Magnus Guide & Build - Magnus the Magnataur Strategy

Magnus Guide & Build, Magnus the Magnataur Strategy. Magnus is one of a great initiator on Dota. This post will cover all about Magnus the Magnataur guide, item build, skill build and strategy. And if you're playing Dota 2, check out Dota 2 Magnataur.


Maybe the most tremendous being on the Scourge, Magnus is a power to be reckoned with. Trained from birth to become a potent warrior, he is now at the peak of his strength. The Magnataur's giant axe can cleave paths through his enemies, and create a bone-breaking shockwave that ripples through the ground. Further strengthened by a demonic magic that enhances his attacks, he can crush enemies with shocking ease. His greatest power, though, is the ability to create an immensely strong magnetic field, sucking in helpless foes to meet their end.



Strength - 21 + 2.75 (Primary)
Agility - 15 + 1.8
Intelligence- 17 + 1.65

Base damage 49-61
Attack range of 100 (melee)
Base Armor 4.1
Movement speed of 315


Skill Descriptions

Shock Wave (W)



A wave of force ripples out from the Hero, causing damage to land units in a line.

Level 1 - 75 damage.
Level 2 - 150 damage.
Level 3 - 225 damage.
Level 4 - 300 damage.

Mana Cost: 90
Cooldown: 11/10/9/8

With short time cooldown, this skill is useful to harass enemy in early minutes and gathering gold easier.

Empower (E)



Increase attack damage and provides cleave for a friendly unit. Lasts 30 seconds.

Level 1 - 15% attack and cleave bonus.
Level 2 - 25% attack and cleave bonus.
Level 3 - 35% attack and cleave bonus.
Level 4 - 45% attack and cleave bonus.

Cooldown: 12 seconds
Mana Cost: 40

Casting this skill to a melee ally having critical strike or high damage is one of the keys for winning a big war.

Skewer (D)



Magnataur rushes forward up to 800 range, goring up to 2 enemies on his massive tusks. This drags those two units along with him and damages them. Upon reaching his destination, the two units are slowed by 40% for 2 seconds.

Level 1 - 50 damage
Level 2 - 100 damage
Level 3 - 150 damage
Level 4 - 200 damage

Cooldown: 45 seconds
Mana Cost: 80

This skill is used to opening attack (followed by reverse polarity) or to run away from enemies.

Reverse Polarity (V)



Through some unknown property of matter, the Magnataur sucks all nearby enemies to his positions and stuns them with a powerful slam, dealing damage

Level 1 - 2.5 seconds stun, deals 150 damage
Level 2 - 3.25 seconds stun, deals 225damage
Level 3 - 4 seconds stun, deals 300 damage

Cooldown: 120/110/100
Mana Cost: 200/250/300

This skill is little hard to landing without skewer or kelen's dagger.

Skill Build

1. Skewer
2. Shockwave
3. Shockwave
4. Empower
5. Shockwave
6. Reverse Polarity
7. Shockwave
8. Empower
9. Empower
10. Empower
11. Reverse Polarity
12. Stats
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Stats
16. Reverse Polarity
17-22 Stats
23. Skewer
24. Skewer
25. Skewer

This is the best skill build. Damage from shockwave is more needed than from empower in early game. Damage from skewer is quite useless since its cooldown is very long. What needed from skewer is just its rush in 800 distance to temporary replace dagger's role having 1200 distance so he can land reverse polarity.


Item Build

1. 3x ironwood branch + 2x tangos + courier / quelling blade
2. finish magic wand + empty bottle + boots of speed
3. blink dagger

The core items for Magnus should be like these:



Quelling Blade is necessary for gathering gold in melee mode. Bottle and magic wand are used to support his hp and mana. Boots of speed is used for chasing hero or running away. While dagger is used to perfectly land reverse polarity.

Late Game Items

Late game items are divided into two parts:

Striker build:



Power treads give him cheap stats and attack speed. Changing into intelligence version will prevents him from lack of mana.
Using armlet, he can dealing damage as big as possible in the seconds where his enemies are stunned. Moreover with empower, he can dealing damage to all stunned enemies since it gives cleaving attack.
As alternative using mask of madness, he can dealing damage as often as possible instead of as big as possible.
Battle fury increases the effect of empower's cleaving attack. Wearing 2 battle fury will make him more dangerous for his enemies. With 115% cleave/splash attack, his enemies will take damage equally.
Heart of Tarrasque here is used to make him more tanker so he can continue attack enemies while he receives attacks from enemies too.
Buriza makes him become amazing with splash critical attack together with empower.
Assault cuirass increases his attack frequency, makes him tanker and help his team with special auras.

Supporter Build:



As a supporter, he should be there where his team need him, so he need boots of travel.
Vladimir offering is a suitable item for supporting his team, especially to melee partners, since it has great auras.
Gem of true sight can help him to find enemies who are being invisible so he can land a good ultimate.
Pipe can protect his entire team from being attacked by enemy's magic spell.
Force staff is a very useful item in any situation. He can save allies, chase enemies, initiate opening attack from a long distance.
The others items like shiva's guard, guinso, eul, arcane ring and refresher orb may be little useful but are not suitable for strength hero.

Strategy
You should pick this hero when your team need an initiator, your team already has one or more dps carries or your team has a lot of AoE damage spells.

In early minutes, there are 2 kinds of strategy depend on his lane:

1. Solo lane. This is the recommended option since Magnus haven't stun or slow so he doesn't really help your mate. Your aim is actually not to kill, but leveling up and farming since you can't kill smart opponents alone. In the situation when your opponent hero has high lane control and harasses you whenever it's possible, you should stay back and lasthit/farming just using Shockwave, while hit hero if possible. In the other hand, if your opponent hero doesn't have too much lane control or is melee hero, there is no problem. Just lasthit with normal attack and occasionally cast a shockwave to farming and to hit your opponent all at once.

2. Dual lane. You can choose this option when your mate are stunner or disabler since Magnus has an ability to push someone into your creeps or tower. Don't use Shockwave too often. Save your mana for killing your opponents. Your mate stuns him, you walk right next to him, use Skewer and push him into your creeps or your tower if possible, followed by some Shockwave. If the enemy lane is really that dominant, you should start using Shockwave like you would play solo against a decent opponent.

On mid game, you should start ganking. There are several ganking strategies for Magnus:

1. Gank when your ultimate is ready.
2. Always gank from behind.
3. Push your opponents to your team, creeps and tower if possible.
4. When you have blink, just blink next to your 2 opponents and push them into your team.

In late game, stay together with your team. Don't go alone without Boots of Travel, your team needs you. In a big war, these are 3 steps of strategy:

1. Force your enemies to gather. They probably know that they can’t win against a team based on Magnus. So push with you whole team so that they have to defend. Maintain Empower on your melee carries meanwhile, you will need it soon.

2. Land your ultimate. This is actually pretty easy thanks to Skewer and Blink. Blink is better to initiate because your opponents can hardly react, Skewer helps when not everyone is at the point you want him to be.

3. Rape the enemy team. You don’t have to do much anymore, just cast Shockwave and hit everyone you can, preferably their carry. Your team’s damage output should be high enough to kill everyone.

While pushing, you can clear creep waves really fast using Shockwave and Empower. It is useful if you wan to force a team fight or after winning a war and wanna push fast.

This guide inspired from PlayDota