Medusa/Guide

Ability Builds

 * This build gives you great sustain and harassment early game while letting you farm extremely quickly with Split Shot. Mana Shield and Stone Gaze only get one level early on as that's all you'll need for farming, fighting, and escaping ganks. More levels in Mana Shield isn't bad if the enemy has heroes that eat through your mana however.
 * Mystic Snake is not very powerful at level one, with only 3 jumps and very low damage. Getting the first point into Mana Shield allows you to safely trade hits with the enemy when neccessary, as you can only get the second point into Mystic Snake at level 3.

General

 * Medusa has one of the lowest base health in the game, making her quite vulnerable in the early game.
 * Medusa is arguably the hardest carry in the game, but also the most item dependent. Knowing how to farm well is the most important aspect of playing her.
 * Early on, Medusa should just focus on farming and surviving. Once you get Mana Shield, you'll have a lot more survivability in lane, but always keep an eye on the minimap for incoming ganks and your health and mana pools to see how much damage the enemies are doing.
 * In the late game, Mana Shield and Stone Gaze allows Medusa to withstand much more punishment than most carries.
 * Enemy teams who cannot kill Medusa quickly enough will often lose the teamfight.
 * Because of this, a well farmed late game Medusa can often turn a losing match around.


 * Split Shot makes you a really good farmer and pusher, especially once you get more levels in it. Use it to quickly farm jungle camps or push lanes to try to take early towers
 * When pushing towers with Split Shot, keep the tower as your main target, and the other arrows will hit creeps or nearby enemies. If you target creeps while trying to push, the extra arrows won't hit towers.
 * Split Shot also gives you immense damage during fights. While Medusa's single target damage isn't much for a lot of the game, with Split Shot you can easily deal decent damage to each enemy in a fight.
 * Keep in mind activating this ability reduces the damage of your attacks by 20%. Remember to turn this off when facing single targets or just deal more damage to certain enemies.
 * Split Shots works on Medusa's illusions, but only if it is active when the illusions are spawned. Spawn illusions with Split Shot on to increase their DPS and pushing power.
 * It is possible to farm ancients with Medusa at level 1 by putting a point into Split Shot. However, it requires juking into the jungle, and may need more skill to perform in on the Dire ancients.


 * Mystic Snake is potent throughout all points of the game. It lets you harass enemies and keep your mana nearly full while posing minimum risk to yourself
 * For maximum damage against enemies in lane, try to bounce the snake off a few creeps into the enemy hero.
 * The mana steal works against heroes and creeps to the full extent. Use this in the jungle to keep Mana Shield's EHP from dropping too low so you can tank hits from creeps. Medium Satyr and Mud Golem camps work the best for this.
 * Mystic Snake deals Pure damage to enemies petrified by Stone Gaze, so be sure to cast it after activating Stone Gaze.
 * Both in lane and in the jungle, take advantage of Mystic Snake to keep your mana up so Mana Shield keeps you alive.
 * Mystic Snake can be maxed first as it is Medusa's only nuke and can be used to push your lane.
 * Mystic Snake's damage increases per jump, so it is best cast so that it would hit enemy heroes at last, to make them take the most damage. If used for farming, casting it so that it hits the creeps with more health can prevent overkill damage on lower health creeps, making it more effective and faster to farm.
 * Since Medusa does not have much mana and the ability has a high mana cost, it is important to make sure that it hits at least 2 enemies which have mana (e.g. ranged lane creeps), to get some mana restored back. It does not matter if targets with mana are hit as first or at last, since the mana drain is static and does not increase per jump like the damage.
 * Lane creeps have a mana pool of 500, so Mystic Snake can drain 55/70/85/100 mana from them. So in order to get its full mana cost basically refunded, it has to hit at least 3/3/2/2 ranged lane creeps. This means it is also important to hit enemies with the spell in order to not run out of mana during the laning phase.
 * In order to refund the full mana cost, Mystic Snake must hit units with a sum of 1273/1072/942/850 total mana.
 * Use Mystic Snake on a nearby creep to have it bounce and hit an enemy that's out of range.


 * One point in Mana Shield gives you the full 60% damage reduction. Subsequent levels just lower the mana lost per damage.
 * Level Mana Shield based on what the enemy has. If enemies have items such as, grabbing more points may not be a bad idea to lower the overall mana lost from it.
 * Even if you do level Mana Shield up early, be wary of enemies who tend to build illusions with mana burn, such as with his  and  illusions.
 * Medusa's mana pool needs to equal at least 93.75%/78.95%/68.18%/60% of her current health to maximize the damage reduction of Mana Shield, assuming she does not lose mana in any different way than by the absorption of Mana Shield.
 * Be wary about leaving Mana Shield active in the early game without a high mana pool or some mana regen items. Heavy damage may leave you unable to cast Stone Gaze, which can turn the tides of a gank or teamfight when used correctly.
 * Mana Shield does, however, provide an immense amount of damage reduction at all levels. An alternative build is to max this by 7 and take a lot of points in stats.
 * The ideal ratio of mana to health is 0.94/0.79/0.68/0.6 mana per health, meaning every consecutive skill point in Mana Shield becomes less cost efficient, consider grabbing a point in your other skill points over another point in mana shield if you already have the ideal mana/health ratio (any more points basically mean wasted mana; do not forget about Stone Gaze and Mystic Snake costs)


 * Leveling Stone Gaze only increases the duration by 1 second each level. As such, one value point early on should be enough for both escaping ganks and turning the tides in team fights.
 * Stone Gaze goes through Magic Immunity, meaning the only way to escape it is to turn away from the Medusa. It'll even freeze a who used  and take them out of the Phase, so use that to your advantage.
 * Mystic Snake deals pure damage to enemies who have been turned to stone by Stone Gaze. Considering that Mystic Snake also increases damage per jump, you can deal massive nuking damage if you bounce it correctly after ulting.
 * Proper use of Stone Gaze together with Split Shot makes Medusa a great counter to heroes that depend on illusions.
 * However, be very wary with its activation - smart users may attempt to use illusions to bait you either by taking you to poor spots or by forcing your ultimate out, which can leave you very vulnerable, especially to heroes like Phantom Lancer as they almost always build (making your mana shield much less effective) and he can easily overwhelm you beyond your capacities even with Split Shot active.
 * Remember that Petrified heroes take no damage from magical attacks. This is especially important if you have a nuke heavy team as activating Stone Gaze at the wrong time can cost your team a battle that could have been won otherwise.

Items
Starting Items:
 * es for recovering hit points especially when received significant damage early on.
 * gives you a 400 HP heal, which a large amount of Medusa's early game HP.
 * es provides early stats needed for last-hitting creeps and a small boost in your hit points and mana.
 * gives you plenty of stats and lets you pick up a at the side shop. On top of that, planted Iron Branches increase the total healing from Tangoes.
 * to compensate Medusa having the lowest base hit points.

Early Game Items:
 * is one of the most cost effective EHP items on Medusa early on, as storing charges can give you a huge burst health and mana for when things get rough.
 * provides mana regeneration, armor bonus and a small damage boost for last-hitting.

Core Items:
 * give movement speed, even boosted with the Phase ability for escaping ambushes early game. The additional damage also contributes to her Split Shot skill. It also helps her position herself better for a successful Stone Gaze, as her otherwise low mobility can make this difficult.
 * is the upgraded version of which gives stats and further damage boost.
 * gives both survivability and killing power, and slowing enemies. The added stats grant Medusa health, mana for Mana Shield.
 * is crucial to escape early game ganks, which can be devastating against Medusa due to her high item dependence.

Situational Items:
 * gives attack range, damage and overall stats - very effective item for Medusa.
 * can be purchased before or after Eye of Skadi. If fights are not in your favor early on, you're farming rather slowly, or enemies have stuns to keep you down fights, consider a Linken's Sphere.
 * offers bonus damage, attack speed and armor, and its evasion gives you even more survivability.
 * can be needed if the enemies have evasion items or heroes.
 * is the best damage item on Medusa. She's tanky enough that, even with, the odds of her dropping this are extremely slim, and it'll help you massacre a whole team with Split Shot. That being said, if against heroes that can burn through your Mana Shield like no tomorrow, it may be too risky to consider this unless absolutely necessary.
 * 's bonus directly increases Medusa's movement speed, and the illusions hit for a total of 56% of your base damage. In addition, the illusions can be used to farm multiple places at once, and benefit from Split Shot.
 * is a great cost effective stat item on Medusa. It gives her both Intelligence and Strength which is needed on her, and the slight movement and attack speed it gives are great for farming or pushing.
 * into can be considered if the enemies have a lot of heroes with illusions.
 * for an extra disable, stats and mana regeneration which may help Mana Shield.
 * is an item to be considered if the enemy is keeping you locked down before you can get Stone Gaze off.
 * , while expensive, is a great luxury item on Medusa. The mana it gives will make you even tankier than before, and it effectively gives you a and  in one slot.
 * is good for increasing your farming speed and being slightly active in the mid game. Her Mana Shield pretty much negates the increase in damage taken from it, it gives her the movement speed and attack speed she needs for both farming and team fights, and it lets her be active early on.
 * boosts attack speed further which is very handy as the game goes longer.
 * should be picked up when building . Due to the extremely high damage provided by Divine Rapier, Satanic's passive lifesteal and its active skill become very effective in terms of healing yourself, decreasing the chances of dropping the Rapier.