▶️
Many hands make light work.
This article is badly written or needs more information. Please help the community by updating it. Read this formatting guide first.
Bad against...
- Anti-Mage can burn mana, which is a big problem for a spellcaster like Zeus that heavily relies on it.
- Spell Shield decreases magical damage from Zeus.
- Zeus' high intelligence and mana pool makes him a perfect target for Mana Void.
- Time Dilation can limit Zeus to casting his abilities only once in a fight, effectively serving as a 6/8/10/12 second silence.
- Time Walk negates Zeus's burst damage.
- Chronosphere makes Zeus the best target for Void because of his low mobility.
- Chaos Knight's high health pool makes him resistant to Zeus' burst damage, Phantasm can dispel Veil of Discord, a typical item purchased by Zeus.
- Zeus is easily overwhelmed by Chaos Knight's strong illusions, as Arc Lightning is not enough to kill them fast enough to have any impact.
- Zeus' low base armor makes him extremely vulnerable to Chaos Knight's high damage output and armor reduction.
- Berserker's Blood greatly increases Huskar's magic resistance which Zeus is entirely reliant on.
- Life Break is especially deadly against Zeus since he has no escape mechanism.
- Blade Fury negates all magical attack from Zeus.
- Omnislash can easily take down Zeus. Be wary that most players will get a Eul's Scepter of Divinity or a Ghost Scepter against you.
- Rage not only negates all magical attack from Zeus, it's very also useful to kill Zeus.
- Lifestealer can avoid Thundergod's Wrath with Infest.
- Thundergod's Wrath strikes only the first Meepo.
- Zeus has low mobilty so consecutive Earthbinds are easy to hit and he'll quickly die from Poofs.
- Meat Hook's high range allows Pudge's team to drag Zeus in the middle of the fight and abuse his frailty.
- Flesh Heap's health and magic resistance bonus makes Pudge exceptionally resistant to Zeus' nukes. In later stages of the game Zeus is usually unable to seriously damage Pudge at all, even Static Field which deals damage based on a percentage of the enemy's health is not doing much.
- Even if Zeus buys a Black King Bar, Meat Hook and Dismember still disable him for a long time, usually causing Zeus' quick death.
- Zeus is vulnerable to early ganks, whom Pudge excels at.
- Even though Pugna's low HP means that he can be quickly be bursted down, his Nether Ward heavily punishes casters whose spells cost a lot of mana, like Zeus . Casting 4 of his active spells, including Nimbus, close to an enhanced lvl 4 Nether Ward, can make the nether ward deals up to 1750 magical damage.
- Decrepify can further increase the damage dealt by Nether Ward upon Zeus . However, it used on Pugna himself or on one of his allies, it will increase the damage done by Zeus' spells.
- Silencer's Global Silence will render Zeus useless for 6 seconds in a teamfight
- Arcane Curse will punish Zeus for casting spells causing continuous damage to him
- Last Word can silence Zeus and prevent him from spamming his spells
- Silencer often builds orchid which can be used on Zeus which might force him to build a linkens sphere
- Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Enrage". will make it very difficult to burst him down.
- Zeus has little armor, HP and mobility; Ursa's favorite kind of target.
- Repel makes the enemy's ally immune to all of Zeus' spells rendering his spells useless against the targeted enemy.
Others
- Zeus can deal a huge amount of damage, but he lacks defensive abilities, such as good mobility or resistance. Due to that, he doesn't like to be touched by any means. Heroes with higher damage output and good mobility will often get easily near Zeus and trade damage (eventually causing Zeus's downfall). Such Heroes include: Lycan, Slark, Storm Spirit, Spectre and others.
- As a spellcaster, silences will nullify him entirely.
- Doom, as usual, fits this description nicely.
- Heroes with long range abilities are also able to touch Zeus, such as Clockwerk, Kunkka, Puck, Skywrath Mage, Spirit Breaker, Tusk and others.
- Heroes with built-in magic resistance: Viper, Rubick, Huskar, Anti-Mage.
Items
- Arc Lightning and Lightning Bolt have very low cooldowns, which will provide plenty of charges for Magic Stick or Magic Wand.
- The magic resistance from Cloak, as well as it's upgrades, Hood of Defiance and Pipe of Insight, will greatly reduce the effectiveness of Zeus's spell since they are all magic based. Notice that these items have separate cooldowns and stack their magic resistance bonuses, so don't hesitate to buy a Pipe and another Hood on top if one of them is not enough. Also more than one person buying a Pipe is sometimes useful, keep in mind though that the actives don't stack.
- Glimmer Cape works as well, but keep in mind that Zeus can easily reveal you out of invisibility with Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's wrath. However, it enables the wearer to avoid Thundergod's Wrath's damage.
- Black King Bar is Zeus' worst enemy.
- Over time, Black King Bar's duration is reduced allowing Zeus to cast his spells earlier.
- Orchid Malevolence silences and amplifies the damage Zeus takes, hitting him right in his weak spots (being very dependent on spells and being a very fragile Hero).
- The enemy may also be able to build a Bloodthorn which not only silences Zeus but also takes advantage of his low armor by dealing critical damage.
- Blade Mail will return the damage Zeus deals. At the start of a fight, the percentage-based damage of Static Field can be especially harmful to Zeus.
- As an intelligence hero with a big mana pool and low armor, Diffusal Blade deals a lot of damage against him. The slow also heavily cripples his already low movement speed.
- Any invisibility item or skill negates Thundergod's Wrath damage. Invulnerability works as well.
- A special mention should go to Smoke of Deceit, since it will immediately hide you and your nearby allies from Zeus' ultimate, potentially saving your lives for a small 50 gold cost.
- Heart of Tarrasque makes it very hard to deal serious damage with magical nukes only, being generally strong against all non-rightclick-based damage dealers.
Good against...
- Slardar has high priority on building moblity items such as Blink Dagger rather than tank items. Zeus can easily deal large amount of damage to him if not get caught out of position at first.
- Enchantress has a very low health pool, allowing Zeus to burst her down quickly before she can heal off the damage.
- Zeus will not be affected by Untouchable, as he won't try to attack her anyway.
- Zeus can stay out of her attack range while trying to kill her, especially if he has bought an Aether Lens.
- Most heroes would want to get on top of Zeus to kill him, but Enchantress does not have this option as doing so would severely limit her Impetus damage.
- The exception is the laning phase, where Enchantress can gank Zeus if she Enchants a good creep.
- Reactive Armor will not trigger from Zeus's spells or protect Timbersaw from their damage.
- Early game Timbersaw's strength is average and Zeus can heavily aid in bursting him down.
- Late game, if Timbersaw has built a lot of HP items, Zeus's passive Static Field will be more effective at chipping away Timbersaw's large HP pool.
- A Timbersaw who builds Pipe of Insight will be much more difficult to kill, as Zeus has no way to hold Timbersaw down, but Timbersaw will have less armor, mana, and damage than normal if he buys this item early game just to counter Zeus.
- Bounty Hunter has a very low health pool, allowing Zeus to burst him down quickly.
- Zeus can cast Lightning Bolt to gain True Sight in any area he suspects Bounty Hunter may be invisible or any area he thinks Bounty Hunter may have warded.
- If Bounty Hunter tries to escape a gank by using Shadow Walk, Zeus can gain vision of him with both Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's Wrath.
- Any ally that Winter Wyvern tries to save with Cold Embrace can still be damaged by all of Zeus's spells.
- If Winter Wyvern tries to juke vision by flying up a cliff or in the trees, Zeus can gain vision there with Lightning Bolt or Thundergod's Wrath.
- If Zeus is forced to attack an ally by Winter's Curse, his unimpressive attack damage and attack speed means they won't be hurt much by him. Zeus will also stay near the back of fights away from his allies, making a deadly Curse less likely.
- Zeus's damage will not trigger the Ice Armor slow or be reduced by it.
- Lich does not pose a big threat to Zeus in teamfights, as his spells don't have great cast range and Zeus should be too far back for a Chain Frost to bounce among him and his allies.
- Lich has a very low health pool, allowing Zeus to burst him down quickly.
- Necrophos' Ghost Shroud increases the magic damage taken by Necrophos.
- If Zeus builds both an Ethereal Blade and Veil of Discord, it almost always guarantees a kill.
Others
- Zeus has one of the highest damage outputs in the game, but he can be easily countered if enemies are allowed to farm items like Black King Bar and Pipe of Insight. Zeus is thus very effective early and mid game against heroes that have to build certain items that aren't good against him, such as illusion heroes that have to build Radiance or agility items. Another being initiators that have to rush Blink Dagger.
- Heroes with mediocre health pools who rely on armor or evasion to survive fights such as Troll Warlord, Windranger, and Terrorblade can be killed by Zeus if caught off guard.
- Heroes that avoid damage by coming in and out of invisibility in teamfights such as Weaver, Templar Assassin, and Riki will be easy for Zeus to reveal with Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's Wrath, but these heroes usually have other ways to avoid his damage or kill him, so he is not a perfect counter alone.
- Zeus is good against heroes that juke in trees or up cliffs, like Batrider, Monkey King, Spectre, and Tinker, by providing vision in any area with Lightning Bolt, or guaranteeing vision on enemies with Thundergod's Wrath.
- Zeus's Lightning Bolt give's temporary True Sight in a 750 radius. This allows Zeus to check if there are any Remote Mines in that area or to deward.
- Arc Lightning or Lightning Bolt can be used to disable a Linken's Sphere due to their cheap cooldown.
Works well with...
- Ice Blast makes enemies die quicker than they should. Along with Zeus huge damage and the fact that both Thundergod's Wrath and Ice Blast are global ranged, enemies are very unlucky.
- The Apparition also amplifies the magical damage enemies take by reducing their magic resistance with Ice Vortex.
- Both Zeus and Bloodseeker love enemies with low HP since they have great pick off abilities.
- Their skill set grant vision of the unlucky enemy for each other.
- Zeus can start the fight with Thundergod's Wrath to give Bloodseeker a boost in damage and movement speed from Thirst.
- Bloodrage is one of the few abilities that can grant Zeus bonus spell damage.
- Can protect the fragile Zeus, allowing him to stay in the fight longer to output damage.
- He is also able to protect Zeus against heavy nukers like Lion, who can kill Zeus right away.
- Both Zeus and Tidehunter have great teamfight abilities, a mix between damage and disable for every fight.
Others
- Heroes who supply mana for Zeus to use abilities: Crystal Maiden, Keeper of the Light
- Heroes with good area or global abilities work great with Zeus.
Items
- Veil of Discord amplifies the magical damage enemies take, increasing Zeus damage.