Ancient Apparition/Guide

Generic/Lane support
Ancient Apparition is usually played as a lane support; which is somewhat a shame since he benefits greatly from farm, especially his fearsome. As a support, stack (and pull) camps for later use, contest runes every two minutes, carry a at all times, buy and upgrade the, provide vision with s... You have little potential to roam by yourself (like ) and limited capacity to react to ganks (like ) since the stun provided by  is unreliable at best, so you can endorse the role of full time baby-sitter for your carry, and leech experience at will until you get your level 6.

You will usually start off with a point in. It allows you (and your team) to harass quite effectively the offlaner. If you're paired with another support, and your carry is smart enough to fight with you, Chilling Touch is somewhat equivalent to a 450 magical nuke at level 1 (3 heroes * 3 attacks * 50 damage). Also, it can help your carry secure last hits (while you can secure denies) in a heavily contested lane. Similarly, you will usually follow with a point in Cold Feet. If the opposition lacks mobility and/or your team has spells to guarantee the stun, it's a good spell. Take at least a value point in since the vision it provides and its cast range is reason enough to get a point in it.

Ice Vortex, unlike your other spells, doesn't require careful usage or coordination so it is wise to max it out first. Cold Feet is pretty bad if you can't get the stun off and Chilling Touch is literally useless if no one is hitting anybody with the buff.

Once your carry is farmed enough to either push towers or farm the jungle, you should take the lane for yourself for a while, to catch-up on experience and finally get that level 6. You can assist your team's pushes with long-ranged s.

The most common item pick up on the Apparition, besides, is the since it should allow you to trigger the stun from Cold Feet, by casting the spell then using the item on the same target. The early is also nice. Other common items include and, or the more expensive  and. These items will help you land your on at least one target. If you're near enough your enemy (which you should be if you used any items before hand), don't forget to put an Ice Vortex below your target as your Blast is connecting.

Since you benefit so much from (expensive) items, it is rather common to aim for a to eventually become a huge threat.

As for less expensive items, is always nice, especially since you have no mobility; as is  and, although both can be purged off.

Roaming/Extra team fights
This build assumes the unlikely scenario where you're paired up with a strong roaming partner against an unprepared opposition. Even in this case, it's not guaranteed that this is the best build order for you. A strong roaming partner is, for you, someone that can always ensure that triggers its stun, making it suddenly very interesting to max out first. In the same fashion, a good partner will go extra lengths to right-click an opponent while under the effect of, making it very valuable as well.

Although a good partner will usually be a support, a carry can also be just as good. Maybe you're baby-sitting, who provides you with both a reliable stun and slow through to proc Cold Feet.

For items, if your roaming is going correctly, an will help both your partner and you to stay alive, while also providing an extra nuke that could help you reach their shatter threshold.

But your skill build should always depend on who you're paired up with and who you're against. An allied won't help you trigger Cold Feet, so don't level it, but she will gladly chase enemies slowed by  with s and buffed up right-clicks. Similarly, an enemy will not care much for either Ice Vortex or Cold Feet, but he will think twice about getting a last hit if you're ready to hit him with Chilling Touch. And it is worthwhile to take extra points in Chilling Touch with an allied since he will benefit doubly from it with. An allied will care only for the spell amplification of Ice Vortex, as well as the vision it provides to keep spamming ...

Overall there is no definite build order for Ancient Apparition and you should always think twice before skilling any ability.

Finally, it should be mentioned that Ancient Apparition makes a very decent mid-laner. He has a good attack animation and fair base damage. He can secure last hits and denies (or harass) with Chilling Touch. He can sort of zone an opponent in a 1v1 situation with Cold Feet, as either they will cancel it and perhaps miss a last hit or two while doing so, or they will get stunned by it in which case you can hit them (with buffed up right-clicks) a couple of times. You can also hit them from the low-ground with the vision provided by Ice Vortex. And once you reach level 6, you can gank the side lanes every 40 seconds without moving with. The thing you will struggle the most with is with enemy ganks, since you have no defence or mobility whatsoever. Since you're such a bully in a 1v1 scenario, there are high chances that the enemy will choose to simply push the lane with any AOE ability, something that you lack as well. As for items, an early will definitely help you reach the enemies' shatter threshold.

General

 * Ancient Apparition's spells, although spammable, are very mana-expensive. Be mindful of your mana consumption.


 * At level 4, Cold Feet's cooldown is only 7 seconds while the stun lasts for 3.5 seconds and it takes 4 seconds to trigger it. It is possible to keep an enemy always under the effect of Cold Feet, either the stun or the damage.
 * The damage part is dispellable by any dispel, don't waste your mana against a hero that will shrug it off with a low-cd spell.
 * 's counts as distance travelled, and will therefore remove 's debuff, even when the target is tossed straight up.
 * More tips needed.


 * Ice Vortex's cast range is huge. Use it to scout Roshan, to give vision of the high ground, to reveal common juking spots etc.
 * Ice Vortex's cooldown is only 4 seconds. In the later stages of a game, once you have enough mana, spam it.
 * If you already used Chilling Touch and you're too fragile to get near a team fight to use Cold Feet, you should at least stay behind and spam it.


 * Extremely strong ability for early game team fights: can deal up to 150/240/350/480 damage per buffed ally, and up to 750/1200/1750/2400 damage with 5 buffed heroes (before reductions).
 * It's especially strong at level 1 since the enemies will lack mobility (including ) to escape before it's too late.
 * It doesn't work against towers, but you can remove the buff by clicking on the icon (which you can want since it does reduce your attack speed by 20).
 * Synergizes well with heroes that have built-in attack speed:, , to name a few.


 * The only ability in the game that prevents healing, making it a direct counter to a plethora of heroes.
 * There are only four abilities that can help you regain life while frostbitten: 's, 's , 's and 's.

Items

 * is a decent alternative to your standard items. Two of your spells do benefit from the extra cast range (albeit only slightly, since both have a big casting range already) and you can build it by disassembling your . The spell amplification should be the main reason for you to get this item.
 * upgrades nicely from a . It provides a good magical nuke, slow, and spell amp that synergizes well with your kit. The required however is very expensive on a more-than-often starved Apparition.
 * , is good on most spell-casters and Ancient Apparition is no exception. But it's extremely expensive and should never be considered before you get at least three other items.
 * could theoretically prevent any kind of healing for 34 seconds with a double Ice Blast. Probably even greedier than the Octarine Core; don't think about it before you have 5 other late game items...