Our Least Favorite Aghanim's Shards
After giving a shout out to our favorite Aghanim’s Shards last time around, it is time to call out the ones we feel are sub-par. There can be many reasons for why we think a specific Shard can be a bad investment: it might simply be weak, it might have too high of an opportunity cost, it might be too specific to be purchased in most games or it might not fit the hero at all, at least in the hero’s most viable playstyle. Today we are going to look at five such shards that will need either significant direct buffs or the meta to change to become viable.
Can’t buy skill
It is easy to differentiate between a Magnus player and a non-Magnus player, even in the professional scene. The cleanliness with which turn-around Reverse Polarity is executed or how a player like OG.Ceb combos Skewer into Shockwave mini-pull are what make the hero exciting.
However, there is a lot of work behind this elegance: anyone who has actually attempted to pull it off should know that while doing these tricks isn’t impossibly hard, doing them consistently under different circumstances and in hectic team fights is an entirely different thing. Perhaps it is the reason Valve now allows you to “buy skill” for 1400 gold, but we would strongly advise against it.
For your money, you essentially get what the strongest Magnus players get for free, through training and dedication. You also get 200 damage and <1 second of disable, which are largely irrelevant. Don’t go for this scam and either find a different hero to play or, better yet, learn playing Magnus. The hero is absolutely worth it.
It’s nice, but…
Grimstroke’s Shard is a pretty straightforward DoT with some extra MS and AS slow. With a massive cast range, decently low cooldown, and appropriate mana cost, it is definitely not weak. The problem is justifying the purchase on a support who typically really wants Aether Lens and at least one save item as soon as possible.
Grimstroke exists in two states: pre-Lens, where he wants to get his hands on it as soon as possible since it opens up so many different options. And post-Lens + Save item, where Grimstroke can start thinking about saving up for something game-changing, be it Aghanim’s Scepter vs. strong agility cores, Ethereal Blade, Scythe of Vyse, or sometimes even Halberd.
Getting a DoT slow, no matter how decent it is, does not in any way fit into this picture. It is not a quality change for the hero. It will not give answers to potential questions asked by the enemy lineup. In a sense, it is way too generic to be useful and doesn’t solve any particular problems.
Lich’s middle finger?
Ice Spire health was doubled and its radius was increased by 20% in the last patch and it is still easily one of the most questionable purchases in the entire game. It does sound “below average, but not useless” on paper, but we assure you — it is, in fact, pretty bad.
The idea is you always have a target for Frost Shield and Chain Frost bounces. It kind of makes sense. With Chain Frost, if you are facing a lone enemy, you can bounce your ultimate with Ice Spire. You can also bridge the gap between two distant enemies with Ice Spire so that Chain Frost continues bouncing. All in all, at least in this regard, it is hyper-situational, but can be useful. Though nothing is preventing the enemy from delta-splitting from the Spire itself.
The Frost Shield interaction is probably even less useful. If, as Lich, you have no teammates around to cast Frost Shield on and make use of, you probably have some serious problems. There is a reason Lich wins 50%+ of his games in Divine-, but then drops to ~43% win rate in Divine+. In the current meta, the hero is only as good as your enemy is bad, and his Aghanim’s Shard does nothing to help with it.
He attac, he no protec
Tinker’s Shard could only work on Tinker for obvious reasons: it assumes having access to Rearm. It also doesn’t really work on Tinker, because Tinker is a hero who is all about bursting down enemies as fast as possible, before they get a chance to retaliate. If you are getting hit as Tinker, you’ve probably lost already.
There are a couple of uses for it. The obvious one is preventing your Blink from getting broken in a fight, but then Shift-queuing Blink after Rearm in the direction you are facing should do the trick and in case of some annoying DoTs with a high tick rate, you can’t make do without BKB or Eul’s anyways.
The other one is covering your whole team with a Defense Matrix for extra protection. It isn’t a bad idea and would be interesting to explore if the Cast Range on Defense Matrix wasn’t 400 units.
It will be problematic to cast it during fights since Tinker wants to stay as far away from the action as possible. It is similarly problematic to cast it pre-fight, since while Defense Matrix itself isn’t too mana-hungry, Rearm is. Tinker will need a trip to base after several Matrices, and given a pretty short duration on Matrix his team will have to fight without Tinker for some time or the whole process is just pointless.
And before people ask: Lens and Cast Range talent are not enough to make it work.
Closing Thoughts
There are many more Aghanim's Shards that are still in need of some buffs, but we believe the ones we discussed today most accurately describe the problems associated with some Shard purchases. It doesn't mean they are never good and as with anything Dota, there is always some hyper-specific scenario that will make them look absolutely godlike, but for the majority of your games, they are not worth it. Share your thoughts on which Shards you think need a buff or even a complete rework.
People that write "first" are losers. Having said that, nice article
Pugna's shard is so horrible, I don't know how that made it in. I would love something more creative like Nether Ward casts a Decrepify wave every few seconds or something.
Am I missing one, or did you just write about 4 shards?
What about timbers?? Lmao.
How does one shift queue a blink dagger as Tinker if it's already on cd?
@Carpe Burrito
Everyone knows OD's shard is the fifth one but it's so bad they don't even want to talk about it
What about Hoodwink? I think even valve forgot about it....
I find it funny when a support main that doesn't play tinker writes stuff about tinker.
First, lens and talent DO make it work. It almost doubles the cast range (400->725), and you should get both almost every game regardless.
Second, you don't need to pre-shield everyone. You shield one or two allies that go in and call it a day.
Third, 12 seconds is definitely not a short duration. You pre-cast it on yourself before TPing into a lane, and by the time it expires you are already back to fountain.
Regarding that DoT commentary. I guess players at immortal are not required to know that you can't shift queue anything that is on cooldown. Euls is the last thing than could help you against fast tickrate DoTs. 2.5<3, and fast tickrate implies that it will 100% damage you right before and after euls. Matrix, on the other hand, is precisely what helps you blink out of damage, since barely any DoT has enough damage to break it in 1 second.
And you didn't even mention 40% status resistance once, which hepls a lot against orchid and hex initiations that don't break the shield right away.
Tinker's shard is pretty good, you just need to adapt to play with it.
I was thinking more of the dispel effect on Eul's, as most DoT effects are dispellable.
Regarding the shift-q, not sure whether it will work if you q the blink while the dagger isn't broken, and it gets broken afterwards. You are right in assuming I don't really play tinker, but I did my research looking at high level pubs and guides section on Dotabuff, where no one builds shard on Tinker, then applying my logic and reasoning on why no one builds it. I might be wrong and I've been really wrong before, but for the most part I don't think it fits the hero, at least not in higher level games.
I think people just don't want to experiment with it tbh. While i agree it's not a priority slot like lens or hex, it's still pretty cheap for a powerfarmer like tinker. Situationally it's pretty useful.
And no, if any part of a shift queue goes on cooldown, it won't get repeated
On arc warden?Best shard ever))
Feedback for this piece. I would have appreciated a small but accurate description of what each shard actually does rather than some vague points about it.
Most people dont play a wide range of heroes (myself included) to know what each of these shards are well enough.
I see Tinker's shard as a way of helping his team go high ground after he gets all the items he needs, you cast it on the guy that hits high ground, it gets broken and you cast it on him again, let's put in into perspective: It's 45 minutes in and your Troll with aegis is going high ground, you as Tinker don't help with that at all more than just casting your spells on the few heroes you have vision of, while your Troll is getting repeteadly stunned you give him 40% status res and mitigate some damage, that definitely addresses one of Tinker's issues, and it doesn't have any downside because you get it very late at the time where it actually serves a purpose.
You are definitely not buying it to cast it on yourself, l hope that's clear to all of you.
OD's shard is one where if its cooldown was zero, and you keep casting it, you end up with 1 hp and mana:)
Lich's shard is actually not that bad. Being able to solo kill cores like invoker, when a good invoker can solo 5 others in herald bracket seems like a good trade off. Warlock's channeling slow is even more useless than Lich's shard, which means that if a shard is more powerful than a single skill others have, it is either the shard is broken or the skill is useless. Lastly if you have to get a shard in order to replace a talent that was lost, might as well delete the shard altogether, rip Sven's shard.
Theory crafting and opinions disguised as a guide and facts.
I guess if your specialty is stating the obvious it isn't hard to be correct most of the time though.
I don't see the reason why you think Magnus's shard was only made for what pro players can "already do". There are, of course, more important pickups. But some sort of position changing ability is always situational and more so good than not. Did you also forget that it has a stun? It can be a way to cancel tps without using his RP or Skewer.
I am against removing the cooldown reduction of the third skill from aghanim for Magnus. I got 43 kills on it in one game.
1.4k just to cancel tps? Cool, maybe I get that after my 9 slots of items that I desperately need as a magnus