Anti-Mage/Guide

Carry
The main role of a safelane Anti-Mage is to farm a as quickly as possible and then start farming up bigger items. As soon as Anti-Mage get his he should start flash farming with his Blink, switching between lanes and jungle camps while split pushing around the map. At this point Anti-Mage should focus on forcing the enemy to rotate and defend against his splitpush or taking towers that aren't being defended.

The main problem with this playstyle is forcing your team to take fights 4 versus 5, while you are off either farming your or farming bigger items like  or. If Anti-Mage gets shut down too hard or if you play against heavy early push heroes like or  the game can be over before Anti-Mage get enough items to fill his needed role.

General

 * You are useless in team fights if you can't physically attack enemies. There are many ways to counter raw physical damage, especially if it's melee. Decent players will buy items like, and  to shut you down. Timing your entrance into the battle is everything for you.
 * Do keep in mind that in the early game, if the enemy team has an intelligence hero that used all of their spells in a teamfight, and thus has no mana, such as a, then you can come in at the last second of the fight and blow them up. Do not do this if you know the enemy team will kill you.
 * Do not pick Anti-Mage if your team picks farmers such as, , or.
 * If you find yourself being killed quickly a provides 250 health and can be later built into a  for more health, or  into  into . Generally, it is advisable to get a faster.
 * A quick will greatly increase your farming ability which will greatly help later in the game.
 * Don't only farm the jungle. If the enemy is pushing Anti-Mage can push a different lane solo with a reliable escape mechanism with Blink and and can indirectly defend by forcing the enemy to defend. It will require at least 1 core to respond to kill you generally giving your team a huge advantage if you TP back home to fight.
 * Be very wary of heroes like, and , as illusions created from you carry the Mana Break spell as well, and combined with Anti-Mage's high agility, could easily turn the tides of a teamfight.
 * Once you get full slotted you could opt to sell your for a different item, but its creep clearing abilities are still very useful and sometimes critical. You should sell it if you absolutely need another item that can turn the tides, such as a.
 * Many players are tempted to switch to agility, but given your low strength gain, it may be better to keep them on strength if you are not jungling.
 * It can be a good idea to finish a hero with your ultimate, even if you could easily kill with an attack. Chances are a hero you focused is running low on mana and its team trying to save would come in close enough for your ultimate to hit quite a few enemies.
 * Even with, you should avoid being an initiator and instead bide your time until you can exploit a weak spot in the enemy's formation after a team fight starts, usually in the back lines where the supports are. This is especially important if the enemy carry is on the front lines with a BKB, which is a fight you will almost never win head on.
 * Even though you have poor strength gain, your starting strength and armor is actually very decent. Couple that with your naturally fast attack speed and a couple points in mana break makes you very strong in trading hits.
 * Your laning phase is an absolute nightmare. Many heroes can cripple your early game by harassing you and chasing you away. Also, if you don't utilize your laning phase the game may well end before you reach Anti-Mage's maximum potential.
 * You are completely dumpstered by matchups which end the game early, since you need a few items to come online. Turnarounds are possible, however, they rarely happen.
 * Anti-Mage has pathetic strength gain making him extremely squishy, especially in the early game. If you can't kill an enemy quickly, it may be best to disengage, as you can't even take 1v1s until you have the right items.
 * Anti-Mage can be very easily shut down in teamfights, especially when the opposing team has equal farm to his. Generally, to win fights as Anti-Mage, you need to have way more farm than the enemy. For this reason, you need to get Battle Fury as early as possible and get ahead of the enemies, especially the enemy carry.


 * Ironically, anti mage's power spike is at level 2. If the enemy tries to walk up and last hit or harass, burn their mana and bully them out of lane (while securing last hits), since later on they will use that mana to bully you out of lane. If they buy clarities or mangoes, that is gold wasted on no spells used whatsoever, so they have a harder time bullying you. If you find that you are in danger or about to die, simply Blink away.
 * Mana Break isn't that effective with heroes with a small mana pool, since they will take much less damage from Mana Break.
 * On the contrary, heroes with a small mana pool who absolutely need that mana to function will have a hard time.
 * is a commonly built item on Anti-Mage as your illusions can also apply Mana Break, doubling the ability's effectiveness. It also provides an increase to all attributes and a means to remove most disables, especially silences and roots, that could prevent escaping via blink.
 * The damage from Mana Break is dealt as physical damage. As such, deliberately reducing your opponent's armor will increase the damage that Mana Break does.
 * Unlike most passive attack modifiers, Mana Break does not bypass spell immunity.


 * Never use Blink to start a fight unless you know you can win it. Doing so could leave you stranded in a bad situation.
 * Similarly, in lane, never blink in offensively unless you know you will get a kill or the enemy has no chances of retaliation. Doing so can absolutely get you killed.
 * You should play defensive in lane whenever Blink is on cooldown.
 * Blink is a very versatile and powerful mobility tool. You can also use it to chase, maneuver, or to avoid spells during battles. Use it to flash farm the jungle when you have battle fury to sustain the mana cost. Also, switch treads to intelligence before blinking to save mana.
 * Relative to Anti-Mage's mana pool, Blink is somewhat costly in terms of mana. As such, you should refrain from freely employing the spell in the early stages of the game unless you feel like you are out of position/about to die.
 * Almost 80% of the time, you should take the -1 blink cooldown talent at level 15. Blink is one of the best abilities in the game. You will definitely notice the -1 cooldown when flash farming the jungle, even more so at later levels when you can 3-4 shot most camps.


 * Counterspell provides Anti-Mage with magic resistance and also upon cast, giving him a spell shield that blocks and reflects any targeted spells for its duration.
 * While Counterspell provides substantial magic resistance, it is not a substitute for spell immunity as it does not block non-damage effects of enemy magic. It also doesn't block pure nor physical damage.
 * Against an enemy lineup that consists of almost entirely physical damage dealers, Counterspell can be considered as redundant and should be leveled up last in such a situation. If there's a spell the enemies you'll be laning against has that you can easily reflect, take one point in counterspell to reflect it.
 * Likewise, if you're against a spell and nuke heavy opposition, you may need to spend some more points in Counterspell to negate and reduce some of the potential spell damage.
 * As Counterspell has no cast point, Anti-Mage should wait to use it when enemies are playing their abilities' cast animation.
 * Use Counterspell to cover Blink's cast animation when escaping.
 * Because it has a very low cooldown at max level, keep on activating it whenever the enemy pursues you or while you charge on the enemies.
 * Try to guess as to when an enemy hero will use a spell. If you are at low health, you might want to use it to block certain spells that deal massive damage, like Finger of Death or Laguna blade.


 * Mana Void is difficult to use to full effect. Constantly check enemies with large mana pools. In particular, most intelligence heroes (and niche cases like Medusa and Timbersaw) will suffer tremendous damage. Use it on enemy casters after they have used their abilities and burned most of their mana. It can absolutely devastate an enemy team if used properly.
 * Note that it does have a short stun, allowing you to cancel spell casts and channels. This is particularly effective in the early game when most heroes don't have spell immunity.
 * If there's a solo intelligence hero in the lane against you, you can potentially kill them once you hit level 6 and empty their mana pool. However, you should almost never attempt a tower dive, as you can't tank the damage at all.
 * Once this ability hits level 3, it becomes very mana costly. If you used it recently, consider buying a clarity to regenerate at least some of the mana (1 clarity regenerates 150 mana points over the whole duration, which covers half the spell's mana cost at max level).

Items
Starting items:
 * provides Anti-Mage with health regeneration in the early game.


 * gives Anti-Mage a massive boost of health restoration.


 * gives Anti-Mage an additional attribute boost in the lane. Buy 3 of these, and plant them down and use a tango to double the healing, or, against a lane which spams spells (e.g. ), and build it into a.


 * provides bonus damage against creeps to help Anti-Mage get last hits. It builds into Battle Fury, your main farming item.

Early game:
 * provides Anti-Mage with decent health regeneration in the early game, and later builds into . This should be the first item you get early game because it's essentially having the buff on you at all times.


 * give Anti-Mage a speed boost and builds into.


 * is a good idea to pick up if the enemy is using a lot of spells since that gives Anti-Mage a lot of regeneration in case of an emergency. However, unlike most other carries, it's not required on Anti-mage, since your battle fury timing is everything when playing this hero.

Mid game:
 * provide Anti-Mage with attack speed and attributes switch, keeping him alive with strength, or sustaining his abilities usage with intelligence.


 * provides Anti-Mage with HP and mana regeneration, and gives Anti-Mage's attacks cleave that allow Anti-Mage to farm and push much faster.


 * provides attributes that benefit Anti-Mage well. The illusions benefit from Mana Break, greatly improving Anti-Mage's damage and pushing potential. If you feel that a lane is unsafe to push (if no heroes are showing), send illusions to push it out and blink away from it as fast as possible while farming.


 * grants spell immunity so Anti-Mage can attack without worrying about enemy disables. Take this over butterfly against a very crowd control-heavy matchup.

Late game:
 * gives Anti-Mage a damage boost, a chance to bash enemies when attacking, and a guaranteed stun that goes through spell immunity. It also gives Anti-Mage some strength and health that will increase his health pool.


 * offers a very substantial damage boost as Anti-Mage is an agility hero, it also gives Anti-Mage armor, evasion, and additional attack speed on top of the attack speed gained from the agility on the item. Now, you're not only taking reduced magical damage from Counterspell, but also reduced physical damage thanks to the armor and evasion, be it through right clicks or spells.

Situational items:
 * increases strength and lifesteal, giving Anti-Mage much more survivability.


 * provides an ultimate tankiness boost so that Anti-Mage can lead pushes and manfight the enemies in the late game.


 * Gives additional damage and attack speed, and also allows you to pierce evasion, since anti mage is useless if he can't get off right clicks.

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