Axe is THE tank in Dota 2 – not only is he a survivable STR hero, but he has the rare ability to force enemies to attack him. He is one of the best initiators and a fun character to play because of his characteristic aggressive play style throughout the game and the flashiness of his ultimate.

Axe plays the role of a frontline tank and initiator in whatever position he is used. Even though he is a fully flexible laner, most often he is played as a solo offlaner or a solo safe laner. It is possible to run him at some offensive dual lanes or rarely - mid.

Moreover, he becomes very tanky as he initiates (because of the Call armor buff). This means that he has a larger margin of error than most other initiators. E.g. if Mag attempts a gank and messes up his RP this is a huge loss – not only does he lose the CD but he is very exposed to danger. Axe, however, has 40 armor to work with even if he misses the disable – he becomes a very hard target to bring down and an unfavorable hero to focus.

Equally importantly, Axe does fall off a bit in the late game in terms of kill potential and damage output, however, his usefulness as an initiator is always there – his disable goes through BKB, which is invaluable later on.

Last but not least, it is a great idea to pick an Axe against a team of melee heroes that tend to clump together or/and against masses of units.

Axe is a good offlaner for three main reasons:

• He is a tanky and hard to kill target - STR hero with a defensive armor buff (Berserker’s Call).
  
• He could easily fight back with the help of Counter Helix – if you manage to aggro the creep wave you could deal a high amount of damage to the enemy heroes nearby.
  
• If he gets a favorable matchup (against melee heroes), he can easily stomp the lane and find a lot of farm.
  

Axe works significantly better in the offlane against melee heroes. For example, if he is facing a melee carry and a melee support in the enemy safe lane he could dominate the lane 1v2. If he is facing a ranged carry and two ranged supports that are good at harassing, however, he could struggle getting anything out of the lane at all. Axe has trouble controlling the creep equilibrium – if he wants to use Counter Helix he needs to draw the creep aggro, which pushes out the lane. This amplifies his problems against ranged heroes.

Bear in mind that if he is struggling in the lane he has the option leave it and rotate into the jungle to get farm. This “insurance” in case the laning phase doesn’t turn out very well adds to the reliability of the hero in this position.

Offensive Lanes

Axe is a dominant laner against melee heroes and because of this reason, it is possible to use him to shut down the development of your opponent’s melee farmers and supports. Combining him with supports that have high harass or kill potential is a great way to do this.

Even if you cannot directly pressure the enemy heroes (e.g. they are using the safety of their tower) with Axe you have the option to creep skip, which would ensure you get all the farm in the lane and would force the enemy farmer to last hit under the tower. This is easier to do with a lane partner because if your opponents decide to focus you, you can fight back instead of having to run all the way back to your tower.

There are three main reasons why you would want to put Axe solo in the safe lane:

• He dominates melee heroes and most offlaners are melee. This means that you could rely on the Axe to win his lane without lots of help from your supports.

• In the safe lane, he could farm the lane and the jungle at the same time – he pushes out the wave with Helix and goes into the jungle to stack/farm the closest camps.

• He needs resources early on. Getting a fast Vanguard makes him very hard to deal with and increases his farming speed further (e.g. he could farm Ancients). Getting a fast Blink Dagger allows him to rotate and be active on the map. In most lanes, you would have to choose one of the two routes. In the safe lane, because of having access to a lot of farm in the laning stage you can get both items very fast and snowball out of the laning stage.
  

Even though it is rarer to put Axe mid, it could be done and it follows the same logic as the solo safe lane Axe. If he has a good lane matchup (against a melee hero, Broodmother for example) he will be able to dominate the lane, push out the wave and stack/farm the nearby jungle camps to get both a mobility and a tankiness item.

Good friends to have are:

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

Axe has a relatively straightforward build philosophy:

Counter Helix is your main DPS tool, it is very useful for harassing, kill attempts or farming and because of this you usually want to prioritize it.

Berserker’s Call is your main initiation tool and you want to have as many levels in it as possible especially when you get Blink.

Battle Hunger gives you a lot of utility on lvl1 and because of this you usually want one value point. Investing more points, however, will help you bully your lane opponent.

You get Culling Blade whenever it is available.

On level one you usually want to save your skill point – Counter Helix is the usual choice because it is most useful in the jungle or the lane, but in case a fight breaks out you could get a kill with an early level in Call for the disable or Hunger for the slow.

As offlane Axe, you need to buy as much regen as possible in your starting items to stay in the lane. In the early game you want Tranquils to help you regenning without constantly buying consumables and you want to get yoru Blink as fast as possible to start ganking.

If you have a good laning phase you can decide to go for Vanguard before Blink – this will make you much more survivable and will allow you to be aggressive. If you are going for Vanguard, you can skip the Tranquils because the Ring will give you the needed regen.

After Blink your options are open. In this example we recommedn Blade Mail to counter physical damage dealers and Shadow Blade to make finding pick-offs and initiating easier.

In the late game you go for BKB to counter magical damage and disables and Heart to make yourself almost unkillable.

Your starting items are a standard melee farmer build that gives you enough sustain in the lane.

In the early game, you rush your Vanguard. This speeds up your farm and allows you to be aggressive against your lane opponents. If you need more sustain faster you can opt to go for Tranquil Boots, but in a 1v1 situation this is usually not necessary and you can choose more aggressive boots - Phase.

After Vanguard you immediately rush your Dagger in order to be able to initiate ganks and fights around the map. Your goal is to complete a fast Blade Mail to make your ganks even deadlier and you upgrade your Vanguard to make yourself and your teammates even more survivable.

Since you have a good HP pool (from the Vanguard/Crimson) you decide to increase your EHP even further by getting a Shiva’s Guard. This is a great choice if the enemy team deals primarily physical DPS. In the super late game, you choose to go for Octarine Core to further increase your tankiness and impact in fights – the lower CD on your items and on Call is great for multiple Blink Calls in a single engagement.

Axe has an average attack animation and damage for a melee hero. His strength in last-hitting, however, comes from Counter Helix. Even on very low levels you can take the creep aggro and nuke down the creep wave by spinning. You even have the option to creep-skip (back-creep) if you have enough sustain.

In order to activate as many Counter Helix procs as possible, you need to aggro the whole enemy creep wave. The best way to do it is to give an attack command on an enemy hero while within 500 range of the creeps. The hero doesn’t have to be nearby – if there is no enemy in the lane you can click an attack on an enemy hero in another lane.

One thing you need to take into account is that with Counter Helix you will constantly be pushing the creep wave. This is not necessarily a bad thing – you will force the enemy hero to last hit under the tower and you will give yourself the free time that you can use to farm the jungle, to control runes, etc. If you want to preserve the equilibrium you need to last hit only with attacks.

Helix:

Your main tool for harassing is Counter Helix. All you need to do is to give an attack order on the enemy hero when it is nearby. This way you will aggro the creep wave and while your opponent is in range you will deal spin damage to him. Obviously, this is much easier to do on melee heroes because they need to get close to the creep wave in order to take last hits and you can harass with Counter Helix every time they do that. Ranged heroes are harder to reach, however, it is not impossible to harass them with Helix. For example, if a ranged opponent walks towards you to harass you with attacks you can take the creep aggro and chase after them (without attacking if they are running away in order not to fall behind because of the attack animation). While the ranged creep and possibly the melee creeps are hitting you, there is a chance you will spin and deal damage; don’t overdo this because you can easily get out of position.

Berserker’s Call is another way to ensure your enemy gets hit by Counter Helix spins (the most reliable way if you manage to Call the opponent and all of the creeps). The problem with this is that it is mana intensive. It is ok to do it from time to time, but you need to make sure you have enough mana for your spells when you actually want to attempt a kill.

Hunger:

Your other main tool for harassing is Battle Hunger (if you choose to level it up during the laning stage). It deals considerable damage, but the big problem is preventing your opponent from getting a last hit – if he/she manages to get one soon after you have used Battle Hunger this means you have done nothing but wasted your mana.

One way to prevent your opponent from getting last hits is by zoning him out of last hit range. If the creep equilibrium is close to your tower you can simply stay between him and the creep waves. If he comes close you can start fighting him – the damage from Counter Helix, your attacks, and Battle Hunger is likely to push him backward, otherwise, he risks dying. If the enemy reaches the creep wave you can use Berserker’s Call just before he is about the take a last hit – while disabled you can pressure him with damage or you can even simply deny the creep.

Another way to prevent your opponents from dispelling Battle Hunger is to time your spells in-between creep waves. If your opponent has nuked your creep wave down, there is a gap of time until the new creep wave arrives, and you can use it to cast Battle Hunger.

Your main defensive mechanism is Berserker’s Call. You could simply use it as an armor Buff to prevent the damage your opponents deal to you with attacks, or you can use it as a disable to buy yourself time to get to the safety of the tower.

Another useful trick is to cast Berserker’s Call and use a TP scroll. If the heroes attacking you don’t have a disable (or have already used it), they are unlikely to kill you during the TP duration only with attacks because of the bonus armor.

Another skill you can use defensively is Battle Hunger. Even at lvl1, it gives you a 12% MS boost and it slows down the enemy hero by 12%. Because it has a decently long cast range you can use Battle Hunger before the enemy hero is in range to initiate on you with a disable. The MS boost will help you to get out of danger.

You are a very tanky hero and you are very hard to focus down thanks to Counter Helix and Berserker’s Call, however, you shouldn’t forget that you don’t have any mobility spell or escape mechanism. If you overextend you are very likely going to pay with your life. This means you shouldn’t be over-aggressive if you don’t see dangerous heroes on the map.

There are two aspects to Axe’s kill potential – damage and control:

Damage:

Axe has a rather high kill potential during the early game, but it is very dependent on dealing damage with Counter Helix spins. This means that your kill potential is highest when there are multiple units hitting you and very low when you are fighting a single unit.

Since Counter Helix is based on chance, you cannot reliably get kills. However, if you attempt kills often when you have the opportunity to do so, you will increase your chances to get lucky – with a few fast consecutive spins you can surprise your lane opponent and get a solo kill.

To get the most damage possible you need to get a Berserker’s Call on your target and the whole creep wave (if possible even on multiple heroes – the more units the more spins). During the disable you need to right click your target for additional damage and you need to apply Battle Hunger for the additional damage and slow. It will allow you to chase - if your target is relatively fast, you shouldn’t attack in order not to fall behind. Simply chasing while the creeps are hitting you will likely result in a few spins that can secure the kill. If the target is significantly slower, however (e.g. you have Boots + Battle Hunger, while the enemy hero has no boots), you can auto attack for additional DPS.

The final portion of your damage comes at lvl 6 – Culling Blade increases your kill potential a great deal because it allows you to finish off targets you have damaged with Spins during the Call.

Control:

Unlike your damage, your disable is very reliable if you can get in range to cast it. This opens opportunities to get kills even if the enemy hero is not standing exactly next to his creep wave. You can initiate with Call and Battle Hunger and your allies can follow up to deal damage and secure the kill.

Because of this, the main problem is getting next to your target to cast Call. The best way to reliably do so is by getting Blink Dagger. Hence, the Dagger is your most important timing during the laning stage and it might be a good idea to focus on farming before you get the item.

Without Blink Dagger you need to get next to your target by walking. You should initiate from the fog of war and most likely you need to be faster than your opponent in order to catch up to him/her. This is usually the case when you have your Boots (Tranquils give a lot of MS if they are not broken) and you cast Battle Hunger on your target. Alternatively, you can follow up the initiation of an ally with a long ranged disable.

Boots: Boots are your first important timing because with higher MS you could catch up to targets and use Call. This means that after you get Boots (ideally upgraded for the bonus MS) you have the option to attempt ganks. Ideally, you would want to gank with boots when you have at least 1 level in Hunger, Helix and Call (lvl3 or 4). This way with the slow from Hunger and the disable from Call you can be sure you will be able to reach your target and disable it. Helix, of course, gives you damage.

Blink Dagger: Blink is by far your most important timing – when you get the item you can initiate very reliably. You need to use this to get pick offs and to start favorable fights. It is a great idea to buy yourself a smoke and attempt a gank right after getting your Dagger. The sooner you hit this timing, the less prepared your opponents would be.

Rotating for kills: The main factor here is what heroes you are playing against. If your opponents are slow and squishy and cannot kite you, you can rotate from early on and use your kill potential to pressure the lanes. Opponents with escape mechanism or strong control spells that can kite you, however, are much harder to gank without Blink Dagger. Because of this, you need to carefully choose which lane you are ganking – unsuccessful attempts delay your Blink Dagger, but in the same time you want to use your laning potential to help out your team win the laning stage even before you have your mobility item.

You have two goals in the safe lane – to get your Vanguard + Boots + Blink Dagger ASAP and to pressure the enemy offlaner.

The first one is simple – try to get every last hit. When you have HP sustain you can aggro all creeps on you and flash farm them with spins. This will buy you time to move into the jungle and farm the closest camp. It is even possible to stack camps to increase your farm rate or even better – ask your supports to do it for you.

Harassing depends heavily on what hero(es) is playing against you. Since most offlaners are melee heroes, you will effectively be able to harass and zone out with Helix. Don’t forget that Berserker’s Call + Helix + Battle Hunger also gives you good kill potential. Aggro the creep, wait for your supports to initiate and then follow up with call and Hunger. The spin damage should be more than enough if the creep wave is hitting you.

If your team needs you to start rotating and helping the other lanes out get your Dagger ASAP. Otherwise, start with the Vanguard – it will give you sustain early on, you will be able to pressure your opponent much more and it will increase your farming speed. This means that your Dagger would not be delayed much. Moreover, having Vanguard gives you lots of EHP and when you initiate with Dagger it is much harder for the enemy team to kill you.

The reason to put Axe solo offlane is to use his early game potential in order to slow down the development of the enemy carry and to occupy the enemy supports. This means that your play style in the lane is very dependent on who the enemy heroes against you are. In a lane against multiple melee heroes, you should have an easy time harassing and finding farm, while against powerful ranged heroes you could have difficulty reaching the creep wave. Because of this against heroes who are able to zone you out, you will need to transition to the jungle fast.

If your lane opponents have trouble zoning you out, you should try to harass with Counter Helix. Aggro the creep wave and chase after your opponents for Helix damage. By doing this you will not only harass but also take last hits, XP and will make it more difficult for your opponents to farm. Try to manage your HP - if you take too much damage you will not be able to play aggressively at all. Sustain yourself with consumables and your passive regen and don’t over-commit. If multiple heroes are man-fighting you and you don’t have Call it is better to back out. You should also back off if your opponents manage to get out of Helix range because they will start kiting you.

If you manage to get your sustain item (usually Tranquils) fast, you will be able to remain in the lane for longer. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get more farm and XP than in the jungle, in fact, you usually won’t. The reason to stay for as long as possible in the lane is to slow down the development of the enemy carry and to occupy the enemy supports. By doing this you are creating space for your teammates. If you rotate into the jungle the carry will get free farm and the supports will be free to pressure your other lanes or to get resources from their jungle.

If you are not in position to play aggressively, try to leech as much XP as possible. Fight back the enemy support trying to zone you out to stay in XP range. When you get some levels in Call and Helix you might be able to play more aggressively. If not, you can simply transition into the jungle because you are not achieving much in the lane anyway.

If you find yourself in a 1vs1 situation you have basically two choices. The first one is to play normally, the same way as in the safe lane – aggro the creep wave, harass your opponent, try to zone him out. Even take an early level in Battle Hunger if you think it will help you zone out and win the 1v1 match up. This way of playing is especially efficient versus melee heroes and you should be able to win such a 1v1 situation.

If you are in an unfavorable matchup (vs strong ranged laners), the most efficient way to deal with such a situation is to start cutting the creep wave – intercept the enemy creep wave behind the enemy T1 tower. This has two benefits: First, you will get 100% of all last hits. Second, you will force the enemy hero to last hit under the tower. This could be a big problem for your opponent because ranged heroes don’t go for Stout Shield and they tend to buy less regen – tanking the creep wave under the tower would be very costly for them.

The drawback of this tactic is that it is risky – any rotation from a support might get you cornered. You don’t have an escape mechanism, which means that you will have to fight and you are unlikely to survive (it is a very long way from the safety of your own tower). Because of this, when creep skipping make sure you have good vision in the enemy jungle. If you see an enemy hero rotating (or TP-ing), you can simply run away from danger before he/she reaches you.

Axe and Sky is a great combo because they can pressure very hard the enemy safe lane and at the same time they have great ganking synergy after the laning stage – Blink > Call > Mystic Flare > Culling Blade is pretty much a guaranteed kill even on tanky heroes.

To counter this, however, the enemy team puts Venomancer + Undying against them in the lane. This is a nightmare lane for Axe: Veno is ranged, has great magic harass and a lot of slows, which makes it very difficult for Axe to fight back with Helix. On top of that, Undying’s Decay spam will gradually make Axe squishier.

Notice how Chshrct plays the lane:

Sky and Axe start playing aggressively on lvl1 – Undying and Veno need a couple of levels to harass more effectively, so pressuring them on lvl1 is the best way for Axe and Sky to get some sort of advantage in the lane.

As Veno and Undying become stronger, Axe starts playing much more passively. He stops trying to harass them and focuses solely on getting farm. Notice how he messes up the creep equilibrium of his opponents on minute 6 to ensure a big creep wave pushes into his tower, giving him a source of safe farm. 

By the end of the laning stage, he even starts stacking and farming the jungle camps, which gives him a further boost in farm and allows him to finish the laning stage at about the same net worth as the enemy safe lane farming Veno.

Besides Blink Dagger, which is your most important timing (and hopefully it comes before the mid and late game), Axe doesn’t have timings that change his play style.

During the whole game, you are an initiator of ganks and fights. Each bonus level or luxury item simply makes you tankier and harder to deal with, which allows you to initiate more aggressively.

After a very bad laning stage, your first priority should be to somehow finish your Blink Dagger. Without it, you cannot serve your role in the game as an initiator. Try to find space to farm it and join fights afterward.

After you get it you can initiate reliably and you need to help your team regain map control. Try to find pick-offs. When you are under-farmed, however, you wouldn’t be as hard to kill and you wouldn’t be able to do as much damage. This means that you need to be careful how you initiate. Don’t jump into the whole enemy team – you are not going to survive such an initiation. Moreover, you will not be able to find solo kills – you need your allies to provide the needed damage. Don’t be over-aggressive – find fast pick-offs together with the best gankers on your team and retreat.

Counter-initiation:

Since you are the initiator, your major concern is how to start the fight. Ideally, you want to disable multiple units with your Berserker’s Call. The easiest way to do this is to counter-initiate when the enemy team is collapsing on an ally. Even though you are likely to be the tankiest hero on the team, sometimes the best decision is to be patient and to enter the fight at the right moment rather than to be at the front lines from the start.

Single target initiation:

The other alternative you have is to try to find an important pick-off at the start of the fight. If your team has good nuke damage you can simply initiate even on one target, allow your allies to follow-up and nuke the enemy hero down with the help of Culling Blade. If you are successful you will be able to fight 5v4 and even more importantly – the MS buff from Culling Blade will make it harder for your opponents to disengage.

Of course, the risk of doing this kind of fight initiation is that you open yourself to the counter-initiation of the enemy team. Even if they cannot reach your teammates, you could get nuked down with magic and pure damage. If you have good farm, however, (most importantly for this case BKB) it will be very hard for the enemy team to focus you down because of your tankiness.
Make sure not to over-extend, however.  If you drag your allies too deep into the fight the enemy team would be able to ignore you and focus them instead.

Focusing the right target is also extremely important. For example, if you jump on the enemy initiator and nuke him down your teammates wouldn’t have to be afraid of the counter-initiation. Alternatively, if you have Blade Mail and you jump on a hard-hitting enemy carry you could, in theory, nuke it down very fast and eliminate the biggest damage dealer.

Bringing targets out of position:

Remember that with Call you can make targets chase after you, especially if they are melee heroes. This is extremely efficient if you have Force Staff. This gives you the option to Call the front line hero from the enemy lineup and to make it overextend so that your teammates can focus it down while the enemy team is too far to help right away. This is still a risky move, though. You are disabling a single hero, which means that the rest of the team is free to focus you down after your initiation. Because of this, the best opportunity to make this move is when you know the positioning of your opponents and you know the rest of the enemy team wouldn’t be able to easily counter initiate (in other words you are catching heroes out of position).

Disengaging:

Your Call has quite a short CD (10 sec call, 12sec Blink Dagger). This means that after your initial initiation you can disengage (easier with Force Staff), wait for your abilities to cool down and re-initiate.

Utility:

Besides initiating as best as you can, the second thing you need to make sure is that you land correctly your first Culling Blade. If you miss, it will go into CD and your team wouldn’t be able to benefit from big AS and MS boost, which is very important for team fights.

Last, cast Battle Hunger on a target which would have trouble getting a last hit in order to gain the MS boost. When chasing after your opponents cast it on the target you want to catch

5-man pushing:

In 5-man pushes, you have two possible ways to play.

The first option is to stand at a safe distance and be ready to counter initiate – this is the best alternative if you have other good front line tanks because it will maximize your initiation potential.

The second option is to play the role of the front line tank, hitting the tower. The idea is that it is unfavorable for the enemy team to focus you because you are very hard to bring down (Call makes you extremely tanky to physical DPS). This is a good alternative if you have another good counter initiator.

Either way, Axe is not a great pusher and ideally, you should only do it when you have some kind of obvious advantage (numbers advantage, big resource lead, etc.).

Split-Pushing:

Axe can push out waves relatively fast thanks to Counter Helix. The problem is that he deals very low damage to buildings and he cannot disengage if caught. With Axe, you usually push out the creep wave and move into the jungle rather than continue split-pushing. A trick you could do to make your push faster is to use Culling Blade on an enemy creep – this will buff your own units. Doing this will activate the Culling Blade CD, so it is best to do it when you have Aghanim’s.

In the late game with Axe, you want to stay close to your teammates rather than to split-push by yourself in order to be in a position to initiate or counter-initiate fights.

Ganking with Axe is very straightforward – you initiate with Blink + Call if possible near multiple units for more Counter Helix spins. Your allies follow-up and you finish the kill with Culling Blade. You get a MS boost which helps you chase further targets or quickly disengage to avoid any counter-ganking.

Solo ganking with Axe is generally a bad idea because your damage output is quite unreliable even if you are decently farmed. This means that you are reliant on your teammates. Since you want to be as active as possible, it is a good idea to try to organize your teammates. Take the initiative and urge some of your allies to gank together with you, don’t simply wait for an obvious opportunity.

Your most important job is to make your opponents constantly fear your initiation. You can achieve this by always staying out of vision, placing wards in the enemy jungle while you rotate for ganks and smoke ganking the enemy every chance you get.

A well-executed gank by Axe:

• He uses Shadow Blade to avoid being scouted by wards and initiates on the enemy Ember, preventing him from using his escape mechanism.
  
• Doing the gank together with his DK means they have enough damage to secure the kill very fast. 
  
• Axe sees that Veno is teleporting to help his Ember and uses Shiva’s Guard just in time to cancel Veno’s Blink Dagger. This secures them another kill.
  

Your main task is to create space for your teammates that need it in order to farm. You cannot provide vision with your skills, so you rely heavily on wards to find good gank opportunities and to initiate fights favorably. Try to stay out of vision as much as possible so your enemies feel threatened.

Your main tool for farming remains Counter Helix – tank creep waves and creep camps to proc Counter Helix more often. You deal AoE damage, so stacking will increase your farming speed.

If you are taking too much damage you can use Call to gain additional armor.

If you fail to intercept the creep waves you can aggro them by using Call or by issuing an attack command on an enemy hero somewhere on the map.

The most important thing to remember while farming is to try to stay out of vision most of the time. You are the initiator on your team and when you are visible the enemy team will feel safer and farm more aggressively. Consequently, it is a good idea to farm mostly in the jungle. If you are very hard to kill you can even farm the enemy jungle to free yours for your allies. For example, if you have BKB and your enemies don’t have disables piercing spell immunity you can easily avoid dying with BKB + Call + TP.