Dota 2: Skywrath Mage rises in 7.22h

The professional Dota 2 world is always changing. Players and teams are always looking for any advantage to get closer to victory. With the continuous testing going on, certain heroes, items, and new strategies emerge and become “meta”.

A new hero that appeared recently in the MDL Chengdu qualifier is Skywrath Mage. Some heroes are completely ignored, while others are highly competitive. Skywrath Mage is the hero that falls in between those two segments and has been picked 35 times in total in all qualifying games in all regions.

SKYWRATH MAGE STATISTICS

In the regional qualifiers, China, Europe, South America, and North America achieved win rates of more than 50% with Skywrath Mage. Skywrath Mage China has 6 wins and 5 losses. Skywrath Mage Europe has 2 wins, 1 loss. Skywrath Mage South America has 3 wins, 2 losses. Skywrath Mage North America has 4 wins, 3 losses.

Southeast Asia and CIS have less than 50% win rate with Skywrath Mage. Skywrath Mage Southeast Asia has 2 wins, 5 losses. Skywrath Mage CIS 0 wins, 2 losses.

With a 48.6% win rate in qualifiers and 50.68% in pubs, this hero isn’t really that strong. Despite possessing not-so-impressive numbers, the teams still picked Skywrath Mage in important matches – the matches that decided to participate in the tournament or to qualify. So how do pro players play this hero?

HOW TO PLAY

Every region plays Skywrath Mage in position 4, except North America – 1 game in position 2, 1 game in position 5. Mostly, this hero plays mainly as a support.

Skywrath Mage is currently played by famous position 4 players like EG.Cr1t-, Aster.Boboka, Newbee.MSS, Fnatic.Dj, etc. The pro arena used to play Skywrath Mage in mid or support, but now mostly in position 4.

Since Skywrath Mage has low health and can easily die in a split second, this hero is best paired with an initiating hero like Sand King or Ax. Once an opponent is footed, Skywrath can appear and deal massive amounts of magic damage to finish them off. This can lead to a snowball effect, creating a huge advantage.

Even without the item, the Skywrath Mage still has the potential to deal massive damage. It keeps the hero stable in position 4 because Skywrath can silence and deal damage in teamfights, while other heroes can prioritize farming. As long as Skywrath Mage can survive and not be dealt with first in teamfights, this hero makes a great contribution to teamfight.

SET SKILL

Professional players don’t seem to have a standard skill progression. Some Chinese Skywrath Mage players start with Concussive Shot while North American Skywrath Mage players start with Arcane Bolt.

Concussive Shot can be good at harassing at level 1 because it has higher base damage and slows enemies, while Arcane Bolt only deals damage. Arcane Bolt also adjusts for intelligence, so at level 1 this spell doesn’t deal much damage relative to its mana cost.

At the later levels, the players do not have a unified way to skill up. Some people only add one point to Ancient Seal until all other moves are maxed out, some add several points to Ancient Seal early. Some games may require strong silences in the early stages, while others require more magic damage.

In terms of talent, most players choose 30% more experience at level 10, and in other talents there is still no unified way to level up. Depending on how the game plays out, the players will react accordingly.

HOW TO GROW RED

When talking about Skywrath Mage, you will probably think of Rod of Atos. Rod of Atos and Skywrath Mage are classic combos, but now it’s not necessary to build this item anymore. However, the Rod of Atos is still the most popular item for the Skywrath Mage, and the other items that come with the Rod of Atos are now completely ignored.

Boots of Travel became Skywrath’s top item. Boots of travel has two advantages: increasing Skywrath Mage’s movement speed, and reducing the hero’s mana shortage problem.

Skywrath Mage is a hero that relies heavily on mana, due to its near useless hand damage. This hero loves spamming spells and when using Boots of Travel, you can spend all your mana to farm creeps or deal damage in teamfight. Once the mana is cleared, Skywrath uses the tp scroll to restore mana and uses Boots of Travel to return to battle or continue farming.

In the last month, Rod of Atos has been promoted by Skywrath Mage in 1,852,041 games and has a 53.97% win rate. Boots of Travel was picked up by Skywrath Mage in 676,783 matches and has a win rate of 67.48%. Among the items purchased more than 100,000 times for this hero, Boots of Travel has the highest win rate.

Arcane Boots is 100,000 times more Skywrath Mage than Boots of Travel, but only has a 49.4% win rate.

In the China qualifiers, Skywatch Mage players usually get to Boots of Travel first, but other regions like North America skip boots altogether, and only use casual shoes. They picked up other items like Blink Dagger, Rod of Atos and Aether Lens.

EPILOGUE

Flexibility has become an extremely useful tool in professional games. Flexible in draft, gameplay, in lane, in crafting. The more flexible the hero, the more popular it is.

Skywrath Mage has now become more flexible in gameplay. Players no longer feel the need to always build Rod of Atos for this hero and Skywrath Mage can play both support and mid. Item picks can vary depending on the tempo of the game, and it’s hard for the opponent to tell when Skywrath Mage is playing as a support or core during the draft.

According to Dotabuff