Axe

Axe 25 + 2.5 20 + 2.2 18 + 1.6
	Grants the following bonuses per point of attribute:
	+22HP and +0.1HP regeneration; +1 main attack damage
	+0.17 armor and 1 attack speed
	+12MP and +0.05MP regeneration; +0.1% base magic resistance ;
L0	Base Hero Values
L1	⤷ + Base Attributes
L15	⤷ + Attribute Gain
L25	⤷ + 6 levels of Attribute Bonus
L30	⤷ + 7 levels of Attribute Bonus
	All values shown are without talent bonuses.
Attack Animation	0.5 + 0.5
Gib Type	Default
Internal	Not Provided

Mogul Khan, the Axe, is a melee strength hero, infamous for creating chaos in battle and thriving off of it.

Axe is commonly played as an initiator with a large semi-carry presence that quickly transitions into a support role later in the game. Axe's fighting style demands that he gets up close and very personal, as he can taunt enemies into attacking him with Berserker's Call, countering those who strike him with a sweeping Counter Helix that slashes all enemies at melee range. By infusing an enemy's soul with his own Battle Hunger, Axe has a tendency to draw opponents so deep in the fight that they do not have a chance to escape. His ultimate, Culling Blade, bolsters that talent with an attack that unconditionally kills a unit with low health.

Bio

Mogul Khan, the Axe

▶️ "Axe is all the reinforcement this army needs!"

Lore:

As a grunt in the Army of Red Mist, Mogul Khan set his sights on the rank of Red Mist General. In battle after battle he proved his worth through gory deed. His rise through the ranks was helped by the fact that he never hesitated to decapitate a superior. Through the seven year Campaign of the Thousand Tarns, he distinguished himself in glorious carnage, his star of fame shining ever brighter, while the number of comrades in arms steadily dwindled. On the night of ultimate victory, Axe declared himself the new Red Mist General, and took on the ultimate title of 'Axe.' But his troops now numbered zero. Of course, many had died in battle, but a significant number had also fallen to Axe's blade. Needless to say, most soldiers now shun his leadership. But this matters not a whit to Axe, who knows that a one-man army is by far the best.

Voice:

[[Voice actors#|]] (Responses)

Gameplay

Axe is a durable initiator who can disable, damage, and kill whole groups of enemies alone. To do this, Axe's abilities combo into each other very well. Berserker's Call, though hard to land without a Blink Dagger, is a three-second area disable that forces enemies to attack Axe. This forces Counter Helix to proc more often, causing all affected enemies to take massive damage during its duration. If enemies fall under Culling Blade's threshold, Axe can instantly kill them - refreshing the cooldown and allowing Axe to cull again. Even if the enemies survive the initial onslaught, Axe can chase them down through Battle Hunger to secure a kill.

Axe can play in any lane well, though he's usually an offlane support hero. Going midlane or safelane is not unheard of, but both positions depend on the composition of the enemy team. Axe can also successful jungle at the start of the game by levelling up Counter Helix to kill camps, being more efficient than many level one junglers.

Axe can make the most out of his abilities depending on his item choices. Axe can transition to a semi-carry by building damage-dealing items like Heaven's Halberd and Assault Cuirass, which helps counter the enemy carries during the mid-game. As a ganker, Axe can use Blade Mail and Aghanim's Scepter to pick off squishy heroes during Berserker's Call. If built as a pure tank, Heart of Tarrasque and Crimson Guard lets Axe soak up tons of damage while initiating, taking enemy aggro while letting his carries damage the enemy team. No matter the position, Axe's role is to disrupt the enemy' teamfight potential through disables and nukes.

Abilities

Berserker's Call

▶️QE

128x128px

Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Axe taunts nearby enemy units, forcing them to attack him, while he gains bonus armor during the duration.

Cast Animation: +

Radius: 300

Armor Bonus: 40

Duration: 2/2.4/2.8/3.2

16/14/12/10

80/90/100/110

Mogul Khan's warcry taunts opponents into engaging in an unconquerable battle with the Axe.

Affects invisible and spell immune units.

Does not affect towers, wards, Roshan, invulnerable and hidden units.

Casting on a unit under the taunt effect of Berserker's Call refreshes the duration.

Affected units cannot use any spells or items and are forced to attack Axe for its duration.
- Units will attempt to follow and attack Axe regardless of distance, vision, obstacles, or status.
- Affected units are still subject to disables and don't gain free pathing.

If Axe turns invisible during the taunt, affected enemies will attack the closest enemy. If no enemies are nearby, the target will stop. If the target regains vision on Axe, they will attack Axe as normal.
- The target is allowed to make one command of any type during the time Axe is invisible, including items, abilities, and movement. When the command finishes, the target will stop until Axe is visible or the debuff expires.

The taunt has the same priority as Winter's Curse, but lower priority than Duel.
- Same priority means that affected units attack the first taunted unit.

When Axe dies, the effect stops.

Battle Hunger

WR

128x128px

Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Enrages an enemy unit, causing it to be slowed and take damage over time until it kills another unit or the duration ends. Axe gains movement speed for each unit affected with Battle Hunger.

Cast Animation: +

Cast range: 750

Damage per Second: 16/24/32/40

Move Speed Slow: 12%

Self Move Speed Bonus: 12%

Duration: 10

20/15/10/5

75

Ordinary heroes cannot withstand Mogul Khan's rage for battle, such that it injures them until it is satisfied.

Axe is granted 12% movement speed for every affected enemy. This effect stacks.

Casting Battle Hunger multiple times on the same target does not stack, but refreshes the duration instead.

Denying an ally or destroying buildings or wards also removes the debuff.

Using Death Pact, Devour, Demonic Conversion, or Hand of Midas also removes the debuff. However, Lich's Sacrifice does not.

Killing illusions or Power Cogs does not remove the debuff.

The affected unit itself has to make the kill to remove the debuff. Summons or illusions owned by the same player does not remove it when they make a kill.

Deals damage in 1 second intervals starting 1 second after cast, resulting in 10 instances.

Can deal up to 160/240/320/400 damage (before reductions) when lasting its full duration.

Counter Helix

▶️EX

128x128px

Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Physical

When attacked, Axe performs a helix counter attack, dealing damage to all nearby enemies.

Radius: 275

Proc Chance: 20%

Damage: 100/135/170/205

0.45/0.4/0.35/0.3

Axe is the only reinforcement this army needs.

Counter Helix triggers when an enemy unit succesfully hits axe. This means it cannot proc on missed attacks.

Does not trigger on attacks from buildings, wards, allied units, siege creeps, Exorcism, Eye of the Storm and The Swarm beetles.

Does not trigger on extra attacks or bouncing attacks from Sleight of Fist, Moment of Courage, Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Moon Glaive"., Flak Cannon, Split Shot and Death Ward.

Counter Helix will still proc if enemies are outside of helix range.

Damage is applied instantly despite the visual effects.

Counter Helix uses Pseudo Random chance.

Counter Helix damages siege creeps.

Culling Blade

▶️RC

128x128px

Ability
N/A

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Axe spots a weakness and strikes, instantly killing an enemy unit with low health, or dealing moderate damage otherwise. When an enemy hero is killed with Culling Blade, its cooldown is reset, and Axe and nearby allied units gain bonus movement speed.

Cast Animation: +

Cast range: 150

Kill Speed Bonus Radius: 900

Damage: 150/250/300

Kill Health Threshold: 250/325/400 (300/425/550*)

Kill Move Speed Bonus: 30%

Kill Attack Speed Bonus: 30

Kill Speed Duration: 6 (10*)

75/65/55 (6*)

60/120/180

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

Decreases cooldown, increases kill threshold, and increases the duration of movement speed upon kill.

Mogul Khan is the embodiment of battle and fury, launching into a gruesome fatality against those who dare engage the Axe in combat.

Culling Blade does not go into cooldown when successfully culling a hero.

If it kills a hero that exceeds the health threshold (through damage amplification), it will act exactly like it failed a killing blow.

The stated damage is only applied when the target's health exceeds the threshold.

The killing blow kills the target by dealing the health threshold as damage to the target. This damage is treated like HP removal.

Killing blow damage is reflected by Blade Mail based on how much health the target had.

The target's health is checked upon reaching the cast point, so if it gained health during that time so it exceeds the health threshold, the cull fails.
- The target can survive the blow using Blade Mail if it gains more health back than the killing blow can deal (e.g. through Bloodrage or Flesh Golem).
- Since the killing blow removes status effects, losing strength reducing debuffs (e.g. Whirling Death, Decay) can give the target enough health to survive.

The killing blow removes all buffs from the target unit before killing it, including usually unremovable buffs like Shallow Grave.

Can be cast on Animal Courier and Flying Courier.

Recommended items

Template:Recommendeditems

Equipment

Axe/equipment

Tips

General

Resist using Culling Blade when not roaming or teamfighting. While Axe is powerful early game, he scales poorly later on due to a lack of scaling abilities. It is best to let your carry kill enemies if a killing blow is not necessary.
You can type bind "P" "toggle dota_health_per_vertical_marker 250 325 400 550" into the console to easily find the instakill health thresholds for Axe's ultimate. Press 'P' in game to change the corresponding number of the health bars. This sets each bar of health to the value you set, which means when they are under 1 bar of health, you can successfully kill the hero. For details on enabling the console, see Console.
Axe is an excellent counter-pick to heroes with abilities that can greatly increase their attack speed (i.e. Ursa, Troll Warlord), as the combination of Berserker's Call, Blade Mail, and Counter Helix will quickly destroy their health.
The standard Axe combo is to blink into a group of enemies, cast Berserker's Call, cast any active items, right-click the weakest enemy, then cull any hero at low health. This must be executed quickly so the enemy cannot react.

Early game

Axe is especially dangerous early game, due to his high starting statistics, the damage from Counter Helix, and the speed from Battle Hunger contributing to his ability to chase and attack enemies.
Berserker's Call provides the full armor bonus at level one. It is the primary factor in his ability to survive physical damage without good items.
Early-game, Axe and and his laning partner can attempt a technique known as creep cutting. This involves going behind the enemy tower and using Counter Helix to take out the creep waves, eating tangoes to regenerate. While it stops the enemy team from getting last-hits, it's also risky due to being far away from your tower.
An alternative skill build is to max out Battle Hunger by Level 7. This enables Axe to constantly deal damage over time in lane, dealing lots of damage and dissuading the enemy from attacking. This meshes well with Axe's capability to tank and keep the enemy at bay while stopping them from last hitting, allowing Battle Hunger deal its full damage. This technique assumes that Axe has a steady supply of mana to cast Battle Hunger.
If Axe is going against two weak melee heroes in a lane without sufficient burst damage, do not hesitate to stand between them and their creeps. The enemy won't be able to last hit without taking damage from Counter Helix, which will negate their early-game presence.
Instead of using Berserker's Call to draw creep aggro in lane, you can right-click an enemy hero. This applies to any visible hero, meaning you can draw creeps by clicking outside of Axe's attack range.

Abilities

Berserker's Call

Axe's effective health is massively increased with this skill, meaning he is very hard to kill with physical damage while under its effect.
It's best to taunt enemy supports first, as they are more likely to die from Counter Helix than carries - thus taking out a member of their team rather than simply dealing damage.
Berserker's Call still has a 0.4 second cast point, so make sure enemies are close enough to fall under its effects.
If you're being chased by an enemy and have no other options, cast this spell to minimise the amount of damage you take from their attacks until help arrives.
Enemies cannot cast disables while taunted, meaning that Axe can taunt an enemy to safely teleport away from them.
- Enemies can still disable Axe if he's under the buff, wasting valuable taunt time.

Battle Hunger

Do not underestimate Battle Hunger's damage potential. A 400 damage spell with a five-second cooldown can be very annoying for squishy heroes.
Battle Hunger can be cast on enemies near death to secure a kill, should they fail to heal the damage dealt in time.
If an enemy hero is out of range, Axe can cast Battle Hunger on a creep to gain enough speed to close the distance.
If a target is unlikely to die during Berserker's Call, casting Battle Hunger on them can help Axe to chase them in the aftermath.
Even though Battle Hunger has a five-second cooldown, spamming it when not necessary is likely to eat up Axe's small mana pool, wasting his more valuable spells.
Battle Hunger will proc Linken's Sphere on cast, making it much safer to use Culling Blade on a Linken's holder.

Counter Helix

Counter Helix damage is physical, meaning Axe can use armor-reducing items to increase its damage.
Counter Helix will proc more often if more enemies are attacking him, making it ideal to cast Berserker's Call on multiple units to ensure it procs as often as possible.
Counter Helix will not proc on spells, making it less effective against nukers.
If Axe cannot be phsyically attacked, E.G. through Ghost Scepter or disarm, Counter Helix won't proc. This means Axe must consider when he should use his items.
If an enemy is near death, Axe can simply chase them until Counter Helix procs again, securing a kill.
Because of the low health pool of lane creeps, Counter Helix can be used to quickly and safely push lanes.

Culling Blade

Culling Blade allows Axe to become a formidable semi-carry by damaging enemies with Counter Helix and finishing them off with a killing blow.
The skill can be casted multiple times in succession if each cast results in a killing blow, allowing potential for massive team-kills.
Aghanim's Scepter allows Culling Blade to act as a nuke with a six-second cooldown, which is useful if a target is unlikely to die within the next six seconds.
Try not to use Culling Blade on enemies if your allies can kill them without it. Your allies are likely to use the gold more effectively than you.
Be sure to watch the health bar on enemies when casting Culling Blade - if it's too high, the killing blow won't proc and you will waste the cooldown.

Items

Axe can utilise many types of boots effectively.
- Arcane Boots are good on a supporting Axe due to his mana-hungry nature, which combined with health regeneration means he will rarely have to go back to base.
- Phase Boots lets Axe deal more damage during Berserker's Call, as well as letting him chase enemies that attempt to flee.
- Power Treads are viable in a semi-carry role, where Axe needs the attack speed to deal as much damage as he can during Berserker's Call.
Vanguard can be swapped out for Hood of Defiance as the first core item if the threat of magical damage outweighs the threat of physical damage. Keep in mind that physical damage generally scales better than magical damage.
Soul Ring can provide most of the mana Axe needs during the early game. Paired with health regeneration like Ring of Health, Axe can quickly regain the damage he takes.
- A Bloodstone can be built from an early Soul Ring, providing lots of mana and health for Axe while benefitting his team when he dies. The buff his team gains on death is useful if Axe is being built as an initiator, as he will be quickly focused by the enemy.
Aghanim's Scepter allows Axe to split-push effectively when combined with an escape mechanism, due to Culling Blade providing movement speed for his creeps. If it is cast whenever it is off cooldown, the creeps will rush to the enemy base much faster than normal.
Resist the urge to use Blade Mail while the enemy is affected by Berserker's Call if they don't deal enough damage to make use of it. The massive armor bonus will reduce Blade Mail's damage by a lot, unless the target deals exceptional damage. The optimal strategy is to use Blade Mail after the call ends and hope they'll still attack you afterwards.

Trivia

Axe's alternate/Fun name was "Mogul Kahnt Touch This", a reference to MC Hammer's famous song U Can't Touch This.
Axe, Disruptor, and Warlock are all related as they come from the Oglodi tribe.
Axe's phrase ▶️ "Better red than dead!" is a reversed reference to an American Cold War slogan stating "Better dead than Red".
Several of Axe's deny and Culling Blade killing blow responses (such as ▶️ "You get nothing. Good day, sir!") are references to Willy Wonka's infamous rage scene in the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. ^[1]
Axe's name, lore and "one-man army" image may have been inspired by Khan Noonien Singh in the Star Trek series, who was also described as a "one-man army" and killed uncooperative subordinates (along with used-to wearing a red shirt).