Hero of the Week 3

Hurray for the next Hero of the Week =DDDDD.
This week's hero is Crystal Maiden (not dedicated to Fan Yi lol)

A master of ice magic, she is certainly an asset to any team. The main reason why Crystal Maiden (CM) is picked however is for her Brilliance Aura, which grants all allied units on the map +2 mp/s regeneration, which greatly helps mana dependant heroes such as Shadow Fiend, Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit, Shadow Shaman, Undying, Clockwerk Goblin and other whatnot. After Crystal Nova is added, CM gets another buff, gaining a mass AoE slow with 900 cast range, which may be kept at lvl 1 for low mana cost, as the slow does not scale significantly even after the nerf. Frostbite is a reliable disable, has interruption properties, but not a stun, and with its 800 cast range. Finally Freezing Field is a strong team-engagement spell, dealing alot of damage and forcing the enemy to turn their attention away from more important heroes on your team. In conclusion, CM is one of the best supports in DotA at the moment; with both baby-sitting and heavy ganking potential, as well as excellent support for teammates off the lane with her aura, and very good part of a trilane.

Notable players include PusHer <-- lol, almost all support players can play CM, but PusHer's CM is so famous for Sange. :P

Gameplay Notes:
1. Poking in the Lane
One of CM's really powerful aspects is her attack animation. While her frontswing is long, she does have a pretty large aquisition range and 0 attack backswing, which allows her to poke enemies in lane pretty safely. This can be done with good micro to avoid drawing creep aggro as much as possible.

2. Crystal Nova
It's just that good. The slow of Crystal Nova is the Frost Attack slow, which means the % multiplier doesn't change by level, only the duration increases with level. But at level1, you do get a Frost Attack slow at low mana cost, the same large AoE, the same large cast range, for 3.5 seconds. Now that is really really good. The AoE is so large that you can easily hit multiple heroes in team engagements, and it is long enough to allow teammates to back off from unfavourable engagements, and to engage on a far away enemy. Also, this skill grants uphill vision, so can be used to kill wards on high ground, checking roshan and revealing fog. Crystal Nova should almost always be added at level1, since its just that great. There's no real need to max this skill though.

3. Brilliance Aura
It's even better. This is the main reason why CM is even picked, so why are you not leveling this :X Max this out ASAP, but i prefer to get 1Nova2Bite3-5Aura, the reason is that before lvl 3, there is not that much mana-intensive action, and hence a skill point could be better spent on the much needed secondary disable.

4. Frostbite
It has interruption properties. Somehow people dont remember this, but if someone's TPing you can cancel it with Frostbite. However if you Frostbite and they TP inside the ice, you cant do anything about it. Pretty screwed up :S

5. Freezing Field usage
Freezing Field is another underrated ultimate, and here I will introduce 2 ways to use this under-par spell. The first and most obvious is in team clashes. Freezing Field is pretty graphics intensive, so it will make the battle more chaotic, which is usually good for your side. Further it applies a constant 10% movespeed slow in its AoE, giving your team a slight edge, in addition to the obvious damage it deals. The problem with Freezing Field's damage however is that it is somewhat inconsistent. But the threat of major damage would cause the opponent to direct some, if not all attention to you, drawing fire off more important teammates. We call this 拯救世界 (Y).

The second and slightly less obvious is that you can use this skill to farm. Yes you did not see that wrongly. You can Freezing Field a huge wave of creeps and collect the $$. Do note though, that you should be actually saving this huge wave of creeps for your team's carry, so only do this when your carry is dead or you actually need the $$. You can also stack an nc camp alot of times and clear it with 1 Freezing Field, but the effort might not be worth it.

6. Be a support.
A supporter that doesn't play like a support is ... what do you think?
Anyway, be a support. Buy wards, courier, Urn, Basilius, Meka, Force Staff, other whatnot support items that your teammates have no slots for. Also, you should sacrifice yourself to save your other teammates lives, especially gankers and your carry. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for a support to play like a support.

No one likes a CM that tries to be a carry. Well, aside from Fan Yi that is.

7. Item Choices
That's completely up to you, but I would recommend going for Urn and then Force Staff, while not forgetting wards. Observer Wards is probably the most important item to get, and after that you can slowly build up magic wand, StrTreads, Urn of Shadows and Force Staff.

So thats it for this time, Crystal Maiden is a pretty boring and "ordinary" hero to play, maybe I'll pick a more interesting hero next time :X
nightZ~