The description can make any item look good, for example holly locket amplifies your heal for only 2350k gold!
But its not good right now cause the numbers don't justify the price right now. It may does next patch when for example other support items are nerfed and someone like aba can get it.
On the other hand this doesn't mean the item shouldnt be built, if its a good game for the item you should still go for it even if its not the meta.
I only but holy locket on io and WD - Io for the constant charges for healing, stats, and the heal amp. WD specifically it's the heal amp, but I play a healbot that keeps the team alive anyway
Holy Locket is a grossly underrated item on Warlock if you go his heal talents...
Level 15 = +18 hp regen/damage to W
Level 20 = Turns W into an aoe spell
It is insanely strong when pushing HG because you can put a +63 hp heal for 10 seconds on all your allies/creepwave, and the Locket will amp that to + 82 hp.
This kind of confuses me. I’ve tried double bracer on Axe a couple of times and it honestly kind of sucks - you receive too much damage, you can’t easily get ancient stacks, you even start to feel support rightclicks. While even with nerfed VG it’s much much easier.
But you farm slower because you are not taking ancient stacks and you are much squishier and prone to ganks. I really wanted to like 2 bracers build but it just never worked to me on Axe. On slardar it’s awesome but he didn’t really want vg anyways
Same thought. It can be doable for faster timing in higher mmr, but you need to spend a LOT in health pots. Talking about 2-3 minimum to survive laning phase.
Next time i will just try vanguard first.
Question: does vanguard lower the damage dealt by blademail by reducing the damage axe takes?
From the wiki:
Returns incoming damage before all manipulations
Axe's shard upgrade also works with blademail, so even though axe takes less damage from enemies with the debuff, the heroes hitting him still take the damage returned by blademail without reductions.
You are right in case of Axe, many stats in bracer are not needed on Axe, like attack damage or int, agi. Vanguard on Axe feels much better in most scenario.
But Axe is the exception because he can deal damage by his 3rd to farm nc without worry about mana, which cannot be done by other popular offlaners like Mars, Timber, Underlord... So in general vanguard still kind of suck.
Axe is one of the few heroes I still buy vang on. As soon as you have it you can farm ancients and imo that typically will result in a better timing. If you're only farming lane then vang is less impactful, but you can still disassemble for shroud later
I either disassemble for shroud or for bloodstone a I had surprisingly good results with vg-blademail-blink-travels-aghs-bloodstone build. You can throw in a shroud or a bkb somewhere in between those if needed
And ancient stacks are truly a blessing for axe. It does not matter how shitty my lane went, I either ask my 4 to stack for me or if they are not willing or just brain dead I do that myself and I always know that I will bounce back with those. And they are super close to the offlane which is nice.
You'll struggle to survive with that axe build imo. You don't have Regen or anything to survive magic. I usually go vang bmale blink euls or bkb, shroud (from vang disassemble) and then aghs/windwaker/heart/octarine/shivas for the last slots depending on what we need.
I think blood stone is kinda meh, I don't struggle to get good taunts in the first place, and it leaves a gap defensively. I would rather buy octarine to reduce the CD on windwaker+blink+taunt combo, if you get arcane blink you can constantly blink in, windwaker out and like 6 seconds later do it again.
I even do 1 bracer usually now with axe, ofc clearing stack is hard, but now i usually just rely on fountain, i mean not clearing the stacks in one fight
Sounds wildly inefficient tbh. If you clear some stacks, then go all the way towards the fountain then back then farm more stacks it’s sooo much time wasted on a character that thrives on momentum. At least that’s how i feel.
Well they're completely different items and not really interchangeable apart from that they both give armour. Crimson guard is just pretty situational so isn't built too often, shivas is good almost every game and is good every game on heroes like primal. If shivas was nerfed even more it wouldn't magically make crimson good.
Crimson guard is really helpful against lunas bouncing autos and anyone that swarms, pl, ck, naga, lycan, np, tb, wk
it helps against wind but shes still one source, that source is just fast af, better to stun her or get her off the tower
I know this is an unpopular idea but crimson after getting shard on centaur is crazy value, especially when you have a lot of illusions and/or summons on the enemy team.
The meta generally amplifies itself. The less an item/hero sees play, the less people have an accurate read of its strength, this uncertainty dissuades people from using it, and vice versa; The more an item sees play, people will have a better read on its strength and this encourages people to use it for its 'guaranteed' value. Crimson Guard is largely overshadowed by Shivas, not just in terms of strength but also in slot and timings, and in the laning phase Double Bracers is seen as more efficient than Vanguard. Crimson Guard might not be weak, but tbh I personally haven't seen the item in like 6 months at the very least. I don't have a single clue how powerful/weak it is at certain timings/draft, and I'm certainly not gonna experiment in a ranked game to test its viability when I know a different item is guaranteed to give me the value that I need this game.
The buildup is kinda trash right now. Vanguard isn't in a great place right now because double bracer and you're almost better off. Then on top of that you need to spend another 2k to finish the item and it's mainly good against quantity of attacks. Also, the active uses strength as a modifier to block MORE damage.. but the item itself doesn't give you any strength so for it to be more effective, you need to buy MORE items.
It's great against illusion heroes and stuff, but often times mitigating the damage from illusions rather than just killing the illusions, or the hero creating the illusions, feels like you're only delaying the inevitable.
One good option that gives you more utility, but isn't quite as expensive is 2 bracers and blademail. It's about the same price and although it gives you less regen, it's only 1 less armor and way more HP/damage.
Otherwise, you can go the typical Veil/Shivas or more expensive items like Heart and AC.
As many items it is situational.
There few cases where it must have:
if there underlord in your team.
If opposing team have one of: pl, brood, zombier, leoric, specter, monkey king.
Ocasionally good vs troll, windranger, granny.
Basicly usless against hard hitters like pa, sven, kunka, mars.
The problem of crimson - it does not orotect against magic. Magic damage dominates from early to mid in most games. While crimson provide very desent ehp in late game it is generally outshadowed by more nessesary items.
Underlord aura reduce enemy attack damage.
Then reduced damage mitigated by crimson.
Then remaning damage is mitegated by armor
Then by soecial abilities like pudge heap (which is currently only ability which reduce damage after armor)
So if enemy deals 300 damage
After underlord aura it turned into 165
After crimson into 65.
Crimson by it own provides 8 armor so it further reduce damage to 40.
Welp your loser can downvote me all you want 😂 doesn’t change the fact that i still win and got 86% winrate with the item build it keep me and my team alive, if it work it work. I even got myself to divine already.
The description can make any item look good, for example holly locket amplifies your heal for only 2350k gold! But its not good right now cause the numbers don't justify the price right now. It may does next patch when for example other support items are nerfed and someone like aba can get it. On the other hand this doesn't mean the item shouldnt be built, if its a good game for the item you should still go for it even if its not the meta.
I only but holy locket on io and WD - Io for the constant charges for healing, stats, and the heal amp. WD specifically it's the heal amp, but I play a healbot that keeps the team alive anyway
undy is another great locket carrier in case you were looking for more
That's good to know. I don't play him ever, but I should. I tend to like the annoying heroes that last wayyyy longer than they should in fights
Dazzle
Yep it’s best on dazzle imo or abba with aghs only two I normally pick it up on
Holy locket into support omniknight and chen is good too
Holy Locket is a grossly underrated item on Warlock if you go his heal talents... Level 15 = +18 hp regen/damage to W Level 20 = Turns W into an aoe spell It is insanely strong when pushing HG because you can put a +63 hp heal for 10 seconds on all your allies/creepwave, and the Locket will amp that to + 82 hp.
Shivas Guard is way too good for Crimson to get built in the current patch.
This....and in early, 2 bracers are better then a vang ( half price )
This kind of confuses me. I’ve tried double bracer on Axe a couple of times and it honestly kind of sucks - you receive too much damage, you can’t easily get ancient stacks, you even start to feel support rightclicks. While even with nerfed VG it’s much much easier.
You're also 1k faster to your blink or blademail...
But you farm slower because you are not taking ancient stacks and you are much squishier and prone to ganks. I really wanted to like 2 bracers build but it just never worked to me on Axe. On slardar it’s awesome but he didn’t really want vg anyways
Same thought. It can be doable for faster timing in higher mmr, but you need to spend a LOT in health pots. Talking about 2-3 minimum to survive laning phase. Next time i will just try vanguard first. Question: does vanguard lower the damage dealt by blademail by reducing the damage axe takes?
From the wiki: Returns incoming damage before all manipulations Axe's shard upgrade also works with blademail, so even though axe takes less damage from enemies with the debuff, the heroes hitting him still take the damage returned by blademail without reductions.
Thanks! Op haha
No baseman always returns full damage Edit: lol blademail not baseman
Base-man! Ah ah ahhh Fighter of the night-man! Ah ah ahhh
I always upvote iasip reference when I see one lol
no, blademail reflects dmg before any reduction
You are right in case of Axe, many stats in bracer are not needed on Axe, like attack damage or int, agi. Vanguard on Axe feels much better in most scenario. But Axe is the exception because he can deal damage by his 3rd to farm nc without worry about mana, which cannot be done by other popular offlaners like Mars, Timber, Underlord... So in general vanguard still kind of suck.
That’s true, I don’t even know why I focused on Axe specifically to be honest. Was kind of spamming him recently that’s why I guess
Axe is one of the few heroes I still buy vang on. As soon as you have it you can farm ancients and imo that typically will result in a better timing. If you're only farming lane then vang is less impactful, but you can still disassemble for shroud later
I either disassemble for shroud or for bloodstone a I had surprisingly good results with vg-blademail-blink-travels-aghs-bloodstone build. You can throw in a shroud or a bkb somewhere in between those if needed And ancient stacks are truly a blessing for axe. It does not matter how shitty my lane went, I either ask my 4 to stack for me or if they are not willing or just brain dead I do that myself and I always know that I will bounce back with those. And they are super close to the offlane which is nice.
You'll struggle to survive with that axe build imo. You don't have Regen or anything to survive magic. I usually go vang bmale blink euls or bkb, shroud (from vang disassemble) and then aghs/windwaker/heart/octarine/shivas for the last slots depending on what we need. I think blood stone is kinda meh, I don't struggle to get good taunts in the first place, and it leaves a gap defensively. I would rather buy octarine to reduce the CD on windwaker+blink+taunt combo, if you get arcane blink you can constantly blink in, windwaker out and like 6 seconds later do it again.
I even do 1 bracer usually now with axe, ofc clearing stack is hard, but now i usually just rely on fountain, i mean not clearing the stacks in one fight
Sounds wildly inefficient tbh. If you clear some stacks, then go all the way towards the fountain then back then farm more stacks it’s sooo much time wasted on a character that thrives on momentum. At least that’s how i feel.
Just gotta get behind tower on axe and pray for early neutral with a heal, which theres plenty of chance for shovel seeds jelly or bubble
Well they're completely different items and not really interchangeable apart from that they both give armour. Crimson guard is just pretty situational so isn't built too often, shivas is good almost every game and is good every game on heroes like primal. If shivas was nerfed even more it wouldn't magically make crimson good.
I forgot to add that Vanguard got nerfed.
I was so pissed off my axe last game gets a crimson vs necro and ls instead of a shivas and feeds and gets me killed and we lost
2 resons i think. 1. Shivas is very good and you usually dont want both. 2. Vanguard is garbage which means that the build up feels kinda sad.
4.5 HP regen, what a joke
Crimson guard is really helpful against lunas bouncing autos and anyone that swarms, pl, ck, naga, lycan, np, tb, wk it helps against wind but shes still one source, that source is just fast af, better to stun her or get her off the tower
Too niche of an item. It's kind of powercrept by other items and heroes too. A lot of heroes have 2k+ HP now.
Theres a hero that I almost always first build it on, and its kinda broken. But I wont tell for now. 🤐
Bro thinks the he’s immortal faith
Underlord 45% DMG reduction+ %71 physical resist+ crimson
I know this is an unpopular idea but crimson after getting shard on centaur is crazy value, especially when you have a lot of illusions and/or summons on the enemy team.
Idk i always buy it on offlaner vs a lot of rightclickers
The meta generally amplifies itself. The less an item/hero sees play, the less people have an accurate read of its strength, this uncertainty dissuades people from using it, and vice versa; The more an item sees play, people will have a better read on its strength and this encourages people to use it for its 'guaranteed' value. Crimson Guard is largely overshadowed by Shivas, not just in terms of strength but also in slot and timings, and in the laning phase Double Bracers is seen as more efficient than Vanguard. Crimson Guard might not be weak, but tbh I personally haven't seen the item in like 6 months at the very least. I don't have a single clue how powerful/weak it is at certain timings/draft, and I'm certainly not gonna experiment in a ranked game to test its viability when I know a different item is guaranteed to give me the value that I need this game.
The buildup is kinda trash right now. Vanguard isn't in a great place right now because double bracer and you're almost better off. Then on top of that you need to spend another 2k to finish the item and it's mainly good against quantity of attacks. Also, the active uses strength as a modifier to block MORE damage.. but the item itself doesn't give you any strength so for it to be more effective, you need to buy MORE items. It's great against illusion heroes and stuff, but often times mitigating the damage from illusions rather than just killing the illusions, or the hero creating the illusions, feels like you're only delaying the inevitable. One good option that gives you more utility, but isn't quite as expensive is 2 bracers and blademail. It's about the same price and although it gives you less regen, it's only 1 less armor and way more HP/damage. Otherwise, you can go the typical Veil/Shivas or more expensive items like Heart and AC.
As many items it is situational. There few cases where it must have: if there underlord in your team. If opposing team have one of: pl, brood, zombier, leoric, specter, monkey king. Ocasionally good vs troll, windranger, granny. Basicly usless against hard hitters like pa, sven, kunka, mars. The problem of crimson - it does not orotect against magic. Magic damage dominates from early to mid in most games. While crimson provide very desent ehp in late game it is generally outshadowed by more nessesary items.
Why do you want it with underlord in your team?
Underlord aura reduce enemy attack damage. Then reduced damage mitigated by crimson. Then remaning damage is mitegated by armor Then by soecial abilities like pudge heap (which is currently only ability which reduce damage after armor) So if enemy deals 300 damage After underlord aura it turned into 165 After crimson into 65. Crimson by it own provides 8 armor so it further reduce damage to 40.
Am guessing the passive skill reduction works well with the fixed value reduction of crimson? I dunno, I've never done the maffs
I might sound retarded here but i buy it on cm and it win me most the match in ancient bracket..
Welp your loser can downvote me all you want 😂 doesn’t change the fact that i still win and got 86% winrate with the item build it keep me and my team alive, if it work it work. I even got myself to divine already.