Strategy Guide for Puck the Faerie Dragonby Ingolf (as of v6.59)

http://planetdota.blogspot.com

Table of Contents

Introduction Pros Cons Stats Abilities Skill order Item build How to play Using Illusory Orb Using Phase Shift Using Dream Coil Combining the spells Heroes to watch out for Puck's best friends Epilogue Replays FAQ Changelog

Introduction

As many others, I am always anxious to try the new heroes that get introduced to DotA and Puck is definatly not an exception. I began to enjoy his style as soon as I checked him out, and I quickly fell for his spell synergizing. After trying him out in no more than just a few games, I began to love the way he can cripple an entire team in some situations. I've never been a fan of heroes that takes no more than a click to control, and with Puck's spells that need timing, aiming and precision as well as synergizing and perhaps a little bit luck, I decided to share my passion for him with you.

Description

In Sentinel's search for heroes to aid them in the war against the Scourge, they discovered the lost lands of the mystical Faerie Dragons. Upon explaining the conflict to the Faerie Queen of

Agrace, she sent forth Puck, a personal guardian, to turn the tides of war. Despite his small size and mischievous personality, the little dragon soon proved to pack more than his fare share of power on the battlefield, blasting through the enemy ranks with balls of magic, faerie dust, and the capability to stupefy an entire army with nothing more than his imagination. His foes all learned the hard way that size matters not in combat, and that appearences are, ultimately, deceiving.

Strength - 15 + 1,7Agility - 22 + 1,7Intelligence - 24 + 2,4

Attack range of 600.Movement speed of 295.

Level 1 information:- Health: 435- Mana: 351- Damage: 40-51- Armor: 2- Attack Speed: 1,39 sec.

Level 25 information (without any worn items):- Health: 1575- Mana: 1573- Damage: 114-125 +20- Armor: 8 +2,8- Attack Speed: 0,93 sec.

Abilities

Illusory Orb

Sends a magic orb flying down a straight path damaging everything in its way. At any time during the life of the orb the Faerie Dragon may teleport up to it, taking its place. 1800 range, 225 AOE.

Level 1 - Deals 70 damage.Level 2 - Deals 140 damage.Level 3 - Deals 210 damage.Level 4 - Deals 280 damage.

Cooldown: 15 seconds.Mana cost: 125.

Comment: This spell works like the Keeper of the Light's "Illuminate", or the Warcraft III's standard Shockwave. As it says, the spell fires an orb in a straight 1800 range path, dealing damage to everything that comes within 225 range or closer to it. This spell is extremely good with just about rest of your spells. It's one of the most powerful escape mechanism. Some enemies might think they are smart and will just run after the orb when you cast it, but after all, you can choose just not to swap yourself which makes it an extremely good distraction. The enemies will never know if you are going to swap yourself or not. It's also a really powerful initiation spell in both ganks and team combats as you can pop literally out of nowhere. It's like Blink, just with damage and a longer range.

Useful information: The Faerie Dragon can switch his position with the orb as long as it's alive. This swaps him instantly to wherever it is, but it kills the orb, which means it won't float any further. Compared to units' movement speed, the orb has about 550 movement. This means it will move faster than any hero at any time, but it's still hard to aim. The orb also gives you sight wherever you cast it. If you think you are about to get ganked, it can be worth to throw it into the forest to see if someone is approaching. The Orb floats for about 3 seconds in it's complete path.

Waning Rift

Releases Puck's mystical faerie dust around him dealing damage and silencing enemies. 400 AOE.

Level 1 - Deals 60 damage and Silences for 0.1 seconds.Level 2 - Deals 120 damage and Silences for 1 second.Level 3 - Deals 180 damage and Silences for 2 seconds.Level 4 - Deals 240 damage and Silences for 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 20 seconds.Mana cost: 100/110/120/130.

Comment: This spell is extremely powerful, especially combined with Illusory Orb. The damage itself is not quite cool compared to other nukers, but the 3 seconds silence can be devastating. E.g. in a team combat where everyone usually cluster, pop in with Illusory Orb and throw the silence. This gives your allies 3 seconds to throw their spells and ultimates. Mostly, 1 second would be fine, but 3 seconds can be devastating if you have the right teammates. It's also good to cancel channeling effects such as Crystal Maiden's Freezing Field, Sand King's Epicenter and Enigma's Black Hole.

Useful information: The diameter of the fully AoE circle it makes is fine, but the radius from Puck (center) and to the edge is rather low. "Only" 400 range. This means you will have to pop up almost next to any enemy that you want to hit. This is fairly easy in team combats, but it is not that easy in ganks where enemies have the time and overview to react.

Phase Shift (Auto-cast available)

Shifts the Faerie Dragon out of existence for a brief period, temporarily avoiding any further damage.

Level 1 - Up to 0.75 seconds.Level 2 - Up to 1.5 seconds.Level 3 - Up to 2.25 seconds.Level 4 - Up to 3 seconds.

Cooldown: 6 seconds.Mana cost: 50/40/30/20.

Comment: This spell can be manually activated by clicking on the icon or pressing "f", but it is also an auto-cast and it's an extremely powerful tool to avoid damage. Especially in team combats, you can avoid a crap load of it. Especially devastating ultimates like Epicenter, Black Hole, Poison Nova, Ravage, Freezing Field and Requiem of Souls can easily be avoided by one single click.

Useful information: Puck becomes invulnerable to all damage for an amount of time. Some spells can be avoided by having it on auto-cast (e.g. LVL? Death, Arc Lightning and Lightning Bolt) and some cannot (e.g. Ensnare, Storm Bolt and Doom). Spells that has a missile (e.g. Storm Bolt and Ensnare) can be avoided by manually activating Phase Shift just before the missile hits you. This will make you avoid both the damage and a possible stun/disable. I haven't found a pattern yet to which spells Puck can auto-cast avoid and which spells he needs to activate it manually to doge, but normal damage can be dodged by auto-cast too.If Puck is ordered no other commands when he has it on auto-cast, he will immediately Phase Shift (unless he is hitten by e.g. Storm Bolt). During the Phase Shifted time, he can move if he wants and is therefore not forced by stay for the fully period. However, if he moves, he turn vulnerable again and the spell remains on cooldown. That means if you click immediately after Phase Shifting, you will only be Phase Shifted for a very short moment.

Dream Coil (Ultimate)

Puck's powerful imagination engulfs an area, creating coils of volatile magic that damages and stuns enemy units as it latches on to them. Stretching the coils beyond 600 range causes it to snap and deal additional damage and stun time. Lasts 5 seconds.

Level 1 - Initial: 100 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 100 damage and 1.5 seconds

stun.Level 2 - Initial: 150 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 150 damage and 2.25 seconds stun.Level 3 - Initial: 200 damage and 0.5 seconds stun. Coil Break: 200 damage and 3 seconds stun.

Cooldown: 85 seconds.Mana cost: 100/150/200.

Comment: This spell is extremely powerful, and is a very good followup to your other spells, but it also gives your allies time to tear your opponents apart. Especially with some comboes, this can be deadly. In a easier description, Puck throws a little ball at a place which only affects enemy heroes. As soon as it is casted it stuns enemy heroes for a short peroid and gives slight damage. If the enemies that get hitten by the coil move more than 600 range away from it during its duration (5 seconds), they will get stunned for a longer period as well as taking extra damage.

Useful information: The coil only affects the heroes that are inside the AoE range when you cast it. Heroes that come near the ball after you've casted it won't be affected. You can see which enemy heroes you hit because there is a weak visible link between the coil and them.

Etheral Jaunt (Extra)

Shifts into the Illusory Orb.

Cooldown: None.Mana cost: 25.

Comment: This is simply the spell you use to take place with your Illusory Orb's current position. It is an instant cast with no cooldown and no spell animation, so it swaps you instantly. You get this spell as soon as you learn Illusory Orb.

Useful information: If you attempt to use this spell without an active Illusory Orb, it only returns a "No Illusory Orb found."-error. It doesn't burn mana.

Skill order

The offensive

Level 1 - Illusory OrbLevel 2 - Waning RiftLevel 3 - Illusory OrbLevel 4 - Waning RiftLevel 5 - Waning RiftLevel 6 - Dream Coil

Level 7 - Waning RiftLevel 8 - Illusory OrbLevel 9 - Illusory OrbLevel 10 - Phase ShiftLevel 11 - Dream CoilLevel 12 - Phase ShiftLevel 13 - Phase ShiftLevel 14 - Phase ShiftLevel 15 - StatsLevel 16 - Dream CoilLevel 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanationIllusory Orb is taken at 1 and 3 because it's the most safe spell to harass with and it also gives you an early escape mechanism just in case you should need it. Waning Rift is then taken at 2, 4 and 5. The reason why it's taken instead of Illusory Orb at level 5 is because it's around this level that you will begin to try to get kills in your lane. It only damages 30 less than Illusory Orb, but it silences for one morel second which is a huge difference. It's way better to swap in and silence them for an additional second than to damage them for an additional 30 which can be done through a single shot. Dream Coil is taken as fast as possible because it damages the enemies a little when you throw it, but if they run they get stunned and even more damaged. Combined with Wanin Rift and Illusory Orb, this is very effective for ganking. After maxing your other abilities, Phase Shift is taken.This build should be followed if you can be offensive without getting killed. If you're in a very hard lane or if jumping in with Etheral Jaunt means you get yourself killed, it makes sense that this is not very smart.

The cautious

Level 1 - Illusory OrbLevel 2 - Waning RiftLevel 3 - Illusory OrbLevel 4 - Waning RiftLevel 5 - Illusory OrbLevel 6 - Dream CoilLevel 7 - Illusory OrbLevel 8 - Waning RiftLevel 9 - Waning RiftLevel 10 - Phase ShiftLevel 11 - Dream CoilLevel 12 - Phase ShiftLevel 13 - Phase ShiftLevel 14 - Phase ShiftLevel 15 - StatsLevel 16 - Dream CoilLevel 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanationUnlike the previous build, Illusory Orb is skilled over Waning Rift. This is done to let you harass in your lane with it in order to stay safe but still gain lane control. Sometimes you might experience that jumping in equals death thus making this kind of stupid. So instead of taking Waning Rift which you will prolly not use anyway in such situatioins, Illusory Orb is prioritized to gain more damage. Still, Phase Shift won't be skilled untill you've maxed both Waning Rift and Illusory Orb.This build should be followed when you're against someone who doesn't make a huge threat to you if you stay distanced, but if you Jaunt in you risk losing your life. This means you can harass safer and better from your ranged position which will sometimes help you against semi-strong lanes.

The passive

Level 1 - Illusory OrbLevel 2 - Phase ShiftLevel 3 - Illusory OrbLevel 4 - Waning RiftLevel 5 - Illusory OrbLevel 6 - Dream CoilLevel 7 - Illusory OrbLevel 8 - Waning RiftLevel 9 - Waning RiftLevel 10 - Waning RiftLevel 11 - Dream CoilLevel 12 - Phase ShiftLevel 13 - Phase ShiftLevel 14 - Phase ShiftLevel 15 - StatsLevel 16 - Dream CoilLevel 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanationThis is the build to fight the most dangerous lanes. Sometimes you will face evil dual combos, people who stun and rape you, heroes you cannot do anything against. It's time to take Phase Shift into the early game to avoid stuns and hard nukes. Most stuns like Storm Bolt, Lightning Strike Array and Fissure can easily be avoided if you activate Phase Shift fast enough. Nukes like Lightning Storm and Dragon Slave are easy to dodge as well. This stage of the game can be really dangerous for you thus playing very passive with a maxed Illusory Orb to harass from distance and a point in Phase Shift to avoid nukes and disables to help you through makes this build the most helpful against hard hero comboes.

Item order

Core item build

The first thing you want to buy is one or two Bracers. Puck has ridiculous low health so he needs to boost it asap in order not to die by 2 nukes. After that, buy a Bottle because it supports your mana and health very well which helps your gank effeciently. As a bonus, it also gives you incredible good rune control while ganking. Finally buy your Boots of Speed.

Items afterwards

When you have the money, you wanna start saving for Shiva's Guard. If the game hasn't ended yet, we're gonna start working on the Eye of Skadi. Even with 2 Bracers, you still have rather low health and armor, so additional health is not bad. Eye of Skadi is of course bought mainly for the +mana, +intilligence, +strength and +health, but the frost attack is definatly not bad either. With this item you almost make your health and armor acceptable. With Phase Shift as a supporting damage neutralizer and Shiva's Guard's -attack speed aura, you become rather hard to kill and very difficult to target.After completing your Eye of Skadi, go ahead and buy Boots of Travel. Before this point, try to have a Scroll of Town Portal on you as often as possible so you always have a teleport.

Optional items

After getting your Eye of Skadi, Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse might not be a bad idea. Disables are always a plus and it probably nullifies your last possibly mana issues. This sheepstick is my recommendation after you've finish your Shiva's Guard, Eye of Skadi and Boots of Travel.

Necromonicon is a good item on Puck. Not only has it got good team synergyzes with different kinds of attack speed and movement speed auras. It also gives you fine strength and intilligence to buff your health and mana. Best of all, if you use it just after Dream Coil you can Mana Burn nearly any hero you've captured with it. The heroes you capture can either stay and get mana burned or run, get stunned and then get mana burned. Just remember to use it after you've used

your coil, quickly select the demons, find the mana burning dude and burn your target. Imbaness.

In the bottom line, Puck is a hero that teleports in, rapes and kills and gets raped and killed. Bloodstone gives you health, mana and some other neat stuffs that makes you able to rape. The item itself kind of makes it okay to get raped if you should do so.

Orchid Malevolence is a rather "cheap" item in terms of the pieces. It's very easy to build and its use is great. The silence is astounding, especially against heroes with crucial spells, escape mechanism and so on. Queen of Pain, Earthshaker and Magnus can be three very good examples but the list is much longer.

Wards are not very reliable in public games, but in games where people intend to teamwork the slightest, they are great. If noone of your teammates want to buy them, feel free to get some, either for map control (Observer Wards) or for spotting invisible units (Sentry Wards).

Where's the Dagon in your build? I think Dagon rocks hard!As quoted from someone else and as said in this very own guide, Puck really needs early game Survivability. If you buy two Bracers, a Bottle and a pair of Boots, the Dagon comes really late and is much less effective. If you do it the other way (buying the Dagon before the survivability) you are too vulnerable against nukes, disables and multiple enemies while ganking because you run around with 700 health. Besides, a simple allie can replace the 2700 gold heavy Dagon by throwing a Storm Bolt or a Lucent Beam for instance. 2700 gold you can use on a Mystic Staff to start working on your Shiva's Guard for a 200 damage aoe slow.

Items not to buy:

Black King Bar. You have your Phase Shift and later in the game with being invulnerable 50% of the time (theoretically), also being immune to magic. If you can't survive with Skadi, 3 Bracers, a Bottle and a 3 seconds lasting Phase Shift, Black King Bar probably won't help.

Kelen's Dagger of Escape is not recommended. Of course, the idea of popping in with Illusory Orb and Wanin Rift and then blink out is fun, but completely unnecessary. You have no reason to blink out in e.g. a team combat. Activate Phase Shift and force your

enemies to target your teammates and then run away yourself in the right moment. In any other situations, you will have Illusory Orb to escape.

Lothar's Edge is not recommended. You do not need to stealth in among the enemies because you have your Illusory Orb and for the same reason as Kelen's Dagger of Escape, you do not need to get out, nor to have another escape mechanism.

Monkey King Bar, Mjollnir, Buriza-do Kyanon, Stygian Desolator and Divine Rapier are not recommended. Dishing out tons of damage is not your style. You need health, not damage to be effective.

Vanguard and Stout Shield are not recommended. You do not need a chance to block damage. If you don't block it you will receive full damage and even if you block it, you will still receive a lot. With such a low health pool, you need health instead of chance-to-block items.

How to play

Early game

After you've chosen Puck, start with buying a couple of tangoes, a Circlet of Nobility and a Gauntlet of Strength. Then head up or down. Try not to get the the middle because you will most likely fight a strong solo hero or a strong double lane. E.g. if you fight solo against Tinker, Lich or Shadow Fiend, they will nuke you to death in no time because of your low health pool. Try to lane with a friend that has some kind of nuke, slow or disable. Like any other hero, you should try to last hit and deny as much as possible without pushing the lane too far. When you are level 3 and have a level 2 Illusory Orb, start spamming it in such a way that you will never have full mana. The longer time your mana is full, the more mana regeneration you waste, so you want to throw at least one orb every time you are nearly full. As soon as you are level 4 and especially 5 you can effectively try to get kills in your lane together with your mate by popping in with Illusory Orb and Waning Rift. However, if you face a strong lane, be careful as they might kill you when you appear. You can always soften up the enemies by casting a few orbs and in the right moment pop in, use Waning Rift and let your mate follow up with his nukes/disables too (if he has any of course). It's stupid to pop into two or more enemies alone, so unless they are at low health, don't attempt to do it.During this stage, you should farm for 1-2 Bracers, your Bottle and your Boots of Speed.

Middle game

As soon as you are around level 6-7 or above and you have your Bottle, you should start to look for heroes to gank. Your total burst damage now is just fine. Most heroes only have a single strong nuke, but you have two decents that combined have a rather high damage + an AoE silence and you also have your ultimate, however, it has a little too much cooldown to be used in every single gank. Try not to gank someone alone unless he has low health. Instead wait for an allie to approach either from the site or from the front. If he can bait the enemy that would be best, because after all your Waning Rift is not a disable but only a silence. Standing too close to the enemy's tower can be dangerous. If the enemies run out, you have a higher chance to kill them because they then have a longer way back.Continue like this during the middle game. Pop in a lane where your allie(s) are waiting and kill

your foe. Refill your Bottle with runes if you can or at the fountain when you're back.Again, try not to kill enemies on your own. You will most likely not have the nuking power to take them down on your own and you do not have enough health for an effective counter attack. It only takes the help of a single allie to succeed in most ganks.

Late game

It's time for the big team fights. Your job here is either to stay in the back or to stay hidden. Stay hidden is the smartest thing because it makes it harder for your foes to know when and where you appear. Use Illusory Orb when the enemies cluster (beforer the combat starts), pop in, silence, throw your coil, phase shift and let your allies take over. When the 3 seconds are over you are ready to run towards your team again, which should now have torn most of the enemies apart. It's important that you either initiate combats with your silence or follow up on initiators like Warlock's Rain of Chaos, Tidehunter's Ravage or Magnataur's Reverse Pulse. In other words, get the enemies silenced and captured in your Dream Coil before they throw their comboes.When there are no team fights going on, you should try to farm as much as possible.

Using Illusory Orb

Okay, to sum up; it moves with about 550 unit-compared movement speed, meaning that no units can run faster than it. It has 225 AoE which is almost the ball's model range, so a rule of thumb is that where it looks like it hits, it hits. It takes about 3 seconds from it to start till it ends if you do not swap yourself with it. This is what the orb looks like and how long it moves:

Illusory Orb

Now, the hard part of using your orb is when you have to throw it. Like Meat Hook, Earthbind and Elune's Arrow, you have to aim and predict where you have to throw it because you cannot click on units. It is a ground targetted ability. Illusory Orb can be used for several situations. Some of the most common scenarios are:

Harass Ganks Escapes Mindgames Team battles

Harassing with Illusory OrbHarassing with Illusory Orb is rather easy. It's essentially the same thing as throwing a Shockwave. This is mostly done during level 1-4. It's as simply as aiming it at the enemies and try to hit them. During level 1-4 you should only throw it once in a while and wait untill you

have full or almost full mana and then throw it again, just to keep your mana not full so you don't waste the mana regeneration.

Notice how I have nearly full mana when I throw my Illusory Orb. 453/468.

Illusory Orb in ganksIf you are shooting an orb parallel to an enemy e.g. in your lane, the most common place to aim is through him and behind him. If you pop in in front of him instead of behind him he has a ten times better chance to escape. If you pop up behind him he has to walk past you to get away. Here's an example:

Terrorblade on very low hp is draining life near his tower from one of my creeps. I cast my Illusory Orb and let it pass through him a little further than normal to get behind his tower and block his path. With a quick maneuvre I pop into the orb and easily kill Terrorblade and claim the first blood. Notice how I appear outside the tower range to block his way and not to take

damage myself.

If you are going to get them from a perpendicular angle to where he stands, you want to aim just at him because shooting next to him is too "risky". If he moves just a tiny bit, you might waste the damage from the orb. If he is moving, try to aim a little bit in front of him so you pop up just in front of him.

I'm attacking Morphling from a perpendicular angle to where he is. I'm cutting off his "escape route" under his tower and pops up almost at him, but still at the entrance of the opening to this

juking spot. Quickly, I finish him off with my Waning Rift.

As you can see on the above scenarios, Illusory Orb can be extremely effective for tower diving, which means going behind the enemy's tower.

Using Illusory Orb to escapeWhen you use Illusory Orb to escape, there are two important things you want to remember. Firstly you want to swap you as late as possible, but still not waste the orb and get killed. Secondly you want to draw your enemies in another direction than your orb. Run wherever you want, just not towards the orb. This will make your enemies follow both you and the orb. If you split up from your orb, they will have to follow either of them. If they follow the orb, just don't swap yourself unless you cast it through cliffs or behind trees etc. If they follow you, which is most common, just swap yourself from a good distance. Let me show you:

Notice how I cast the orb as soon as Viper attacks me. I don't follow it but run right instead. When the orb has passed the trees, I swap myself and can now run safely away.

Always try to use the environment around you. Shoot your orb through trees and cliffs so your enemies can't follow you.

I shoot my orb over the cliff and appear on the other side of the river. Like this, my enemies won't have time to catch me again.

Again, when you have to escape, in most situations it's better to let the orb go as long as possible before swapping. However, you have to watch out not to let the orb die. The best way to keep an eye on when it dies is the cooldown on the icon.

This is where the cooldown ends when the orb dies. You want to switch positions just before the icon reaches this point.

Playing mindgames with Illusory OrbAn important thing to remember when you use Illusory Orb is that you can choose by yourself whether you switch positions with your orb or not. You will be swapping yourself in 90% of the cases, so every time your enemy sees the orb, his immediate reaction is that you will switch place with it. As an example, if you have to escape, you start with casting your orb. Depending on your enemy, you now have two opportunities; most enemies will still hunt you and try to kill you. In this situation you want to swap yourself with the orb. The tricky part appears when your enemy thinks he is a step ahead and starts to follow your orb. In this situation you only need to use it as a distraction and then run away in another path yourself.In other words, you can play mindgames with the orb by making the enemies think that you will appear when you don't. Making them think you won't appear when you do is extremely hard, because the common action is to pop in. This method is brilliant for escaping because you can decide which way you want to go and you will almost always get away from the enemy. It can also be used to brake your enemies if they e.g. are hunting your team if you are losing a battle. Send an orb towards your chasers and make them think you will appear and use Waning Rift. This will sometimes make your enemies run after the orb to kill you instead of hunting down your entire team.

I will get back to how to use Illusory Orb in a team battle situation later in the guide.

Using Phase Shift

As you may have noticed. Phase Shift can be manually activated, but it's also an auto-cast. As soon as it's activated, it makes you invulnerable for a given amount of time. You can deactivate it any time you want by giving Puck a new order such as to cast an ability, move or attack.Now, the easiest solution is to have it on auto-cast and phase shift every time you take damage, but this is also the worst. If you have it on auto-cast you can never predict exactly when you will shift, and if you are doing something else like running you have a huge chance to cancel it right on the spot and when you finally need it for something huge like avoiding devastating ultimates you won't have it ready. Ergo you should always activate it manually. By activating it manually you can avoid missiles like Storm Bolt and other nukes, ultimates, attacks and focusing and you won't accidentally deactivate it because you know when you enable it.

Also, because Phase Shift forces your foes to target someone else, this is also extremely powerful to lose tower aggro. If a hostile tower is shooting on you, activate Phase Shift and it will shoot on something else.

On this picture you can see the effectiveness of using Phase Shift manually. Bradwarden is teleporting to his tower. Immediately he blinks in and attempts to stun me, but I pull my trigger

faster than him. As you can see I Phase Shift and avoid the War Stomp.

Using Phase Shift with Illusory OrbCombining Phase Shift with Illusory Orb can be a very strong move, especially when you have to escape. Many enemies will try to stun you when you use your orb in order to interrupt you in escaping. If you throw your orb and activate Phase Shift, you will be invulnerable as long as your orb is floating. You can then swap yourself into it without getting stunned or killed meanwhile.

Here is shown how to combine Phase Shift with Illusory Orb. Notice how I use it immediately after I've thrown my orb. I become invulnerable and as soon as my orb passes the trees, I swap

myself. I'm safe without any chance to get interrupted.

Here's the Illusory Orb + Phase Shift method in action. Vengeful has swapped me into Earthshaker and Treant Protector and they've just killed my allie Zeus. Immediately I cast

Illusory Orb and activate Phase Shift so Vengeful Spirit and Earthshaker cannot stun me. After 2,999999999 seconds, I swap myself out and teleport safely away.

Using Dream Coil

Dream Coil is a ground targetted spell and has an initiate damage and stun just like Warlock's Infernal, but in oppose to Rain of Chaos it only affects heroes (enemies of course). It isn't dropped from the sky like the Infernal but appears instantly after it has been casted. After that it will only affect the heroes which you casted it on. When these heroes move more than 600 range away from the coil, they will get stunned and damaged again for a longer period. If they don't move away, nothing more will happen to them. The initial AoE and the AoE of which the orb binds the enemies is the same as Waning Rift which is 400 AoE.

Dream Coil's (and Waning Rift's) area of effect

If you haven't thought of it yet, please notice that the snap range of the coil is a little longer than the range that binds the heroes (200 range longer), so the snap range is larger than the coil's

initial AoE (see the picture).

Now, because the heroes who are outside the range when you cast the orb won't get affected by it, you want to hit as many as possible.

Using Dream Coil in ganksWhen you use Dream Coil in ganks, you want to force the enemy to take the extra stun and damage when the coil "snaps" them. When you pop in with Illusory Orb, most enemies' reaction will be to run backwards untill they have a clear view of the situation. It's here you want to throw it at the opposite direction of where he is moving towards. The longer he is from the center of where you cast it, the bigger are the chances that he will snap it (take the extra stun and damage). Here's what I'm talking about:

As you can see, Bradwarden is moving left away from my tower. I make sure to throw it at his right side so it snaps him when he runs away. If I had thrown it on the left he would have run

towards the center first and then have begun to move away. Anyway, as you can see it succeeds and kills him with the snap. If you notice Enchantress beneath the coil, I also hit her, however,

she doesn't snap it.

Combining your spells and items

It's time to explain the devastating combo and synergy between all Puck's abilities. Let me describe the spells' main purposes in this combo before describing the combo itself:

Illusory Orb: Used for suddenly and without warning pop in at the right spot at the right time - in other words to position yourself perfectly without danger.Waning Rift: The initiation spell to silence and damage all the enemies near you. The condition is that you stand close to your enemies, which you will need Illusory Orb for.Phase Shift: The target-me-not spell in order to let your teammates follow up on your silence and Dream Coil. Also used for distraction to get out when they can't focus you and therefore

loses it from you.Dream Coil: Used to either lock your enemies to one spot in order to let your teammates fire their nukes/disables/AoEs as long as they are silenced or making them split up and get further stunned and damaged so your teammates have a better chance to finish them off.Shiva's Guard: Shiva's Guard's active ability works as a nova. The blast comes from "the inside. It's not a missile. It's more like a giant wave moving out in every direction from Puck himself, hitting anyone who stands close to him. In other words, the hero using Shiva's Guard, need to be up next to his enemies in order to make best use of it. Puck is the master of positioning with Illusory Orb. Infiltrating the enemies' ranks with Illusory Orb puts you in the most perfect position for this item's use. Shiva's Guard is used as an extra nuke and to make the enemies unable to escape and want to escape at the same time due to the aoe damage.

In every team battle you should start hided in the flanks or behind your team. Just before the battle starts and especially before your foes cast any spells, you should pop in between them all with Illusory Orb. Immediatley use Waning Rift so they don't have the chance to disable or nuke you. Instantly follow up with Dream Coil. Make sure to hit as many enemy heroes as possible. The more, the better. In this situation you don't have to think about who runs away from the coil or not, the main thing is to hit as many as possible. After you've popped in, used Waning Rift, immediately activate Shiva's Guard. Then drop your Dream Coil and use Phase Shift. This shouldn't take more than one or two seconds. The enemies are silenced, stunned and damaged and are either forced to stay and take damage from rest of your team who should follow up on your spell combination within the split second or they can try to run and get another stun for 3 seconds. It's of course normal that your enemies will try to kill you as soon as you stand between them, but Phase Shift makes you invincible. They can now choose to drop all their nukes/disables (if they get the chance!) on your allies, or wait for you to get out of the Phase Shift and have to get struck by your team whole 3 seconds just in order to kill you.When you see the opportunity, run back to your casters' rank and start to beat on them normally. As soon as your Illusory Orb and Waning Rift are ready, immediately pop in again and repeat the whole thing. Eventually catch enemies that try to escape with low health with your abilities and Shiva's Guard.

Here's the whole combination shown. Look closely at the picture because it might be hard to see the first few times. I fire my Illusory Orb into the mess and pop in with Etheral Jaunt.

Immideatly I activate Waning Rift and drop my Dream Coil. Finally I blast everything with Shiva's Guard and protect myself with Phase Shift. Treant Protector follows up with Overgrowth.

In ganks it isn't always necessary to use Phase Shift after the rest of the combo, but the principle is the same. Pop in with sudden surprice, use Waning Rift and, if you have it, use Dream Coil to stun them.

In this diagram you can see how much mana and damage a spell combination costs and deals at a given level. In both the mana cost and the damage are counted for Illusory Orb, Etheral Jaunt, Waning Rift and Dream Coil. The Phase Shift has it's own seperate part and so has the Dream

Coil's snap damage. Shiva's Guard is also in the diagram and its mana cost and damage are added with the spell combination in the brackets (XXX). E.g. if you are level 7 with level 4 Waning Rift, level 2 Illusory Orb and level 1 Dream Coil, it will cost 380 mana and deal 360 damage (435 if it snaps). If you use Shiva's Guard too, it will cost you 480 mana and deal 510 damage

(585 if it snaps). This is the total damage with the 25% spell reduction taken into account.

Heroes to watch out for

The Silencer

I've chosen to list Silencer out from other silencers. Why? Last Word. Last Word screws you over and rapes you completely and utterly. Puck's abilities require that you stand next to your target(s); Waning Rift and Dream Coil. Every time you try to do anything in the middle of the combat, you get silenced by Last Word. Use Illusory Orb to pop in? Last Word. Silence them back? Last Word. Use Dream Coil to make chaos? Last Word. Want to Phase Shift in order to save yourself? Too bad you are silenced. Silencer is by far the best counter to Puck. With him

alive in a teamcombat, you can't do anything useful.

Silencers

When you are silenced, you can't use Illusory Orb to escape. You can't silence them back with Waning Rift and you can't protect yourself with Phase Shift. You can be disabled, nuked, hit and raped. You are just a ridiculous easy target with terrible armor and health that can't really do anything but to die

Hex

A disable with no damage, no cast time and no missile, so it's pretty damn hard to avoid with Phase Shift. When you are sheeped you can be nuked, disabled and killed. We don't like to be nuked, disabled and killed.

Puck's best friends

Crystal Maiden, Sand King and Enigma

These three heroes all have ultimates that are devastating when the enemies are close; Freezing Field, Epicenter and Black Hole. After you have casted the coil, the enemies can be forced to run out and all get stunned, or they can choose to take the damage and disable from these three ultimates. Even in some cases if they run away, they will still get hit by the ultimates.

Witch Doctor

Again, synergizes excellent with Dream Coil. Stay and avoid the damage and stun, but take damage from Maledict and Death Ward. Run and get stunned and become an easy target for Maledict. Also, Waning Rift forbids the enemies to interrupt the Wit

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