Strategy Guide for Darkterror the Faceless Void by nekdolan (as of v6.60)

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Table of Contents: Instructions, Click on a paragraph to get there.Click on the paragraph's picture to get back.

Introduction o Links & Videos

Analysis Mechanics

o Itemso Skills

Skill & Item Build o Skill Buildo Item Buildo Used Itemso Situational itemso Rejected Items

Strategy o Early Gameo After MoMo After Buttero Using Time Walko Proper Chronoingo Chrono Pictureso Art of Ganking

Teamplay section o Supporting heroeso Chrono heroes

Enemies and Things to Avoid o Things to Avoido How to deal with?o Bans

Replays

Well I couldn't come up with anything original, so I decided to upload some concept art, instead of leaving this space empty:

http://kunkka.deviantart.com/art/Dota-allstars-5v5-100058409

http://img4.freestart.hu/images/m/3/198581_2c177f41fa.jpg

http://img4.freestart.hu/images/m/3/198579_5fa5cacee3.jpg

Links & Videos

Download video!

!My other video on youtube! Faceless void's skills and stats

My old guideBacktrack & Evasion

About BashAbout Bash2

Faceless Void Wiki

In this early part of the guide I will talk about void's skills and role in the game. Every hero is special due to their skills. Some heroes share the same skill (like storm bolt), but none of them have two skill that mach. It is important to view the hero as a whole. So what does void have? First of all he's melee (BF and vlads ar ok). He starts with low hp, but with good base damage. His an AGI hero, and we all know that AGI heroes are born to be DPS (except NA). He has the time walk abbility wich can be used to get in or out of battles. Escaping ganks or placing your ultimate right. We have backtrack and time lock our most annoying skills for the enemy. One of them incrieases EHP by X% and the other can dissable anyone, anywhere. Same is true for his ultimate, only difference is the AOE. Theese skills make faceless to be used as a carry hero.

What's a carry hero? We call carry, the heroes who can dominate late game and win. There's a limited type of (AGI/STR) carries that are capable to win a game. First is the tank-DPS. Radiance is the core in this build, and to put it simply: The tank survives long enough to destroy the opponent with radiance. Kentaur and the old BB were used like this very often. Theese heroes need lots of HP and EHP and radiance. Faceless would be a good heroe for tank-DPS, but his lack of HP, and the fact that immolation won't work under chrono makes it very difficult. Next carry is the illusion carry. Illusions give lots of damage and survability to a carry! The best illu carry is Terror Blade, but we have spectre and the phatnom lancer too (not to mention siren). Even if FV lacs illus he can get it with manta. One problem though: illusions make fake bash, and that makes opponents immune to bash!! This is the only way to make someone immune to bash, and your the only one who can do it. I advise not to.

Last but not least we have the pure DPS carry. Pure DPS needs mediocore HP and lots of IAS and damage. Best pure DPS heroes are thoose who have either IAS (viper/razor/Bf) or damage (SF, Sven, Magnus). Time lock deals too little damage to be considered damage (and it's magical, not phisical). So a DPS void would need to get both IAS and damage to carry. That's what we are gonna do, but a bit differently than other DPS carry heroes. The key to realize FV's strengh is to realize that he is not alone! Time Lock and Chronosphere are dissables that cannot be blocked. The while help us to pin the enemy down. Backtrack will give us the EHP to survive as long as our teamates finish the dissabled opponent. And last but not least we have time walk to run away if things go bad for us. FV is a weak farmer. While other carries need to focus on either IAS or damage, FV needs to focus both in a (pure DPS) carry build. We should focus on IAS and HP so that we can dissable anyone. If we want to make a pure DPS carry: well, we should pick someone more suited for the job.

Items

Mask of Madness:

The buff lasts 12 secs for 25 mana and it has a CD of 30 sec. You will receive 20% extra damage when berserk is on. You will gain 75% IAS and 15% MS. This buff cannot be

removed by purge (small satyr, diffu, or naga), or by magic immunity (BKB, repel)! Lifesteal is an orb effect that will override any other orb on faceless. It has top priority. The amount of life you steal depends on physical damage and it will increase if you get a critical. You cannot steal life from illusions.

Butterfly:

Since its last buff, Butterfly gives 30 AGI 30 IAS and 30% of evasion. Evasion and Backtrack stacks with diminishing returns which mean when you are attacked there's 47,5% (with lvl 4 Bactrack) chance that you won't receive damage. Doom or hex will disable evasion!

Buriza:

Gives 20% chance to deal 2.2* of your normal damage. Critical is phisical damage so it incrieases the amount of lifesteal you recieve. When attacking a unit that has blade mails you won't recieve extra damage, if you hit him with a critical strike. Criticals stack with diminishing returns just like backtrack and evasion in case you have two items or skills that gives the abbility. When both criticals occure on the same attack you will only get one of them, but both will be shown as red numbers in the game.

Armlet:

Gives 9 damage, 3 HP/second regen, 5 armor, 15% IAS and Unholy Strength, that gives +25 STR, 31(40) damage, 10(25) IAS -35(-31) HP/sec degen when active. Activating the Armlet causes a direct life gain of 475 HP, i.e. 25 Strength multiplied by the 19 HP that each point grants. Deactivating the Armlet conversely causes a direct loss of 475 HP, but will not kill the hero even if he has less than that amount, leaving at least 1 HP.

Skills

Time Walk:

Level 1: 120 mana, 13 cooldown, 700 cast range, 300 AoE, 10% slow. Level 2: 120 mana, 13 cooldown, 900 cast range, 300 AoE, 20% slow. Level 3: 120 mana, 13 cooldown, 1100 cast range, 300 AoE, 30% slow. Level 4: 120 mana, 13 cooldown, 1300 cast range, 300 AoE, 40% slow.

It has a short casting time when void raises his hands. When you travel you become invulnerable so you won't take damage and cannot be targeted. It won't remove rupture. Although the effect remains while you travel you won't be damaged at all. This skill is similar to morphling's waveform, but you won't loose the control of the hero when you use it. When TW is finished there's a small period when you cannot issue commands to faceless! Since you don't have channeling spells just repeat the same command until void moves again. TW can be used under some spells like: ensnare/bite and those that are similar to these two.

Backtrack:

Level 1: 10% chance.

Level 2: 15% chance. Level 3: 20% chance. Level 4: 25% chance.

Whenever faceless receives damage (if the damage is above 6) there's a chance that this skill will trigger and that it will heal void back. It works against all types of damage except: sunder. This skill won't evade stuns even if the damage is backtracked! Silence and Doom and hex won't disable this skill! Actually nothing can. Bactrack is one of the most relaiable skills of dota! A disabled skill (most passives can be disabled) has a chane of 0% to work while BT 25% from level 7 till the end of the game.

Time Lock:

Level 1: 10% chance per attack. 40 damage. Level 2: 15% chance per attack, 50 damage. Level 3: 20% chance per attack, 60 damage. Level 4: 25% chance per attack, 70 damage.

It is the same as melee bash. The damage it deals is magical and avatar can block it, but the stun effect will work even if it doesn't deal damage. The effect lasts twice as long on creeps and half on Roshan. Since the damage is magical you won't get return damage when it triggers (except your base damage). Doom disables this skill and any other basher in your inventory. If you are interested how bash works, read this: Pseudo Random Disturbtion (Forced Bashes)

Chronosphere:

Level 1: 3 Seconds, 150 mana, 120 cooldown, 500 cast range, 425 AoE. Level 2: 4 Seconds, 175 mana, 110 cooldown, 550 cast range, 425 AoE. Level 3: 5 Seconds, 200 mana, 100 cooldown, 600 cast range, 425 AoE.

This spell has a 0.5 casting time and there's another little pause before it will stop the units. This spell only stops units and will never stop spells. Of course it will stop channeling since it is the same as a long duration stun. Avatar won't work against this either. This skill won't stop: omnislash, wards and spirits (like Exorcism) after they've been casted.

Skill Build.

1. Time Walk

2. Time Lock3. Backtrack4. Time Lock/Time Walk5. Time Lock6. Chrono7. Time Lock8. Time Walk/Time Lock9. Backtrack10. Backtrack11. Chrono12. Backtrack13. Time Walk14. Time Walk

We get one level of time walk, since better players will normally nuke the hell out of faceless. With this we can get to safety if that happens. The reason why we get it one the first level is simple: god teams may try to do a three man gank on level1 to get an early first blood. If we don't want to help them in any way we should get time walk first. You can get another lvl of TW on lvl 4 or 3, if you think it's necessary. Level 1 range is half of a blink, while lvl 2 is almost the same. Blink has a maximum range of 1000. Having time walk doesn't mean you shouldn't be cautious! This is the standard offensive build. With a fast mom and boots we can own in 1v1 situations thanks to time lock. We get one level of backtrack just in case. It's better than stats. We should get a level 2 TW if level 1 isn't strong enough to survive! Some may disagree with maxing Time Lock first, but there's no better skill build in my opinion. I tried to max bactrack first, but it doesn't help much. For a nuker to kill us with one, or two spells doesn't mean much. Even if you are lucky and bactrack the first nuke you would still die from the second. At this time of the game you don't posess the HP and other items (BKB, Butter) to make use off this skill. Time Lock on the other hand helps with denying, last hitting and especially harassing. With the Heroes huge base damage and the added Time Lock damage (wich is magical) you can deplete the opponents hp in seconds. Even if you won't get the chance to do that Time Lock is still more usefull to kill neutrals, since you can clear creep camps faster, and bash lasts twice as long on creeps than on heroes.

Item Build

This is my standard build I've been using for a year now. Wraiths, mom, treads were very unusual back than. Times have changed, but this guide is still the same. The concept is pretty obvious. Since faceless is a bad farmer we get cheap and effective items. Going for

big ones is too risky. Of course not any cheap item will be qualified as good. As a bashing hero faceless needs IAS>MS>HP>DAMAGE. Faceless concentrates more on 1v1 and has to find a way to separate a hero from the enemy team so he can own it with bash. That's where chrono and our temammates will help. Never forget that bash deals extra damage so IAS isn't just for the stun effect, but to kill faster. In 1v1 we need IAS to dissable the enemy. Secondly we need MS so the opponent won't run away (or if he does we can still catch it). We don't need max MS just more than the enemy has since bashed targets won't move. Still a target that is faster than faceless cannot be bashed. Also faceless is an AGI hero so he lacks hp, and even the most carefull player will be nuked by the enemy. (especially if the enemy is someone named zeus). We have to survive the first wawe of nukes and own the enemy while their spells are on CD. Even though the importance of HP and Damage are low we will start with wraiths since it incrieases our lane management abbilities. Boots is needed for obvious reasons. After that we get mom since it's a core item and farming up 2000 gold without mom will be much more difficult later. With Frenzy and boots we will be much more faster than any hero that time can be. After that we complete treads since it's to good for 1000 gold and doesn't wastes item slots (like hyper). The main item is butterfly. I can't imagine any situation where this item isn't the best choice for faceless. It gives all the things faceless needs (except MS): IAS, damage and EHP (evasion, armor). Of course evasion and armor won't work against nukes so the next item will be heart. If nukes aren't difficult to handle (our team is filled with dissable, or the enemy has few strong nukers), than we should go for pure damage. In short: get buriza than!

Used Items

ANCIENT TANGOO

Yes, yes ror is great, but not enough to survive. Tangoos regenerate faster and can be used for other purposes. Like destroyng eyes of the forest or eating yourself out of sprout. It can be used in curtain neutral creep camps to spwan more neutrals.

WRAITH BANDS

You won't time lock anyone if you don't have the proper IAS to do it! Agility is very effective on this hero, while the difference in hp between the amount bracer and wraith gives, isn't really needed! You could say that hp is better since I get mom, but the thing is faceless normally doesn't have the luxury to use it! Even if he manages to survive with frenzy, that won't be beacuse the incrieased hp from barcers. Faceless lacks offensive power and not deffensive!

MASK OF MADNESS

Do (real)pro players get MoM ? Yes they do! Check out the replay between MyM and SK located at the bottom of this guide. Why do they get it? Let me explain: Void is a bad farmer, and MoM is the cheapest possible IAS for him. 75% IAS for 1950 even beats treads! Time Walk costs too much mana (unlike blink), and slow doesn't lasts long enugh for you to bash effectively. With frenzy & treads you are faster than any other hero with BoT (except Chaos Knight). Also chronosphere costs a lot of mana, that we cannot spend for TW. The lifesteal is good for lane control. Void can regain its hp by killing neutrals. What about the extra damage ? Okay there's a very easy tactic to avoid the extra damage: don't activate mom! WTF? Yes no extra IAS and MS that way. There are a lot of situational spells in Dota, that are really good dispite being situational. Double Edge or LVL? Death and the list can continue forever. Use it when it doesn't means instant death, and you on the other hand can get the kill. Faceless void's all four abbilities support the avoidance of the extra damage: time walk to escape, backtrack to avoid the damage, time lock since disabled target cannot hurt you and chrono for the same reason.

POWER TREADS

Ok I understand, that BoT beats this item. Yes it does, but due to the need of other items the number of games you will get BoT is around zero. Sometimes you cannot use mom. For example when the enemy attacks in larger groups, or when chrono is on CD. If the attack is broken you can use mom to chase, but what happens till then? You get your ass kicked because you don't have the IAS to bash? Or you run away ? Let's pretend that you bought one of the components of butterfly instead of treads. Eaglehorn costs triple but gives 10% less IAS while quarterstaff costs the same but gives 25% less. You can stick to boots hoping that one day you will have the oppurtunity to upgrade it to BoT, but I will stick to treads. MoM has been buffed recently. I advise to go for the STR, though switching to INT or AGI in extreme stituations may prove usefull. Have more damage when you have farm, or mana if you need some to cast chrono/time walk.

BUTTERFLY

Butterfly is the best item for faceless. It gives IAS, damage and survability since backtrack stacks with evasion (47,5%). With frenzy, treads and butterfly our IAS will be enough to own anyone in 1v1. Also the 60 damage it gives helps a lot under chrono. Some people prefer radiance instead of this item. I think they make the wrong decission. Radiance is a very good item, but there are a lot of reason why you shouldn't get it on void. First of all farming 3800 gold is risky and slow for void. Radiance gets weaker with every minute of the game. It gives no survability (7% evasion), and no IAS!

HEART OF TARRASQUE

You can get the vita booster any time of the game, if needed (lina/lion) What is

more imba than 47% evasion and 2000 hp? 47% evasion and 3000 hp! Which means only about every second hit will damage us. 3000 hp with evasion is the same as 6000 hp. Like a big fat butcher with lots of IAS, life steal, and permabash. Nukes become weak late game too. Heart is the most effective item for us to become the ultimate hero of the game. We have the time to kill enemies due to 'permabash', and the only thing we should fear is dieing before that time ends. Think about a bristleback that has chrono, tw lifesteal and permabash and doesn't have to turn its tail on you. Imba isn't it? After heart I suggest you go for buriza!

BURIZA DO KYANON

Heart will make faceless the best tanking hero of the game, but in case we alredy have a tank like Axe or Bristleback we should concentrate on damage. As long as you can use chrono effectively team battles will start from 4v5 or 3v5 from this point on, since noone can stand long against the damage of frenzy+treads+butter+buriza+time_lock. Remeber that you get double the amaount of lifesteal when you hit a critical strike! After buriza the game should have ended, but in case the enemy can still hold you back with mass dissabling spells you should get a BKB, so your strong damage potential won't go to waste.

Situational Items

ARMLET OF MORDDIGIAN

A very good item for faceless, especially after the STR nerf. The hp degen isn't increased by mom's frenzy so even it may sound strange, it synergieses perfectly. Before each action turn on Unholy Strength, and turn of when the coast is clear. With mom's lifesteal you can gain back the hp lost under Unholy Strength. Armlet gives a little IAS and armor, that would be good on any carry hero, and FV is not an exception. I strongly recommend to get this item!

HAND OF MIDAS

You should buy it, if you manage to farm it in 12 minutes. I have my doubts doing that with the game's worst farmer, but that's just me. Remeber that going for midas first means getting mom second. Midas is a great item, but it delays the build even if it buys itself back!

TELEPORT SCROLLS

Always have one after you completed the base (mom+treads) item build. When all item slots are filled sacrifice one of your items (or drop it at the fountain) so that you can have another scroll. If you still have one of the first towers you may use it for push. Remember blink (time walk in this case) in the forest and use tp scrolls to escape is great way to survive ganks.

LINKEN'S SPHERE

It costs a lot, but recent changers made this item worthy. Even so BKB is a better choice, but there are situations where BKB is actually a bad choice. Namely when omni supports you with repel. Why would you get 10 sec if you cen get 20? The real question is why would you get linkens when you have 20% of magic immunity!? The answere is simple. There are some spells that go through repel, but won't go trough linken! Namely: purge (diffu or naga), Primal roar, Doom. Any kind of purge will remove repel, but if linken is charged repel will stay on you! Doom dissables evasion and passive bash (like timelock). You see Linkens spell block can be trigered with less potent spells, but if you have repel on that won't happen!

BOOTS OF TRAVEL

One of the best items of the game. The teleport is perfect for farming and for BD. It helps a lot. With frenzy on you will have godlike move speed. Since you have Bash, TW and Chrono you won't really need the MS, but it's still nice to be faster than any other hero. The only problem with this item is it's cost and that it takes away the free slot for treads. For early game it's better to have treads. You have more benifits from the IAS boost since you have a passive BASH. Later you may buy a travel and sell treads, but keeping both footware in your inventory is a good choice too.

BATTLEFURY

By Popular demand. This item is a solid DPS item and can be really usefull whenn we have a Dark Seer in our team. He casts vacuum after chrono and gives an Ion shell and 'voala', a tripple kill in less then 3 seconds. Cleave damage depends on cleave% and on your current damage. Neither spell resistance, or armor will reduce it! Having a Magnataur in your team also helps a lot to get heroes in the desired postition. Magnataurs damage buff is also a nice addition to cleaave more. Even without Magnus or Darkseer BF is still valid, if the opponent has many melee heroes. Get this item after Butterfly and remember that critical strike can be cleaved! So the next obviues choice would be Buriza, if you need more damage. Sidenote: you cannot lifesteal from cleave damage.

Rejected Items

RADIANCE

This item seems to be a winner, but it's not! All heroes can carry with radiance, but 99% of them can get it faster than void. Question one: is radiance an item that can be delayed? Ok maybe we get it in time. In that case let's compare it to butterfly. Butterfly gives damage IAS and survability while radiance only damage. Question number two: Did we pick void for its insane permabash and bactrack abbility, or to have a good carry for radiance? Yes, yes, but with radiance you can farm better! Void is a bad farmer so he needs it (interesting thing to say after 5K gold). With lots of IAS you will have all the last hits when creeps collide. Question number three: can you kill more creeps than all of them? With one butterfly and any kinf of lifesteal you can kill Roshan without loosing hp. Question number four: Can you do that with radiance? No you can't and that shows how much stronger butterfly is compared to radiance.

MONKEY KING BAR

Among damage items it is the weakest and cheapest. Since we alredy have time lock the ministun effect isn't needed. It's not a bad item, but butterfly and buriza beats it. Butterfly because of evasion and IAS. Buriza because critical damage is phisical and it incrieases lifesteal. Ministun (like bash) is magical damage so no extra lifesteal is granted.

MANTA STYLE

Images won't get stuck in Chronosphere, which is good. The fact that they trigger fake bash makes this item to be used only during chrono's on. Melee bash cannot be blocked except for this method, and the units that make fake bash are illus (spotting the real hero is easy). You would rely on an ulti with one of the longest CD. Not good, and the orb effect suggests not to get MoM. Illus won't get backtrack, only the evasion from butter. Still this item is as good on void as on any other AGI hero (since other AGI heroes don't have bash, and you won't have it either if you buy it)!

SANGE & YASHA

Another item with an orb effect. Maim is totally useless thanks to our bash, and time walk ability. Frenzy gives 5% more MS, and because we have TW we can catch heroes even after it is over. Stats and damage is nice, but there are better items for same price. 5500 gold = heart !

CRANIUM BASHER

The following word will represent my opinion on this items, when it is bought in order to increase the chance of bash produced by faceless:

Shit!Both Time Lock and Basher are Pseudo random abilities. Calculating the bash chances are rather interesting, but takes too much space. Getting IAS items, has a better effect on bash and damage.

ASSAULT CURIASS

Very popular on void, but it's not as good as many think. Compared to butterfly it gives less damage, less survability and less IAS for a hihger price. If that would not be enough, it is epecially weak on void thanks to backtrack and his high armor. If you get butterfly it will be weaker thanks to evasion. Also with treads+mom and butterfly you will have plenty of IAS. Basically it stupid to raise voids armor or magic resistance. Raw HP works better than anything else on a hero that already has a lot of EHP increasing skill (backtrack, evasion). Let's compare armor to hp:

Example:

EHP stands for Effective hit points against physical attacks, while MHP is Effective hit points against magical attack. 10 armor costs the same as 318 HP, so the comparison is valid. For the same price we get 3% more EHP, but 318 hp gives 25% more MHP.

Early Game

Take the upper lane on scourge, or the lower one if you are with the sentinel (If there's no

solo mid you can go there too!). The next thing you should know is creep controlling, which is essential for voids lane management. The most important thing next to denies, and last hit is this! Creep control is about to lure the creeps under your tower using their scripted AI. This will screw the enemies framing, since they won't be able to last hit effectively. The next part is very important! There are only two guides including this that explains. Remember this is not creep pulling!

Creep Lure Technic:

Basics: creep, and tower AI: If you are close to the melee creeps, and you issue an attack command against the enemy hero the creeps will start to attack you. Because of that your own creeps will attack the other creeps. If the creeps are close to you, and the tower isn't attacking the enemy hero they will follow you even if the tower is hitting them. The towers priority is: those that attack the allied hero, the one that attacks the tower, the one that is close. This is all you have to know to accomplish the following movements:

If enemy creeps, are coming for the tower, and your creeps are still far, then: Stand next to the tower with the Hold Position key and when the creeps get close start to run backwards until you reach your own wave. If the enemy attacks the tower the tower will fight back, since no one else is hitting it, and you are already far away..

If the fighting is close to your towers attack range then you could lure the creeps by attacking the hero (you don't need to hit him!) and running instantly backwards. This will draw all creeps towards your tower thanks to the simple AI. If you are close enough to the creeps they will attack you, even if you targeted the hero on the other side of the map.

Example:

You can see that this trick is pretty useful. Sometimes I start it from halfway between the two towers, and end up farming at my own tower. I haven’t seen anyone do this in games, so I think players don't really know about it. We may receive some hits by luring the creeps, but it is regenerated pretty fast and backtrack might evade it.

Depending on the heroes you face, and the players agression you have to play a passive or a farming style. Passive style is used to stay in XP range and out of spell/attack range. It's a playstyle ment for calm players, who can wait until the creepwawe reaches their safety zone (tower) where they can farm a bit. When using this style you have to match your movement to the enemies and maintain the distance, as much as possible. Otherwise your ass will be owned by nukes. Time walk can save you one time, but it doesn't give you any hp regen to stay in lane longer. Remember this: you may loose more by being greedy epecially when one creep kill means half of your hp! If the enemy group consists of melee heroes or if they don't play agressively, than you can use the farming playstyle. Concentrate on lasthits and lane deny. As long as no creep can be last hitted attack your own creeps under half hp to draw the lane towards your tower! You can try to harass, but since void is a melee hero he may attract unwanted creep agro. To avoid this don't attack the enemy until your in range and attack only once!! If it's a bash than go behind the enemy and attack again when creeps won't agro anymore. If it's not a bash than go back farming and wait for another chance.

Help your ally if possible. You can time walk to an enemy slowing its move speed so that your friend might escape. Be careful this is a double edged sword, since the next target is obviously you! Never stand still! Move forward and back or move vertically, but try to remain in xp range. Standing units are targets. They get easily ganked, harassed, hooked. You can use time walk to avoid some annoying spell like the lich or Yurnero's ulti, and it's good (yet expensive) against impetus.

After MoM (mid game)

You can do three things at this time: push/farm neutrals/gank

With frenzy you should be able, to get some kills, and it is also perfect for killing creeps. If the wave is already at the enemies tower, than go and kill some neutrals. If they try to gank you while you are killing neutrals (they have wards), don't worry! With time walk you should be able to get away. Help in team fights, but don't die if possible! So how to farm with faceless exactly? If we are alone we use mom to get ALL of the creeps that come. Because of the high IAS we will get the money for the creeps without bothering with last hits. If you have time to farm, and you see no chance to be ganked than you can bother with last hits. If you don't kill creeps enugh you won't farm anithyng before you are ganked. Simply start frenzy when the first creep gets below half hp. This will push our lane towards the enemy. As I sad earlier when we get close to the enemy ,go back and farm neutrals. Remeber that farming neutrals actually heals void! The amount healed is atleast half of void's total health, but usually more! During your period of neutral creeping, the enemies will most likely push back, and when the creepwave gets big enough go back there, and start the process all over. If someone is farming alone on your lane you should kill, or send him back to the fountain using TW, Chrono and frenzy. Or gank him if you are no match for him. Go back to the fountain if you need items or if you really have no other choice! If two heroes are farming in your lane than I suggest to choose another lane where you can dominate. Gank is optional at this time.

Farming neutrals:

The true power of mom is farming, and farming fast so that you can move on to the next creep camp. We will do this pretty often if there are no free lanes for pushing. The reason why mom is better than hom is that you can kill any neural without loosing hp at a relatively low level. Berserk can be used more often than transmute and you can kill bigger neutrals with it. Always keep one finger on "w", so in case you are ganked you can escape instantly! The damage from ganks (if avoided with TW = you didn't die) can (should) be regained by killing neutrals. After that go back to push...

Excaping:

Running away with MoM? It sounds stupid, but it's pretty effective to save your ass. First you Time-walk away and after that you maintain the distance between you and the enemy with frenzy. Since it gives you insane MS and lasts as long as the time-walk's CD you just have to run for 10 sec and TW again.

After Butter(late game)

Stick with the team! Towers and creeps, can no longer damage us so we should tank

damage, so that our creeps will go to the enemy tower with full hp. With proper chronoing, and good team members we can defeat the enemy at their own towers. If the attack is finished and our team is retreating, and we have half of our hp, than we should kill some ancients to regain our hit points. It is unlikely for the enemy to go there, when they need to push back the creep waves, even if, they get there: you always have time walk.

Note:

With butter you can solo roshan without loosing 1 point of hp! That's because roshan no longer has return damage, and the lifesteal from mom will be greater than roshan's damage output. Roshan is the same as a strong carry hero late game. Killing roshan 1v1 without loosing hp shows the effectiveness of void against heroes of that type. If the enemy team is killing Roshan you can chrono them so you can kill him instead of the enemy. Do this when Roshan has nearly no hp left. Even if you cast chrono late you can steal the aegis and time-walk away. This is nasty, but actually void is nasty hero to begin with.

Using Time Walk

Example

When chasing an enemy use time walk to block his path. When running away, use any possible terrain obstacle to loose the heat. The slow effect can help you deploy chrono properly. Always think forward! Try to guess the enemies movements, and don't use it if you are in disadvantage, because of hero numbers. Time walk makes you invulnerable, but you can still use items like MoM. Be a chicken! If you are ganked while having a teammate with you, then use it to get away, if the success rate of survival is below zero. That probably means, that your friends get killed, but loosing money is so bad for the lame farmer item dependent void, that we have to make sacrifices. Plus only heroes with blink abilities can be chickens, and void alone can decide the faith of the game.

Spell dodge: Dodging needs three things: no lag, good timeing and a lot off luck. Even though it's hard to do it's still more reliable than backtrack! Just remember that if you try to use time walk over the casting range void will start to walk instead of casting. Some spells may hit even if we manage to escape, iff the effect has a longer delay than the time faceless is invulnerable. On the other hand some spells can be avoided without having good timeing since they need to search for targets over time! Omnislash for example or chain frost. Some spells work on invulnerable heroes too! There are two that I know off: hook and Nether Strike.

Example:

The difference between Time walk & blink:

Although time walk is similar to blink, the differences between the two spells are very important. Blink spells have lower CD, mana cost and no slow effect. In addition if a hero blinks in to fog of war the enemy won't be able to trace him. Time-walk shows the direction in witch void travels, so fast heroes like balanar can still catch them! To avoid this there's a simple, but effective trick: If you can travel to the other side of the forest, don't do it instead TW in the forest itsealf! Since both the forest and the other side is in fog of war for the enemy, the will think that you escaped to the other side, and will continoue to pursue you there. When the coast is clear you can get out of the forest, or use a TP scroll before that. There are spots in forests and on hills, that can be only reached by time walk/blink and thoose around it cannot see this place (normally).

Proper Chronoing

Our goal is to freeze as many enemies as possible. If we can freeze a tower by freezing others, than we should do it, if it's not ours. You should know that the chrono's casting range is increasing by level, and there's a little casting time when void raises his hands. Before you use it hit 'c' to see the area of effect, and then right click to cancel it. If you use it after Time Walk, than void might not cast it, because TW-s order canceling effect (the same reason, why level 1 sucks). To avoid this hit 'c' and after that left click, and repeat this until you see the bubble. Kind of a stupid way to do it, but it is effective and you can adjust the chrono every time you recast it. To adjust chrono don't bother with the circle you see! Instead concentrate on the units highlighted in green. Because of the strange shape of the circle some highlighted units won't be affected, since they aren't in the circle. This only happened with me once, so don't worry. The more time it takes to place chrono the less effective it will be. Don't place it if the heroes are too far on the edge of the AOE. This ulti is too good to make one waste. Try to cast chrono so that your team will benefit the most. That means place it as far from than as you can. Ranged heroes can attack the hero in the middle. This is important, so never forget! Placing chrono so that your melee heroes can attack the enemy stuck on the edge is too risky. Always make sure that you catch all the heroes you wanted. If you miss one, than attack him, if your teammates can deal with those caught in chrono. With permabash you can own everyone in 1v1 so this is the best you can do, since chrono blocks the way for your teammates.

Who to attack first?

When chrono is placed, and we managed to capture more than one hero, we have to decide which one to get first. Even without chrono we can decide which enemy to attack, since we can get anywhere with time walk. With bash we can disable this hero, so which one to choose is important! So the list goes by this: I. Disablers/stunners, II. Damage dealers, III. Tanks, IV Heroes with Blink. You might also get a hint by reading the "things to avoid" section.Chrono has great synergy with: Omnislash, Macropyre, Mass Serpent Ward, Exorcism, Poison Nova, Death Ward and with Epicenter plus blink. Here's some extra inf thanks to Rémi "strikes_ is right about Radiance's immolation, it doesn't damage freezed units inside Chronosphere, regardless of the position of Radiance-equiped hero (inside or outside the sphere). The same for similar spells such as Infernal's immolation, Razor's Stormseeker, Leshrac's Nova, Pudge's Rot..."

Art of Ganking

First of all know that ganking won't give you the same amount of money, which you would gain by farming. Gank is optional.. sometimes it worth it sometimes not. Since you have TW as an escape skill you can farm lanes in a relatively safe status. Ganking-time starts when you have mom. Ganking is not the same as freezing people with chrono. First of all chrono doesn't last long enough, and secondly it costs too much mana which you will need for TW. Don't start the gank with TW! Just go there, and start hitting one of your opponents. Since in ganks you have the advantage of numbers he (or them) will try to escape. If he doesn't flees he will be owned by your teammates. If the enemy can overpower your team, than cast chrono. That is not necessary in most cases, so if you see that the enemy is trying to escape than activate berserk to catch them (no extra damage while you chase). If you still can't get to them, than cast TW to slow them, and to bash them into tiny pieces. Remember this: never start with chrono unless it's a team battle or you need it to overpower the enemy. You will loose many kills if you can't support your timewalk spell with mana! Also if the enemy is lucky enough to reach their tower you will need chrono to freeze both the tower and the hero. You can't do that if it's on CD. With lifesteal you can regain much of your hp under chrono. This is the last reason why you shouldn't rush casting it. Chrono will be great later when teams will move as one, and heroes will have insane DPS, but till than bash and time-walk is much more effective, because of the small number of heroes in one place. Don't forget: the best way to make a successful gank is called cooperation!

Chrono Pictures

Chrono explained in high detail!

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Supporting heroes

Void is very weak early game, so he will need someone to look after him in higher level games. Most healers can support faceless, but some of them are better than the others. Void needs a pusher tactic to farm without problems so spells that can push a lane or destroy a tower are welcome as well!

WARLOCK

My personal favourite. He has a strong healing spell and can summon an infenal later. Rain of chaos can help you to deploy chrono easier or to finish the remaining heroes. Since other team members will concentrate on AOE damage fatal bonds is going to be deadly. He's the best lane partner for void. Even with that sad he is also a good mid solo, so we should let him do that to get an early infernal!

OMNIKNIGHT

Another great healer. Sadly he doesn't have the mana early game to help much, but later he

will be very usefull. Not a good choice for a lane partner in my eye. With repel void won't suffer from frenzy anymore, and he cannot be disabled by most of the stuns in the game. Phisical immunity is also neat, and the heal can save your ass if used right! Remeber that purge can remove repel (while it doesn't affect avatar) so we should focus heroes with diffusal blades. Note that omni can cast repel on an infernal and if it gets purged it will survive!

SHADOW PRIEST

This guy is sick. He is a good lane partner, deny machine and healer. Even after the changes, he is a respected ally. The poison and armor buff are also nice. One last thing: his heal works on units with magic immunity (like repel). Yes it does and it's pretty good to use it that way!

Chrono heroes

Chrono heroes are the ones that need a long duration AOE disable to work properly, but in return they can deal lots & lots of damage. Since chrono can stop chanelling spells some heroes won't work properly with faceless. Enigma or Cristal Maiden for example. Although Witch Doctor's ultimate is also chaneling he can use it from the outside of chrono. Still he isn't the best choice for a chrono kill! The problem is, his ultimate will only hurt heroes wich means the creeps there are unnafected. That may sound good, but we need to clear the creeps fast, so that Lich can finish the job with his ultimate. If not Lich that Juggernaut should be the one to end the combo, since he is unnafected during omnislash (no extra slashes though)!

SAND KING

Good old sand king. In the old days chrono+epicenter was one of the best combos in dota. Today he's only the third best damage dealer. First of all he needs 2 secs to chanell. Even at best he can only rely on chrono for five secs. After chrono is over epicenter won't be finished and the enemy can bling away. Also he is a melee hero wich has the same disadvanteges as void during early game. And his stun cannot be used during chrono since it will make the targets invulnerable till your ultimate is over!

JAKIRO

He is absolutely the best! His ultimate lasts 5 secs on all levels, and he doesn't have to blink in to use it! He can cast dual breath from the outside and can deal damage with his attack. Has a nice disable for the aftermath. The problem of his ultimate was always the long

duration, and that it didn't slowed or disabled the enemy (unlike epicenter). With the treant protector this ultimate is devastating, but chrono is better for the same purpose.

WITCH DOCTOR

Normally I wouldn't suggest a hero with a channeling ultimate to be a good 'chrono hero', but Vol'Jin is an exception. As you should alredy know wards won't be frozen under chronosphere, so Death Ward works perfectly as long as the hero is not inside of chrono's AOE. This guy is probably the hardest hero off dota so I don't recommend to be used by anyone. His curse and ward needs very good timeing to be effective, not to mention that he is a weak (low hp) hero to begin with. He has a dissable that can be used to push lanes and a healing spell so he can be good support like shadow priest.

Things to Avoid

Disablers (silence, hex, stun, doom, smoke):

We won't be able to cast TW to get to safety, if we get too many of these. We will loose our awesome Chronosphere too. Get BKB if this becomes too troublesome. Doom is an exception since it disables items too along with stun and evasion except backtrack (hallelujah). To tell you the truth I never bought BKB. Backtrack works fine, and if we concentrate on hp we should survive no matter how many stuns we receive. Disable can make you useless. A damage void can be easily killed outside chrono with the help of these. Remember that hit-points and backtrack are the only things you have in all situation. Silence, hex, doom, smoke cannot disable backtrack the n.o. skill of void.

Melee damage counters (blade mails, Kentaur, Tiny, Anubarak, Roshan):

This is a real pain especially if frenzy is on. Avatar blocks return damage according to the mechanics forum. So buy BKB if they go mass blade mails. Tried it, and worked pretty well, although normally a game won't last long enough to get it. Buying Heart also helps with return damage and stuff. This is the main reason why a damage void will suck in higher level of games. Like PA he will die due to his own damage. As I sad avatar blocks it, but you won't be able to get BKB if you go for damage, and you will have to activate it during chrono. Never forget that the damage from blade mails can be greater than your own damage! The armor blocks much of your damage, but you will get back the full amount (X percent of it) in magic damage!

How to deal with?

INVISIBLE HEROES

Chrono freezes everyone, even invisible creatures. That's good, but we can't hit something we cannot see. Without true sight it is difficult to kill one of these heroes, but not impossible. Under chrono heroes cannot become invisible, not even Riki. We have to lower the opponent’s hp, so that when we cast chrono we can finish the job. Usually at half hp enemies won't use their escaping skills, so wait until the enemy becomes orange.

AOE NUKERS/STRUNERS

Most nukers are easy to take down. INT heroes with low hp are free food for void from mid game. I have pointed out everything people should now about early game, so I won't include that part. Stuns are pretty bad for void, and nukes have pretty good damage too. Of course there's always a chance to backtrack the damage, but don't put your life on it if possible. Time walk is a more reliable skill to avoid spells especially nukes. How? I never saw someone place a nuke behind his own hero, so all we have to do is: 1. get in spell range 2. time walk behind the enemy 3. have perfect timing.

MULTIPLYING HEROES

The trick is similar like when we face invi heroes. We have to use chrono before or after the enemy produce illusions/splits. With 'after' I mean use it when the spell is over. Buy a gem when you face PL, and follow the earth panda since panda will be there when his ulti is over. PL's illusions will die in chrono, because the time elapses. Cast it when you already know which one is the real. Naga has some annoying spells so the best would be is to kill her before chrono ends.

Bans

Acording to league rules teams can ban 3-3 heroes on each side, before they pick their own. It is safe to assume that, if you pick void into your team you will be relying on his late game power. To be effective late game we have to ban heroes that can prevent him from farming or heroes with powerfull disables:

BEASTMASTER

One really anying hero he is. His summons scouts the forests the place we will be 50% off the game. His piggy is a true pain in the ass, but the most problematic spell of his is Primal Roar. It drops heroes out of Chrono and stuns you even if you have avatar on! This hero is a: must ban! Still you should levae him second or last since the enemy might ban him before you.

NERUBIAN ASSASIN

A gay lane controller and early game hero killer. His disables makes children cry and he can roam freely in our neutral camps thanks to his ultimate. He is a real threat to faceless early to mid game, but later on he is barely noticeable. NA should be the last ban since many teams will ban him first.

SILENCER

There's only one reason why this hero is a 'must ban': Global Silence! With Time Walk and Chorno's level3 range you can disable anyone in 2000 range. Preventing him to do so is like preventing riki to become invisible without using true sight... It's hard unles you have a global effect of neat silence. Silencer is usually my first ban since he is the less risky of them all and most teams today won't pick or ban him.

Public game 6.56

I haven't played FV for a while, so I thought a little practice should happen. This game starts bad, but ends well. Although I won't be able to finish my butterfly, I will score two triple kills without it. In this game I use the wb+mom+treads+armlet+butter (eaglehorn only) build. Armlet is really great on FV! Everyone should try it, or at least watch the replay.

Supported replay I. Random CW on GGC

Same boring, but effective pick as always. Wl, lesh, sp, omni, fv VS zeus, potm, lina, sk, kenta. In the end after I completed my butterfly the opponent sad that lina had to leave in 5 minutes. So we decided to end the game in 5 minutes and I went beyond godlike. The End.

Supported replay II. Clan War with Void (6.48b)

This replay shows how faceless void and his team should play in high level games. Bans were: NA/BM/Silencer/Mirana (don't remember the rest ). Both teams had one carry, luna and faceless. The opponent had an early game dominance tactic while we picked a push tactic. They had more kills, but we destroyed more towers. The game draged on with Sentinel pushing and Scourge dominating. Luna became strong thanks to her farming. She farmed twice as much as I did with faceless, but still I was stronger with half of the money she had!

Picks were: vs Our pick was simple and effective. We had many push supporting spells like infernal, diabolic edict, guardian angel, shadow Wave. Thanks to theese heroes the lane was pushed forward while faceless could farm neutrals. Of course there are other major factors that led to this lineup: with repel and berserk (mom) faceless is unstopable. Repel can protect an infernal from atleast one purge charge (no damage, but repel is dissabled). Leshrac's ultimate becomes really effective when used in combination with repel or chronosphere. And last, but not least we have shadow priest to protect faceless from unwanted harm and gold lost.

Supported replay III. Clan War with Void (6.48b)

Similar to the replay above. Picks were: vs . This game was a bit harder than the previous. The enemy destroyed many off our towers in mid game, but the team managed to hold them off. Later my teamates attacked while I farmed in the forest and in the end carried us to victory. Even though we were behind with the kills we managed to win, again. This is the strength off this tactic!

unSupported replay MyM vs SK

TFL Playoffs Overall Finals : SK-Gaming (SK) vs. MeetYourMakers (MYM). This replay doesn't represent my strategy. Well the playstyle is the same, but the itembuild is different. The build consists of pure damage items and MoM. That's why I linked this replay here. MoM is viable for higher level games!! I get butter, heart to support mom, but in the replay team members support void. I'm not satisfied with the effectiveness of this build.

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