Welcome

Welcome to Book of the Wraith King, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!

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

TL;DR:

Draft: Heroes with mana draining abilities and illusion heroes (especially those who can buy Diffusal) make your life miserable, so try to pick WK at least after you’ve seen the enemy carry if you want to play him as position 1. If you want to pick him as a support you can afford to pick him much earlier as it might confuse your enemies (it might confuse your teammates as well so make sure you communicate your intentions).

Early Game: Prioritize farm, but use the kill potential of your stun and crit + skeletons whenever your supports are around. Use the skeletons to speed up your farm in the jungle or to pressure the enemy tower.

Mid & Late Game: Move with your team and find favorable gank and fight opportunities. You don’t want to play too passively with WK, especially when your ultimate is up. If the game doesn’t allow it, however, you shouldn’t be afraid to take it to the late game as you scale well with items.

Authors

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.

Martin "BRINGITON" Slavov

Writing & Info

Martin has lots of experience writing about Dota and he is no pushover in the actual game - a Divine III player, Martin plays mid and carry heroes on a very high level.

He has been playing Dota since Guinsoo's Dota Allstars (more than 12 years) and he loves thinking about new builds and strategies.

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.

Wraiths, your king is here!

Wraith King is a strength carry hero capable of both dealing and taking plenty of damage. He has a built-in Critical Strike and Lifesteal, along with a nice single target stun. His most iconic ability, however, is his ultimate, which allows him to rise again after death, making him one of the hardest heroes to kill in Dota.

Wraith King is a relatively straightforward STR carry and because of this, he is one of the best carries for new players to learn to play. That being said, his ultimate makes him very unique and allows for more experienced carries to use him creatively in different strategies.

Stats

Level 1

Level 15

Level 25

STR

22

High

61

High

89

High

AGI

18

High

41

Medium

59

Medium

INT

18

Medium

40

Low

56

Low

Attack

61-63

Very High

100-102

Very High

128-130

High

Armor

1.88

Low

5.688

Low

8.408

Low

Resistance

26

Medium

29

Medium

31

Medium

HP

685

Very High

1577

High

2207

High

MP

291

Medium

555

Low

747

Low

MS

297

Medium

301

Medium

303

Medium

STRENGHTS

MAJOR

High survivability: The Reincarnation ability allows you to play extremely aggressively without being punished by the enemies. On top of that, WK is a strength hero and has a high HP pool. For those reasons, you can be very reckless and create a lot a space for your teammates in a fight.

Built-in Critical Strike and Lifesteal: While most carries have to spend a lot of money to get crit or lifesteal, Wraith King has both of them for free, and they’re not bad at all compared to other similar abilities or items.

Strong throughout the entire game: While many carry heroes have troubles in the early game, Wraith King needs considerably less farm in order to be effective while still scaling very well with items into the mid and late game.

MINOR

Reliable stun: This is another huge advantage for a carry hero. Wraithfire Blast has only 8 seconds CD, which allows you to use it more than once in a fight and it deals a very decent amount of damage.

Versatile builds: You can build Wraith King as a physical damage carry, relying on the critical strike, or use his high survivability to create a tanky Radiance carrier. On top of that, the hero can use a variety of situational items to suit your play style like Blink Dagger, Shadow Blade, Blade Mail and more.

WEAKNESSES

MAJOR

Very vulnerable to mana drain: At least before level 20, WK is susceptible to mana drain mechanics as his Reincarnation requires 160 mana to use. He also has low INT and INT gain, which makes his mana pool easy to burn if the enemies have the right heroes. It makes him relatively easy to counter – WK is not a core you usually want to pick in the early stages of the draft.

Low mobility: Even though his starting move speed is ok (300), as a strength hero he doesn’t have too many viable options to boost it. Despite having a single target stun, he is relatively easy to kite in fights and usually needs to build items to solve this problem.

MINOR

Low armor and Attack Speed: A weakness of the strength attribute – unless you build items specifically to enhance your armor, you’ll be fairly weak against physical damage especially in the early stages of the game. Moreover, you need Attack Speed items to more reliably utilize your crit.

Single target oriented: Even with Radiance, WK only offers mostly single target damage. He’s also a melee hero, which makes him easier to ignore if the enemies have mobility or saving skills/items.

Replays

Team Secret vs LGD-Gaming, ESL One Katowice 2018 powered by Intel

MATCH ID: 3745527313
Replay:

Ace is playing Wraith King in an extremely difficult lane against an SK and Jakiro (a nightmare for a melee carry) and to top it off – the occasionally rotating BH and QoP. That being said, WK + Tusk + Bara is a combo that has kill potential – they manage to trade a couple of kills in the lane. Yet all of Secret’s heroes being melee makes them very vulnerable to the AoE spells of the SK and Jakiro.

Understandably, Ace doesn’t get amazing levels of farm in the laning stage, but he also doesn’t die and farms the jungle, which helps him get his core Armlet + Radiance in a very decent timing. A great replay to watch to learn how to handle play in fight-intensive lanes with WK.

It is worth mentioning that beyond the laning phase, WK is quite good against the enemy team – QoP relies on high-CD nuke damage and Void on a high CD team fight – both have trouble killing WK a second time.

Team Secret vs Infamous, ESL One Katowice 2018 powered by Intel

MATCH ID: 3743930304
Replay:

Puppey plays support WK vs Infamous. In the early game he provides a lot of kill potential in the lanes he rotates to and in the late game he gives aura to his physical damage cores (mainly Lifestealer and DK, but Underlord could also hit for a lot of damage in a long fight).

He doesn’t chose to go for a Dagger and become an initiator because MidOne is already serving this role. Instead, he goes for a more cost-efficient stat heavy build (Dominator + Drums) that gives utility to his team.

Even though he is supporting, he is also farming the whole game whenever he has the time to do so. It is relatively easy for WK to farm jungle even without a lot of items thanks to his crit and aura. Don’t forget that killing creeps with Mortal Strike is what gives him access to his skeletons.

Drafting

Wraith King is good in teams that want to fight early – as many STR carries, he doesn’t shine in slow games with a lot of split-pushing and passive farming. He wants to win fights due to the “unfair” advantage his ultimate gives him and secure map control and objectives out of it.

WK is great with another carry hero in the mid lane because he doesn’t need too much space himself and he can even create space by participating in most fights. Moreover, another carry can help him secure the late game. He doesn’t require too much farm before he starts joining fights and can adjust his item build to farm, fight or tank, dependent on the needs of the team.

The only concern is playing against mana burners as they can often make your Reincarnation worthless in the early and mid game, making fighting and creating space much more difficult.

Position

Safe lane carry

Wraith King is a relatively bad solo hero and he needs support, so he is usually played in the safe lane. The safe lane also provides him the time window he needs in order to get his core items and start joining fights.

Putting him in an offensive dual or triplane is also possible in certain situations – he has good kill potential in combination with other heroes thanks to his potent stun and if your opponents have a greedy safe lane, you can punish it that way. Of course, this is a riskier choice as WK needs to get farm in the early game and supports wouldn’t really be able to leave him alone in the offlane.

Position 4 (roaming support)

A WK support is something very unorthodox (for this reason this guide talks mainly about carry WK), yet it has seen play even in competitive Dota over the years. The reason for it is that Wraithfire Blast is a very powerful nuke in the early game, which allows WK to be played like a roamer. Later in the game, if he manages to get a Blink Dagger, WK becomes a good initiator. Jumping in and dying at the beginning of the fight will trigger the powerful AoE slow from Reincarnation and will allow his team to follow-up on the initiation.

Moreover, even though his crit and life steal are clearly carry skills, they can actually give utility to the team: the LS is an aura and the ally cores of WK do benefit from it. The crit gives WK access to the skeletons, who are great for pushing lanes and towers in the early and mid game. The skill also allows the hero to get some farm even without a lot of DPS item, which could help him get his Dagger and luxury utility items like Aghs.

Since support WK is unconventional, you could use this to your advantage in a draft. E.g. you can pick WK relatively early and if your opponents try to counter you with a pos. 1 PL or Antimage you could move the WK to the support position and pick cores who deal with the enemy PL/AM much better.

Synergy

Good friends to have are:

Ranged damage dealers: Sniper, Windranger, SF, QoP, Lina, Mirana, Arc Warden, Weaver, Zeus

You tank damage, they deal damage.

WK can initiate aggressively, draw the attention of the enemy team and soak-up all the dangerous abilities of enemy heroes without paying with his life due to Reincarnation. This provides ranged damage dealers with a lot of space that they can use to safely deal damage.

Mirana and Lina can also use the Wraithfire Blast as a setup for their own disables.

Lane Combos: AA, Lina, Lesh, Mirana, Shadow Shaman

Blast + another stun & nuke = dead enemy;

With supports that have disables of their own, WK can stun-lock heroes for a long time, which makes the lane dangerous. Wraithfire Blast is a reliable stun, which makes it very useful for heroes that need setup to land their spells like AA, Lina, Lesh and Mirana.

Counters

Strong Against:

High-CD team-fight ultimates: Void, Enigma, Silencer, Zeus, Necro

you're good against teams that have trouble killing you a second time;

Due to the nature of Reincarnation, WK can live through the team fight wombo-combo of the enemy team and continue fighting when the big spells of his enemies have been exhausted.

Weak Against:

Mana burners: Anti-Mage, KotL, Invoker, Lion, PL, Diffusal Blade

getting to lvl20 feels like ages against these heroes;

Those heroes can often burn your entire mana pool in the early to mid game, which leaves you without mana for Reincarnation. Against them, you usually have to play more passive and wait for level 20 to get the talent for no Reincarnation manacost or build a fast BKB. This is something that you usually don’t want to do. I.e. playing passively against PL or AM is usually not a great idea as you are leaving them to free-farm.

Multiple Units: PL, Terrorblade, CK, Meepo, Broodmother

no AoE = no fun;

As we mentioned, WK deals only single-target DPS. This by definition means he is not great against cores who have illusions (or in the case of Meepo or Brood – multiple units). This problem is made worse by the fact that Diffusal is a great item on such cores, especially PL.

Skills

Wraith King sears an enemy unit with spectral fire, dealing damage and stunning, then dealing damage over time and slowing the target.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.35+0.5

Cast Range: 525

Base Damage: 100

Damage over Time: 10/30/50/70

Move Speed Slow: 20%

Stun Duration: 1.1/1.4/1.7/2.0

Slow & Damage over Time Duration: 2

CD: 14/12/10/8

Mana: 95/110/125/140

Wraithfire Blast

Mechanics:

Wraithfire Blast travels at a speed of 1000.
The stun and slow are applied at the same time, so overall, the slow lasts for 4 seconds.
Deals the base damage instantly upon hitting, and the damage over time in 1 second intervals, starting immediately after the stun.
Can deal up to 90/170/250/330 (170/250/330/410 with talent) damage (before reductions).
Casting Wraithfire Blast orders all of Wraith King's skeletons to attack that target.
When the level 25 talent is chosen, Wraithfire Blast gets cast on all units within 900 radius around Wraith King whenever Reincarnation triggers.

Uses and Tips:

Wraithfire Blast is a simple single target stun and nuke, which doesn’t require much explaining. However, it would be a mistake not to point out that it’s a pretty good ability for several reasons. It has a low cooldown, so you’re able to use it multiple times in a fight or chase. It deals decent damage – 330 total, and it slows the enemy by 20% for 2 more seconds after the stun ends.

Nearby friendly units restore health based on the damage they deal when attacking enemy units.

STATS

Radius: 900

Lifesteal: 18/22/26/30%

Vampiric Aura

Mechanics:

Can be toggled on to make it only affect heroes – great for not pushing out the wave when you don’t want to.
Treats creep-heroes as heroes (LD bear).
Stacks additively with other sources of lifesteal.
Cannot lifesteal off of wards, buildings and allied units.
The aura's buff lingers for 0.5 seconds.
Affects invulnerable, but not hidden allies.
The lifesteal particle effects do not appear when Wraith King is not visible to the enemy.
Affects only melee heroes.

Uses and tips:

Vampiric Aura is a pretty good 1-point wonder – the percentage lifesteal is amazing for just 1 skill point investment and you can level up your other abilities instead.

You usually want to turn the aura off while playing on the lane in the first few levels – if your creeps are affected, they will be harder to kill and they’ll push the lane, something you’d like to avoid in the early laning stage. Later you can switch it on in order to push the lane intentionally and pressure the enemy tower.

Wraith King passively gains a chance to deal bonus damage on an attack. Every two kills on an enemy unit adds a skeleton charge.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.1+0.5

Proc Chance: 9%/11%/13%/15%

Critical Damage: 300%

Number of Kills to Gain Charge: 2

Max Skeleton Charges: 2/4/6/8

Skeletons Summoned per Charge: 1

Skeleton Duration: 90

CD: 50

Mana: 30/45/60/75

Mortal Strike

Mechanics:

Increases attack damage by an average of 18%/22%/26%/30% against player units and ancient creeps.
A skeleton charge is gained for every 2 units killed by Wraith King. It does not matter how the units are killed.
Upon cast, the skeletons spawn in 0.25 second intervals, starting immediately upon cast.
The skeletons cannot be controlled. They automatically choose an attack target within approximately 6500 range.
If no unit is within that range, they move to the closest lane and walk it down like lane creeps.
If their current attack target turns invisible, the skeletons may stop and do nothing. After a while, they select a new target or return to the lanes.
All skeletons around Wraith King switch to whoever Wraith King casts Wraithfire Blast on.
The skeletons do not block neutral creep camps.
The proc chances of multiple crit sources stack.
If two sources of critical strike proc at the same time, the higher multiplier has priority.

Uses and tips:

The Critical Strike is pretty good, comparable to Juggernaut’s and better than Chaos Knight’s in terms of average damage increase. Considering that it also has another effect (the skeletons), the ability gives a lot of value.

The skeletons, although very easy to kill, are a force to be reckoned with. They can be used to jungle, push lanes, push towers, even kill heroes in the early game if you summon them and then Wraith Blast the enemy.

The skeletons will usually target the closest enemy in sight, although they often just do whatever they want – I’ve seen them standing still and doing nothing as well as choosing absolutely ridiculous pathings. Oh well, they have no brain, we can’t blame them. To make sure they are useful, however, it is a good idea to use them just before you cast Wraithfire Blast.

Wraith King's form regroups after death, allowing him to resurrect when killed in battle. Upon death, enemy units in a 900 radius will be slowed.

STATS

Slow/Wraithfire Blast Radius: 900

Effect Delay: 3

Move Speed Slow: 75%

Attack Speed Slow: 75

Slow Duration: 5

CD: 200/120/40

Mana: 160

Aghanim's Scepter

If a nearby allied hero is slain, they will be transformed into a wraith and have their death delayed for 7 seconds.

Reincarnation

Mechanics:

Reincarnation cannot be prevented in any way as long as Wraith King has enough mana and the ability is off CD.
Revives with full health and mana. Spells and items are not refreshed.
Provides 1800/800 ground vision at the death location during its delay.
If Wraith King has an Aegis of the Immortal, Reincarnation triggers first, considering it is off CD and Wraith King has sufficient mana.
The slow is applied only once at the beginning of the revival, not at the end.

Uses and tips:

This is the signature ability of the hero. It makes you very hard to kill, provided that you have the mana to use it. It makes it possible for WK to make very aggressive moves and to sacrifice his life without actually paying with his life (if that makes sense).

Reincarnation scales very well, having 40 seconds cooldown at level 3 – this allows you to sometimes even use it twice in the same fight or tell your team to back off for a few seconds so you can go again with a second life.

The slow effect is very potent – it slows for 75% for 5 seconds which is huge. This also means it stays for 2 seconds after you respawn which prevents most heroes from escaping unless they have mobility skills.

One thing you should avoid at all cost is getting caught where your teammates cannot help you. Usually, even if you die in fights, your teammates will be able to back you up for the second life. If you die alone, however, the enemy team will easily be able to kill you a second time, which practically makes Reincarnation useless.

Skill Builds

A useful trick that you can do when building WK is to hold on to your first point in Reincarnation. Don’t level the skill right away. If you level it up and you get ganked in a bad position, you can easily die twice and trigger the huge CD of Reincarnation without gaining anything.

By holding on to the skill you can level it up only when you see that your opponents wouldn’t be able to kill you a second time – e.g. when you die close to your tower and your allies can TP to help you, or when you are diving for a kill together with your allies.

Fighting Build

Farming Build

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

18

20

25

Pros: highest possible kill potential;

Cons: a bit slower farming speed;

This is the most common build for the hero. Wraithfire Blast only increases its damage when leveled up, however, the fact that it can usually be used twice due to the low CD makes it very useful if you have kill potential on the lane.

1 point in Vampiric Aura is standard – you can sustain in the lane and it’s very useful when you start jungling.

The rest goes to Mortal Strike – allows you to use skeletons and increases your average damage. The instant kill also makes it very useful for jungling.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

18

20

25

Pros: higher farming speed;

Cons: lower kill potential;

This build is usually used when you are playing in a passive lane and you need to maximize your GPM. The biggest benefit of maxing Mortal Strike is the access to the maximum number of Skeletons - they are great at pushing out the wave and pressuring the tower or even at farming the jungle.

1 point in Wraithfire Blast, of course, is mandatory for opportunistic killing purposes (or as a defensive tool if you get ganked).

Talents

Reincarnation Casts Wraithfire Blast

25

+25% Vampiric Aura Lifesteal

2x Skeletons Spawned

20

No Reincarnation Manacost

+35 Skeletons Attack Damage

15

+15 Strength

+20 Attack Speed

10

+1.5s Wraithfire Blast Slow Duration

Lvl10: 20 attack speed might not sound much but it’s noticeable for a strength hero with low agility gain. 1.5s Slow duration increase in Wraithfire Blast is simply not worth it – get it only in case you are playing a roaming WK.

Lvl15: 15 strength provides 300 HP and 15 damage, making you tankier, so it’s usually the way to go. The skeletons could still be good in certain situations - if you want to push heavily and your opponents don’t have good anti-push spells. With the talent the Skeletons can deal a considerable damage to buildings in they survive.

Lvl20: While 90% of the players (according to Dotabuff) choose the manacost removal, it’s only useful if the enemies have some form of mana burn – of course, you will definitely choose it when you play against Anti-Mage, Kotl, PL and such, but otherwise the skeletons talent is better.

Lvl25: Reincarnation throwing stuns when you die? Well, that’s pretty powerful. The lifesteal is a double increase, however, at level 25 the enemies probably won’t let you hit that much when you’re at low HP to make good use of it, while the other talent will always be reliable. Only go for the aura buff if you have other right-click cores that benefit from it a lot.

Radiance Build

Wraith King is a great Radiance carrier – he can build it early into the game (as he’s a position #1 farmer) and he’s very tanky, which means he will deal the burn damage in fights for a long time.

The Mango in the starting items is usually meant to complete an early Magic Wand from the side shop but you can also use it to cast an extra stun if needed and bring another for the Magic Wand. Raindrops are also very useful as your mana pool is very small and they offer some cheap mana regen.

In this example you go for Midas into Radiance. This is a good choice for a passive game where you are free-farming and your team doesn’t need your help. In other situations, you can replace the Midas with a more fighting-oriented item – Armlet, Blade Mail or even Blink if you want to be aggressive.

Starting items

Early game

Mid game

Late game

Phase Boots are the standard choice for most STR carries - the armor is very valuable for survivability (you already have high HP). The attack speed means more crit procs, and the ability to chase is great for kill attempts with Wriathfire Blast.

Hand of Midas: Not a bad item on the hero when you want to build Radiance. However, it’s the most passive possible item, so if the enemy team wants to push or fight early and is generally playing aggressively, Midas would be a mistake and you’d rather have Armlet, Blink or Blade Mail instead.

Radiance: Works very well on Wraith King as you’re very tanky and you can afford to be in the center of the fights. The burn damage makes you a threat that the enemies need to deal with so they can’t ignore you anymore. On top of that, Radiance increases your farming speed so you get your next items much easier and allows you to clear creep waves faster. Don’t just sit on your lane and farm it - if you build other items first that could allow you to help your team (like Blink, Armlet or Blade Mail), you can still move to the other lanes and fight. You don’t have to rush Radiance without participating in any kills.

Assault Cuirass: One of Wraith King’s problems is the low armor, so AC is the usual extension of the build. The attack speed is also very important for the hero, so the item is absolutely perfect in a sense that you can utilize effectively all of its bonuses.

BKB: Not mandatory on Wraith King as he can afford to soak up a lot of spell damage and even to die. However, if the enemies are so stacked with disables that you can’t do anything in a fight, it becomes a necessity. BKB also helps against mana burners such as Anti-Mage, PL and others.

Mjollnir: Great tool for the Radiance build as it helps you deal a lot of magical damage in fights. Since you usually want to be in the middle of the fight, the static shield is very useful and constantly procs as it activates from any sources of damage, even AoE spells. It’s also extremely good against PL as you get 2 big sources of magic damage to kill illusions.

Abyssal Blade: Doesn’t offer you any DPS increase, but it makes you a bit more tanky and provides an additional disable – one that goes through BKB as well. Assuming that you already have at least Assault Cuirass, the attack speed is enough for bashes to proc often.

Heart: Usually built if you don’t need anything other than pure survivability. This assumes that you already have enough damage and you have your mobility items, so you only want to be able to stand longer in fights. It also gives 40 damage as you’re a strength hero, which is not much but it’s still a nice bonus on top of the HP.

Physical Damage Build

Wraith King could also be built to deal a ton of physical damage – his critical strike is very potent and if the enemy is stunned, you could often kill them in just a few hits.

Armlet, Dagger, Desolator, and AC are your core items in this build – they allow you to jump on a target and if you’re lucky kill it even before the stun is over (the minus armor from Deso + AC and the bonus damage from Armlet + Deso will make your crits extremely strong). BKB is very important, because in fights you need to hit your target freely – one or two disables could easily spoil your plans. You usually want to get it either before or after the AC.

Bloodthorn + Nullifier are becoming a standard late game combo for a lot of right-click carries. The silence + break means your target cannot do anything to save itself and it needs to rely on its allies. The high DPS of both items also synergize greatly with this build. Nonetheless, it is defenitely possibel to go for other late game choices - Heart, Abyssal, etc.

Starting items

Early game

Mid game

Late game

Phase Boots are the standard choice for most STR carries - the armor is very valuable for survivability (you already have high HP). The attack speed means more crit procs, and the ability to chase is great for kill attempts with Wriathfire Blast.

Armlet: It’s very good because it’s a cheap fix to your low armor and it comes very early on. Without Armlet, the hero has around 5-7 armor before he actually builds Assault Cuirass which makes him a very easy target for high physical damage cores. The Vampiric Aura allows you to farm with Armlet constantly on and not lose HP at all and the damage synergizes extremely well with Mortal Strike.

Blink Dagger: Blink is a great item as it allows you to quickly cut the distance between you and the enemy and stun them before they can react. It also increases the farming speed as it allows you to move faster to your desired farming spot. Since you want to be able to focus and hit an enemy, Blink becomes much more important in the physical damage build than in the Radiance one. Being kited with Radiance is not that big of a problem because you still deal damage – without Radiance this is not the case.

Desolator: A great DPS item on Wraith King. The armor reduction and raw damage both synergize extremely well with the critical strike, to the point that you could even bring down enemies in 1 or 2 lucky crits. On top of that, Deso costs only 3500 gold which allows you to buy it fairly early in the game.

Assault Cuirass: One of Wraith King’s problems is the low armor, so AC is the usual extension of the build. The attack speed is also very important for the hero, so the item is absolutely perfect in a sense that you can utilize effectively all of its bonuses.

BKB: In this build is much more important as you want to be able to lock on targets and continuously hit them. Build it as soon as you feel you need it – if you’re getting constantly disabled in fights, you want to have it earlier.

Bloodthorn: A great late game item that increases your DPS by a lot and provides a silence to deal with elusive heroes without or after using their BKB. The crits chances stack, so it doesn’t matter too much that you have a crit of your own.

Nullifier can help you deal with Force Staffs, Ghost Scepters and it generally great against heroes who rely on items to stay alive – for example SF, Sniper, Luna and many more don’t have any escape or stun abilities, so you can pose a serious threat to them. Even if you can’t kill them alone, preventing them from using BKB or Hurricane Pike can help your team to deal with them. It also synergizes very well with Bloodthorn – you basically Doom the target if you use both.

Other items

Early game

Mid and Late game

Bracer: if the early game is very action-packed and you require more survivability, invest in one or two quick Bracers.

Treads: the stats make you even tankier and the ability to switch to INT helps sustain your mana. If you are playing against a lot of magic damage, raw HP could be more valuable than the armor from Phase Boots. The damage helps for last-hitting.

Soul Ring: An early game item that could help with mana management – you can use it on the lane to spam stuns on the enemy and if the enemies burn your mana, you can use it to gain enough for Reincarnation right before you die.

Mask of Madness: If you opt to go for Physical damage build, Mask of Madness can be a great item. Combined with Desolator or some other right click item, you can deal a lot of single target damage.

Blade Mail: Same as Blink Dagger, you can build Blade Mail at any point of the game. Since you easily reach 1200-1400 HP very early in the game, you can buy it early if the enemies are playing aggressively or if you want to go together with your team. One of the problems with Blade Mail is that you can be easily ignored if it’s your first item, so it’s usually delayed after the Radiance so that you can pose a threat that the enemies need to deal with. Blade Mail also offers a small boost to armor, which is important to Wraith King before he has Assault Cuirass. Blade Mail is particularly good against abilities that deal continuous damage and can’t be stopped, for example, Tinker’s March, Luna’s Eclipse or Invoker’s Meteor.

Echo Sabre: good cost-efficient stats and could help you get a crit when you initiate on someone (because of the double attack). It’s problem is that it doesn’t scale well and slows down your other important items and you want to reach them as quickly as possible.

Shadow Blade: An alternative to the Blink Dagger, Shadow Blade also provides a nice damage and attack speed boost. Of course, it’s sometimes countered which makes it a bit riskier but usually, you’ll be able to find a good position with it and focus an enemy.

S&Y: Is a good all-around item, it gives bonuses to everything and most importantly it increases your mobility. You want to build it when you constantly have to fight and you want a cheap item to boost your stats.

Divine Rapier: A nice last item on the hero, for situations when you want raw damage and you’re already very fat. It requires that you to stay with your team at all times, so they can save you if the enemies try to kill you a second time.

Early Game

Regardless of the build you use, you generally want to farm for the first 10 minutes of the game, usually, until you have your early game items and a small core item like Blink, Blade Mail or Armlet.

Your stun gives you kill potential in the lane, so use it when you see the opportunity – usually you want to attempt kills together with your supports. A lucky crit could also help you out in this regard.

Don’t forget to use your skeletons – to farm the jungle or push the lane and the tower with them.

Farm;

Look for possible kills;

Use skeletons to push out the lane and push towers;

Farming:

Buy Quelling Blade as soon as possible to secure more last hits. Wraith King has decent damage, but QB will always be useful for melee carries.

Once you have Mortal Strike, don’t randomly hit creeps – the instant kill chance can screw your creep equilibrium and cause your lane to push. As we already mentioned, make sure to switch the Vampiric Aura off in order to maintain better creep equilibrium.

Once you have Power Threads, you can start killing the big camp close to the safe lane if your lane is pushed. If Mortal Strike procs, you can clear out big camps very easily.

Another thing that can help you with farming is using skeletons in the jungle. Make sure you have full charges (even with 1 point in Mortal Strike, 4 skeletons are usually enough) and go in the middle of the jungle. It’s important not to use them for the closest camps on the lane as they will later come to push your lane. The boys are fairly strong (1.2 base attack time with 35-40 damage) and will be able to clear out even bigger camps.

Alternatively, you can spawn skeletons on the lane so they can farm and push it and you can go jungle instead – this is usually the case when you’re higher level and want to focus on farming and you don’t care about the creep equilibrium anymore. It’s also a safer option as it’s much harder to get ganked.

Harassing/Kill potential:

You usually want to harass the enemy only if he’s a melee hero who’s trying to contest your creeps. In the very early game, you won’t be able to deal much damage, but a few random hits can trigger a critical strike and that will hurt.

Once you have Power Threads and Magic Wand, you can occasionally throw a Wraithfire Blast in situations where you can also hit the enemy a few times for the stun duration. You don’t want to stun the enemy if he’s too far for you to hit him unless you’re trying to kill him.

With the help of a teammate, you could land a kill easily – you usually want to be one to initiate with your stun. It has a low cooldown and you’ll be able to use it again after your teammate also casts his spells. You could also spawn skeletons before you stun the enemy (before, because you need the stun to order them to attack the enemy) so they can deal some damage as well. However, keep in mind that using the skeletons might push the wave afterwards.

Timings and Rotations:

You usually want to stay on the lane until you have Power Threads, Magic Wand and your first small item – be it Blink Dagger, Blade Mail or Armlet. Once you have them, you could make a rotation if your team is fighting and you can help.

If you buy Blink Dagger, you can also organize ganks on the other lanes and use skeletons afterwards to push a tower, or use the skeletons before you teleport so you can farm the safe lane while ganking.

The only time you want to keep farming is if you build Midas, so you can farm as much as possible until you have the Radiance.

Video Example:

In this game, we will observe Ace’s Wraith King against team LGD.

He gets to play against Sand King and Jakiro, which is a very tough lane. His start is pretty bad and he’s not allowed to farm at all.

At 2:50 he gets ganked by 3 heroes and only the Magic Wand saves him and in the end, they manage to turn the gank around.

Look at how he pulls the creeps’ agro at 4:00 to make them come close to him and make it easier to farm.

Unfortunately, the enemies don’t leave his lane and he continuously gets ganked, so he decides to hit the jungle at minute 7. You can see first hand how effective the instant kill and the skeletons are in the jungle.

Since he plans to farm, he maxes the Mortal Strike without even leveling his ultimate until level 8 and he’s not punished for it.

At minute 13, he decides to leave his lane and go top as at the time it’s an empty lane. The skeletons help him destroy the enemy tower very quickly.

At this point, he already has an Armlet and he can join fights and deal a lot of physical damage.

Mid & Late Game

WK is usually played as an aggressive frontline carry, but having very good late game potential means you are not in a hurry. Be very careful with your item choices as they will partially determine your playstyle. For example, a fast Dagger will help you gank enemies around the map and to create space for your team, while a fast Blade Mail will help you fight-back against early game aggression from your opponents.

Regardless of your item choice, however, you would want to play around the timing of your ultimate and to serve as a frontliner for your team. Soaking a lot of punishment with your first life will give a lot of space for your teammates to turn the fight.

Participate in fights but don’ be overaggressive when your ult is on CD;

Farm;

Use the skeletons to farm and split-push;

Timings:

There are a few timings that you want to wait for when you get close to them.

The first one is level 18. Reincarnation scales extremely well and at level 3 the cooldown is only 40 seconds, much shorter than most big ultimates. If you see you’re close to level 18, you can buy a Tome of Knowledge and ask your team to wait until you get it.

The next one is level 20 – the talent that removes the manacost on Reincarnation. This could be very important against mana drainers such an Anti-Mage and PL.

Wraith King usually doesn’t want to build BKB, but it’s sometimes necessary, especially against mana burners or lineups with a lot of disables, so don’t hesitate to get it once you have your core items. Especially with a physical damage build, BKB could be a key timing to winning fights.

Team Fights:

Wraith King is pretty good in team-fights and he can always afford to die to the first round of big spells and Reincarnate after that. Furthermore, he is pretty tanky and is usually hard to bring down anyway, provided he has an armor item or a BKB.

Depending on the build you’re using, your play style in a team-fight can vary.

With a Radiance build you want to be in the center of the fight and affect as many heroes as possible with the Radiance burn. Try to focus the squishier heroes or an important core hero with lower armor. If you have a Blink Dagger, you can afford to initiate the fight.

With a physical damage build, you’d usually prefer to wait for your team to initiate so that you will have the space to hit your target freely. This build is actually harder to play with as it’s much easier to counter a melee carry who can only deal physical damage to a single target with items like Force Staff, Glimmer, etc.

If you have a Blink Dagger and BKB, you can always jump on a hero first, but before the BKB – let your teammates disable the enemies before going in.

If you’re level 18, you can ask your team to reset the fight after you die so you can wait for your Reincarnation cooldown – it’s only 40 seconds, which is usually much shorter than other big team-fighting abilities like Black Hole, Reverse Polarity or even the enemy BKBs. Once you have it again, you can go in and the enemies will likely have to fight without their bigger spells.

This mid game team fight is a great example of how aggressive WK can afford to be when he has his ultimate. Despite being 1 man down, Secret decide to push the enemy tower. When they get initiated upon, Ace doesn’t try to go back but stands his ground and deals as much damage as possible. Armlet toggling delays his death a bit and after him and PL (who has Aegis) respawn the enemy team no longer has the firepower to challenge Secret and lose the fight.

Pushing:

5-man pushing:

Wraith King is not bad at sieging as he’s pretty tanky and he can deal some tower damage with either build. The skeletons are pretty useful but try to use them only if there’s no hero who can easily kill them with AoE spells. If you are on the front lines hitting the tower, your opponents will have to go through you, and you are an unfavorable target to focus thanks to Reincarnation.

Anyway, it’s usually better to win a fight before pushing unless your team is in the lead. In a siege, enemies can chip at you with long-range spells and possibly even burn your Reincarnation without committing to a fight, which is a bad scenario that you want to avoid.

Split-Pushing:

Wraith King is a hero who can split-push pretty early into the game with his skeletons. If the enemies don’t teleport to defend, you can take T1 and T2 towers surprisingly easy.

Later on, you will always send skeletons to push a lane, which will further gain you some map control and it will allow you to farm the jungle with lower risk for your life. You rarely want to split-push with your hero as well, since if you are caught alone you can easily die twice.

Nonetheless, if you can’t fight the enemy team, you could try to take down an enemy tower somewhere with the help of the skeletons. If you have a Blink Dagger or a Shadow Blade, you can usually escape fast enough when you force an enemy rotation.

Ganking:

With a Blink Dagger, it’s fairly easy to gank heroes. Keep in mind, however, that getting solo kills is very unlikely with Wraith King unless you’re having a huge advantage, so you always want to have teammates that can follow-up and provide further disables and damage.

Farming:

Farming in the mid and late game is usually sending skeletons down a lane and farming the jungle with the hero. Send them on an empty lane so they don’t get killed easily be the enemy hero.

With a Radiance, your farm will skyrocket and you won’t have a problem keeping up with other cores. Of course, you won’t farm as fast as an Anti-Mage or Medusa, but you won’t have to constantly worry about being out-farmed.

With a physical damage, build farming will be a bit harder because of your single-target focus. You will have to utilize your skeletons to push out lanes as efficiently and often as possible. Nonetheless, bear in mind that with WK and especially with the physical damage build you want to force fights rather than passively farm.