Anti-Mage

Anti-Mage is a fast melee Agility Carry with an emphasis on disabling and killing high-mana enemies. He has notably high agility and low base attack time, giving him high damage and scaling with his basic attacks. His signature ability is Mana Break, a passive attack modifier that makes him a huge threat to mana-reliant heroes, mainly Intelligence-based casters. In addition to granting substantial bonus damage on each attacks, its mana burn sets enemies up to be devastated by his ultimate ability, Mana Void. Blink is a highly versatile ability that allows Anti-Mage to instantly teleport short distances, thereby allowing him to escape, chase, and even farm with ease. Combined with his high base movement speed, this makes Anti-Mage a highly mobile hero at all points in the game. Spell Shield greatly increases Anti-Mage's magic resistance, allowing him to sustain more damage from enemy casters. Finally, Mana Void finishes off targets after their mana has been burned, inflicting heavy damage to both the target and enemies surrounding the target. The damage Mana Void can potentially deal scales extremely well into the late game, as enemies' mana pools only grow larger over time. His naturally fast basic attacks combined with his powerful abilities make him extremely dangerous in the late game, allowing him to devastate enemies with ease if he is allowed to farm as a hard carry.

Gameplay
Should Anti-Mage have the opportunity to gather his full strength, few can stop his assaults. Draining mana from enemies from every strike or teleporting short distances to escape an ambush, cornering him is a challenge for every foe.

Recommended items
Starting Items:
 * es help provide Anti-Mage with health regeneration in the early game.
 * will give Anti-Mage a massive boost of health regeneration.
 * es will give Anti-Mage an additional attribute boost in the lane, and can be built into.
 * will allow Anti-Mage to take a few more hits from enemies when taking last hits in lane. Anti-Mage will often build this in a.

Early Game:
 * give Anti-Mage a speed boost which can be helpful for getting around.
 * is a good idea to pick up if the enemy are using a lot of spells since that gives Anti-Mage a lot of regeneration in case of emergency.
 * provides Anti-Mage with decent HP regeneration in the early game, and can later be built into a.

Core Items:
 * provide Anti-Mage with attack speed and attributes, allowing for a substantial increase in damage and durability.
 * provides Anti-Mage with more attributes and good HP and mana regeneration if the enemy are using a lot of spells.
 * provides agility and movement speed to Anti-Mage, and can be built into a.
 * provides Anti-Mage with HP and mana regeneration, and gives Anti-Mage a cleave that allows Anti-Mage to farm faster and push faster.
 * is always a good idea to have on Anti-Mage at all times, as it allows Anti-Mage to easily escape from enemy ganks if Anti-Mage is out of position.

Situational:
 * provides attributes that benefit Anti-Mage very well. The illusions benefit from Mana Break, greatly improving Anti-Mage damage, pushing potential and mana-burning capabilities. Additionally, the split allows Anti-Mage to dodge and remove spell effects, which can be useful in combat or when escaping.
 * gives Anti-Mage a damage boost, a chance to stun enemies when attacking, and a guaranteed stun that goes through magic immunity. It also gives Anti-Mage a small amount of strength 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.
 * increases the health pool of Anti-Mage massively, which gives Anti-Mage a lot more survivability.
 * is the only way for Anti-Mage to have lifesteal since is a Unique Attack Modifier. The lifesteal and damage boost benefits both Anti-Mage and Anti-Mage's teammates throughout the entire duration of the game.

Tips

 * Blink is the most common choice for your first ability point, as its immediate benefit is better than either of your passives. Put some points into Spell Shield and attributes if you are facing strong opponents or go for Mana Break if you want to be aggressive.
 * Blink is a very versatile and powerful escape mechanism. You can also use it to chase, maneuver, or to avoid spells during battles.
 * Manta Style is a commonly built item on Anti-Mage as your illusions can also apply Mana Break, tripling the ability's effectiveness. It also provides an increase to all attributes and a means to remove most disables, especially silences, that could prevent escaping via blink.
 * Mana Break is most effective against heroes with low mana pools, as you can completely deplete and disable them in less time. However, this also means that Mana Void will do significantly less damage when deployed as its damage is reliant on the mana pool's maximum size.
 * 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. Ask your teammates to babysit you.
 * Anti-Mage has relatively low base health. If you can't kill an enemy quickly, it may be best to disengage, as an unfavorable fight can easily result in your own death.
 * While Spell Shield provides substantial magic resistance, it is not a substitute for magic immunity as it does not block non-damage effects of enemy magic.
 * Mana Void is very difficult to use to full effect. Constantly check enemies with large mana pools. 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.
 * You are utterly useless in team fights if you can't physically attack enemies. There are many ways to counter raw physical damage in DotA, especially if it's melee. Decent players will buy items like Scythe of Vyse, Blade Mail and Ghost Scepter to shut you down. Timing your entrance into the battle is everything for you.
 * If you find yourself being killed quickly a Vitality Booster provides 250 health and can be later built into a Heart of Tarrasque. Generally it is advisable to get a faster Manta Style.
 * A quick Battle Fury will greatly increase your farming ability which will greatly help later in the game.
 * Never use Blink to start a fight unless you know you can win it. Doing so could leave you stranded in a bad situation.
 * 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 TP scroll 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 Shadow Demon, Dark Seer and Morphling, 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 Battle Fury 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 Monkey King Bar.
 * Many players are tempted to switch Power Treads to agility, but given your low strength gain (1.2), it may be better to keep them on strength if you are not jungling.
 * If under a lot of harass in lane, it can be worth it to get a Ring of Regeneration on top of your Ring of Health and later use that to build a Vladmir's Offering. Vlad's allows Anti-Mage to solo Roshan and also farm at full health while also being able to jungle ancients efficiently.
 * It can be a good idea to finish a hero with your ultimate, even if you could easily kill with an autoattack. 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 BKB, 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 single point in mana break makes you very strong in trading hits.
 * With the above tip in mind against some common offlane heroes like Windranger and Mirana who try to harass you it's a good idea to constantly blink on them to trade hits as early as you're level 2, rather than simply withstanding harass. Setting the pace for the laning is critical to how fast you farm later in the game.
 * Excluding, all of 's regular abilities have mediocre per-level scaling, and offer most of their utility/effectiveness with only one level, so it's generally advised to put them at level one and then upgrade a few attribute points before upgrading them any further as the increased strength, attack speed/damage, and armor are all going to help Anti-Mage's lane sustainment more.

Trivia

 * Anti-Mage's real name in DotA was Magina; in Dota 2, his name was removed for unspecified reasons.
 * Anti-Mage's alternative name, "BurNIng", is a tribute to the professional DotA player BurNIng.
 * In DotA, Anti-Mage and were brothers. This was to be kept in Dota 2 based on certain responses Anti-Mage made in Terrorblade's presence, but upon Terrorblade's release, these relations were severed and thus the lines went unused.
 * In DotA, Anti-Mage was blind, due to the model of the Warcraft III character he used, Illidan Stormrage, who was blind.