Guide to Harbinger the Obsidian Destroyer
This will be a short and sweet guide to one of DOTAs horribly misunderstood heroes. Playing Obsidian Destroyer is surprisingly simple, despite his confusing skills. He is an all-out carry hero that happens to sport one of the strongest AoE spells in the game, a good disable and one of the better orb effects in DOTA.
I wrote this guide partially to fill the gap in the list of guides, and partially because my clan’s soloer plays one of the best ODs I’ve ever seen. He will be the one using OD in the replays.
Should I play Obsidian?
Basically, 90% of playing this hero comes down to your ability to farm quickly. If you can last hit and deny well, by all means, play OD. If you can’t last hit well, you will have a lot of difficulty with this hero, but if you can OD is potentially one of the most powerful carry heroes in DOTA.
Skill Build
Astral Imprisonment
Essence Aura
Astral Imprisonment
Essence Aura
Astral Imprisonment
Sanity’s Eclipse
Astral Imprisonment
Essence Aura
Essence Aura
Arcane Orb
Sanity’s Eclipse
Arcane Orb
Arcane Orb
Arcane Orb
Stats
Sanity’s Eclipse
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Stats
Astral is maxed first because it is extremely helpful for laning and it will save you from ganks. Essence Aura will give you extra mana to use Astral. Orb is taken mid game since you don’t have enough mana to use it regularly early on and it won’t add too much damage until you boost your mana pool. Sanity’s Eclipse is taken at 6/11/16 because it’s an incredible ulimate and will be your primary means of getting kills early and mid game.
Item Build
Start: Tangos and Branches and/or Circlets
Early Game:
OPTIONAL: Midas
Boots
3 Null Talismans
Eul’s Scepter
Mid Game
Mystic Staff
Complete Guinsoo’s
Late Game
Complete Scepter
Complete Boots of Travels
Other Items:
Second Scepter
Assault Cuirass
Refresher Orb
Items to Avoid
Arcane Ring
Mekansm
Explanations
Midas works well on OD since it can trigger Essence Aura and gives OD a much-needed IAS boost. However, you won’t be able to support your team well early on without getting intel items quickly. Get Midas if you’re farming very well and your team can hold their own without you until you’re able to farm more.
Boots and Nulls are taken next. Nulls can be completed after Eul’s if you’re farming well and can be substituted for Bracers if you think you need the HP. You need as much intelligence as possible to boost the damage from your ultimate and from Arcane Orb.
Euls is taken next because of OD’s morbid need for intelligence. A second disable will make farming easier and the extra intelligence will greatly increase the effectiveness of your ultimate.
Mystic Staff is the best filler item between Eul’s and Guinsoos since it provides a lot of intelligence and it’s part of Scepter. Finish Guinsoo’s next since you should have gotten enough use out of Eul’s by then.
Late game you start to rely more on your Orb so boosting your mana directly with Scepter becomes a good idea. Boots of Travel are simply a utility item. They can be taken a little earlier if needed.
If you need further justifications, watch the replays.
Walkthrough
Early Game
OD needs a solo lane to farm effectively and level quickly. Mid is preferable but top scourge or bottom sent works too. You should spend the first 20 minutes of the game farming. That’s pretty much it. Use Astral Imprisonment on heroes in your lane to boost your base damage for easier last hitting and to lower theirs if they’re intelligence based. Astral will also keep enemy heroes from nuking you because their mana will constantly be low. At level 6 or 7, cast Astral on a hero 2 or 3 times in a row – preferably a hero with low base intelligence or low HP – and nuke them with your ultimate. Make sure not to cast it while they’re still imprisoned or it will miss.
If you’re doing well you’ll probably be ganked somewhat often. Ask for your allies to call missing heroes and stay near your tower if possible. It’s a lot easier to avoid ganks in the middle lane, which is why it is the preferred solo lane. If you do get ganked, imprison the most dangerous hero – the one with the best nukes or disables, or ones that are especially fast – and run. You can also imprison yourself when you’re near a tower so that the enemy hero will have to take 4 or 5 shots from the tower before he can continue trying to kill you.
Farm. Farm. Farm.
Mid Game
Keep farming for the most part. Pushes should be starting around now so your goal is to get off a good ultimate and then avoid dying while you dish out shots of Arcane Orb. Using imprisonment on yourself is a good way to keep from being focused and dying in team battles. Make use of this tactic and Eul’s scepter to keep from dying, since you’ll be very fragile at this point. Sanity’s Eclipse does an obscene amount of damage if you were able to farm intelligence items quickly, so you should be able to rack up kills if you didn’t do poorly early on.
Work on completing Mystic Staff in between pushes and ganks. You can use your orb to last hit more easily and/or clear creeps quickly. If you’re able to farm it quickly, triple kills will not be uncommon with Sanity’s Eclipse.
Start to work on Guinsoo’s next. Aside from the huge intelligence boost, Guinsoo’s is great because you’ll need a disable to get kills with Arcane Orb since you don’t have any type or slow. Make sure to “orb walk” by animation cancelling whenever you use Arcane Orb on a moving target. See just about any other carry hero guide for an explanation of how to animation cancel.
Late Game
Although Sanity’s Eclipse continues to be absurdly strong, your primary role during lategame is to be a DPS hero. Completing Scepter will give you a nice direct boost to your mana, which will help your orb out, and give you some survivability so that you can dish out damage in team battles without dying instantly. You’ll still have to be very careful about dying though. Be selfish if you have to and let the tanks and initiators on your team take damage while you dish it out.
Late game mostly comes down to using Sanity’s Eclipse at the right time, using your disables effectively and staying alive so you can dish out damage. Pretty simple huh?
