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A month has passed since Void Spirit was introduced to the DotA universe, along with Snap Fire. This means that enough time has passed for both heroes to be figured out to a reasonable degree. Out of the two, Void Spirit is the one with the higher skill ceiling, and in the hand of a capable player could easily snowball and provide his team with a huge advantage.
He is a melee intelligence hero that is most effective as a core, either on the off lane or the mid lane. He provides a lot of magic damage, wave clear abilities, huge mobility, gank and nuking potential.
I believe that the hero will come back in the meta soon because most of his counters got nerfed in the last patches, so this is a great time to learn him and abuse him to win games in the near future.
A good way to think about Void Spirit is as a mixture of Queen of Pain (INT mobility/ganker/nuker) and Dark Seer (INT tankiness/mobility/utility/control).
The hero is viable in 90% of games if you need a mid or offlane active core.
Like all high-skill ceiling heroes, if you’re really good at him, you have a decent chance to out-play your opponents regardless of picks. This means that in pubs your own skill with Void Spirit is much more important than the draft.
That said, here are a couple of basic drafting guidelines:
Bad Lane Matchups: OD, Puck, Ember, Lina, Huskar
We will mainly focus on the mid lane in this guide but the match-ups are the same in the side-lanes as well. Try avoiding picking him against OD, Puck, Ember, Lina, and Huskar. However, as I mentioned before, some of these heroes got nerfed (OD, Puck, and Ember), while Lina isn’t in the meta that much so basically even if you get countered you still have a high chance of winning.
Slow lineups who need space to farm: Invoker, Arc Warden, PL
Void Spirit constantly pushes out the waves and threatens with ganks and skirmishes. This means he’s great at taking map control from early on. More of a strategic counter than an individual hero counter (heroes above just an example, you need to cosider the whole 5-hero lienup).
Heroes vulnerable to mobile nukers: Shadow Demon, Drow Ranger, Ancient Apparition, Windranger
All squishy heroes who like to keep their distance have a problem playing against Void, who is a mobile nuker.
Heroes vulnerable to AoE: Brood, PL, Naga, Terrorblade
A lot of AoE damage means he clears illusions and summons pretty well. Ofc., this diminishes in the late game.
Tanky Cores: DK, DP, Sven, Alch, Templar, Huskar, Troll, Medusa, Spectre, Bristle, Axe, Legion, NS, AM, Underlord
Very tanky heroes who want enemies to come at them don’t care too much about his mobility and nuke damage. Early on they are hard to gank targets, and later on, they become impossible to kill in fights. His damage output becomes insufficient very quickly.
Priority: your own XP gain;
Items: Your starting item build should be a Quelling Blade, 2 Circlets, a Faerie Fire, Iron Branch and 2 shared Tangoes. This is a good mixture of stats and damage. However, if playing against a hero with a lot of harass, you could get 2 Branches instead of Faerie Fire to use both Tangoes with them. The first item carried out should be a Salve for the extra heal and then Stick, Null Talisman, Bottle, and Boots.
The hero has a lot of options in the lane:
Skill Tips:
Always try to use Resonant Pulse to harass the enemy while also getting the ranged creep last hit. Use it often – the AoE damage is great offensively, and the shield prevents some right-click harass especially from ranged opponents.
Your Aether Remnant has 2 main uses in the lane: securing runes by using it on top of the rune so the enemy hero gets stunned by it if he tries to take the rune, and setting up for your Dissimilate. You should also pay attention to the opportunity of pulling the enemy into your tower with it.
Priority: space creation;
In this stage of the game, you are the strongest hero on the map so you should focus on killing the enemy heroes to secure your carry space.
Items: Your items should be Phase Boots/Treads, Bottle, Magic Wand, Null Talisman and Eul’s. This gives you a lot of mana regen, and for a hero with 4 mana-intensive spells, it is detrimental for your success in the game. Eul’s can be used to dispel silences or roots but its main use is the setup potential with Aether Spirit.
Ganking: The combo should be Eul’s + Aether Remnant+ Dissimilate + Resonant Pulse + Astral Spirit + Auto Attack + Astral Spirit + Auto Attack to maximize the damage output. Auto attacking between using Ult charges is a good idea since it applies a slow so we don’t want to stack it by using both Ults at the same time. By the end of the Mid game, you should have at least a big item of your choice: BKB for survivability in fights or Bloodstone for more damage and mana regen.
Split-Farming: If you feel like you can’t gank, you also have the option of split farming using the low cooldown spells with a lot of magic damage to push out the lanes and farm the jungle.
Tip: Try not to commit too much to a team fight and always try to save an ultimate charge or your Dissimilate to escape if the things take the wrong turn.
Priority: ending the game;
Items: the luxury items should be Shiva’s or Lotus Orb for the much-needed armor. While Shiva’s decreases the enemies physical damage output and increases your damage a little bit, Lotus Orb gives you the ability to help your teammates with the dispel and, if you opted for the Bloodstone instead of the BKB, you might not have a way to escape if you use the Eul’s offensively.
Hex can is also a recommended item, potentially replacing Eul’s, and if needed, Rapier is not off the table for the massive Ult damage paired with the talents that will be discussed below.
Tip: In this stage of the game, you should use the Ult to quickly move around the map and out-push the lanes. This forces an enemy to defend and might allow your team to pick a fight somewhere else in an advantageous position in a potential 4v5 engagement.
Your first priority to max-out is Resonant Pulse – it’s a great source of AoE damage for farming and harassing, but it’s also your defensive mechanism and it makes you more survivable. Your second priority is Dissimilate mainly because it’s great for AoE farming and because you want your full nuke damage potential as fast as possible. That said, you want at least one value point in Aether Remnant to setup your Dissimilate.
Dissimilate Stuns for 3s
Astral Step 200% Crit
-7 Astral Step Charge Restore Time
+15% Spell Amplification
+100 Resonant Pulse Damage
Remnant Provides 600 Truesight
+30 Damage
+3 Mana Regen
At level 10 we have the option of choosing 30 damage or +3 mana regen. We recommend taking the damage since your Ult uses your damage and the mana regen can be easily compensated by a Soul Ring and other mana regen items.
At level 15 we can choose from +110 Resonant Pulse damage or Aether Remnant provides True Sight. It is always better to choose the first option for the nuking potential and farming amplifier. It will provide more gold that can be used towards dust that costs only 90 gold.
At level 20 we have -7 Seconds Astral Step Charge Restore Time or +15% Spell Amplification and I believe that the Ult talent is too good to skip. Even though the Spell Amplification is great, having less cooldown on Ult gives you more damage as well as mobility & escape.
At level 25 we have Disimilate Stuns for 3 seconds or Astral Step 200% crit. They are both really good but the Astral Step is usually the choice because it is amplified by the level 20 talent while also increasing your damage exponentially. The Disimilate talent is mostly picked versus heroes with illusions to stun them all or against heroes with great escape such as Storm, Ember to lock them down for longer.
Eul's Scepter: Void Spirit's true core item. Great mana regen, some mobility. Most importantly - great setup for your hard-to-land spells. Maks solo-kills much easier.
Bloodstone: survivability and a lot of mana sustain, which is great with your low-CD spammable AoE nukes and mobility spells.
BKB: get it before/instead of Bloodthorn if you are having trouble staying alive against a lock of disables and magic damage. Otherwise could skip (or leave for later).
Shiva's: much needed armor to stay in the middle of the fight in the late game.
Lotus Orb: like Shiva's, it gives armor, but it also gives you a better counter to disables and a saving mechanism for your teammates. Especially valuable if you didn't go for BKB.
Scythe: hard disable combined with your mobility makes you a great initiator. Could replace Eul's if you lack slots.
Radiance is really good against illusions, however, it feels really greedy for a hero that is pretty fragile versus lockdowns until BKB and for 5k gold, there are better (less greedy) items.
Maelstrom is another item that could be an effective replacement to Radiance to deal with the illusions because it costs less and you can proc it with Ult for that extra burst damage.
Desolator is a great burst of damage and is pretty necessary when you are the only source of physical damage in your team, but usually, you want to focus on the magic build (the hero is a not a hard right-click carry).
Orchid is pretty self-explanatory: used to silence high mobility heroes like AM or the ones that have spells to escape your nuke combo, such as Lifestealer or Jugg. It helps with your mana problems, but it doesn’t help with survivability at all, so it’s also a greedy option.
Rapier: amazing with Void Spirit's ultimate in the late game, but obviously - quite risky.
