Elder Titan

The Elder Titan is a durable melee strength hero who plays the role of initiator. His Astral Spirit and Echo Stomp abilities allow him to disable large groups of enemies from afar, making him one of the few initiators that does not require a Blink Dagger. This combination creates a perfect setup for his powerful ultimate Earth Splitter, which damages enemies based on their maximum HP. This, along with his ability to lower his enemies' physical and magical resistance, makes Elder Titan scale well through his abilities and be effective at all stages of the game. As the progenitor of this world, Elder Titan reshapes the battlefield on a whim and can turn any teamfight in his favor.

Tips

 * Depending on your team composition and level of play, Elder Titan's skills have differing priorities to max. Level Echo Stomp to increase the sleep's duration, making it easier for Elder Titan and his team to set up their own area-of-effect spells without disturbance. Astral Spirit provides the highest overall damage increase. Maxing Natural Order early massively increases its effectiveness, as enemy heroes will have little to no bonus defenses and will thus be taking almost full damage.
 * Astral Spirit spawns at a target location up to a distance of 1200 away from Elder Titan and can then be moved further away from there. Elder Titan can use this to initiate by casting Astral Spirit in the middle of an enemy team followed immediately by Echo Stomp; if the enemy team was unaware of Elder Titan's location beforehand they usually won't have time to react before Echo Stomp's cast time is finished. If Echo Stomp's level is high enough the enemies should be stunned for the entire 3 seconds it takes for Earth Splitter to form and activate, assuming they don't take any damage that breaks the stun.
 * Astral Spirit is an effective harassing and pushing tool throughout the early game that can be used without putting Elder Titan in danger.
 * Be careful, though: it costs 110 mana per use. This mana cost can be remedied if your lane partner or you build Arcane Boots.
 * Although unmentioned, a Refresher Orb is a fairly good choice for the Elder Titan; two casts of Earth Splitter will both severely damage the enemy and slow them for an extended duration, if both hit. Be aware that you need items to augment your mana pool, though.
 * Elder Titan can excel even with just one or two core items. Eul's Scepter of Divinity, for example, solves his mana problems while giving a reliable disable to set up an Echo Stomp or Earth Splitter.
 * Due to his tankiness, Elder Titan can carry auras effectively. Items like Ring of Basilius, Drum of Endurance, Mekansm, Pipe of Insight, Vladmir's Offering and Assault Cuirass can help the whole team, as long as Elder Titan stays alive and close to his allies.
 * Power Treads will make you able to land more hits after the Spirit returns, and switching to Intelligence can help with the low mana pool; Phase Boots pair well with the movement speed bonus granted by the Astral Spirit; Arcane Boots give much more mana to spam spells; later in the game, Boots of Travel can be used to counter-push or counter-gank.
 * While Elder Titan makes a great initiator, he is also great at breaking enemy team initiations. If you can react fast enough and use a long range Echo Stomp through your spirit the moment your allies get initiated on you will open the way for your allies to reorganize and re-position to follow up on your Earth Splitter.
 * In later stages of the game when your team sieges and pushes towers Astral Spirit makes a magnificent tool in scouting ahead to check enemy positions without putting anyone on your team in danger. To better control your spirit you can actually assign it to a group so you can immediately select it whenever it is available.
 * Remember that the sleep from Echo Stomp is not a stun and enemy units will immediately wake up if they take any sort of hero damage. If an allied Elder Titan is preparing to initiate make sure you do not attack the enemy until his Earth Splitter activates and maims the enemy team.
 * Early game in certain cases you can use the mechanics of Echo Stomp to your advantage. Consider the fact that only player based damage awakens sleeping units if you perhaps can knockout an enemy in the range of your tower for example you can do considerable damage.
 * Refresher Orb is an item which can allow you to deal 70% of enemies' HP in a team fight by casting Earth Splitter twice in succession, severely crippling them within moments. This set up will need careful coordination with your team and a successfully executed Echo Stomp.
 * An early Soul Ring will allow you to spam Astral Spirit constantly while still in the laning phase, adding a considerable amount of harassment potential to Elder Titan.

Trivia

 * Elder Titan was known as Tauren Chieftain in DotA. The name change was likely done to avoid copyright issues with Blizzard, since the Tauren is an existing race in the Warcraft universe.
 * Elder Titan is voiced by Jim French, a prominent voice actor and radio personality; he is best known for voice-acting Bill in the Left 4 Dead series and Father Grigori in Half Life 2, two titles also made by Valve.
 * In the splash art, a faint image of what looks to be Legion Commander can be seen.
 * The delay time on Earth Splitter is 3.14 seconds, which is most likely a reference to pi. Pi is the ratio between a circle's circumference and it's diameter, making it a fundamental constant in geometry and other more complex areas of mathematics.