Gameplay[]
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Chaos Knight is a powerful strength hero that deals high physical damage with straight, powerful hits due to his Chaos Strike. Chaos Bolt is a luck-base spell that can provide really good results or adequate ones, and he can close the gap with his enemies through Reality Rift. Phantasm can summon 3 illusions of himself, which makes it a very powerful teamfight and ganking spell. Chaos Knight requires adequate farm and an aggressive mindset to trample enemy Heroes. Once he has enough farm, he can overpower the late game with lots of Physical DPS with his illusions. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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Carry/Pushing Chaos Knight[]
Carry Chaos Knight is the usual way to play. It is most appropriate against line ups that have too little AoE to deal with your Phantasm army in the late game.
You will usually want to max out Chaos Bolt first as the increased stun duration (and guaranteed 2 sec stun at level 4) can allow you to burst almost anyone down. Odds are you don't want to skip Phantasm at level 6 as you can use it to quickly push a tower, perhaps after bursting the offlaner. Skip Chaos Strike, the lifesteal won't matter in a safe lane and does too little damage early game. If you find yourself lacking sustain and the enemy offlaner harassing too much, then you can take some levels in it. This is especially true against opponents that can easily dodge your Chaos Bolt, such as Puck or Weaver
It is unlikely none of the enemy heroes will have no AoE, but if it's only magical burst, don't forget your considerable strength gain per level and your desire to build strength items can help your army survive even through full-blown wombo-combos. It's not uncommon for a Chaos Knight army to survive an Echo Slam even while clumped up, and move forth unscathed.
There are few scenarios where you'll want to skip Armlet of Mordiggian as it synergizes perfectly with Chaos Knight. Don't forget to turn it on before using Phantasm. Otherwise, you'll mainly want to build attributes. Sange is a common but suboptimal replacement, which can be built into Heaven's Halberd. Eye of Skadi and Heart of Tarrasque provide the most attributes, the latter enabling you to keep your armlet always toggled. Butterfly and Assault Cuirass also work well with your illusions. Black King Bar to prevent getting chain disabled and you can turn on BKB and ult once the AoE has been used.
Support/Roaming Chaos Knight[]
Generally, it is a waste to go full support when playing Chaos Knight as so not recommended to play positions lower than 3. Chaos Knight makes for a formidable roamer and semi-carry thanks to his excellent base damage and speed, and it might make your opponents try too hard to counter you with AoE abilities that might have too little impact for your team's 'real' carry.
As a roamer, you'll want to start with a point in Chaos Bolt for the stun. However, max out Reality Rift first, as it considerably lowers the cooldown and increases the pull distance and armor reduction. If you're letting another hero be your carry in lane, don't hesitate to repeatedly cast it and cancel the animation as it can make the enemy very fearful and make them waste a spell or item.
Since Chaos Knight's mana pool is so low and its cooldown is so long, you may opt to skip your ultimate at level 6, especially since your illusions won't hit that hard without any strength-boosting items.
If you're roaming, a Blight Stone or an Orb of Venom can do wonders to net you kills, and you should probably skip a Wind Lace since your starting speed is already good enough. You'll want some items to keep your mana up during and after ganks, so items like Clarity, Enchanted Mango and Magic Wand will help you. Urn of Shadows is really good for roaming, as Chaos Knight can easily get kills and will be able to utilize the mana regen and extra damage.
Armlet of Mordiggian is still the most efficient item and works well with Urn of Shadows as you can afford to leave Armlet of Mordiggian activated for a longer period of time. Echo Sabre is also a good choice if toggling Armlet of Morgiddian is an issue. It gives good strength to boost up you and your Phantasm, good intelligence and mana regen to keep your supply up, and the active, although it doesn't work with your illusions, give you a good burst with Reality Rift making your ganks much more likely to succeed.
Drum of Endurance provide decent attributes and much need movement speed but comes at a price, so Drum of Endurance is suboptimal on carry Chaos Knight.
As a support/roamer, buy detection as needed but let full supports do the warding.
Ability Builds[]
| Aggressive Chaos Knight | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
 |  | | | |  | | | |  |  | | | | | |  | | | | |||||
| Carry/Pushing Chaos Knight | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||||
| Support/Roaming Chaos Knight | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |||||
Talents[]
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| +10s Phantasm Duration | 25 | +10% Chaos Strike Chance |
| Reality Rift Pierces Debuff Immunity | 20 | +0.6 Min/Max Chaos Bolt Duration |
| -100% Phantasm Illusion Incoming Damage | 15 | -3s Chaos Bolt Cooldown |
| +225 Reality Rift Pull Distance | 10 | +35% Chaos Strike Lifesteal |
Tips & Tactics[]
General[]
- In most situations, max Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift first, since the critical damage from your Chaos Strike is negligible in the early game.
- Always activate your Armlet of Mordiggian before using your Manta Style or Phantasm, since the illusions also gain all bonuses from it without the HP drain.
- If you manage to farm a Manta Style, you gain two additional albeit somewhat weaker illusions that serve to wreck havoc among enemy ranks. Manta Style's illusions, much like Phantasm and rune illusions, are pulled to your target with Reality Rift. You can often use this to block your target in a swarm of illusions they will not be able to escape from. The Ultimate orb from Manta Style also boosts your mana pool just enough to allow you to cast illusions together with your ultimate ability.
- If you're about to die, take a risk and send one of your illusions where you wanted to go while you sit still. Most people will most likely continue pursuing whichever one is moving. Similarly, if you have more than one illusion, move yourself and all other illusion(s) except one in a direction while moving the isolated illusion in a different direction from the rest of the pack. Enemies will most likely pursue the lone illusion.
- It is not entirely advisable to pick Chaos Knight against enemies that can easily clear illusions, such as Lion or Pugna, owning to the fact that they can clear illusions (besides Phantasm regardless of their attributes. Given that your illusions are produced by Phantasm with a rather long cooldown, you cannot afford to have them destroyed easily like Naga Siren, Terrorblade, and Phantom Lancer who can produce illusions much more often.
- You may also want to be careful against an enemy that drains mana such as a Quas- Wex focused Invoker. Given Chaos Knight's lackluster mana pool and intelligence gain, Invoker's E.M.P. can completely drain him out of mana, even in later stages of the game. Without his active abilities, Chaos Knight is not nearly as potent.
- Chaos Knight is not a very fast farmer. You may want to abuse your mid game power spike and timing to dominate enemy team before their carry can farm up. Even though Chaos Knight is a strong late game carry, it is not easy to catch up in farm once the advantage is lost. Try to gain a dominant footing in a mid game and end the game early.
Abilities[]
Chaos Bolt[]
- Chaos Bolt, like Storm Hammer and Wraithfire Blast is easy to predict and disjoint, even easier due to Chaos Knight's poor cast animation. Try to use it as close to an enemy as possible if they have a way to dodge it.
- Unlike Sven and Wraith King however, Chaos Knight can use Reality Rift to get in melee range of an enemy and make it a lot harder to disjoint your stun.
- Due to the unreliability of the spell, it makes Chaos Knight a poor initiator if he is in the field of vision of the enemy, and it is generally better to let your allies initiate the battle. If you are roaming, try to surprise and ambush your enemies, or use a Smoke of Deceit to increase your odds of landing the spell.
- At level 1, Chaos Bolt has a guaranteed 1.25 second stun duration, while it only attains a guaranteed two second stun duration at level 4. As such, it may be prudent to either leave Chaos Bolt at level 1 or rush it to level 4 to get the most out of the spell.
Reality Rift[]
- While ganking in the early-mid game, use Reality Rift to get close to the enemy, then use Chaos Bolt to stun. If you are lucky, you could even get more than two hits while the enemy is stunned.
- Using Reality Rift may result in Chaos Knight and his target becoming trapped within trees or in elevated terrain.
- Reality Rift will also teleport nearby illusions, including those from Phantasm.
- A level 4 Reality Rift is usually much better than a level 4 Chaos Bolt, as the reduction in cooldown makes it a viable chasing skill.
Chaos Strike[]
- Chaos Knight's illusions benefit from Chaos Strike's crit, allowing him to blow up heroes during Reality Rift.
- Since the crit deal 50% more damage to creep, it is viable to max out this spell at level seven to increase farming speed, which is by far the most crippling weakness for Chaos Knight as a carry.
Phantasm[]
- If you know for sure a fight is about to start, it's sometimes better to use your ultimate before it even starts off. The illusions have a very long duration and if you can find a good target to Reality Rift it can immediately turn a fight in your favor. Be mindful not to use it under enemy vision as they may immediately back away.
- Also, if your enemies have huge teamfight AoEs, they may be specifically waiting for you to cast Phantasm in the middle of the fight to jump on you.
- However, if all their abilities are meant to counter your army, it could be wise to keep it until they've blown some of them on different targets.
- If that would be the case, it could be safer to use your illusions only to push towers, keeping your hero and the rest of your team safely behind. The illusions long duration should even enable you to split push a bit to counter the enemy's teamfight strategy.
- Your illusions pack a huge punch. They will automatically attack whoever you're pulling with Reality Rift and may instantly die from this. Don't forget to micro-manage your illusions while that target is dead and Rift is on cooldown. The same is true if you're dead. If you're confident with your micro-management skills, the best strategy is probably to send one after every enemy hero, similarly to Spectre's Haunt or try killing off supports, and against their buildings if you still have some left to spare.
- Phantasm has a very long cooldown. It is generally unwise to use it as a last-ditch effort when you're about to die since it would still be on cooldown well after you've respawned. However, like Manta Style and Mirror Image it does provide a short instant of invulnerability that can help you disjoint spells, such as Disruptor's Glimpse.
- The potential to disjoint projectiles can have an incredible impact on teamfights and the game overall, allowing you and your illusions to survive for longer and deal more damage.
- Phantasm boasts the most powerful illusions in the game, creating an army that can boost Chaos Knight's overall damage output. When used in conjunction with Reality Rift and Chaos Bolt it is often possible to destroy the target before they get a chance to retaliate. Given that your illusions do full damage and are far more durable than illusions produced by any other hero, so even if your main hero dies, your illusions still pose a serious threat.
Items[]
Starting items:
- Tango helps to stay in the lane.
- Healing Salve restores a lot of health quickly to stay in the lane.
- Enchanted Mango provides passive health regeneration and can be used to restore mana.
- Quelling Blade boosts bonus attack damage against creeps, helpful when farming.
Early game:
- Bracer fills the much needed require of health at laning and pushing stages, grants strength to bear damage and dole out.
- Magic Wand provides chip attributes and provides burst health and mana regen that can often be enough to survive.
- Boots of Speed give a nice movement speed boost.
- Armlet of Mordiggian most cost effective item for Chaos Knight. It provides a large amount of strength, which will transfer to his illusions if it is activated before Phantasm is used. As Chaos Knight's main source of damage is his illusions, this allows them to stick around much longer. Beware that armlet, however, does not provide any extra mana or mana regen to sustain the high manacost skill and tiny mana pool. Without any active skills available, Chaos Knight is not very useful in a fight.
Mid game:
- Power Treads provide tankiness with strength, which transfer to his illusions, and allow him to tread switch for mana.
- Echo Sabre's double attacks will bring down enemies quicker; giving Chaos Knight strength and mana regeneration to stay in battles longer. Also reduces his wide attack damage randomization by double attacks.
- Black King Bar provides a bit of tankiness and a bit of damage on top of much prized spell immunity. As spell immunity does not transfer to illusions, this is best when picked up against teams that can easily isolate the real Chaos Knight and either lock him down for a long period of time or burst him down with single target magical damage.
Late game:
- Blink Dagger gives you some form of initiation and can be upgraded into Overwhelming Blink later.
- Heart of Tarrasque makes Chaos Knight and his illusions very durable, and gives them a nice damage boost. This also enables you to keep Armlet of Mordiggian permanently on, as the heart will regen faster than the health loss, resulting in a large amount of bonus strength, damage, and attack speed at all times.
- Assault Cuirass is a very strong pickup, giving Chaos Knight and the illusions armor and the much needed attack speed.
Situational items:
- Heaven's Halberd is a strong pickup for Chaos Knight late game, if there are strong right-click heroes on the enemy team, or when Sange was brought instead of Armlet.
- Manta Style is a strong pickup on Chaos Knight if the enemy team does not have a way to clear out your illusions. They're weaker than Phantasm illusions, however, combined with a level 3 Phantasm, Reality Rift will completely surround and trap any enemy that does lack mobility, cleave or area damage; this often guarantees a kill. Do not rush this item, Chaos Knight does not have enough health to ensure that the illusions will last and will just waste mana.
- Abyssal Blade as a mid-late game choice can give you secondary disabler also a way to engage without worrying about distance. Effectively giving you a secondary and more reliable Reality Rift to zip between targets.
- Satanic gives strength, which increases durability and damage. Its active ability allows Chaos Knight to stay in the fight much longer. Note that illusions do not lifesteal.
- Shadow Blade is a good alternative to the Blink Dagger. It provides a similar tool for initiation, and also gives a nice boost to attack speed for you and your army. It also upgrades in the Silver Edge that gives attributes and break.
- Eye of Skadi is the most efficient stat item in the game, second only to Armlet of Mordiggian; It makes you and your illusions far stronger by giving you 25 strength and 25 agility, and with 25 intelligence it almost single-handedly fixes any mana issues Chaos Knight could have by giving nearly 600 points of raw mana and some regen.
- Bloodthorn is a powerful item to further increase the single target damage output and to counter heroes with evasion. The attack speed bonus is also beneficial to Chaos Knight himself and his illusions, while the extra intelligence and mana regeneration bonus fix his low mana issue, allowing Chaos Knight to cast his spell more often.
