Core Itemisation Guide: Mid-game Survivability
A big part of the game is proper itemization. Making correct item choices and sometimes even predictions is crucial to a team’s success. Naturally, having more farm has its advantages, providing a greater deal of flexibility in itemization, but knowing when to get certain items, and their relative strengths and weaknesses, is still a skill worthy of development.
To BKB or not to BKB?
Black King Bar is easily one of the most controversial items in Dota. Its benefits are not easily quantifiable, with its magic immunity potentially making up for the poor stats the item provides. Newer and veteran players alike often get into a loop of over- or under-prioritizing the item, depending on their experiences in the previous games, and here lies one of the first big itemization problems. While the experience does transfer from game to game, Dota, especially in this patch, is so varied, that making item choices based on the previous games is objectively a mistake. Stay smart and flexible, because coming into a game with a set expectation of what items you are going to get is detrimental to one’s chances of winning.
BKB costs 3975 gold and provides +10 Strength and +24 Attack Damage. Compared to most items in this price range, it is clear that BKB is inferior in terms of stats provided. What it does, however, is provide your hero with several seconds of spell immunity, which, depending on the situation, might either be absolutely game-changing or redundant.
Usually, the first big reason people get a BKB is to counter disables. No matter how high your DPS is, your hero can’t attack while stunned, and BKB is often a necessity. You have to carefully consider the duration and availability of the enemy disables. Moreover, knowing their cast points is also helpful—very few players have enough experience and game sense to anticipate a 0-cast point disable and perfectly time their BKB usage. Obviously, knowing the list of BKB-penetrating abilities is necessary.
Also carefully consider whether you being immune to disables is actually doing anything for your team. As stated previously, BKB is a very weak item when it comes to providing you with DPS—the stats on it are rather low. Having magic immunity is not going to win you fights on its own--you have to actually utilize these precious several seconds to deal maximum amounts of damage. As an early-game purchase, therefore, BKB is only viable on a handful of core heroes, who generally fall into the “glass cannon” category.
Another valid reason—one that is often ignored—for going BKB, is to prevent magic burst. Until late in the game, strong nukers are rather dominant and heroes like 
Zeus can often bring down even the relatively tanky opponents quite fast. If you are facing a hero like this, the first and the most important thing you have to do is coordinate with your team: are we guys fighting, or are we trying to stall the game for a little longer, going for safe pick-offs and split-pushing? If the answer to the first question is negative, BKB is a waste of funds that could otherwise be spent on improving your hero’s farm efficiency, mobility, or late-game scaling.
False Comparison to Linken’s Sphere
For some reason BKB and Linken’s, in the mind of the majority of players, have an “either/or” relationship. Not only are these items not mutually exclusive, but they are also often decent complements. The only problem regarding the purchase of both items is their inefficiency in terms of the actual damage output, but for some heroes, with naturally high damage output, it is less of a problem.
Linken’s, similar to BKB, is often sought after in games, where the enemy disables can ruin your day. Unlike BKB, it activates automatically, making it inferior in certain cases, but superior in others.
If preventing initiation holds higher value for your hero than teamfight potential, Linken’s is a great pick-up. It is often purchased on highly mobile heroes, who, given at least some time to react, will have high chances of fleeing an unfavorable engagement. Considering whether the item is going to actually prevent said initiations is very important.
Long-range spammable spells make the defensive part of the item irrelevant against a decently coordinated team. Similarly, some global spells also make the item a lot worse, since an unexpected, well-timed follow-up is possible. On some heroes, this is less of a problem, because of a low or non-existent cast point on the escape spell (e.g. 
Weaver). For some, an unexpected Linken’s pop is often a death sentence.
Overall, the item can be a worthwhile early game purchase because of its regeneration-providing components. In a sense, it also speeds up your farm—provided security allows you to push the lanes slightly further, while stats and extra mana/HP regeneration allow you to occasionally use spells to clear out the neutral camps or lane creeps.
Heaven's Halberd
This item has fallen off the radar in the professional and pub scenes alike. As a damage mitigation tool, it is slightly off the mark with its relatively high cost and situational utility. In the right game and at the right moment, however, it can make a huge difference.
The stats on the item are not bad, especially for Strength heroes. For them, the item provides a decent upgrade to the HP pool as well as +45 damage. Furthermore, the 25% evasion aspect should not be underestimated—Strength heroes typically have low Armor values, hence this increase to expected EHP is rather meaningful.
Naturally, going for a straight Armor increase is a more consistent option. However, not many mid-game items provide it; especially rare are the items that give bonus armor, as opposed to Agility increase. None of them also come with an active, damage mitigating ability. “Disarm” is a strong tool in all stages of the game, especially against ranged cores, who will suffer 5.5 seconds of it. Moreover, changes introduced in 6.77 made the ability undispellable with anything, except for spell immunity.
With Drow Ranger running rampant in the pubs, the item was expected to have a resurgence. Yet, despite the signs, it is still an infrequent guest in players’ inventories. In part, it has to do with the massive mana cost of the actual ability. 100 mana doesn’t sound like much, but for the heroes typically going for the Halberd it can mean >20% of their mana pool even in the later stages of the game. Moreover, the item can get obsolete once the enemy core get BKBs, so the timing of the purchase is very important.
Solar Crest
It is still a question whether this item falls into the category of core items, but relatively recent tournaments indeed had tempo-controlling mids or carries go for it. Most notable was the Miracle-’s
Alchemist in TI6.
The reason this item can be good is because how early one can actually get it. It has a relatively low cost and is attribute-independent, meaning it can be a good fit on a variety of heroes.
The -10 Armor reduction is also one of the biggest bonuses available at this point. It cannot help during the push, since it has to be manually cast on the enemy hero, but it can make pickoffs much easier.
The damage mitigation aspect of it also shouldn’t be underestimated. It provides a decent Armor boost on top of evasion, making it consistently decent, at the very least. Moreover, the mana regeneration on the item can certainly come in handy on a variety of heroes. That said, however, it is still percentage-based, as opposed to a flat mana regen increase.
Crimson Guard
A rather weird item that is too often out of reach for the support players and has no direct benefits to the core ones. Most frequently seen on a utility offlaner, the item nonetheless can provide huge benefits to your teamfight potential, with strong, flat damage mitigation and some extra armor. These 10 seconds will make most of your team nearly immune to damage in the early game and will allow your supports to be more effective later on.
The item is at its best when you are facing several auto-attacking heroes with DPS their skewed towards Attack Speed, rather than Attack Damage. In this scenario Crimson Guard truly shines. Another valid reason for purchase is the enemy 
Medusa, 
Luna or 
Gyrocopter, with their damage spreading abilities.
The item, however, has a very high opportunity cost. Going for Crimson Guard often means you are unlikely to get an 
Abyssal Blade. Whether the new “utility-focused” Abyssal is required in the first place, is for the players to decide. Weigh your options carefully and do not hesitate to sell the item in the late-game, if you suddenly see yourself with some extra gold, but no item slots. Once again, Crimson Guard is a tempo play, rather than a game plan.
Closing Thoughts
There is a great deal of flexibility when it comes to Dota 2 itemization. Being prepared and frequently checking enemy inventories is highly important. While defensive and survivability items are often not too exciting, they are still a necessity and the correct choice of such item can be the difference between life and death.
Next time the focus will be on the offensive itemization, comparing various DPS and Stats items
1st? Kappa
2nd lmao
2cnd
Shit...3rd
3rd xdxd
2nd lool
1st
1ST!
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Thoughts on Lotus Orb? I almost never see it picked up in my pubs.
Eul is poorman's bkb
0rd =]=]=]
1st BKB
Kappa lol
W0w I learned nothing from this article
Lotus orb only has an active ability, requiring players to time it effectively in synergy with their friendly target. The effect is really good and the additional armour, hp and mana regen it gives you is great to have also. However most players, especially those who play mostly by themselves or don't really know how to use it (like myself) won't want to pick it up over a Shiva's or AC. If they added a passive effect while also reducing some other factors (for balance) then it might become more popular. It is still a really good pick up in a lot of cases in my opinion
After reading the title I expected to see Hood of Defiance being praised.
fight me!!!!
I was hoping this article would review Lotus Orb as well. It's such an amazing item on paper, but I don't know which heroes can utilise the most out of it, and if I should buy it as a support to use it on my cores.
Nice thing about Lotus Orb is it dispels a lot of things when activated. You can't active a LS on yourself, and in many cases BKB would be a core item over Lotus Orb anyways.
If you are playing a hero who would benefit from the mana regen (ie. Invoker or Storm Spirit), I would go for the Orb over BKB first, especially if you have to deal with a Silencer.
I mainly use lotus orb after the fight started and my teammate or myself get some debuffs like silence or hex. Echo shell is just a bonus effect compared to its dispel.
Nice Dragon Knight set up there.
lul xday
if you think you couldent buy bkb so we can fight. fight me
Awful article lmao
I learned someting, from the comments, nc article thi
So many "carrys" in pups who never got an BKB. It's always frustrated to see thisd
No bkb is shit need 10 sec all time!
I think Valve needs to take a guide like this for early game items, and put it in the Dota 2 Game. Make it required for players to read it and be able to accurately answer questions about those items, and why it useful to get them instead of a 24 minute battlefury with 0 items / sustain / damage.
1st trololololol
I thought there was a "z" in "itemization"....weird
British english uses an "s" in a lot of words which are spelled with a "z" in american english.
BKB is worthless, most of heroes can ignore it hahaha it was funny when enigma was trying to convince terrorblade of building it in dota 2 reporter toons hahah
Author should have added that crimson guard blocks cleave damage unlike armor.
I love when people build linkens to counter sniper...
Why would counter sniper with linken? If he assasinate u, just dodge his bullet by blinking
Решают айтемы не во всех случаях.Главное,чтобы голова была на плечах и команда не раки