Skywrath Mage/Guide

General

 * Beware that Skywrath Mage's extremely low strength and agility gives him very little HP and armor, resulting in severe vulnerability against physical damage. The combination of low HP and high nuke damage also renders him vulnerable to reflected damage, meaning that enemies who buy a can cause him to connive in his own destruction if they have more HP than him.
 * Due to the long cast range on his spells, Skywrath is capable of casting his spells on enemies safely from behind his allies, in order to mitigate his frailty. As such, positioning is very important as inadvertently getting too close to the enemy can result in his demise. His high base movement speed and near-instant cast animations allow him to take advantage of his long range, however his moves must be planned and calculated as his slow turn rate counteracts this.
 * Skywrath Mage has the third-highest intelligence growth in the game, which means that his mana pool is often large enough to accommodate all of his spells. However, beware that this can be turned against you depending on the enemies you are facing, as certain abilities are particularly effective against Skywrath Mage, such as, and . Plan for counters against such situations if needed, and be prepared to purchase items to shield yourself from such abilities. Certain heroes, abilities, and items can counter him further and make Skywrath unable to cast his abilities as well, such as , , and.
 * Due to the potency of his nukes, Skywrath Mage is capable of being played in a number of ways - most notably support and mid - and has found himself rising in popularity again in the support role due to his nukes and the diversity in the ways he can be played in both position 4 and 5.
 * In the most general case, Skywrath Mage is a potent safe-lane support. He can spam Arcane Bolt to harass the enemy offlaner away while dealing respectable amounts of damage, and can slow them from range and silence them during kill attempts. As a casting support, he is capable of dealing large amounts of damage relying only on his spells, meaning that he can be effective with just levels.
 * Due to his strong nuking power, Skywrath Mage can be a very potent mid-laner as well. His ability to wear down his lane opponent from range, as well as disable and burst them down with his spells, can make him a powerful threat in almost any match-up. With good gold and experience gain, Skywrath Mage's spells can become a force to be reckoned with, allowing him to burst down and kill enemy heroes with relative ease.
 * Skywrath Mage's combination of high movement speed and powerful nuking ability make him a strong roamer and ganker. Possession of a long-range slow in Concussive Shot and a silence in Ancient Seal allow him to apply disables to enemies and burst them down with his spells, especially if combined with a partner with disables. As he requires experience and gold to avoid falling off in the late game, getting early kills can help him to remain a powerful threat throughout a match.


 * Arcane Bolt is a low-cost spammable targeted nuke that scales with Skywrath Mage's intelligence.
 * Arcane Bolt is a very strong harassment spell that also serves as a substitute for physical attacks with enough intelligence. It can become a very powerful and spammable magic nuke past the laning stage as it grows stronger alongside Skywrath Mage.
 * In the laning stage, Skywrath Mage can use Arcane Bolt to easily harass his lane opponent out of the lane, as its low mana cost and low cooldown allow him to use it extremely frequently. As it is a single-target spell, it does not draw aggro, so it can be cast without fear of inadvertently pushing the lane. However, beware that consistent use of Arcane Bolt will quickly build up charges for enemies' Magic Sticks, so balance your use of the spell accordingly.
 * The scaling nature of Arcane Bolt makes it a strong magic nuke at all stages of the game, as it is one of very few magic nukes that gains power alongside Skywrath Mage. Building powerful intelligence items boosts Skywrath's base damage, the size of his mana pool, and the amount of damage that Arcane Bolt deals, making him a strong threat the more farm he has. The scaling nature and low cooldown of the spell, 2 seconds at level 4, allows Skywrath Mage to use Arcane Bolt as an augmentation for his right-clicks, nuking down single targets very quickly as long as he has enough mana regeneration to keep up. This allows Skywrath to push creep waves or farm most neutral camps very quickly, giving him levels and gold.
 * Keep in mind, prolonged use of Arcane Bolt can drain your mana pool alarmingly quickly, even if you have already purchased many intelligence items. Mana regeneration is a necessity if you want to be able to cast your other spells when they are needed.
 * Unlike most other targeted abilities, Arcane Bolt cannot be disjointed, and will continue to follow its target and eventually damage them even if they blink away or turn invisible. You can use this to hunt down evasive targets, as the projectile provides flying vision as it homes in on its target.


 * Concussive Shot automatically launches a magical projectile that homes in on the closest enemy hero, damaging and slowing them, and their allies around them.
 * Its long cast range allows Skywrath Mage to use Concussive Shot to slow an enemy from a great distance away. As it also homes in on the closest available target and has an instant cast time, the spell can be used as an initiating spell to slow a target at the start of an engagement, a finisher to catch a fleeing enemy who has escaped beyond the range of your other spells, or as an escape by slowing the closest pursuer without breaking stride.
 * If enemies are clumped up due to being affected by an ally's crowd-control spell (such as, or ), casting Concussive shot into the group can allow you to damage and slow multiple enemy heroes with a single cast.
 * Concussive Shot will not target illusions, making it a powerful hero detection tool. If you are facing an illusion-based hero such as, or , using Concussive Shot will cause it to automatically home in on the real hero, provided that they are the closest target for the spell. If the spell fizzles, then it means that the hero is not present. This can also be used to counter  by pinpointing the real hero among the illusions.


 * Ancient Seal is a long-ranged targeted silence ability that reduces the magic resistance of its target.
 * Ancient Seal's magic resistance reduction is one of the strongest in the game, beaten only by 's . It allows Skywrath Mage to continue to deal tremendous amounts of magical damage even in the late game when enemies' health pools get large enough to shrug off most other magic nukes.
 * Ancient Seal is a strong ability for countering enemy mages who rely on casting their spells to be effective in teamfights. Its long cast range allows Skywrath to silence them from relative safety, and increase the damage they take from Skywrath's spells in order to permanently remove them from the field.
 * In the early game, it is recommended to take at least one value point in Ancient Seal, as a 3-second silence can prevent gank targets from casting their escape spells or counter-disabling, on top of greatly increasing their vulnerability to allies' initiating magic nukes as well as those of Skywrath himself. A 30% magic resistance reduction is enough to almost completely negate most heroes' base magic resistance, allowing them to take almost full damage from allied magic nukes.


 * Mystic Flare bombards the target area with numerous waves of magic damage, dealing a large amount of damage that is split evenly amongst all enemy heroes in the area.
 * Mystic Flare consumes a significant fraction of Skywrath Mage's mana pool, but is one of the most devastating magic nukes in the game and has a very short cooldown for the amount of damage it deals. Properly used, it can allow Skywrath to kill almost any hero in the game when combined with his other spells.
 * Mystic Flare's damage is unreliable, as it only deals damage so long as the enemy is within its small radius, which can be escaped as Skywrath does not have any disables that can completely immobilize a target. In general, it is best to set up your ultimate by casting Concussive Shot to slow the target first, and then add another slow or disable if possible (such as Rod of Atos or Scythe of Vyse) to reduce their mobility further. The best course of action is to let a teammate disable the target through a root, taunt or stun, so that they are unable to move at all for the duration of the ultimate.
 * Keep in mind, Ancient Seal not only increases the damage that the target will take, but can prevent them from casting any escape spells that allow them to displace themselves outside of the field. If a stun is not available, then casting Ancient Seal on top of Concussive Shot can help to pin the target down.
 * Remember that Mystic Flare distributes its damage evenly among all heroes in the field, but ignores illusions. As such, it is strong against illusion heroes (on top of Concussive Shot allowing you to reveal the true hero among the illusions), but also allows its damage to be more than halved by another enemy player or two stepping into the field to split the damage. This makes Mystic Flare unusual for an area-of-effect spell as it is strong for killing lone targets but is weak against groups of enemies.
 * One of Mystic Flare's greatest weaknesses is that Force Staff can be used on its target in order to almost immediately push them to safety. This makes Scythe of Vyse ever more invaluable as a disable tool and emphasizes the spell's single-target nature, as using the spell on an enemy who does not have any nearby allies prevents them from being Forced to safety, and Hex prevents the target from using items as well as spells, preventing them from using their own Force Staff on themselves.

Items
Starting items:
 * gives health sustain to Skywrath Mage and to lane mates who are constantly getting harassed by the enemy.
 * restores health to Skywrath Mage and allies.
 * ensure that you do not run out of mana while laning. Due to how spammable Arcane Bolt is, having the mana to use it consistently can allow you to harass and zone out your lane opponents.
 * gives a helpful boost to all your attributes for a cheap price, and later build into a Magic Wand should you need one.
 * provides early damage, AOE DOT, and 15% slow alongside Skywrath's Concussive Shot that can help secure an early kill and first bounty runes.

Early game:
 * should be purchased as quickly as possible, as they expand the size of Skywrath's mana pool and allow him to replenish a portion of it occasionally (as well as that of his allies).
 * can instantly restore some of Skywrath's health and mana. The health replenishment is crucial given his very small health pool, while the mana replenishment can allow him to cast one or two more spells in an emergency.
 * gives cheap stats and magic damage for a stronger early game; purchasing multiple Null Talismans is recommended for buffing Arcane Bolt.

Mid game:
 * grants all the same benefits of Magic Stick, along with attributes and larger charge storage. If Skywrath is given low farm priority, building one of these is cheap and effective.
 * pads out Skywrath Mage's health and mana pools with Strength and Intelligence, and can root enemies inside Mystic Flare.
 * for Skywrath unlocks Shield of the Scion, a passive that grants stacks each time he deals magic damage to an enemy hero with an ability; each stack grants +2 intelligence and +0.2 armor per stack, and each charge stacks independently. For a Skywrath struggling to live, this can help them tremendously. If possible, obtain via a Tormentor.
 * gives him intelligence, armor and passive that synergies with Arcane Bolt and scales into the late game.
 * provides much-needed movement speed, Intelligence and mana regeneration, along with a defensive tool and a disable. Can build into for improvements to the aforementioned stats including a more effective defensive tool.

Late game:
 * effectively doubles Skywrath Mage's damage output, making him much better versus multiple opponents.
 * grants a large bonus to Intelligence and mana regeneration, and the hard disable is great for setting up kills for both his spells and his allies.

Situational items:
 * prevents Skywrath Mage from being targeted by physical attackers, and can upgrade into for a powerful nuke and damage-amplification ability with some spare gold.
 * can be used to reposition and set up spells or as an escape tool for both Skywrath Mage and his allies.
 * greatly greatly improves Skywrath Mage's survivability (through raw HP and spell lifesteal) and mana pool. Its active grants powerful mana restoration to keep up with his high mana consumption as he deals high spell damage against enemies; in tandem with Spell Lifesteal, the item overall increases his staying power in fights.
 * gives Skywrath Mage a large amount of intelligence as well as powerful survivability against physical damage, while Freezing Blast keeps enemies in range of his spells.
 * gives Skywrath bonus heath and heath regen alongside mana, mana regen and magic resist. Phylactery's ability Empower Spell causes the next single target spell every 6 seconds to slow them for 50% for 1.5 seconds and apply an additional 150 spell damage. This is incredibly strong for Skywrath, helping him land spells and stay on top of the enemy.
 * grants cheap stat bonuses and softens enemies up for Skywrath Mage to nuke down.
 * synergizes with Skywrath Mage's ability to nuke down targets by giving him even more magic damage and increasing his intelligence, though the gold and mana cost can be an issue.
 * fuels Skywrath Mage's spells with mana, mana regeneration and extends his cast range, increasing his safety radius and letting him better follow up on Concussive Shot.
 * gives him more health and mana, and lets him spam out spells more frequently.
 * greatly increases Skywrath Mage's ability to position himself for casting his spells, allowing him to extend the range of his already long-reaching spells. It can allow him to get the drop on enemies and nuke them down with very little warning, or escape from pursuing enemies provided that he can activate it before taking player damage. Can build into, in which Skywrath Mage can use its active to extend Ancient Seal's duration and mitigate the exorbitant mana consumption of his spells.
 * increases Skywrath Mage's already considerable damage output and amplifies his much-needed mana regeneration (and spell lifesteal, if he has such an item such as Bloodstone). Can build into for better mobility,  for more survivability or  for more offense.

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