Rhasta the Shadow Shaman

Strategy Guide for Rhasta the Shadow Shaman by ajwhite (as of v6.59)

http://planetdota.blogspot.com

Table of contents:

A. Hero OverviewB. Skill DescriptionC. Skill BuildD. Items

D.1. Core Items D.2. Advance Item D.3. Other Items D.4. Buying Order D.5. Optional Item Build

E. Walk Through

E.1. Early Game E.2. Mid Game E.3. Late Game

F. Other Strategies

F.1. Dealing with 2 heroes at once F.2. Quick Cash with Wards

G. Team BattlesH. Skill Usage: How to Ward TrapI. Rhasta with other Dota Heroes

I.1. Counters to Rhasta I.2. Good Allies

J. Miscellaneous TipsK. Comic StripL. ReplayM. Final Words/Credits

This is a lengthy guide, so I suggest you press Ctrl + F and type the topic that you would want to read.

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A. Hero Overview

Rhasta, the Shadow Shaman

Once a gifted troll witch doctor, young Rhasta was well versed with the secrets of voodoo magic. When the war between the Sentinel and the Scourge began, Rhasta, then a Shadow Hunter, offered his allegiace to the Sentinel to vanquish the Scourge once and for all. While he was gifted as a Witch Doctor, Rhasta is a genius as a Shadow Hunter, exceeding his master by mastering the art of summoning multiple serpent wards, binding enemies for a short time and casting elemental lightning to several units.

Writer's Note:

Rhasta is a very flexible and versatile hero. He is the only natural pusher, support caster and hero killer all rolled into one malnourished frame. The best disabler in the whole game of dota. But, you'll be needing to hone your ward trapping skills to use him efficiently.

Range: 500 | | Move Speed: 275 | Primary: INTStr: 16 + 1.6 | Agi: 16 + 1.6 | Int: 21 + 3Damage: 42 - 49 | HP: 454 | Mana: 273HP Regen: 0.73 | Mana Regen: 0.85Attack Speed: 1.43 (+ 16% IAS) | Armor: 1.3

Pros:

1. Best Disabler (Yes, no one else could come close )2. Can kill most hero unit 1 on 1 even 3 levels up.3. Strong early and mid game on his own. An asset late game to your team.4. Not really item dependent, compared to other heroes.5. Can singlehandedly turn the tides of the battle.

Cons:1. Very very fragile. 2. Very very fragile.3. Slow movespeed, 2nd in the game after Techies.4. Need practice and good general dota knowledge to harness his full potential.5. #1 target of enemies in team battles.

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B. Skill Description

Forked Lightning (R )Calls forth a cone of lightning, hitting multiple enemy units for damage.

Level 1 - 75 damage to 3 targets. Level 2 - 150 damage to 4 targets. Level 3 - 225 damage to 5 targets.Level 4 - 300 damage to 7 targets. Mana Cost: 95/ 105/ 135/ 160Cooldown: 10

Standard Multiple Nuke. It's better than Arc Lightning and Chain Lightning.

Voodoo (D)Transforms an enemy unit into a random critter, disabling special abilities.

Level 1 - Lasts 1 seconds. Level 2 - Lasts 2 seconds. Level 3 - Lasts 3 seconds.Level 4 - Lasts 4 seconds. Mana Cost: 110 / 140 / 170 / 200Cooldown: 13

Best gotten Mid-Late Game, because a 200 mana costing disable for 4 seconds is damn hell expensive!

Hero Shackles (E)Magically binds a target enemy, so that it cannot move or attack and deals 40 damage per second. Channeling spell.

Level 1 - Lasts 2.5 seconds. Level 2 - Lasts 3.25 seconds. Level 3 - Lasts 4 seconds.Level 4 - Lasts 4.75 seconds. Mana Cost: 110/ 130/ 155/ 185Cooldown: 15

Rhasta's signiture skill. This provides the disable that every enemy hates. Free hits for 4.75 seconds from your allied creeps and heroes. This skill plus voodoo will make you the number one target of your enemy and the most valuable ally of your team.

Mass Serpent Ward (W)Summons 8 immobile serpentine wards to attack enemies. The wards last 30 seconds, deal piercing damage (which means they deal less damage to Heroes) and are immune to magic. Each ward has a range of 600 and has 0 armor, armor type Heavy. With Scepter Rhasta can summon 12 wards.

Level 1 - Deals 39-43 damage each, 135 hp. Level 2 - Deals 54-58 damage each, 150 hp.Level 3 - Deals 69-73 damage each, 150 hp. Mana Cost: 200/ 350/ 610

Cooldown: 120

The skill that made Rhasta famous, just let your imaginations run wild with what you can do with portable mini towers. More details on how to use this skill see strategies and how to ward trap.

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C. Skill Build

lvl 1 - Hero Shackleslvl 2 - Forked Lightninglvl 3 - Hero Shackleslvl 4 - Forked Lightninglvl 5 - Forked Lightninglvl 6 - Mass Serpent Wardlvl 7 - Forked Lightninglvl 8 - Hero Shackleslvl 9 - Hero Shackleslvl 10 - Voodoolvl 11 - Mass Serpent Wardlvl 12 - Voodoolvl 13 - Voodoolvl 14 - VoodooLvl 15 - Statslvl 16 -Mass Serpent Wardlvl 17-25 - StatsLearning 1 level of Voodoo early is advisable when up against heroes with crazy channeling spells (ex: Enigma, Sand King, Crystal Maiden) to stop them from casting thier ultimates.

Skill Build Explaination:Forked Lightning as the first priority because it is essential for farming, harassing heroes and is a good finishing move; we'll be spamming it a lot early-mid game. Shackles is the second priority because of it's longer duration of disable, lower mana cost and the nice 40/sec damage.

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D. Items

D.1. Core Items

Core Item Build Explaination:

Boots of Speed is explanatory. Eul's Scepter is an essential item. It solves the needed mana regen as well as gives nice

Int bonus. More importantly, cyclones fulfills Rhasta's role as disabler and is essential to pull of an almost 100% accurate ward trap.

Dagger of Escape to move in and out of combat. With Rhasta's initial 275 movespeed, Dagger is a must. Plus it helps in ward trapping, chasing and escape tactics, etc.

Soul Booster would be the most cost effecient way of buffing up Rhasta. Necronomicon, aside from giving nice 24 Int and 14 Str stats and unique abilities of the

necrosummons, well the picture below would show:

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D.2. Advance Items:

If the game drags on forever, try completing these items.Advance Items Explanation:

Guinsoo would be the fulfillment of Rhasta's disabling spree. However, do not under any circumstance upgrade Eul's if there are still charges on it. In a way, cyclones are more important.

Boots of Travel obviously late game this would be important. Some people would prefer BoT than Dagger. It is purely up to you, for my part I have been so used to using the dagger than I would probably play differently without it. But in the end, both should be gotten.

Aghanim's Scepter would be a logical choice to upgrade Booster. And Aegis would be essential late game.

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D.3. Other Items:

Other Items Explanation:

Mekansm. Most Rhasta users have been using this, me included. Although generally a good item for any high Int low HP hero, Rhasta on the other hand needs all the mana he can get to perform his unending disables and mana consuming ward techniques. And with the recent nerf on mekansm, it would be better if you're team mate would be the one carrying it instead of you, buying this item would only delay us in finishing the core items.

Refresher Orb would be part of the cookie cutter build. However, too expensive to include in my build. Do not buy this item if you do not have a soul booster or at least Guinsoo. You cannot support wards/refresh/wards without items increasing your mana.

Double Euls is not a N00bish choice. Think about it, 12 charges of cyclone? Undepletable mana pool? Cyclones with Guinsoo to disable 5 heroes? Additional +18 Int?

Manta Style is a good choice if your team badly needs to have purge in your arsenal. You would be a good candidate to buy diffusal, then upgrade to Manta Style if the situation calls for it. Picture below would show why Manta Style is nice:

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D.4. Buying Order:

Core Items

Dream Items

Of course, I don't expect anyone to complete this build. But the item build should be leaning towards this final items.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D.5. Optional Item Build:

Total Cost = 14625

Ahh… The Traditional Shaman build, old school Refresher/Scepter. Well, we can’t go wrong with this item build. Pretty much most Rhasta users go for this build. It has almost everything we’ll need, significant increase in hp and mana pool with hp and mana regen, easier ward trapping due to additional 4 snakes and an additional disable. This build is probably famous for the many screen shots of the 24 snakes destroying the enemy base or defending your base (Did you know? Wards deals piercing damage. Meaning to buildings, they only deal 35% damage, to heroes 50%)

Why is the first build better: Cyclonestick and Scepter are not questionable. However Refresher Orb; first of all lets take a look its components. Perseverance and Oblivion Staff, Rhasta really doesn't need Perseverance and Staff. What Rhasta needs are mana regen, and increase mana capacity and hp. These two items does not address that problem. So is the bonuses given by Refresher, we really do not need the regen nor the damage bonus. Furthermore, there is something that this build could not do that my build could do. If you use

my build you'd be jumping from 1 lane to the other in Mid-Game killing of single heroes with Necronomicon and dual heroes with Cyclone+Wards. With the Refresher build, you'd still be farming Mid-Late game. However, I'm not saying this build is bad. It could actually be better than my build if you're playing in a really high pressured and competitive environment, this may be better. But my build, regardless if its pub or IH you'd be a threat.

Total Cost = 14150 (Necro Level 3)

The army build. A totally different Rhasta, not reliant in ward trapping, in fact you probably wouldn’t need the wards the whole game with this build (unless Necronomicon is cooling down or during team battles). Less players knows this build, which means that they are totally unaware of the power that this build can do, and most likely they don’t have any counters for this.

Why is the first build better: Same problem as above, no escape mechanism, less chance of survival. Also without the dagger, you’d have to walk up to the hero in order to cast necro, manta and shackles. Pros would immediately think that you’re on to something when you are walking towards them. This build would also require more micromanagement for the necro and the images, not really newbie friendly.

Total Cost = 16274

Ahh… My old time favorite build. The traditional blinking shaman build, a good build for new

Rhasta users. Easier ward trapping, escape mechanism, significant increase in hp and mana pool with regen. What more could we ask for?Please remember: If you feel that you are being dominated... or get killed easily. Go for this build.

Why is the first build better:Answer the question, “What more could we ask for?” We could ask for another ability that doesn’t require us to use wards. And how about those pesky windwalkers and blinkers and tanks, are we going to just let them dominate us late game? Necronomicon is a must have in our arsenal.

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E. Walk Through

E.1. Early GameRhasta's Role: Nuker

I like the center lane with a partner. Reason is that there are less playing room, with your 275 movespeed you wouldn't want to walk so much back to your tower in case of trouble. Partner is prefered to maximize shackles.

Shackles is actually quite strong before about level 4. It can net you first blood when you're lucky.

When Forked Lightning hits level 3 or 4 start spamming them smartly. By this time getting a Void Stone is necessary.

Use the chick to give you flasks to replenish hp. Farm, farm, farm.

E.2. Mid GameRhasta's Role: Killer/Pusher

You should have cyclone stick and at least a level 1 book. Pick of single heroes and kill them with necrobook. Pick of dual heroes in a lane and use cyclone+wards (please see strategy below).

Be the most dominating hero by hero killing and farming in every oppurtunity possible. Kill heroes that outlevel you by doing the cyclone+wards+shackles combo. Hero killing is essential to help Rhasta survive late game.

E.3. Late GameRhasta's Role: Full Support Hero/Pusher

Never go solo (unless you want to Die Rambo Style). If, and only if, circumstances provides you a 1 on 1 situation do not hesitate. You have

unending disables with voodoo, shackles and guinsoo.

The rest of the guide Starting here will be continued on the next post due to size Limitation

Continuation of Guide

F. Other Strategies

F.1. Dealing with 2 heroes at once

If there was one important part in this guide, this is it. So pay close attention. I suggest you memorize by heart the content on this part.Rhasta is among the few, if not the only hero that can easily deal with two heroes singlehandedly. There are conditions of course to remember which is: (1) There are exactly 2 heroes (2) You have Cyclone (3) You can cast wards and shackles (4) You have sufficient amount of life.Now on to the lectures. When you cast cyclone on a hero and wards underneath him, his ally will not run away. This is a proven fact, natural instinct dictates that he stay behind his ally and try to help. If he did run away, that leaves you with his lone ally who would surely die.

In dealing with two heroes at once, it is important that you classify these heroes into two categories. 1st category is the heroes WITH an escape mechanism AND/OR a disable and 2nd category are heroes WITH NEITHER a disable NOR a means of escape . Always cyclone category 2 heroes so he could not escape from the wards nor could he disable you while you are shackling his ally. Shackle category 1 heroes. While shackling, double click on you wards to mass select/use them and order them to attack category 1 hero first. Remember, you are using that amount of time that the category 2 hero is on the air to kill category 1 hero. Further questions will be answered below, and this screen shot will illustrate what I am saying.

What ifs:

1.What if two category 1 heroes appeared?

You can’t kill them both that’s for sure. The most that you can do is kill one hero and have the other retreat with such a red life that he would have no chance of hurting you. How to do it?

Case 1: 1 hero with blink/ww and 1 hero with disable.

Cyclone hero 2 (since it is a waste trapping heroes with blink/ww if you can’t shackle/voodoo them), cast wards at his feet and shackle hero 1. Immediately focus fire the snakes to the shackled hero. If the ward trapped hero disabled you (thereby canceling shackles), forget about the shackled hero (let him run away, usually with a red or orange life) and have the wards and you focus fire on the trapped hero (killing him).

Case 2: 2 heroes with blink/ww and disable.

Hope that there would be no situation where you would have to deal with these heroes at once (alone that is). But let’s suppose the worst happened, this is what you should do. Two heroes appeared, suppose hero one is Gondar (ww and shuriken toss) and Chaos Knight (blink strike/phantasm and chaos bolt). Pick one hero that you would try to kill, in this case I would choose Gondar since he would have less hp than Nessaj. Cyclone Nessaj in order to remove him from combat and cast wards at his feet, and shackle Gondar. Order the snakes to attack BH, if you were stunned (cancelled shackles) try to cast forked lightning on BH if still in range. If he was still alive and was able to ww, try focusing on Nessaj, who would probably have blinked strike at you, try to do as much damage as you can to kill him or to make him run away. Whatever the result is, most likely you are still alive with the wards guarding you.

2. What if the shackled hero is still alive after the duration of shackles is over?

This would be happening in mid to late game where the lethality of the snakes are lessened, which means you have voodoo now. Voodoo him after shackles and use forked lightning as your last result. During this time you may probably can’t kill them both.

3. What if the Ward Trapped Hero was able to break free in less than 2 seconds and without much harm done?

Then don’t trap him anymore without help or when he has friends with him. You could still probably kill him by using shackles and voodoo on him (on a 1 on 1 situation).

4. What if 3 heroes appeared?There is a 99.99% chance that you will die and about 35% chance of killing one of them. So I suggest, Voodoo the nearest one and RUN!

5. What if a Syllabear with Bear and a Lycan with Wolves appeared?Okay so let me rephrase it, you can only deal with 2 hero units max when alone. In this case, show your enemies a dance like motion in running.

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F.2. Quick Cash with WardsI’ll make this short, you can use the wards to farm. OMGWTFROFLNooB!!!! Yeah I know, however let me be the first one to present it to you thoroughly.

Wasting an ultimate as great as Serpent Wards seems to be a waste right? Wrong. If you can’t really put it to good use for the time being, then use it to earn more gold. Each proper ward placeage earns you at least 300+ gold! Not bad eh?

The question: Where is the best place to the wards?The answer: Depends. I have provided the following computations as to which one is better

financially.

Some basic information on creep bounty as provided for by the FAQ section in a site (and thanks to drunken.Jedi for the help)

When farming for Neutral Creeps.

When farming for Neutral Creeps.

QUOTEAverage Bounty of Normal Neutral Creeps:

Satyr Hellcaller & Friends: 164 goldNormal Satyrs: 68 goldUrsas: 147 goldOgres: 79 goldKobolds: 83.5 goldCentaurs: 104 goldTrolls: 71 goldGolems: 62 goldWolves: 64.5 gold

One creep hunt on all three Neutral Creeps gives an average of 281 gold. Computations are provided:Average Gold for the Strong Camp (Hellcaster, Ogres and Ursas) (164+147+79)/3=130 Average Gold for the Weak Camp (Exclude Hellcaster, Ogres and Ursas) (68+83.5+104+71+62+64.5)/6=75.5

When farming on Normal Creeps

QUOTENow, as many of you know each creep on the sentinel and scourge side gives an average of 43 gold. Initially there are 4 creeps on the start of the game per wave (3 Melee and 1 Range).Melee creeps' spawning amount increases by 1 every 20 minutes, to a maximum of 6 at the 60 minutes point.Ranged creeps' spawning amount increases by 1 every 60 minutes, to a maximum of 2 at the 60 minutes point

In short 1 creep wave gives an average 172 gold. However, the wards when used properly can last for 2 creep waves. That means you can achieve 344 gold during the first 20 minutes of the game. The gold increases as the game progresses every 20 minutes.

It is true that placing the wards just outside the range of the tower gives you more gold.

However, it is also the same as saying that right now, you’re a wardless skinny troll. So sometimes, it’s better to place it on the Neutral Creeps so enemies wouldn’t know.

Total Gold amassed with this screenshot is 400.

Total Gold amassed with this screenshot is 331 (should have only been 248 but Kobolds also arrived)

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G. Team Battles

Under construction... Sorry.

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H. Skill Usage: How to Ward Trap

First of all, what is ward trap? It is encaging the enemy unit inside the wards that Rhasta is able to summon. This is by far one of the hardest things to do in dota.

The wards would look like this when casted normally:

And this is when a successful ward trap was done:

Now the question, just how do you encage those wards to a moving target? Answer: Practice. Just remember these three things.1.) The larger the collision size, the harder it is to trap him.2.) The nearer you are to the hero, the easier it is to trap him.3.) It is almost impossible to trap heroes who are in 500 range of you, especially if you did not reduce his collision size. The casting range of wards is 400 I think.

Now there are four ways of pulling off a successful ward trap, and that is:

1. Manual Ward Trap - Manually and without any help from any skills and items. This is almost impossible to pull of unless with luck. I usually TRY to do this early game when I have no cyclone or voodoo yet. To pull it off, click on the spot where you think the hero would be (it is easier to trap ranged hero since they don’t move while attacking, and heroes that are near you, in about 300 range or less). However, most of the time the enemy won’t be trapped, but what’s

important is you follow up with a shackle. So that even though they may not be encaged, they would still be shackled near the wards.

2. Cycloned Ward Trap - This is the easiest to pull off, even noobs could do it, just cyclone the enemy and exactly on the point where he is flying cast the wards. Should some misclick or other circumstances made you miss, you could cover the opening yourself by going to that spot and click “H” Take a look at this picture, an opening was caused by my creep!

3. Voodooed Ward Trap – This one is easier than Manual WT and harder than Cycloned WT. First voodoo the hero that you wish to trap (know that heroes have the smallest collision size when hexed, that’s why its easier to trap them). Should the voodooed hero be too shocked to move, then simply cast the wards at his feet. Experienced players would move in erratic paths to make your ward trapping more challenging. If this happens, try to predict its movement and cast the wards. If you miss, there’s always shackles!! YEY!

4. The Unexpected Ward Trap – This is when you’ve ward trapped an enemy due to some event not intended in the normal course of using Rhasta. For example, you’ve picked up an ‘invisibility’ power up or tree ent gave you nature’s guise or your allied hero just stunned the enemy and his position is saying “please trap me” Anyway, given these unusual circumstances, make the best out of it. If you got an ‘invisibility’ power up, take your time and cast the wards on the enemy when he is alone or when they are only 2, shackles the other one. If you see medusa running away and your allied Sven just storm bolt(ed) her near you, then do it quick.

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I. Rhasta with other Dota Heroes

I.1. Counters to Rhasta

Think Rhasta is such an Imba Hero who deserves 54239 nerfs? Have no fear! Just use any of these heroes.

1. Holy Knight

Rhasta’s Bane… This is, without a doubt the shadow shaman’s ultimate counter. A Chen without army is free food. A Chen with armies is hard to put down. Even with hand of Midas and disables, there’s just too many of them. Plus, ward trapping is no use as he can easily heal himself and break free of the wards without a breeze.He also usually has a necronomicon item himself, which means both your necros would fight it out. Not a good sight to behold though, most of the time you're pets would lose.

Holy Knight Counter: Make sure this Chen will not get any useful creeps when hunting by denying him those valuable Centaurs and Furbolgs (Go to the Neutral Creep Camps yourself

and kill those creeps before he reaches them). Although you won’t be normally doing anything like this on an ordinary game, remember that this time your arch-enemy is on the other team. One tip, if you put sentry/observer wards near the creep camps, the map won’t spawn those neutral creeps.

2. Omniknight

ARGH! Degen Aura and REPEL (I think that Repel needs to be nerfed), and Purification and Guardian Angel! Any one of those spells could ruin you. With repel at lvl 4, Purist has spell immunity throughout the game. And your amazing skill of trapping two heroes at once may just be spoiled by the handsomest knight in Dota, by either healing one of them, giving repel to another and/or casting Guardian Angel.

Omniknight Counter: Just time your spells right and move in when you think you can take him on. Degen aura is something to look out for, always buy a dagger or a diffusal blade when you’re up against him, you won’t regret it (purge goes through repel).

3. Silencer

No combo skills, which means no ward trap and multiple disables.

Silencer Counter: Just don’t try to ward trap him since it would be useless (when last word aura is at level four). You can however, shackles him for your ally to kill, and/or voodoo him after. Not really much of a problem, just an enemy to look out for.

4. Nerubian Assassin

Everybody’s most hated enemy during farming. Anub’arak’s mana burn hurt a lot early and mid game, and even late game sometimes when he continuously burns you. Vendetta is another problem. Even at full life, NA’s Vendetta, Impale and Burn could kill you instantly.

Nerubian Assassin Counter: Either you buy a gem (which would be risky, you can be killed easily) or wards (which is not that realiable, only reveals one spot each) to prevent him from doing the Vendetta combo on you, or you tower hug (if he’s near your lane) or you never separate from your team mates when pushing (which you could still die easily from NA’s combo). Either which, you just watch your back always.You could opt to max out Necro always, and whenever you feel... Unsafe just cast it out.

5. Stealth Assassin

I just generally hate this hero regardless of what hero I use. Riki’s smoke bomb allows him about 5 seconds free hits on you, if you try to run away from it, SA would deal more damage to you due to backstab damage. After you have gotten out of the smoke, usually with a red or orange life you usually wouldn’t want to challenge him anymore. So you run away, allowing him to keep on blink-striking at you (and that’s with backstab damage!). When he has a problem (example my life didn’t drop so much after smoke bomb or my allies appeared) he would just walk away in perma invi. ‘Sigh’ and even when you shackles this hero, he still disappears!

Stealth Assassin Counter: I would really buy a gem for this little guy, in order to use a successful ward trap on him with shackles and everything. Buying wards could be optional but Stealth Assassin usually has a gem of his own exactly for the wards. Gem would work or Necro level 3, and anyway you can always feel good knowing that Rikimaru now has a big problem.

6. Wind Walkers/Blinkers/Tanks

Basically, I'm referring to tanks and all heroes with an escape mechanism. Eschape mechanism would include, but is not limited to, windwalking, blinking, Split Image, SA's perma invi, VS' Netherswap, SB's Netherstrike, NW's Timewalk, Yurnero's Omnislash, etc.

Counters: For Windwalkers obviously buying a gem would be the counter(or Necro level 3). I know, I know, you would be THE TARGET. But hey, you can do it, trust me, with the dagger, your disables and your wards, you could manage it.For Blinkers: Try to kill them on a 1 on 1 battle, they could be tricksy when they have allies nearby.Tanks: If you cast all your spells on them and their hp bar is still more than 1/3, then get some help.

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I.2. Good Allies

When I Choose Rhasta, I always wish that some of my team mates would pick any of these heroes.

1. Phantom Assassin, Ursa Warrior, Anti-Mage, Razor and other Fast Killers.

Even with only the shackles, almost any hero would die from their attacks for 4.75 seconds. If the enemy is still alive, then voodoo… if still persistent ‘sigh’ guinsoo.

2. Treant Protector

Wow! A Group of immobile enemies just waiting to be caged, too good to be true (proceed to cast wards first), plus Rooftrellen’s Nature’s Guise makes it easier for you to perform ward trapping being invisible. And treant’s living armor sure is a good thing to have, a free plate mail.

3. Naga Siren

Same as Rooftrellen, Song of the Siren ensures that all enemies stay put as you pick one hero to trap (cast wards first, then be ready to disable at least two heroes). When all the enemies are asleep, make all your formation around them. Cast wards on heroes that doesn’t have any escape skill, and ready all your disables on two other heroes. Most likely, all the enemy caught in the song would be dead, if you and your allies did it right.

4. Bane Elemental

Atropos’ nightmare lasts so long that even noobs could trap those enemies. Just be careful not to attack them. Heroes with large collision size (like Bradwarden) are harder to trap than those with smaller ones (like Pugna).

5. Witch Doctor

Actually, Rhasta would be his best friend and after all, trolls stick together. The moment I first used him, I wished I had a Rhasta ally. Disables would be needed for the Death Ward. When team battles occur, enemies who got away from the ward trap would suffer from Maledict. Also the mini fountain emitted from the doctor sure is a welcome to the shaman.

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J. Miscellaneous Tips

1. In competitive games, never skip Eul’s. You could opt not to buy it only if you are practicing your ward trapping techniques, and in this case learn voodoo first before shackles.

2. Be creative in ward trapping. Remember that the reason why you try to ward trap is so that the enemy can’t move. Think of other ways to do this (Like Tree Ent’s OG, or outside the Chronosphere, or inside Prophet’s Sprout).

3. Trees also act as good blockers for ward trapping. Meaning if you see an enemy hero standing beside a tree, trapping him is easier.

4. Try not to cast your wards inside the range of the towers since towers always hit your wards first. If you want, you could cast it just outside its range earning you 2 creep waves at the most.

5. The value of the dagger to Rhasta is worth every penny paid. It helps in ward trapping, it saves your ass, and it opens the door to some other skills that Rhasta could do.

6. If Rhasta has no items adding to intelligence, he would be unable to complete the combo (which is Voodoo, Wards, Shackles and Forked). The importance of this information is during death match mode. That is why items such as nulls, soul booster and eul’s are there to help you out. By the way, refresher combo of instant 16 snakes, Rhasta normally could not support such mana consuming technique without Soul Booster or Guinsoo.

7. Double click on one of the wards to Mass Select them. Always do this when ward trapping.

8. If you’re having difficulty pulling of a successful ward trap, remember to always get near the hero (at about 200-400 range). The nearer you are to the hero, the easier it is to trap him.

9. You can always enclose yourself with your wards. Melee attackers would have to break one of your wards in order to hit you. This is a technique I use when caught in a tight spot.

K. Comic Strip

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L. Replays

Comments on the Replay: rhasta.w3g ( 940.48k ) Number of downloads: 4038

 DotA_allstars_v6.28_beta.w3x ( 2.28mb ) Number of downloads: 9725

First attachment is the replay, second one is the map. You have to download the map to view it (it's a different map). After downloading the map change the map's name to DotA_allstars_v6.28_beta.w3x

Sentinel Side: Tinker, Vengeful, Naga Siren, Demon Witch and Spirit Breaker.Scourge Side: Rhasta, Slithereen Guard, Keeper of the Light and Phantom Assassin.

This was a handicapped match against us, we were 1 ally down. Basically what happened in this replay is that we slowly helped build up Mortred into an insanely high DPS hero by rushing an Aegis/Rapier for him. While Mortred and Ezalor was building up the needed requirements, I'm keeping the tides from turning against us.We did almost lose, when me and Slardar died and the Sentinel was able to take out the third tower in our mid, fortunately both me and Slardar respawned in time and we made a very quick counter push which led to the destruction of their mid rax. After that the Aegis/Rapier was complete and the game ended.By the way, this was my old build, the meka/dagger/scepter/boots/euls thingy.

 rhasta_dagger_necro.w3g ( 1.21mb ) Number of downloads: 6423

Sentinel Side: Rhasta, Earthshacker, Skeleton King, Vengeful Spirit and Phantom LancerScoure Side: Oblivion, Death Prophet, Ogre Magi, Necrolyte and Keeper of the Light.

This is an -AR game.Now in this replay I scored something like 20-3 I think. Can't remember now. If you view this replay you'll just see me pawning the other team over and over again. Got a lot of double kills and triple kills in this replay.What's good about this replay is the determination of the other team. If you see the score board we were like more than 10 kills up, but they fought so well that it was worth the watch.And yeah, my build here is the build of this guide.

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M. Final Words

Credits to Rakulei, the Rhasta God. If it wasn't for his guide and the video on ward trapping I would never have bothered using this hero, hence the creation of this guide would never have been possible.However, please notice that we both play Rhasta very very differently. The item builds, the skill builds and the strategies are all different.To alanrulez, for inviting me to the HGC. It seems that without you this guide would never had been anything but a mediocre one collecting dust. Thank you very much, and sorry for the initial understatement about the simplisity laugh.gif It was, a poor choice of words in an effort to make rhyming phrase. huh.gif Well... Something like that. happy.gif Once again, many thanks alan.To miggyjane, for rendering the Shadow Shaman Picture. Picture taken from www.sonsofthestorm.comTo *rei, Thunderfall and `margauX for thier simple comments/suggestions on Manta Style, Double Eul's and Linken's Sphere respectively (if you want your name here, suggest an item and strategy).To the mods and other guide writers who spend a lot of their time for the dota community.To IceFrog for creating the game I love so much.And to you... For reading such a guide as this, thank you...

So with that it brings an end to my very first guide and only contribution to the Dota Community.

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