When To Get Aghanim's Scepter On Carries
Aghanim’s Scepter is a peculiar item. It currently improves abilities or ultimates of 96 out of 115 heroes, however it is rarely picked up by anyone but the intelligence cores or utility offlaners. For most supports it is out of reach in terms of gold until the very late game and for most carries there are simply better alternatives which provide specific attributes or necessary answers to enemy items.
While the item has a decent stats-to-cost ratio, they are spread out equally across all three attributes, making Aghanim’s very suboptimal in terms of increasing you right-click DPS or survivability. Yet there are situations where this item on your right-clicking core might be the best solution to what the enemy has and this blog will be dedicated to highlighting and explaining potentially game-winning situational Aghanim’s upgrades for your carries.
Luna
Image by Cersei and Jaime Lannister
Luna is often thought of as a strong position one carry with a great flash-farming ability that is coupled with insane movement speed, which allows her to accelerate her farm, take ancients early and potentially snowball out of control, while the enemy team is playing catch-up. She has a strong lane presence, high teamfight potential from level seven onwards, good wave and tower pushing abilities and it is understandable how she is currently one of the most popular and successful heroes in the game, with 13% pick rate and almost 53% win rate across all skill brackets.
Aghanim’s Scepter on such a hero really seems redundant—it doesn’t solve her survivability problems, offers very situational DPS that is easily countered with a BKB and generally feels like a wasted item slot. 7.07 addressed these issues with two rather strong talents: +100 Lucent Beam damage on level 20 along with a level 25 Eclipse 0.25s ministun and it jumped the Aghanim’s upgrade for the hero from “situationally mediocre” to “situationally good”.
Latest meta developments have shown that professional teams often prefer to have two flexible heroes on mid and safelane positions, who can be interchangeable in terms of who actually gets farm priority and ultimately carries the game. Luna might have a bad carry matchup developed during the draft, she might be picked for her early game tempo or she can be shut down during the laning stage. In this scenario her strengths of a flash-farming hard carry can be severely mitigated, but Aghanim’s can be a way for her to have a big impact on the game regardless.
A 400 damage long-range nuke and a very strong ultimate can make her a threat without her having to engage in the fight and frontline for her team. It can wipe out supports, force the enemy cores away and add the extra necessary damage to a frontlining ally. Late game Dota is frequently about a single good fight and even with an Aghanim’s build Luna will still be excellent at taking objectives, if she gets to them and is uninterrupted. Aghanim’s can give you this necessary fight, while Refresher Shard can allow her to counter the enemy buybacks as well. It is also an amazing counter to heroes who sit on their highground and stall the game, like Tinker or Sniper, especially when coupled with a high mobility core ally.
Medusa
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The latest patch has nerfed Medusa, but she still remains one of the strongest carries of the meta and essentially tells the enemy team they either have to win in 40 minutes or less, or they will have a very bad game. The effect is two-fold: the enemy can be often forced into making mistakes from the pressure alone, but can’t afford not to take risks in trying to shut Medusa down. However, despite her apparent strengths, the hero is not unbeatable—she might be approaching 57% win rate in 5k+ games, but there are heroes who are definitely good matchups against her even in the late game.
Get manaburn is essentially what Medusa-countering strategy boils down to. Weaver, Anti-Mage and Mirana have natural manaburn talents and often back it up with extra Manta Style, while many illusions heroes go for Diffusal Blade. This is when Medusa’s Aghanim’s Scepter can start doing a lot of work, since Mystic Snake becomes a one-host ability against illusions.
It rarely is a good pick up against “low value” illusions of Phantom Lancer, where it is almost always better to go for a BKB+Mjolnir combo, but against Chaos Knight or even an Anti-Mage, it can ensure a quick wipe of the mana burning targets, which can potentially save an ally or Medusa herself.
It also has an added benefit or a downside of “petrified” status effect, which increases physical damage on the enemy, but completely shields them from magic one, so use the upgraded Mystic Snake with caution.
Drow Ranger
Drow Ranger in the professional scene is often picked as a safelane position two or even three, in terms of farm priority. Her main goal is not necessarily to deal damage herself, but rather enable her team in the fights and then start taking down buildings, while fully concentrating on her own safety. She works well with heroes like Puck, Storm Spirit, Queen of Pain etc., who can completely take over the map by midgame with a little help from their teammates.
Drow’s job in this scenario is to get very farmed and not to die, so that the lanes are always pushed in and there is a lot of space on the map for her other cores to farm. Aghanim’s Scepter is a great transitory item in this regard, since it substantially increases her survivability, while increasing her farm and wave-clear speeds, so that she can get to her Agility items much faster.
It is still a stalling item, for when a Drow strat goes wrong and early game doesn’t look too good for your team, and you don’t think you will be able to close the game early. Most of the time, with a good start, you can push directly into more proactive itemization.
It is also a great anti-illusion item, especially coupled with Mjolnir. Drow has certain vulnerabilities against multiple in-her-face targets, so it can be a very natural progression even when she is a position one carry against certain heroes.
Shadow Fiend
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Magic Damage Shadow Fiend is becoming more and more viable—the changes to the Shadowraze significantly increased their potential, while the reworked talent tree really pushes player to explore this possibility. But is Aghanim’s Scepter a natural progression for a full on magic damage SF by Arteezy or is it in fact better suited for a hybrid or even regular right-clicking Shadow Fiend?
There is an argument in favor of the latter—Shadow Fiend’s level 25 talents are either 40% cooldown reduction or +3 damage per Necromastery stack. And the Aghanim’s Scepter increases your maximum soul count by 10. This has a two-fold effect, increasing the effectiveness of the ultimate as well as increasing the right-click damage of the hero by at least 20. As such, it is actually a very decent value proposition for this hero, since the stats-to-cost ratio is not only decent, but a lot more focused.
So to get a full effect from Aghanim’s Scepter, SF wants to go for the +3 Necromastery damage talent, forgoing the 40% cooldown reduction of Magic Damage SF. Does the hero really want it in general or what situations it can be good in is up for debate still, since the vast majority of high level players still generally prefer 40% cooldown reduction talent for their Black King Bars, Manta Styles, Hurricane Pikes, Shiva’s Guards and many more active items.
Surprised that AM didn't get a look in here, core item against certain line-ups, even get it before manta vs like a doom
I agree with T. The title says "carries", but there are only four heroes talked about specifically, and I think other carries are worth a look. AM, Storm, Ursa, etc. Although, these heroes I mentioned are not as popular in the pro-meta right now as the ones mentioned in the article.
Being a huge fan of Drow, I'd also point out that getting aghs also means you are proccing on three heroes. This can be fantastic with frost arrows, deso, diffusal, skadi, crit stick, and can provide an extra opportunity to release maelstrom lightning. It also provides extra reach as it splits from the target.
I should correct my previous statement, it will proc on three units, not necessarily on heroes. Still, the extra reach is really helpful for Drow in teamfights where she wants to keep her distance. Hurricane pike is nice, but this can provide that extra layer of damage spread from distance so your team doesn't lose the aura while you're dead.
The reason AM is not mentioned is because there is no question as to whether you should get the item on the hero. Most players almost always do, except if the enemy team has a Legion Commander, the only case where Linken's is better.
Ursa's Aghs is also very good against heroes like Enigma, Void or LC and is like Morphling's old attribute shift which makes it pretty good in pubs, but is dealt with in professional games.
The real question is if Aghs on heroes like Slark, Wraith King or Sven are even worth at all when played as cores.
Scepter is quite expensive on pos 4. :(
@Anomalina~
Expanding on that a little, aghs has two functions, varying for each hero: growth progression and countering. The cases in the article are of the latter, which makes sense because that is the function that requires a decision to be made. There's no reason to talk about heroes that don't sit on the fence.
You're right that there is no question that AM buys aghs. It's similar to how Tiny used to work. A lot of carries have skills that work better with the general upgrades that items give, like PL getting diffusal. With the old Tiny, it was almost like leveling up, the hero was balanced around the assumption that everyone got aghs and the hero was not meant to work without it. PL can get by without diffusal (ostensibly), it's not baked into his balance. Tiny had aghs baked into his balance, and now it's hard baked into his skills. So yeah, AM is the same way, and he now is balanced around the assumption that he WILL get aghs.
I wonder if he will get changes similar to Tiny in the future.
you don't write about meepo position 1, aghanim is a must.
Do you guys want our writter to write every single of one scepter on the hero? Just read it. Hate to see people give bad judge into a reading....
Meepo player here can confirm that aghs is no longer a must; I've hardly gotten the item since 7.00.
Typical KawaiiSocks named 3 heroes and gg lul,ss have a good agh and he nearly always can have space for it.
Typical herald comment above, still trying to figure out what a carry is
@Anomalina~
Black Hole and Duel silence you on top of the actual stun/taunt, so you can't use spells at all while affected by them.
Look, for the hard of thinking, it's really quite simple. These are heroes that do not "have" to get an aghs as part of their standard build. It is not an article about carries who always buy aghs, but about carries where it is situational and when you should buy aghs.
What about Jugg? for me that's one of the biggest aghs debates on a carry.. whether you want to be right-click DPS or a walking omnislash.
Wow look at all those archons want to get antimage aghs mentioned.But aghs and linken have no difference if your enemy is smart enough to break linken (which never happens in that bracket i guess) with cheap ability or item and linken gives you more stats and regen for stat hungry hero like am,makes linken better in many situations.
SF by Sumail!
just buy both linkens and aghs on am = impossible to get locked down without extremely focused co ordination which will never happen in pubs
@Possessimal
It still reflects though, so it's more costly to break than just linkens. Sure you get more regen from linkens but it's moderately more expensive and only blocks on a longer cooldown. Buying Aghs gives you the effects of two items and doesn't even require activation, letting you get back to farming offensive carry items.
You're right, I forgot.
@Brock Hall
I was gonna mention PL Aghs, since it's neither for a hard core or hard support, like Sven, Chaos Knight or Weaver, but is definitely useful. I saw singsing pick it up in a game against Ramzes and Solo stack when pushed back and forced to defend high ground, and he's a really good PL player, winning most of the time as a first pick.
@Anomalina~
To be clear, I was using PL as an example of a hero that doesn't usually rely on aghs as a core item.
Just making sure we're on the same page.
I'm curious about the matchup though. Assuming the bounces can go to illusions (I'm not up on PL these days) it would be good against CK but I could see it being useful against summons as well. Man could you farm with it. With that in mind, you could make the case that it's a better farming tool than radiance, again assuming you can bounce to neutrals.
That SF build was by Sumail. It clearly says it in the Match that you linked.
i have not read this yet but based on the title everyone below 4k needs to read this lol. Lost a game recently because our carry riki wanted to go battlefury crystalis aghs over better items.
Ss is a carry
@Brock Hall
Pl aghs bounces to anything not allied or magic immune, and seems to prioritize heroes and hero illusions over creeps of any kind. It IS a good farming tool, but it severely reduces your early game damage and threat, essentially forcing you into a caster role until you get your diffusal or whatever other damage item you're gonna build around. Personally I always get it eventually, as it murders supports without you having to be in the fray to do it yourself, but it's not something typically gotten before 20 minutes unless I've had a good game.
Ok so you're saying it's not really a question of if but when. That's fair. Although I would still say it seems like the smart move is to get radiance late game just to apply the partial blind on the enemy. Getting both doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation either. PL isn't cancer anymore after all.
Sing went Aquila, Drums, Diffusal, BOTs and then Aghs when he could no longer split push and had to defend high ground against a Medusa. Picking radiance is fine unless the enemy has a lot of AOE to kill illusions with the likes of Sand King and find the real PL since it doesn't give any stats.
Обидно, что ты перестал переводить на русский :(
Aghanim is core on luna, period. It effectively more than double the damage from your ultimate, with a 0.3 sec interval instead of 0.6. Furthermore its cast range is insane, thus reducing the need for a bkb, (once luna dies her ultimate stops). She can "snip" off a couple of low health heroes with her ultimate. If the opponent goes bkb, a refresher will be a good counter, stay at the back and wait for their bkbs to expire.
Wow, i can't believe no one mentioned invoker.... Or is it just assumed he always has to have aghs?
i f*$#ïng hate magina.
Bkb is only a partial counter to Luna aghs because it just means the other non-bkb enemy heroes soak up more beams
@Rocket
dumbass
I think that @J-P1 makes a good point : I would like for the Juggernaut case to be discussed as well. Unlike AM, it is not clear to me in which games you should get Agh's on Jugg. The hero is incredibly flexible in terms of item builds, and Aghs seems like a very good option, but when should you get it ? Is it a matter of countering other heroes or a matter of salvaging a game going poorly ?
big mistake leaving out Antimage here.
@TousPotes
I'd say at this point it's almost outdated. Jugg can put out 14 at lvl25, which is as many as you're likely going to need. It's a cool concept but considering you will get only 3 more jumps at max 225 dmg each, it feels like you'd be better off just autoattacking the hero you want to be hitting and getting a few more double strikes.
Dotabuff statistics for items are wildly difficult to parse (town portal scroll has sub 50% WR on jugg for some reason), but if they are to be believed at all, you'd be better off getting manta, butterfly, blink, or abyssal, all of which have higher winrates AND more games purchased.
That being said, over 700 games have been played with hurricane pike and it also has a better winrate than aghs on jugg so like I said, take it with a grain of salt.
Anti-Mage Agh's is pretty straight forward. You take it against people like Juggernaut, Storm Spirit or Necrolyte.
@Brock Hall
Town portal scroll has a bad winrate because it's cheap so Juggernaut will have it almost every game. However it will appear in slightly fewer winning games, where Juggernaut can afford Boots of Travel, so it's winrate will be a little lower than 50%.
@XV
In theory you would buy a portal scroll literally every game, so it should have exactly the same winrate as jugg (currently 57) instead of lower (currently tp sits at 37 for jugg). Perhaps a better understanding of how winrate is determined or what constitutes a purchase for the dotabuff stats is needed, but the fact remains that the statistics cannot be read and used as directly as, say, overall winrate can.
The link you provided for "SF by Arteezy" actually shows SF by Sumail.
Is aghs on razor gpos all the time? No one seem to mention it