Strategy
Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Zeus is an intelligence based hero played solely as a nuker. He has the highest magical damage output of any hero in the game and his strongest aspect is his early to mid game dominance as well as a extremely strong late game, even with minimal farm. If you play him correctly he can easily win games on his own. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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Ability Builds
| Generic Zeus | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
 |  | | | |  | | | |  |  | | | | | | | | | | |||||
Talents
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| +150 Thundergod's Wrath Damage | 25 | 325 AOE Lightning Bolt |
| +0.5s Lightning Bolt Ministun | 20 | +6% Arc Lightning Current Health As Damage |
| +1 Heavenly Jump Target | 15 | +30 Movement Speed after Heavenly Jump |
| +250 Health | 10 | -4s Heavenly Jump Cooldown |
Notes:
- The health talent increases the max health capacity and keeps the current health percentage.
Tips & Tactics
General
- Zeus can dominate lanes, take easy kills, deal massive damage and give vision to your team for easy ganks. He is not very item-dependent but can benefit greatly from them.
- Lightning Bolt has a ministun which allows you to cancel channels.
- If you ground target Lightning Bolt from fog, you won't reveal yourself to the enemy who gets hit by it. If you directly target them, they'll get vision of you.
- If an enemy you are chasing is about to escape vision, cast Lightning Bolt on the ground right beside them rather than targeting their hero directly, preventing the spell from cancelling upon losing vision, and will cast the ability through the fog of war.
Abilities
Arc Lightning
- In the laning phase Arc Lightning can substitute for your normal attack to get last hits due to its low cooldown and long range, helping you stay out of harm's way given that Zeus's own attack animation, damage and range is rather meager early on.
- Arc Lightning is a great tool for tower defense, because it draws aggro from a safe range and deals damage over every unit.
- In the laning stage, three hits of level 2 Arc Lightning will leave the enemy ranged creeps one hero attack away from death, and Zeus does not want to come forward to get that last hit, so enemies will find an easy deny.
- Hence, try to use Arc Lightning only twice to put ranged creeps down to about 100 HP, which only few heroes can deny in a single attack.
Lightning Bolt
- Always use Lightning Bolt before Arc Lightning so you may not lose your opponent in the fog.
- Always watch your positioning as the Bolt and Arc Lightning have relatively long ranges, and Thundergod's Wrath has global range. Often, there is no reason to be up close in battle unless you are chasing down heroes; and Zeus' fragility compounds this.
- Lightning Bolt and Thundergod's Wrath provide True Sight. Do not be afraid to use your ultimate or cast Lightning Bolt where you think they may be if you believe an invisible enemy may be sneaking up on you or attempting to escape; if an enemy is invisible in a team fight make sure to cast Lightning Bolt before casting Thundergod's Wrath so that the granted True Sight allows your ultimate to damage the invisible target.
- Because Lightning Bolt offers True Sight and flying vision, you can cast it on the ground near cliff-sides or other popular warding areas to check for wards or de-ward without actually purchasing sentry wards.
Static Field
- Leveling Static Field increases your damage output by a great deal and scales very well into the lategame.
- During team fights, use all of Zeus's spells (including his ultimate) as soon as possible to make the best use of his passive, that it's based on the percentage of current health, not maximum health, so it will do more damage to heroes at full health. If you wait for the enemy team's health to go down before using Thundergod's Wrath, then Static Field will not do as much damage as it could have.
Thundergod's Wrath
- When trying to kill low hp heroes (low, but not low enough for Ultimate only) in hard to navigate areas use Thundergod's Wrath to gain vision of your enemy so you can Lightning Bolt them to death.
- Thundergod's Wrath can have a good synergy with Thirst, since it reveals any heroes that are at low health, so Zeus can simply ulti them to get a kill(s).
- Thundergod's Wrath should only be used to acquire a kill if your carry is unable to attain it himself. In most encounters, it should be used early in the fight to make things easier for one's team.
- Since spells with a fixed damage value don't scale well into late game, combining it with allied spells like Bloodrage and Ancient Seal keeps him relevant for longer.
Nimbus
- Use Nimbus after Thundergod's Wrath to snipe low health enemies.
- Use Nimbus on distant creep waves to help push, gaining more map control for your team, thus opening up opportunities to advance overall game plan.
- Nimbus will mini-stun its target, good for canceling channel abilities.
- Make sure to use Nimbus as close as possible to desired target as it casts Lightning Bolt at the closest target to the cloud.
- Nimbus will hit invisible units, acting like a Sentry Ward since it covers quite a large area.
- Nimbus will also hit units in fog of war, allowing Zeus to reveal enemies hiding in the trees for example. Use this ability to ruin enemy blink initiation at the beginning of teamfight.
- After a successful scan, use Nimbus to further reveal the number of enemies in a given area.
- Use Nimbus to scout the status of Roshan.
- Use Nimbus as an area denial tool, dissuading enemies from entering, so Zeus and allies can escape with Town Portal Scroll for instance.
- Keep in mind when itemizing that Nimbus' strike interval is not affected by cooldown reduction items and talents, however the cooldown on the Nimbus ability itself does.
Items
Starting items:
- Tango regenerates HP for Zeus to stay in lane.
- Healing Salve also restores health.
- Enchanted Mango gives burst mana for Zeus to use abilities.
- Clarity gives constant supply of mana for Zeus to farm with Arc Lightning.
- Iron Branch gives attributes, and Zeus can combine it with Tango for more heal.
Early game:
- Boots of Speed will make you faster, allowing for easier escapes and a better time catching up to enemy heroes.
- Bottle allows for lane control and sustainability through runes and crowing. Getting it early helps you to maintain your mana to get last hits consistently.
- Null Talisman gives more intelligence, allowing for a larger mana pool and more damage, as well as bonus attributes to help with survivability.
Mid game:
- Arcane Boots sustain Zeus' high rate of spell casting and give him the mana pool necessary to remain relevant in longer engagements. It can also be later disassembled to use the energy booster in another item like Aether Lens, and eventually upgrades into Boots of Travel.
- Aether Lens makes you better at your job by dealing lots of magical damage from as far back as possible.
- Blink Dagger can also be picked up, as Zeus benefits a lot from mobility items.
- Eul's Scepter of Divinity gives mana regeneration, a bit more of speed and a good ability to incapacitate enemy heroes.
- Veil of Discord provides a useful amplification of your magical damage dealt to any enemy caught in its blast. In addition to this, the armor bonus helps mitigate the impact of Zeus' poor base armor, allowing him to survive longer against physical damage.
- Bloodstone grants more health and more mana, which are very needed for Zeus. The more kills you score, the more mana regeneration you get.
Late game:
- Aghanim's Scepter will grant you a new charge based ability Nimbus, which further expands your global presence. If you need to be more tanky and durable Aghanim's Scepter is a better choice than Refresher Orb, since it gives both health and strength.
- Octarine Core is a nice addition to Zeus' inventory as most of his damage output will be from his spells, which means that he will be healed for 25% of all spell and item damage that he inflicts. The lower cooldown of his ultimate will also be appreciated by Zeus players, especially for global scouting. His DPS in teamfights will also raise dramatically, as the lower cooldown on his nukes allow him to trigger his passive more often.
Situational items:
- Soul Ring can help with early mana issues.
- Force Staff is a good choice for mobility and utility, very useful for evading carries and kiting spell immune targets.
- Ghost Scepter can be a great choice if you find yourself getting blown up by physical damage. It can also be upgraded into an Ethereal Blade, which can be used to disable the enemy carry, save allies and deal a massive amount of burst damage in combination with your spells.
- Kaya increases spell damage and decreases mana cost, making Zeus a better caster in the mid game as he can use more abilities and deal more damage.
- Refresher Orb allows Zeus to use Thundergod's Wrath and Nimbus twice in quick succession given sufficient mana, increasing his damage output in fights.
- Scythe of Vyse helps in many situations, and can be used to make an enemy helpless; it also gives a nice boost to your mana pool.
- Shiva's Guard increase your mana pool enough to cast your combo while offering good enemy control.
