Source
r/DotA2•
Remiu

My Chaos Knight guide from 1k to 2.5k

Guides & Tips

My games so far: here

1.When to pick:

Always first pick CK. Just trust me on this one, nobody actually knows how to counter CK in this bracket. What's great about this is it'll make the enemy picks predictable and can be easily countered by an item switch on your part.

2.Usual enemy counters to your first pick:

  • Earth Shaker, This is the literal #1 pick for the enemy support, if they have a support. Let me explain why this isn't a problem. CK isn't PL or TB, he's not a squishy agi hero; he's a STR hero with free 20str from talents alone at lvl15. I'd go so far to say if the game is going well enough for you, you can end that game as soon as you reach 15 or 20. The only real problem ES gives you is to how the rest of your team will survive that echo slam, you won't have issue about it but they will. Generally you can just 5v1 easily anyway but just keep that in mind before using your ult in a fight.

  • Invoker, not really a counter to you but really annoying and a common pick in this bracket. One thing CK doesn't have is mana pool. If an Invoker gets a perfect combo on you with tornado EMP, you'll be sitting there useless on a fight without 80% of your damage output. Though this is pretty easy to avoid, just don't initiate or get bkb. Another reason that Invoker pisses me off is the Deafening Blast, if that voker is fast enough he can cast Deafening Blast right after you rift and just make you a sitting duck for 2~3seconds but again these are easily avoidable and easy to play around.

  • Sven, you might say "We lost"; not really lol. CK wins 1v1 versus Sven believe it or not. This is where the item flexibility comes into play. My usual build for CK.. well I don't have one, Just a general outline which I'll show later. For now, you can easily build against Sven with halberd. If you aren't sh8 you should have armlet and halberd by 15~18mins this is roughly the same time a sven can have his dagger/shadowblade and echosaber/MoM. Don't be afraid of the sven, if he initiates just use halberd pop ult if needed and kill em, you have a potential 5seconds to stop him from attacking you if you time your stun and halberd nicely. Late game when he gets a BKB you should have heart by then too, again rinse and repeat. There's no way for him to kill you alone on a 10s BKB, just let him initiate, he pops bkb, stuns you for 2s, wait for the stun to run out, and kite him around until bkb runs out. Then you halberd, keeping in mind his stun CD and using your own stun right before his goes off CD and yet again you win that fight.

  • Riki,Clinkz any silence based heroes. Not really a counter again but just annoying. You wont really die from not being able to use skills but it does reduce your dps by 80~90% without the illusions. You can again just build BKB or manta depending on who it is. If it's riki go for bkb and just fight inside smoke, if it's an orchid clinkz then Manta so you can try to kill the clinkz at the same time, but for me BKB is just better overall since stun locks are also annoying for your hero. You rely allot on rift to get kills or just get infinitely kited like a Sven.

3.Item Outline:

Quelling Blade, Stout, Tangoes; You still have 100 gold to spare, depending on what lane you expect buy 2 branches for extra regen or to build into a wand if it's against a lane like BB or any spell spammer, get a mango if you're laning with someone that has kill potential to get you that extra cast on stun or rift, get a salve if you know it's going to be a really hard tri-lane.

Helm of Iron Will then Boots; you can get either first but I like getting helm first, it just makes you fairly unkillable in lane and it's a free tango that's always active

Armlet then Treads; Armlet should be done before or on 10mins and treads around 12 or 13, If you can't manage that then you've pretty much lost your early game potential. Right around this time I start bullying whoever in laning against constantly faking reality rift keeping them scared and initiating when I got a teammate nearby for kills.

Echo saber or Halberd or Solar Crest; You can choose one or two of these depending on the game you're playing on and should be in your inventory before 20mins. Echo saber is just a great item, gives you more killing potential, str, and mana regen that you so desperately need, not to mention it's basically +1 attack or 1 illusion on the first hit with reality rift. I only usually build halberd for Sven but hey, if some hero with a stupid right click is giving you a hard time buy it. Solar Crest is for a really greedy CK, it just helps you melt heroes in tandem with your reality rift, oh and it's a good counter to PA before you get mkb.

Heart of Tarrasque or BKB; Again game dependent, if it's against spell spammers or stun lockers then get BKB, if it's someone like sven who can cleave you and your illusions to death get heart. I prefer heart most of the time unless I'm really forced to buy bkb. One of these should be up before 30mins and you can end the game now.

After those it's really up to you what to buy, get Skadi or another Heart, AC go fucking wild lol. There's no way for you to fuck this up now being nigh unkillable at this point.

4.Skill Build up

Meh this is fairly basic, hold the first point until you need it. Depending on the lane maybe your teammate can get a good stun off or whatever get a point into whichever skill will be useful during that time either stun or rift to secure the kill.

After you get your first point in get the second one to either rift or stun depending on which you used your first point into.

At lvl 3 always get your Chaos Strike, this just lets you man fight 1v1 situations in your lane as well as survive any harass whenever your lane-mate leaves you for ganks. Coupled with the Helm you bought earlier you're pretty much like DK or BB on that lane in terms of regen and survivability which is also why I play CK offlane often. Just don't play dumb and the chances of you dying alone vs 2 on 1 lane is low to none.

Max your Stun and rift first getting ult when you can and getting talents when you can.

Talents go as follows: +5 all stats, +20 str, Reality Rift Pierces spell immune, and the last one is up to you both is good.

Never get the GPM talent, if you're ever in the worst position possible that you'd want to get the GPM talent then I suggest stop playing CK, even as a support CK you'd never want that.

5.Laning

Go wherever you want lol, CK is good everywhere.

A solo offlane sure no problem, I personally like it like that

Safelane? Meh why not you're a carry anyway.

Mid? Why the hell not, more often than not you win that lane. It also gives your gankers great opportunity to kill mid as often as possible with your stun and rift. You can also end games faster this way the sooner you hit 20 the sooner you can end the game.

General playstyle would just be fairly passive until you get your armlet and treads, after you do get those start playing mind games. Reality Rift is a stupidly loud and alarming ability, fake it as often as you can keep the enemy guessing when you'll actually cast it. After a while they'll get tired of actively triyng to avoid it when you fake it and that's when they'll get caught off guard. Believe me this happens too often to me lol.

After getting a few kills on your lane, push the tower and don't be a passive afk farmer. You're CK, there's a reason why CK is a viable support, he has 2 skills worthy of a support. You basically have a short range reliable hook with reality rift and a reliable 2s stun at most.

Keep pressure as soon as the tower on your lane falls and roam around for kills and creeps instead of staying in 1 lane. Keep the enemy afraid, fight when your team wants to fight. You can do that as a CK, you're not an AFK farming AM that needs 30mins for items to be useful. You are useful the moment you get your stun and rift.

That being said always carry a TP at all times, if anyone is stupid enough to dive deep into your towers TP to them and get a free kill.

That's generally it, have fun grinding. Some things could be done better but this is how I grinded out of 1k with CK any suggestions can be found on the comments

EDIT:

On the off chance that someone somehow picks medusa against your CK, just don't be stupid aright? You know how Medusa's ult works so just bait it and don't use your ult before medusa. tl;dr: Ladies first, right?

Posted Apr 24, 2018, 8:43 AM UTC · edited

444
blink182tymsDS•

TL:DR - CK very Stronk. CK Smash 1k mmr.

13
yassir1998Illidan is out there somewhere•

Up you go!

1
the-ForsetiRAVAGE!•

tl;dr - plug in the mouse

4
EMPIRE__FANGAY•

don't you just have to learn all the items to get to 2.5k?

4
kn0bbulo•

That ain’t enough. 2ks don’t lack of a very specific skillset, each player lacks of a specific skill to the point where he can’t improve.

You find those who can’t itemize, those who have shitpoor map awareness, those who can’t position themselves etc etc.

So learning the items is gonna help just a few 2k players. Others have to work on entirely different issues.

2
popgalveston•

For the past 2-3years it's the <1k players that doesnt know what all items do. People actually learn from playing

1
diego_italy•

what u do against dusa with agh?

3
RemiuOP•

In the rare chance that does happen, just play around it.

It has an 11 second cooldown hence an 11 second window where you can pop ult and kill dusa which is morethan enough.

In all honesty Medusa has never been a problem for me, I often am able to end games before a medusa can get stupidly strong.

1
diego_italy•

btw you have only 4 matches against her and she never bought agh and u still have 50% wr ;D

3
SeamanJones•

Additional proof it hasn't been a problem for him lol

1
harpake•

A good Medusa player will never, ever waste Mystic Snake on anything else when she has Aghs and there's a CK on the other team.

As CK you need to play a faster pace and outside of having a nice lead and a stun locking team you can't really use your ult in teamfights if she's close.

2
RemiuOP•

A good Medusa lol, we're talking 1~2k bracket here :D

And I always aim to end the game before 40mins

2
kn0bbulo•

You rarely see Aghadusa in that tier.

1
Skywalker_1905•

First pick CK...

3
Lord_Vectronwww.youtube.com/user/GuiltyCasuals•

I agree with everything, even near 4k people pick dumb "counters" like earthshaker who isn't a threat at all.

Only HUGE fuckup you made is not mentioning blink dagger. Its 99% core item. You can ult, blink max range, reality rift max range, and all your illusions will rift to you and surprise kill any hero. You can even kill Medusa's like this if you get a 4 second stun duration.

3
RemiuOP•

I never mentioned it because I never really found use or needed it during my run.

Most of the time I just forget dagger is a thing and either rely on my rift to catch people or just tank it face first lol

But yes I agree dagger is a good item on CK just lets you secure those stuns with your slow ass moving projectile.

1
diego_italy•

Dagger is very useful against ranger carriers like sniper Zeus ow sf

1
ptrix93•

I spam CK recently with 12 matches so far with 70% winrate. Work wonder on 1k bracket.

2
ODoggerino•

Interesting guide but so much of this seems so wrong. First pick CK? That’s awful. I don’t agree at all, ES, Medusa, Bristle, Invo, Axe, PL and many others will ruin your game if they are as good as you are.

CK offlane also seems very strange. If he doesn’t have kill potential then he kind of sucks, and he certainly doesn’t have kill potential in a 1v3.

I feel like the reason you think these work are because it’s 1k and people can’t handle CK at 1k. As soon as the enemy get good, you will struggle first picking an offlane CK :p

2
RemiuOP•

That's why I specifically mentioned 1k~2k

No he will not stomp a 1v3 offlane but he can survive and still be decent in that lane essentially making space. I am well aware this doesn't work 3k+ as I am often partied with 3k's and up.

Also if there are more favorable lanes then that would be good, but I am just stating that it is possible for you to be anywhere and don't need to have a specific lane if someone else wants it which very often happens in this bracket.

1
kn0bbulo•

This is a 1k guide, what do you expect? Personally I first picked Lycan from 2.5 to 3k and no one knew how to handle or counter me properly. Same goes for CK.

As CK I even tried a pushing meme build with Radiance, manta, Octarine and refresher when I was 2k. You think they knew how to stop me?

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

Which defeats the purpose of this guide. If you are just going to assume that everyone in 1k-2k bracket is as shitty as u think they are. You can literally pick any hero and win them over and over again. That doesn’t make CK anywhere special or even OP in this group. For all i know, you could have picked a carry riki and win games after games and still achieve the same result.

1
RemiuOP•

What he's refering to is if you're not bad enough, it's pretty hard to fuck up how to play and build CK.

Unlike Riki that can easily get shut down the moment they figure out that buying 200~500 worth of wards every now and then keeps their asses safe, with CK the only thing they can figure out ot shut you down is to keep 3 heroes hunting you all the time and that's if you didn't already steamroll during the laning phase.

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

No no no. CK is extremely easy to handle and counter. He farms very slowly, he have no escpae mechanism. He fares badly vs a trilane (even a dual lane).

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

What if i tell you the best counter to CK is none of those but the great BREMASTER? Why? The most important reason for that is: 1.)WIND PANDA His AOE dispells clear ALL your illusions in one go. Which makes you ult completely useless Other less important reason: 1.) MISSES His passive miss makes ur illusions misses so much that they just say fuck it. ( no kidding) Added with his drunken haze ( oh my lord the misses) 2.) AOE CLEARANCE with thunder clap Just in case u had a manta backup since your ults been cleared by the wind panda. Thunder clap not only does aoe damage but reduces BOTH ATTACK SPEED AND MOVEMENT SPEED. (now u have illusions that hit and run like a snail)

Buy a linken sphere and aghanim on brew and u can say you sweet goodbye to your CK illusions.

2
RemiuOP•

1k damage to illusions, kek 1 heart+ armlet easy 3k+ HP

PA has more dodge than Brew and never been an issue, hence why the casual Solar Crest in the options to buy.

Thunder-clap can suck a D, optional item buy: BKB; all I need is for my hero to get in range to rift and you can kiss your behind good night. Also going in that close to CK and Phantasm is suicide itself.

Linkens has been an issue for me but halberd is a good thing to have as well to break linkens from roughly the same range as rift.

How many good Brewplayers are there in this bracket anyway, have seen 0 so far.

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

You must be thinking pretty ahead of yourself. CK phantasm: The phantasms deal 100% damage, but take 260% damage. So effectively wind spirit damages to CK pantasm is 2600dmg regardless of levels. Which means even a lvl 6 panda will blow up your lvl 20 ck illusions. The fact that you think that you can get a heart and armlet with that type of counter is borderline hilarious. It is even more hilarious that you think you can blow up a panda before he spilts in a teamfight. Imagine in a teamfight when u pop ur ulti and prepare to engage. And all your illusions just dissapears. The whole point of the hero is just lost.

Its true thought that you dont see a lot of panda player on that skill bracket. But it doesnt mean that pne panda wouldnt wreck ur ck.

1
RemiuOP•

Hence why the obvious bracket on the title.

2600 damage is what like half of a 4k~5k hp fully farmed CK? How easy would that be to outplay in the first place.

It is even more hilarious that you think you can blow up a panda before he spilts in a teamfight.

If you have a chance to split(9/10 you'll get hit first with an initation from CK anyway with a potential 4s stun so yeah IF), if you do get a chance so split a stun and 1 rift to your storm panda easily destroys your idea of a counter. Your Panda needs to be within 500 range to even cast that effectively meanwhile a simple reality rift 700 range can just isolate and kill that panda before you can even hope to react.

If you wanna go at this at numbers :

Dispell Magic cast point: 0.4, range: 500, radius: 600(an effective 700 range at the edge of cast range+radius) ;

Reality Rift Cast point : 0.3, range: 700.

You initiate, the moment you show your pandas it's easy to isolate which one to rift with no protection what-so-ever.

I initiate, potential 4s stun that can kill you before you can even think to split.

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

You really are delusional with CK’s ability. Lol. Unless you are some kind of RTZ like reflex god. I say i blow up all ur illusions before u can even cast anything.

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

If u really want to hypothesise these shit with cast point and stuff. dont forget wind panda has wind walk with 0 cast point. Which for all the hell i care can be invisible and cast dispel anytime he wants without you ever having a chance to chaos bolt/rift it.

1
raghavrsheever•

Nice write up, at 2.2k , I had about a 50%+ win rate as well. Skipped the armlet as I find toggling an issue. The biggest problem is catch getting blink seems so iffy

2
RemiuOP•

oh fucking yes, those blinks are the biggest issue I have.

There's just nothing you can do about it, CK doesn't have a fast enough attack animation to instantly cancel a blink when you rift.

1
diego_italy•

U cant skip armlet on ck.. I was bad too.. U just need to practice

1
yassir1998Illidan is out there somewhere•

Earth Shaker, This is the literal #1 pick for the enemy support, if they have a support.

rofl

1
BatmanGotNoBalls•

Thinking u can have a 5k hp illusion at level 6. Lul. Di u take your meds?

1
speycrys•

Dude you're 2.5k mmr, you know fuck all about CK. You're better off forgetting everything that you think you know about him and starting from scratch, to be honest.

-8
RemiuOP•

I never said I knew everything? Hence why "My"

2
speycrys•

It's not that you don't know everything, it's that you know essentially nothing. Burn this guide and start over and you'll gain some mmr.

-2
TURBOGARBAGE•

This mentality is pure cancer.

2