Too much carry? Build these items...

Updated for 7.05

If your dota 2 pub team drafts yet another carry hero, you should abandon the typical item build patterns for your hard-carry hero, and focus on items that will allow you to be effective earlier in the game.  Most of the builds shown in the in-game list assume you have a balanced team, with supports that will get you through the early and mid-game, so you can be a powerhouse later.  Well... that might not happen in pubs, so adjust your item builds accordingly.

Here's a list of some items that are easier to afford / assemble, and will also allow you to be more effective, sooner in the game:

Infused Raindrop:  Perfect for the mana-starved, squishy carry, who's up against magic burst.  This item will save your life, especially when you don't have a support who will die for you...

Power Treads:  these are a good, cheap, flexible item.  Tread-switching to a different ability might just give you the survivability (Str) or Mana (Int) you need.

Drums:  Sometimes thought of as a support item, but it gives a lot of stats for the price, and it's "cheap" on item slots for the stats that it gives.  Good to buy if your hero is squishy.  Drums are now an intelligence-hero equivalent of an Aquila.  Generally better on supports, now.

Ring of Aquila:  Normally bought on agilty heroes that need mana, gives a little starting boost to damage, armor, and mana regen.

Solar Crest:  Although the Medallion is normally thought of as a support item, the Solar Crest is actually quite amazing, and gives your squishy carry both survivability (armor/evasion) and mana regen which can make them very effective in the mid game, especially with lockdown + armor reduction on enemies.

Dragon Lance:  For ranged carries who need bulking up, this is a great item.  The range bonus is great and aids your positioning, but early-on, you mainly want it for stats.  Builds very nicely into the Hurricane Pike for more mobility.  Against some opponents (Clockwerk, Ursa, Riki), you might even build the Force Staff first!

Vanguard:  My experience with this item is that it makes you extremely durable in the early and mid game.  Often sneered at in favour of damage items, this item really bulks up the squishier carries (like PA), and directs you toward building a Basher (quite a good item, and inconvenient to your opponents who like to TP away), and eventually an Abyssal.  Do NOT build this if you already went for a Poor Man's Shield - if you go too defensive, you won't do any damage and will still be ineffective in midgame fights.

Vladamir's Offering:  Not to be underestimated - this item is easily assembled, and gives lots of little bonuses.  You can also hang onto it for most of the game.  Just make sure someone else isn't also buying it, as more than one is a waste.  If you need your own lifesteal and someone else is getting Vlad's, get Helm of the Dominator.  just get a straight Morbid Mask, and later build into Satanic.

Maelstrom:  this weapon does surprising damage with its procs, and acts as a farming item as well.  If your hero is pretty good on survivability and/or has an escape ability, this might be your first go-to item.  You can keep this a long time before building into Mjolnir - it gives you damage but little else.

Sange and Yasha:  for Str and Agility heroes, this gives a lot of what you need to be effective mid game:  survivability, damage, and chase/speed.  It's easy to assemble out of lower-cost parts (mostly), and even the Sange or Yasha is quite effective on its own.  Can also be disassembled later for Halberd + Manta, or Silver Edge + Manta.

Black King Bar (BKB):  Sometimes you just need magic immunity early.  Don't dismiss this item because it doesn't give as much damage as you'd like, for the price.  Sometimes, having one means being in the fight instead of running for your life or getting blown up instantly.

Rejected (7.05)

Helm of the Dominator:  This used to be a great item for stats, but they nerfed it a lot, and now it's more of a support item.  However, do not underestimate the power of creep buffs!

Other Items for Mid-Game fighting carries:

• Phase Boots (good for chase or if hp is already decent)
• Crystalis (good if your damage is already high and you just need more damage)
• Armlet (str carries)
• Mask of Madness (nerfed then buffed - good again, but only on tougher heroes)

“Race Car” Carry:  Phase Boots, Windlace, S&Y / Manta.  For S&Y, get Yasha first for the speed.

Your item slots might look like this:

• Power Treads or Phase Boots
• Drums or Aquila
• Maelstrom
• Sange and/or Yasha
•  TP scroll
•   <Hero-specific item (Blink, Soul Ring, Hp or Regen item, etc)  or “leftover” starting item (such as a shield)>

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Terrorblade Build (6.85) - Earlier Aggression

Terrorblade is a (somewhat) illusion-based hard agility carry.  He's extremely squishy early game, especially against nukes, but has great damage both mid and late-game with Metamorphosis and high agility growth and hard-hitting illusions.  His ultimate is a bit strange, but can be used both to weaken enemies and save both teammates and Terrorblade himself.

Tips:
- Don't pick Terrorblade against a heavy-nuke (magic damage) line-up!
- DO pick Terrorblade against heroes that like prolonged fights!
- DO pick Terrorblade if you are running a defensive Safelane tri-lane, or have a dedicated hard support to back you up in the early game!

Worst Enemies (by Dotabuff win rate):
- Timbersaw
- Sand King
- Axe
- LC
- Slark
- Zeus
The Pro Scene

In the current meta of 6.85, as of this writing, Terrorblade hasn't seen pro play due to the preference for early-fighting carries, or carries with absurd early-farming speed, such as Shadowfiend and Alchemist.

So if you DID want a Terrorblade who could fight earlier, how could you itemize?

Early-Aggression Item Build:
Start:  Tango, Branch x 3, Shield, Gauntlet.
Early:  Boots, Bracer, Shield, (leftover branches), TP
Midgame*:  Power Treads, Ogre Club, Bracer, Shield, TP
Core**:  Power Treads, Maelstrom, Bracer, TP
Core Ext***:  BKB/S&Y (situational), HoD (once your hp pool and damage have been increased, add lifesteal - it's better if a teammate has a Vlad's, though - it works for your ranged form now with the recent change).
6-Slotted****:  Boots of Travel, Butterfly, Deadalus, BKB or Manta, +2 situational (Heart, Satanic, Skadi, Mjolnir, MKB)
7-Slotted:   Moon Shard

*This combination is largely to buff Terrorblade's terrible hp pool.  The idea here is to get cheap items that will give him toughness.  Because of high agility, he doesn't need armor, and a Vanguard is not a great choice because Terrorblade should be in ranged form whenever he is fighting.  The ranged form is your raw damage boost, which gets boosted further with the addition of crit.
** This becomes your early-fight equipment.  With L4 Metamorphosis and Agility Treads, you'll be doing 256 DPS, with 967 hp, or 1663 EHP / 1289 MHP (Magic EHP).  Mael is also good for farming and wave-clearing either both melee and ranged forms.
***Given that you took the Ogre Club for toughness, you can go for early a BKB against lockdown/nukes, or an S&Y for better chase and damage.  You can later disassemble the S&Y to create a Manta (sell the Sange eventually).
**** The order is which you get items is important, and depends on what composition you are facing.  You will generally just get BoTs to free up a TP slot, but with the decent decrease in cooldown of BoT vs. TP, you may want to get them earlier for farming.  You may also need another defensive item (Heart, Satanic, Skadi), or an MKB, depending on what you are facing).  I personally favour Skadi + MKB.


Skill Build:
General: You want to maximize Metamorphosis, for the raw bonus damage.  Given that you're going for cheaper toughness items rather than a drum for balanced stats, you can skip Conjure Image until later, and take some early Stats.  One level of Reflection is taken for the slow.  Sunder (ultimate) is delayed because of the lack of mana available to cast it when needed; the item build above skips the Aquila, meaning that you need a support with Arcane Boots, and/or you need to conserve mana for fighting.
*First Skill-up:  You should generally NOT skill your first point until you need it.  In some situations, having Reflection in an early engagement (especially 3vX or more) can make a huge difference.
Level 1* - Metamorphosis
Level 2 - Stats
Level 3 - Metamorphosis
Level 4 - Reflection
Level 5 - Metamorphosis
Level 6 - Stats
Level 7 - Metamorphosis (L4)
Level 8 & 9 - Reflection
Level 10 - Sunder
Level 11 - Sunder
Level 12 - Reflection (L4)
Levels 13-15 - Conjure Image
Level 16 - Sunder
Level 17 - Conjure Image
Level 18+ - Stats

** You should be level 4 before the mid-laner comes ganking, so delaying Reflection until this point shouldn't hurt you that much.  When enemies' right-click damage is low, Reflection L1 isn't a great harass tool anyway (40% of their damage for 2 auto-attacks, taking into armor mitigation, is going to be somewhere around 65*2*0.75*0.4 = 40 damage total).

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How to Accelerate Your Farm

Here are some tips for accelerating farm like a pro.  Gathered from reddit and other sources.

Tip:
- if mid laner ganks the safe lane, he doesn't stay there to nuke down the next two waves of creeps before going back mid. Leave those creeps for your safelane carry!

Zrog's Tips:
- Don't die.  While this may seem like stupid advice, it also means "don't take risks when you don't have your core items yet", and "abandon fights and escape when they look iffy".
- Your supports may be jumping into a losing fight to ensure that you, the carry, make it out alive, and if you go back into the fight to "save" them, you're doing the wrong thing.
- Don't farm risky zones without support.  Farming the enemy Ancients with no wards or supports nearby is asking to be ganked.

by mido9:
A really important part of finding farm is that in pro games, unless you're immediately grouping to take a tower, every lane+jungle is occupied. There's very little farm that should go straight to the tower or die to an enemy creep wave.
Mid going to gank offlane? A position 5 support rotates to mid for a few quick levels and ward gold.
Carry just finished a gank with his two supports? Immediately back to the safelane he goes.
Offlaner farming his lane, support at safe, midlaner at mid? Carry instantly into the jungle he goes.
Just finished a good deathball and took the Tier 2 Tower? Immediate delta split into each lane + a jungle.
Anti-mage just TP'd to help a mid fight? To ancients ASAP afterwards.
It's a large part of why net exp and net gold is so much higher in pro games on average than in pubs, there's just a lot of gold that goes away for no reason because the mid stuck around to nuke some waves, or a tri-lane support was babysitting a little unnecessarily, or the offlane was running around looking for ganks too often and fell behind in gold, etc. The default state of a lane is to be occupied usually unless there's a really big, clear opportunity to gank and push or some other big deal.

by Jalapen0s
(As a carry): If you see a big fight somewhere else on the map, chances are unless you are 95% sure that you can TP in and get kills on retreating low HP enemies, you shouldn't join the fight, and just keep farming with the space that fight created for you. Also, when your supports pull, after you kill the enemy creeps, detour into the camp and get XP/ cs, then go back into lane.

by Noblewingz

1. Always BUY OUT. Almost never do I lose gold on a death unless I'm saving for buyback or a big item.
2. NEVER miss last hits, as a mid player it's acceptable to miss a few because of the enemy mid, but if i'm getting uncontested or under tower, I get almost every one. (Learn to estimate hp under tower so you don't miss last hits, or with quelling drop quelling for easy hits.)
3. My farming patterns are very efficient, I studied arteezy and burning to get a idea of the best patterns for a mid carry :)
4. Supports should stack frequently/all the time!
5. Finally, carry a Town Portal (TP) Scroll at all times and USE IT. That 100 gold often can earn you a extra 300-500 by going to a different lane, instead of waiting for jungle to respawn/creeps to hit your wave!

HiyoleX , paraphrased:
1. Basic Boots.  Moving faster between camps is worth the money.  Get [brown] Boots before your farming item.
2. Know which farming item to get for which carry.  Gyro = HoD.  Anti-mage/PA = BFury.  Medusa = HoD or Maelstrom. Naga = Radiance (usually).  Sniper = Dragon Lance, Maelstrom or Midas.  Void = Midas

FMERCURY writes:

I'd like to emphasize the importance of buying a quelling blade on melee carries. It drastically increases the rate at which you can farm the jungle, not only by boosting your damage against neutrals, but by allowing you to cut more efficient paths (also, removing trees that can obscure enemies). And I guarantee you will improve your CS in the laning phase.
You can even make a case for it on some ranged carries. Radiant gyro is a great example.
[also very useful for cutting trees to make faster farming paths - Zrog]

DROWNING_WITH_SIRENS writes on Reddit:

• Missing less last hits in lane is going to be the first and most important thing to do well.
• Clearing camps between waves is another way to increase your farm instead of just waiting around for the creeps to meet again. You can also clear camps if you are struggling to last hit in lane or the lane is too pushed for you to safely do so. [Zrog says:  You should ideally be pushing the wave, and then side pulling with the large camp]
• Farming where fights are going to happen. If you have the capacity to be useful early, farming near to where you think a fight is going to break out is a good idea. Farm until fight starts, run in and get aoe gold, then go back to farming. Keep a tp if the enemy team is diving. This doesnt mean standing around waiting for the fight to happen like people love to do in pubs, you want to be farming a camp or something while the teams are waiting for someone to do something.
• Good itemization. It doesn't matter how farmed you are, if you buy bad items you are going to be setting yourself back.

[–]Berbacat writes on Reddit:

• Planning. Carries that require a minimum amount of farm already know what items to get at minute -1, minute 2, and minute 10. They also have enough experience to know what to get based on how well the laning phase went.
• Efficiency (1). There are 2 aspects to this: Time and space. Sometimes, identifying space that is available (such as a creep wave pushed up to a Tier 2 tower due to a Tier 1 tower immediately crumbling before) can nab you an extra 200 gold within that minute compared to joining a push that is already guaranteed to get you a Tier 1 tower in the lane you're already in.
• Efficiency (2): Maximising time that isn't farming. This includes traveling, fighting and most importantly, pushing. If you're traveling to another lane, efficient carries think of the possibility of stacking, or using their mana to clear out a camp somewhere in if they know that they'll regen it later.
• Disciplined. Carries that know how to farm will generally resist temptation to fight, depending on how close they are to a particular item. If they have foresight, they can even convince teammates to delay a smoke gank or something similar by a minute because he knows in advance what his farming progression is like.

These are just examples at the top of my head, let me know if any of them don't make sense

more from Reddit:
A big part of [farming] is TPing to other lanes with waves opening up. Do not miss CS, farm the jungle in between waves, especially after getting your basic items (treads, aquila). Do not run to base unless necessary, bring yourself regen. Do not die, dying is the #1 reason [carries] fall behind.

by Barnyyy
http://www.twitch.tv/barnyyy
or
http://youtube.com/barnyvods

 by Merlini: