Troll Warlord/Guide

Carry
Troll Warlord should always be played as a carry. A good Troll player is constantly farming, pushing, or taking objectives. One of the first important items on Troll Warlord is, which can be upgraded to. With this item, one can farm the jungle without losing much health. Combined with and  (or ), you should be able to fight in early team fights. You should find a good balance between farming and pushing (Dependent on your team's situation). A good use of the hero's ultimate is to assist his team with pushing or fighting without him to get bonus gold through assists or towers.

You will usually want to start with a point Berserker's Rage as Troll Warlord is definitely stronger in melee form, with additional movement speed, a lower BAT and +6 armor which really helps your laning phase or jungling.

Then, depending on the game situation, you can either take a point or two in Fervor (for a more farming playstyle) or max out Whirling Axes (for a more kill-centric playstyle). Maxing both skills in tandem can be effective as well, as long as one optimizes farming and fighting appropriately. Fervor does not scale all that well with extra levels. The first point is already half as good as the fourth. One overly-simple way to look at it is that taking a second point improves Fervor by 33% (from 15 to 20 attack speed), the third by 25% (from 20 to 25) and the fourth by 20% (from 25 to 30). Do not underestimate extra levels in Berserker's Rage. +10 flat movement speed is always nice to have, and the increased duration on the bash will make the difference between a kill and a close escape for your enemies. Although the extra attack speed will help you "perma-bash" an opponent, the duration of the bash scales better than an extra point in Fervor. Granted, you need to proc a bash first. Overall, there is no obvious way to spend you skill points to maximise your damage output or your kill potential.

You always pick up your Battle Trance when you are able to do so, at levels 6, 12 and 18.

General

 * At level 25 without items and with 7 stacks of fervor and his ultimate Troll Warlord reaches 597/600 attack speed.
 * Troll Warlord is faster in melee mode, making it easier to chase or escape from enemies. It also increases your armor, so switching to melee form whenever damage is received reduces the overall damage you take.
 * You can opt for the strategy to kill Roshan early. Troll Warlord with HotD and Phase boots can easily kill Roshan thanks to his bash and high attack speed against single targets. In addition the use of a smoke may allow a sneaky Rosh.
 * When your target enemy is starting to become harder to chase in melee form, keep in mind that you still have a Ranged form. Ranged Whirling Axes can aid in crippling them, so that you can revert back to melee form to finish them off.
 * Augment Troll Warlord's power with damage-boosting items, since his power lies in his excellent attack speed.
 * Ally buffs such as 's Empower can also be a good source of boosting damage.
 * Because of its scaling boost to attack speed Fervor is usually leveled up last with 1 point at level 4 for tower pushing/Roshan/beating on a single hero. Having your move speed and bash duration higher will greatly benefit your survivability and chase, since Fervor is extremely good with even only 1 skill point. But keep in mind that since a recent update the first stack is always active.
 * It's better to focus on one target rather than switching from one to another, since Fervor makes him more dangerous the more he attacks the same target with each blow.
 * Attack speed items such as and  allow you to build up Fervor more quickly, but do not scale well if you opt to max it early on.
 * If you're 6-slotted, sell any attack speed items for higher damage items. With all skills leveled, Troll Warlord easily achieves his maximum attack speed, so items like are much less useful.
 * and are strong items coupled with the bonuses from Berserker's Rage, giving you even greater mobility to prevent kiting.
 * is an excellent source of early-game and mid-game damage, but upgrading to a Mjollnir is discouraged as Troll Warlord hardly benefits from the 80 attack speed it provides. Instead of upgrading your Maelstrom, sell it for higher damage items such as, or , or utility items such as Eye of Skadi, or.
 * Heroes who mainly attack benefit greatly from Battle Trance. Try to draft at least one more hard hitting carry for your team to get the most out of it. If your team insists on picking four carries, Battle Trance can often be the saving grace for a horribly gold starved team as it equates to more than a free five second Hyperstone for everyone at its first level. Constantly look at the map and use Battle Trance at any engagement of allies to give them an advantage. Check at the map at use your ultimate every time someone is fighting or pushing. Communicate with your team to know when exactly you need to activate your ultimate. Be sure to always have enough mana, buy a or an  to get more mana regen.
 * Battle Trance can be used to help allies in many ways even if you are not there, as the effects are global, that is why Troll is often played mid to reach level 6 quickly (and do a fast Roshan at the same time). Whether you have someone pushing a tower such as or, if  has used ,  her  or if  is Roshing, heroes with high base damage but low attack speed like , be sure to help your friends with Battle Trance!
 * Battle Trance does not buff Illusions, but it does work on and his clones allowing to reach the highest DPS of the game. Because Meepo is excellent at pouncing on enemies, he can generally obliterate anyone instantly once he blink/poofs in under the effects of Battle Trance. He can use Troll's ultimate to destroy buildings in backdoor.


 * You should always be in melee form while moving, fighting and farming to gain bonus movement speed and the chance to bash, as well as a lower BAT. The bonus movement speed will also help you flee from an enemy, as will the +6 armor.
 * Try to finish off running heroes, zone enemy melee heroes or last-hitting creeps by changing to ranged form.
 * When toggled on, exchanges Whirling Axes (Ranged) with Whirling Axes (Melee).
 * The Bash chance is a measly 10% while in melee form. However, a bonus  20/30/40/50 Damage is done per bash, in addition to a 0.8/1.2/1.6/2 second stun.


 * Only real purpose of this spell is to slow the opponent.
 * The melee and ranged versions of Whirling Axes have separate cooldowns. Keep this in mind when in battle, so that you can output more damage with them.
 * You should go in melee form after casting this spell to gain bonus movement speed, making chasing more efficient.
 * Slows 30% across all levels, but the duration of the slow goes up to 3/3.75/4.5/5.25 seconds. This is a deceptively powerful slow as the cooldown of the ability is 10 seconds at level 4, providing a 52.5% uptime on said slow. For comparison, Eye of Skadi provides a comparable slow, at 35%.
 * This spell only deals 75 damage across all levels.

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 * This spell is your main damaging nuke, as the damage scales with level (75/125/175/225) unlike the ranged version.
 * Axes whirl in a circle around your hero, extending to a radius of 350 units before coming back, each axe having a radius of 100 units.
 * Inflicts a blind effect on enemy heroes and creeps, lasting 4/5/6/7 seconds and debuffing the afflicted with 60% miss chance.
 * You should use this spell for farming, pushing, teamfights freely. However, it does not affect Roshan.


 * This ability provides most of your DPS potential.
 * Try not to constantly switch targets to prevent your Fervor stacks from resetting.
 * Most effective for 1v1s, destroying buildings and Roshan.
 * Synergizes with Berserker's Rage to facilitate bashing consecutively.


 * Use Battle Trance whenever you or your team are doing objectives like towers or Roshan.
 * You get assists if an enemy hero is killed by one of your teammates while under the effect of this spell.
 * The enemy team can't hear your "cry" when casting this spell, if they don't have vision of you.

Items
Starting items:
 * sustains health so you can stay longer in lane.
 * restores health as well.

Early game:
 * helps against enemies that can spam spells, it later builds into.

Mid game:
 * help you escape bad situations as well as closing the distance to enemies to take advantage of your more powerful melee form. As Troll has built-in attack speed, he benefits more from the raw damage of Phase Boots than the attack speed provided by.
 * provides lifesteal which works well with your high attack speed. Getting this can help you take out Roshan in the early game by yourself, especially when coupled with a critical strike, like that of . It also upgrades into, which helps with survivability in the late game.
 * is core on troll because Battle Trance only lasts 6.5 seconds. Every second matters, and stuns and disables potentially make you unable to do anything for several seconds, wasting the spell's potential.

Late game:
 * provides a massive agility and attack speed bonus as well as evasion. The attack speed part of the item makes perma bashing more likely when your ultimate is over. In addition, the evasion, combined with the blind provided by Whirling Axes provides a great deal of survivability. Finally, the Flutter ability allows you to chase or escape with ease.

Situational items:
 * , as always, is the perfect gap closer. Most heroes are not too thrilled to get jumped on by an angry Troll.
 * is an interesting pick on Troll. The double attack will help you get a lucky bash, and it will immediately give you a second stack of Fervor against whatever target you're attacking, indirectly increasing the speed of your third (and fourth and fifth...) attack. The stats it gives are also very welcome.
 * is always a decent choice, for extra movement speed and agility. Upgrade it into either a for some durability and slow, or a  for the illusions and dispel.
 * is not a bad choice on Troll. Although you usually want to fight in melee form, other melee carries might punish you for trying to man-fight them, especially if they're more farmed than you. This will provide additional range to your ranged form and good stats, and it can be upgraded in a for extra mobility and kiting potential.
 * offers cost effective attack speed and damage increases, strong initiation and mobility, and a mediocre escape. It also upgrades in the improved.
 * provides good agility and helps you deplete (quickly) a target of its mana.
 * gives your attacks a great deal of damage. Because maximum attack speed is easily achieveable with his ultimate and passive, Troll Warlord can focus on damage and get multiple Daedalus to crit more often and lifesteal even more.
 * counters evasion from the enemies due to its magical damage procs, and gives an increase to attack damage which complements attack speed bonuses from Fervor and Battle Trance.

Troll Warlord/Руководство