Zeus

Zeus the Lord of Heaven is a formidable ranged intelligence Hero. Born with the divine power of thunder and lightning, his spells, when used altogether, are able to inflict the most superb and consistent magical damage in the game. Zeus is also one of the few spell-casters who is still an effective damage-dealer late game thanks to his scaling passive ability Static Field which zaps a current percentage of the enemies' health. Anywhere at anytime, the God of Lightning and Thunder is able to bring down his most powerful ability, Thundergod's Wrath. Zeus will call down a destructive bolt of lighting to all enemy heroes in the map, electrocuting them heavily.

Tips

 * Always use Lightning Bolt before Arc Lightning so you may not lose your opponent in the fog.


 * Always watch your positioning as Lightning Bolt and Arc Lightning have relatively long ranges, and Thundergod's Wrath has global range. Often, there is no reason to be up close in battle unless you are chasing down heroes; and Zeus' fragility compounds this.


 * When trying to kill low hp heroes (low, but not low enough for Ultimate only) in hard to navigate areas use Thundergod's Wrath to gain vision of your enemy so you can Lightning Bolt them to death.


 * During team fights, use all of Zeus's spells (including his ultimate) as soon as possible to make the best use of his passive. Static Field is based on the percentage of current health, not maximum health, so it will do more damage to heroes at full HP. If you wait for the enemy team's health to go down before using Thundergod's Wrath, then Static Field will not do as much damage as it could have.

These tips were taken from this guide written by the famous Zeus player Merlini.


 * While skipping most of your core items to get Aghanim's Scepter and Refresher Orb earlier is a good idea to deal a lot of damage in a short time, it has many downsides. First of all, it will use most (if not all) of your mana, making you really weak and not very useful for a good amount of time. Second, if you don't have items which can increase your mana pool enough to cast your combo (Shiva's Guard, Rod of Atos, Bloodstone, Scythe of Vyse...) you may find yourself without mana even after using your Refresher Orb. Third, you will lack a very needed HP boost or an escape mechanism; this means that you'll be rather squishy and a lot of Heroes could kill you with just a stun and some damage. Fourth, you will probably kill a lot of Heroes, but your carry should do that. Zeus scales well into the late game thanks to his passive ability, but carries are far more useful than Zeus at dealing a reliable amount of damage in the late game. You shouldn't be killing anymore.


 * Thundergod's Wrath should only be used to acquire a kill if your carry is unable to attain it themself. In most encounters, it should be used early in the fight to make things easier for one's team.
 * In late game, Refresher Orb is a better item than scepter as it will allow Zeus to use his spells more often, which owing to his scaling passive is more important than stronger ultimate damage. Using your three spells with a scepter in late game will deal less damage than using your three spells, then refreshing them and using them again. However, Refresher Orb provides you with no survivability, so if you need to be more tanky and durable Aghanim's Scepter is the best choice, since it gives both HP and Strength, as well as other useful stats. Furthermore, using a Refresher Orb will drain a lot of mana, making you unable to cast your abilities if used carelessly.

Trivia

 * As suggested by the game's files, Zeus's name was, at one time, Zuus. The reason why is unknown.
 * Zeus's alternate/fun name in DotA was "Merlini", a tribute to a professional DotA player.