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Gameplay[]

Playstyle
Keeper of the Light minimap icon Keeper of the Light works as an adept support who can aid his allies and hinder his enemies with his array of abilities. He can babysit to greatly augment the power of a lane, and transition into a pusher and counter-pusher past the laning stage.
Pros Cons
  • Not item or mana dependent.
  • Can refill team's mana.
  • High base movement speed.
  • Good pusher with strong wave clear.
  • Strong teamfight presence.
  • Fragile.
  • Unreliable damage output.
  • Dependent on teammates.

Lane Support[]

To play a straightforward Keeper of the Light, max out Illuminate as soon as possible and focus on keeping your teammates' mana supply up. Illuminate offers a lot of damage at max level, especially if teammates have lockdowns to help you land it. You can still land Illuminate by yourself if you channel out of vision, like among trees, and toward lane creeps where enemies will most likely go to get farm. However, it does not always work against opponents who can stand their ground like Bristleback minimap icon Bristleback, or trade hits with you like Windranger minimap icon Windranger with Windrun icon Windrun.

You synergize well with heroes that have mana problems, cooldown problems, or both. These are usually heroes which are limited by their mana costs, examples would be Juggernaut, Sven, Terrorblade, Skywrath Mage, Timbersaw, Bristleback, ect. You essentially turn every hero into a spell spamming machine. Abuse your Chakra Magic as it's what makes the hero incredibly strong in lane. That, coupled with your high base movement speed means you can harass the enemy with your spells and right clicks, and then refill your mana and go for it again. If you're laning a hero with extremely spammy spells, such as Skywrath Mage, consider maxing out your Chakra Magic first and supplying them with a lot of mana.

If you have a Phantom Assassin in your lane and the lane is going absolutely horribly, she can very easily get last hits with her Stifling Dagger icon Stifling Dagger while you constantly replenish her mana, without either of you risking death.

The possibilities are endless. Be creative with your lane matchups as anything is possible when you don't have mana issues.

Keeper of the Light usually gets Tranquil Boots icon Tranquil Boots as his first item, as he does not really need the mana provided by Arcane Boots, so you can start the game with Wind Lace icon Wind Lace for a minor movement speed boost.

Ability Builds[]

Generic Keeper of the Light
1234567891011121314151617182025
Illuminate iconUnknown iconIlluminate iconUnknown iconIlluminate iconSpirit Form iconIlluminate iconUnknown iconUnknown iconTalent iconSolar Bind iconSpirit Form iconSolar Bind iconSolar Bind iconTalent iconSolar Bind iconUnknown iconSpirit Form iconTalent iconTalent icon

Talents[]

Hero Talents
+200 Illuminate icon Illuminate Damage25Chakra Magic icon Chakra Magic Strong Dispels
+1.5s Solar Bind icon Solar Bind Stun when target is fully slowed20+15s Spirit Form icon Spirit Form Duration
2 Solar Bind icon Solar Bind Charges15-3s Chakra Magic icon Chakra Magic Cooldown
-2s Illuminate icon Illuminate Cooldown10+40% Blinding Light icon Blinding Light Miss

Tips & Tactics[]

General[]

  • Keeper of the Light has low strength and armor, thus he relies on positioning and powerful abilities to stay alive.
  • Keeper of the Light pushes and defends the base well, as he can replenish teammates' and his own mana with Chakra Magic, allowing profligate use of pushing abilities, and Illuminate can nuke entire creep waves.
  • Play Keeper of the Light in the safelane to harass enemy with his formidable abilities. He can also play in the offlane to disrupt the enemy carry from getting farm.

Abilities[]

Illuminate icon Illuminate[]

  • Illuminate allows Keeper of the Light to output a large amount of damage on a low cooldown.
  • Illuminate's strong creep-killing power makes Keeper of the Light a remarkably good farmer and counter-pusher considering his support role, as he can use it to either knock down large creep waves approaching a friendly tower or blast multiple neutral camps at once. Therefore, he should max Illuminate first to farm up items.
  • However, Illuminate will only deal more damage the longer you channel, which makes it tricky to land on slippery enemies.
  • When using Illuminate to harass or nuke an enemy player, try to channel in the fog of war, such as behind the treeline, to give away as little warning as possible.
  • Rely on teammates or Will-O-Wisp to immobilize the enemy long enough to channel the full duration of Illuminate during a gank.
  • Using Illuminate on creep waves early on may disrupt the farm of your lane partner by killing the creeps which will push the wave closer to the enemy's tower. So, you should aim Illuminate only to damage enemy heroes by targeting the wave either at an oblique angle or behind the creep wave.
  • Illuminate reveals fog of war in front of Keeper of the Light while channeling, allowing him to gain flying vision. Remember that charging it to fulmination increases its sight range while releasing it immediately will not gain you much vision.

Solar Bind icon Solar Bind[]

  • Use to slow enemies, to allow for Illuminate to hit, and for weakening their magic resistance, dealing more damage as well.
  • This is an amazing ability to prevent an enemy from kiting one of your teammates. It also weakens their magic resistance, making some combos extremely lane winning, such as Juggernaut's Blade Fury icon Blade Fury.
  • In a teamfight, use this ability on the person who's going to do melee right clicking. Heroes like Wraith King, Sven, Phantom Assassin. They will move extremely slow and kiting them will be very easy.

Chakra Magic icon Chakra Magic[]

  • Chakra Magic allows Keeper of the Light to replenish a significant amount of mana for himself and his allies, allowing to use abilities more often.
  • In the laning stage, Chakra Magic allows teammates with small mana pools or low cooldown abilities to use them more often. Heroes with strong disables but small mana pools like Mars minimap icon Mars, Wraith King minimap icon Wraith King, Earthshaker minimap icon Earthshaker, Sven minimap icon Sven, and Vengeful Spirit minimap icon Vengeful Spirit can use their stuns liberally to set up kills, while those with powerful harass abilities like Bristleback minimap icon Bristleback, Phantom Lancer minimap icon Phantom Lancer, and Undying minimap icon Undying can put continuous pressure on the lane opponents.
  • Put at least two points into Chakra Magic in the laning stage, as its efficiency increases more than twofold.
  • Chakra Magic reduces the cooldowns of basic abilities. So, use Chakra Magic on teammates with low-cooldown disables and initiation spells, since it allows them to use two stuns or nukes in quick succession, increasing the amount of crowd control and damage. It is worth mentioning that it affects Metamorphosis icon Metamorphosis's 150 second cooldown, and Cataclysm's 100 second cooldown, since they are both basic abilities.

Will-O-Wisp icon Will-O-Wisp[]

  • Will-O-Wisp's area hypnosis forces enemies to turn and walk toward the light source, comboing well with abilities like Stone Gaze icon Stone Gaze.
  • Keeper of the Light can channel Illuminate to hit the enemies as they are staring or attacking Ignis Fatuus.
  • Combo with Blinding Light to keep enemies within radius of Will-O-Wisp and make them miss attacking it.
  • Will-O-Wisp clears trees in its area, preventing enemies from juking.
  • Take note if there is a Monkey King minimap icon Monkey King on the enemy team, as this is essentially a 4 second stun if he is on a tree.

Blinding Light icon Blinding Light[]

  • Blinding Light displaces enemies and applies a miss chance on their regular attacks, making it a great teamfighting ability, and especially against attacking carries.
  • The miss chance may reduce the effectiveness of the enemy's physical attacks, giving your team an advantage.
    • However, enemies with True Strike, spell immunity, or dispels can counter Blinding Light's debuff.
  • Use Blinding Light to clear leftover creeps after Illuminate.
  • Blinding Light will not interrupt enemy channeling.
  • In some cases, the displacement forces the enemies to traverse more ground to reach their destination.
  • Blinding Light's displacement can move enemies over terrain, up or down a cliff wall, which may shut down an enemy melee carry if they do not have any re-positioning abilities or items to reverse the terrain displacement.
  • Use Blinding Light's forced movement when escaping to push enemies away from Keeper of the Light.

Recall icon Recall[]

  • Teleports an ally to you, provided they haven't been hit since it was cast.
  • Great for split pushing, especially on allies who don't have Boots of Travel.
  • Use this to save an ally if they are hiding in trees about to be caught.

Spirit Form icon Spirit Form[]

  • Activate this in a teamfight to unlock Blinding Light. It also lets you heal allies with Illuminate, while making it so Illuminate is channeled by a spirit, not your main hero, which allows you to "channel" Illuminate while doing other stuff.
  • Abuse the extra movement speed and cast range to quickly maneuver in teamfights.
  • Use this ability when running away as it gives you a significant movement speed boost.

Items[]

Starting items:

  • Tango icon Tango provides health regeneration while laning, which mitigates harass damage by lane opponents. Keeper of the Light can share it with allies if needed.
  • Healing Salve icon Healing Salve also restores health early on to you and teammates.
  • Iron Branch icon Iron Branch gives some attributes, and can be used to build Magic Wand or Mekansm.
  • Observer Ward icon Observer Ward gives vision around the map, and helps Keeper of the Light get into a good position to use Illuminate.

Early game:

  • Tranquil Boots icon Tranquil Boots gives Keeper of the Light more movement speed for little expense. The passive regeneration keeps his health at full, allowing him to be self-sustaining as he can replenish his mana with Chakra Magic.

Mid game:

  • Force Staff icon Force Staff can be used for mobility, saving teammates, or forcibly displacing enemies, particularly effective when combined with and Blinding Light.
  • Glimmer Cape icon Glimmer Cape may save Keeper of the Light and allies with invisibility and magic resistance. Also, he can activate it before or during channeling of Illuminate and Town Portal Scroll.

Late game:

  • Ghost Scepter icon Ghost Scepter grants immunity against physical damage so Keeper of the Light can survive against enemy carries.
  • Scythe of Vyse icon Scythe of Vyse provides a large boost to attributes and excellent mana regeneration, allowing Keeper of the Light to use Chakra Magic on teammates more frequently instead of on himself. The Hex it offers is very powerful on Keeper of the Light, as he otherwise lacks an instant hard disable.

Situational items:

  • Mekansm icon Mekansm synergizes well with Keeper of the Light's support abilities, as he can heal his teammates as well as restore their mana. The overall attributes and armor also provide Keeper of the Light with considerably more survivability, while Chakra Magic covers the item's relatively high mana cost.
  • Rod of Atos icon Rod of Atos grants more survivability and a larger mana pool. Its root makes chasing or escaping from single enemies much easier due to its long cast range and low cooldown.
  • Eul's Scepter of Divinity icon Eul's Scepter of Divinity gives Keeper of the Light increased movement speed, allowing him to be much more active on the battlefield. The active ability dispels debuffs such as silences while making Keeper of the Light temporarily invulnerable, or disables an enemy long enough for Illuminate to charge up damage.
  • Solar Crest icon Solar Crest gives Keeper of the Light armor, attributes, and mana regeneration. As a ranged support, you have the ability to reduce an enemy's or Roshan's armor for your team to capitalize on, or give an ally more armor to extend their survivability.
  • Pipe of Insight icon Pipe of Insight resists and shields Keeper of the Light and teammates against magical damage so they can survive and contribute to teamfights.
  • Lotus Orb icon Lotus Orb improves Keeper of the Light's armor and regeneration. The basic dispel and active ability increase survivability of him and his allies by removing debuffs and may dissuade the enemies from using targeted abilities.
  • Aether Lens icon Aether Lens increases Keeper of the Light's cast range, letting him support allies from a safer distance away. Also builds into Octarine Core icon Octarine Core, an extremely useful item on Keeper of the Light.
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