Enchantress Guide by Miposhka
Artist: Anuxi
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Author:
Miposhka & Co.
Date: 03/2018
Tags:
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Enchantress
Builds
Tactics
Analysis

Welcome

Welcome to Miposhka's Book of the Enchantress, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!

Here you will find all the information you need to learn to play Ench 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!

Miposhka Ench Stats
TL;DR:

Draft: Get her in lineups that can afford to be active in the early and mid game – Ench is bad in passive games. Moreover, avoid picking her versus opponents that have a lot of magical burst damage and ideally pick her versus lineups that rely mostly on right-clicks to deal damage.

Early Game: Regardless if you are a pos. 3 or 4 Ench, you need to use your early game strength to gain an advantage. Harass enemies with your hero and creeps, if you are roaming – attempt ganks and pressure the most vulnerable lanes. Push with the siege wave or even simply with big creeps.

Mid and Late Game: Continue applying pressure together with your team and claim map control. The later the game goes, the more defensively you need to position yourself in fights – hit opponents from maximum range.

Authors

Yaroslav "Miposhka" Naidenov
Endorsement & Info

Miposhka is the captain and support player for Team Empire and his biggest achievement so far in his pro career is getting 7th-8th place at TI7 after eliminating EG from the tournament to the surprise of many.

He is also a god-tier support in pubs, but also a genuine and lovable person and an all-around-nice-guy.

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.

Light of foot, light of heart!

Enchantress is a powerful and flexible laner and one of the very few heroes in Dota with the ability to use neutral creeps - they could be a very powerful weapon especially when used with a little creativity. Despite having a very low health pool, Ench is surprisingly survivable – she slows down enemy attacks, has a very high movements speed and has a powerful heal. Moreover, despite not being a carry, she has the potential to deal very high single target damage from a long distance, making her a strong hero in the mid and late game as well.

Ench Loadout
Stats
Level 1
Level 15
Level 25
STR
16
Very Low
39
Very Low
56
Low
AGI
19
High
44
Medium
62
Medium
INT
17
Low
60
Very High
91
Very High
Attack
49-59
High
92-102
High
123-133
High
Armor
3.04
Very Low
7.07
Low
9.95
Low
Resistance
26
Medium
27
Medium
28
Medium
HP
488
Very Low
902
Very Low
1208
Very Low
MP
330
High
975
Very High
1440
Very High
MS
3283
Very High
327
Very High
329
Very High
STRENGTHS

MAJOR

Powerful Laner:
Because of her survivability, HP sustain, great ranged attack and also because of her ability to use neutrals, Enchantress is a very strong laner and could create a lot of problems to her lane opponents on her own. She is also flexible – she can dominate a single lane or use her creeps and high MS to rotate and gank.

Survivable:
Untouchable
and Natures Attendants make an Enchantress even without items one of the hardest heroes in the game to bring down with physical attacks. Moreover, she has amazing base MS that helps her kite her opponents easily.

MINOR

Strong Pusher:
Enchantress is one of the best early game pushers in Dota. The main reason is that she can Enchant the siege creep at min 5 and 10, or enchant tanky big creeps at any other time. At that stage, your opponents wouldn’t have sufficient levels to anti-push effectively and might not even have a chance to defend their towers. Her heal is also very potent in such situations as it provides health sustain during pushes, which is very useful during all stages of the game.

Sustained Pure Damage:
Impetus
is a very powerful DPS tool: it adds significant pure damage to every attack, making Enchantress a potent damage dealer. Ench isn’t too dependent on having lots of items and levels to deal this damage but if she has access to resources (lvl18, Pike, Scepter) she could become even scarier.

WEAKNESSES

MAJOR

Fragile:
Enchantress’ survivability is quite unique, as it is her strength and weakness at the same time. As we mentioned she is very hard to bring down with sustained physical damage. Yet, her very low STR gain, the gradual nature of her heal in addition to her passive countering only attacks makes her one of the most susceptible heroes in the game to nuke damage (mainly magical). 

MINOR

Slow Farmer:
Ench is not a good passive hero – she wants to fight. She has absolutely no wave clearing ability. If you don’t get resources from kills and assists, you will not be able to catch up by passively farming. This is a problem because Ench is not a support – she wants to be able to deal damage in fights with Impetus and to do it she needs some resources.

Creep-dependent:
The type of creep she has access to determines what kind of impact she can have - different creeps give different bonuses. From game to game your team might need a specific thing. For example, you might want control, but there might be no good control creep in the jungle in that very moment.

Replays

VP vs Secret, Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018

Match ID: 3810667407
Replay

Pasha showcases the damage dealing potential of Enchantress in the late game. He manages to deal the mind-boggling 71.5k damage in 70 minutes, almost twice the amount his team’s other cores manage to deal. A great replay to watch if you want to learn good positioning in fights with Ench.

It is also worth mentioning that he manages to out-farm Lone Druid in the lane – traditionally a very strong laner.

Liquid vs OG, Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018

Match ID: 3806929208
Replay

Mind Control plays an almost flawless game on Ench versus OG. The enemy safe lane ha a lot of trouble zoning him out because they mainly rely on right-clicks to deal damage, which allows him to get a lot of farm and push the enemy tower quite fast. Liquid manage to snowball out of this good early game (which is usually the game plan with Ench) and with the pushing power of TB manage to secure a 28-minute victory.

Notice that MC gets a fast BKB – he wants protection from Leshrac’s magic damage output.

Drafting

Enchantress does well in different kinds of drafts. Usually, however, you would want to pick her in teams who can accommodate her pushing and early game aggression. Ench is a damage dealing core, yet she is a very slow farmer, which means that she loves playing aggressively and maintaining a high momentum – her team needs to be able to keep up with her.

Moreover, since she lacks any reliable control and she is played in the positions who are usually occupied by the initiators on the team (3rd and 4th), you need to make sure your other heroes have enough control and a decent initiation.

Because of Untouchable and her low HP pool she obviously does well against lineups that rely a lot on their right-clicks and does poorly against very powerful nukes especially in the early and mid game.

Pos. 3 Offlane Enchantress

Enchantress is a very strong offlane hero for multiple reasons:

  • Because of Untouchable she is incredibly survivable against physical attacks and exchanging passive harass with her is almost impossible.
  • Because of Nature’s Attendants, she has very good HP sustain and is very survivable if her opponents don’t have very large amounts of nuke damage.
  • Her high movement speed (and the slow from Enchant and possibly Orb of Venom) makes it very easy for her to kite her opponents.
  • Later on, she can also get a point in Enchant to use a big creep and harass even more efficiently.

Consequently, unless the enemy lane has high kill potential from early on, she will be almost impossible to zone out. In the same time leaving her alone against the carry is also not an option (especially if the carry is a melee hero) and the supports need to spend most of their time in the lane.

A big benefit of running Ench offlane is that if you are not counter picked and you have some good match up(against Lycan for example), you will force the supports to babysit the carry and drag all the attention on you, which will open the map for your teammates.

Pos. 4 Support Enchantress

The goal is to get strong creeps from early on with which to apply pressure on the weakest lane of your opponents (usually the enemy safe lane, which is also close to the jungle and gives you access to creeps). The creep combined with your great long ranged attack and fast movement speed is very hard to deal with and will allow you to harass and even zone out the enemy farmer and supports.

The tankiness of the big creeps could even allow tower diving (or backstab ganks) and early aggression few other heroes can afford. If your allies have kill potential, the enemy will have a big problem even just staying in the lane.

Substitutes:

Chen

Chen is the hero that functions the most like a pos. 4 Enchantress because both heroes can control neutral creeps, meaning that they are very similar in the way they farm the jungle or pressure the lanes. In addition, both heroes provide HP sustain through their heals. Chen, however, has a more powerful burst heal that is most potent in 5-man Dota and becomes a utility hero. Enchantress, on the other hand, in the mid and late game functions more like a damage dealing semi-carry.

Synergy

Good friends to have are:

DPS boost: Troll Warlord, Drow, Ogre Magi, Beastmaster

Troll Warlord
Drow Ranger
Ogre Magi Portrait
Beastmaster
Combining Enchantress with heroes that boost her DPS (mainly through AS), will make her more potent in fights and will increase her pushing potential.

Enchantress has a very good damage output thanks to Impetus. If heroes can increase this output even more (preferably through IAS since this is the most efficient way to increase the overall DPS of Impetus), even very tanky heroes would have a big problem staying in a fight for long versus an Ench - Pure damage doesn’t get reduced by armor. It is important to note that this DPS boost is often very useful not only for fights as a synergy with Impetus but for pushing, combined with Ench’s creeps, especially when talking about auras.

Initiation and control: Void, SK, Beast Master, Slardar, Lion, Bane

Faceless Void Portrait
Sand King
Beastmaster
Slardar Portrait
Lion
Bane Portrait
Enchantress needs somebody to buy her a bit of time to freely deal damage, so combining her with potent disables is a great option.

Enchantress is the kind of hero who has very big damage potential but has no control, meaning that sticking to targets might be a problem. As all heroes of that kind, combining her with allies with potent disables is a great idea because they will create the space and give Ench the time to throw Impetus and kill off her targets. In the early game, latching is very valuable as it can allow the creeps of Ench to get in position and use their disables, setting up a kill. 

Pushers and early-mid game aggression: Lycan, Luna, Pugna, Nature’s Prophet, TA, NS, CK

Lycan
Luna
Pugna
Nature's Prophet Portrait
Templar Assassin
Night Stalker
Chaos Knight
Enchantress wants to pressure enemies in the early-mid game and need allies that like that playstyle.

Enchantress in the early game is great at being aggressive and pushing. Heroes that can help her enter the enemy territory and push or even dive towers work very well with Ench and can help your team claim a lot of map control from very early in the game.

Counters

Weak Against:

Nuke damage: QoP, Tinker, Lion, Lina, Shadow Fiend, Zeus, Skywrath Mage, Tiny, Pudge

Queen of pain
Tinker
Lion
Lina
Shadow Fiend Portrait
Zeus Portrait
Skywrath Mage Portrait
Tiny
Pudge
When playing against such heroes as Ench you need great positioning and a more defensive item build.

Enchantress has a very low STR gain and as a result one of the lowest HP pools in the game. In addition, her survivability mechanisms don’t help in any way against nuke damage. This means that if focused by such heroes, she could be a very easy target to bring down. She has more problems versus multiple nukers because a single nuker usually needs at least a few auto attacks to finish a kill and this could give her the time to survive.

The solution in the late game is acquiring HP pool items or/and a BKB.

Gap Closing: PA, TA, PL, Morph, Clockwerk, Slark, Puck

Phantom Assassin
Templar Assassin
Phantom Lancer
Morph
Clockwerk
Slark Portrait
Puck Portrait
Try to get Hurricane Pike as soon as possible versus such enemies because you need to be able to push them back when they initiate on you.

The way Impetus works are that it deals higher damage the further Ench is from the target when the projectile hits. Heroes who can quickly cut the distance and get next to her (naturally mobile heroes or blink initiators) will have much less trouble dealing with her damage. The biggest threat is heroes that can nuke her down quickly after initiating – PA and TA can do it in just a few attacks, Morph has his magic damage nuke, Clock deals damage mainly with Battery Assault, etc.

Heroes that can deal with Untouchable: Bristle, Ursa, Jugg, Naix, Windranger, Gyro

Bristle Portrait
Ursa Portrait
Juggernaut
Lifestealer Portrait
Windranger
Gyro
Ench is not that good in the lane versus heroes that can deal with her Untouchable.

Such heroes are great vs Ench especially in the laning stage, because they have a mechanic to bypass Untouchable. Bristle deals damage with Quill Spray, not attacks, Ursa has max attack speed, Jugg has spin, Gyro can attack another unit and damage her with Flak Cannon, etc.

Strong Against:

Tanks that rely on Armor and raw HP: Tide, Timber, Underlord, Spectre, Doom, DK, Visage

Tidehunter Portrait
Timbersaw
Underlord Portrait
Spectre Portrait
Doom
Dragon knight
Visage
Enchantress is a great counter to high HP and high armor tanks.

Pure damage doesn’t get reduced by armor and as a result is very efficient in killing off very fat heroes who are otherwise very hard to bring down with physical or magical damage. Enchantress has sustained pure damage (Impetus) rather than just a nuke, which means that she can right-click such heroes down even later in the game.

Heroes that move a lot in fights: Lycan, Io, Dark Seer, Void, Brood, Phoenix

Lycan
IO Wisp
Dark Seer
Faceless Void Portrait
Broodmother Portrait
Phoenix
Ench is a powerful damage dealer against mobile heroes who don’t disjoint projectiles.

Heroes that move a lot in fights but don’t disjoint projectiles are very vulnerable to Impetus because they naturally cover a lot of distance before the Impetus projectile hits them. This makes Ench a great damage dealer against them.

Spell Immunity: Naix, Omni Knight, BKB

Lifestealer Portrait
Omniknight portrait
Black King Bar
Impetus pierces spell immunity, which makes Ench a great damage dealer against immobile BKB users.

Ench is a good damage dealer against heroes who rely on spell immunity to survive simply because Impetus pierces spell immunity. She is in no way a hard counter, but the ability to focus down carries when they should feel safe during BKB is a great tool to have. In the same time her untouchable doesn’t work against such heroes, so she needs to be extra careful not to be initiated on by such heroes (e.g. a Naix bomb is usually deadly for an Ench).

Skills

Ench Untouchable
Ench Enchant
Ench Nature's Attendants
Ench Impetus

Enchantress beguiles her enemies, slowing their attacks when she is attacked.

STATS

Attack Speed Slow: 20/70/120/170

Untouchable

Untouchable is an amazing survivability spell against right-clicks and one of the main reasons Ench is a great offlaner. The AS slow on higher levels is so significant, that slower-hitting enemy heroes would sometimes not even have the chance to hit you once.

Even heroes who have nuke abilities often need a few attacks to finish the kill. This might give you the time to run away and survive or to activate your heal and fight back. In team fights, however, there might be enough spells to insta-kill you without attacks, so you need to be more careful.

It is important to note that the debuff is applied to the attacking unit when the attack starts, not when the hit lands. This means that if you see a hero is trying to attack you and you have a high lvl of Untouchable you will likely be able to create some distance before the hit lands.

Remember that you can very easily tank creeps (neutral, lane, Roshan). After a few points into the skill, you will slow their attack so much that you will take very little damage despite being squishy. You need to take the aggro so the debuff is applied.

Enchantress charms an enemy. If the enemy is a hero, they are slowed. If the enemy is a creep, she brings it under her control. If cast on a creep already under her control, she refreshes its enchant duration.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.3+0.67

Cast Range: 700

Move Speed Slow: 55%

Slow Duration: 3.75/4.5/5.25/6

Enchant Duration: 50/60/70/80

CD: 55/40/25/10

Mana: 65

Enchant

This spell allows you to take control of neutral creeps and use them for farming, ganking or pushing. Alternatively, it applies a powerful slow on an enemy hero making kiting and chasing down with Impetus much easier.

You should mind the duration of Enchant. When it ends, the creep will die. Casting Enchant again on the creep will refresh the duration – don’t forget to do this if you want to keep your creeps alive.

Enchant can take control of enemy summons and illusions (including Necro units). In the late game, an illusion of a fed carry is quite significant in a fight, especially if it has auras or Radiance burn, so using the skill to take the illusions is often going to be more useful than the slow. The same applies to high-level Necro units, especially if the slow is low lvl. If you have maxed the skill, however, you might want to slow down a core without an escape mechanism to kite it or focus it down with Impetuses.

Enchant can dispel, which allows you to remove some buffs/spells/items. For example, in the late game when you have a lot of DPS and someone uses a Ghost Scepter you can easily remove it with Enchant.

A cloud of wisps heals Enchantress and any friendly units nearby. Lasts 11 seconds.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.3+0.93

Search Radius: 275

Number of Wisps: 4/6/8/10

Heal per Second per Wisp: 10

Duration: 11

CD: 35

Mana: 170/160/150/140

Nature's Attendants

Nature’s Attendants is a very powerful but quite a gradual and slow heal. It heals for over 1k HP on max lvl, but it does so over 11 seconds. This means that you can out-heal auto attacks, but you will have trouble out-healing nuke damage.

Each wisp can heal only one unit at a time. So, if you are healing yourself and an ally at the same time the heal will be divided between the two of you. This means that it is very important not to stand next to creeps as you will end up healing them instead of heroes. If you want to heal yourself, you need to be isolated from damaged ally units. The same applies if you want to heal an ally - you need to get him/her a bit to the side, so the heal gets concentrated on the intended target.

Because of this, the spell is actually not very useful in mass fights (of course that’s not the case if you have both Nature’s Attendants talents). You can use it, however, to recover your team’s HP after a fight, a gank or when you are pushing (the most common use in the late game).

In small engagements, when fewer units are in one place, you can use the spell as a very powerful survivability tool. If you get ganked, for example, it will be very hard for enemy heroes to overcome the heal coupled with your passive - you can buy yourself time or even turn the fight. Going next to an ally that is getting ganked and using the heal is also a great move in the early game. Since the hero will be the only unit on low HP around, all of the heal will be concentrated on him/her and you could end up saving his/her life.

Places an enchantment on each attack while activated, causing it to deal additional damage based on how far away the target is. The farther the target, the greater the damage dealt.

STATS

Cast Range: 550

Distance as Damage: 16/20/24%

CD: 0

Mana: 40/55/70

AGHANIM'S SCEPTER

Increases attack range, and cast range of Impetus.

Impetus

Impetus is your source of DPS and the spell that gives you decent semi-carry potential. It is an attack modifier and, as all such spells, you can set it to auto-cast or use it manually. Using it manually will not attract creep aggro when you are hitting a hero near a creep wave because Impetus counts as a targeted spell – i.e. you can orb-walk with it.

The damage bonus is calculated based on the distance between you and the target when the Impetus hits, rather than when you throw it. This means that if you are harassing, it is a good thing to use it and run backward, to increase the final distance and the damage. When you throw your last Impetus during fights (you cannot catch up to a target and throw another one because it is running away faster), you should do the same thing and bet on the extra damage securing the kill. You can do the same thing (but much more effectively) by pushing your target away with Pike. Keep in mind that Impetus’ damage is capped at 1750 distance.

You are a single target damage dealer, so you usually want to use Impetus to quickly kill a high priority enemy. Nonetheless, it is quite important to use as many Impetuses as possible when fighting, don’t try to chase after one target. This is because you don’t want to get out of position (you will die if focused with spells), and you don’t want to lose time - you need to deal as much damage as possible. Of course, attack heroes who are at full attack range, rather than heroes which are much closer to you. (If there are heroes close to you most of the time it is a good idea to reposition yourself backward.)

Slowing a target and throwing Impetuses while you are running towards it or away from it (kiting) is a very good idea. Repositioning yourself after each Impetus throw might allow you to stick to a target or to keep your distance from dangerous heroes.

Last but not least – Impetus pierces spell immunity. This means that you could easily focus down even carries with BKB if you wish to do so.

Skill Builds

The skill builds of Enchantress are relatively versatile. Usually, you want a value point in all skills earlier rather than later, but how you max them depends on the game you are playing and on your priorities. Usually, if you are laning you want to prioritize Untouchable to make yourself more survivable and stronger in trading passive harass, but in lanes where enemies can deal with Untouchable, you might want to prioritize Attendants. If you are roaming you need Enchant first, but you still have a choice – whether to get more levels into it for the lower CD and stronger slow or to invest more points in the other skills to make yourself more survivable.

Untouchable Skill Build
Mixed Skill Build
Ench Nature's Attendants
1
Ench Untouchable
2
Ench Untouchable
3
Ench Nature's Attendants
4
Ench Untouchable
5
Ench Impetus
6
Ench Untouchable
7
Ench Nature's Attendants
8
Ench Enchant
9
Talent Icon
10
Ench Nature's Attendants
11
Ench Impetus
12
Ench Enchant
13
Ench Enchant
14
Talent Icon
15
Ench Enchant
16
Ench Impetus
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: high survivability, optimal for trading harass;
Cons: big Enchant CD and short slow duration; lower HP sustain early on;

In this skill build, you prioritize Untouchable. This is extremely useful if you intend to trade harass with enemy heroes or to tank/kite creeps with your hero from early on. It is very good against lanes that cannot deal with the spell early on (safe lanes who rely on right-click harass). You max Nature’s Attendants second. You can get a point in Enchant on lvl4 to make use of a neutral creep in the lane or for farming and pushing the tower (with siege creep on min 5) but you have to remember that with only one point in Enchant you will not be able to keep your unit alive since the CD of the spell is higher than the duration. Because of this it is also possible to skip Enchant altogether in favor of more levels in your two survivability skills.

This build is used mainly for offlane Ench, but it can also be used on a roaming Enchantress who expects to trade harass in the lanes rather than simply gank and farm. In this case, you need to get Enchant on lvl1 instead or Attendants.

Ench Nature's Attendants
1
Ench Untouchable
2
Ench Nature's Attendants
3
Ench Enchant
4
Ench Untouchable
5
Ench Impetus
6
Ench Untouchable
7
Ench Untouchable
8
Ench Nature's Attendants
9
Talent Icon
10
Ench Nature's Attendants
11
Ench Impetus
12
Ench Enchant
13
Ench Enchant
14
Talent Icon
15
Ench Enchant
16
Ench Impetus
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: balanced build with good survivability and sustain;
Cons: big Enchant CD and short slow duration; low levels of Untouchable in the first few minutes for trading harass;

This skill build can be used in the offlane. You prioritize maxing Untouchable in order to increase your survivability in harass exchanges, but you also invest two early levels into Nature’s Attendants to increase your overall survivability and give yourself sustain in the early laning stage. It’s a great build to get if your lane opponents don’t rely as much on right clicks to harass you (or if they can counter Untouchable) – Attendants will give you more value in the first few minutes in such situations.

Getting a point in Enchant is, again, optional. If you feel you can make use of the neutral – get it. Skipping it in favor of more levels in your other skills, however, is also a viable option.

Talents

+25 Nature's Attendants Heal

25

+8% Impetus Damage

Enchant Affects Ancients

20

+100 Untouchable Slow

+8 Nature's Attendants Wisps

15

+50 Damage

+25 MS

10

+15% Magic Resistance

Lvl10: If there are heroes that can deal a lot of magical damage (Zeus, Sky) you should take the Magic Resist. If that is not the case you take the MS talent to make kiting easier.

Lvl15: You usually want the damage because it helps you become an even more powerful single target damage dealer. The additional Wisps are useful only when you have big trouble surviving in fights and you want to combine the talent with tanky items.

Lvl20: If you are playing against a lineup with a lot of magical damage, the Untouchable slow wouldn’t be very useful and the enemy team will have trouble clearing the Ancient creeps. If the enemy team has powerful right-click damage dealers, then they will be able to kill the creeps easily and the Untouchable talent will be much more useful for keeping you alive.

Lvl25: Combined with the additional Wisps talent and some tankiness items the Attendants heal can be extremely strong. However, if you have not taken the Attendants talent and your main role in fights is to kill a key target, then the obvious choice is the Impetus damage.

Item Builds

The logic behind the item progression of Ench is that you need to accommodate and increase your DPS output and at the same time increase your survivability. Since Ench deals damage based on range, Pike and Agh’s are her two obvious core items. All other choices are relatively situational.

Standard Build

This is the most standard Ench offlane build emphasizing on stats early on (to increase your survivability) and increasing your attack range and as a result – Impetus damage. In the late game your options are more open, but in this example you get Moon Shard (IAS is the stat that increases your DPS the most after range as it allows you to throw more Impetus projectiles) followed by Hex, which is extremely valuable in the late game when enemy BKBs have a shorter duration.

Whether you should get BKB depends on the situation – if the enemy team has a lot of initiation, nuke damage and control, you will most likely have to get it in the mid game (e.g. after Pike). If they don’t – you can leave it for the late game or even skip it altogether.

Starting Items
Orb of Venom
Tangoes
Iron branch
Iron branch
Mango
Early Game
Bracer
Phase boots
Magic wand
Drums
Mid Game
Hurricane Pike
Aghanim's_Scepter_icon
Late Game
Moon Shard
Scythe of Vyse
Orb of Venom

Orb of Venom: your main strength in the lane is trading right-click harass, and Orb of Venom will make you even more powerful in that aspect.

Tangoes


Iron branch
Iron branch
Mango
Bracer

Bracer: casual Bracers are never a bad choice because of Ench’s low HP pool. If you are facing nuke damage dealers, getting one or two fast bracers could save your life multiple times.

Phase boots

Phase Boots: great for chasing down targets. The AS bonus increases your DPS in the mid-late game because of Impetus.

Magic wand

Magic Wand: grants a lot of instant Mana and HP that make Ench a bit more survivable in fights, which might somewhat solve the nuke damage problem.

Drums

Drums of Endurance: the main reason why Drums are good on Ench is the large amount of stats the item gives relative to the time you can farm it in. Opting for Drums will make you more survivable as fast as possible while giving you useful MS for chasing or disengaging (with Ench positioning is vital).

Hurricane Pike

Hurricane Pike: Dragon Lance gives you cost efficient stats and most importantly – attack range. Unlike on all other heroes, the bonus attack range on Enchantress translates directly into bonus damage because of the way Impetus works and increases the value of this item tremendously. Upgrading to Hurricane Pike (for the active ability of the item) is extremely valuable and can be used not only as a defensive mobility skill but as an offensive ability used to maximize your Impetus damage and finish off targets.

Aghanim's_Scepter_icon

Aghanim’s Scepter: The Aghanim upgrade on Impetus is one of the best in the game as it increases the attack range of Ench. This helps not only with positioning and staying at a safe distance, but also directly increases the damage potential of the ult. Finally, the stats gain is very useful for Ench - the HP increase will make her more survivable and the man increase will allow more Impetus spam.

Moon Shard

Moon Shard: Ench doesn’t use well bonus damage, but she uses extremely well AS. Consequently, Moonshard (the item that gives the highest AS increase in the game) will give you the biggest DPS boost in the late game out of all items.

Scythe of Vyse

Scythe of Vyse: in the late game in order to continue casting Impetus usually you need some sort of lockdown. Since the hero doesn’t have an in-built disable, the Hex of the Sheep Stick is the best alternative. Since Ench is an INT hero, the stats of Scythe are quite beneficial.

Other Items

Early & Mid Game
Blight Stone
urnn
Medallion
Power treads
Hood
Glimmer Cape
Euls
Late Game
Solar Crest Icon
Heaven's_Halberd_icon
Linken's Sphere
Monkey_King_Bar_icon
Blight Stone

Blight Stone: If you are dual-laning, Blight Stone allows you to harass more with your teammate. If you are roaming – it helps you kill neutrals faster because it increases the damage of your unites as well.

urnn

Urn of Shadows: a cheap stat item, most effective on a roaming Ench because she will be involved in more kills.

Medallion

Medallion: You and your creeps deal mainly physical damage (especially in the early game), which emans Medallion will increase your damage output. It’s great for famring the jungel faster, but also for harassing and kill attempts. Great item on a roaming Enchantress.

Power treads

Power Treads: if you need more stats to increase your survivability, Treads are a decent substitute of Phase Boots. The bonus damage is also good for last-hitting in the lane. The drawback is no AS bonus and less MS for chasing enemies down.

Hood

Hood of Defense/Pipe: One of the best tools for killing Ench is with spells, and Hood and Pipe could keep you alive during the initial onslaught of nukes.

Glimmer Cape

Glimmer Cape: Not only is it a good support item to save your cores but it also helps mitigate one of Enchantress’s weaknesses. She is bad against nuke damage – casting Glimmer on yourself could allow you to survive magical nukes and heal up with Attendants, which makes Ench an even harder hero to kill.

Euls

Eul’s Scepter of Divinity: the MS boost is incredibly useful for kiting and repositioning in fights. In addition, you get a disable which can save your life. Moreover, you can dispel negatives effect (usually silence). The only drawback is that the item gives no HP whatsoever, which means that you are investing a considerable amount of money and not solving your HP problem in any way. In that sense, it is not a bad idea to leave it for after your core items.

Solar Crest Icon

Solar Crest: the evasion percentage can save your life versus heroes like TA or PA. It’s very situational because right-clicks are rarely your problem. Only get it if you already bought Medallion for the early game.

Heaven's_Halberd_icon

Heaven’s Halberd: the raw HP boost is quite useful for Ench, while the Disarm could save the lives of allies and give you time to heal them up.

Linken's Sphere

Linken’s Sphere: A great survivability item versus powerful single target nukes that gives decent stats.

Monkey_King_Bar_icon

Monkey King Bar: if you don’t have Bloothorn, but you still have to deal with evasion, MKB is the item to get.

Early Game

Ench 350px

Enchantress is very powerful in the early game – she is fast, survivable, with a great ranged attack and she can even use neutral creeps to amplify her strength in the lane.


She is definitely a hero that could snowball, so getting a good start is quite important for her. She is a slow farmer, which means she usually wants to start fighting form early on in order to claim map control and keep getting ahead in the game.


Farming:

Farming in the lane shouldn’t be a huge problem because you have a very decent attack animation. Moreover, winning harass exchanges means that your opponents will have trouble pushing you back. If you need to you can even use your creep to help yourself last-hit.

Farming the jungle is quite straightforward – Enchant the strongest creep and kill the others with its help. If you have a high level of Untouchable, you can easily tank the neutrals (they will deal very little damage to you) if you want to preserve the HP of your creep in order to pressure a lane and use it to push.

Take care of your jungle: when you Enchant a big creep, it is a very good idea to kill off the smaller creeps. This will free up the camp and another big creep will spawn later, while if you don’t kill off the creeps you effectively block one of your own camps and deny yourself a new big creep that could eventually have been useful for farming, ganking or pushing.

Harassing:

Harassing in the lane:

With Untouchable, a good heal, great MS and a ranged attack with a decent attack animation, Enchantress is arguably one of the best heroes in the game at trading harass. Especially if you have Orb of Venom, constantly attacking your opponents is a great idea. You should be more careful while you have lower levels of Untouchable, but the more levels you get the more powerful you will become at this.

Passive harassing is not something that only an offlane Enchantress could do – walking into a lane as a roamer (ideally with a creep) and staying there a couple of minutes to pressure the enemies is a great idea.

Using Creeps:

Another reason Enchantress is great at harassing and a powerful laner is that she can use creeps to help her in the lane. How you harass depends on what kind of creep you have:

The best example is the Harpy Stormcrafter who has a great active ability to harass with. Chain Lightning has a very low CD, high range, decent damage (140) and a very low mana cost of (given the Harpy’s large mana pool). This means it is an incredibly powerful ability to simply spam in the lane.

The big Wildwing is also useful for harassing. You can hide the creep close to the lane and use the Tornado, trying to control it and keep it on top of your opponents for as long as possible in order to deal maximum damage. Since your opponents will likely try to dodge the Tornado, you might end up zoning them out of last hit or even XP range for the duration.

The last creep that is worth mentioning for harassing is the Satyr Mindstealer, who has a useful Mana Burn ability. It is far less spammable than the Harpy’s Lightning, however, the 100 mana per cast burned is quite significant, especially on heroes with low mana pools.

Harassing with the other large creeps is usually simpler – just hit the enemy with them and try not to feed them to the tower. Letting a large creep loose on an under-farmed support could create a lot of problems him/her.

Kill Potential:

Before lvl6 your kill potential comes from your creeps. You have a high MS and a good attack. When you combine this with a big creep and Orb of Venom, you can relatively easily walk down a support without boots and even get solo kills.

Of course, the creeps are much more useful when you have allies in the lane – if an ally has a good control spell, the two of you plus one big creep can deal surprisingly high DPS. The big creeps usually do a bit above 50 damage, giving them the damage output of a third right-clicking hero. Moreover, some of the creeps have damage abilities that can be used to bring down a target. This means that even if you don’t have the traditional good ganking creeps (with control spells) if your allies could provide the control literally any creep is a good ganking creep.

Your real kill potential comes after lvl6. Walking a slow hero down with Impetus is definitely possible. You can even tower-dive very easily if you have creeps to tank the tower shots. Again, allies with control will increase your kill potential tremendously.

Pushing:

Pushing with the catapult wave:

On the 5th minute (and every catapult wave afterward) you can use Enchant on the enemy Catapult to use it to push the enemy tower. Pressuring the tower with the Catapults is very powerful (they deal a lot of damage to towers), and even more importantly you can keep them alive for very long by tanking the tower and healing yourself with Nature’s Attendants.

Pushing with creeps:

You can use big creep(s) to clear the waves faster and even to tank the tower damage. You can sustain your creep with your Heal. You can even use a not-so-tanky creep to pull the enemy creep wave backwards (or into the jungle) to allow your creep wave to freely hit the tower.

Roaming Support Ench

Your main job as a support is to use your early game strength to pressure your lane opponents. Usually, you want to start pressuring the enemy safe lane because it is the most vulnerable AND being close to the jungle gives you access to creeps.

Use a big creep in addition to your great attacks and movement speed to harass supports or the enemy farmer. If you have allies with good kill potential – attempt kills. You want to spend earlier levels pressuring a single lane. Later on you can attempt ganks in the lanes where your allies have good kill potential.

If it becomes difficult to pressure the lane (e.g. enemies rotate more heroes) – rotate to another lane. You can also spend some time farming the jungle to catch up in levels and farm and resume pressuring right after. Don’t play passively for long, however. You need to use your early game strength to win the lanes for your team. Passively farming in the jungle is probably the biggest mistake you can make as a support Enchantress.

Pressure the enemy lane – harass and attempt kills;
Push with your creeps and Enchant catapults;
Farm the jungle;
Counter-Ganking:

You are a hero with very decent counter ganking potential, however, at the same time, this potential is quite hard to realize. The problem is that when you teleport you don’t take your creeps with you. Because of this, you are quite weak in TP supporting, meaning that if you want to counter gank you need to be very close to the area before the actual gank happens.

If you are in the right place at the right time, however, you can severely punish enemy overextensions with the control and damage your creeps provide. So, it might be a good practice to try to anticipate incoming ganks. If enemy supports are missing, it might be a good idea to head to the mid lane and farm the neutral camps close to it, so that you are at a short distance from your solo mid if a gank does happen.

Video Example:

n0tail plays a pos. 4 Ench against Team Liquid at TI8.

He starts the game in his safe lane to help out his MK against the offensive dual lane of Ursa and Nyx (not an easy matchup because Ursa is one of the few heroes who can nuke Ench down with physical damage, thanks to this Ursa manages to slowly overtake the bot lane).

He starts the early game by harassing his lane opponents as much as possible - he knows he has more sustain than them thanks to his heal, and both of them are melee heroes, which allows him to get in free hits.

On lvl2 he gets the nearby large creep (Tomato) and immediately starts pressuring with it. The Hellbear's large HP pool and the fact that the Radiant wave is pushed into the tower allows n0tail to dive and kill the enemy Ursa behind his T1 for first blood.

Once he sees that the lane becomes too dangerous for him after dying from Ursa's burst and Nyx's stun, he decides to rotate mid with his teammates. They get a couple of kills and more importantly - manage to push the Dire T1 mid.

This is not the cleanest laning stage - it could be argued n0tail should have approached the bottom lane more carefully after the first few levels or entirely focused on other lanes. Nonetheless, he succeeded at pressuring the enemy team a lot by ganking and pushing.

Offlane Ench

Occupy the enemy supports by constantly harassing and applying pressure with creeps
This will allow you to easily take farm and levels

Your main strength in the offlane is that you are a very hard hero to harass and zone out. With Untouchable you will most likely get the better end of a hit exchange against most supports. Nature’s Attendants give you additional sustain and could be used in case the enemy hero tries to commit to kill you. All of this helps you stay in XP and last-hit range most of the time. If supports are trying to zone you out you should fight back and stand your ground as much as possible (you can even activate Nature’s Attendants to heal yourself and man-fight.) If things get dangerous you can always run away because you are a very fast hero.

Try to keep yourself close to max HP – your HP pool is very low and you are vulnerable to nukes. If you are low on HP and your opponents gank you, you might not have a chance to activate your Attendants and heal up.

If supports are having trouble zoning you out, you can use your good range and attack animation to take last hits and harass the enemy carry.

After lvl6 you can even attempt kills with Impetus. Squishy supports could easily die from a few throws and most of the time because of your very high MS and your slow you will be able to keep up with your target. Harassing the enemy carry with Impetus is also a good option in case he/she doesn’t have good HP sustain. Don’t forget that Impetus is very mana intensive – make sure you have enough mana at least to activate your Attendants in case you get ganked.

Video Example:

Notice how at min 1:25 Enchantress takes a Satyr neutral creep and contests the dire pull. By doing this he makes the dire lane push as we see at 2:15, giving her easier access to farm.

She manages to take a kill early on with the help of Naga siren: Naga synergizes very well with Ench in the lane, providing her with lockdown and increasing her right-click damage with Rip Tide.

Ench is not afraid to contest enemy pulls as we see again at 3:15. She relies on her spells, MS and Magic Stick to keep her alive and she almost manages to kill a support in a 1v3 situation.

Getting an early Rain Drop is great for Ench because she is most vulnerable to magic damage nukes.

Mid & Late Game

Enchantress Immortal 350px

After the laning stage Enchantress usually wants to immediately start applying pressure to the enemy lanes, to force fights and ideally push towers. She is a slow farmer and she doesn’t like passive games. Moreover, she is a powerful laner and usually, she will get out of the laning stage with enough levels and items to afford this playstyle.


In the late game, she transitions into a semi-carry ranged damage dealer. This means you need to position your hero more carefully in fights and deal damage from a long range.


Stick to your team, push towers and force fights;
If you have powerful initiators gank with them – follow-up their initiation with your Impetus damage;
Farm, but don’t play passively;
Comeback Potential:

Because of your very slow farming speed your comeback potential isn’t very high. Even if you are behind you want to participate in fights. Make use of the fact that Impetus and creeps don’t really require items to be effective – try to push with your team and the creeps and position yourself more defensively. Stay at max distance and deal damage with Impetus. With a couple of successful pushes and/or smoke ganks you can claim some map control and come back into the game. If your fight attempts are unsuccessful, however, you will have to rely on your teammates to keep you in the game and carry you. If you manage to reach the late game you can deal very decent damage even without items so position yourself defensively in fights and try to contribute.

Pushing:

5-man Pushing:

In the early-mid game, your creeps will work great because enemies will have difficulty clearing them (you can extend this timing by going for the Enchant Ancients talent). Simply send them at the tower and make sure you are in position to win the fight if your opponents try to defend. Later on, however, your opponents will start killing your creeps much faster. This means unless you have another frontline pusher you will have to win fights first and push later.

P.S. You can always Enchant catapults to increase your pushing speed – bear in mind that they are very hard to clear with anti-push spells.

Split-Pushing:

Split-pushing with Enchantress is rarely a good idea. You are quite susceptible to ganks because you are on low HP and have no escape mechanism. In addition, unless you have two or three creeps, you clear out creep waves pretty slowly.

The best thing you can do is to push-out a lane with your creeps without risking your own life. Stick close to your team with your actual hero.

Vision and Map Control:

Especially in the later stages of the game, don’t hesitate to use your creeps to scout. Even if you lose them to enemy heroes, it is not a big deal. Usually, the information you get (the positioning of your enemies) is much more valuable. Keep in mind that you don’t need to get the largest neutral creeps to scout. You can even Enchant an enemy lane creep and scout an important area such as the Roshan pit or the enemy jungle.

The most common thing to do is check Roshan or the enemy Ancients.
You can also put creeps in strategic locations – a creep positioned on a ramp your enemies are likely to move through can help your allies (and yourself) avoid an unexpected gank or fight.

Ganking:

You are a very weak initiator, especially in the late game when most heroes either have an escape mechanism or backup. This means that for ganks you need at least one more hero with you. What you are good at, however, is following up with Impetuses damage. If an enemy is disabled, you need to right click him as much as possible. You can finish the kill with the Hurricane Pike active ability and the 4 max damage Impetus shots.

Team Fights:

When it comes to team fights, it is all about positioning. If you overextend you will easily die to nuke damage. In addition, if you get disabled you will not be able to deal sustained damage with your ult. This means that most of the time you need to stay at the edge of the fight, throwing as many Impetuses as possible. Don’t stay in one place, rather try to reposition yourself in-between hits, sticking to your opponents and yet keeping your distance.

Most of the time with Enchantress it is quite easy to understand which heroes are dangerous for you (e.g. a Blink Ursa, who can ignore Untouchable and nuke you down in seconds or heroes with a lot of nuke damage). After you see that the dangerous heroes are controlled, you can afford to play more aggressively because with Natures Attendants and Untouchable you will be very hard to bring down.

If you want to focus one target, use your Enchant on it to buy yourself time to throw Impetuses. Usually, it is a good idea to focus heroes that your allies have managed to lockdown. This way you might be able to kill off somebody before he/she has had an impact in a fight.

Creeps:

In team fights, the most important aspect of creeps are the auras they give. E.g. getting an Alfa Wolf and making it follow your carry is a great idea.

Don’t get carried away microing your creeps: in the later stages of the game, your main impact comes from Impetus, not the skills of your creeps.

Example:

Notice 9pasha’s positioning. He always stays at a his maximum attack distance: this make the most of his Impetus damage and makes it very hard for the enemy team to get to him, especially bearing in mind he has Omni’s Repel and BKB if he needs it. When Ace tries to run at him he immediately pushes him back with Pike. He finishes the fight with an ultra kill, showcasing Ench’s tremendous damage potential in the late gem.

Farming:

You are a terribly slow farmer, so don’t passively farm too much. Try to be active and participate in fights, ganks or pushes.

Of course, if your team cannot afford to fight you can simply farm the closest jungle camps or lanes. Mechanically this is easy to do, but don’t forget to use the skills of the creeps you have to speed up your farming speed.

While you are farming keep in mind your positioning. Be close to your team to be able to join fights.