Here is Medusa Guidance to play, well it's a normal strategy.
But It is a powerfull strategy.
Enjoy it
Early game:
Grab your start items, and head for the bottom lane on sentinel or the top lane on scourge and try to get a solo lane. If you can't don't fret, its not a big deal. Your main goal here will be to nab as many last hits on creeps as possible, while not pushing too far and staying safe. Your main goal here is to not die before getting your sacred relic (or your maelstrom). Early game deaths hurt and possibly destroy Medusa, so don't be too bold and try to go for early game kills (unless of course you are laning with someone with a good stun). If the opportunity presents itself, purge and try to get the kill, but never chase too far. Its better to let them go heal, while letting you farm in peace. Than get the kill and also die (unless its first blood), in which case you will have a big halt in your farming. So hold down alt and look for those creeps in the red. You can even manually patrol behind your creep line if you really dont want to push far, and when the creep gets in the low red - pop 'em with a last hit.
[Chain Lightning use tip] Some times i like to get a RoB or a bottle early so i can spam some chain lightning. As a rule of thumb, if you ever have full mana, use chain lightning on an enemy and try to hit him a couple of times. In addition, one way you can harass at level 6 (and possibly get early game kills) is the purge/lightning combo. If any hero laggs behind his creep wave when you have two or more creeps, and they only have one that is about to die. Run at them and purge them. Get as many hits as you can (your creeps will get some too) and right when they reach about 600 range, let them have it. If done right this can get first blood at level 6-7. Also chain is great for farming early. Hit the druid in the back a couple of times until it is low. Then target the lightning on the hero in your lane if he is close. Always try to get at least one creep kill with your chain lightning as well as harassing the enemy, it makes the skill much more worthwhile.
[Build two tip] If you are planing on ganking a bit early game, be aware of your surroundings. Try not to engage in too many ganks that require you to leave your lane. If possible, have your teamates (preferably with a stun or a slowing nuke) come to your lane. When going for early game hero kills on an opponent with a teamate by your side, it is crucial that you both get your timing down. If you can surprise them from behind by going through the forest, then good. If not, then you are going to want to get close to your creeps before you plan on going for the kill. Act like you are just going for creep kills and denying, but close the distance in that you are keeping from your creep wave. When the time presents itself (near the end of a wave), have your teamate fire off his stun or slow. This is when you both run to the enemy hero and start attacking. Know in your head how long the stun lasts and right at the end immidiately purge the enemy. Make sure you and your teamate get in as many hits as you can (and possibly your teamate can stun/slow again if his cd is up), and if the enemy is running away with low health get as many shots in as you can and use chain to finish him at around 500 range. NEVER chase too far though. As I said, it is better to let them go heal and farm in peace in your lane.
Mid game:
Hopefully by now you have managed to farm your sacred relic or maelstrom components with little to no trouble. Now its time to hunt some heroes and make that money to buy the receipt (pushing and getting tower kills will do to).
When killing with Medusa it is best to attack from behind the enemy. Stay at 600 range and see how many hits you can get in before they react. When they react, whether its attacking you or running, purge them. Purge also slows attack speed, which makes Medusa a good solo killer as well. If they look like they are about to get away and your last shots won't finish them off, run along side them while your purge cools down, when it does, purge them again and finish them off.
Never try to go after two heroes especially if one has a stun. Even if one of the heroes is in the yellow / red, you will be surprised what a little micro, and a stun can do - NEVER underestimate your opponent (If one of the heroes is in the low red and decides to hang around - by all means, purge and own that newb...).
Once you have finished radiance or maelstrom its time to do a bit of pushing, (or more killing if you wish) you will find that when you have one of these items you get almost all the creep kills in every wave, you will soon find yourself rich enough to buy those treads and the next item on your list. Also if you have any extra time on your hands stop by the big creep camps. With split shot and your fast attack, they go down pretty quickly.
Using split shot: Don't be lazy while using split shot, turn it on when there are more than three creeps, and turn it off afterwards. Also a good thing to do is turn on split shot and attack the ranged creep. This guarantees you will get at least one creep kill, and most likely you will get the melee creeps as well.
Try not to push so far that you will get ganked, unless you are with a teamate, and you are not Rambo do not try and take on multiple heroes by yourself, especially if you don't have your BKB and one of them has a disable.
[Team battle tip] Medusa plays a large role as a damage dealer in team battles, however, you must get the timing down with your team. The fight should never start by you running out like a maniac in front of your team and putting arrows in whoever dares show their face. Stay with your team and wait for the teamates with the AoE moves to start the battle (Tidehunter, magnataur, enigma). Once they have used their skills, immidiately turn on split shot (and bkb if you have it), purge and focus on the enemy team's biggest threat (as long as they are not too far back). Don't get scared that you are not doing enough damage, or stop and run back (unless you are getting low). Fire off as many arrows as you possibly can. If there are any creeps around, they WILL be killed in the first couple of waves of your attack and ALL three arrows will be hitting enemy heroes. This means that even if the hero you are focusing on doesn't seem like he will killed by your assault, there is a good chance you have killed/badly injured a weaker hero next to him. At any point weakened heroes start to run, run along side them (hopefully you have BoT by this point) and wait for your purge to cool down. When it does, purge and finish them. However, the base should always be your prime focus, so never chase enemy heroes too far if there is still a threat at your base.
Late game:
By now you should at least have your Radiance / Mjollnir, BKB, and starting on Skadi or Butterfly. Now its time to push with your teammates and try to end the game.
Keep using your splitshot in team battles to put pressure on all enemy heroes and get them low. Less experienced players will tell you splitshot sucks and not to use it on heroes. DON'T LISTEN TO THEM! Once you have good damage, splitshot works wonders on enemy heroes and they will just crap themselves when they dont realize you have it on in time and they all end up in red.
You can take most any hero one on one, but be wary of those who have many disables if you don't have BKB or Linkens, disables are Medusa's weakness, (like most heroes) and at this point in the game I would advise sticking with teammates to avoid unnecessary death.
Also, if Roshan is up, your team might want to take him out before a big push. You are probobly the best candidate the have the aegis on (as you will most likely be the biggest damage dealer, and able to stop pushes by yourself), but if they don't give it to you don't stress it. Also you might want a hero to lag behind the Roshan spawn, or even put some observer wards up around the area to make sure the enemy team doesn't surprise you while your team is taking out Roshan. DO NOT, turn something that was unnecessary into something that loses the game for you. If the enemy team is coming, and you don't believe you can take them, then run. Simple as that.
If you find yourself at the end of your item build (meaning you have insane damage and health), your team might want to try some split pushing. Meaning you push in one lane, and your team pushes in another. Always be aware of how crafty your team is and where the enemy team is on the map, however. If the enemy team sends all they have got at you, then run back and teleport to your team to continue pushing with them. If they enemy team sends all they have got at your team, have them retreat while you knock of one of the enemy towers. If they split up their team, you should be able to kill whoever they send after you. But if not, abort this strategy and return to regular pushing.
Tricks
Extended Split Shot Analysis / Formula:
Lets say you have an item that does 20 damage. When you turn on split shot you have three arrows each of which are shooting for 70 of Medusa's total damage. So the formula we would do is 20*.7=14 each arrow 14*3=42. So if you get the item that does 20 damage and use splitshot, you are adding 42 effective damage overall while using splitshot.
Say the same item that does 20 damage costs 1,000 gold, and we are trying to see if it will be a cost effective item to get for Medusa. The formula we would do is 1,000/20=50, wich means that for each point of damage you payed 50 gold, which would actually be very good if there was an item like this, because it would make it more cost-effective than the gg branch . These two formulas are very simple math, and you can use them to determine which items are better than the others for Medusa.
Heroes To Watch Out For:
Magina: Although this one is obvious suspects, he is the first one on my list. Magina has always been a great hero to kill Medusa because of his mana break ability combined with his ultimate. So basically using your mana shield against you, and when its drained using his ultimate to finish you off.
How to counter: Dont be in his lane early on, like i said early game deaths destroy Medusa. Switch lanes or get a buddy with a disable to help you. Also, with purge you can make sure he isn't getting alot of hits in to drain your mana. And as always, watch the minimap, MASTER IT. Dont let people surprise you with ganks, always count your dots.
Naga Siren: This is less of a threat because you dont see as many siren players as magina players, but its still the same problem. Any good siren will go diffusal/manta, and when they do, your mana shield is in critical danger.
How to counter: Again always watch your minimap and dont let them surprise you. You cannot counter siren the same way you counter magina because of her many images. I suggest sticking around teamates that have AoE damage to let you determine wich one is the real siren (not a hard task), or you can do it yourself. Turn on splitshot and shoot 2-3 arrows while holding 'alt', along with radiance it should be an easy task determining wich one is real, after wards just focus fire on the real siren, and hopefully with your high dmg output and her low hp, she will fall before you do. But in anycase stick with your teamates if you need support.
These are the BIG problems for Medusa, but also if you are up against big early game hero killsers like Maiden, or Venomancer. Either get some regen or switch lanes. Don't be too proud or embarassed to ask your partners for a lane change, if you die too much early your game could be destroyed.
Split Shot Tips:
While attacking the creep wave, toggle on splitshot and attack the ranged creep. This way you are assured one creep kill, and you will usually get 2-3 of the melee creeps aswell, depending on how far along with your item build you are.
Also, although you think that going for neutral creeps is a waste, there is a little trick with radiance to make it a quick and profitable experience. On the sentinal side there is a spot, right by the top entrance of the forest, where if you stand you can draw all creeps towards you, making money quick and easy.
Screen Shot
The same works on the scourge side, but it is less profitable because you can only draw two creep camps at a time. Work on your timing so you can try to come, to the creep camp and lure some creeps away right as another one spawns, if you can do this succesfully you can easily get 500+ gold for about 20 second of farming, wich is not "neglecting your team by farming and not pushing" because with radiance farming takes no time at all.
Screen Shot
While you are attacking a tower, activate splitshot, it will not only do a great deal of damage to the tower, but the creeps fighting yours will die, which allows for more time attacking the tower, not to mention the creep kills for you.
The Many Uses Of Purge:
We all know that purge slows opponents move speed, but what else does purge do?
First, it is very good at not only slowing a heroe's movement speed but slowing their attack speed. No matter if they are clinx and they have strafe on, they will start to attack very slowly. Use this to your advantage when you are taking out a hero with a high damage output.
Second, it is good at dispelling buffs. In addition to good ones on enemy heroes, it also dispells bad buffs. So not only can you save a teamate by purging an enemy thats chasing them, if they are in frostbite, have any type of slow on them, even if they are cycloned, be a good teamate and purge them. It will take the effect and will not slow your teamate like it does the enemy.
Third, you can use it to destroy summons. If you are up against a Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren, or Terror Blade, you can use purge to instantly rid yourself of some confusion. As well as if you are up against a Prophet, or Enigma you can kill their summons with purge. Also whether intended or not, if you are up against a keeper player, and they are annoying you by pushing with their ult, purge their Ignius Fatus. It will instantly destroy it and all the summons.
Fourth, it bypasses all magic immunity, BKB, Jugg's bladstorm. Whatever they throw at you, you will be able to purge them. So use this to your advantage.
Fifth, you can purge yourself!!! So if you are constantly getting hit with buffs, trying purging yourself to see if the buff will be removed.
Advanced Mana Shield Analysis:
So the question is, we know mana shield will take half the damage, but how much will actually be done to it, and will armor/magic resistance help?
Well i bellieve mana sheild works like this. The damage hits you and is immidatly divided by two. (armor and magic resist still hasent occured) The mana shield will absorb two points of damage done to the shield for each point of mana. Then the other half goes to life. (and finally the armor and magic resist are taken into account, before the damage is done the the life)
So say you have a 300 damage nuke. 1000 hp and 500 mana. You would end up with 888 hp and 425 mana. (mana takes damage before magic resist - 150 damage done (divided by 2 = 75), and hp takes damage with magic resist - 112 damage done)
So this means that armor and magic resist will not help your mana shield last longer, only mana/mana regen items.
So the question is, we know mana shield will take half the damage, but how much will actually be done to it, and will armor/magic resistance help?
Well i bellieve mana sheild works like this. The damage hits you and is immidatly divided by two. (armor and magic resist still hasent occured) The mana shield will absorb two points of damage done to the shield for each point of mana. Then the other half goes to life. (and finally the armor and magic resist are taken into account, before the damage is done the the life)
So say you have a 300 damage nuke. 1000 hp and 500 mana. You would end up with 888 hp and 425 mana. (mana takes damage before magic resist - 150 damage done (divided by 2 = 75), and hp takes damage with magic resist - 112 damage done)
So this means that armor and magic resist will not help your mana shield last longer, only mana/mana regen items.
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