Do you want to know how to beat Aghanim’s Labyrinth as Phoenix?
The Aghanim’s Labyrinth is back and is greater than ever, with an increased set of heroes to play with. Playing this incredible game mode has led to many discovering the best heroes and the most effective team compositions. Similarly, one popular hero to win effortlessly is Phoenix, thus, this article covers How to Play Phoenix in Aghanim’s Labyrinth.
Observing statistics for the win rate for players in the Apex Mage difficulty confirms why Phoenix is so popular. The ten top team compositions with the highest win rates all include Phoenix as a member. Not only in the beginner difficulties, but this pattern appears in every difficulty from apprentice to apex mage.
Phoenix
Among the reasons for Phoenix’s popularity are the vast amounts of magic damage and utility its abilities can provide. Moreover, these spells are responsible for slowing enemies while also healing allies and providing escapes for them. This boils down to how one utilizes its potential, and resultantly this article discusses How to Play Phoenix in Aghanims Labyrinth in Dota 2.
Phoenix’s first ability is Icarus Dive, which allows it to propel itself forward in an arc, damaging and slowing enemies. With this, it covers a fixed distance before following the arc back to its original location. Furthermore, the option to stop the dive at any point makes it an excellent tool to initiate or escape. It also consumes 15% of its current health to deal 70 DPS to enemies.
Fire Spirits; its second spell allows it to launch birds that slow attack speed and cause 75 damage per second. This ability also uses up 20% of Phoenix’s health as barter to execute the spell. Four charges for twenty seconds give Phoenix flexibility as to when it wants to release its spirits.
A ray of light that damages heroes and heals allies in its path, Sunray is an incredibly useful spell. This ability deals bonus heals or damage based on the max health of individual targets in its way. However, Phoenix forfeits six percent of its current health to output potentially limitless damage and heal while slowing enemies.
Its ultimate ability is Supernova, granting it the power to conceal itself in an egg and rebirth in six seconds. By hiding itself in this egg, Phoenix comes back with full health and mana while stunning enemies near to it. This Ability also deals a massive 120 damage per second, making it an incredible team fighting and initiating tool.
How to Play Phoenix to its Full Potential
The text above covers Phoenix’s skill set, however, players now need to know how they can use these abilities. These abilities need the correct item build to convert all your attempts into painless victories.
Ability Usage
Perhaps the most crucial spell for Phoenix and one that should have the earliest levels is its Fire Spirits. This spell proves to be an extremely good source of magic damage, helping bring down even the beefiest targets. Although, one thing to note is that it does not stack, therefore, players should spread out spirits among various enemies.
Phoenix’s primary escape, Icarus Dive, proves to be incredibly useful in this game mode as a tool to kite enemies. This spell applies best to situations in which enemies surround the player, and they need an immediate escape. Ensuring not to dive through enemies with slows or bashes is important to avoid untimely deaths. It should also have the second-most levels.
Next is Phoenix’s main source of healing, Sunray, though quite useful, is not as important in the late game. This stems from Phoenix’s most important task in the game is to kite enemies while dealing with DPS. Consequently, Sunray should have the least priority for levels, although leveling it up later can be good for emergency healing.
Its ultimate ability, Supernova, has quite a bit of utility as it helps clear a large number of creeps simultaneously. It can be extremely useful, one should use it cautiously in boss rooms and generously in regular rooms. Because creeps can kill the egg easily, the large radius comes in handy, and players should position it far away.
The Best Items to Build
Though there are a lot of combinations of items that Phoenix in Dota 2 can build, some items perform better than others. Anecdotes from players and statistics, lead to the items below being the best build for Phoenix. These items are key to knowing How to Play Phoenix in Aghanim’s Labyrinth.
Firstly, choosing the correct boots for the early game is incredibly important. Likewise, due to Phoenix’s slow movement speed, one of the best boots for it is the Tranquil Boots. Moreover, these boots shine as the best option as Phoenix does not necessarily need extra mana or attack damage. These boots also give excess HP regen making Phoenix even tankier.
For mid-game items, one of the best choices is the Kaya which then upgrades into the Bloodstone. This item is excellent as it grants Phoenix bonus spell damage and spell lifesteal, increasing its self sustain. Apart from this, the heal from Bloodstone is incredibly useful in conserving charges from Bottle.
Secondly, Eul’s is also seen as an amazing item with its capability to help dodge and escape attacks. Furthermore, cycling up into the air also allows you to reset creep aggression, making it easy to escape easily. It can also upgrade later to Wind Waker, which helps you even save allies. As a bonus, Wind Waker also lets one choose where to drop down after cycling up.
Lastly, players must focus on getting the Black King Bar which allows players to escape the shockwaves from bosses. This is also critical in achieving protection from the attraction effect from the Black Hole or shockwaves from Magnus. Octarine Core can also be a great pickup as it supplies Phoenix with extra HP and spell cooldown reduction.
What Shards to Get
The best shard for Phoenix by far is the Flame Revenant shard. This shard can almost double Phoenix’s DPS by making each Fire Spirit last for double the duration. Along with this, each Fire Spirit leaves a revenant where it hits which deals 75% of the damage of the spirits. It also doubles the debuff duration and radius making it insanely good in taking down enemies.
Arguably just as good as the Flame Revenant shard, the Binary Star shard is also ranked very highly. It results in every Icarus Dive making a Supernova at the location where Phoenix goes for 3 seconds. Though it has half the radius of Supernova, it delivers an immense amount of damage with a minimal cooldown.
A shard that becomes even better when combined with the Binary Star shard, the Horizon shard is very practical. It improves Supernova by allowing it to push back units and applying the burn damage of Icarus Dive to targets. It makes your egg incredibly safe to use as most enemy creeps cannot oppose the pushback or destroy your egg.
With support from statistics and evidence from very high-difficulty gameplay in Aghanims Labyrinth in Dota 2, Phoenix is a rising star. Its overpowered abilities along with extremely useful shards have made it an unbelievably strong monster. However, players need to use it correctly, which is why this article covers How to Play Phoenix in Aghanims Labyrinth in Dota 2.
