Enchantress hero guide

Written by Tucker, Updated for 6.46b. Best Viewed on Dota Allstars Skin.

“I’ll attract the enemy with my human call! I’m so wasted!! I’m so waasstteed!!!!!!!”

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Tucker. This is my first guide so please bear with me. I have decided to write a guide to my 2nd favourite hero, Enchantress. In my guide I have put my many experiences with Enchantress to good use, trying to inform the reader of every aspect on how to play her to her full potential. I have noticed a distinct lack of guides for Enchantress on these forums, which saddens me as she is somewhat overlooked by many players.
Enchantress is a very versatile hero who can play a hardcore support role or even carry her team to victory and has seen quite a lot of league play in recent times. I try to cater for all levels of play from Pubs and TDA games right through to IH and more serious games. I offer several item paths for different situations, along with strategy to deal with those situations, as well as covering the art of using Impetus and using Enchant to its full potential. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

Table of Contents

1. Hero Overview
2. Skill Description
3. Skill Build
4. Item Builds
   • Core Item Build
   • Recommended Item paths after core items
   • Other Optional Items
5. Items Not Recommended
6. General Game play Walkthrough
   • Early game: (Levels 1-10)
   • Mid game: (Levels 10-16)
   • Late game: (Levels 17-25)
7. Good Allies to Have
8. Bad Enemies to Face
9. Mini-Guide to Using Impetus
   • Harassing
   • Chasing
   • Animation Canceling
10. Using Enchant to it’s Full Potential
    • Neutral Creeps for Ganking
    • Neutral Creeps for Pushing
    • Image Heroes
    • Turning the Tide of Battle by Stealing Summons
11. Replays
12. Conclusion
13. Credits
14. Q&A

1. Hero Overview

Although all Dryads are Cenarius’ daughters, Aiushtha is said to be his first and favorite. Because of her direct relation to him, she has borrowed much of his powers. This is demonstrated by her control over the shy Wisps which she uses to heal her allies, and her ability to bring an opponent under the will of the Sentinel. Preferring ranged combat to melee, she fashioned a spear that strikes with more force the further her target is away. Her agility is unmatched, and any opponent attempting to kill her will find she skips ahead of them with surprising ease.

Starting HP: 454
Starting Mana: 208
Attack Range: 550
Base Move Speed: 295
Starting Base Damage: 37-47
Starting Armor: 1.7 Strength: 16 +2.0
Agility: 19 +1.8
Intelligence: 16 +2.8
Overall stat gain per level: +6.6
Advanced Data
Acquisition Range: 800
Cast Point: 0.30
Cast Backswing: 0.51
Damage Point: 0.30
Attack Backswing: 0.70
Projectile speed: 900
Base Attack Time: 1.7
Starting Attack Cool down: 1.43

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Versatile role in her team.
• Armor ignoring arrow ability.
• Fantastic lane controlling ability.
• Incredible lane staying power.
• High overall stat gain per level.

Cons

• Susceptible to nukers.
• Quite a weak ultimate.
• Below average base move speed.

2. Skill Descriptions

QUOTE

Impetus
Gives strength to the Enchantress’ attacks, causing them to deal greater damage the further away the target is.
Level 1 – Deals 4% of the distance in damage.
Level 2 – Deals 8% of the distance in damage.
Level 3 – Deals 12% of the distance in damage.
Level 4 – Deals 16% of the distance in damage.
Cooldown: 6/5/4/0

This is Enchantress’ bread and butter arrow ability. It deals damage on impact based on the distance between Enchantress and her target. This skill is fantastic to harass early game and boosts your dps late game. It also synergizes fantastically with her own slow as well as any other allied slow on fleeing heroes. Impetus damage ignores armor, making it scale well in terms of damage in late part of the game. A downside to this spell is that it is somewhere ineffective against melee heroes in later stages of the game, as they require close combat to damage you, thus losing your distance damage bonus.

QUOTE

Enchant
Brings target unit under control of Aiushtha. If the unit cannot be converted, it will instead be slowed instead.
Level 1 – 30 second cooldown, 10% slow if unit cannot be converted.
Level 2 – 25 second cooldown, 20% slow if unit cannot be converted.
Level 3 – 20 second cooldown, 30% slow if unit cannot be converted.
Level 4 – 15 second cooldown, 40% slow if unit cannot be converted.

Enchant is a great spell. On one hand it is a fantastic slow among slow of Dota Allstars, (7 seconds PHWOARH!) and on the other hand it has the ability to dominate a creep for 2 minutes on all levels. With a low cooldown of 15 seconds on level four, you can mass a nice army of creeps for pushing a tower, slowing pushes by stealing their creeps, using it for stompers or you can ignore that part of the spell and just use it as a slow. The only downside to this spell compared to some other slows is that it is a single targeted spell.

QUOTE

Nature’s Attendants
Releases a swarm of wisps to heal nearby allies in a 300 radius. Each wisp lasts 10 seconds and heals 10hp/sec.
Level 1 – 3 Wisps.
Level 2 – 5 Wisps.
Level 3 – 7 Wisps.
Level 4 – 9 Wisps.
Cooldown: 45 seconds

Healing wisps is another great spell. It makes enchantress a frustrating lane opponent in Dota Allstars to deal with. Not only can she harass you greatly with Impetus, but any attempts at harassing her are futile as she can just heal them off in a matter of seconds. Mid to late game it does not lose its effectiveness, giving a 300 AoE heal of 900hp which can turn the tide of anything from a 1v1 fight to a huge team battle. One downside to this spell is that it’s not an instant heal, meaning it’s useless against chain nukes.
The mechanics of the spell are as follows. Taken and modified from Gradenko’s mechanical explanation.
Nature’s Attendants summons 3/5/7/9 Wisps per level, which last 10 seconds at all levels. Each Wisp selects a random target within 300 AoE and heals it once for 10 HP, then selects a new target for the next second. That works out to 300/500/700/900 HP healed over the 10 seconds in the 300 AoE. The heal is triggered, so as far as I know the graphic is just there for graphics.

QUOTE

Untouchable
Whenever the Enchantress is attacked, she beguiles the unit into slowing its attack.
Level 1 – 50% reduction.
Level 2 – 70% reduction.
Level 3 – 90% reduction.
Passive

I have somewhat mixed feelings about Untouchable. As an ultimate it can be considered somewhat weak. It slows hero’s IAS by that stated amount. However this does NOT change their Base Attack Time. This means their attack speed can’t be slowed past -0.80 in total. IAS decrease comes from items such as Hand of Midas, Agility (base and otherwise) and any hero skills, such as Rampage, Bloodlust or Rabid. It has no effect against manually cast arrow abilities and once your enemies get some decent agility and attack speed items the reduction is minimal at best. It is however very effective against creeps, Roshan, Infernals and other summons. I still use it in my builds as even though the actual attack speed reduced isn’t that great, it can still be lifesaving in some situations.
If you still don’t understand how it works, just think of it as the reverse effect of Frenzy or strafe!

3. Skill Build

1. Impetus
2. Nature’s Attendants
3. Impetus
4. Nature’s Attendants
5. Impetus
6. Nature’s Attendants
7. Impetus
8. Nature’s Attendants
9. Untouchable
10. Enchant / Stats
11. Enchant / Stats
12. Enchant / Stats
13. Enchant / Stats
14. Stats
15. Untouchable
16. Untouchable
17. Stats / Enchant
18. Stats / Enchant
19. Stats / Enchant
20. Stats / Enchant
21-25. Stats

Explanation for Skill Build.

Why max Impetus first?
Maxing Impetus first in this build is a no brainer. It’s your harassing arrow ability. It allows you to dominate most lane matchups, and possibly score an early kill. By level 7 the cooldown is 0, so you are able to “Orbwalk” from there.
Why max Nature’s Attendants so quickly?
Nature’s attendants is your heal. At level four it heals 900 hp over 10 seconds in 300 AoE. It helps you stay in your lane for longer amounts of time and allows you to tank some damage (Read: I can tank most ultimates and combos in the game with this skill, live, attack back and probably win!) while attacking back or fleeing.
When should I take Enchant?
This skill build gives you a choice at when you want to take Enchant.
If you are playing a ganking role, which is Enchantress’ main strength during mid game, taking Enchant at levels 10-14 is the best option. Giving you a 7 second slow to go ganking with allows you to cut down most heroes in a matter of seconds, made twice as easy with BoT.
If your team needs you to be the late gamer and you have other ganking oriented heroes on your side, your main aim early-mid game should be farming and staying alive while calling ganks on your own lane for kills. By the time you reach level 17 when you are close to finishing the items you need, Enchant can be taken for use in ganks and team pushes.
Why not take Untouchable at 6&11?
This skill does little to improve your early game survivability against nukers or manually cast arrow abilities this is why you shouldn’t take it at level 6. It is taken at levels 9/15/16 and not 11, as the leveling of the skill between 1 & 2 is not great, an extra -20% IAS for a level of an ultimate is poor IMO. Around level 9 in the game you can start expecting some “normal attack fire” to hurt when used in conjunction with nukes and disables. You can also use it to pull a creep wave off a tower and take minimal damage or tank some Neutral creeps. The actual attack speed reduction is only from items, agility or hero skills, so you can’t slow a hero’s attack speed past their base attack time.
Could I take some early Stats instead of Nature’s Attendants?
Definitely. If you are laning heroes such as Viper or Visage, their damage comes from orb-walking, which your heal is more beneficial to heal out their harassing. However if you are laning some strong chain nukers, such as Lina, Tinker or even a Lion, early stats would prove to be beneficial in staying alive than leveling your heal to it’s max. I would still recommend two levels of Nature’s Attendants so you can heal, then taking some stats while still maxing Impetus.

4. Item Build(s)

Core Item Build:

Item order
:
1. Consumables: Tangos, clarities. However many you feel you will need. Also a few GGbranches (0-500)
2. Boots of speed (500)
3. Three or Four Null Talisman (1455-1940)****
4. Boots of Travel recipe (2200)
5. Void Stone (900) (Can be taken earlier if you really struggle to manage your mana)
6. Staff of Wizardry (1000)
7. Robe of the Magi (450)
8. Eul’s Scepter of Divinity Recipe Scroll (450)
Total Cost: 7500 gold

Explanation:

I’ll leave the early consumables and survival items up to your own play style and choices. These items include Pots, Tangos, RoR, Clarities, Circlets and GGbranches. Everyone has their own style and preferences about these items. Get Boots of Speed as soon as possible, as they are beneficial to escape early ganks and to harass with Impetus early game.
Three or Four Nulls should be taken as soon as possible. In most situations you wont need the extra HP from bracers, as long as you can get off heal off in time then you will most likely survive through chain nukes and chases. Enchantress’s base damage is fairly low. She can harass the enemy with Impetus, but in terms of last hitting, Enchantress pales in comparison to most other good soloers. Even if you have plenty of mana regeneration, it won’t help in releasing multiple Impetus in a row while trying to orb-walk someone. What you need is a pure mana boost. Three or four Nulls gives 18-24 damage, around 300 mana as well as some hp and agility, which is easily the most cost effective items for the benefits they give. And in 6.46b Nulls recipe cost was reduced which made them even better value for money!
The early BoT isn’t for the teleports(although that is a bonus), it’s for the MS. Having 385 MS to Impetus(orb)-walk against most other heroes (335-370 with just boots) when Impetus is at it’s peak (after level 7 through to mid game) is the most beneficial offensive item you can get.
(Treads are an option now since Aegis was removed, you no longer have the need to suicide push + teleport to push again. The extra IAS is nice, they’re cheap and it’s a n easy way to boost Enchantress’ IAS early.)
The major item in this core build is Eul’s Scepter. It’s taken after BoT as it will not help you net kills nearly as much as BoT will. It helps out further with your mana regen requirements as well as a another decent damage boost. The 6 cyclone charges can be used to set up ganks, escape ganks or make early team fights 5v4 for an amount of time. The charges have many uses, but remember you only have six of them, so use them wisely.
**** If you’re facing a tough opponent, either a significantly better skilled player or Heroes such as Viper and Tinker, Bracers can be taken for the extra survivability. Otherwise, Nulls are the better choice.

Recommended Item paths after core items:

The Guinsoo/Heart Path

9. Quarterstaff (1150)
10. Robe of the Magi (450)
11. Sobi Mask (325)
12. Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse Recipe (450)
13. Vitality Booster (1100)
14. Messerschmidt’s Reaver (3200)
15. Heart of Tarrasque Recipe Scroll (1200)
Total cost: 15,375 gold

Explanation

This build is for a Later game Tanking and Damage Enchantress. It covers everything you need to fulfill this. You’ll have the mana regen from your core build, you’ll have a great damage output and you’ll have great survivability from Heart of Tarrasque.
Upgrading your Eul’s to Guinsoo’s Scythe is a logical step once you’ve used up all your cyclones. Guinsoo’s gives another nice damage boost as well and another 3 second disable with a low cooldown, on top of your slow. Heart is a given no matter if you get Radiance, Guinsoo or Necronomicon. Later game with Heart/Untouchable/NA you are probably one of the best pseudo-tanks in the game.

The Necronomicon/Guinsoo Path

Note; In this build, Ignore the core build above and rush Necronomicon as the following order suggests:

1. Consumables: Tangos, clarities. However many you feel you will need. Also a few GGbranches (0-500)
2. Boots of speed (500)
3. Staff of Wizardry (1000)
4. Belt of Giant Strength (450)
5. Necronomicon Recipe (1300)
6. Necronomicon 2 Recipe (1300)
7. Necronomicon 3 Recipe (1300)
8. Boots of Travel recipe (2200)
9. Void Stone (900)
10. Staff of Wizardry (1000)
11. Robe of the Magi (450)
12. Eul’s Scepter of Divinity Recipe Scroll (450)
13. Quarterstaff (1150)
14. Robe of the Magi (450)
15. Sobi Mask (325)
16. Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse Recipe (450)
Total cost: 13,725 gold

Explanation

This build is for those situations when your team already has a carry hero, a good tank and is in need of disables and damage or you’re facing invisible/wind walk heroes.
The items you get in this build will not only help your team in large team fights, it will still allow you to deal a decent amount of damage and have good survivability. If your building Necronomicon because your opposing team has invisible or WW heroes such as Bone Clinks or Stealth Assassin then I would recommend getting this before Eul’s and possibly before BoT, as the true sight from level 3 necrowarriors will help immensely. This item synergizes well with your 7 second slow, allowing the warriors to get off a lot of manaburning attacks, as well as a 225 mana burn/nuke. The movespeed aura also helps chasing or escaping. You will also gain some nice stats with level 3 Necro adding to your survivability and mana pool.
Finally after you’ve used all your cyclone charges you can upgrade your Eul’s Scepter into Guinsoo’s Scythe, adding a nice damage boost, a 3 second disable with a low cooldown and even more mana regeneration.

Other Optional Items

Hood of Defiance (2350) A new item in 6.42 where Aegis has now been removed. This item is a great, cheap alternative for magic resistance. Since chain nukers are your greatest enemy for most of the game, this item will help you immensely. If you’re having trouble early / mid game against casters I would recommend getting it after you complete your Boots of Travel, if you’re surviving well enough then I would recommend getting it after Heart. If you’re not against casters and nukers, then don’t get this item.

Radiance (5325)
Radiance is a good damage item, if you ARE the team’s lategame hero. If you are in a team of general sentinel picks at the moment, there IS a high chance of that happening. (THD/BM/VS/Lina/CM/Enigma/Zues/Chen etc) The team needs a hero with lategame capability in that situation and you could do worse than Enchanty. Radiance would be my damage item of choice over MKB/Buriza etc, as Immolation is fantastic and you get a small evasion which can be helpful, it also doesn’t have any effects which impede Impetus, which is the main reason.

Linken’s Sphere (5500)
Some people like to get Linken’s sphere for the spell block, stats and regen. I personally would prefer heart, but Linken’s certainly isn’t a bad item. Spell block can save you from death on some occasions!

The Butterfly (6350)
The Butterfly is another situational item. I would class this as a luxury item to be gotten after your core build and item paths. It gives nice IAS boost and the extra evasion will help against heroes who rely on physical attacks and/or any hero with a bash ability.

Hyperstone (2350)
The most cost effective way to boost your IAS. Good for increasing your DPS after you’ve completed all your damage and survival items.

Assault Cuirass (6320)
Another new item that you might think to try with Enchant since it’s implementation. The armour bonus’ are nice and the attack speed is very useful. It’s one of those items that you only get 1 per team and if you have the time and spare cash and no one else on your team has one, then definitely consider it.

5. Items not recommended:
Eye of Skadi
Eye of Skadi will be somewhat controversial as many people like it on Enchant for some reason. I would only ever suggest getting it when your team DESPERATELY needs another slow. It is overridden by auto-cast Impetus, but manually casting Impetus on alternate attacks can still make the slow work. It adds nice stats but really, there are better stat items for cheaper and better items for Enchantress.

Maelstrom / Mjollnir
These items are agility based so your gain from them will be minimal. The orb effect also overrides Impetus when it procs. Best left for heroes like troll.

Sange&Yasha
This item is pretty bad all round for Enchantress. It does give some decent str and agil but the price makes it not worth it and it doesn’t give you any damage to speak of. The orb effect is also pretty useless at 10% chance and it overrides Impetus when it occurs. The MS and IAS increase is minimal.

Stygian Desolator
Deso is a pretty good item for its Gold-per-damage, however Impetus overrides the orb effect on Manual and auto-cast. This means you will either be wasting the orb or wasting your Impetus, which isn’t what you want to do!

Monkey King Bar
Some people prefer MKB as a primary damage item. While this is fine and I can see their arguments as to why they like MKB with the attack speed and damage etc, I would personally never recommend this as the mini-stun overrides Impetus when it procs, which means you lose out of 30% of your Impetus! Definately not something you want.

Manta Style
Manta Style may seem like something you want to try on Enchantress but I will tell you why you shouldn’t. Impetus overrides the mana burn effect so you are wasting money on an orb your not using. Once you use your images, if you have Impetus on auto-cast only the real Enchantress will use Impetus and the other two wont, thus giving away your position a lot easier than normal.

Dagon
Some people go by the mentality that they should buy dagon on any intel hero. Since Enchantress is an INT hero I should buy a dagon right?? WRONG! Dagon is a waste of gold on Enchantress. You’re not a nuker so you wont be able to chain it with anything, you will have no use for it other than using it to KS and you’ll just be wasting 3k gold.

Buriza-do Kyanon
Buriza is a decent enough item for damage however your attack speed isn’t high enough to utilise the critical strikes. Not only that but if you learn Impetus first, then you buy buriza, critical will override Impetus, so you lose Armor piercing arrow for 1 double damage hit (and chances are the Impetus would have done around the same damage as the crit anyway).

Lifesteal
Lifesteal overrides Impetus on manual cast, but Impetus overrides on auto-cast. Again you’ll be wasting money on an orb you wont use or lose out on your Impetus and extra damage.

Bloodstone
While this might seem like an item you would want to get on Enchant, I recommend avoiding it. It gives nice regen, hp & mana boost but to be honest, it doesn’t suit your role as a mid game ganker and a late game DPS-tank. There are better items for Enchant, and this one is best left for supporting heroes such as Venge and Dazzle.

6. General Game play Walkthrough

Early game: (Levels 1-10)

To start off with, make sure someone on your team has a chicken they can share with you. This will save you fountain trips and will get your items out to you. Enchantress has incredible lanestaying ability, make sure you abuse it!
Get your preferred regen items and head to a solo lane. Mid works well, but basically head to the lane where the other team’s solo is, (e.g most higher levels solo mid – Most lower levels solo Top scourge and bottom sentinel) and if you run into a 2 lane, simply swap asap. Enchantress’ lane control ability against another solo is pretty much only equaled by Viper and Warlock and if it’s -ap, Tinker and Syllabear. Heroes like LoA, Leshrac and NA will give you a hard time with their respective abilities, but you should still be able to out lane them with smart play.
If mid is your lane, ask a teammate to grab some observer wards for you on the chicken so you can place one at the top of the scourge hill. Having sight up the hill allows you to farm better, orbwalk your opponent better and see them coming if they try to attack you. Also placing one ward at each rune spot allows you to avoid river ganks as well as seeing any useful runes you may want to use.

Lane Controlling (Solo)

Your ability to control a lane is the main reason that you will be soloing. Making it impossible for your lane opponent to farm should be your main aim, sending and keeping them out of farming range if you can. The extra experience also allows you to rush level 7, giving you 0 cooldown on Impetus. Impetus is your harassing and lane controlling tool. It costs 40/45/50/55 mana on it’s respective levels, so it is somewhat costly in the mana department for an arrow ability. This is where your clarities and Nulls will help you. You should always make sure you keep enough mana for Nature’s Attendants. Harass with your normal attack as much as you can while you regen some mana and keep them on their toes with the occasional Impetus.
(If you need to learn more about how to use Impetus, how to harass with it, what “orb-walking” is and how to Animation Cancel you should read the section later in the guide called “Mini-Guide to Impetus”)

Farming

Your key to gaining the farming advantage is in your last hitting. Enchantress has a rather long backswing and lowish base damage as well as a slow projectile speed. Practice in single player mode until you get used to her animation. If you are controlling your lane well you will be able to move up closer to the creeps, meaning that your projectile has less distance to travel when you attack making last hitting much easier. You shouldn’t leave your lane to gank other lanes just yet, however you can call a stunner or a nuker to your lane to kill or send your lane opponent back to the fountain so you gain that much needed level and farming advantage.

Killing

While Enchantress has the ability to net early game kills, losing your life just to try to get one isn’t beneficial. You should be looking to aggressively control your lane and farm, as going for suicide kills will completely negate one of your main advantages; being able to stay in your lane for very long periods of time. Once level 7 comes you should be able to orb-walk-kill your lane opponent in 4 or 5 shots, but again don’t be suicidal, sometimes you have to settle for sending them back to the fountain with the feeling of “Just one more hit….” Mid game is where you’re hero killing potential should be realised.

Dual Lane

You wont always get the solo with Enchantress if you’re playing public games or less competitive game. In that instance you’ll have to make the most of it. You can still do very well if you play smart and have a good lane partner.
To start off with, make sure you lane with another hero who has a disable of some sort. Coupled with Impetus it will make early kills possible. Make sure you pick up some mana regen items like clarities, tell your partner to pick up a Ring of Basilius. You should pick up a headdress pretty quickly if your team has a shared chicken for the regen and to help your partner as well.
Enchantress still has great harassing and lanestaying ability in a dual lane. Make sure you use this to your benefit so you level up consistently and farm decently. Combo your lane opponent with your lane partner’s disable and throw your Impetus’ when you know they’ll be good. If you need to chase past a tower turn on your Nature’s Attendants and don’t be afraid to in this instance.

6. General Gameplay Walkthrough cont.

Mid game: (Levels 10-16)

You should have farmed your way through to Boots of Travel around this stage. You could also be leveling Enchant now, so it becomes possible to leave your lane and help with ganks, pushes or whatever else your team is deciding to do.
When you finish your Eul’s, use your cyclones sparingly as you only have 6. I would only recommend using it to escape ganks, make an early team battle into 5v4, or to set up a gank so your team has enough time to get into position.

Ganking

With Boots of Travel, some mana regen and full strength Impetus, killing enemies should now be your priority. If neither team is pushing, start hunting heroes to gank with a team mate or if you’re confident, on your own. Impetus is very powerful at this stage and will eat through any hero’s HP in 4/5/6 hits from full range at this stage.
When ganking, it’s always best to come from behind cutting off their escape. If they still try to run that way they will have to run past you, which is exactly what you want. Hit them with a few Impetus’ then Enchant them and keep hitting away. Don’t forget to animation cancel when chasing, this will ensure u stay close enough to keep attacking. If they happen to run the other way then you will have options. Either a nearby teammate should be coming from that direction, chase them so you can use Enchant or run back around the other way to cut them off again.
Try not to get fooled by a double bluff, a.k.a Juked, when they fake going one way then once you’ve gone around to cut them off again they either go back the original way you can from or hide in the bush and TP back to base. This can be embarrassing and lets them get away, this is why its best to have a teammate coming from the other direction.
Hopefully this cheap paint edited screen will show what I mean:

These are some general gank spots you will want to use from the sentinels point of view. If you see a hero or two farming alone in any of these spots call a team mate or two to come with you and head the direction that the arrows show. Be careful though as if you’re playing against decent opposition they will have most of these spots warded. They will be aware that you’re coming and either call in help or teleport out. You can counter this by getting wards of your own and killing theirs or a gem. Alternatively you could just pray they didn’t buy any wards.

Pushing

If your team is pushing, then chances are you will encounter a big team battle. You should never initiate the combat, staying behind your allies until the commencement of the fight. Your team’s role will be to use all their disables and AoE spells to cause as much damage to your opponents as possible, then try to protect you so you can deal out as much damage as possible. If you find yourself being targeting, turn on your heal as quick as possible and hang around any of your team with a mekansm or heal skill. Once the main battle has taken place it is then your job to get into the front lines and chase down any escaping heroes. With BoT, Enchant and Impetus, chasing down and killing weakened heroes should be no problem.

Farming

Once you get your Boots of Travel start teleporting around to where you can farm. If you see a massive creep waving pushing a lane close to your tower or base then teleport there and take priority farming over your teammates. Enchant a kobold for the MS aura if you come across one while neutraling. It only lasts two minutes but can help you if you’re chasing down a hero or escaping a gank.
You should never stop farming. If you’re going to help for a push or a gank, quickly farm some neutrals if your waiting for your team to get into position. Your ulti makes tanking neutrals a breeze. Once you’ve pushed that tower or ganked that hero, immediately head back to your lane, farming any neutrals you wish on the way and continue farming. You should RARELY have to return to the fountain to heal as your wisps will heal you and with either a Eul’s or a void stone you should have the mana to cast it when needed.

Using Necronomicon

If you went for Necronomicon, you can use the summons to gank effectively in conjunction with your slow and another disabler. Use your Necros liberally, not only can they be used in team fights to burn mana and nuke but they can also help you farm as well as scout around trees and even harass your enemies if you’re still laning. You can use your Necrowarriors to tank the neutrals so you don’t take damage. You can also Enchant some neutrals to tank the damage for you while using your Necros to scout around for nearby enemies as mobile observers.
In team battles, spawn your Necros just before the engagement of the battle and turn Impetus on auto-cast so you wont have to worry about manual casting and animation canceling while using your Necros. Aim your Necros at their most mana dependant hero, such as a Necrolyte or Bane. Mana burn them A.S.A.P then continue attacking so the melee Necrowarrior can burn even more mana with mana break. If any of them kill your Necrowarrior with Last Will they will receive 200/400/600 damage depending on what level Necrobook you have, but they give 100 gold so don’t feed them to your opponents if you can help it.

Late game: (Levels 17-25)

If the game lasts this long you should have completed your item paths. In this part of the game it is the time for your late game carry/DPS hero to shine. Enchantress does have the ability to carry her team to victory, probably less effectively than a true carry hero, but her potential is there. Often referred to as a “Half-carry”.
If you are the lategamer in your team, then your team should be protecting you at all costs while you deal out your damage. Impetus is still extremely strong in this part of the game due to it’s Divine damage type.
Some examples of “true” carry heroes include, Troll, Morph, Silencer, Viper, Clinkz or Terrorblade. If your team has one of these heroes who is well farmed, then you should take a different role. Your role should now be tanking for them at all costs, even if it means your death. They should possess a higher DPS than you, however most of them will be somewhat more fragile than you if you’ve followed my builds (there’s a few exceptions).

Tanking

Late game Enchantress can be daunting for enemies to face, if you farmed well and got the right items. With Radiance, Heart and Hex, she can go toe to toe with some of the strongest late game heroes in the game. Her tanking ability with Untouchable, Nature’s Attendants and Heart is really underestimated. She can heal off 1000 hp in 10 seconds while she continues to deal large amounts of damage.
If the game is dragging on and you find yourself being targeted by many disables and nukes you may want to invest into a BKB, Hood of Defiance or Linkin’s sphere as these will all provide some form of magic defense.

Ganking

Ganks wont feature much in this part of the game due to both teams sticking in a group and pushing. If you do happen to see an opportunity to gank, take it, as a gank followed by a push can be game breaking. Use the same playstyle as stated above to gank heroes.

Pushing

In team pushes your goal is to deal as much damage as possible with Impetus and keep your carry hero alive as long as possible (if it’s not you and have one of the aforementioned heroes on your team). Get in the fight before he does and don’t be afraid to take the focus fire. This time turn on your heal and be vigilant that you stay within 300 AoE of your main DPSer so if he is taking damage, he’ll get the full benefit from your heal. Don’t forget to use hex if you have it. You can either target their main DPS/Carry hero with your hex, as this will stop his damage output for 3 seconds, or you can target their main disabler in an attempt to kill him off before he can cast anything. Again slow any escaping heroes so that your team can chase them down.

7. Good Allies to have:

Single Target Disablers:
These heroes are the kind of heroes you want to be laning with if you’re not the solo. They have one or two abilities which is either a stun or a slow. They are also the kind of heroes you want to go ganking with. With their disables and/or nukes along with your slow and Impetus it will make early-mid game lane kills and ganks quick and effective.
Mass AoE Disablers:

These allies come into their own around mid game when team fights start to happen more often. Their mass disables are mostly going to be their ultimate abilities and a well landed one can be game breaking. The mass disables allow you to attack freely with your Impetus, on whoever your team wants to take down first. If you went the Necro build you can burn a large amount of mana on their most mana dependant hero.
Healers:

Coupled with Nature’s Attendants further heals from your team mates will aid your team even more. This will allow your team to sustain a larger amount of damage without dying and it is often the difference between winning and losing.
8. Bad Enemies to face
Mana Burners:

Mana burners are the bane to your existence. They will target you and you will despise them for it. Without mana you can no longer use your heal or slow and your damage output will be depleted without Impetus. I would suggest avoiding them at all costs early game, and gank them hard with 2 or more disables mid game.
Chain Disablers:

Chain disablers are bad enemies to face, simply due to the fact that they can stop you from casting Nature’s Attendants while his team focus’ fire on you. In a case of facing such heroes you may want to invest in a Linkin’s Sphere or some other spell blocking items.
Chain Nukers:

Chain nukers often get the better of Enchantress simply because it’s a large amount of damage in bursts which doesn’t allow her heal time to do it’s job. If you are laned against these types of heroes, call an ally to help or simply swap lanes. Mid-late game when their nukes lose effectiveness you can make short work of them. One exception is Pudge, who can Hook/Rot/Dismember you early/mid/late game and then tank your damage quite easily, be careful of him and make sure you stick with some team mates.
Late game Assassins:

Late game assassins are lethal to Enchantress and most other heroes, late game. The only way to neutralise them is making sure they have such a terrible early game that they have no chance to farm at all. If you are facing WW heroes I would suggest rushing Necronomicon for the true sight ability. If they do farm well then your going to need a lot of wards and sticking with your team since you will have little chance of defeating them if they backstab you while you’re on your own.

9. Mini Guide to Using Impetus

Impetus can be somewhat difficult to understand for an inexperienced player. You will probably be wondering how to use it properly and how to get the most effective results from using it. I will attempt to show you the basics of using Impetus to harass, to chase and to kill.
Impetus deals bonus damage based on a percentage of the distance at the time of impact between Enchantress and the target.

Harassing

First off, using Impetus to harass is crucial to dominating your lane matchups. Earlygame getting good Impetus’ every time on enemy heroes is vital for establishing control in your lane. When a melee hero comes up to last hit a creep, timing the cast of your Impetus is important. Too early and you’ll get a weak +50 dmg (lvl 4 Impetus), too late and he could be out of range all together. Waiting until he has hit the creep and just as he turns around to run away is the optimum time to let off an Impetus. Chances are he didn’t see you throw it, if he did he’s already clicked and is running away watching helplessly as the Impetus deals +160 dmg.

If you’re facing a ranged hero, wait until he is coming in to either harass you or last hit. Throw a few normal attacks at him to make him turn around and as he starts running back, throw an Impetus. If he runs closer to you after you threw your Impetus, attack him again and if you are level 5 or 7 with low cooldown Impetus, try to throw another one just to annoy him even more!

Hint: After you’ve thrown an Impetus, if you know you wont throw another one straight away, immediately run in the opposite direction that you threw it. This will widen the gap slightly increasing the damage dealt. It may only increase it 10 or so damage, but if you do this every time it adds up.

Chasing

Chasing is where you will see the real power of the Impetus. It is not uncommon to see +200 dmg on Impetus when chasing fast heroes such as Bounty Hunter, Bloodseeker or Slardar. Coupled with Enchant’s 7 seconds of slow it makes for lethal damage output in a short amount of time. A lot of people make the mistake of just turning Impetus on auto-cast, standing still and attacking. This will mean you wont be in a good position to chase down any escaping heroes. I find that manually casting Impetus at all times is more effective than auto cast. This allows you to cancel the “Cast backswing” more efficiently by immediately issuing another command after you throw your Impetus, a.k.a Animation canceling.

Keep in mind that the maximum damage on Impetus is +400. Which at level four is a distance of 2500 units.

Animation Canceling

When your hero casts a spell, the animation takes place. Once the effect of the spell has taken place(your Impetus arrow is projected), there is a “cast backswing” in the animation, which is just an extra bit of animation for aesthetics (e.g. CM waving her wand, Enchantress spins her spear over her head etcetc) In other words, IT WASTES TIME when you could be moving closer to your opponent for another attack, or casting another spell!
To animation cancel all you have to do, once the spell is cast/effect has taken place, immediately issue another command, either to move, or to attack. The command you issued, overrides the backswing of the animation and performs that command instead.
You may be thinking “But I’m not good enough to Animation cancel” or “I couldn’t be bothered” but let me tell you Animation canceling is not something just for those advanced players you see in all those league replays. It is easy to do and improves your chasing ability tenfold, all you need a basic understanding of what it is and some practice! Heroes with 400+ MS with their S&Y’s will be thinking “WTF why aren’t I moving away from her!?!?” when you are running along side them throwing your Impetus’ and canceling the cast backswing.

10. Using Enchant to it’s Full Potential

Enchant is a multidimensional skill with more uses than many people care to know about. Most people tend to neglect the second part of the skill that allows you to dominate many things and just use it for the ownage 7 second slow. In doing this they are missing out on a large portion of what this skill can do for you in terms of ganking, turning the tide is battles and so on. In this next section I will attempt to explain most of the uses of this skill outside of just using it to slow.
Enchant only lasts for 2 minutes, so you shouldn’t be aiming to play her like a Chen. Enchant has a fast cooldown so the idea when Enchanting creeps is to get them as you plan to use them. For example, if you were planning to gank bottom, run through the forest, quickly pick up the first useful creep you see and continue on your way to gank.

Neutral Creeps for Ganking

Enchanting neutral creeps is probably the most obvious of all things that can be Enchanted. There are many neutral creeps you can Enchant, from Gnoll Assassins right through to Satyr Hellcallers. However for the purpose of ganking there are only a few neutral creeps that are of any use.
# Centaur Khan
* Endurance Aura gives 15% increased attack speed.
* Warstomp ability the deals 25 damage and stuns for 2 seconds in a small AoE.
Probably the best neutral creep to enchant. It has reasonably high hp, a good aura and the stomp is the main reason you want this creep.
# Polar Furbolg Ursa Warrior
* Hoofstomp ability that deals 25 damage and stuns for 2 seconds in a small AoE.
About as good as the Centaur but it doesn’t have an aura. It does have 100 more mana though, so that’s 1 extra stomp you can perform over the Centaur.

# Kobold Taskmaster
* Endurance Aura gives 12% increased movement speed.
Who can argue that +12% MS isn’t good for ganking? That’s all you will use this creep for.
# Satyr Hellcaller
* Unholy Aura gives 2 hp/sec regen
* Shockwave that deals 100 damage to land units in a line.
An extra 100 damage nuke and some regen with this creep. It also deals about 60 damage per attack, coupled with a stomper and your slow it can deal a decent amount of damage early game.

Neutral Creeps for Pushing

If your team is planning a push simply make your way through a forest and pick up as many creeps as you can. They don’t have to be the ones mentioned above, however they do help more. If you run out of the bush with a Centaur, Hellcaller and an Orge to push a lane in the early stages of the game, unless you’re facing their whole team it will be tough to stop you taking the tower. Do be cautious though as Enchanted creeps gain no extra HP and when they die they will be giving out bounty, so you don’t want to just feed them to your opponents.

Image Heroes

Another cool fact about Enchant is that it can also be used on Images(not geomancer however). When your facing Image heroes such as Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Terrorblade or Chaos Knight, you should always aim to Enchant one of their Images away from them when they use their Image abilities. This can seriously hamper a Chaos Knight, as his image skill is his ultimate and you are effectively making it 33% weaker by taking an image and turning it back against him, and a Terrorblade who, without Manta Style can only get 2 Images up.
Naga and PL are somewhat less effected as taking away 1 image from them wont hamper them too greatly as their images are easier to create than the one’s mentioned above. However it can still be effective to have one of their images fighting against them.

Turning the Tide of Battle by Stealing Summons

In large team battles Enchant can be used to hopefully turn the tide in certain situations. If you are playing an -ap game, Enchant can be used on Chen’s persuaded creeps. This will not only neutralise one third of his creep army, but can be used right back against him.
Another one worth mentioning is you can Enchant the Blue and Fire Panda when Pandaren uses Primal Split, the Earth Panda is Immune to magic so you can’t Enchant him. When you Enchant one and kill the other two, it results in a suicide from Pandaren, but you get to keep the Enchanted Panda until the timer runs out, which is uber cool! (Thanks to Da.Waaagh for helping me test this!)

Other examples of Enchanting summons that can help turn the tide of a battle, such as Lycan’s wolves, Beast Master’s animals, Morphling’s Replicate and Necronomicon summons.

11. Replays My nub replays
I got another recent replay. This game was in 6.42, IH game vs a clan. I didn’t play solo / carry with Enchant, instead I played as a support / ganker / tank. The game isn’t very high level, but it’s around the level of a standard friendly IH with some friends.
Started off laned with Spirit Breaker against Bristleback + Magnus, I stupidly get 1stblooded a few minutes in while trying to block them from 1stblooding SB. After that I just try to harass and farm as much as I can while not dying. After a while we start ganking and pushing, I use a lot of the strategy from my guide in this game, the skill build, orb-walking, ganking, pushing and what I could get made of the item build before the game ended. Our Viper was the Radiance buyer which meant I didn’t need to get it, so I finished Guinsoo after my core build and started to make Heart.
In the end we dominated them pretty easily with double their killscore, but I liked this replay because it shows most things in my guide and how they can be done in a normal, non league, non pro game which most of the guide readers play.
Enjoy:
Enchant_vs_mR.clan.w3g ( 997.25k )
(1.21)
Ok I have a 1.21 replay of me nubbing it up with Enchantress. The game is a pub game, however there are 5 of my friends (3 on sent, 2 on scourge+me) the mode is -ar. The NZ host (Im Aus) gives me a ping about 0.200. So with a small amount of delay I start the game fairly badly in terms of my -cs. After a while I got used to it and finally start to land a few last hits.
The teams were fairly lopsided in terms of early game and late game capability, ours having most of the early game capability while Sentinel side had a potentially strong late game. Knowing this we decided we needed to push hard and fast if we were to win, so farming opportunities were few and far between. The game is tense and there’s a lot of team fighting. Can we push quick enough to win before sentinels superior late game takes over or will they hold off long enough to get the items they need?
All in all I didn’t play particularly well, with an ending score of only 3-2, but I feel that this replay is a good one to put here, because it shows how the average dota player would play Enchantress, as opposed to just showing you replays of how pros play her in league games.
Enjoy:
Enchant_Replay_1.21.w3g ( 902.59k )
(1.21)
Pro Replays
This replay is of Yoshi[P] playing a totally dominant Enchantress against TeG in a recent -ap draft match in semifinals of ESL. The reason I’m posting this replay is to show how Enchant can and will completely dominate her lane against heroes other than the top scourge soloers. Yoshi makes it impossible for his lane opponent to farm and keeps him underfarmed all game.
Another reason this replay is awesome, is because Yoshi shows how to totally counter an enemy Chen and pretty much render him useless other than his heal. Not a good replay if you’re looking for “how to get out of a losing situation” because in this one he dominates start to finish with good strategy, a good build and abusing Enchant’s strengths as much as possible.
Enjoy:
ESL_PS_tPD_vs._TeG_3.w3g ( 1.44mb )
(1.21)
This replay I particularly enjoyed watching. It is of MYM|Maelk playing Enchantress in an IH -ap game. The reason I enjoyed this one so much was that he wasn’t playing with the Imba 6.37 Sentinel team, thus making the performance stand out more than usual. Most of the strategy I depict in my guide is used to some degree in this replay(although he does most things 76 and a half times better than me), He buys MKB instead of Radiance because the Omniknight on his team already bought a Radiance, Otherwise the builds are much the same.
Enjoy:
Maelk_s_IHCS_Enchantress.w3g ( 2.19mb )
(1.20)
12. Conclusion

Thanks for reading my guide, I hope you liked it. I would appreciate some constructive criticism to improve this one and any future attempts I make at writing a guide. Please no flames though!
I hope I’ve helped out some new players and more experienced players alike with some new and old builds, some decent strategy and a few high quality, enjoyable replays (along with the nubness of my own replay ).
Also, please, leave a comment on what you liked or didn’t like… Even if you don’t like it, let me know so I could possibly change some things… and if you do like it, let me know as well =) Thanks.

13. Credits

I’d just like to thank a few people who helped me write the guide, as well as the many people who’ve given me feedback on how to improve it.
Jasos: Thanks for all you’re help and support (scotch) bro, couldn’t have done it without you.
Da.Waaagh: Thanks for helping me test a lot of things regarding Enchant! Also thanks for owning my nub ass in Ladder the other day
Heffa/Matt/Dave + rest of CdeG: Thank you guys for all the initial support and feedback! You guys are pretty own B)
Beast_Pete: Thanks Pete for your review and support. Helped me fix the layout and builds a bit. Appreciated.
TheJoe: Thanks Joe for the all the feedback. Helped me fix the core build and item build justifications among other things.
Farmasutra: For helping me correct information about Untouchable. Thanks mate.
Yoshi[P]: For letting me use your replay, as well as supporting me! Thanks again.
Jogi: For suggesting the section about Using Enchant! Thanks!
Yank-Fan: For giving me awards ^^
Everyone else who gave me feedback and support: Thanks everyone it’s very much appreciated!