Chaos knight is very good
Hello all, just wanted to make a post about chaos knight, a surprise meta pick for me which is feeling extremely reliable in most drafts I've played it in. I'm pretty confident he can be played from POS 1-3 (less from mid, but his high DMG and lifesteal makes it hard to lose lane)
So just getting straight into I'll talk to what I believe makes this hero work so well currently, firstly with his laning stage. CK SOMETIMES has a level 2 powerspike which is extremely punishing if they step up a little too far up, one stun into reality rift is enough to 100-0 supports, low armour cores - especially if you're paired with any of the good supports right now (shaman, bane, disruptor). In lanes where this not possible, (razor, timbersaw, any early mobility hero) you can just level passive twice at 3 and go for this play when you have treads and LVL 4-5, it usually still is a trade in your favour into bad lane match ups.
There are a few important things to value when laning as CK, an early wand is very important as well as contesting every lotus, this should be easy seeing you have the stun rift combo that threatens any solo hero. Why wand? Obviously wand is an item that benefits every hero but for CK, his chaos strike lifesteals 90% of the harass you take in lane so you can build a wand up exceptionally easy, paired with lotus you're looking at a surprise near 600 HP heal at any moment you or the enemy goes for a kill attempt, if you look at any of arteezys CK pub games you'll see a fair share of his games start with wand triple branch I believe it is for this exact reason.
The next spike on the hero is armlet, but if your game is NOT convincingly easy at this stage it's important to recognise you running at people with armlet will not be good for your game. Instead you can go to the triangle and stack ancients for yourself, phantasm, and tank the ancients while your illusion hits with you. If the game is not in your favour you must do this until your next item and try fighting only then. I cannot stress how strong CKs ult is when it comes to farming early, his illusion can cut a wave behind tower and clear 1-2 waves without you being even close. This also can bait TPs, as if you're microing your illusion while hitting waves, it looks like the real CK - this happens way more than you'd think it does.
Okay so far we understand:
- Wand is op, buy it to start or before after treads
- You threaten most lanes if they are caught by your spells and isolated
- Phantasm can be used to kill someone, but with how quickly the illusion dies, it's better to put pressure on lanes or help you farm stacked ancients early
Next is the items, if I'm to look at Ck without taking in the enemies draft his item build looks like this:
Wand > Null / Bracer > Tread > Armlet > Orchid > Blink > Shard / Bloodthorn > Bloodthorn / Shard > Heart > Windwaker > Nullifier > Upgrade blink (Any of the three work on CK)
The absolute must haves of this standard build are thorn, blink, and shard. This is due to how reality rift works with blink dagger, if you spot the enemy POS 1, you can phantasm and stay far enough away that you're about blink range, then blink stun Bloodthorn rift the carry and they will nearly always die regardless of what they built. This is the win conditions of the hero in this meta, just burst off of rift stun Bloodthorn on any susceptible target - and as I said this is extremely easy to kill even farmed cores with.
There are SO many variations to CK and I believe a good chaos knight player will always have slightly different items or build order game to game. Some games you can just go silver edge heart after the armlet and end the game off of your ability to burst from the silver edge active alone, other games your aghanims is super value and getting that changes the outcome of a fight (Treant ulti can be dispelled from using phantasm for your whole team, silencer ultimate, any basic debuff essentially is globally removed).
In all honesty it's hard to tell you exactly what makes the hero good as I said the items should deviate game to game, I suggest looking at dota2protracker to get an idea of this.
If you dont hit a timing where your hero is able to 1v5 end their HG, you just play defensive and wait for them to either HG you, in which case you do the thorn rift combo, or you play under vision and do the same thing. It is a literally instant death if someone gets caught by your stun. It's also important to add when using your phantasm in mid game / late game that you cut waves that enemy is trying to pressure as well and pushing another lane with the real CK, I just played a game where the enemy kept going for towers and just my hero alone traded every tower they went for - and again the only reason I favoured phantasm split pushing is because my timing of Bloodthorn Shard blink wasn't online or my team was dead / not able to fight yet.
Some final quick tips for those who haven't played much CK yet:
Try to ult in 15 second intervals (10:45, 11:15 but not 11:30) this is so your illusion/s can clear a whole wave, and cut behind their next tower for the next wave Infront of the T3 (your ult last 30 seconds so if you ult as the wave spawns it's impossible for an illusion to kill more than one wave)
If unsure where your hero needs to be, hold your tp scroll and always walk to ancients and farm those till a dive happens elsewhere on the map
When playing from behind prioritise getting behind the enemy for phantasm split pushing / cutting wave - as fighting in base and dying is a sure loss
Use silver edge to run around the map and avoid observer wards this way, this allows you to use tip 3 to more success
You should nearly never go base when you've almost died from a fight, instead farm something close by and in about 2-3 camps your hero will be healthy again due to passives lifesteal
If versing a save hero split your disables up so you can absolutely kill your target (blink stun the core, silence the ABA/ oracle / dazzle) or you just focus their save hero with your blink stun combo
If there's any questions about matchup/ builds, why I build certain items etc please ask below! I'm happy to answer