Axe

Mogul Khan, the Axe, is a melee strength hero, infamous for creating chaos in battle and thriving off of it.

Axe is commonly played as an initiator, as his potent disables can disrupt the enemy's formation and give his team openings in fights. Axe's fighting style demands that he gets up close and very personal, as he can taunt enemies into attacking him with Berserker's Call, preventing them from engaging his teammates. Once he has the enemy's attention, he can counter those who strike him with a sweeping Counter Helix that slashes all enemies at melee range with pure damage. He also has a slow and damage-over-time nuke in Battle Hunger, which can harass the enemy or force them to join in battle, while also slowing their movement speed and boosting his own. Finally, he has the ability to unconditionally remove weakened enemies from the battlefield if they are under a certain threshold with Culling Blade, while simultaneously boosting his allies' speed. A bloodthirsty and indomitable warrior, Axe's presence on the battlefield is felt by friend and foe alike, dominating the attention of the enemy wherever he goes.

Gameplay
Axe is a durable initiator who can disable, damage, and kill whole groups of enemies alone. To do this, Axe's abilities combo into each other very well. Berserker's Call, though hard to land without a, is a three-second area disable that forces enemies to attack Axe. This forces Counter Helix to proc more often, causing all affected enemies to take massive damage during its duration. If enemies fall under Culling Blade's threshold, Axe can instantly kill them - refreshing the cooldown and allowing Axe to cull again. Even if the enemies survive the initial onslaught, Axe can chase them down through Battle Hunger to secure a kill.

Axe can play in any lane well, though he's usually an offlane support hero. Going midlane or safelane is not unheard of, but both positions depend on the composition of the enemy team. Axe can also successfully jungle at the start of the game by levelling up Counter Helix to kill camps, being more efficient than many level one junglers.

Axe can make the most out of his abilities depending on his item choices. Axe can transition to a semi-carry by building damage-dealing items like and, which helps counter the enemy carries during the mid-game. As a ganker, Axe can use and  to pick off squishy heroes during Berserker's Call. If built as a pure tank, and  lets Axe soak up tons of damage while initiating, taking enemy aggro while letting his carries damage the enemy team. No matter the position, Axe's role is to disrupt the enemy's teamfight potential through disables and nukes.

Recommended items
Starting items:
 * gives Axe health regeneration in the laning stage, allowing him to survive against most forms of enemy harass.
 * is crucial on a melee hero like Axe, as the damage block drastically increases his survivability against attacks, whether they be from enemy heroes or neutral creeps.
 * gives Axe additional armor, further increasing his survivability against physical damage. It also allows Axe to build from the Side Lane Shop, boosting his efficiency.
 * is a cheap item that allows Axe to shore up his attributes with his remaining gold. It can be sold for inventory space as needed, or built into a Magic Wand.

Early game:
 * provide Axe with movement speed, armor, and passive HP regen outside of combat. It is crucial to get on Axe early for increasing his mobility for early initiations, giving him more armor for even more physical survivabliity, and providing a source of HP regen to allow him to remain on the field instead of returning to base.
 * gives Axe burst HP and mana regen, and his status as an initiator allows him to easily accrue charges from enemy spells. The burst regen can allow Axe to survive longer in fights and cast one or two more crucial spells, important given his low intelligence growth.

Core items:
 * is the most important purchase Axe must make if he is to become an effective initiator. Jumping on top of the enemy in order to disable them with allows Axe to paralyze multiple enemies at once for his team to follow up on.
 * gives Axe even more survivability against physical damage by giving him increased damage block, more HP and HP regen. The damage block is particularly strong for mitigating the damage Axe takes during, allowing him to proc more instances of.
 * is a powerful upgrade to Magic Stick, giving Axe additional attributes while also providing burst HP and mana regen, further increasing his ability to initiate and disable enemies with his spells.
 * is necessary for allowing Axe to be present at teamfights and ganks. His powers as an initiator can set up fights decisively in his team's favor.

Situational items:
 * provides many strong benefits for Axe. The additional armor increases his durability, the intelligence boosts his mana pool to allow him to cast spells more often, and the attack damage lets him farm more easily and deal more damage to the enemy with his attacks. The active, used during or after, further punishes the enemy for attacking him, allowing him to use his HP offensively to deal damage to the enemy during initiations.
 * greatly increases Axe's health and provides base damage, giving him much more power as an initiator, since he can continue disabling the enemy during fights so long as he is alive. As well, if he manages to survive fights and escape, he can quickly regenerate his HP and jump straight back into battle.
 * gives Axe tremendous magic resistance, allowing him to shrug off magic nukes that the enemy may use to try to bring him down. The active gives him additional teamfight utility, as he can protect his team from magic nukes for a short time as well.
 * drastically boosts Axe's intelligence and armor, giving him yet more survivability against physical damage while also eliminating his mana problems. The attack speed slow aura can greatly hinder the enemy from making physical attacks during fights, while the active can be used as a damage nuke and a slow to hinder their mobility.
 * gives Axe stats across the board, providing tankiness and more mana. Its upgrade improves 's kill threshold, allowing Axe to remove enemies from the battlefield much earlier, and reduces its cooldown to allow the spell to be used tactically.
 * gives Axe additional battlefield and global mobility. The global teleport allows Axe to show up to fights to initiate for his team more easily, while the increased movement speed allows him to be more mobile on the battlefield, chasing enemies down and inflicting them with to slow them.
 * is a strong teamfight item that greatly increases Axe's armor and attack speed. The armor provides yet more resistance against physical damage, and the attack speed allows Axe to become much more threatening with his right-clicks. The allied armor and attack speed aura is a strong edge in teamfights, while the enemy armor reduction aura can increase the amount of damage that deals to them.
 * is a strong survivability and utility item that can help Axe if the enemy's physical damage output is more than he can handle. The additional strength and evasion give him more health and survivability against physical attacks, respectively, and the active disarm allows Axe to completely stop an enemy from attacking.
 * , upgraded from Vanguard, is a strong utility item that provides Axe with even more survivability against physical damage. The extra armor and attributes on top of the existing damage block and bonus HP can make him extremely tanky, and he can augment it even more and protect his allies with the active.
 * is a strong initiator item that allows Axe to punish enemies for targeting him with disables. The item provides armor and more regen, making him more tanky and allowing him to replenish his mana over time. The active, used during an initiation, can punish enemies who target Axe with single-target disables and nukes, disabling and nuking them in turn to cause more chaos for Axe's team to capitalize on.
 * can be a useful purchase on Axe as an off-laner. It gives Axe the ability to replenish his HP and mana to survive harass, and can be replenished by taking runes. Once Axe has his Blink Dagger and begins roaming for kills, he can further keep his HP and mana up by picking up runes as they spawn, and use the runes themselves to further give him advantages during ganks and fights.
 * can be a useful early-game item to build on high HP heroes with heavy mana costs like Axe. Having on-demand burst mana can allow him to cast his spells when needed, and he can easily recoup the HP cost with Tranquil Boots. The item itself also provides some passive mana regen and some HP regen as well to increase Axe's self-sustain.
 * is a good ganking item that gives Axe many benefits. The extra strength increases Axe's HP and base damage, and the passive mana regen helps with his mana problems. Urn charges can be used to add extra Pure damage to fights and ganks, or to heal Axe back up from any damage he incurs during Berserker's Call.
 * gives Axe many strong benefits and is a powerful utility item to carry. The increased intelligence gives Axe a larger mana pool, while the passive HP regen helps to keep Axe's health topped up. The active can give Axe additional mobility, or can be used on teammates to help them initiate or escape. As well, using the active on himself after a successful Blink-Call can allow Axe to quickly kite enemies away, forcing them to follow him during the taunt.
 * is a good survivability and self-sustain item. The armor aura helps increase Axe's survivability against physical damage, while the lifesteal, HP regen and flat mana regen aura can keep his mana up and allow him to sustain his HP while farming. All these benefits confer to nearby allies as well, making it a strong teamfight item as well.
 * is an unorthodox item to build on Axe, but can be quite powerful under the right circumstances. The intelligence and powerful scaling mana regen can virtually eliminate Axe's casting problems, while the bonus movement speed make Axe more mobile, allowing him to position and initiate more easily. The cyclone can be used to pin an enemy down and then get within range for an easy Berserker's Call, or can be cast on Axe himself to provide temporary invulnerability while also removing debuffs from him, buying him time and survivability.
 * can be a necessary purchase if he is facing a very disable-heavy lineup. Because he jumps right into the middle of the enemy to initiate, he is a prime target for focusing down with magic nukes and stuns, so having spell immunity can allow him to do more in fights.
 * is a strong purchase on Axe given his role as a close-range initiator. The item gives him greatly increased attack speed, making his physical attacks much more dangerous, and allows him to bounce Chain Lightning procs during fights to deal magical damage all around to the enemy. The Static Charge active can also be placed on Axe himself right before initiation, further punishing the enemy for attacking him during Berserker's Call.

Trivia

 * Axe's alternate/Fun name was "Mogul Kahnt Touch This", a reference to MC Hammer's famous song U Can't Touch This.
 * Axe,, and are all related as they come from the Oglodi tribe.
 * Axe's phrase Axe respawn 09.mp3 "Better red than dead!" is a reversed reference to an American Cold War slogan stating "Better dead than Red".
 * Several of Axe's deny and killing blow responses (such as Axe deny 15.mp3 "You get nothing. Good day, sir!") are references to Willy Wonka's infamous rage scene in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
 * Axe's name, lore and "one-man army" image may have been inspired by Khan Noonien Singh in the Star Trek series, who was also described as a "one-man army" and killed uncooperative subordinates (along with used-to wearing a red shirt).

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