Dazzle/Guide

Aggressive
Dazzle is a ranged hero with a good attack animation, a spammable DoT, decent range, and base damage. He can be quite fearsome to lane against, especially as a melee hero with no dispels to remove Poison Touch. It can be suitable to consider maxing Poison Touch when contesting the enemy carry's farm in his safe lane, probably because your own safe-laner doesn't require your help. Be careful when opting to choose Poison Touch, as a single point in Shadow Wave and Shallow Grave up to level 7 will make you somewhat useless to your team before you get even more levels, which are not always obvious to get as a support hero. When contesting a melee hero, don't forget to use Shadow Wave when he's coming for a last hit. With proper timing, you should be able to deal respectable damage from the heal, while also preventing his last hit! Try to get a as early as possible to increase all your damage from the armor reduction it provides.

Once Poison Touch is maxed out, you have at your disposal a proper tool for ganks instead of simple harass; consider buying smokes and rotating to the mid lane or somewhere where the enemy won't expect you. When going for a kill, don't forget to reduce the enemy's armor with Bad Juju and a possible. Once you've landed Poison Touch, the physical DoT will deal more damage thanks to the reduced armor, even if you can't land an extra attack. Poison Touch's slow and DoT has decent uptime thanks to its long duration and ability to refresh with attacks; against foolish enemies with little armor and no mobility (or whose Blink Daggers keep getting cancelled), it is possible to get some solo kills by spamming it over and over again.

This strategy may fail from the get go if the enemy could remove your Poison Touch, eg. In this scenario, do not add add any points in Poison Touch. However, once you committed for a second or third point in it, you may as well get the fourth point since the fourth level increases its damage and reduces its cooldown.

General

 * Due to Dazzle's potent defensive abilities, teamfights tend to last longer than usual. This synergizes well with his ultimate, as it becomes more effective as Dazzle unloads his abilities.
 * Dazzle's abilities require him to be close to his teammates at all times.
 * Like most intelligence support casters, Dazzle suffers from poor strength and agility, rendering him very weak against all types of damage and making him an easy kill. However, his strength is that he has very high intelligence growth, meaning that he greatly benefits from building scaling mana regen items that maintain his mana pool and facilitate continued use of his low-cooldown spells.
 * Like all other casting-focused heroes, be particularly mindful of silences that the enemy may attempt to cast on Dazzle during engagements. As a hard support, Dazzle will not always have the gold to purchase items to dispel debuffs from himself, so long-duration silences can easily prevent him from casting his spells to save his teammates in fights.
 * Because of his ability to save teammates from certain death, Dazzle greatly benefits from building items that aid in his positioning or allow him to cast his spells more easily. As well, this ability to save teammates' lives also means that Dazzle himself may become a priority target for the enemy team to eliminate from the battlefield. Mobility items can kill two birds with one stone, allowing Dazzle to re-position to cast his spells on his teammates, or to quickly escape enemy attempts on his life.


 * Poison Touch slows enemies and deals physical damage over time.
 * Poison Touch is a strong ganking spell, as its respectable cast range and slow duration can allow allies to close in to land stronger disables on a gank target. At least one value point is recommended in all situations, as the slow can also be useful for fending off enemies trying to pursue teammates.
 * As Dazzle, try to keep attacking the targets to refresh the debuff duration and further slow enemies down, giving Poison Touch high uptime.
 * Due to its damage over time nature, Poison Touch can be useful for inhibiting enemy Blink Daggers.
 * Multiple instances of Poison Touch stack to slow and damage enemies further.


 * Shallow Grave, Dazzle's signature spell, places an undispellable buff on an ally that prevents them from dying due to damage for the next 5 seconds.
 * At least one value point in Shallow Grave is recommended no matter how Dazzle is skilled. The ability to prevent an ally's death for 5 seconds can completely change gank and teamfight outcomes, allowing a teammate to survive a situation in which they would otherwise die.
 * In general, you best cast Shallow Grave on a target just before they receive a killing blow. Casting Shallow Grave too early can waste some of its duration on a teammate who still has some health left, as the spell is only truly useful if it prevents damage that would otherwise kill the target. However, be mindful that the spell has a longer cast animation than the rest of Dazzle's abilities, require 0.4 seconds to cast instead of 0.3. Keep in mind the enemy team's composition and their ability to deal sudden burst damage, and when in doubt casting earlier is better than later.
 * Shallow Grave is Dazzle's most expensive ability, costing 150 mana at all levels. While leveling it up will not increase its mana cost, doing so also means that the rest of Dazzle's abilities will be weaker at each respective level. Know when to prioritize leveling Dazzle's other spells first, depending on the situation.
 * When deciding when to level up Shallow Grave, keep in mind how active you expect both teams to be throughout a match. If the enemy has a gank-heavy lineup and intends to make numerous attempts to take early teamfights or kill your teammates in ganks, maxing out Shallow Grave early can frustrate their attempts to secure kills, buying your team time and space to farm up items to defeat them later. If your team expects to take the initiative and fight early on against a greedy farming lineup, Shallow Grave can be left at a single level and saved during calculated ganks and fights, allowing Dazzle to expend his skill points on other offensive spells.
 * Shallow Grave can be cast offensively as well as defensively. Holding Shallow Grave in reserve can allow teammates to dive enemy towers in the early game and extend farther than otherwise possible, in the knowledge that Shallow Grave can be cast to cover their retreat.
 * Allies affected by Shallow Grave are only prevented from dying during the spell; when the duration ends they are left with however much health they have and can be easily finished off by pursuing enemies. Try to use healing abilities and items on teammates just before the spell expires, but not too early so as not to waste the heal during the spell.
 * Combined with a Town Portal Scroll, Shallow Grave can be used as an escape spell provided that the enemy has no interrupting disables. If Dazzle or an ally encounter a hopeless situation and the enemy has expended their disables, casting Shallow Grave and then teleporting back to base can be a life-saver; enemies will be unable to kill or interrupt the target during the teleport channel, and they can emerge back at base and heal back to full health. However, beware of damage-over-time spells like that could otherwise finish the job in the fountain, as well as global damage nukes that can finish off low-health targets before they can fully recover like  and.
 * Shallow Grave will always prevent a target's health from dropping below 1 point, but without actually reducing damage taken. This means that while will still continue to reflect damage during the buff, it also means that damage from abilities like  can still be spread to the target's allies.
 * The cast range of Shallow Grave increases with each level; it starts out the same range as your normal attack, but at level 4 goes to almost twice that distance. Higher levels of Shallow Grave not only reduce the cooldown, but allow Dazzle to save his allies from farther away.


 * Shadow Wave instantly heals the target allied unit alongside a number of other allied units in an area, while dealing physical damage in a small radius around each heal target.
 * Despite its small numbers, Shadow Wave is a very strong healing spell as its extremely low cooldown allows it to be spammed over short periods of time and heal multiple allies at once. Maxing it out early can give Dazzle's team a strong survivability advantage in early teamfights while simultaneously increasing his physical damage output.
 * Each ally healed by Shadow Wave will deal an instance of damage in a small radius around themselves. This means that if multiple allies are clustered around an enemy unit at melee range, that enemy will be hit with multiple instances of physical damage. This makes Shadow Wave a very strong offensive spell when combined with teammates who can summon crowds of units to attack enemies at melee range, such as, and.
 * Because it heals and damages in larger numbers with crowded allies, Shadow Wave is particularly strong at defending and pushing lanes due to lane creeps being present in large numbers and fighting at melee range. A single cast of Shadow Wave can deal significant damage to enemy creep waves, allowing Dazzle to destroy a single wave in two casts of the spell.
 * If not targeting himself, Dazzle is always added as a unit for healing and damaging for Shadow Wave. This can be useful for adding an extra instance of damage in fights and ganks, provided that Dazzle can position himself close to the enemy target, and can be useful for bouncing Shadow Wave's damage to enemy ranged and siege creeps when pushing lanes.


 * Make an effort in team fights to use as many abilities as possible within range of the enemies to maximize the effectiveness of Bad Juju.
 * Nevertheless, take care and stay alive as a support because Dazzle cannot keep applying Bad Juju armor debuffs if he is dead.
 * Dazzle should build items with active abilities to take advantage of Bad Juju's cooldown reduction, e.g. for disabling enemy heroes.

Items
Starting items:
 * allows Dazzle to survive against enemy harass damage so that he is not forced to retreat out of lane and leave his lane partner vulnerable.
 * also restores health to Dazzle or allies.
 * provides cost-effective attributes. It can build into Magic Wand, or combines with Tango for more health regeneration.
 * allows Dazzle to replenish his mana in lane, which in turn sustain his spell-casting, most importantly Shadow Wave to heal his ally.
 * provides map vision and information to make gameplay decisions, allowing teammates to engage in fights on their terms or to avoid enemy ganks.

Early game:
 * gives Dazzle burst health and mana. Staying alive long enough to cast one more spell in a fight can make a significant difference.
 * is crucial to purchase as early as possible on all heroes. In Dazzle's case, positioning is crucial for being able to cast his spells, and the additional movement speed allows him to chase down foes after inflicting them with Poison Touch.
 * has great synergy with Dazzle's abilities. It provides its fair bit of cost-effective stats. The Urn charges allow Dazzle to heal teammates alongside Shadow Wave, or to add more damage during ganks and fights.

Mid game:
 * , assembled from earlier Magic Stick and Iron Branch, provides extra attributes and charge storage to increase Dazzle survivability and longevity in fights.
 * greatly synergizes with Dazzle's abilities, all of which deal physical damage. It provides additional armor for survivability and scaling mana regeneration, while the active can work alongside Bad Juju to further augment allies' armor or further debilitate that of his foes.
 * improves the size of his mana pool, allowing him to use more abilities, and allows him to replenish the mana of himself and his teammates, further boosting his ability to support his team.
 * provides Dazzle with all-around attributes as well as armor, and allows him to further heal his teammates alongside Shadow Wave, lengthening their lifespans in fights.

Late game:
 * , upgraded from Medallion of Courage, improves the item's effectiveness in all areas. The increased mana regen further allows Dazzle to take advantage of his high intelligence growth, while the increased attack and movement speed is extremely helpful for allied carries.
 * , upgraded from Urn of Shadows, provides more useful bonuses like movement speed and health, as well as granting the ability to reduce the health regen of targets.
 * , upgraded from Arcane Boots and, restores health and mana to allies and removes debuffs from Dazzle. The Guardian Aura greatly boosts the survival of Dazzle's team, particularly when they are at low health, giving Dazzle a larger window with which to use Shallow Grave.
 * increases Dazzle's armor, improving survivability, and gives him bonus health and mana regeneration for self-sustain. Echo Shell lets Dazzle dispel debuffs from a target ally and bounce enemy unit-targeted abilities back against them. It may discourage enemies from casting spells against important allies, or can be combined with Shallow Grave to help improve survivability.

Situational items:
 * s are important to purchase alongside Observer Wards, for taking away enemy map vision or spotting out invisible enemy heroes.
 * improves Dazzle's survivability in the face of overwhelming physical damage. Besides providing all-around attributes, it temporarily renders him immune to physical damage, allowing him to buy himself time to cast his spells.
 * is a good utility item that helps Dazzle to further protect his teammates. Besides boosting his magic resistance slightly to provide survivability against magic nukes, using the active on a teammate who is being focused can buy them time to run away while greatly boosting their magic resistance. It can also be combined with Shallow Grave, greatly improving Dazzle's chances of successfully saving a teammate's life.
 * is a very strong support purchase that further augment's Dazzle's protective capabilities. It improves the size of Dazzle's mana pool while also providing HP regen for self-sustain. Besides allowing him to quickly re-position himself to cast his spells, casting the active on a fleeing teammate that is under the protection of Shallow Grave can immediately push them to safety, further guaranteeing their survival.
 * is a very strong utility item that can be obtained relatively cheaply. The improved intelligence and powerful scaling mana regen allow Dazzle to easily cast his spells whenever he needs to, while the improved base movement speed helps with positioning and chasing down or fleeing enemies. The active allows Dazzle to give himself temporary invulnerability while also dispelling debuffs from himself, or can be used to disable enemies while removing buffs, particularly if they are attempting to chase down and kill one of Dazzle's allies.
 * is a cheap and easily built item that grants all-around attributes. The active gives his team extra movement and attack speed in fights.
 * is a situationally strong utility item that further improves Dazzle's ability to protect his team. The vastly improved health regeneration and magic resistance also make Dazzle himself much harder to eliminate in fights, allowing him to always be ready to protect his teammates.
 * is a strong utility support item that improves Dazzle's survivability and disabling potential. It greatly improves Dazzle's HP pool while also providing a large amount of intelligence to improve his mana pool. The active allows Dazzle to root enemies from long distance.
 * is a good utility item that increases Dazzle's teamfight contribution. It provides Dazzle with a large amount of armor, boosting his survivability, as well as intelligence to increase the size of his mana pool. Freezing Aura reduces enemies' attack speed, debilitating their ability to harm Dazzle's team with physical attacks, while Arctic Blast deals damage and slows in an area around Dazzle, stacking alongside Poison Touch and allowing teammates to more easily group around them for an offensively cast Shadow Wave.
 * is a very powerful item to purchase on any support hero, gold permitting. It provides all-around attributes as well as a large amount of intelligence and mana regen, increasing Dazzle's overall resilience and ensuring that he will never run out of mana. The Hex allows him to hard-disable a target enemy at range, greatly improving his contribution to teamfights.

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