Guide\Analysis on faceless void or why i love Radiance

Hello, reddit. Faceless void became one of my favourite heroes after his rework and it hurts me to see him being played rather poorly. People still use outdated builds such as mask of madness-crits-malestorm. I've played quite a bit of void since the change to his abilities trying to figure the most optimal skill and item build and i think i've found it. Here is my dotabuff on void if you want to see http://www.dotabuff.com/players/118967771/matches?date=&hero=faceless-void&skill_bracket=&lobby_type=&game_mode=&region=&faction=&duration=&enjoyment=any&timezone=Asia%2FDhaka

I dont want to simply tell you what is 'right to do' without explaining the reasoning behind my item build choice. I will try to make a deep analysis on void ability and item build and on hero as whole.

Faceless void is an agility hero with good 23 base strength, but mediocre STR growth per level of 1.8. His base agility (23) and growth (2.65 per level) are pretty average for an agility hero which means his right click scaling is ok, but nothing insane. But **his only right click steroid provides 17.5 MAGICAL damage(35 in chrono) per hit on average which makes him** **not the best right clicker**. His base intellegence and int gain are low (15 and +1.5 respectively), but it is not a problem since his normal abilities cost very low mana (40 for time walk and 50 for time dillation) and his chronosphere has a really huge cooldown. The only way FV can have any mana problems is if he gets a refresher orb, which is unlikely to happen in normal games.
He also got good 4,22 base armor and above average 60-66 base damage which **makes his laning very good**, combined with ability to bactrack burst damage. Heroes such as phoenix and veno are annoying in lane, since you cant bactrack all their damage, but not a hard counters.

So his main strengths are **good AOE ultimate** and **insane survivability** And i mean insane, i personally have lowest average deaths per game on this void compared any other hero (2.64 deaths per game), this is very good for a frontliner.


**Time walk** is one of the best survival spells in game, it allows you to absorb a lot of damage in teamfight and bactrack it. However it only removes damage taken in last 2.0 seconds so look out for any disables that last longer. For example you can always bactrack damage from Vengeful Spirit stun, but Earth Spirit stun lasts 2.25 seconds at level 4 and thus counters time walk. Most Earth Spirits (according to dotabuff and personal experience) max stun by level 7, which means that until that point you still can bactrack it unless he also uses silence. So you should always check enemy stun duration so you know whom to fear. Against some stuns such as centaur and slardar you can try to dodge it with timewalk. Remember that void is **invulnerable during timewalk** so you can **dodge stuff such as laguna blade**. This ability should be maxed first on offlane utility void and second on safelane farming void.

**Time dillation** is an aoe ability that affects enemies in big aoe around him for 6-12 second and freezes their cooldowns for it's duration. If an enemy casts spell while affected by time dillation ability will be frozen until effect wears off. It affects passive abilites aswell, so you can even make spirit breaker unable to bash anyone with his right click. This effect can be purged so manta heroes can simply purge it off. Against slark for example you should use it right after he uses dark pact so it is frozen and he is very dead. This ability is usually maxed third, but it makes sense to max it second on offlane void against some heroes. If you go this route, however, you have no real way of dealing damage and your farming is slower.

**Time lock** is essentialy a worse slardar bash (stun duration is the same 1.0 second but damage is lower). Even in chronosphere (bash deals twice as much damage in chronosphere) maxed time lock deals only 20 more damage than maxed slardar 'Bash'. You can go for max attack speed build (moon shard mjolnir treads, but that build is only useful every 100 seconds. You do not want your carry to be reliant on his huge cooldown aoe disable, and such void does not want to build aghanims scepter, since it gives his very little dps.

**Chronosphere** is a huge aoe disable that affects both allies and enemies. Think of it as a non-channeled black hole that affects your friends as well. If you leave enemy on the edge of chronosphere your allied melee heroes will actually be able to hit him, but faceless void works best with ranged dps. **Time-Walk - Chrono combo is easily dodgable with blinks, so you should almost always get a blink dagger yourself**.

So pick him when you have such heroes as: Witch doctor, Invoker, Skywrath mage, Windrunner, Outworld Devourer, Sniper, Enchantress, Crystal maiden, Lina, Gyrocopter.

But if your allies rely on being close to enemy to damage him you might want to pick another carry\offlaner. Avoid picking void when you have heroes such as lifestealer, juggernaut and legion commander on your team. Legion commander is actually ok, but only if you coordinate with her. For example - you put chrono on 4 people, and LC duels 5th one.

This is especially important for offlane void who usually deals no damage by himself, but is also true for safelane one.

So there are two main ways of playing void, and both are viable.

One way is **Safelane Radiance Void**. When i heard about this i thought it is just another pseudo naga build, but it is actually amazing.

Why no mask of madness? Because before void had bactrack which allowed him to build pure glass cannon and rely on rng to survive. Now his backtrack is active ability which can be counterd by long stuns and silences combined with burst, and with new time dillation void wants to stay in fights longer.
And such void is reliant on hit ultimate. Do you want your carry to rely on 100 seconds cooldown ultimate that can be dodged? I dont think so

Why radiance?

This is Wagamama build. Originally i disliked this build, but i saw that most of high mmr players (such as Badman) go for it http://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/faceless-void/guides, so there shold be reason for it.
Lets take a look at it's dotabuff page http://www.dotabuff.com/items/radiance. If we remove some pub builds (Necro radi, really?), we can see that most common and viable in more professional games radiance carriers are Spectre, Alchemist, Naga and Wraith king. Spectre and naga buy it becasue they have illusions, but Alchemist and Wraith king get it because they can survive long enough in fights for it to deal a lot of damage. No point getting radiance and go fight if you die in a few seconds. They also have disables to keep enemies in radiance aoe. Void has insane survivability and two aoe disables (unreliable slow from time dillation and huge aoe chronosphere). He can stay in center in teamfights without dying dealing a lot of damage and reducing enemy right clickers damage output by 17% unless they get bkb. In these matches you can see how much damage radiance void deals https://yasp.co/matches/2266257079/performances (18.6k after reductions in one hour game) and https://yasp.co/matches/2262210538/performances (9.2 k 45 minutes game). Radiance build also makes void way less reliant on his ult, and he doesn't have to get aghanims since octarine core is just better with that build.

Also radiance disables blinks and blink dagger is a counter to chronosphere

So my usual safelane build is Treads (or straight Boots of Travel) Vanguard (for base survivability. You can farm jungle easily with this and talon and it covers your bad str.gain. Ring of health is also essential for lane sustain.) Radiance (with vanguard i can survive in fights and tank creeps for it to deal damage.) into Yasha-casual Point Booster - Manta Style - Boots of Travel - Blink Dagger - Octarine Core (reduced cooldown on everything and insane regen from radiance.) Diffusal blade is good source of damage, and is essential against Wraith King and Medusa. Monkey King bar if facing any sort of evasion, Butterfly and Assault cuirass against physical dps and for more bashes.

Why octarine core and not aghs on safelane void? Aghs makes ultimate cooldown 60 seconds, while Octarine Core makes it 75, but no downtime on manta, less cooldown on dillation and time walk, as well as travels, and insane heal from radiance, and all the mana you ever need is way better than stats and cooldown reduction on aghanims. I still buy scepter on utility void as a core item.

On **offlane utility void** i go for treads, vladimirs offering (good aura for team, good sustain for void, void can survive in fights which makes him great aura carrier), Aghanims Scepter (you pick offlane void mostly for ultimate and cooldown reduction is crucial. After that i go for blink dagger, but sometimes you need dagger before it if enemy has a way to dodge chronosphere. After vlads-blink-aghanims i can build whatever team needs. It might be asasult cuirass for good aura, blademail to counter some heroes (such as euls invoker), Mjolnir for waveclear and Dps, Refresher for double ultimate if you have a great combo with it. I tried some shenanigans with aether lens, but i dont think that range on time walk it worth it. Blink dagger is just better for that purpose.

Faceless Void ultimate can be game winning late game no matter which build you go so try to catch as many heroes as you can. Early game, however, you should jump on every opportunity to use it, dont hesistate to use it on single target. For carry void your manta illusions are very good for pushing lanes while you are waiting for crhono\smoke\aegis. Just remember that split pushing is not your main goal. With boots of travel you can split push while alawys being reasy to join fight. Try to finish game faster if enemy carries have better scaling (spectre, medusa, sven).

That is all i can say about void. I hope more people learn how to play void well. He is awesome hero, but people still use outdated Mom-Malestorm-Crits build, which holds his winrate at 45%. He is fun and verastile hero, give him a try. Good luck and have fun crashing your enemies as void.


**TLDR**: For safelane void skillbuild R>E>Q>W itembuild - Treads Aquila\Talon Vanguard Radiance Dagger Manta Octarine

Offlance void skillbuild - R>Q>W\E itembuild - Treads, Wand, Vlads, Aghanims, Dagger.