The mid carry dazzle

I saw this build used against mTw.Synderyn(sp?) while he was streaming a few nights ago, and it almost pushed him out of the lane as OD, so i was inspired to try it just last night since we didn't have a decent mid, and I didn't feel like playing an actual carry. The results were.....just wow. Vs 90% of heroes, and ESPECIALLY melee heroes, you will win the lane hands down with minimal difficulty, as long as you can last hit.

Here is the build: Q/E/W/Q/Q/R/Q, then max heal, then max shallow grave, taking ulti when possible. For items, get a set of tangoes, a sage's mask, and 3 GG branches. Dazzle's very high int gain(3.4) means getting a mantle is(imo) kind of a waste, especially since with this build, you probably won't have the inventory space, and it doesn't turn into anything later. First item you get is to rush medallion. It's just an additional ~700 gold, and you should be able to finish it by level 3. Try and conserve your mana for that time. You should be able get bottle soon after with your now ridiculous lane control, and then treads and urn. Then go ganking, and just wipe lanes off the face of the earth. Lategame, I would grab a desolator for additional -armor and the additional damage, then work towards a AC for the attack speed and +armor.

How to play it: Dazzle has very high base intelligence and decent base damage. He also is almost invulnerable in a 1 v 1 lane, has good range, and a good attack animation. He also has a very underrated offensive skillset. It's a wierd set of skills because it's physical damage, not magical. The great thing about this is that that means it is both unaffected by base magic resistance, and enemies with low base armor will take virtually all of the damage, which, at level 4, is NOT something to be taken lightly. 7x32 = 224 damage for a 145 mana skill that slows and stuns(Q). OP. And here is where medallion comes in. You get to subtract even MORE armor, down into the negatives 90% of the time. If someone is dumb enough to solo tower dive you, they die, simple as that. They get slowed, -armor'ed, you have great base damage, and are also invulnerable for 5 seconds. Just in pure lane control, most mid heroes will lose to you. If they are melee, as soon as they get near 3 or more creeps, you drop medallion, heal your creep wave(physical damage as well), drop your Q(MORE physical damage), and then auto-attack them. If they stand and fight, they die, your healed creeps will be attacking them, and they will be slowed and then stunned. If they run, they take tons of damage, the only decent option is an escape skill like a blink. Once your ulti is up, You drop ulti, medallion, heal, Q, auto-attack. The combination is pure brutality at low levels. Their armor will in all likelihood be in the -10 range after all of this. Your level 6 auto-attacks at -10 armor will probably be dealing around 100 damage or so(base x ~1.4 damage multiplier for negative armor). Most mid heroes at level 6 will have about 700-1000 hp when full. Your Q will deal 224 x 1.4 = 313 damage. Your E(heal), if it hits 3 targets plus them at level 2 will deal 100 x 3 x 1.4 = 420 damage. As you can see, this is a metric butt-load of damage for a "support" hero to be putting out at level 6+. When you are ganking level 4 support heroes with 600 hp, they just die. Going urn so soon gives you even more snowballing power, as you can sustain early pushes so well, and you WILL be filling it.

My first game example. I was facing a lion in mid. Got medallion super quick, maybe was even level 2? Regardless, I pushed him completely out of mid almost instantly, with comments of "WTF", and "wow". My opponents tried switching a zeus, and then a spectre mid. All of them had to leave almost instantly. By minute 7, I was playing mid all by myself. I obviously farmed a SUPER fast urn and treads, then went hunting. Caught a 3 man gank top, managed to drop my ulti on all 3 of them and 2 of us. Spammed medallion and Q on zeus, healed a creep wave on spectre, auto-attacked lion, teamates stunned and auto-attacked, I got a double kill, took the tower a few minutes later. Took another small teamfight and a tower on the opposite lane soon after, finished deso, and the game was basically over. Pushed mid, got caught and died once, but pushed right back, took tower, rax, team wiped, and just throned it right then and there. As we were taking the rax, their tide comes in and ultis, followed by a zeus ulti, but a heal spam, + we had ~+10 armor from my ulti I dropped earlier, and we were right back at decent health, and basically invulnerable to their auto-attacks. The team wipe followed, and we throned right then and there. GG. I was 4 levels above their nearest hero, with 18 urn charges and a 12/2/11 score, in a ~35 minute game.

Pros: Fantastic lane control and great snowballing mid-game. A high level Dazzle in team fights with a loaded urn and good mana regen can sustain a push almost indefinitely. The negative armor and slow/stun/DoT makes ganks almost a sure kill without a blink or invis to escape. Even lategame, Dazzle's skillset is very relevant. Also, noone is too worried about Dazzle free farming mid, unlike, say, a huskar/QoP/SS/etc, so you will probably get a lot of free farming opportunities.

Cons: There are better snowballing mids if you are good. You have to end the game soonish, as your lategame transition will be to a more supporting role. If you get enough items to dominate the lategame....you could have ended the game 20 minutes ago. That's about it for cons, really. A high level, farmed Dazzle is amazing even in just a pure support role.