Pure Skill: A Guide to Ogre Magi

Are you a player who doesn’t like to play support? Do you think that they don’t showcase your skills quite clearly enough? Then sit down and let me tell you about the answer to all your (as well as the entire world’s) pleas. His name (their name, if you wish to be picky) is Aggron Stonebreak, more commonly known as Ogre Magi. In my humble opinion, this guy is the hero which requires the most skill to play. Even among professional players only the cream of the crop, only the most skillful players dare make use of him, such as Akke of Team Alliance at the G-1 League Season 5’s Offline Finals.

What sets Ogre Magi apart from the other supports in the game? Well, where to begin? It would be a sin not to mention his MASSIVE… Strength gain. This guy gains more Strength than most heroes in the game, making it easier to dive without fear since your health pool is so high. But is that anything special? Well, considering he is an INTELLIGENCE hero, yes. Ogre Magi's strength gain is unparalleled by any of the other Intelligence heroes!

Secondly, did you hear about how much skill he requires to play? No? Well then, strap in, because this intends to tell you all about it. Now, before we list what items that accentuate your skill the most and what one should level first, let’s take a look at what makes Ogre Magi so skill-dependent in the first place, namely his spells.

Spells

Fireblast: KILL IT WITH FIRE! This sentence is basically the gist of all of Ogre Magi’s damaging spells, as the players’ skill lets them burn their opponents to naught but ashes (at least that’s what happens with Lina). Fireblast, the first spell, is Ogre Magi’s bread and butter. This spell stuns for at least 1.5 seconds (we’ll go over the details for when it stuns for longer later) and deals 275 magic damage at its maximum rank. A perfectly balanced nuke, all in all.

Ignite: Many Ogre Magi players consider Fireblast to showcase their skills the most efficiently, and therefore put most of their focus on it. However, Ignite, Aggron’s second spell, is also a great spell. It can deal up to 400 damage as well as has a range of 700, which is 100 more than Fireblast, and if that spell was your bread and butter, then this one is your beard and batter. Since Ogre Magi lacks a beard, it’s simply batter, which is a perfect description for how you drench your opponents in liquid fire without being Jakiro. So if you ever wanted to play Baseball in Dota 2, this is the spell you should use.

Bloodlust: BLOODLUST! This fella is the only non-damaging active spell that Aggron has, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive, as it gives the target up to 50 more Attack Speed and 16% bonus Movement Speed. All this for the cheap cost of only 75 mana! So if you and your allies can’t wait to get on the road of growing up and carrying a large tree or roaring loudly into the Mosh Pit near the Dire’s secret shop, this is the spell for you!

Multicast: NOW we’re talking! This bad boy right here is what will show everyone how skilled you are. Ogre Magi’s ultimate adds a chance for EVERY of his spells to be cast two, three and even four times at each subsequent rank of Multicast. This means that your Fireblast will have the potential of dealing a MASSIVE amount of 1100 magic damage and stun for as much as 2.4 seconds when your ultimate’s third rank has been skilled. Oh, and don’t forget that it also decreases the cooldown of Fireblast to a mere 6 seconds at its third rank. (It also increases the amount of mana it costs to cast the spell: a small price to pay for the greatness it grants.)

In addition to this, Multicast also makes Ignite an AoE spell AND increases its range. Have you ever wanted to farm creeps from a safe distance without being a squishy ranged hero? Then Aggron’s ultimate is the spell for you! Lastly, when Bloodlust is a product of a Multicast, it chooses a random ally in an AoE to cast the spell on for no extra cost. Also, like with Fireblast, Multicast reduces the cooldown of Bloodlust, in this case to merely 5 seconds. Man, is this ultimate great, or what?

Now, don’t let the tooltip fool you. Yes, it says that Multicast is percentage-based, but that’s bollocks. A truly skilled Ogre Magi will ALWAYS cast their spells multiple times, as long as it’s an offensive spell cast on a player. Just remember to channel your inner skill, intensify it as much as possible, and release all of your built-up skill in an epic display of true excellence. Personally, I’ve found that various exclamations and raising one’s voice in a display of freakish adoration to true skill both aid with this endeavor, but it’s up to the player to decide how he best draws his skills forth.

Unrefined Fireblast: This guy is the product of Aggron procuring an Aghanim’s Scepter, and is largely like his first spell at its fourth rank, dealing the same amount of damage, having the same cooldown (provided he is level 16) and being a subject to skill just as much. However, there’s one major difference, which came with patch 6.80. This spell now costs 60% of your current mana. While lesser players see it as a curse, arguing that using it when your mana is full will make you much less efficient, this is not the case. In truth, Unrefined Fireblast is naught but a blessing. Now you can ALWAYS call upon your skill, no matter how low your mana is. Take that, Nyx assassin and Lion! YOUR MANA DRAINS HAVE NO POWER HERE!

SKILL Build

Ogre Magi’s spells are all useful in their own right. It is up to you as a player to decide what you will level up to aid your team while also showing off your amazing skills. For instance, if your last games have felt a tad bit unskilled, you might decide to forego levelling your ultimate in favor of higher DoT from Ignite. Therefore, two alternatives will be presented in this guide. Here are the skilled players’ choices for leveling up their spells:

The Skill is Strong with this one:

Level 1, 3, 5 and 7

Level 2, 4, 8 and 9

Level 10, 12, 13 and 14

Level 6, 11 and 16

This means that you always level up Fireblast and Multicast whenever possible in order to be able to use as much of your skill as possible. From there on out, focus on Ignite for maximum damage and top it all off with Bloodlust. However, do bear (pun intended) in mind that some heroes REALLY benefit from bonus Attack Speed, and therefore it might be a good choice to get a level in Bloodlust early to help them out. Here’s another alternative:

Reliable but Boring:

Level 1, 3, 5 and 7

Level 2, 4, 6 and 8

Level 10, 12, 13 and 14

Level 9, 11 and 16

This build gives you the most effective damage if your skills are lacking or if you don't want to put your trust in Multicast. It is absolutely worth reiterating that these builds are not static and vary from game to game. Look at your team’s line-up to find which skill would benefit it the greatest instead of following these blindly.

Now, let’s move on to looking at some useful items for Ogre Magi.

Items

Starting Items

X3 X2  OR 

This build is relatively standard, as you buy the GG Branches to get some cheap stats, the Clarities and Tangoes for some regen without having to make the trip back to the fountain and Courier or Wards depending on what the team’s other support bought. In the case of Ogre Magi being the only support, type “GG NOOB TEAM NO OTHER SUPPORT” and disconnect.

In more serious matters, when that happens, forego some, or all, of the Clarities and one or two Branches in order to be able to afford both Observer Wards and a Courier. Should the enemy team have an invisible hero in the offlane (if you start the game in the safelane), try to buy either Dust of Appearance or Sentry Wards as soon as possible. If you think you'll need to roam during the game, consider buying a smoke early on as well. Don’t forget to keep vision up by getting observer wards whenever they’re off cooldown. Oh, also, ALWAYS carry a TP scroll, you never know when a quick rotation may score you a kill or prevent your carry from dying!

Core Items

These items focus on survivability and mobility. The Magic Wand is simply great, as it allows you to get a quick boost of mana and health in a pinch, perhaps supplying you with the resources needed for that last skillshot to secure a kill with Fireblast. Arcane Boots will allow you to maintain your mana pool with its active and reduce times you’ll have to go back to the fountain for regen.

Mekansm gives your team the healing it needs, but not the healing it deserves, which is great for teamfights when you want to give your team a slight edge. Force Staff and Blink Dagger allow you to move more freely on the map, letting you catch your enemies off-guard and skill them to death. While you can get both, one is normally enough and although the Force Staff was my choice earlier, 6.80 removing the mana cost of blink made it an extremely viable candidate, as it leaves you with more mana to showcase all of your skills.

Luxury Items

Get these if you are balling so hard your farm is spiraling out of control. Oh wait, that’s for Skeleton King (RIP). Anyways, if you are getting much more money than expected, these are great choices. Aghanim’s Scepter takes the top spot for me since the 6.80 change, as it ALWAYS lets you have a Fireblast at the ready to spell your enemies’ doom with SKILL. Bloodstone is great for the extra mana, health and regen it grants, which all serve you in the long run.

Scythe of Vyse is great for controlling those carries that don’t get a BKB and run recklessly into teamfights thinking that no one will stop them. WRONG, you will. Finally, Shiva’s gives Ogre some extra durability in the armor granted as well as the Attack Speed slow from its aura while also providing some additional Intelligence, not to mention its active ability, which is great in teamfights, slowing and damaging enemies.

Playstyle

Much like your skill build, your playstyle varies from game to game. The deciding factor is the line-ups of the two teams. For instance, if the enemy has a very strong team early on while yours is very late-game oriented, your best bet would be to babysit your carry, stacking and pulling to get some extra experience and (if they have an offlaner) try to kill the enemy offlaner or (if they are trilaning aggressively) make sure none of your teammates die and score kills on the enemy trilane when the terms of engagement are favorable to you. Through vigilance and skill, you will be able to keep your team alive long enough for it to completely overtake the enemy.

If it’s the other way around, and your team is much stronger than theirs early but their late-game capacity dwarfs yours, your main priority should be to firstly ensure that your safelane farmer is fine without you, then try to rotate as soon as possible to whatever lane has the easiest kills in it in order to shut the enemy team down early and end the game as quickly as can be.

Which lane is the easiest to gank depends on what heroes are there. For instance, should the enemy mid hero be a Shadow Fiend, gank him. Gank him like there was no tomorrow. Shadow Fiend is really scary when he gets lots of souls, but until then, his pitiful right-clicks are nothing compared to your SKILL. Ganking their mid in turn frees your mid up, letting him rotate as well if he is a hero who’s good at it, such as Invoker (by the way, EMP’s mana drain is too damn high), or simply giving him some time to farm without worries, which will serve him well later on, letting you end the game before the enemy team really comes online.

Allies

All these heroes synergize very well with Aggron. Ursa’s Fury Swipes are dependent on his attack speed as long as Overpower isn’t active, which Bloodlust greatly helps with, as the game linked in the opening paragraph showcases. Many heroes can’t bear (heh, ursine puns) the assault of a Bloodlusted Ursa bearing (I’m so sorry) down on them. When it comes to Slark, Fireblast makes for a great set-up to pounces and early levels in Bloodlust lets Slark steal much more of the enemy’s stats than he normally would. The slow from Ignite also makes it easier to chase enemies.

Skywrath Mage might seem like an odd choice for this list, but his silence amplifies magic damage, making both Fireblast and Ignite do much more work. Also, not only does Fireblast stun enemies, making them an easy target for Mystic Flare, the combined slows of Dragonus’ Concussive Shot and Ogre Magi’s Ignite ensures that if the enemy is going to get out of it alive, they will do so VERY slowly, whilst also burning to death.

Enemies

Now, as you may have noticed, the majority of Ogre Magi’s damage comes from sources of magic. Therefore, it is terrible for you if the enemy is highly resistant to magic like Huskar or can simply make themselves immune to it for a short while like Lifestealer. Life is hard when you can’t use your skills to their full effect. In these cases, it’d be best to sit back, bloodlust your friendly neighborhood physical carry such as Ursa and watch him go to town on them. Abaddon makes this list because he can simply dispel the stun from Fireblast or the DoT from Ignite with a single Aphotic Shield, which can be quite frustrating.

So there you have it, this was a guide giving my suggestions for how to make the most of your skills by playing Ogre Magi. What’s your favorite way of playing this hero? Do you play him in any unconventional way? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!