Lone Druid/Guide

Spirit Bear Carry/Pusher
This build focuses on getting items on Spirit Bear. Spirit Bear will have tankiness and damage to sustain itself in the middle of fights, while Lone Druid mostly supports from behind with buffs. Simply equipped your bear with a boot and a mask of madness, best before level 7, you will more likely to dominate the early game. can be uniquely strong for this build since it allows Spirit Bear to attack without Lone Druid being nearby or alive.

Ranged Carry
Range Carry for Lone Druid is completely obsolete for 7.30d and onward unless the talent tree gets adjusted in the future.

General

 * Writing as of 7.30d, it is highly recommended not to build Lone Druid as range carry. There are too many heroes that has skills, or using dagger, able to jump into a team fight and target non-druid form to kill you off instantly. Non-druid form is extremely squishy at any point during the game.
 * Lone Druid is dominant when you have a good laning phase and able to get your core item (mask of madness) before level 7.
 * Despite Lone Druid being successful as a safelane carry ,it could be preferable to play him either as an Offlaner or Midlaner. The bear's stats are fixed,therefore it scales somewhat poorly into the late game.On the other hand, the other lanes could benefit more of your presence in pushing and seizing objectives early.
 * A lot of players have the misunderstanding that Lone Druid is an item dependent hero. However, this is not true. All you need is a boot and a Mask of Madness plus some decent micro management skill, at level 6, you will be able to dominate most of early game phase which will scale you well into the mid-game.
 * Focus on building items on either Lone Druid or the Spirit Bear. Trying to itemize both will result on much weaker scaling compared to other heroes,as well as one of them.
 * Lone Druid can use his bear to pick up runes, you can send Spirit Bear to easily collect bounty runes while you stay in lane.
 * The Spirit Bear can buy and deliver items and act as personal courier if you either cannot get to the shop yourself or it is too much of a risk to send a courier, though you cannot transfer between Lone Druid and Spirit Bear.
 * It is advised not to resummon your bear just because its Hp is low.Instead, send it back to base for healing.Occasionally, your hero may get killed right after resummoning the bear.Lone druid is vulnerable to pickoffs without it,and with a 2min cooldown ,that can force you to step back and lose on farm and networth.
 * Try to analyze skirmishes at the beginning and estimate what is going to happen in a fight. It takes a lot of experience to decide whether you want to win the game by 'tower pushing' or 'teamfights'.
 * If you have decided to go by 'tower pushing', you need to get, , Shadow Blade exclusively in this order. It is advisable to get a as well to improve your bear durability and tower pushing. With this setup, you will become an extreme nuisance by forcing enemy to TP back to save their towers and you can run away from them easily with Shadow Blade. Eventually with all these kiting of enemies around the map, you will be disrupting their tempo in game. If you have been having a good early and mid game, it is recommended to adopt this method. It guarantees higher winning chance.
 * In case of a bad game, consider refraining from splitpushing and assisting your team instead.Avoid items like since the bear could be killed.
 * When laning against heroes with annoying dispels, it may be viable to save points in your bear, leveling up the bear gives it a strong dispel and may allow you to turn the tables during the early laning phase where the bear is relatively weak and kiteable, another high risk high reward type of play is to level up your bear and summon it when it is about to die, this will effectively nullify the 3 second damage timer and allow you to resummon your bear before it is killed by the enemies.
 * Against enemy heroes with long duration slows and roots, it may be viable to get an as soon as possible in order to mitigate the kiteability of your bear and hero.


 * An early on the Spirit Bear makes it adept at harassing lane opponents.
 * When killed, the Spirit Bear gives 300 gold and experience to the enemy, similar to losing a hero. It also deals backlash damage to Lone Druid himself, taking 10% of his max health. Therefore, do not let the bear die.
 * If you die, the Spirit Bear also dies. So always be aware of the bear summon cooldown. If you respawn and the bear summon is on a long cooldown, the lane can get very rough.
 * If you suspect an upcoming engagement, you can use Spirit Bear to scout and use Return to keep it from dying.
 * The Spirit Bear can deny Lone Druid, and vice versa, dealing no backlash damage in latter case. Your teammates can also help with denying Spirit Bear.
 * When ganking, try to control the Spirit Bear instead of Lone Druid as it has long attack backswing which you can cancel.
 * Doing so will keep the Spirit Bear close to target, providing more opportunities to proc Entangling Claws.
 * When retreating, use the Spirit Bear to root chasing enemies with Entangling Claws.
 * Send the Spirit Bear out to push and attack buildings, especially up the high ground to hit tier 3 towers.
 * Unlike heroes, the Spirit Bear does not gain attributes. Thus, it does not scale as well in manfights against enemy hard carries, in the late game. At that point, it takes smart movement and coordination with the team to gain control.
 * Consider building to let the bear attack without Lone Druid, potentially succeed in split pushing as Lone Druid and teammates engage and distract the enemies elsewhere.
 * If the Spirit Bear is about to die in a teamfight, you can try to transfer its items to Lone Druid so he can continue the fight.
 * Control the Spirit Bear to collect bounty runes while you farm. It can also draw enemy creeps away or scout for heroes so your team can push towers faster and safer. With, it can burn and wipe creep waves without attacking, good to push the lanes to gain map control.
 * The Spirit Bear's attack damage type is basic, meaning that its attack damage is reduced by 25% when attacking heroes and creep-heroes.
 * The Spirit Bear can use to teleport to the fountain to heal and retrieve items, then use Return to get back to Lone Druid.
 * The Spirit Bear can use Town Portal Scroll to get to and collect bounty runes then Return back.
 * Leveling up Summon Spirit Bear refreshes cooldowns of Spirit Bear's abilities, so the bear can use Entangling Claws and Savage Roar again.


 * Spirit Link's lifesteal and Spirit Bear's Defender sustain Lone Druid in fights, so he sometimes can turn the tide against enemy gankers in the early to mid game.
 * In very bad laning pair-up, where surviving from enemies skill spams has become very crucial, sometime it is better to max out this skill before the bear.


 * Consider a value point in Savage Roar in the early game, to drive away enemy gankers.
 * Both Lone Druid and Spirit Bear can use Savage Roar, though they still share the same cooldown.
 * To save an outnumbered ally, send out the Spirit Bear and use Savage Roar to scatter the enemies.
 * Send the Spirit Bear into the Roshan Pit, and use Savage Roar to interrupt enemies attacking Roshan.
 * Savage Roar can be used to disrupt other taunt spells if it is used after them.
 * Use Savage Roar to cancel channeling abilities and.
 * Use Savage Roar after rooting with Entangling Claws. The affected targets cannot move, or use items and abilities to help themselves, effectively acting like a stun.
 * More tips needed.


 * True Form has a cast time, during which Lone Druid cannot move. Be careful when using it while retreating, as the transform time could allow enemies to catch up with Lone Druid.
 * Transform into bear form before a fight to make Lone Druid more durable.
 * Transform into bear form without any hesitation when you know you are getting into a gank or joining a war.

Items
Starting items:
 * keeps Lone Druid in lane with health sustain.
 * gives Lone Druid cheap attributes.
 * can heal both Lone Druid and Spirit Bear.

Starting items (Bear):
 * helps Spirit Bear score last hits with bonus damage against creeps.
 * applies slow on attacks to harass and chase enemies.

Early game:
 * grants movement speed to Lone Druid and the Spirit Bear. Put the first pair on Lone Druid if you need to keep away from enemies, or put it on the bear to harass and pursue.
 * can save Lone Druid with burst health and mana.
 * grants cheap attributes for Lone Druid. Once your Spirit Bear is farmed, consider buying more Wraith Bands in the late game for an efficient boost.
 * applies slow on attacks to harass and chase enemies.
 * allows Spirit Bear to harass more effectively with armor reduction, and builds into Desolator.

Core items:
 * allows Spirit Bear to attack without having Lone Druid nearby or alive, making it essential for Spirit Bear-focused builds.


 * on the Druid offers a lot of movement speed and regeneration for a cheap price. Great in chases and staying in range of the bear.

Core items (Bear):
 * increases Spirit Bear's movement speed to run down enemies and catch them with Entangling Claws.
 * lets the Spirit Bear attack faster for faster Entangling Claws procs and more building damage.
 * lets Spirit Bear push extremely fast with the armor reduction on buildings combined with Demolish.
 * is a decent alternative,if farming is difficult.Paired with the bear's attack speed, it offers manfighting ability aswell,at the cost of pushing together with your bear.
 * is a great teamfighting item for Druid or the bear, to keep enemies in place.

Situational items:
 * makes Savage Roar into a powerful buff and dispel, and the unrestricted simultaneous cast is good for breaking up ganks.
 * grants spell immunity so Lone Druid can continue to attack without fear of disables.
 * greatly increases damage output and applies armor reduction debuff on attack targets, including buildings.
 * buffs up Lone Druid with health and armor for both him and the bear.
 * capitalizes on Lone Druid's damage output while providing evasion for clashes with physical carries.

Situational items (Bear):
 * provides damage for the bear and makes it a splitpushing machine with the burn damage.
 * allows a farmed Spirit Bear to shrug off disables while focusing down key targets.
 * increases attack speed and damage, aiding in pushes.
 * 's attack speed increases potency of Demolish on buildings and chance to proc Entangling Claws, as well as synergizes with Spirit Link and True Form's base attack time reduction.
 * gives Spirit Bear high attack speed to proc Entangling Claws. Spirit Bear can consume the Moon Shard.
 * keeps enemies immobilized with stun and bashes in addition to Entangling Claws.
 * counters evasion and gives a damage proc to Spirit bear's attacks.

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