Dota 2 Hero Guide: Raijin, the Storm Spirit

"Storm Spirit is literally a force of nature--the wild power of wind and weather, bottled in human form. And a boisterous, jovial, irrepressible form it is! As jolly as a favorite uncle, he injects every scene with crackling energy. But it was not always thus, and there was tragedy in his creation.

Generations ago, in the plains beyond the Wailing Mountains, a good people lay starving in drought and famine. A simple elementalist, Thunderkeg by name, used a forbidden spell to summon the spirit of the storm, asking for rain. Enraged at this mortal’s presumption, the Storm Celestial known as Raijin lay waste to the land, scouring it bare with winds and flood. Thunderkeg was no match for the Celestial--at least until he cast a suicidal spell that forged their fates into one: he captured the Celestial in the cage of his own body.

Trapped together, Thunderkeg's boundless good humor fused with Raijin's crazed energy, creating the jovial Raijin Thunderkeg, a Celestial who walks the world in physical form."

Storm Spirit is an exceptionally fun hero with a high skill ceiling. He is played as a ganker and typically takes the solo mid lane. Storm spirits high mobility and potential to output high amounts of damage quickly make him one of the more aggressive semi carries in the game as well as a strong initiator mid game. Storm spirit needs very fast levels so it's not recommended he be put in a duel lane as he requires level 6 as fast as possible to abuse his ultimate.

 

Skills

Static Remnant

Creates an explosively charged image of Storm Spirit that lasts 12 seconds and will detonate and deal damage if an enemy unit comes near it. 

Trigger Radius:235
Damage: 140/180/220/260
Cooldown: 4 seconds  Mana cost: 70/80/90/100 

This spell is works like a land mine in that it creates a stationary replica of Storm Spirit when activated that will explode and do area of effect damage to anyone that comes within 260 range. It functions as either a farming tool or in conjunction with your second ability Electric Vortex, it also activates your third ability Overload. The low mana cost of this ability allows you to activate it to farm faster and to activated overload in order to harass your lane opponent. Remnant takes 1 second to materialize.

Electric Vortex

A vortex that pulls an enemy unit to Storm Spirit's location, it also slows the Storm Spirit by 50% for 3 seconds. 

Range: 300
Pull Duration: 1/1.5/2/2.5
Pull Distance: 100/150/200/250
Cooldown: 20 seconds Mana Cost: 100/110/120/130 

This is Storm Spirits primary disable, when activated it functions similar to a stun and slowly pulls your target towards you while also disabling them from attacking. Storm Spirit can continue to move and cast spells while Vortex is active which gives this spell great synergy with Static Remnant by allowing you to pull your enemy into your Remnant, this spell also activates Overload.

 Overload

Casting a spell creates an electrical charge, which is released in a burst on his next attack, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. 

Radius: 275
Slow Duration: 0.6
Damage: 30/50/70/90
Movement Speed Slow: 80%
Attack Speed Slow: 50%

Storm Spirits main source of damage and a great harassing tool. This spell is a passive and is activated by casting any of your other abilities, this spell can make or break your storm play as it converts mana into damage, used properly it can cause Storm Spirit to output very strong DPS and combined with Vortex and Remnant can burst down enemy heroes very quickly.

A useful trick is to use your ultimate to travel right in front of you to activate Overload if your other 3 spells are on cooldown and you need the extra damage quickly. Remnant also provides vision of an area while active so make sure to use it to scout uphill or in the forest.

Ball Lightning

Storm Spirit becomes volatile electricity, charging across the battlefield until he depletes his mana or reaches his target. Damage, speed and area of effect are improved per level. 

Range: Global
Radius: 125/200/275
Damage Per 100 Units Traveled: 8/12/16
Mana Cost Per 100 Units Traveled: 10 + 1% of Maximum Mana
Travel Speed: 1250/1875/2500 

Storm Spirits ultimate and the ability that most defines him. This ability allows you to become un-targetable and travel in any direction as long as you have mana. This ability drains mana as you move and will do damage depending on the distance traveled. This ability also triggers Overload, use it in small distances to proc overload as needed. Ball Lightning also allows you to travel over cliffs and through trees.

Skill Build

Note: Vortex only requires 3 points to be able to pull into the remnant almost every time, if you feel you don't have the ability to make it more reliable get 4 vortex.

1. Remnant
2.Overload
3.Vortex
4.Vortex
5.Vortex
6.Ball Lightning
7.Overload
8.Overload
9.Overload
10.Remnant
11.Ball Lightning
12.Remnant
13.Remnant
14.Vortex
15.Stats
16.Ball Lightning
17-25. Stats

Item Build

Let me preface this area by saying that all item choices in Dota 2 are subjective, the great thing about this game is the need to adapt your gear to the situation at hand, that being said Storm Spirit has a fairly static item build that covers most circumstances, it is up to you to change the order based on the situation at hand.

 

Early Game: 

This is a fairly basic solo mid item build more advanced players can skip the mantle which allows you to farm a bottle before 2 minutes.

 

Early-Mid Game:

You want to get your bottle as soon as possible and begin controlling runes. Power treads are the a great choice on storm because of the stats and the added DPS, and Magic wand is a staple item on almost all heroes. If you purchased the mantle as your starting item you can convert it into a null talisman, I personally prefer to always build a null regardless of starting items as it provides a nice overall stat bonus for cheap. Always carry a TP scroll

 

Mid-Late Game:

These three items will be the main items you will be working towards after the early mid game. Orchid provides great mana regen and DPS as well as a silence that has a damage amplification, Scythe of Vyse provides a great disable and is almost core on most intelligence heroes late game due to its utility.

Black king bar is another item for consideration, as primarily an initiator you will find yourself late game being burst down once your combo becomes weaker, BkB allows you to remain mobile and avoid being locked down which prevents you from outputting a large portion of your damage. If you are facing a team with a large amount of disables you can rush a BkB otherwise build it as needed.

Optional-Luxury:  

Bloodstone can be great in Pub games if you can farm it fast and are active in a large amount of kills otherwise Orchid is usually a better choice. Linkens Sphere is a great item for storm however it is situational to the team you are facing, if you find they have a lot of silences and disables that you can't avoid linkens might be a good choice. Shivas Guard is a very very late game item on storm and should only be used as a late game luxury item.

Playing Storm Spirit:

Getting kills on storm spirit relies on you properly using his combo. You will want to start by rolling onto your target from as close as possible, be sure to abuse fog for this as you don't want to waste mana for no reason. If your target has an escape immediately cast Electric Vortex otherwise allow yourself to get one hit of overload off before casting vortex. Once they are in Electric Vortex attack once to use Overload and then drop a Remnant for the damage and to proc another overload.

At this point the target should be dead or very close to it, at this point use your ultimate to finish them off, if they are still close click at your feet to proc overload or jump a small distance to catch up, if they managed to escape near death use your ultimate to catch up and finish them off. Remember that you also need mana to escape so try to keep enough to roll out again if needed.

Laning

Early game
Levels 1-6:

Your main focus here is to farm and harass the enemy, it helps to use your remnants to get the last hits and overload to harass your opponent. You want to get your bottle as soon as possible and begin to control rune spawns. Runes spawn every 2 minutes starting at 0:00. At this point in the game you want to play safe and avoid death, don't worry if you are missing out on farm as your main goal is get to 6 fast. Something to keep in mind is when you see the timer for a rune coming up you can use mana to nuke down the creep wave before going so you are not missing out on experience

Mid Game
Mid game is the strongest point in the game for Storm Spirit, you should be controlling the pace of the game and picking off every hero you can. Look for ganks and if there are none it's okay to farm but your job is to be ganking at this point. An important part of this is map awareness, while you are a huge threat 1v1 you have to make sure that it will remain a 1v1 while you kill them.

Keep an eye on enemy map positions before jumping in for a gank or you could quickly find yourself out of mana and disabled. At this point you can function as an initiator if your team doesn't have one but remember that you are squishy and easily shut down without BkB.

Late Game
Late game is essentially the same as mid game except at this point you want to have your scythe of vyse. Your main goal is still to take advantage of bad positioning and picking off heroes. At this point you can also get the jump on their important heroes to prevent them from becoming a huge factor in a team fight i.e Invoker, Earthshaker, Tide hunter.

Final Comments

Storm Spirit is an extremely versatile hero and played properly has the ability to set the entire pace of a game. While playing Storm Spirit it is extremely important to be aware of how much mana you will use for how far you are going to roll with your ultimate. Like all things this comes with practice and is a extremely important part of playing Storm Spirit. Storm is a hero with a high skill ceiling and can be devastating to an enemy team. I hope you enjoyed this guide and I look forward to seeing you in Dota 2.