Lich/Guide

Hero

Strategy

Equipment

Gear

Gameplay[]

Playstyle
Lich is a ranged intelligence hero whose Sinister Gaze draws enemies closer, pulling them to his team. With Frost Blast, he can nuke down enemies, or put Frost Shield on himself or his allies for protection. His Chain Frost deals heavy damage and slow to enemies during teamfights.
Pros	Cons
Strong lane presence with Frost Shield. Spammable nuke in Frost Blast. Makes teammates tanky. Chain Frost can destroy enemies' positions in teamfight. Good at defending buildings.	Low defense. No escape. Might not be as strong later on. Requires mana management early game as all his abilities use a lot of mana.

Support[]

Lich can dominate his lane by spamming Frost Blast with clarities or by using Frost Shield on allies, allowing them to harass the enemies.
Keep using Frost Shield on allies in ganks to increase their survivability, as well as slowing down the enemies.

Ability Builds[]

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

Talents[]

Hero Talents
Chain Frost Unlimited Bounces	25	Frost Shield Provides +50 HP Regen
+4s Frost Shield Duration	20	Chain Frost on Death
-3.5s Frost Blast Cooldown	15	+0.4s Sinister Gaze Duration
+125 Frost Blast Radius and Damage	10	+10% Frost Shield Damage Reduction

Tips & Tactics[]

General[]

Lich is a support hero who possesses tremendous nuking power, as well as disable power via his many slows. His low reliance on items makes him a strong support who can cause considerable harm to the enemy in the laning stage.
Like most intelligence support casters, Lich suffers from poor strength and agility, making him easy to kill by enemy attacks and abilities should he ever get caught out of position. Playing Lich well requires judicious positioning depending on the situation, and casting his spells on the right targets without being focused down by the enemy.
Lich's skill set allows him to be played effectively in any lane. However, this does not necessarily change his role, only the amount of farm he gets.

Abilities[]

Frost Blast[]

When casting Frost Blast on enemy heroes in lane to harass them, try to follow up with a few attacks on them while they are slowed.
Frost Blast damages and slows the target enemy, as well as applying additional minor damage and the slow in a radius around the target.
Lich's low base intelligence means that he is unable to use Frost Blast repeatedly without a source of mana replenishment.
Frost Blast has a longer-than-average cast range, allowing Lich to lead early-game ganks with it. It is very powerful when ganking the enemy offlaner as the slow lasts for 4 seconds, allowing teammates with high damage output to capitalize on the slow while Frost Blast's low cooldown allows you to finish off the target soon after if needed.
Although Frost Blast is a unit target spell, it also has a small radius of effect in which nearby enemies will take minor damage as well as the slow. This makes Frost Blast an imperfect area-of-effect nuke that can help in nuking down creep waves if needed.
Frost Blast's low cooldown and relatively low teamfight impact make it great for wasting an enemy Linken's Sphere.

Frost Shield[]

With an area damage-over-time component and a reduction to damage from attacks, Frost Shield can flexibly be used for both offense and defense.
Frost Shield helps Lich and allies trade hits in the early game as the enemies will have a hard time dealing with its attack damage resistance. Furthermore, the movement speed slow will keep them from running too far from harassment.
Use Frost Shield on allies when ganking, applying slow and damage to enemies over a long duration.
The damage, slow, and attack damage resistance make Frost Shield great for allies that like to tower-dive, such as Spirit Breaker and Night Stalker.
As Lich's main source of area-of-effect damage, Frost Shield can be used to push lanes (particularly, when cast on creeps) or farm the jungle.
Use Frost Shield on allied buildings to slow and damage pushing enemies.

Sinister Gaze[]

Sinister Gaze hypnotizes the enemies, making them walk toward Lich, thus ruining their positioning.
Sinister Gaze makes the target face Lich, so he can use Force Staff following the channel to push the target further into Lich's teammates.
Try to use Sinister Gaze at maximum cast range so enemies will have to walk for longer distance.
Sinister Gaze can make the target walk over cliffs.
Can be used to keep enemies in reach of Frost Shield's damage or to prevent them from running away from Chain Frost.
Note that Sinister Gaze has a shorter cast range than most of Lich's spells; be careful to not get caught out of position while attempting to drag an enemy in.

Chain Frost[]

Chain Frost is a massive damage-dealing, slowing, multi-target nuke. It is very fatal when bouncing between enemy heroes, doing massive damage and slowing them.
Chain Frost is most effective when used on a group of enemy heroes with the level 25 talent on Lich because this removes the limit of bounces, making it a very dangerous orb of frozen death, enabling him to do a one-on-five fight.
One of the biggest disadvantages of Chain Frost is its slow movement speed. This gives time for enemies to split apart, preventing it from bouncing. You can, however, work with heroes that can disable multiple enemies like Soulbind, Berserker's Call, Chronosphere, Black Hole, Reverse Polarity, and so on, which lock heroes in place long enough for Chain Frost to deal full damage. As well, keep in mind that the slow travel speed of the orb can be negated if the enemy is standing in very close proximity, reducing its travel time between targets.
Chain Frost can be one of the most devastating ultimates in the game, and can easily turn a teamfight in your favor when used properly. Use it to deal damage quickly to clustered enemy heroes.
Be careful about where you cast Chain Frost. If there are multiple enemy creeps around the spell may waste much of its power on them, yet at the same time it is almost useless when cast on a single enemy as it will not bounce. Use your judgment in deciding when Chain Frost is most profitably cast.
Chain Frost can be used to instantly turn around enemy ganks under the right circumstances. As players often clump together when chasing a target, casting Chain Frost on them can deal large amounts of damage to them, either netting you multiple kills or forcing the enemy to spread out and retreat, breaking up the gank attempt.
When using Chain Frost in a teamfight, frost Blast can be used to reduce the enemy's movement speed which can greatly debilitate their efforts to spread out. Additionally, you can use Frost Blast to attempt to kill any nearby enemy creeps, so that they will not be available as targets for Chain Frost's bounce and thus waste some of its power.
If Lich catches the enemy team killing Roshan, using Chain Frost will force them to desist and/or deal huge damage to all of them, as Roshan's pit is very difficult to disperse inside, especially when slowed.

Items[]

Starting items:

Tango sustains Lich's health so that he does not get harassed out of lane; he can also use it to heal allied carry as well.

Healing Salve also restores health to Lich or an ally.

Clarity supplies mana for Frost Blast, keeping enemies from touching the creep waves.

Iron Branch is cheap and gives Lich good attributes. It can build to Magic Wand.

Observer Ward provides map vision for team to spot enemy ganks.

Early game:

Magic Stick and later Magic Wand grant burst healing and mana, keeping Lich going longer in fights or ganks.

Tranquil Boots help sustain Lich's health, while using clarities to regen mana. It also helps Lich kite melees in lane with wind lance build up.

Mid game:

Aether Lens gives Lich much-needed mana and allows him to cast his abilities from a safe distance, while letting Sinister Gaze displace enemies further.

Force Staff helps manipulate allies' and enemies' positioning to set up Lich's spells or escape in a pinch.

Glimmer Cape grants cheap magic resistance and invisibility to foil gank attempts and escape from bad situations.

Urn of Shadows gives some cheap armor and mana regen, along with a useful heal or damage-over-time as long as Lich keeps ganking. Can be upgraded to Spirit Vessel to break down bulkier enemies.

Late game:

Blink Dagger helps Lich get the jump on enemies with his disables or Chain Frost.

Situational items:

Refresher Orb massively increases Lich's teamfight damage with a second Chain Frost cast, but takes a severe toll on his mana supply.

Scythe of Vyse gives a powerful disable and solves Lich's mana problems, though it comes at a prohibitively high price.

Ghost Scepter provides Lich attributes and ethereal to counter physical damage, letting him survive against farmed carries.

Mekansm can be used to support allies with burst healing in the mid-game before upgrading to Guardian Greaves, though the heal taxes Lich's mana pool.