Semi-daily hero tips. Day 55: Monkey King

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PREVIOUS HEROES

• Abaddon
• Alchemist
• Ancient Apparition
• Anti-Mage
• Arc Warden
• Axe
• Bane
• Batrider
• Beastmaster
• Bloodseeker
• Bounty Hunter
• Brewmaster
• Bristleback
• Broodmother
• Centaur Warrunner
• Chaos Knight
• Chen
• Clinkz
• Clockwerk
• Crystal Maiden
• Dark Seer
• Dazzle
• Death Prophet
• Disruptor
• Doom
• Dragon Knight
• Drow Ranger
• Earth Spirit
• Earthshaker
• Elder Titan
• Ember Spirit
• Enchantress
• Enigma
• Faceless Void
• Gyrocopter
• Huskar
• Invoker
• IO
• Jakiro
• Juggernaut
• Keeper of the Light
• Kunkka
• Legion Commander
• Leshrac
• Lich
• Lifestealer
• Lina
• Lion
• Lone Druid
• Luna
• Lycan
• Magnus
• Medusa
• Meepo

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DISCLAIMER

A lot of you probably know about the weekly hero discussion, but that often ends up in a meta discussion (whether or not the hero needs buffs, etc) or a meme war than actual tips to play, itemize and build the hero.

This is what I'd like to do. Please discuss any notes I made and possible improvements while also giving tips of your own if you have them.

The roles, skill builds and item builds, as well as a lot of the notes are my opinion on matters and should not be seen as a must do or don't. Also remember that almost every single build or role is situationally possible.

A lot of the tips on heroes were also mentioned in tsunami's amazing hero tips series he did over the last couple of years.

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Monkey King

Notes:

• Disguising as a courier gives you 350 ms, 45 more than your base MS
• Under misschief you cannot be auto attacked. This includes creeps, towers and fountain.
• Tree Dance and Misschief don't proc cast effects (wand, nether ward)
• You can use boundless strike from the top of a tree without unperching.
• MK does not get stunned if a tree disappears but is not destroyed (iron branch and sprout)
• Just like Powershot, Illuminate and others, stopping the primal spring channel still lets the spell go off, but with less slow and damage.
• Echo Sabre does not let your clones hit twice in quick succession, given that their attack speed is locked. Both boundless strike and the clones from your ult proc the slow though. (/u/pos1CM)
• BFury cleave does not apply to boundless strike, unlike PA dagger. (/u/papaspil)
• Counters: Disruptor (flying vision cage, glimpse, silence, DoT), Batrider (destroys a lot of trees, DoT), TA (refraction, high burst), Arc Warden (flux, spark wraith), WR (shackle, powershot destroys trees, focus fire burst, windrun), Slardar (true sight), Skywrath (silence, high burst), Earth Spirit (silence, DoT)
• Good versus: Shadow Demon (disruption can save monkey king or can set up for him instead), Underlord (aggressive ult can work against him)

Role: Mid, Offlane, Roaming support

Item build:

• Core items: Phase, Wand, Shadow Blade, Basher
• Core situationals: Ring of Aquila, Echo Sabre, BKB, Deso, Abyssal
• Support situationals: Ghost Scepter, Eul's, Force

Skill build: Get a value point in everything by lvl 4 at least

• Normal: Boundless strike > Jingu mastery > Primal Spring
• Mid: Jingu mastery > Boundless Strike > Primal Spring