Dark Seer/Guide

Hero

Strategy

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Equipment

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Gameplay

Playstyle
Dark Seer is a semi-support hero, most focused on AoE Battles. He is able to farm safely due to Ion Shell which can also be used to damage his enemies. He can make himself and his allies reach incredible speeds with Surge, along with using Vacuum and Wall of Replica in conjuction with each other to initiate and deal damage using the enemies' own power.
Pros	Cons
Strong solo offlaner. Extremely annoying to lane against. Strong team fight presence. Excellent at escaping or disengaging.	Melee attack range. Initiation combo often requires a followup.

Offlane

Info.

Ability Builds

Offlane Dark Seer
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Hero Talents
+80 Ion Shell Damage	25	+25 Strength
+75 Vacuum AoE	20	10% Cooldown Reduction
+14 Health Regen	15	+120 Damage
+100 Cast Range	10	12% Evasion

Notes:

• The evasion stacks multiplicatively with other sources of evasion.

• The health regen is added as a bonus and does not benefit illusions.

• The attack damage is added as bonus attack damage, and therefore does not benefit illusions.

• Cooldown reduction affects abilities and items. Stacks multiplicatively with Octarine Core and additively with Arcane Rune.

Tips & Tactics

General

• If laning, be sure to harass enemies with Ion Shell by placing it on their melee creeps (for melee heroes) or ranged creeps (for ranged heroes). Additionally, placing Ion Shell on the second allied melee creep to arrive at the creep line is a good way to push the lane as well as create a moving damage-dealing creep that chases enemy heroes. This can make it hard for the enemy carry to last hit, as they have to do it under the tower and while taking damage from creep aggro and ion shell at the same time.
• Dark Seer can farm rapidly in lane and jungle thanks to Ion Shell. To jungle, stack the hard and medium camps several times, and then place an ion shell on one of the lesser creeps. The shell should clear out the whole camp(including the stacks). Do this repeatedly to accumulate a large sum of gold. However, be sure to stay within experience range.

Abilities

Vacuum

• Due to Vacuum being able to clump up a large group of enemies fast, and Ion Shell's high damage output considering enemies are affected by it for a longer while, they permit Dark Seer to synergize extremely well with heroes such as Enigma and Jakiro. Make sure to cast these abilities with Black Hole and Ice Path/ Macropyre/ Liquid Fire to maximize AoE damage and maybe turn the tide in battle.
• AoE spells, especially those that require positioning, greatly benefit from Vacuum, as it can place all of them together to ensure a hit.

Ion Shell

• When chasing, self-cast Ion Shell and run next to the enemy without attacking, using Surge if the enemy is faster. Even better, use surge to body-block enemy heroes (that is, get in front of them to hinder their movement) and deal damage with basic attacks without moving out of range of the Ion Shell.

Surge

• Surge can be cast on the team's Animal Courier, allowing it to get out of danger, or finish its delivery to allies faster.
• While normally pushing the lane is a bad thing, Surge and his high strength gain makes it hard for the enemies to lock down Dark Seer and kill him.

Wall of Replica

• Using Vacuum on enemy heroes to send them through Wall of Replica creates illusions of them, as well as slowing them.

Items

Starting items:

• Stout Shield gives you resistance to physical attacks whether you are laning or jungling.
• Tangoes cover your health and mana issues until you build up your early game items.
• Iron Branches is beneficial with its early boost to Dark Seer's attributes, but also help you build up to a Magic Wand and/or Mekansm later on.
• Soul Ring can be considered as it can be assembled in the side shop and lets your team use the courier more. This is especially important if your midlaner plans on getting a Bottle quickly.

Early-game items:

• Soul Ring covers most of your mana issues and allows you to constantly cast your Ion Shell in order to harass your lane opponents and get some last hits.
• Boots of Speed gives mobility for chasing or running away.

Core items:

• Magic Wand allows you to sustain your presence in fights.
• Arcane Boots increase your mana pool and allow you to give your teammates mana.
• Mekansm adds to Dark Seer's teamfight effectiveness and increases your durability. Also his decent Intelligence gain means he will generally have enough mana to use the heal.
• Town Portal Scroll allows you to be at any lane for a gank, countergank, or push in seconds.

Situational items:

• Bottle can also be used to sustain high mana use, if the Dark Seer is put midlane. It has the added benefit of rune control as most runes are useful for Ion Shell harass.
• Crimson Guard can protect your team from enemy carries in teamfights.
• Aghanim's Scepter effectively allows your illusions to deal more damage than your opponents, thereby significantly increasing your team fight potential.
• Hood of Defiance grants you magic resist and a lot of health regeneration, and can be upgraded into a Pipe of Insight.
• Pipe of Insight grants you and your allies protection from magic damage.
• Blink Dagger can help you positioning to place a better Wall into Vacuum combo.
• Ghost Scepter should be considered to counter high physical damage dealers and it is relatively cheap.
• Scythe of Vyse is always a great pickup for the hex and mana regen. If you need to turn off a carry's damage output, this is a very strong pickup.
• Shiva's Guard grants you more punch to your Vacuum and Wall of Replica initiation, and gives you armor and intelligence.
• Heart of Tarrasque allows you to initiate with little fear of dying.
• Refresher Orb allows you to cast your abilities and items twice in a row if needed.