Dragon Knight Guide by Qojqva
Artist: ㅎㅎㅎ
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Author:
Qojqva & Co.
Date: 12/2018
Tags:
text
Dragon Knight
Analysis
Tactics
Builds

Welcome

Welcome to Qojqva's Book of the Dragon Knight, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!

Here you will find all the information you need to learn to play DK on a high level – from drafting and builds to the optimal playstyle in different lanes and situations. We hope you’ll enjoy this guide and find it useful!

qojqva dk stats
TL;DR:

Draft: You can afford to pick DK early in the draft despite being a core because he is a very reliable and flexible laner.

Early Game: It’s hard for you to win your lane, but it’s also hard for you to lose it. This means you can do well in harder lane matchups and still find farm. Later on in the laning stage, you can start pressuring towers with your Dragon Form.

Mid & Late Game: Walk with your teammates and participate in ganks and fights while farming whenever you can. Use your ult as often as possible to force fights and claim objectives. If you have mobility items you can act as the fight initiator, but you will need follow-up damage, so don’t gank alone. When you are ahead, siege the enemy base. Don’t rush things – DK has very good carry potential with items.

Authors

Max "qojqva" Bröcker
Endorsement & Info

Qojqva is one of the very few old-school core players who have been able to consistently stay at the top of the game and to maintain their peak mechanical skill.

He has competed on legendary teams like MYM,  mousesports, Team Liquid, Team Tinker, Escape, NiP, and Alliance.

Nikolay "CTOMAHEH1" Kalchev
Info & Editing

CTOMAHEH1 started his pro career as a support in Basically Unknown together with Mind Control. Since then he has consistently been playing on the European T2 scene, most recently on Unchained Esports. 

His highest placement on the EU ladder is top 100 - he plays all roles (mainly support), which is untypical for high-ranking players and shows his great versatility and understanding of the game.

Kyril "MrNiceGuy" Kotashev
PM, Writing & Editing

Esports and gaming enthusiast since forever and founder of Dotahaven.

Has been playing Dota since 2005 (5.84). An Ancient I player in Dota 2.

A Knight in dragon's armor.

Dragon Knight is a versatile hero that fits various strategies. He is both a good pusher and a tanky initiator with good control abilities. In addition, he scales well into the late game and becomes a strong carry once he gets enough resources. Last but not least, he can do well against most opponents in a 1v1 situation thanks to his skill set. All of this makes DK a safe and reliable hero pick.

DK is usually played as a mid lane carry for two reasons. First, the hero needs a lot of levels and he can do well in a 1v1 thanks to spamming Breathe Fire and sustaining himself with his HP regeneration.  Second, when DK is mid the safe lane can be occupied by another carry that is weaker on the lane and needs more protection by teammates.  Moreover, he can apply a lot of pressure to the tower thanks to his Dragon Form ability which allows him to bring towers quite quickly if he is left unattended. That being said, DK’s self-reliance makes him a flexible laner and he could be played in the safe lane or occasionally even in the offlane.

Dragon Knight loadout
Stats
Level 1
Level 15
Level 25
STR
19
Low
62
High
93
High
AGI
19
High
47
Medium
67
Medium
INT
15
Low
38
Very Low
55
Low
Attack
50-56
High
93-99
High
124-130
High
Armor
3.04
Medium
19.52
Very High
22.72
Very High
Resistance
26
Medium
29
Medium
32
Medium
HP
627
High
1604
High
2301
High
MP
255
Low
531
Very Low
735
Low
MS
282
Low
286
Low
289
Low
STRENGHTS

MAJOR:

Control/Initiation potential: DK has an instant stun, which allows him to lock down a target from a relatively high range (400 when in ultimate form). Since the stun lasts long and is hard to dodge, DK can initiate on a target reliably to start a favorable engagement.

Survivable, hard to fight into: DK is very tanky and hard to bring down, especially with physical damage. His high HP (he is a STR hero) and in-build high armor (Dragon’s Blood) give him lots of EHP against physical damage. This makes it hard for the enemy to deal with him when he stays in the front lines - being too tanky, he is a bad target to initiate on. Moreover, your opponents can’t move around him to reach the rest of your team or simply ignore him as he has strong control abilities.

Strong Pusher: Two factors make DK a very strong pusher – his ultimate form and survivability. The ultimate grants him an attack modifier which deals extra damage to towers. His survivability makes him quite hard to bring down and allows him to stay in front and hit towers. DK can use his pushing power to apply pressure on towers from very early on.

Versatility: Dragon Knight can fit different strategies and it makes his play style quite versatile. He can push and fight together with his team, gank (usually with the help of an item like Shadow Blade) or simply stall the game and farm up as he is a strong carry once he gets enough resources.

MINOR:

Reliable laner: Although DK is not a lane dominator, he can do quite well in most match-ups. In addition, he is very survivable thanks to his high armor and HP. He is also not too susceptible to harass compared to other melee heroes and quite hard to zone out thanks to his in-build regen and high armor.

Scales well with items and levels: DK becomes a strong carry once he gets to level 18 and acquires enough items. His ultimate form gives him a ranged attack with an AoE slow, which in combination with DK’s survivability makes him a very strong front-line hero.

WEAKNESSES

MAJOR:

Item and Level dependent: DK needs both levels and items to be effective. Without a BKB or/and damage items he will be controlled and/or won’t deal enough damage in the late stages of the game. When it comes to experience, DK needs his 3rd level Dragon Form, which makes him much stronger thanks to the AoE slow attack modifier. This item and level dependence could be problematic when playing from behind because DK isn’t a very fast farmer due to his skill set, which makes it hard for him to accumulate enough farm to compete with other carries.

Cannot dominate a 1v1 lane: Although DK is not a bad laner, his skill set doesn’t allow him to dominate and win a 1v1 match-up heavily. This can be a problem for a mid laner (the typical DK position) since heroes that need a good start in the mid but are not very strong laners can get more than enough resources against a DK and snowball out of the lane.

MINOR:

Dependent on his ultimate being off CD: Without his ultimate form DK’s options are quite limited. He can’t fight head on without it because he will be kited and his presence in a fight will be greatly reduced.  In addition, he won’t be able to initiate as effectively since his stun is melee range if he isn’t in Dragon Form. Moreover, without the ultimate (especially early in the game) he can’t apply pressure on towers, which is one of his main contributions to the game.

Slow attack animation: DK has a slow attack which can be a slight problem when it comes to last-hitting in the laning stage. However, since he relies on his Breathe Fire to farm, the slow animation is rather a minor weakness.

Replays

VP vs Mineski at ESL one Katowice 2018

MATCH ID: 3744526729
Replay

No[o]ne performs extremely solidly on DK in a very even and contested game vs Mineski. He uses the standard builds and playstyle for the hero, which makes this replay a good one to learn from without getting too distracted from the specifics of the match.

LGD vs VGJT, The Summit 5

MATCH ID 3548237028
Replay

Somnus M (aka Maybe) is one of the best DK players in China and demonstrates it with this flawless performance on the hero vs VGJT. He deals by far the most hero damage in the game (which is unusual for a DK) and has the highest XPM and tower damage.

He lanes against a Timber, which is a hard lane matchup for any melee STR hero, but thanks to his Nuke and sustain he does fine in the lane and finds a lot of farm. He goes for a Shadow Blade build in order to be gank around the map but afterwards goes straight for a BKB to increase his team fight potential – with BKB his opponents simply lack the damage to kill him at this stage of the game, which allows LGD to claim a lot of map control. The Silver Edge purchase after BKB is situational – he gets it because it is great against Timber’s passive.

Drafting

Dragon Knight Effigy 350px

DK is quite a safe pick. The hero fits various strategies and adapts easily to different tactics. He can be a ganker (with Shadow Blade) to deal with split-pushers, a frontline tank, and pusher to group up and force fights or a farming carry in more passive games. Moreover, DK is also a reliable laner. He can do well in most match-ups and rarely loses his lane heavily.


Apart from his tactical versatility and reliability as a solo mid, DK is primarily picked for his pushing and initiation potential. You usually want to build a line-up around him that can fight as a team and push down towers. DK is a perfect hero to start engagements with his stun initiation and a front-line tank/pusher for pushing strategies.

Roles

Solo Mid DK

DK is primarily played in a solo mid position for one major reason: he can do well in most 1v1 match-ups. Because of this, he can almost always secure good gold and XP gain for himself that satisfies his resource dependence.

If the enemy hero mid, however, can cripple the development of DK (for instance Timbersaw, Razor), it is important to try to dodge this matchup. Going for a dual lane in the mid or side lanes in such a case could be a better alternative.

Offlane DK

Usually you don't want to put DK in the offlane, but if you open with him early in the picks you might get countered (OD, Razor). In that case you can switch to the offlane: you are tanky and you have a spammable spell (after you get Soul Ring), which means you are hard to zone out. You still need a support with you most of the time if you want to farm enough. If you get a support with you, your lane might be pretty good and you can even pressure the enemy carry. It is very hard to zone out DK with most traditional support heroes.

Synergy

Good friends to have are:

Pushers and team-fight-oriented carries: Luna, Gyrocopter, Razor, Nature’s Prophet, Sniper, Undying

Luna
Gyro
Razor
Nature's Prophet Portrait
Sniper
Undying Portrait
Combining DK with a back-line carry that excels in 5-man Dota and pushing is a good way to build a pushing strat.

DK synergizes both with pushers and team-fight oriented carries that need a front-line tank to soak up the damage and provide control for them to bring down targets. First, DK’s ultimate and tankiness makes him a very good front-line pusher. Second, his survivability and control make it hard for enemies to reach the damage dealers behind Dragon Knight. Because of this 5-man Dota oriented carries benefit from the presence of DK as you can group up and force fights without being an easy target to burst down.

Nukers: Storm Spirit, Tinker, Skywrath Mage, Ursa, Gyro, Lifestealer

Storm spirit
Skywrath Mage Portrait
Ursa Portrait
Gyro
Lifestealer Portrait
You may want to pick some heroes with burst damage to bring down that targets that DK initiates on.

DK is quite tanky and has good control but usually lacks the damage to kill off the targets while they are disabled. Therefore, he synergizes quite well with heroes that provide good burst damage and can bring down the CCed targets quickly.

Counters

Strong Against:

Physical damage dealers: Phantom Assassin, TA, Void, Weaver, Slark, Wraith King, Sven

Phantom Assassin
Templar Assassin
Faceless Void Portrait
Weaver
Slark Portrait
Wraith King
Sven
If you face strong physical damage dealers and you need a front-line hero, DK can be a very good choice.

Thanks to his high armor and high health, the effective HP of DK is quite high against physical damage. Enemies that rely mainly on their physical DPS struggle against DK for that reason. 

Squishy mobile heroes: Queen of Pain, Puck, Nature’s Prophet, Weaver, Storm Spirit

Queen of pain
Puck Portrait
Nature's Prophet Portrait
Weaver
Storm spirit
If you need a carry to provide good lockdown for squishy but mobile heroes, DK can be a good choice.

DK’s stun is a very long-lasting disables with a short CD that can pin down a low-HP target and allow DK’s teammates to burst it quickly during the disable. Even very mobile heroes can be caught off-guard thanks to the fact that DK’s stun is hard to dodge and has 400 range in ultimate form.

Weak Against:

Dominant laners: Templar Assassin, Outworld Devourer, Ursa, Razor

Templar Assassin
Outworld Devourer
Ursa Portrait
Razor
DK does decently well in almost all 1v1 situations. Nevertheless, he could struggle versus very potent lane dominators that can out-last-hit him or zone him out.

Very strong solo lane dominators could cause a problem for a DK. He is a carry and is quite item and level dependent. If he gets very little farm in the lane he could have trouble recovering and having an impact in the game.

Tanky heroes: Medusa, Bristleback, Centaur

Medusa
Bristle Portrait
Centaur
If the enemy team has tanky cores, you should pick up potent damage dealers along with DK in your lineup.

DK is a good man-fight hero because of his tankiness. He has a lackluster damage potential, however, and this is a problem against other tanks that function like him and can stand their ground. Unless DK has superior items, his DPS output simply wouldn’t threaten such heroes a lot. 

Heroes with illusions/heroes that usually buy Manta Style: Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight

Naga siren
Phantom Lancer
Chaos Knight
It is a common misconception that DK is a good hero against illusions because of his splash attack in ultimate form. More often than not, however, he doesn’t have the AoE damage output to deal with spread out illusions in the later stages of the game.

Apart from Breathe Fire, DK doesn’t have a way to deal with illusions until level 12. Even after that, DK’s splash attack is usually not enough to clear illusions. The reason for this is that the splash attack hits units only in a 300 radius. In addition, DK deals full damage in 150 AoE, 75% damage in 225 AoE and only 50% in 300 AoE. This means that illusions that are spread out can be a big problem for with the hero. Last but not least, DK lacks behind most such heroes in terms of item progression because he isn’t a flash farmer. As a result, he usually won’t have enough attack damage to clear tanky illusions quickly. 

Heroes with high magic and pure damage: QoP, Timbersaw, Kunkka, OD, Enchantress

Queen of pain
Timbersaw
Kunkka
Outworld Devourer
Enchantress
DK could struggle against high magic/pure damage dealers and will usually need to rush BKB in order to fight such a line-up.

A soft counter to DK are heroes that deal high magic or pure damage. Although DK has a lot of armor, his magic resistance is still 25% - the same as of other heroes. Therefore, he can be quite vulnerable to magic damage until he gets BKB. Pure damage is an even bigger problem because it ignores both armor and resistance.

Skills

Dragon knight Breathe Fire
Dragon knight Dragon Tail
Dragon knight Dragon Blood
Dragon knight Form

Unleashes a breath of fire in front of Dragon Knight that burns enemies and reduces the damage their attacks deal.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.2+0.47

Cast Range: 600

Starting Radius: 150

Travel Distance: 750

End Radius: 250

Damage: 90/170/240/300

Attack Damage Reduction: 25%

Reduction Duration: 11

CD: 14/13/12/11

Mana: 100/110/120/130

Breathe Fire

Mechanics:

  • Very fast cast animation.
  • Use the damage reduction on enemy heroes to contest last hits or trade harass favorably
  • Breathe Fire can hit units up to 1000 range away and the spell’s AoE damage is shaped like a cone – the starting radius is 150, whereas the final radius is 250. In other words, if you want to hit as many units as possible, you should use the spell from a bit of a distance.
  • The travel time of the spell is very fast (1050ms), which makes it quite hard to dodge. At close range, it is practically instant, while it reaches its maximum range for a bit less than a second. Because of this, it might be better to use it from a close range on enemies that have some kind of mechanism that allows them to dodge (e.g. Puck’s Phase Shift).

Uses and tips:

Breathe Fire is your source of nuke damage and you can use it has all the usual uses - it is great for harassing, securing last hits or even kills.

Use it to secure last hits and harass at the same time: with the right position, the big AoE usually allows you to hit the creeps and the enemy hero at the same time.

Use it to trade harass favorably: The utility aspect of the spell is that it reduces the base damage of heroes for a short period. In the laning stage, this is an additional incentive to try to hit your opponents with the spell, not only the creeps. The damage reduction could help a bit in winning the last hit war or exchanging harass favorably. In late game fights the damage reduction could be a good incentive to target the spell at stat-heavy enemy carries and reduce their damage output.

Dragon Knight smites an enemy unit in melee range with his shield, stunning it while dealing minor damage. When in Elder Dragon Form, the cast range increases to 400.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0+0.5

Cast Range: 150

Damage: 25/50/75/100

Stun Duration: 2.5/2.75/3/3.25

CD: 12/11/10/9

Mana: 100

Dragon Tail

Mechanics:

  • One of the longest stun duration spells on level one 2.5 sec.
  • Very hard to dodge due to its 0 cast point (and very fast projectile when in ranged form).

Uses and tips:

Dragon Tail is the primary control spell of Dragon Knight.  It has a very long stun duration and is one of the longest non-ultimate disables in the game.

A downside of the spell is that it has a 150 (melee) range, which makes it quite hard to land. However, there is an important interaction of Dragon Tail with DK’s ultimate – whenever the hero is in Dragon Form, the cast range of Dragon Tail gets increased to 400. This allows DK to initiate on targets from a relatively high range. If you want to surprise a target it is a good practice to get within 400 range and immediately activate your ultimate and the stun. While you are at melee form, your opponent wouldn’t try to stay out of 400 range and you can use this to your advantage.

The ability has a fairly short CD and can theoretically be used a few times in a fight.

The life blood of the Dragon improves health regeneration and strengthens armor.

STATS

Health Regen Bonus: 4/8/12/16

Armor Bonus: 3/6/9/12

Dragon Blood

Mechanics:

  • It increases HP regen, which means it restores health every 0.1 seconds.
  • It heals 240/360/480/600 health in one minute.

Uses and tips:

The passive of DK is what makes him tanky and survivable during the laning stage and in fights later on. The ability has fairly straightforward mechanics- it grants health regeneration and bonus armor. It helps DK to sustain his HP in the lane and to be less susceptible to harassment, while later on, it makes him one of the hardest heroes in the game to take down with physical damage.

Dragon Knight takes the form of one of three powerful elder dragons, increasing his speed, and Dragon Tail's range, while granting him new powers.
LEVEL 1 Green Dragon - Corrosive Breath: attacks deal 20 poison damage per second for 5 seconds. Works on structures.
LEVEL 2 Red Dragon - Splash Attack: attacks damage all enemy units in a 300 radius, with Corrosive Breath added to the targets.
LEVEL 3 Blue Dragon - Frost Breath: slows movement speed by 30% and attack speed by 30 of enemy units in Splash Attack range for 3 seconds, with Corrosive Breath added to the targets.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0+0.5

Attack Range Bonus: 350

Move Speed Bonus: 30

Dragon Tail Cast Range Bonus: 250

Dragon Form Duration: 60

CD: 115

Mana: 50

Elder Dragon Form

The spell changes some of DK’s stats and the range of Dragon Tail. In his ultimate form, DK has a marginally faster attack backswing and much better base MS. Most importantly, he gains a ranged attack (500 range with 900 missile speed) and on top of that, the ult modifies his attack by an effect which depends on the level of the ultimate. 

Green Dragon:

The level 1 Dragon Form adds the effect Corrosive Breath, which is one of the main reasons why DK is a good pusher – the poison damage over time works on structures. Corrosive Breath is also a good harassing tool as each attack applies the DoT debuff which lasts for 5 seconds and deals 20 damage per second – one attack will deal 100 additional damage to your target over time.

Red Dragon:

The level 2 Dragon Form adds another effect in addition to Corrosive Breath. Splash Attack grants DK the ability to deal damage in an AoE. He deals 75% damage in 300 radius around the target he attacks. The splash ability allows DK to farm up faster. For example, you can use your ultimate to farm stacked camps, mostly Ancients. In fights, the AoE effect can help DK deal a lot more damage in clustered areas.

Blue Dragon:

The level 3 Dragon Form is by far the strongest form in fights and is the main reason DK is considered level dependent (to reach your full potential you need lvl18 as fast as possible). The Frost Breath passive adds a MS and AS slow to DK’s attack. Each hit slows enemies’ movement speed by 30% and their attack speed by 30 (not percentage). Unlike Corrosive Breath, Frost Breath affects units in the splash AoE. The level 3 ultimate allows DK to stick to his enemies and it makes it quite hard for opponents to kite him.

Strategic use:

An important thing to consider is when to use the spell. The ability has a fairly long duration (60 seconds) but has a CD of 115 seconds, which means that there is a gap of 55 seconds during which you won’t have your ultimate form. Therefore, you should choose wisely when to activate your ult. You shouldn’t use it on CD to increase your farm – you are considerably weaker in fights without it. It is smarter to try to get an objective each time you use your ultimate – gank a hero, push a tower or farm up a big Ancients stack.   In the laning stage, it can be used to apply pressure in the lane on the enemy hero and on the tower. In the later stages of the game, Dragon Form is your key fighting spell and without it, you should try to avoid fights. 

Skill Builds

Standard Build
Dragon knight Breathe Fire
1
Dragon knight Dragon Blood
2
Dragon knight Dragon Blood
3
Dragon knight Breathe Fire
4
Dragon knight Dragon Tail
5
Dragon knight Form
6
Dragon knight Breathe Fire
7
Dragon knight Breathe Fire
8
Dragon knight Dragon Blood
9
Talent Icon
10
Dragon knight Dragon Blood
11
Dragon knight Form
12
Dragon knight Dragon Tail
13
Dragon knight Dragon Tail
14
Talent Icon
15
Dragon knight Dragon Tail
16
Dragon knight Form
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: survivability and HP sustain; decent nuke damage for farming and harassing; stun before lvl6 for kill attempts;
Cons: not prioritizing one skill during the laning stage means you need a lot of levels to reach the full potential of any skill;

Dragon Knight’s skill build is fairly inflexible. You need to max your Dragon Fire for farming and harassing first. At the same time, you need a few levels in your passive for tankiness and sustain in the lane.

It’s great to put a value point in your stun before lvl 6 for the kill potential, but you max it last because it scales the worst. If you don’t think you will be able to utilize it for kills, you can delay the point for more points in your nuke in order to speed up your farm. 

You always skill up you ultimate whenever available.

Talents

+1.75s Dragon Tail

25

2x Dragon Blood

+25 Strength

20
150 Gold
+300 Health
15

+30 Damage

-20% Breathe Fire Damage Reduction
10
+2 Mana Regen

Lvl10: 20% Breathe Fire Damage Reduction is good against cores that deal a lot of physical DMG, otherwise go for the Mana Regen.

Lvl15: Most of the games you are a front-liner so 300 HP will make you even tankier.

Lvl20: If you feel that gold will help you more, especially if you think it will be a very long game, go for it. The STR, however, is the usual choice because lvl20 is generally late for a GPM talent.

Lvl25: The Dragon Blood is the usual choice if you are the frontline hero. The stun duration is not bad if you are a Blink Dagger initiator.

Armlet Build

DK is a front line tank and a carry, so his item choices revolve around increasing his survivability or/and increasing his DPS output.

One of the most common builds for DK, this item progression focuses on giving you sufficient survivability (strength, armor & spell immunity from Drums, Armlet, BKB, AC, and Satanic), DPS (Damage and Attack Speed from Armlet, BKB, Bloodthorn, AC) and even mobility to help you become a powerful initiator (Blink Dagger).

Starting Items
Stout Shield
Healing_Salve_icon
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Quelling Blade
Early Game
Bracer
Bracer
Soul_Ring_icon
Power treads Strength
Magic wand
Mid Game
Armlet_of_Mordiggian_(Active)_icon
Blink_Dagger_icon
Black King Bar
Late Game
Mjollnir_icon
Bloodthorn_icon
Satanic
Stout Shield
Healing_Salve_icon
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Quelling Blade
Bracer
Bracer
Soul_Ring_icon

Soul Ring: Soul ring is vital for DK for the laning stage. More often than not, you should rush the item in order to start spamming Breathe Fire to last hit and harass in the laning stage.

Power treads Strength

Power Threads: Treads are the usual boots of choice for DK – switching to INT will help you use Breathe Fire more often while keeping them on STR makes you very tanky.

Magic wand

Magic Wand: DK usually has Mana problems since his spells are mana-intensive relative to his mana pool. Magic Wand can help him a lot to resolve this problem.

Armlet_of_Mordiggian_(Active)_icon

Armlet of Mordiggian: Armlet is a great fighting item for Dk that gives him both damage and survivability early on. Moreover, his high HP regeneration helps counteract to a degree the HP loss form the item.

Blink_Dagger_icon

Blink Dagger: Blink is the best item to increase your initiation potential. Blink + Dragon Tail is an almost instant stun and is extremely hard to dodge – it is very reliable.

Black King Bar

Black King Bar: Being a front-line hero, BKB is quite important for DK as it allows him to stay in front of his teammates and make it very hard for the enemy team to initiate on him and bring him down. Spell Immunity (and the 100% magic resistance) makes him extremely survivable since he already has very high survivability against physical damage and his major problem is magical damage.  Moreover, since DK isn’t a mobile hero, BKB helps him to not get controlled and kited in fights. Last but not least, DK is a team-oriented hero – you usually want to gather up with your allies, force fights, and push towers. BKB is one of the most important items to have in such situations.

Mjollnir_icon

Mjollnir: The AoE lightning damage helps DK deal more AoE damage in fights and allows him to deal with illusions more effectively, also the Attack Speed Boost is very good for DK.

Bloodthorn_icon

Bloodthorn: An alternative to Daedalus – a great way to deal with evasion and escape mechanisms and increases your DPS too.

Satanic

Satanic: Satanic is a man-fighting item that gives you more survivability and sustainability in fights, provided that you have enough damage to benefit from the lifesteal effect. Therefore, it is better to first get your DPS items and then finish Satanic to reach your full late game potential.

With DK you usually want to stand your ground and fight back rather than move around and avoid man-fights. Because of this the LS will allow you to fight back for longer and will make it even harder for the enemy team to bring you down (if you get low on HP you will be able to activate the item and get back to full HP). Moreover, the raw HP works great with your in-build armor. Finally, at lvl18 you are a very hard hero to kite, which means that it is relatively easy to stick to a target, attack it and continuously life steal.

Shadow Blade Build

The Shadow Blade build is a great ganking build for DK. Your role will be to seek pick-offs around the map with Shadow Blade and then transition into pushing towers. You will often need to get Drums and Wand before getting the SB, but if your lane is going very well you could skip them. Getting Armlet instead of Drums is also a possibility if you want to increase your DPS a bit more.

Getting BKB ASAP is usually required because you would need to team fight sooner rather than later (because you are pushing). In the late game, you want to increase your carry potential which makes Daedalus + AC a great choice. If you feel you need the extra tankiness, you can upgrade SB to Silver Edge or you can buy Heaven`s Halberd before getting Daedalus.

Starting items
Stout Shield
Healing_Salve_icon
Quelling Blade
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Early game
Bracer
Soul_Ring_icon
Power treads Strength
Drums
Mid game
Shadow_Blade_icon
Black King Bar
Late game
Daedalus
Silver edge
Assault_Cuirass_icon
Stout Shield
Healing_Salve_icon
Quelling Blade
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Bracer
Soul_Ring_icon

Soul Ring: Soul ring is vital for DK for the laning stage. More often than not, you should rush the item in order to start spamming Breathe Fire to last hit and harass in the laning stage.

Power treads Strength

Power Threads: Treads are the usual boots of choice for DK – switching to INT will help you use Breathe Fire more often while keeping them on STR makes you very tanky.

Drums

Drum of endurance: Drum is one of the best early and cheap team fight items, giving almost everything that Dragon Knight needs early on ( more MS, more HP, mana regen and attack speed when active).

Shadow_Blade_icon

Shadow Blade: The item gives DK a very valuable new tactical option. With Shadow Blade, he can become a potent ganker and fight initiator. SB also grants the hero good stats in terms of attack speed and damage and it increases his farm rate. If you want to punish split-pushers and gank isolated heroes, the item is a perfect choice. It, however, gives DK little survivability in team fights and if you want to gather up and push towers as a team, survivability items like Drums and BKB are also needed. Upgrading your SB to a Silver Edge is a logical choice against heroes that are weak against break + it gives very decent stats.

Black King Bar

Black King Bar: Being a front-line hero, BKB is quite important for DK as it allows him to stay in front of his teammates and make it very hard for the enemy team to initiate on him and bring him down. Spell Immunity (and the 100% magic resistance) makes him extremely survivable since he already has very high survivability against physical damage and his major problem is magical damage.  Moreover, since DK isn’t a mobile hero, BKB helps him to not get controlled and kited in fights. Last but not least, DK is a team-oriented hero – you usually want to gather up with your allies, force fights, and push towers. BKB is one of the most important items to have in such situations.

Daedalus

Daedalus: Arguably, the best item choice you can get on DK if you want to deal more damage. Since DK often faces the problem that he is very tanky but doesn’t deal enough damage to bring down targets, Daedalus can help you increase your impact in fights a lot.

Silver edge

Silver Edge: Silver Edge is a logical choice against heroes that yo need the “Break”, also Ultimate Orb gives very good stats for DK. In that sense, you might want to upgrade it sooner rather than later even if you don’t necessarily need the break mechanic.

Assault_Cuirass_icon

Assault Cuirass: AC is a team-oriented item and is quite good against physical damage dealers since it increases the already high armor of DK even more. It synergizes with DK’s pushing potential as it reduces buildings’ armor. Moreover, the very high AS gives the hero a considerable DPS buff. 

Farming Build

This item build is ideal for a position 1 DK that needs to keep up with other hard carries in terms of farm. Initially, you get items increasing your farming rate (Maelstrom and Midas) and later on you want to transition to items that increase your carry potential.

The presented starting item build is ideal for a DK in the safe lane, however, if you are going mid you should go for the normal Bottle rush.

Starting Items
Stout Shield
Quelling Blade
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Healing_Salve_icon
Early Game
Soul_Ring_icon
Power treads Strength
Hand of Midas
Mid Game
Drums
Maelstorm
Black King Bar
Late Game
Mjollnir_icon
Daedalus
Heart
Stout Shield
Quelling Blade
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Healing_Salve_icon
Soul_Ring_icon

Soul Ring: Soul ring is vital for DK for the laning stage. More often than not, you should rush the item in order to start spamming Breathe Fire to last hit and harass in the laning stage.

Power treads Strength

Power Threads: Treads are the usual boots of choice for DK – switching to INT will help you use Breathe Fire more often while keeping them on STR makes you very tanky.

Hand of Midas

Hand of Midas: The item has synergy with DK in two ways. First, the hero isn’t a very fast farmer. Midas can help him accelerate his farm, reach his carry potential earlier and so be on par with other fast farmers. Second, DK becomes much stronger once he gets his level 3 ultimate form. Midas helps you to reach level 16 with the hero much sooner because of the increased XP gain.

Drums

Drum of endurance: Drum is one of the best early and cheap team fight items, giving almost everything that Dragon Knight needs early on ( more MS, more HP, mana regen and attack speed when active).

Maelstorm

Maelstrom: The item helps DK increase his farming speed, which allows him to be on par with other fast farmers. The fact that you deal AoE damage with attacks even when not in ultimate form is valuable, since this way you could save your ultimate for fights and farm fast enough in your melee form.

Black King Bar

Black King Bar: Being a front-line hero, BKB is quite important for DK as it allows him to stay in front of his teammates and make it very hard for the enemy team to initiate on him and bring him down. Spell Immunity (and the 100% magic resistance) makes him extremely survivable since he already has very high survivability against physical damage and his major problem is magical damage.  Moreover, since DK isn’t a mobile hero, BKB helps him to not get controlled and kited in fights. Last but not least, DK is a team-oriented hero – you usually want to gather up with your allies, force fights, and push towers. BKB is one of the most important items to have in such situations.

Mjollnir_icon

Mjollnir: The AoE lightning damage helps DK deal more AoE damage in fights and allows him to deal with illusions more effectively, also the Attack Speed Boost is very good for DK.

Daedalus

Daedalus: Arguably, the best item choice you can get on DK if you want to deal more damage. Since DK often faces the problem that he is very tanky but doesn’t deal enough damage to bring down targets, Daedalus can help you increase your impact in fights a lot.

Heart

Heart of Tarrasque: The item synergizes quite well with DK’s passive Dragon Blood. The armor of the passive combined with the raw HP bonus of Heart increases the EHP of DK by a lot, especially against physical damage.

You usually tend to buy the item whenever you have a very good start and you want to push towers and break the enemy base. Having a HoT quite early will make it very hard for enemies to bring you down. Additionally, the HP sustain will allow you to continuously pressure and slow-push the enemy towers and base.

Alternatively, you can buy HOT in the late game as a source of raw survivability after you have secured a good DPS output.   

Other Items

Mid Game
Heaven's_Halberd_icon
Sange_and_Yasha_new
Late Game
Monkey_King_Bar_icon
Moon Shard
Linken's Sphere
Nullifier
Heaven's_Halberd_icon

Heaven’s Halberd: An item that makes DK even more survivable against physical DPS. The evasion and HP bonus in combination with his high armor make him almost impossible to bring down with attacks. It gives decent damage but not enough to make you a dangerous damage dealer. Since it is directly countered by MKB, often it is worth it to invest in a more expensive survivability item like Heart or AC.

Sange_and_Yasha_new

Sange&Yasha: This is a snowballing item for DK. It grants him a good amount of damage, survivability and movement speed for a relatively cheap cost. If you intend to try to finish the game as quickly as possible and you had a good start, going for this items can be the right choice. If, however, the game drags on, S & Y isn’t a great late game item for DK (you don’t benefit from the maim too much later on since you have your own slow).

Monkey_King_Bar_icon

MKB: A DPS item usually bought if you want to deal with Evasion. If you are the hard carry in your team and the primary physical damage dealer, you should opt for the item when you face such enemies. If, on the other hand, you have other heroes that deal damage, you can choose to get more team-oriented items like AC and provide control in fights.

Moon Shard

Moon Shard: A great late game item for DK after you get at least one attack damage item. If you don’t have a slot you can just consume it.

Linken's Sphere

Linken's: You usually don’t want to build it, but it’s sometimes necessary – mainly against heroes with BKB-piercing disables like Batrider, Beastmaster, Bane, etc. Sometimes it is better to get raw tankiness and to rely on your teammates to save you with Lotus, but this is not always an option.

Nullifier

Nullifier: Increases your DPS and more importantly combines very well with Bloodthorn/Orchid so that you can “Doom” a target.

Early Game

Dragon Knight 350px

Your goal in the lane is to focus simply on last-hitting before lvl6 and to pressure the enemy hero and tower once you get your ultimate.

Farming:

Getting last hits is a top priority for DK in the laning stage. Your most reliable last hitting tools are  Breathe Fire and Quelling Blade. The reason is that you are a melee hero with a slow attack animation. This means that contesting last hits is quite hard so you have to spam your Breathe fire and rely on quelling blade to keep up your farm on the lane.

Try to use Breathe Fire to both last hit and harass the enemy hero. Keep in mind that at higher levels, the spell pushes out the wave quite fast. Therefore, it might be better to aim it in such a way so that you last-hit only 1-2 creeps and don’t damage the rest (or alternatively you can use it to deliberately push out the wave).

The damage reduction on Breathe Fire is an additional incentive to try to hit your opponent(s) with it. The debuff will make it harder for them to deny or last hit against you.

If you are having mana issues but at the same time you cannot easily take last hits only with attacks it is a good idea to try to lower the health of multiple creeps (yet keep them out of deny range) so that you are able to get the maximum number of last hits with only one Breathe Fire.

Harassing & Zoning Out:

You have two ways to harass an enemy hero. First, you can use your Breathe Fire to last hit and damage the opponent – this is your primary harassing tool in the early laning phase. Second, once you get your ultimate, you can use the Dragon Form to passively harass the enemy hero in the lane. Keep in mind that a single attack will apply the poison DoT on the target. You can attack the enemy hero once to apply the debuff and then continue last hitting in the lane. You can even use your ultimate form to try to zone out the enemy out of the lane if you face a weaker opponent that can’t fight you back. The harass coming from your auto-attacks and the poison DoT in combination with your long-lasting lockdown and burst from Breathe Fire allow you to pressure the enemy hero in the lane quite a lot. If he stays at relatively low HP and Dragon Tail stun into Breathe Fire and a few auto attacks can be enough to secure a kill.

Pushing:

DK is a good pusher once he gets to level 6. His ultimate deals extra damage to buildings, while his Breathe Fire ability helps him clear creep waves fast.  No matter if you are pushing on your own or together with your team, your positioning should be in front, damaging the tower.

You have the option to slow-siege the tower by attacking it to apply the DoT debuff and then moving away from the tower range or the enemy hero into a safer position. Don`t be afraid to hit the tower to apply the debuff even without creeps, you have very high HP regeneration and high armor. Try to attack the enemy hero when pushing in order to apply the DoT to him as well. By harassing the opponent at the same time you make it harder for him to defend his tower. Whenever the building gets low on HP, you can use your Dragon Tail stun to disable an enemy hero in order to ensure that the tower doesn’t get denied. 

Kill Potential:

Before you get your ultimate, your kill potential is quite low simply because you are a melee hero with a melee range disable (Dragon Tail). However, if your supports rotate to your lane the long-lasting stun can be a good setup for a kill. Keep in mind that before level 6 you will have to get in melee range to disable the opponent which might be hard to achieve against range heroes. In such cases, it is best if your allies can provide some ranged disable that can allow you to get close and use your spells. When you reach level 6, you can pop your ult and instantly stun the enemy from a distance, which can set up for a follow-up disable by your rotating supports.

After you get to level 6, you can get even solo kills on the enemy. There are generally two ways to achieve this.

The first one is to use your ult and Breathe Fire to whittle down the HP of the enemy hero first and then initiate on him with your Dragon Tail when he is on low HP. A few auto-attacks and Breathe Fire should be enough to finish the job.

The second one is to use Breathe Fire repeatedly to lower the Health of the enemy hero. You can then pop your ultimate and stun the opponent from a range – the Elder Dragon Form and Dragon Tail interaction allows you to surprise the enemy and lock him down from afar. Afterward, you can finish him off with Breathe Fire and auto attacks. You can even get a last hit that will give you enough experience to reach level 6 and then immediately use your ultimate to stun the hero for an even more surprising initiation.

Surviving:

Although DK doesn’t have an escape mechanism, the hero is quite survivable thanks to his naturally high HP and armor. Dragon Tail can also be used as a survivability mechanism if an opponent gets close enough to you – the stun could buy you enough time to create some distance between yourself and your opponents.

Don’t position yourself too aggressively if enemy heroes are missing. Even though you are very tanky, you are also quite slow and if you have to walk a big distance to safety your opponents might get enough time to bring you down.

There are two things you can do to avoid dying if enemy heroes are rotating to gank you after you are lvl6. First, your ultimate form gives you an advantage in terms of higher range and higher movement speed. You can use your Dragon Form whenever you feel that you might get ganked – you will be able to stay further back thanks to the higher range and be able to move faster away due to the higher MS. Second, you can use your 400 range Dragon Tail stun to disable a key target before it is able to initiate and then run away.

Timings:

In the laning stage, your most important timing is when you get to level 6. Your ultimate allows you to harass/zone out the enemy hero and pressure the tower.

#2 Mid DK

As a DK in a solo position, you should focus on getting as many last hits as possible. After lvl6 you should try to apply pressure on the enemy hero and tower by using your ultimate. Rotating to attempt kills is an option, however, you are not a mobile hero and your rotation might become obvious. You can, however, transition your rotation into a tower push even if your kill attempt fails.

Get last hits and levels
Harass/Zone the enemy, push the tower
Rotate to push other lanes
Rotations:

DK isn’t a very good ganker simply because he lacks the mobility to initiate on enemies. However, he has a good disable and a nuke early on which means that the hero has decent kill potential and your rotations could be successful. Moreover, you can transition into a push after you get a kill or even start pushing right away without aiming to gank in the first place. This option is what makes your rotations much more worthwhile.

Generally speaking, you first want to start pressuring mid tower and after this, you could start rotating.

Rotating for a push depends more on your teammates – if you have a team strong at pushing and 5-man Dota it is a good idea to gather-up and start claiming T1 towers before the laning stage is over.

Alternatively, you could simply stay in the lane and apply pressure on the enemy mid laner and tower with the help of your ultimate. If the opponent rotates, you can use the situation to take down the tower quite fast, which in turn creates pressure for the enemy mid. If his rotation fails and you take down the tower in the meantime, the situation will greatly favor your team. Even if the enemy manages to get a kill out of the rotation, pushing down the tower will at least provide a decent trade.

Video Example:

One of the best DK players in the world “SCCC” is showing how he is playing the laning stage whit DK. First, his starting items are Stout Shield, Quelling Blade, Tangoes and one pulled tango. Because of the short mana pool that Dragon Knight has at level one, SCCC starts whit his 3rd spell to keep his HP up. After this, at lvl 3 he gets 2 points in Breathe Fire because he is close to buying soul ring and he can start spamming the spell. At Lvl 4 a point in his passive will make him almost unkillable by early aggression. At level 5 he takes one point in Dragon Tail for the kill potential in the lane.

Note that at lvl 6 he immediately uses his ultimate and starts pressuring the tower. He is buying early game survivability items, which will make him very hard to kill in the lane (Magic Wand, Power Treads, Soul Ring, Bracer). After the enemy mid tower is down he starts rotating for another tier 1 towers.

Mid & Late Game

Dragon Knight Immortal 350px

DK is a strong team-fight hero that fits a lot of play styles. With him, you are strong at all stages of the game and you don’t need a lot of items to be able to fight. Your job usually is to stick together with your allies and to try to achieve objectives as a team – pushing towers, team fighting, killing Roshan, smoke ganking etc.


Depending on the items you have, your priorities as DK may differ. If you have a ganking item like Shadow Blade, your role would be to seek pick-offs and then transition into pushing. If you don’t have such items, your main priorities would be to stick to your team, push towers and force fights whenever your ultimate is up. Being a carry, you shouldn’t ignore farming. On the contrary, whenever you are not fighting or pushing, you should farm up – DK is a strong carry in the late game, provided he doesn’t fall off in terms of resources gained.

Farm up to get your core items
Stick to your team and get objectives (towers, Roshan)
Gank if your items allow it
Timings:

The first mid-game timing for DK is when you get your first fighting item – at this point, you should gather with your team, force fights and get objectives. This item is in most cases BKB. Since DK has high armor, when he becomes magic immune enemies can hardly bring him down quickly. As a result, he becomes a very unprofitable target to focus. This is a big problem for your opponents because when you gather with your teammates to push you are the hero that stands in the front lines, which means that your opponents either have to initiate on you or have to move past you to reach your allies. Both options are bad for the enemy team – initiating on you is hard because you are incredibly survivable with BKB while ignoring you and going for your allies is hard because you can control enemy heroes with your stun and later on – slow.

If you chose to go for a ganking rather than a fighting item (most likely SB), this is again your first timing but your goal changes. Instead of forcing fights, your goal is to use the ganking item to get pick-offs and push towers afterward, when your opponents cannot defend because of a numbers disadvantage.

Going for farming items (Midas, Maelstrom) before your fighting/ganking items will delay the mentioned above first timing. Until you reach it (acquire the fighting/ganking items) you should try to play more safely and maximize your farm.

Your second important timing is your 3rd level of Dragon Form. The spell provides an additional disable and makes it even harder for enemies to kite your hero or move past him to reach your allies (hence lvl18 is very important for your late game potential). Having the Blue Dragon wouldn’t change the way you play the hero but will increase your impact in fights significantly which can give you a great timing to force fights and claim objectives.

The same applies for late game items. No matter if you go for more survivability (HoT, Satanic), team-oriented items (AC) or more DPS (Daedalus), your role will still be of a front-line tank that provides control and damage in fights.

Comeback Potential:

After a very good laning phase you should get your fighting (ganking) item relatively early and you should be in position to force fights or gank and afterward take objectives. When you are in a favorable position you shouldn’t lose time and should use your pushing and fighting potential to acquire as much map control as possible.

After a bad laning stage, you can still use the fighting potential of DK to force and win engagements. Even without many items, the hero can do quite a lot in team fights. He is very tanky, provides good control and deals a good amount of damage. On the back of this, you should attempt to recover from a bad start. In theory, you are a good late gamer but DK is not a very fast farmer and you won’t be able to catch up with most carries if you play passively. For that reason even if you are very far behind after the laning stage, you should get a core item like BKB and start forcing fights.

Team Fights:

Team fights are where DK shines. He is a team-oriented hero that usually moves together with his allies to achieve objectives (push towers, team fight, get Roshan etc.).  Before engaging you should always try to have your ultimate up. Without the spell, DK is much weaker and it isn’t advisable to fight with your Dragon Form on CD.

Starting a team fight:

DK can be a good team-fight initiator thanks to his Dragon Tail stun in combination with Dragon Form. You usually want to use your ultimate just as the fight starts. Don’t use it for instance right when your team uses Smoke of Deceit or to simply increase your movement speed around the map - having your ultimate up during the whole fight is essential and if you still have it up after the fight you will be able to use it to destroy buildings.

 Your main initiation tool would be the Dragon Form + Dragon Tail combo. Activate your ult and try to stun and nuke down the disabled target with the help of your team.  Alternatively, if you don’t have initiation items like Shadow Blade or Blink Dagger, it might be better to let another teammate with better initiation start the fight.  You can, for example, follow up a Hex initiation by an ally with your stun and so not let the enemy use a defensive item/ability to survive.

Movement and positioning in a team fight:

  Generally, the position of DK is in the middle of the fight. You are usually not trying to chase a single target to bring it down because you don’t have the mobility and damage in most cases to do so. Rather, it is better to stay close to your allies and provide control to allow them to deal a good amount of damage in fights while hitting and trying to nuke down targets that are close to you. Use your stun on high priority targets – enemy squishy carries or targets that can be brought down quickly with the help of allies. For example, heroes like Gyro or Storm Spirit are quite vulnerable to your stun initiation, since they are squishy and can be brought down quickly if they don’t use their BKB in time.  Initiating on tanky heroes like Centaur or Wraith King might not be a good choice since they can survive your stun and counter initiate.

It usually is a good idea to use your Breath Fire spell on the enemy carry right when the fight starts. The 8 second damage debuff will reduce the damage output of the enemy hero during the fight. This is especially important versus stat-heavy heroes (Morph, Lancer) or heroes with high base damage (Tiny).

Since you are quite tanky, you should stay and fight – even if you get focused, bringing you down takes a lot of time for your opponents, which in turn give your allies freedom to deal damage and bring down the enemy heroes. This means that you rarely want to run away and usually want to stand your ground and fight. Nevertheless, if you have to run you can use your decent Dragon Form MS and stun to try to get away.

Pushing:

5-man pushing

DK is one of the best team fight pushers in the game. His Dragon Form gives him an attack modifier that allows him to deal extra damage to towers. In addition, his is quite tanky and hard to focus and kill. Therefore, he should stay in front and hit the tower without worrying about getting initiated and burst down quickly.

If you want to play safe, you can chip down a towers’ HP buy attacking to apply the debuff and then moving back to a safer position (slow-pushing).

Split-Pushing

DK is not a great split-pusher since he lacks mobility and he can’t escape if initiated upon. However, his Dragon Form in combination with Breathe Fire (to clear creep waves) allows him to split-push at a good speed. Therefore, if you can’t team fight for some reason (for example the enemy team managed to kill a teammate and is pushing a tower), you could opt to split-push. 

Ganking:

Ganking with DK is connected with the items you have. Shadow Blade or Blink Dagger allow you to gank much more effectively, since the hero lacks mobility and usually has trouble getting close to his enemies to disable them (even though with Dragon Form you have a ranged stun, 400 range isn’t a lot and you can rarely simply walk to a target and stun it).

More often than not, you won’t be able to kill targets on your own and will need the help of an ally to provide damage. If you want to gank effectively alone you will have to focus on squishier targets that can be brought down within the duration of your stun (or shortly thereafter). Otherwise, your target can simply teleport or use an escape mechanism to get away.

Since you don’t have a lot of chasing potential (no mobility spells) you can hardly finish the enemy off after your stun wears off (unless you are lvl18 and you have the slow).  When it comes to the execution of the gank itself, DK has quite a predictable movement and spell usage. You want to get your stun off at the start, almost always by activating your ultimate and then stunning the target immediately. Afterward, you use your auto-attacks and Breathe Fire to bring the hero down.

A great example of a gank with DK: No[o]ne TPs immediately to the top lane to gank the Brew while he still thinks the Dire team is bottom. Instead of immediately initiating on him alone, he waits for the last possible second – this allows him to interrupt the TP and gives his team enough time to join the gank. If he hadn’t done this Brew would have run away with the invisible Wind panda, but in this case, the rest of the team dusted the panda and finished it off.

Map Control and Vision:

With DK you create map control by pushing down towers together with your allies. Good ward vision on the map can allow you to initiate better on targets with your Dragon Tail, which in turn will help you start a favorable engagement or get easy pick-offs.

Farming:

We have talked about DK’s priorities and strengths in the mid and late game and how strong he is at being active - at pushing, team fighting and even ganking.  Nevertheless, DK is also a very good carry in the late game provided he gets enough farm. Therefore, farming shouldn’t be neglected. On the contrary, you should always farm, especially when your ultimate is on CD and you don’t want to force fights for that reason.

Although DK isn’t a very fast farmer, you can get resources at a good speed using your spells properly. Breathe Fire is a great tool to farm up lanes and jungle camps faster. Farming is quite straightforward – if you have mana sustain you should use Breathe Fire as often as possible to bring down groups of units (camps or lane waves), otherwise, you should rely on your attacks to bring creeps down. You have quite a lot of armor and HP sustain and should be able to keep your health up while farming the jungle.

You can use your Dragon Form at level 2 and 3 to farm up stacked camps, usually Ancients. However, you need to be careful with the usage of the spell - use it only when necessary, for instance to farm Ancients or whenever you don’t expect a team fight happening soon. If you want to team fight or push with your allies or if you expect your opponents to force fights, you shouldn’t use your ultimate to simply farm up faster. Rather, save it up for engagement. If, however, you want to get a core item as fast as possible, using your lvl2 ultimate to farm a stacked Ancients camp is a good idea.