defensive support in the game, which I’ll explain below. I’m by no means an expert, but I thought I’d share the tips that I’ve picked up along the way. You might disagree with what I say and that’s fine, I’d love to get better at the hero so I welcome any advice. Anyway, let's dive in:
Arctic Burn:
This single skill is why I honestly believe Wyvern to be one of if not the best defensive support. The trade off that many defensive supports have to make is helping their team whilst staying in position. As a shadow demon, if I stay too close to a carry in a teamfight, I’ll likely be targeted and killed. If I stay too far away, I’ll be safe, but will take that much longer to help a teammate in trouble. As a Wyvern , by staying near trees or cliffs, you can be close enough to your team to save them whilst easily evading enemy heroes. Your punishment for this skill is an abysmal move speed and low hp - positioning is everything. Abuse flying movement for things such as:
- Warding: By using the terrain and trees to obscure yourself, you can minimise the chance of being seen by enemy heroes or wards when warding. For example, when pushing a side tier 3 tower, it’s possible to stick to the trees and place a ward behind enemy lines.
- Escape: Find some cliff or trees which you can fly over to escape.
- Surprise: Wait in the trees by a teammate whilst they farm. When the enemy ganks, fly out of the trees, heal them, use your ult on grouped enemies, ideally your team will see the opportunity and TP in. Use your splinter blast as your ult wears off, and already the fight is half won for your team.
- Going uphill: Blindly walking onto higher ground through choke points is often deadly. If you need to scout, find a cliff nearby and fly up there instead.
- Mobility: Quickly reach teamfights and dying teammates instead of walking around terrain.
Otherwise:
- This gets levelled first, and is maxed second.
- In the early game, this is a fantastic harassing tool, and should be used when off cooldown unless you think you’ll be going for a kill in the next 50 seconds.
- In the early to mid game it should be reserved more for getting kills (as well as for the reasons above), as harassing becomes less important but the cooldown will still be high.
- Make sure to apply the debuff to every hero possible.
Splinter Blast:
- Max this skill first. Take the first point at either level 2 or 3 (see below - cold embrace).
- Be wary of using this skill in the laning phase as it will heavily push the lane. Only use it if harassing is more important that maintaining lane equilibrium (e.g. if you’re in a hard lane), or if you’re looking to kill.
- If you’re harassing in lane with this skill, generally use it on the range creep as enemies approach to last hit, otherwise they’re more likely to avoid the splinters.
- Use to quickly farm the jungle or lane creeps.
- Abuse this skill in fights due to its huge cast range.
Cold Embrace:
- Cold embrace is typically skilled last, taking only one value point. I do this at either level 2 if the lane is hard, or more typically at level 4 after two points in splinter blast for more kill/harass potential.
- Due to the low mana cost, make sure to spam this ability in the laning stage whenever you or a teammate needs healing. Just make sure they’re far enough back that the enemy won’t get a kill once the duration is over.
- In teamfights, it can be hard to know when to use this skill. There’s a fine line between saving and sacrificing, which largely depends on the enemy heroes present. Ideally you could track exactly which enemies heroes are alive, where they are, what their cooldowns are, etc., but in the heat of battle this can be difficult. A simpler way of deciding is to look at the enemies at the start of a game and decide which heroes you shouldn’t use cold embrace around (e.g. ancient apparition, mirana, invoker etc.). If these heroes are alive/nearby in a teamfight, don’t use your heal. This isn’t a perfect solution but helps to simplify things whilst you get used to the hero.
- If your teammate is stunned or generally unable to perform actions (silenced, hexed etc.), it’s a fairly safe bet to use this.
Winter’s Curse:
The most obvious way to use your this skill is on a squishy hero next to a hard hitting carry. However, this is often not possible. Enemies don’t always group up nicely, especially in higher brackets. Without items like Aether lens and Blink, enemies will often see you slowly walking up and react (however this can be mitigated by using arctic burn and flying over trees). If you hold onto the skill too long it may hinder your team more than having used it early on. The perfect ultimate often doesn’t exist.
Because of the relatively low cooldown of the skill at only 85 seconds, don’t be afraid to use this skill for a range of opportunities. You can use it to:
- Allow you or a teammate to escape.
- Catch someone out of position and buy time for your teammates to arrive and get a kill.
- Isolate key heroes as they try to enter a teamfight.
- Waste BKB durations on carries.
These are often ‘safer’ options than using it to secure kills directly in a hectic teamfight, as your team might waste crucial items and skills if not timed properly. This is not to say that you should never use it for the intended purpose, just that you should weigh up your options and appreciate the skill for its BKB piercing lockdown purposes.
Items
![Counter Counter](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-165DkZ6ww-w/UGftjyEnGbI/AAAAAAAAGPA/jD_GrSJsCys/s1600/Winter-Wyvern-3.jpg)
The item build I typically go for aims to boost your defensive skills. This is by no means the only way to build Wyvern, but it has done me well.
Starting items:
- Courier
- 2x Observer
- 1x Sentry
Wind lace (your movement speed is trash - this is essential)- 2x Tango
- 2x Clarity
Core items:
After continually buying wards and building arcane boots, I tend to buy two out of the following three items. Which items I prioritise depends on the enemy lineup. They have the benefit of massively increasing the chances of saving teammates, or surviving yourself.
- Force staff: Buy if enemies lack gap close/you need to escape a small area (e.g. Riki, Ursa, Sven)
- Glimmer cape: Buy when enemies have high magic damage. If used on someone in cold embrace, they are highly immune to enemy damage. (e.g. Zeus, Tinker, QoP)
- Euls: Useful to save yourself against silence, inescapable combos, or disrupt enemy heroes (e.g. Invoker, Drow, Clinkz with orchid).
Luxury items:
- Blink: Incredibly useful for dropping your ultimate on unsuspecting groups enemies, targeting key backline heroes in teamfights (e.g. Zeus, Sniper), as well as reaching dying teammates faster. However, the item (I believe) should come after at least one defensive item unless its desperately needed. After all, if you get caught out of position, a blink can’t save you.
- Aeon disk: Only pick it up later in the game, and only if you’ve found that you’re being consistently and unavoidably nuked down in a few seconds (e.g. Faceless Void, Tinker).
- Boots of travel: This can be a nice pick up after a few items, running out of slots for a TP. You can respond more quickly to teamfights, and push out waves near your base before joining your team for a push.
- Gem: Given your survivability, this is a worthy pickup should you need it, even if just for dewarding.
- Aether lens: Fairly strong, however it’s not core on this hero. The range of your spells are already fairly large. The times I have built it has been after a few defensive items, disassembling my arcane boots for the energy booster.
Notable mentions:
- Aghanim's sceptre: I don’t believe this is a viable item. You generally won’t get the farm, and can’t justify spending 4200 gold and a slot on an item that simply gives you permanent arctic burn - which only has 8 second uptime and 12 second downtime.
- Ghost sceptre: I will buy this in the minority of games where I desperately need to avoid physical damage [e.g. Juggernaut, Clinkz], as cold embrace already blocks physical damage and this item isn’t team focused.
It’s honestly hard to say which skills are best levelled for Wyvern, as most of her talents are viable.
Level 10: +60 Damage / +90 GPM
- +90 GPM: Not much to say, a decent boost to your income given you have the lowest farm priority.
- +60 Damage: Whilst you are a support hero, +60 damage is a serious deal. For reference, that’s the same damage as a sacred relic, a 3800 gold item. I would suggest taking this talent if you feel that you’ll ever have the opportunity to get a few hits in on enemy heroes during the early-mid game, either in ganks or team fights. The extra damage means you might actually be able to kill off a fleeing hero yourself. The cherry on top is that you can farm much faster when you get the opportunity, meaning you’re not quite sacrificing 90 gpm by choosing this talent.
Level 15: +500 Night vision / +350 HP
- +500 Night vision: I always choose this due to its utility. With arctic burn’s extra vision, your scouting abilities become incredible.
- +350 HP: At level 15 you should have the skills and items to avoid death generally, unless you’re severely out of position in which case you’ll likely die anyway. Nonetheless, choose the skills that help you win. If you think that the extra health will be enough to keep you alive, then go for it.
Level 20: -5s cold embrace / +15% Arctic burn slow
- -5 Seconds cold embrace: This is the only talent which boasts a much higher winrate (+2.6%) than its counterpart on dotabuff. The utility can’t be denied, as you’re able to dish out insane healing and mitigate huge amounts of physical damage in teamfights.
- +15% Arctic burn slow: I don’t think this should be skilled. Maybe versus easily kiteable heroes (e.g. ursa, sven)?
Level 25: Splinter blast 2s stun / +1.5s winter’s curse duration
- Splinter blast 2s stun: Choose this if you feel you’re able to hit lots of heroes with this skill in teamfights (e.g. versus melee heavy lineups).
- +1.5s winter’s curse duration: This just boosts everything about your ultimate. If you’re getting good curses off that game, or find there are heroes you really need to isolate and ignore (e.g. Sniper), get this. Seven seconds time wastage is no joke.
General thoughts
- This hero should be played as position 5 - you don’t need many items to contribute, with the key to playing this hero being positioning. Regardless, if you position yourself well, you can minimise your deaths, maximise your assists, and get yourself some decent items that will further protect you.
- Feel free to first pick Wyvern . Yes she does have counters, but they won’t absolutely ruin your game, and better for you to be countered than your carry.
- Constantly keep an eye on the map and have a TP ready. Your greatest strength is counter initiating on unsuspecting enemies. Even better, try to guess where enemy heroes are and be in position already, reacting immediately to their ganks.
- Stay off the map. In a similar way to how a Pudge or Clinkz instils fear and forces 5 manning by remaining unseen, you can make enemies scared to ever gank your teammates by consistently punishing them for it.
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