Asian Girls | Dota Guide and Strategy

An apology
Greetings all, and thanks for reading this. Before you continue I want to state clearly that due to my relative low age, my English is not the world’s best and you may happen to find a lot of incorrect grammar. Furthermore I have never played a high competitive game, so I cannot assure that this guide will help you through a tougher match.
Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Table of Contents

• Patch notes
• Introduction
• Pros
• Cons
• Stats
• Abilities
• Skill order
• Item build
• How to play
• Using Soul Rip
• How to throw your Plague
• Creep pulling with Heartstopper Aura
• Heroes to watch out for
• Dirge’s best friends
• Epilogue
• Replays
• FAQ
• Changelog

Patch notes

6.44: Dirge the Undying gets introduced to DotA.
6.44b: Dirge gets hit by IceFrog’s nerf stick. His Plague, Zombies and strength gain get reduced.
6.45: Clarity potions, Bottles and Flasks of Sapphire Water no longer cancel when Dirge is hit by his zombies’ heal.

Introduction

Ever since Dirge was published, I have found this guy extremely funny to play and I see much potential in him. I find him really interesting and his play style unique. As one of the very few intilligence heroes who can actually take a great part in tanking and at the same time work really great as a farmer, gank initiater, jungle hero, pusher and team combat assistant, Dirge gets very flexible and can be looked upon from many aspects of the game.

I recommend you to play Dirge if you

• Want a very flexible hero with many opportunities
• Want an extremely effective farmer + jungle hero
• Want Radiance after 20 minutes in non -em games
• Want to play a hero who has a greater overall job than just “hit and run” (Doom Bringer and Queen of Pain to mention some)
• Want a hero with an incredible lane staying ability
• Want a hero with a tremendous damage amplifier against the whole opposing force
• Want a hero with not one but two healing abilities

I don’t recommend you to play Dirge if you

• Are more comfortable with heroes with direct, low cooldown nukes (Frost Nova and Lightning Bolt to mention some)
• Don’t feel comfortable with a hero without a natural escape mechanism (Blink and Time Walk to mention some)
• Feel more comfortable with heroes with single, easy and plain jobs (Venomancer and Tidehunter to mention some)
• Feel pity when you see your opponents scream in anger of your endless farming

Now let’s have a closer look on his pros/cons, stats and abilities.

Pros

• Probably one of the best farmers throughout the game
• Has a pushing ability above the average hero, which makes him really good to take out towers with
• Has two healing abilities where one also is a pushing/farming ability and the other also is a nuking ability
• Has a great lane staying ability due to his pushing/healings
• Is a really good gank initiator
• Is really good in team combats due to his pushing, healing, tanking and damage amplifier
• Can get Radiance after 20-25 minutes
• Is a really good jungle hero

Cons

• Has the lowest agility gain in the game and therefore suffers from having really low armor point
• Has no real natural escape mechanisms
• Abilities with high cooldown, forcing him to time them better and making him not so good in 1v1 situations
• Is a meelee intilligence hero, however, this isn’t a huge problem

Stats

How to pick Dirge

Description

Considered to be an exceptionally filthy and despicable specimen by all who encounter him, including his fellow zombies, Dirge has wandered in from the wastes outside to serve the Lich King in hopes of finally obtaining a place of acceptance amongst the Undead masses. While he is still considered to be unpleasant as ever by the rest of the Scourge, his horrifying abilities, which include raising self-replicating lesser ghouls and spreading vile, rapidly communicable plague throughout the enemy ranks, are unquestionably powerful and may just give the Scourge the edge they need to complete their unholy conquest once and for all.

Strength - 25 + 2,1
Agility - 10 + 0,8
Intelligence - 27 + 2,8

Attack range of 100 (melee).
Movement speed of 310.

Level 1 information:
- Health: 625
- Mana: 351
- Damage: 59-67
- Armor: 2
- Attack Speed: 1.55 sec.

Level 25 information (without any worn items):
- Health: 1955
- Mana: 1482
- Damage: 126-134 +20
- Armor: 5 +2,8
- Attack Speed: 1.14 sec.

Abilities

Raise Dead

Calls the Undying’s fellow zombies out of the earth to fight. Once a zombie attacks six times, another one will rise alongside it. When a zombie dies, its reanimating life force returns to Dirge, healing him by 50 hp. Lasts 30 seconds.

Level 1 - 1 Zombie.
Level 2 - 2 Zombies.
Level 3 - 3 Zombies.
Level 4 - 4 Zombies.

Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Mana cost: 100/120/140/160.

Comment: This is your bread an butter skill. Not only is it the skill that makes you such an incredible farmer and pusher, it also increases your lane staying ability significantly. Not only does it summon 4 zombies, but if they summon 4 zombies again, which by the way is very common, it will heal your 400 each 30 seconds from level 7! These are your tanks, pushers and farmers and should be used as often as possible, except for the very early game.

Useful information: As the skill describes, the summoned zombies have to succesfully hit 6 times to summon another zombie. When this happens, the zombie summoning another will get full health. The zombies are all extremely fragile. They have -2 armor which makes them take 12% more damage. They have a lousy 400 health and their bounty is fairly high (about 40 gold each). On the other hand, they have 37-45 piercing damage each, making a massive number of them extremely effective.
When they die, you won’t get healed instantly. A Death Coil like missile shoots from their corpse and move fairly slow towards you and won’t heal you before it hits you. This means that running away from them increases the time before you get healed. This can sometimes be useful to know when you for instance is getting affected by damage over time spells.

Soul Rip

Redirects the flow of living energy through a target friend or foe, damaging them or healing them for 25 depending on how many units are near it.

Level 1 - 5 max.
Level 2 - 10 max.
Level 3 - 15 max.
Level 4 - 20 max.

Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Mana cost: 50/75/100/125.

Comment: This is either a strong nuke or a strong heal, even from the early game. If it hits 20 targets, it will either heal or damage 500. Tinker’s Laser deals exactly 320 damage. At level 1, it can deal or heal up to 125 damage (94 after spell reduction), taking only very few targets to make it effective.

Useful information: This skill has a huge range on almost 900 from the hit target, but this is still for me to be tested. It takes all targets close enough to the targetted unit and deals/heals damage to only the unit you threw it on. This is not an AoE ability, it will only affect one target.
This spell will not count yourself as a target, no matter what. It just won’t. Neither will it count the target as a near unit for the spell. This means if you use it on yourself without any units near, nothing will happen. It also means if you stand alone with an enemy unit and use it, nothing happens. You need the target at which you cast it at and then targets near it to damage or heal.

Heartstopper Aura (Passive)

The Dirge’s deathly air stills the hearts of his opponents, causing them to lose 1% of their max health over time.

Level 1 - 250 AoE.
Level 2 - 500 AoE.
Level 3 - 750 AoE.
Level 4 - 1000 AoE.

Cooldown: None.
Mana cost: None.

Comment: This skill is rather terrible during the early game, not only to harass with but also to get you kills. It only becomes rather effective later in longer fights against enemies with massive health pools. However, this aura is good later to increase your aggro (how much the opponents want to focus fire you). It’s also effective for neutral farming, not because of its damage, but because its range draws every creep’s attention in 1000 range, making them run towards you. This aura mixed with Radiance gives you a really good passive dps.

Useful information: As any other aura, the 1000 range effect means 1000 radius with you as the origin. This makes an effect in a circle with 2000 range diameter with you placed in the center.

Plague (Ultimate)

Infects the target with a plague. Reduces movement speed by 30% and amplifies incoming damage. Infects other units that come within 200 range of a plagued unit.

Level 1 - 20% Extra Damage, lasts 7 seconds.
Level 2 - 25% Extra Damage, lasts 8 seconds.
Level 3 - 30% Extra Damage, lasts 9 seconds.

Cooldown: 45 seconds.
Mana cost: 100/125/150.

Comment: This is your skill that makes you extremely effective in both ganks and team combats. Throwing it in ganks forces the enemies not only to take x% more damage but also to move 30% slower, making it very difficult for them to escape. It forces the opponents to either split up or they will all have to take 30% more damage, which mean you “decrease their health with totally 30%”.

Useful information: The Plague can only be casted on enemy heroes and affects heroes only. When an enemy gets affected, he automatically creates a 200 AoE around him, affecting all his allies who come near him. 200 AoE is rather low, but is fairly enough for team combats where everyone stand tight.

Skill order

Level 1 - Raise Dead
Level 2 - Soul Rip
Level 3 - Raise Dead
Level 4 - Soul Rip
Level 5 - Raise Dead
Level 6 - Plague
Level 7 - Raise Dead
Level 8 - Soul Rip
Level 9-10 - Heartstopper Aura
Level 11 - Plague
Level 12-13 - Heartstopper Aura
Level 14 - Soul Rip
Level 15 - Stats
Level 16 - Plague
Level 17-25 - Stats

Skill explanation
We will start maxing Raise Dead as fast as possible. These zombies are our tanks, pushers and farmers and they are our primary way to stay in our lane. If you manage to get 8 zombies, they will heal you 400 health when you die. With just as much as 2 zombies, you can now effectively either farm/push your lane or farm the neutral camps as much as you want. As the second ability, you will almost max Soul Rip. This is really good for healing yourself or your allie(s) if you are about to die, but it is also really good to last hit fleeing enemies and it is essential to get First Blood. It also works really great as an alternative start health regen. A penny saved is a penny gained. Plague will be taken as fast as possible. Not only does it amplify damage on the enemies, it also slows them, so it’s a really good gank initiator before your allies throw all their nukes. Heartstopper will be taken a little bit later in the game. Its damage is horrible during the early game. 1% of 500 health from 500 range is nothing. However, there is no need to take the last level of Soul Rip before a little later, as you rarely meet 20 units at the same time at 20 minutes, so, by allowing ourselves a mini Radiance, we start skilling it up to become slightly more effective when it comes to farming but also a feasible chase.

Item build

Core item build

The first thing you should get before you leave your lane in a Ring of Basilius. Whether you choose to go jungling or go in a lane (read the strategy section below), you are gonna need the mana regen to keep your Raise Dead constant. Any health regen items such as tangoes and flasks shouldn’t be necessary as you have your own 125 heal at level 1 and twice as much at level 2 (the spell’s level of course). From hereby you should rush yourself a Radiance. If you are doing decent, you should buy your Boots of Speed after the Sacred Relic before finishing the Radiance and you can still have it ready around the 25th minute (depending on how you are doing). After you’ve completed it, the immolation (the 35 damage per second) will put you into your enemies’ spotlight. Therefore you need some quick health in the form of a Vitality Booster to have a chance to stand focuses on you. A Plate Mail may increase your overall EHP more than a Vitality Booster does because of Dirge’s low armor, but at this time in the game (around the 30th minute), what you should fear most is spells, nukes and chain disables. Extra armor isn’t going to help you against extreme nuking. A Vitality Booster is. Anyway, after that, buy the Plate Mail to negate with Dirge’s low armor and increase your own EHP to become more efficient as a tank. Finally, completely your Boots of Travel for higher movement speed, better farming abilities and merrier map control.

Items afterwards

After you finished your core build, you are ready to go for the serious tank items. Buy a Reaver and finish your Heart of Tarrasque. After that, finally finish your Assault Cuirass. Dirge’s armor may be low, but the Heart of Tarrasque is cheaper + it in fact increases your EHP (Effective Health Point) more than the Assault Cuirass. Besides, it’s more important to build up high health rather than high armor. If you run around with 25 armor but only 1500 hp, a few nukes and you have been kicked back to the wastes from where you once came.

Items to replace a delayed or already built Radiance

Shit happens. You have been raped and gang banged in any way possible and the road to Radiance seems unending. Maybe another guy from your team already built it before you. It’s time for an alternative; Mekansm and/or Necromonicon. Of course if some other guys from your team already have a bucketful of either of them just choose one of them. However, if you have the opportunity to get both, do it, but get Mekansm as the first item. After approx. 30th minute, Mekansm’s combat upshot is beginning to fail and become unrelying. Necromonicon isn’t the strongest item either in the very late game, however, it should last longer than Mekansm concerning its effectiveness. Your Heart of Tarrasque may be delayed by quite a lot, but if you are getting stallowned anyway, you will probably finish it rather late in either way.

Why don’t you buy a Vladmir’s Offering for you and your zombies?
Your zombies are going to die anyway. Units with 400 health and -2 armor (+12% damage taken) wont survive long. Besides, 16% of 37-45 damage is not much. Your own attack speed is way too terrible to even consider the synergizes on yourself.

Items not to buy:

• Monkey King Bar, Buriza-do Kyanon, Stygian Desolator an Mjollnir are not recommended. Items bought to boost your melee damage output are a terrible idea with your extremely low attack speed.
• Refresher Orb is not recommended. You have nothing worth refreshing.
• Sange and Yasha and Cranium Basher are not recommended. You are not made to be a chaser and your terrible attack speed minimizes the chance for you to get a stun or maim.
• Battle Fury is not recommended. You have incredible farming abilities already, you don’t need Cleave as well.
• Eye of Skadi is not recommended. Yes, it increases your hit points. Yes, it increases your armor, attack speed and mana. Yes, it gives you a slow attack. But you are not meant to be a chaser or a damage dealer. Your attack speed does not need to be increased. You don’t need the slow to chase people. Your Plague’s slow is more than enough already. The only things you really need on this item is the stats and bonuses, however, you don’t really need the mana either as you spells are far from spammable. A Heart of Tarrasque or Assault Cuirass is cheaper and provides you more of the bonuses that you are really looking for, which is armor and health.
• Hand of Midas is not recommended. Yes, you can get it in 10 minutes, but your farming abilities are so incredible already. This is infact almost a negative item because it slows down your Radiance progress. After you get your Radiance, and even before you get it, farming is just an easy game to you.
• Vladmir’s Offering is not recommended. Read the part above.
• Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse is not recommended. In despite of Dirge’s main attribute, Guinsoo’s + mana regeneration is completely overkill. The only thing that really synergizes with you is the 3 seconds Hex, and paying 5074 gold for this is a little stupid in far most of the cases.

How to play

Early game

The first thing you do after picking your hero is to buy your Ring of Basilius and then head for the top or bottom lane. Middle lane is not a good choice because you are a melee hero.
If you lane with a partner who has great nuking potential (Zeus, Tinker, Crystal Maiden to mention some), your Soul Rip is really good to get you the First Blood. Otherwise, you should act like any other hero with last hitting and denying. As soon as you get level 3, you should start summon your zombies roughly each 2nd wave. By summoning your zombies at one wave and letting them double their number, makes them take the next wave much more effecient. If you then save your mana for each 2nd wave, you will have enough for keeping up the zombies for a long time + Soul Rip if things should get tough. If you see an opportunity to get a kill, don’t forget to use it either.
If your lane is extremely hard to farm, or if your zombies get pwned by AoE damage (Lightning Storm or Wild Axes for instance), you should instead head for the jungle. Jungling means that you go into the forest to kill the neutral creep camps. This allows your partner to solo, letting your team have 2 solo heroes. It’s also a much safer place for you to be and your zombies don’t get flopped down like a sloppy cheese. If you are getting dominated in a lane, jungling often turns out to be more effecient for both you and your allies.
If you choose to go to the jungle, make sure to use your own forest. Creeping in the opponent’s forest puts you in a dangerzone and makes you very vulnerable to ganks. Use your zombies at every camp. Make sure none (or at least very few of them) dies before their time expires, or at least not before they all have summoned their zombie. This is done by pulling the ones who are taking much damage out of the combat for a second for then to order it back, forcing the creeps to target either you or a new zombie. It doesn’t matter that you take a few hits yourself. As soon as your zombies die you will get your life back again. However, it is stupid to tank all the damage as this can be done with your zombies.
Your aim is to farm your Radiance as fast as possible. If you don’t do too bad, you should have enough money to buy it after 20-25 minutes and enough money complete your Radiance after 25-30 minutes.
Your goal in the early game is to farm your Radiance. As said, getting the First Blood can be either easy or hard and rellies much on your allie, but it makes the way to your Radiance much shorter. Try not to die too much as this will slow down your process significantly. When you get level 6 and if your allie(s) try to gank your lane opponents, initiate the combat by throwing Plague on them.

Middle game

In this stage of the game you should still try to farm as much as possible, however, moving around the map to initiate ganks for your allies is a really good choice. Everything you really have to due during a gank is to throw your Plague on them. You should use your Soul Rip with caution as it has 30 seconds cooldown. Using it at wrong moments can mean life or death for either you or your opponents.
Try to push as many 1st and 2nd towers as possible, 1st towers having priority over the 2nd towers because those are the easiest. Use your zombies every time you enter any fight whether it’s ganking or farming and try not to lose them too fast. If you can get at least one or two 2nd towersduring this stage of the game, you are doing a great job, but don’t count on that.
Get your Vitality Booster, Plate Mail and Boots of Travel as fast as possible, farm everything you can, push the opponents’ towers and help your allies with ganking if you see the opportunity.

Late game

The big team fights are now beginning. Your main job in the team fights and which should be done as soon as possible is to throw your Plague. As soon as you throw it, your opponents have to either split up or they are forced to all take 30% extra damage from your whole team. After you threw it, try to run in with you and your zombies and try to push and tank as much as possible. Hopefully, your Heartstopper Aura and Radiance will get you focused. Heal yourself or focused teammates with Soul Rip. Your zombies will also participate a little bit when it comes to healing. Your Soul Rip should be used primarily to heal you and your allies and not to damage the opponents. That is your teammates’ job. When you tank in a fight, have taken heavily damage and your healings are on cooldown, move out of the combat for some seconds, heal yourself and go back in.
You should soon have enough money for your Heart of Tarrasque and again, soon your Assault Cuirass. If you don’t manage to get both of them before the game ends, that doesn’t matter, but as soon as you’ve got at least your Heart, you can take the greater part of tanking for your team.

Using Soul Rip

Due to Soul Rip’s 30 seconds cooldown, this is not a spammable nuke. It is a great heal and a great damage spell to finish fleeing opponents, but it should be used wisely. Having it on cooldown because you threw it in a bad moment for then to need it few seconds later is really annoying.
There are two ways of using Soul Rip:

1. Offensive (damage)
2. Deffensive (heal)

Using it offensive means that you throw it on an enemy whilst using it deffensive means that you throw it on an allie or yourself. As I have described earlier, this spells heals/deals damage based on how many units there is around the target, excluding you and the target itself. That means if you cast a level 4 Soul Rip on a target unit with 18 nearby units, yourself and the unit you cast it on, it will heal/deal 18*25 = 450 damage as it doesn’t count you and the target in the pool. If you still don’t understand it, here’s a short scenario:

When you use Soul Rip, make sure that your target is near as many units as possible. Neutrals, summons, heroes, creeps, images - they all count. As you can see on this screenshot, Soul Rip’s range is incredibly long (900 range estimated):

You should use Soul Rip on fleeing opponents, depending on how low health pointed they have. Soul Rip should not be used as a harassing ability. If it is used offensively, it should be used with the purpose of killing, not harassing. Use it on yourself or on your allie(s) if you are about to die. A rule of thumb is that at least 5 units have to be near the target or else the spell won’t do any difference. Using it with lower units around is rather useless, however, you have to judge the situation for yourself.

How to throw your Plague

Click on the spell and cast it on a hero, that’s true. However, there are some targets that are worth prioritizing above others. When you have to throw it, it’s good to remember that you want to affect as many targets as possible, so you want to throw it on heroes that cluster. The two probably most common situations where you cast Plague are of course:

1. Ganks
2. Team battles

When ganking, it’s mostly best to throw it on the hero with the most health, e.g. the tank. The hero with minor health, e.g. a low healthed agility hero, will probably be your mates’ target anyway and we die to a few spells and disables. While they finish this hero off and the 2nd target (if there is only two enemies) runs away, he is slowed by 30% so he will probably not run very far before you and your crew can catch on him again. However, if the first target has an escape mechanism, let’s say Void’s Time Walk or Vagina’s Blink, and your friends don’t have enough disables or nukes to take them down before they escape, you should throw your Plague on this hero instead and let the 2nd run away. Finally, if one enemy is close to you while the other one(s) stand 10000 miles away, it makes no sense to attempt to cast it on the hero furthest away, just throw it on the hero nearest to you.
Dealing with Plague in team battles is slightly different. If you fight in the entrance of a base (it doesn’t really matter which site), you want to get it off on their tank. Their tank will be in the front of the combat and, of course, tanking damage. When you throw your Plague on him he can either choose to take 30% extra damage and therefore he loses his ability as a tank. He will be killed in no time and is therefore for no good. Else he can choose to run back and straight into his team with all the supporters and damage dealers and affect them all, one by one. If you can’t find a tank, try to just throw it on either one in the front or on a supporter. The ones in the front will most likely run back and they therefore bring the Plague with them. Supporters mostly stand near their allies (e.g. Necrolyte and Omniknight) so throwing it on one of them will also make them affect their mates.
The most important thing, however, is that you throw off your Plague as fast as possible. If you can’t choose which target to drop it on, just drop it before your crew fired all their spells and damage. Always try to use it in the start of the combat.

In this gank, I’m gonna throw my Plague on Silencer. Pudge is out in the forest and is a split second to hook, rot and kill Zeus, who is already at 539 health. To throw Plague on Zeus and then let Pudge hook and kill him 2 seconds after is a completely waste. Zeus is going to die with or without the Plague. I throw it on Silencer to allow Pudge to hook and kill Zeus while I chase him. After Pudge finished Zeus, he can run up on the slowed Silencer to kill him as well. The two foes stood really close together in this situation, but if they were slightly separated, they wouldn’t affect each other and the Plague would be rather useless.

In this picture, I’ve marked the opposite team as priority with 1 and 2 (green) being the highest, 3 (yellow) being the middle and 4 (red) being the “no-no”.
Tiny is their tank and as you can see he is in the front. Read the start of this section if you want to know why to prioritize the Plague on tanks. Tiny is a good target to drop your Plague upon in this scenario. Storm Spirit is also a great target. He is standing up in the front with Tiny, and his ultimate will pull all near units together to a target location. If he pulls some of his allies with him when he trys to jump out of the combat, they will cluster and get affected. Sacred Warrior is okay, but not the best target either to drop your Plague upon. He stands a little more in the back and it is much easier for him to run back without affecting any of his allies than Tiny and Storm Spirit. Finally, Sniper is the worst target to aim the Plague against. He stands way to far from you and trying to run out to him to drop it makes no sense at all. If you choose to drop it on him anyway, he stands very lonely so the chance for him to affect his allies are relatively small. Sniper in team combats is almost always a very bad target to drop your Plague on since he is almost always standing in the back and dishing damage.

Creep pulling with Heartstopper Aura

This is a very simple, however, effective method. It only takes Heartstopper Aura to be level 4 because it needs to reach 1000 AoE. When this is done, the only thing you need to do is to situate yourself between some close creep camps. This is the best example:

Thanks to hoi_gr for revealing this technique.

This can also be done to draw your creeps’ attention towards the neutral creeps by dragging the neutrals out to your road, however, this is not always needed as you can jungle really well on your own.

Heroes to watch out for

Heroes with AoE abilities

Those heroes can be extremely annoying, especially in the early game. As soon you summon your zombies, they throw a single spell to kill them all and score the bounty plus reducing your farming ability heavily. Almost all heroes with abilities that affect AoE, such as Leshrac, Tiny, Priestess of the Moon and Morphling, can all be really annoying to meet in the early game.

Late game damage dealers

Because of your lousy base armor, heroes with a high physical damage output can tear you apart in few seconds. Your health pool can absorb many nukes, but you are clearly weaker to direct damage.

Dirge’s best friends

Heroes with multiple units

Heroes that helps boosting your Soul Rip are really great allies to have around. This makes your creep waves less reliable and your Soul Rip more flexible because you can start to use it with more effectiveness around the map as long as your allies bring their heroes and their minions.

Gankers and chasers

These heroes enjoy your Plague when they are about to gank a hero. As I mentioned earlier, the Plague does not only make them take more damage, but it also slows them, making these allies much more effective.

Late game damage dealers

They are just as good for you as they are bad for you. Plague increases their already tremendous damage by another 30% in the late game.

Epilogue

We have reached the end. I hope you are still awake after reading my minor novel. Hopefully, you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Feel free to ask of what your heart desires and I will try to answer your questions as good as possible.

Again, thanks a lot for reading this.

Ingolf

Replays

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