Winter Wyvern

Auroth the Winter Wyvern is a ranged intelligence hero whose arsenal of spells gives her powerful nuking capability. Usually played as a lane support, Winter Wyvern's spells allow her to fulfill a myriad of roles depending on what her team needs. Arctic Burn grants her with flying movement and increased attack range and night vision for 6 seconds, while causing her attacks to burn enemies' HP over time while slowing them, allowing her to gank and harass with ease. Splinter Blast is a low-cooldown nuke that, while leaving its target unaffected, will slow and deal tremendous damage to all other nearby enemies. Cold Embrace allows Winter Wyvern to encase a target ally within a protective layer of ice, disabling them for the duration of the spell but also rendering them immune to physical damage while healing them for a percentage of their maximum health. Her ultimate, Winter's Curse, turns the enemy's strength against them by stunning the target enemy while forcing all of their nearby allies to attack them. A fearsome ganker and powerful nuker, Winter Wyvern can chill her foes to the bone and wreak havoc on their ranks.

Tips

 * Winter Wyvern is a powerful nuker who also provides utility in her spells, making her a well-rounded support. As she does not require gold in order to be effective, she is well-suited to playing as a hard support, protecting her safe lane carry and rotating to gank with her spells.
 * Unlike most other intelligence-based casting supports, Winter Wyvern possesses respectable strength growth, making her quite resistant to damage. However, her poor base agility also means that she has low base armor, and can benefit greatly from purchasing items that provide her with bonus armor.
 * Winter Wyvern has an extremely high cast range for all of her spells, allowing her to impact ganks and teamfights from the back lines without endangering herself. Purchasing mobility items allows her to position herself for casting her spells more easily.
 * Keep in mind, Winter Wyvern has poor base movement speed and a very slow turn rate, making her quite sluggish; as well, she has a very short attack range and slow projectile speed, as well as poor base damage, making her physical attacks quite ineffective at harassing when not boosted by Arctic Burn. Good positioning and planning is necessary in order to make good use of Auroth's spells, despite the extremely high cast range on her abilities.
 * Much of Winter Wyvern's damage output comes from her basic spells, which are costly and have very low cooldowns. Securing a reliable source of mana regeneration allows Winter Wyvern to keep on the move and enter teamfights ready to use her full arsenal at all times.
 * gives Winter Wyvern flying movement while boosting her attack range and night vision, and causing her attacks to burn a fraction of enemies' current HP every second.
 * As it is her primary mobility spell, maxing out Arctic Burn first can help make Winter Wyvern far more mobile and better able to counter enemy actions. While the HP burn is static, reducing the cooldown and mana cost allows Winter Wyvern to have the spell ready as the situation requires, and helps keep her mana pool full for casting her other spells. As well, the increased slow can help to get kills during ganks, and can greatly inhibit enemy movement during teamfights.
 * Arctic Burn is also a good spell pick as Winter Wyvern's first ability, as it can be used to initiate a fight by slowing and burning enemy heroes or as an emergency escape spell to evade an enemy gank.
 * Because Arctic Burn's damage is expressed as a percentage of the target's current HP, it is more effective the higher an enemy's HP is. Using it at the start of a fight will burn down a larger fraction of the enemy's maximum HP, allowing subsequent attacks and spells from teammates to be more impactful.
 * Always take advantage of the flying movement that Arctic Burn provides. When initiating for a gank or teamfight, Winter Wyvern can soar over trees and ledges/cliffs, attacking the enemy from unexpected directions. When used as an escape, Auroth can escape enemies by flying over impassable terrain, preventing them from easily pursuing.
 * Arctic Burn's combination flying movement and attack and night vision range bonuses make Winter Wyvern into a very strong nighttime ganker. The increased night vision lets her spot enemies at very long range, allowing her to choose an advantageous approach angle with her flying movement, while the attack range bonus allows her to attack from outside most enemies' vision range, most importantly to put their Blink Dagger on cooldown for at least 8 seconds.
 * Be careful about using Arctic Burn to scout, as Winter Wyvern still possesses ground vision and is unable to see up high ground or through trees. If going up high ground, try to take a side approach that takes her in from an unexpected angle (using trees for cover as necessary), rather than directly up a stairway where enemies could be waiting.
 * fires a shard of ice at a target, splintering upon impact and damaging and slowing all other nearby enemies.
 * Beware that Splinter Blast does not affect the primary target at all, and as such is useless against lone targets. If trying to damage and slow an enemy with the spell, aim it at a secondary target so that the splinters will bounce to the primary target.
 * Because of its tremendous nuking potential, Splinter Blast can be a strong spell to max out early in the game. The combination of low cooldown and high area damage allows Winter Wyvern to sweep away creep waves in seconds and deal powerful area damage in fights. In particular, at maximum level Splinter Blast is capable of killing ranged lane creeps in a single cast before the 37:30 mark, giving her strong pushing and counter-pushing capability. Increasing Intelligence or buying can further strengthen her nuke damage and maintain her pushing potential.
 * Splinter Blast's extremely long cast range allows Winter Wyvern to hit enemies up to 1700 range away. Use this to your advantage in fights to keep as much space between yourself and enemy heroes as possible.
 * Be mindful that Splinter Blast's initial projectile has a fixed 1 second travel time beyond 650 range, and cannot be disjointed, so it is very adept at catching enemies no matter where they are. As well, the secondary splinters that damage and slow enemies in an area cannot be disjointed either once locked on, which allows Winter Wyvern to splash damage at enemies in many situations where other damage nukes cannot.
 * Because of its extremely long range and low cooldown, Splinter Blast is a very useful spell for breaking an enemy's Linken's Sphere. In particular, it can clear the way to cast Winter's Curse, and come off cooldown shortly after the taunt.
 * When casting Splinter Blast against lane creeps, keep in mind that the primary target will take no damage and will not be slowed. If creep positioning permits, try to target Splinter Blast on a siege creep, as their 80% magic resistance makes the secondary damage ineffective against them anyways. However, keep in mind that the siege creeps are usually positioned well behind the rest of a creep wave, meaning that unless the melee creeps are aggroed and brought closer, a Splinter Blast targeted on a siege creep will likely only hit the ranged creeps.
 * is a powerful protective spell that disables a target ally but nullifies incoming physical damage and heals a sizable fraction of their HP.
 * Because it is a percentage-based spell, Cold Embrace is situationally effective in the early game when HP pools are very small. However, the physical damage immunity means that a value point in the skill is very effective since it can be used to save allies who are ganked by enemies, particularly since most magic nukes will drain a sizable fraction of their small mana pools.
 * Cold Embrace's physical damage negation makes it extremely strong for saving a teammate who has been caught out of position and is being focused down by enemy attacks. The principle is that if an ally is being chain-disabled by the enemy, then casting Cold Embrace on them will not matter, as they were already being stunned and the spell will protect them from physical damage while healing them, wasting the enemy's time.
 * Beware that while an encased ally is immune to physical damage, they are still affected by secondary attack effects, as well as Magical and Pure damage. This means that will still steal attributes,  will still destroy mana (but deal no damage),  and  will still deal their Magical and Pure damage components, respectively, and teammates can still be finished off by non-physical nukes like  and . When choosing whether or not to cast Cold Embrace, be sure to take enemy composition and abilities into account.
 * This vulnerability to other damage types can be mitigated with the help of allies, however. For instance, can render the target spell immune and thus unable to be damaged by anything short of spell immunity piercing Pure damage,  can block magical damage while leaving the target still able to receive other buffs such as, and so on.
 * Cold Embrace is an extremely powerful pushing spell, due to its combination of healing, low cooldown and physical damage immunity.
 * Because of its percentage-based healing, Cold Embrace can restore a sizable fraction of allies' health, allowing them to continue pushing after a successful teamfight and be ready to engage enemies at full health.
 * As it can be targeted on all allies, creeps can be targeted in order to render them immune to enemy attacks, particularly towers. Casting Cold Embrace on the creep that is currently being attacked by an enemy tower will waste the tower's attacks for the next 4 seconds, allowing all other allied creeps to continue damaging it.
 * is an extremely powerful single-target spell that fully disables an enemy and applies a taunt to their nearby allies, causing them to attack the target while simultaneously boosting their attack speed.
 * The greatest strength of Winter's Curse is that it allows Winter Wyvern to turn the enemy's power against themselves, forcing their farmed hard carries to use their powerful physical damage output against their own team. In particular, enemy auras and powerful damage and attack speed buffs (such as, and ) can cause then to connive in their own destruction by turning such abilities into liabilities should they ever clump up.
 * Winter's Curse will lock down the target through spell immunity and cannot be removed by strong dispels, making it very powerful in many situations. If an enemy carry activates BKB, Winter Wyvern can still disable them and force their allies to attack them, wasting the enemy's spell immunity while dealing damage to them.
 * Remember that Winter's Curse cannot taunt enemies that are spell immune, so they will not attack their allies if they activate spell immunity prior to Winter's Curse. Depending on the situation, try to lock down the spell immune enemy over adjacent teammates.
 * Target prioritization is key to using Winter's Curse; try to exploit its long cast range and use it on a key enemy that has powerful teamfight spells or powerful utility items. If possible, try to cast it on a squishy enemy who is standing next to their farmed hard carry, in order to increase the odds of getting a kill (additionally, it can also remove important teamfight spells and items from the field). Even if a kill cannot be secured, delaying a key enemy from participating in a fight for a short duration can make the difference between victory and defeat.
 * Because of its extremely long cooldown, try to avoid wasting Winter's Curse on lone targets. Save it for teamfights where it is most profitably cast, as not having the spell available can give the enemy an edge in engagements where they can fight without worry of being inflicted with the taunt.
 * Keep in mind that all affected enemies will take no damage from Winter Wyvern or her team for the duration of Winter's Curse, so do not waste spells or attacks attempting to do so. Use Winter's Curse either to secure a kill, or set up the enemy while your team re-positions.
 * Remember that the taunt will still be applied to anything passing through the radius after Winter's Curse is initially cast, whether nearby enemies or the disabled target itself. If the target is facing the right direction, try to use a Force Staff on them in order to push them within proximity of their allies and bring more units within the radius of the taunt.
 * Many passive abilities do not work against allied units, so do not expect an enemy Phantom Assassin to inflict strikes on her teammates.
 * A short summary of the most common effects which do not trigger on allies: Most attack modifiers (critical strike, cleave and all active attack modifiers),, , and
 * Short summary of effects which do react on allies: All damage block, all sources of damage negation and reduction,, , , ,
 * Note though that in the case of spells like or, the reflected damage or passive quill sprays do not hit allies, but enemies still. The only exception is Centaur's Return, which damages allies.
 * All bashes excluding Spirit Breaker's and Slardar's  works on allies. Examples:, , ,
 * Some item attack modifiers also work against allies. Examples:, ,


 * With her powerful arsenal of disables and nukes, Winter Wyvern can build various items to further augment her effectiveness.
 * is important to purchase regularly on top of Observer Wards. Winter Wyvern is very adept at de-warding due to her increased night vision and flying movement from Arctic Burn, both of which allow her to easily check elevated terrain for enemy wards.
 * should be purchased as early as possible, gold permitting, in order to allow allies to more easily purchase and retrieve items.
 * is a situational pickup, as Winter Wyvern is a ranged hero who can only apply a limited slow with the item. However, combined with Arctic Burn, it can increase the amount that an enemy is slowed, sometimes enough to ensure a kill.
 * is a cheap purchase that increases Winter Wyvern's ability to cast her spells. It provides HP regen and a small amount of mana regen, allowing her to roam more independently. The burst mana regen allows Winter Wyvern to cast her spells more readily, and the HP cost can be recouped through Cold Embrace.
 * is a very cheap boots upgrade that improves Auroth's roaming capabilities. The movement speed boost helps to mitigate her poor base movement, and the armor and passive HP regen help to increase her survivability and allows her to reserve Cold Embrace to cast on allies rather than on herself, conserving mana.
 * and its upgrade give Winter Wyvern may powerful bonuses for a comparatively cheap price. The armor (as well as evasion with the Talisman of Evasion component) makes her much tankier, allowing her to take advantage of her respectable strength growth, while the scaling mana regen helps keep her mana pool topped up. The active can be cast on a Winter's Curse target, weakening their armor and increasing the odds of killing them.
 * gives Winter Wyvern all-around stats and armor, giving her survivability. The active synergizes with her spells, increasing the amount of damage that Arctic Burn and Splinter Blast deal, and can be cast from extremely long range like her spells.
 * adds yet another slow to Winter Wyvern's arsenal, while improving her mana pool and survivability. The armor makes her much tankier, allowing her to use Arctic Burn offensively to swoop in while casting the active to apply the aura and damage nuke to multiple enemies.
 * is an expensive purchase, but drastically increases Winter Wyvern's teamfight contribution. The item provides extremely strong mana regen, ensuring that she will always have the mana to cast what she needs, and having two casts of Winter's Curse at her disposal can secure key kills in major teamfights.
 * gives Winter Wyvern stats across the board, making her much tankier and giving her much more mana to cast her spells. The attack modifier can drastically slow an enemy alongside Arctic Burn, allowing her to lock down enemies from extremely long range.

Trivia

 * Winter Wyvern made her first official Dota 2 appearance in the New Bloom trailer "The Coming of the Year Beast" which was showcased the first time after the finals of the Dota 2 Asia Championship 2015 on the 9th of February 2015. The trailer video was later posted on the official Dota2 blog as part 1 of the New Bloom event.
 * Her next official appearance was in the comic "The new neighbors", which was posted on the 10th of February 2015 on the official Dota2 blog. In the comic, she is depicted as an "artistic" dragon with interests in books who does not follow the traditional behavior of dragons razing cities to the ground.
 * Much like, who is also voiced by Merle Dandridge, the gender of Winter Wyvern was changed from male to female with the transition from DotA to Dota 2.
 * In DotA, Winter Wyvern makes use the model of the Warcraft 3 version of a frost wyrm, a well known undead dragon type from the Warcraft universe.
 * Winter Wyvern's response when meeting as an ally, Winwyv ally 19.mp3 "In this world, nothing is certain but ice and axes" is a nod to a quote by Benjamin Franklin, which states: "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
 * Winter Wyvern's response, Winwyv rare 02.mp3 "Winter is coming. Winter Wyvern that is." is a reference to Game of Thrones, specifically the motto of the House of Stark: "Winter is coming."
 * Winter Wyvern's rivalry line towards Winwyv rival 05.mp3 "I knew Slyrak, Dragon Knight. You're no Slyrak." is a reference to Michael Dukakis's political quip "... I knew Jack Kennedy... Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy".