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Dragon Knight In Depth Look
In depth look at Dragon Knight
This is not a how to play Dragon Knight guide. Guides quickly become dated due to DotA's ever changing meta. This is a closer look at one of my more preferred heroes. You're best off understanding the hero and using that information to deal with what ever comes your way. Knowing your best options makes it easier to tackle each challenge. I'll go in-depth with all of his skills and point out a number of useful items for him. This is lengthy, read over it a time or two.
We're going to look at one of my favorite heroes, Sir Davion the Dragon Knight. He is a tanky, tower pushing carry with great mid game team fight power. Dragon Knight is a versatile strength carry capable of fast farming, pushing towers and is fully capable of ganking. He can go to any lane. Solo mid, solo suicide lane, typical dual lane and can even tri-lane effectively because of his stun. He works well for aggressive teams.
His first ability is Breathe Fire, a solid AoE nuke with a static cool down of 12 seconds. It is great at grabbing you some CS along with contributing to early team fights, it might even get your a kill. The AoE is a cone shape 500 units long and 500 units at it's widest. It deals 90/170/240/300 magic damage and costs 100/110/120/130 mana. This a great and relatively cheap nuke. You'll see a lot of players using heroes with similar nukes (Death Prophet and Lina) auto-attack creeps to half health then just send the nuke through them. If you do this try to hit a hero too.
This skill is typically maxed out first or sometimes second. If you have a fairly easy lane this will probably take priority as it can score you kills and at minimum can boost CS and help push lanes. It will damage catapults too.
Second ability is Dragon Tail, it is a strong single target stun lasting for 2.5/2.75/3/3.25. While it has a long duration, it's range and damage are low. The range is just outside of melee range but with your ultimate it's range increases to 400. Having a single point in Dragon Tail early on, like most stuns, can save your life or get you a kill. It's an effective stun early on but scales poorly. An early point will give you the chance to get a kill or keep an opponent chain stunned. The stun can make him effective in a trilane.
Dragon's Blood is his third ability and is a passive that grants him additional HP regen and armor. This benefits him most in early game. It is frequently maxed out before any other skills. The HP regen and armor benefits you during the early game most. In the pro-scene it will get usually only get two points since the other skills are are more important to securing kills and help with farm. If you are up against a double ranged lane that is keen on harassing you this ability can go a long way.
His fourth and final ability is a metamorphic ability called Elder Dragon Form. It changes our valiant knight into a Dragon. Knight. Once in your winged dragon form your attack becomes ranged (500) and each level grants your a new effect. Level 1 is the Green Dragon that has a DoT effect dealing 20 damage for 5 seconds, it's non-lethal but does work against structures. The second level turn DK into a red dragon that trades in his poison attack for an AoE auto attack. The splash deal 100% in a 75 range, 75% in 150 and 50% at 250.
This upgrade is the lane pushing and farming boost you need. Since it's not magic you can use this on some large ancient stacks. It could also be used on any neutral camps, you will greatly benefit from them being stacked 3 or more times. Hopefully a support hero or some dominated creep has taken care of that for you. This AoE right click is great for team fights as it will hit both your target and anyone unlucky to be right next to them. Damage increases by 5 aswell.
The finally level of his ultimate turns you into a beastly blue dragon. You retain the AoE auto attack but also gain 14 damage and now your AoE has a 30% movement speed slow and 20% attack speed slow. This slow effect does work with lifesteal and can be overriden by Maelstrom/Mjollnir.
Once you have your level three ultimate you want to start some teamfights. Once someone initiates your pop your ult and help lock someone down with your stun. At this point in the game you want to start pushing and forcing teamfights.
You can take several routes with Dragon Knight's items. This is pretty dependent on your lane and how you plan to play. If they have hard carries you probably want to force team fights earlier. If they only have a strong early game play more cautiously as you'll win the the mid-late game. You know all of this.
Let's talk about good items on Dragon Knight. Dragon Knight is a strength hero therefore any strength items will help him out. Some end goal strength items to keep an eye on: Abyssal Blade, Satanic, Heart of Tarrasque, Necronomicon, Black King Bar, Sange & Yasha, Armlet of Mordiggian and Heaven's Halberd.
What do these items do for Dragon Knight?
Abyssal Blade (6750) is a very expensive item that grants you a passive 25% chance to stun for 1.4. In dragon form your chance goes down to 10% because you're now ranged. This will improve your ability to chase as you won't have to rely solely on Dragon Tail to stun the enemy. It gives you +10 Strength and +100 damage.
For Dragon Knight this is +110 damage and that's nothing to scoff at. Abyssal Blade also has an active ability that can stun an enemy for 2 seconds for 150 mana. This goes through Magic Immunity and can be great during late game when most people are grabbing BKBs, it has a short. The bash percentage drops when in Dragon Form. Since you'll be in Dragon Form during team fights this is less useful. This is a mediocre luxury item since Dragon Knight can benefit from having other items first or instead of Abyssal Blade.
Satanic (6150) is a great item for Dragon Knight for so many reasons. The 25% lifesteal can keep DK in a fight a little while longer, if the 25% isn't enough he can activate the item getting a 175% lifesteal for 3.5 seconds. The bonus +25 Strength and +20 Damage and +5 Armor works well with DK's skill kit. Remember any bonus to strength does to damage for Dragon Knight. This effectively a +45 damage item for a hero that's very willing to hit people. Another reason Satanic is a strong choice for DK, it is built from Helm of the Dominator. Helm of Dominator is important for boosting our dragon friend's farm by stacking ancients. The item progression pays for itself.
Heart of Tarrasque (5500) only adds to this hero's incredible regeneration rate. This item keeps DK ready for a team fight thanks to it's amazing passive ability. You gain 2% of you HP every second. For a hero with 2000 HP they'll get a regen rate of +40. It also gives you +40 strength and +300 HP. +40 Strength translates into +40 damage, +1060 HP and an additional 1.2 HP regen. Adding all of this up and Heart of Tarrasque is a +40 damage, +1060 HP + 1.2 HP regen item with a passive that will give a level 1 Dragon Knight 31.42+1.2 HP regen. This could be considered a luxury item, but if you get to the point of looking for luxury items this can be considered.
Necronomicon (2700/3950/5200) is initially an odd choice for Dragon Knight, but it can fit into some push-centric builds. Necronomicon gives you two demon warriors that can really boost your push and team fight power. Both demon's have a way of messing up people's mana with the melee Necro Warrior's Mana Break (25/50/75 with 60% converted to damage) and Necro Archer's Mana Burn spell (125/175/225). The mana break and mana burn can leave a lot of spell casters useless.
On top of ruining the mana pools of the unsuspecting they can contribute to team fight with a movement and attack speed aura of 3%/6%/9% . The attack speed bonus makes structures and out of position heroes melt, also works very well with an Assault Cuirass. The necro units can stack ancients for you, but they only last 35 seconds so unless you're nearby this job is best left to your support heroes and dominated creeps.
The necronomicon also gives you +8/12/16 Strength and +15/21/24 Intelligence. The stats aren't particularly great but the item is worth being mentioned as it does grant you some strength and two very useful friends. This is more of a utility item and doesn't necessarily fit into the standard DK build. Leave this item up to some serious Na'Vi inspired push strategies.
Black King Bar (3900) is essential in saving you against disables and big nukes. This can keep you alive and active during team fights meaning you can kill them instead of the other way around. Magic Immunity is a big deal and will save you from being chain stunned. There are only a small number of spells and abilities that go through BKB, but you should be relatively safe if you just play smart. Black King Bar gives +10 Strength and +24 Damage. That's the power of magic immunity, +190 HP, +34 damage and +0.3 HP regen. Prioritize this item with the number of powerful spells on the enemy team. It's a very useful item and will win team fights.
Sange & Yasha (4300) is a fairly cheap and can be disassembled. This item isn't bad, but at the same time it isn't great. In DotA the inventory space is a resource and you can't always afford to waste space with items. If you aren't doing DK justice and you need a quick boost then you can try a S&Y. It's slow is slightly wasted once your ultimate is maxed.
It does grant you a boost in attack and movement speed and those are never bad things. Being able to chase down an enemy to land your stun is great, greater maim is very useful for forcing a fight. S&Y grants you +16 Strength, +16 Agility, +12 Damage, +15 Attack Speed and +12% Movement Speed. All of that added up turns into +304 HP, +.048 HP regen, +28 Damage, +31 Attack Speed, +2.28 Armor and +12% Movement Speed.
This isn't a terrible item but doesn't do enough for Dragon Knight and there are better items. If you game is going bad you can go this route and once you're back on your feet you can turn this into a Heaven's Halberd. I'd recommend going with the Halberd in the first place instead.
Armlet of Mordiggian (2600) is a weird strength item as it doesn't give you strength unless activated. When it's toggled off you get +5 HP regeneration. +9 damage, +5 armor and +15 attack speed. If you don't activate the item you're wasting some money. When activated you get some extra bonuses. +31 damage, +10 attack speed and +25 strength (an additional +25 damage, +475 HP, +0.75HP regen).
When activated Armlet drains 37 HP per second, this can't kill you but like Soul Ring it can reduce you to 1 HP. This item helps your DPS and pairs very well with lifesteal. Due to the mechanics of strength (and the other attributes) when you activate Armlet you gain 475 HP. With a lot of practice you will be able to activate armlet to absorb some damage or a small nuke. You cannot deactivate Armlet when disabled, be careful with that. This can also be picked up fairly early in the game.
Heaven's Halberd (3950) can be considered a cheap version of a Scythe of Vise against right-click heroes. It's made from Sange and a Talisman of Evasion. You get a lesser maim passive which gives you some decent power outside of Dragon Form, but doesn't have the same kind of power as AoE ranged slow. The 25% evasion adds to your tankiness and will limit the effectiveness of right-click carries.
If anyone tries auto-attacking you then you can simply disarm them for 3-4 seconds ever 30 seconds. This gives the whole team an advantage that shouldn't be overlooked. For stats you get a +20 Strength, +25 Damage and the lovely +25% Evasion. This totals to +45 damage, +380 HP, +0.6 HP regen and +25% Evasion. Evasion is Evasion. Evasion items like Heaven's Halberd work well with damage blocking items such as Vanguard.
Those are the intense Strength items obtained later in the game, consider them as end goals. you can consider build on Dragon Knight. There are other Strength items but these are the big ones. A good item for DK provides tankiness or damage. Or both. For example Vanguard tanks DK up, but it doesn't help him hit any harder.
Unique Attack Modifiers other than Lifesteal don't work with his dragon form. Getting melee only or items with weaker ranged effects aren't smart either. In the current meta a lot of pro-players are picking up Drums of Endurance for the movement speed, stats and the helpful aura. Drums (or Janggo if you're coming from Dota WC3) are built from a bracer and grant a +10% move and +10 attack speed. Attack speed is always good for carries and the movespeed is never a bad thing.
Ideally Satanic/Helm Of Domintor, Black King Bar and maybe Heart are all you'll need for DK, not every game is ideal so you will need to play with the order and shuffle in a few other items.
Items to avoid on Dragon Knight:
While Dragon Knight can use and benefit from a lot of items there are some that aren't suited for him at all. Aghanim's Scepter which gives a great amount of stats and additional HP and Mana, but with no scepter upgrade it's not really worth the gold. Look elsewhere for a stat boost.
Dagon should be ignored. For it to be truly effective your team needs ethereal blades (you won't see this often), Pugna's Decrepify, a veil of discord or even an orchid. This item is best suited to heroes like Tinker, Nyx, Pugna and Storm Spirit. The boost to INT doesn't give you anything you need.
Shiva's Guard is more for the supporting heroes. If you're stuck in that role because there are other carries then this is worth considering, but the +30 INT isn't useful enough. Assault Cuirass is a better choice as it does help push towers with that -5 armor. More on that later.
Blink Dagger isn't useful enough for this Hero. It's great on huge initiators or escape artists like Puck and Templar assassin. While it can help him surprise stun an enemy it provides no stats and is a poor escape for a hero that will be soaking up a lot of damage. You're here to deal damage and land the second or third stun.
Battlefury is labeled as a core item on melee carry heroes because it can throw their farm to impressive levels. It gives +6 HP regen, +150% HP regen and +65 damage. Regen allows him to jump back into fights and even help you tank up a little. The problem with this item is it's passive. The passive allows you to cleave nearby enemy units but only works for melee heroes. Dragon Knight is melee, but not when he's in dragon form. Mjollnir is a better item that I'll touch on later. Don't go for Battlefury, there are better items.
Vladmir's Offering (2050) is a great team item that gives you +2HP regeneration and a passive aura that provides +5 armor, +0.8 mana regen, +15% damage and for melee units, 16% lifesteal. That only applies to melee units though. For the same reason we avoid the Battlefury we will avoid Vladmir's Offering. Encourage teammates playing melee heroes to get this if they are unsure of their next item to build since the +15% damage helps any heroes right-click scale into late game better.
As a rule of thumb items you want offer damage, strength, HP or any combination of the three. Exceptions can include items that are utility items like Force Staff. It should really be left out unless your role in the team isn't carry. This is not core and is very situational. Force staff is useful against Disruptor or to help your team better position themselves.
Onto typical carry Dragon Knight items
You will often see Power Treads, Helm of The Dominator, Black King Bar and Heart of Tarrasque built on our valiant knight. Soul Ring is also frequently seen as its boosts his regen and gives him the ability to spam his Breathe Fire for farming or harassing purposes. With enough farm you can afford a Crystalis and build that into a Daedelus. The big crits and extra damage work very well in conjunction with lifesteal.
Mid position DK will benefit from a Bottle and could use an Urn of Shadows if he plans to gank.
Occasionally you will see ShadowBlade. This has +38 damage and +10 attack speed. It's a small boost to increase your DPS but it's active ability does almost nothing for you. Going invisible is a lazy escape method since there are several ways to dispel it. Buy the Crystalis and save yourself 1150 gold to spend towards Daedalus.
Vanguard is less common but it is still seen in pub games. It's a great tank item, but offers no offensive power. When in Dragon Form you will be treated as a ranged hero and the damage blocked will go down from 40 to 20. I would recommend you avoid this and just build Strength items or grab your Helm of the Dominator earlier.
Drum of Endurace is a solid item. +9 damage, +9 all stats and increased move and attack speed.
Starting Items
Tangoes, Clarity, Quelling Blade, Gauntlet of Strength and an Iron Branch should work well. The Clairty potion can be substituted for another Iron Branch if you can don't have issues managing mana.
Tangoes (90) and Clarity (50) should provide enough regen. You can switch Tangoes with a Salve, I prefer not to because I don't like missing last hits. Salves can be popped with a ranged attack or a big AoE. Tangoes can keep you farming and even help you if you plan to go in for the kill. Again, Clarity can be replaced with an Iron Branch to boost stats.
Quelling Blade (225) makes last hitting less of a challenge. It gives you +32% damage against non-hero units. You deal 132% damage to creeps. This makes it easier for you to last hit and harder for the enemy to deny you that well deserved gold and experience. Quelling Blade also allows you to chop down trees.
This can help you juke, gank and escape Furion's Sprout. Some people sell this fairly early in the game, once you start dealing solid damage you should consider freeing up that inventory space. By the time you start stacking neutral camps to farm as your Red Dragon you should have replaced it with something else.
Gauntlet of Strength (150) gives you +3 Strength. We all know that this gives you +3 Damage, +57 HP and +0.09 HP regen. Great! You can build this into a Bracer or Urn after you have your Soul Ring.
Iron Branch (53) is the most cost efficient stat item in the game. 53 Gold gives you +1 to all stats. It's rare to see people not have these in their starting items. +1 to all stats means a lot.
+1 Damage, +19 HP, +0.03 HP regen, +1 attack speed, +0.14 armor, +13 mana and +0.04 mana regen.
Branches should build into a magic wand.
Early Game Items
Soul Ring (800) is a great first item. You get an additional +3 HP regen and the power to spam some Breathe Fire to clear waves and nuke opponents. You will have plenty of mana.
Bottle (600) is a nice alternative for a solid mid dragon knight. If you're lucky or have great wards you can hog all of the runes. If you can't get runes or if they're just luckier don't be afraid to bottle crow. You'll be able to spam your breathe fire and not worry about losing HP with soul ring. This is best suited for a solo mid role.
After Soul Ring or Bottle I look at my options. I can upgrade my Gauntlet of Strength into a Bracer or an Urn of Shadows. Or I can get boots. I typically get boots first since the mobility is so important for a melee hero with a very short ranged stun. After you get boots you can decide what to build next. It's probably best to pick one of the three: Bracer, Urn of Shadows or Power Treads.
Bracer (525) is cheap. You already have 150 gold invest into it. 375 more gold to get +6 Strength, +3 Agility, +3 Intelligence + 3 Damage. It will be sold in place of something else later in the game. I recommend building it into a Drum of Endurance for Dragon Knight. Drum should be limitted 1 per team so unless you want to go gank heavy with and urn you should let your team know what you're building to. The aura will help later in game too thanks to it's aura.
Urn of Shadows (875) helps regen your mana, but with Soul Ring you don't really need that. The ability to heal allies and harm enemies is nice, but doesn't fit Dragon Knight's play style as well as it does for ganking heroes like Pudge, Night Stalker and Wisp. This is a decent pickup if you plan to roam and gank. Make sure to not sacrifice your farm!
Power Treads (1650) is an item you will definitely get. Although they don't give you the great +20 damage and speed burst of Phase Boots, they will improve your Strength. Strength makes you tankier and you still get a bonus to damage. The added attack speed will help towards increasing you DPS. I think this takes priority over Urn and Bracer.
Urn of Shadows feels like a waste on a carry. The mana regen isn't amazing after you already have Soul Ring or Bottle.
Bracer is nice. It gives all your stats a boost, specifically strength. Extra damage is nice too. It's cheap. You can quickly farm the 375 gold for this. Then get a wand or upgrade to a Drum. If you're laned against someone that spams a lot of spells you can benefit with building the wand earlier. Remember that your inventory is a resource. Think about that when you're building towards items. Magic Wand turns four items into one.
After these items you can focus on some bigger items
Helm of The Dominator (1850) is very important on Dragon Knight. This item is a shining example of a good Dragon Knight item. You get survivability, extra damage and it can give you a new friend. Specifically +20 damage, +5 armor, 15% lifesteal and the power to dominate a creep. The extra damage is great and synergizes with the lifesteal. Deal more damage and you steal more life. Steal more life and you stay in a fight longer.
Stay in a fight longer and you deal more damage. This is a beautiful endless cycle. When you aren't team fighting you're farming. Lane creeps are nice but don't give enough gold. This is why you've been using a dominated creep to stack ancients. Remember you want to aggro the ancients somewhere between the 50th and 52nd of the minute. You'll need to pull earlier when there are more ancients. Don't be afraid to send your dominated creep back to the fountain to heal. The cooldown for dominating creeps is a long 300 seconds, it's best to keep the creep alive as long as you can.
When you approach stacks of ancients it's best to have 2 or 3 points in your ultimate so you gain splash damage. Having your dominated creep assist in clearing the camp will speed up your farm. Make sure not to get it killed. An Alpha Wolf is the ideally companion for dealing with ancients as it has an aura that increases your damage output by 30%.
A Centaur Khan is second choice as his aura increases your attack speed by 15. The bonus 30% damage feeds back into that great lifesteal cycle. Lifesteal is also the only unique attack modifier that stacks with your dragon form attacks AND the splash damage. Dragon knight is a real tank with a mix of that lifesteal and splash damage.
So far you probably have Helm Of the Dominator, Power Treads, Magic Wand and a Soul Ring. What else do you need? This is where situational items get their name. You need to think about what the other team has that you need to defend yourself from or capitalize on.
If you're worried about being nuked down you can get a Black King Bar. It's got bonuses to strength and damage. The magic immunity is pretty amazing too. This prevents you from being stunned (from most sources) and will give you the opportunity to freely attack all of your enemies. This is a great choice and very rarely will you not benefit from it. This buys you enough time for your team and you to dismantle the whatever enemies are around. You can charge head first into a fight and there's a good chance that you'll be able to walk out alive. Make sure to bring your team. This is a team game.
If you're taking a lot of right-click damage you could opt for a Vanguard, but this does nothing for your offensive power. It has a chance to block a small amount auto-attack damage. This item's contributions to your HP and regen are great, but the blocking quickly becomes ineffective.
I'd recommend a Heaven's Halberd instead. Evasion can prevent all the damage and the power to prevent the enemy carry from attacking with Disarm is very valuable as it can save the squishier heroes on your team. The passive maim is nice, but your Blue Dragon does is better. There are better items.
Assault Cuirass (5350) increases your teams armor, attack speed and lowers their armor. This makes your auto-attacks more effective. The attack speed increase is sizable and the enemy armor reduction applies to both units and structures. Your team will appreciate the extra armor and attack speed. The armor doesn't stack with Vlad's or anything built from a Ring of Basillius but the bonus attack speed and the reduction of armor are more important.
Heart of Tarrasque (5500) boosts your HP, damage and with it's passive you'll be ready for a team fight at a moments notice as you'll be pretty close to 100% HP at most time. It will grant damage through the strength bonus. It's passive does not work when you're being attacked. Lifesteal should keep you healed in a fight. But the additional 1060 HP is really nice and will beef you up that much more.
Satanic (6150) is a brilliant choice! You needed more HP and damage. This item gives you a little more of both. 4500 more gold and you'll turn you Helm of the Dominator into this beast of an item. You do lose your power to dominate creeps, but it's replaced with the power to lifesteal 175% of your damage for 3.5 seconds. Perfect for when you're getting low on that enormous pool of HP. You only get +475 HP, this item is more important than all luxury items except for the Black King Bar. It already has a spot in your inventory.
You are a high DPS tank that splashes a slow attack and about every four attacks will send a small 160 damage magic attack through 8 enemy units. You probably have a BKB so you can go magic immune. You have a lot of HP, HP regen, solid armor and with your lifesteal you will not easily fall, if at all. You've got great single target stun and a nice spammable AoE nuke. You can team fight against the best of them.
As of now Dragon Knight is becoming more and more popular in the pro meta-game. In PotM Bottom's debut under their new name Team-Dignitas there was near constant play of Dragon Knight. Bottle, Treads, BKB and Drum we frequently used. Maelstrom was also popular as it gives DK what he lacks when compared to the AGI carries. Attack speed.
Mjollnir (5400) is one of the best DPS items right now. It also has slight defensive capabilities thanks to it's active. You attack incredibly fast and even though you have an AoE this gives you a different one. One of the down sides is it's relationship with Lifesteal. It's got a 25% chance to proc a different unique attack modifier that overrides your lifesteal. You get +80 attack speed and +24 damage. That 25% chance chain lightning hits 8 targets for 160 magic damage.
It being magic damage is pretty useful. Even though DK has a nice nuke, most of your damage will comes from auto attacks. A smart enemy team should be building items that boost armor. Ring of Basillius based items are smart. Armor is great against auto-attacks. But this chain lightning doesn't care about armor.
You've read all most of this. You know some of the reasoning behind items and common playstyles. Dragon Knight is a big problem for others to deal with now.
Dragon Knight is a durable carry. His strong kit and solid mid game carry potential works well with early-mid push strategies that are more and more common in pro games.