Dafhaa Dota Diaries : Entry 001 - Raigor Stonehoof the Earthshaker

An awesome poster by Deviantart user Artgerm
(Link to Artgerm's profile)

Raigor Stonehoof

The self-named Raigor Stonehoof is an embodiment of the Earth itself. Gaining self-awareness and shaping himself as a mortal being, his spirit remains to be that of the ground beneath him. He is an entity created from the curiosity he held towards those who walked above the Earth, and is now among them. Equipped with a totem that carries within it the very powers of the Earth itself, Earthshaker wanders the battlefields to set loose the fury of the Earth to his hapless adversaries. 


Welcome everyone to Entry No.1 in my Dafhaa Dota Diaries series ! In this post I shall be talking about one of my favourite heroes ever, Earthshaker.



Skills

Fissure
Earthshaker's signature skill, Fissure, allows hims to slam the ground and create a massive rock wall that impedes movement and is a one-of-a-kind move in DoTA which alters terrain, albeit temporarily. This move is usually used strategically to trap enemies or block enemies from weak teammates, or can be used often simply as a nuke once Earthshaker gets enough items to support spamming it. Its usually not used as a nuke in the laning phase because ES has a very low mana pool.

Impeding the enemy with the wrath of the Earth.

Enchant Totem
Despite its uninteresting animation compared to Fissure and Echo Slam, Enchant Totem might be my favourite move from ES. He slams his totem on the floor to empower it and then does up to a bonus 400% damage on his next attack ! Imagine that on a carry-ES. It's also very fun because ES' passive, Aftershock, allows this skill to stun nearby enemies and it has a very low cooldown so it is normally used to chain skills and create combos. Compared to his other skills, it's also incredibly cheap in mana cost and therefore is a very spammable stun.


Aftershock
This passive makes Earthshaker the crazy stun machine he is by adding extra damage and a stun to any of his abilities. This is what makes Earthshaker's skills so game-changing because he can very easily chain stun characters with all his skills. This ability is a killer in Ability Drafts, by the way, especially if used with toggled abilities or cheap, low-cost, quick cooldown abilities.



Echo Slam
Earthshaker's ultimate ability is super fun and is his best initiating ability, especially if coupled with a Blink Dagger. This skill creates shockwaves around Earthshaker which will create an additional echo which deals damage for EVERY SINGLE ENEMY UNIT HIT, INCLUDING ILLUSIONS. This is ES' bread and butter crowd control skill and what makes him so good in teamfights as well as what makes him good against illusion heroes and heroes that use many other units. Have an ES blink into the midst of the whole enemy team and throw this out, followed by a chain of stuns like Fissure and Enchant Totem, and you have the entire enemy team locked down and ripe for the picking.

The fury of the Earth takes no prisoners.
(This and the Fissure photo from dota-game.com)

Items

Now, as a newb player, obviously I can't give a whole list of what items are good, why they're good, why some are not good, and so on. So I will simply give a short list of what items would be, in my opinion, really good or even core on Earthshaker. These items are ranked in no particular order, except the Blink Dagger.

#1 Blink Dagger (Core)

If you don't get a freakin' Blink Dagger on ES, why would you even pick him ? Blink makes ES soooooo dam good by allowing him to teleport right into the whole enemy team and lock em' down with his skills. Get a goddam Blink.

#2 Bottle (Almost Core)

Well if you don't spam your skills much, I guess you don't really need this. OH WAIT !!! YOU'RE EARTHSHAKER !!! YOU NEED TO SPAM !!! ES suffers from really low mana, especially in the early game, so a bottle is perfect to make sure he has enough to do what he needs to do.

#3 Arcane Boots (Pretty Much Core)

Of course, every hero needs boots, and to remedy ES' mana issues, Arcane Boots are a perfect solution. If you're playing him as support, it helps your team too. Not much else to say about this. Of course, you can get Power Threads if you want to play him as a semi-carry.

#4 Black King Bar (Situational)

If the enemy has a lot of lockdown that can stop Earthshaker from doing his combos, this is very necessary. If not, there's no need to get it at all.

#5 Refresher Orb (Dam that's Luxury Dude)
Blink into enemies, Echo Slam, Enchant Totem, Fissure, Enchant Totem, Refresh, Echo Slam, Enchant Totem, Fissure, Enchant Totem. Need I say more ?





Enemy Heroes
What heroes are Earthshaker good against or bad against ? Obviously I can't be certain but I shall try my best to list as many as I can. (These are all my opinions and may not fit your ideas, so forgive me if I think a bit differently)

Good Against :

Basically any hero that can spawn illusions or lots of units that become prime targets for his Echo Slam.

Phatom Lancer

PL creates tons of illusions
that are perfect targets for ES.

Undying

Undying spawns loads of zombies.

Terrorblade

Terrorblade has illusions.

Broodmother

Broodmother's massive number of spiderlings makes a great Echo Slam target.

Naga Siren

Naga Siren produces illusions.

Meepo

There can be up to five Meepos.

Take a guess.

Bad Against :
Any hero that can lock him down or is not effected much by his skills.

Huskar

Huskar has high magic immunity
and thus does not take much damage
from Earthshaker's skills

Anti-Mage

 Anti-Mage can drain Earthshaker's already low mana pool and is not easily trapped by Fissure because he has a teleport.

That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed looking through my first DDD Entry, and I hope that you learned a bit more about Earthshaker, at least from a newb's perspective. Comment below if you feel I may have gotten something wrong or missed something that can be in the next entry. Thanks :D

(Obligatory Disclaimer : All the hero, skill and item icon images above are not mine and belong to Valve. They can be found on the Dota 2 Website)