Strategy
Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Gyrocopter is a ranged carry who specializes at dishing out physical and magical damage over a wide area. He presents an unorthodox pattern of carry in that he can deal a large amount of magical damage and crowd control much earlier than other carry heroes thanks to Call Down and Rocket Barrage. As game goes on, Flak Cannon adds up his physical damage output and maintains his threat to entire enemy team. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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Carry
Gyrocopter can quickly farm creeps, as well as heroes, with Rocket Barrage, Flak Cannon, and Call Down. With strong abilities that deal good damage, Gyrocopter should buy items that help him stay alive and increase movement speed in earlier part of the game. Later on, he can consider damage items to take advantage of Flak Cannon.
Support
Gyrocopter possesses great burst damage in Rocket barrage and his missile.As a result, he can start a game as a support and gang to stack up kills.With few cheap items,such as Veil of Discord the damage becomes too much,even for the bulkiest of heroes,allowing Gyrocopter to snowball and potentially transition into a carry later
Ability Builds
| Carry Gyrocopter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
 |  | | | |  | | | |  |  | | | | | |  | | | | |||||
Talents
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| -30s Call Down Cooldown and Global Range | 25 | -5s Flak Cannon Cooldown |
| +14 Rocket Barrage Damage | 20 | +3 Flak Cannon Attacks |
| +25 Flak Cannon Damage | 15 | +0.3s Homing Missile Stun Duration |
| +175 Health | 10 | +30 Movement Speed during Rocket Barrage |
Notes:
- The health talent increases the max health capacity and keeps the current health percentage.
Tips & Tactics
General
- As an agility hero with moderate health and no innate escape ability, Gyrocopter is somewhat squishy and relies on items to keep himself alive in fight. His magical damage advantage diminishes after the enemy carry becomes spell immune, and, as a ranged hero with short attack range, he has little advantage in a direct manfight with enemy carries if not with a gold advantage. Also, most of his damage could be evaded if not timed correctly.
- Surprisingly, Gyrocopter could play as a greedy roaming support. By leveling Rocket Barrage and Homing Missile, he can initiate a gank and take down heroes together with his teammates. After gaining an advantage he can flash farm using his skills and transition into a semi-carry. Note that more utility items can be made other than traditional carry items here.
Abilities
Rocket Barrage
- Rocket Barrage is a spell which could potentially deal heavy damage around towards a single target and generally should be maxed first.
- Rocket Barrage is incredibly powerful against a single enemy, but its damage falls off dramatically if there are multiple targets. Position yourself far from the creeps while close to the enemy to make the best use of it.
- Since Call Down and Flak Cannon deals AoE damage to creeps/illusions/summons, these skills have great synergy with Rocket Barrage and could increase its damage on a single hero.
- Rocket Barrage has no cast foreswing, so Gyrocopter can simply follow the enemy to release the salvo of rockets.
- Gyrocopter can still attack when using Rocket Barrage, however the attack animation may hinder the chase towards enemy. However, with a movement speed advantage (e.g., Boots, Yasha, Butterfly) you can remain attacking enemy while chasing, and also feel free to activate in a one-on-one fight when enemy hero has no spell immunity.
- Rocket Barrage does not give vision and cannot hit enemies in fog, but Call Down and Homing Missile could potentially provide the area vision which may be critical to focus down an enemy.
- Rocket Barrage should be spammed in teamfights, however time it well so that the damage could be inflicted on the right enemy.
- Use Rocket Barrage for farming or hit and run.
Homing Missile
- Homing Missile is an unorthodox single target disable: it launches a missile which takes time to hit the target and can hit the target with surprisingly large amount of damage and stun.
- There are different strategies in leveling Homing Missile: some common ones include not leveling it until level 11, others maxing it first for more gank potential. The general idea is that Gyrocopter needs survivability and damage output and would focus less on control as a carry, as Homing Missile doesn’t help on farming; but as a more supportive role leveling Homing Missile may increase chance of getting a kill. The situation varies on situation in every match, so don’t get stuck in one single sequence of skill leveling.
- Homing Missile is not a spammable skill on a heavily mana-dependent hero as Gyrocopter, and it is not an effective harass skill in lower levels. The rule of thumb is to only cast the spell when someone comes to help you gank.
- Try casting Homing Missile where the enemy has no vision, e.g. behind the tree lines so you could surprise enemy when they actually notice and have little time to run away.
- Because Homing Missile has a three-second stop before it starts to move, it is best to cast before the gank initiates – or the enemy could easily run away from the missile, and when it finally hits the target no allies could reach the enemy. On the other hand, the long stun and vision the missile provides gives chance for global skills, e.g. Sun Strike, Nature’s Wrath, to finish out the enemy.
- In a team fight, it is best to cast the spell on casters with channeling skills, like Freezing Field and Death Ward. The missile could interrupt the spell if placed early and hinder their judgment to cast their spells. Remember to check whether they have Black King Bar before using this strategy!
- Homing Missile has little effect for heroes with innate spell immunity or dodging skills, like Lifestealer, Juggernaut and Puck. However, against heroes that carry Black King Bar like Sven, Ursa, and Dragon Knight, the missile could force out a Black King Bar on enemy carries to avoid being stunned in dangerous places, causing them to have no spell immunity in teamfights if they happen soon after.
Flak Cannon
- Flak Cannon helps Gyrocopter clear creep waves and jungle camps.
- Using Flak Cannon to harass the enemy in lane will push the lane. Ask supports to pull creeps to mitigate the problem and give the enemy a disadvantage.
- Flak Cannon has a much longer search radius than Gyrocopter's attack range: when an enemy with low HP gets out of attack range, attack a nearby target to finish off the low HP one.
- Using Helm of the Dominator to hire a creep or asking supports to stack neutral camps, especially ancient camps, and clear them up using Flak Cannon could give Gyrocopter a significant gold advantage over enemy carries.
- By increasing Gyrocopter’s attack damage, the spell can inflict absurd amount of damage on summoned units and squishy supports, forcing them to back off. However, Flak Cannon has a long cooldown and will not hit units in Fog of War. Improper timing may cause the spell to be on cooldown or used with no enemies around in teamfights, wasting its great damage potential.
- Flak Cannon does not apply most attack modifiers, like crits and the Cold Attack from Eye of Skadi.
- Use Flak Cannon and attack towers to deal damage to them and clear creep waves at the same time, as Flak Cannon will not hit towers if Gyrocopter attacks creeps.
Call Down
- Call Down is Gyrocopter’s greatest teamfight ability. It provides an AoE slow and damage in a large area, forcing the enemy to back off to avoid the negative effects. Its low cooldown ensures that it could be used in every single teamfight or gank.
- Call Down provides vision of the targeted area. Together with its large area of effect, it could prevent jukes.
- Beware of its 2 second delay: enemy could simply run away if they see your cast animation. The red indicator is only visible to allies, so it is better to predict the enemy’s movement and drop the bomb right on their path, or cast it together with your allies' disables or your Homing Missile.
- Call Down synergizes with spells that can affect a large area, like Chronosphere or Ravage. Try to communicate with your teammates so the spell can be used at its best.
- Gyrocopter relies on his ultimate so much that he has little teamfight availability until he gets his ultimate. Keep this in mind and gain your ultimate as quickly as possible.
- The slow does not penetrate spell immunity, and the damage of the spell falls off late game. Thus, it is crucial to keep Gyrocopter farmed to keep his teamfight advantage.
- Call Down could be used to clear creep waves later in the game and stacked camps together with Flak Cannon to increase Gyrocopter’s farming speed.
Items
Starting items:
- Tango gives Gyrocopter regen to counter early harassment.
- Healing Salve gives a helpful burst heal to help stay in lane.
- Iron Branch gives cheap early stats, and can be consumed with a Tango for extra regen.
- Faerie Fire helps with last hits.
- Slippers of Agility gives a decent agility boost.
Early game:
- Boots of Speed quickly can allow Gyrocopter to get early kills with his Rocket Barrage.
- Magic Wand can save Gyrocopter in a pinch.
Mid game:
- Phase Boots give extra attack damage for Flak Cannon.
- Drum of Endurance and Boots of Bearing allow Gyrocopter to come online earlier than most carries by adding attributes, movement speed, and attack speed, which aid him and allies in ganks.
- Mask of Madness keeps his health up when clearing jungle camps with lifesteal, and increases attack damage and attack speed. He can disassemble it later on to build Satanic and Butterfly.
- Dragon Lance greatly improves Gyrocopter's short attack range and offers cost-efficient stats.
- Sange and Yasha provides a good mix of tankiness and chasing ability.
- Black King Bar is usually needed to make full use of Flak Cannon without being interrupted.
Late game:
- Butterfly's evasion makes Gyrocopter significantly harder to take down, and allows him to go head-to-head against harder carries.
- Satanic is the natural supplemental item to make Gyrocopter with multiple damage items able to survive longer in late-game teamfights, while also providing a decent damage boost itself.
Situational items:
- Hurricane Pike is a natural extension to Dragon Lance, giving Gyrocopter more mobility, and it can push the Homing Missile to hit the target faster.
- Aghanim's Scepter allows Gyrocopter to continue attacking even when disabled, and gives more attacks which can proc attack modifiers.
- Boots of Travel helps Gyrocopter be present at every fight.
- Manta Style is good for pushing, and disjointing projectiles.
- Daedalus multiplies well with Flak Cannon, increasing Gyrocopter's damage significantly. It also gives him a chance on inflicting critical hits on his primary target.
- Monkey King Bar gives Gyrocopter decent attack damage, as well as proccing extra magical damage.
- Divine Rapier is the be-all-end-all in terms of damage for Gyrocopter. In combination with Flak Cannon it can decimate the entire enemy team within seconds. But it is also a risky purchase and should only be bought when Gyrocopter is sufficiently tanky or as a last resort in dealing with an overwhelming enemy advantage.
