The Curse of Recommended Items: Lifestealer
In pub play this month, Lifestealer players have chosen Power Treads over Phase Boots as the more popular item, by nearly 27%. However, Phase Boots owns a larger win rate at 48%, compared to Power Treads at 46%. Then take a look at competitive stats from datDota, where pros have built Phase Boots 3 times more than Power Treads, while boasting a higher win rate at 54% vs 49%. Have Lifestealer pub players been making the wrong item choices?
Situational?
"Phase Boots is better in almost every situation," says KawaiiSocks, our "resident pro":
Dota strategy can be a game of situational item choices, but it's safe to say that Power Treads is frequently an inferior, perhaps even bad, item choice. The rare time that Treads may be viable is when you can rely on your team mates for stuns and slows, which in a pub game, may be few and far between.
Sure, Power Treads may also be better in the jungle, but that would be a terrible waste. Lifestealer is one of the strongest carries in lane, as well as being an early powerhouse since he really only needs one core item: Armlet. He's more effective as an aggressive hero than a passive farmer, and Phase Boots fits this playstyle perfectly.
Mobility
Take a look at one of the top plays from 2013, where Fnatic exploits Naix's weakness to the fullest. After a frenetic 5v5 teamfight, Fnatic showed great awareness by recognizing that the Aegis on Lifestealer was expiring. Over the next 10 seconds, all 5 players waited, while kiting a stacked N'aix.
Ever since the range nerf to Open Wounds, move speed becomes even more crucial to playing N'aix. Though you may be able to 3 or 4 shot a hero, your move speed may be the difference between a kill and a frustrating, failed gank.
With already a high base speed of 315, Phase Boots's active will let you close the gap on most heroes. In the lane, you can intiate with Open Wounds and phase through the creep wave. In a team fight, you won't have any pathing issues around summons, wards (even Serpent Wards! escape that trap), and other heroes to get to your target. There are few things more satisfying than a smooth kill with Open Wounds, Rage, and Phase Boots Active.
Item Synergy
Drum of Endurance comes to mind as one of the first core items on N'aix, next to Armlet. Drums, like Armlet, seems like it was designed for N'aix: stats for mana pool issues, an increase to move speed, and an active for even more speed to ensure that kill. It's integral for a racecar build with Sange and Yasha and Phase Boots, if you want to dart around the map at maximum move speed.
Pro players have recognized this item's utility. It's been bought in 47.9% of pro games and netted a win rate of 52% when purchased first.
Want to take a guess how often everyone else, us pub players, the general populace, buys Drums of Endurance? Take a second. This month, pub players have bought Drums in 7% of games played.
How Should We Recommend?
Valve's recommended items list has a tremendous influence on the item choices of the public. Though Power Treads vs Phase Boots can be a more difficult choice than it seems, the omission of Drums of Endurance is a glaring error. We should take a page from the pros, and from our own common sense, to determine what goes in the suggested items list.
Are there recommended items for other heroes that you find disturbing? Let us know in the comments and we'll investigate!
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It ultimately falls down to whether you want to be aggressive or passive with Lifestealer.
Phase + Drums utilizes LS's innate early-mid game durability and damage output. Transitioning to SnY, the race car build is an aggressive one where good ganks/teamwork should be enough to snowball LS out of control.
Others take him to the jungle/sidelane, starting off with items such as Midas then moving on to AC, Mllojnir, etc. If treads is the choice of boots, then LS should be a lot less active early-mid game, but will be a strength-eater in the late.
Though I also personally feel that an aggressive build is much more effective on LS, it obviously all falls down to personal preference. Stats don't lie though ;)
@Heal Arious
I believe this is list of items they had at the end of the game. And it is very unlikely that any hero will have courier or flying courier in their inventory. This is why courier has 15-25% winrate.
isnt midas armlet deso assault best on naix?
The most disturbing recommended items I've seen are all the carry items in Venge's list...
She can serve as a lategame semi-DpSer - after all, she only needs 2 support items a lot: Meck and Forcestaff. I occasionally add Aquilla, Drums or Blink Dagger (love it, but one could argue that the 4Staff is more efficient). So in the later stages, where you already have all of these items, splashing a bit into DpS-ing is not too bad. In the late late she deals an ~ok amount of damage, since the 6.79, with extra Agi growth per level.
Divine Rapier must be core for Kunkka!
Seriously, I had very fun game recently. http://dotabuff.com/matches/502640280
My team destroyed all barracks, but we still lost because they had Kunkka with two divine rapiers.
He was like: "Screw you megacreeps!" *SPLASH!*
its all about how active you decide to go in your game.
Unlike scrub games in some games of decent plays naix cant sit and afk farm for 30 minutes in the jungle.
So if you make it being a hardcarry treads >Phase boots any time.
But if you wanna move around chase and shit I think Pb is way better.
Also if you play active LS which means no jungling you need a greater damage source since your feast wont be maxed which enforces the phase boots choice more.
@Heal Arious
Dotabuff statistic only counts items that you have in your inventory by the end of a game. So, in CM case, only unpacked couriers that were lying in her inventory for some reason were counted.
@epsik-kun Thank you for the information. That changes a lot the item statistics. Most of items do not survive till the late game - like bottles, shields etc.
What does a hero truly need? This is for YOU to decide!
Heal Arious, this is because the stats are based on items in inventory at the end of the game, and since the courier is a use item it is not counted in the end game score stats screen. And the ones that are counted are usually abandons or disconnects before the item could be used, or errorenously bought and left in the inventory at the end game - hence why so few of them in the stats.
This is the same reason why bottle and and magic stick/wand would have lower win rate than it really is, as usually if the game is going on well, you would eventually sell them, and if it is not you will have them in your inventory in a lost game.
Chicken McNuggets , Windows xp , office manager and lol wut .
you know what, phase bots sucks.
im sayin that as a lifestealer player.
phase bots really sucks. even in a pub game, phase bots sucks harder.