Hello everyone and welcome to my guide(?) on Aghanim scepter and how effective I think it is on each hero who can get it.
Scepter currently upgrades half the hero's ulti in the game and while that's usually a good thing some heroes simply don't need it while its such a core on others yet gets ignored every time. So hopefully this guide can help new players decide if they need Aghanim or not.
I will rate the upgrades for Aghanim as follows
5 = Aghanim is core on this hero and should be rushed in almost every case.
4 = Aghanim works great on this hero but they might also benefit from another item just as much, a good example of this would be Keeper of the Light who is great with Aghanim but should probably get a Mekansm first.
3 = Aghanim works as a good 3rd or 4th item but there are better things to get and it's not really worth rushing.
b = While not the worst item you can get Aghanim here just works as a 6th slot item and can be completely ignored.
1 = practically worthless and you can find much better alternatives no matter what stage of the game you're in.
Well lets start with our heroes.
The new change to Aghanim sure has changed my views on it, at first it only offered increased duration which wasn't very impressive really, sure Abaddon can live 2 seconds more but it just didn't feel like much of a game changer.
The added bonus of redirecting damage is huge though, all allies within 900 radius not only now have 35% damage reduction but also the damage is sent to Abaddon who can use it to heal up even more, although Borrowed time for 7 seconds will usually be enough to heal Abaddon so redirecting it to Abaddon isn't as important as providing a 35% damage block for all allies.
Rating: 5, it's just completely amazing and no matter what role Abaddon is playing this is the item to aim for, Supports can now better defend their allies while carry Abaddons (not how I think he should be played) can live longer while protecting their team mates.
Insane upgrade to AA's ultimate, first lets do some math to show how good it is using level 2 Ice blast since most times AA won't reach level 3 anyways.
Assuming the enemy has 600 life and gets hit with level 2 he will lose 262 life due to magic resistance, he will continue to lose 15 life a second for 9 seconds and in totaly that will be almost 400 damage and he won't shatter.
With Aghanim because of the improved duration he will lose a total of 500 life and would shatter thanks to that, the difference is even bigger at level 3.
Not only does AA's ultimate do a lot more damage but the increased duration also means enemies cannot engage the fight for a longer time, Hit a couple of heroes with it and they have to stay back or risk shattering for 17 seconds which is huge and allows your team to take team fights while half their team is worried about going too low in life.
Rating: 4, it's really good but because AA is played as such a hard support you might not be able to rush it for your team since you have to ward and meka for them, but there really isn't a better item for AA than Aghanim.
The huge cooldown decrease makes this quite an appealing item for Axe and allows you to use it 3-4 times in a fight. Plus this adds some damage to your ultimate that isn't reduced by magic or anything ( as long as the enemy is below the threshold) and more time for Axe's team to pretty much be under the effects of a haste rune. A good choice for Axe but I sometimes wonder when is the right time to buy it, before blink dagger? after blademail? do I skip vanguard?.
Rating: 4, Very good for axe but does require a bit of thought before you buy it.
On paper this looks really amazing, Bane's ultimate lasts longer, does a ton more damage ( 1075 -->1890) and drains 70% of the enemy's mana.....if it lasts the full duration that is.
The problem here isn't Aghanim per-say, its more to do with bane himself, this is an excellent upgrade to his ulti but sadly most of the time you won't channel his ulti for the full 5 seconds anyway, let alone 7. Its too easy to be interrupted and if you are then you need a BKB not Aghanim and even then adding level 3 necros does more damage then Aghanim would.
Rating: 3, Better items exist but late game it becomes much more viable with a BKB.
The upgrades seem very underwhelming to me, the cooldown decrease isn't enough to use it twice in one fight and really 25 seconds is almost nothing to write about. the increase in range while nice can easily be provided by a dagger for more range at half the price.
Rating: 2, Lots of better items exist for BM than Aghanim.
So Fire can do more damage and live longer in a fight, Earth has another disable to use and Storm can use Drunken Haze, this is a decent upgrade I suppose and really what else can you get for Panda to improve him ultimate? although rushing it now seems less viable because if you get Aghanim before maxing out Brew's other spells it won't be as effective.
Rating: 4, get it after blink dagger and no need to hurry with this item.
Reducing a long cooldown ulti to 30 seconds does sound nice, but its more useful for damaging spells like Zues or Nature's prophet, 30 seconds is still a bit too long to use twice in one fight although it can help sustain a push but for its price I'd rather save up and get a hex than upgrade Chen's ulti. Also spending 400 mana every 30 seconds just isn't feasible.
Rating: 1, not the worst item for Chen but you really don't need it.
Some heroes I don't play so I cannot judge very accurately how good Aghanim is since all I can do is theory craft, luckily Clock is one of my favorite heroes and Aghanim is such a core on him. By having a very powerful ulti that you can now spam in a fight ( 12 seconds is really short) you can wreck a lot of havoc with this, just one hookshot is bad enough but 2 ( or more) is incredible.
Rating: 4, While great sometimes you might need to skip it for a blademail or more defensive items if you're dying too fast in a fight, otherwise rush it.
Very similar to Bane, the problem here isn't the upgrade, its the spell itself. A fragile hero using a devastating AOE channeling spell is like a beacon for every stun and disable in the game.
Rating: 1, you'll need a BKB and dagger just to get a good ulti to begin with, Aghanim is too hard to farm and only gives you 60 damage more at max level anyway.
Massive upgrade to DS wall and the scaling is amazing too, it gets better the higher level you are which means you can get it at any point of the game you want. Get a replica of Clinks or Weaver and watch the enemy team get killed by their own carry ( always funny).
Rating: 5, very versatile you can get it at any point of the game and whats more DS is one of the heroes who can easily farm it at any stage of the game.
Very similar to AA's ultimate in the way it makes people forced to back away from a fight and gets more dangerous the longer it goes on, however armor isn't as scary to lose as life is and with a few defensive items its not really as impressive, a Buckler would remove a large chunk of this ability and combine it with maybe a Vladimir or Assault and its not that scary.
Rating: 3, Not a bad item per say, but there are a lot of better things for Dazzle to get which he needs more, if you can farm it then that's great but its not much to write home about.
One of the new Aghanim upgrades introduced in 6.80 and one of the most powerful, firstly it increases the normal damage of Static Storm although that's not mentioned here, it also turns SS into an AOE Doom basically, anyone who gets into it can't cast anything and this helps when catching enemies with BKB or well pretty much any item really.
Rating:5, Widely considered one of the best ultimates to upgrade and Disruptor should have it late game to wreck havoc on the enemy. Although I might give it a 4 rating instead because you'd have to get more support items first, it's effect is just too amazing to give anything less than a perfect score.
I remember when the change came and people went crazy about the spell duration not being reduced, people came up with crazy race car ideas " I doom him, then we both run around each other till he dies", it sounds cute and all but really its not that useful.
Damage increases by about 50% but nobody uses this spell for the damage and the duration increase is just one second, if you can stick to an enemy then you probably already won the fight anyway.
Rating: 3, Works if you're using a more magical type of Doom with Hex and Shivas then this is pretty decent, for DPS carry types like me its really just optional and hardly worth it.
I always thought this was a good upgrade but when you stop and think of it, its not that amazing really. Each hero echoes twice and every echo does 70 extra damage, so if you hit 5 heroes you'll be doing a whooping extra 350 damage to all of them.
For the price of 4200 gold that's not too amazing in my mind, Shivas Guard gives you an extra 200 damage for all heroes but also slows and doesn't rely on any echoes to hurt them. Another excellent alternative would be Veil which increases damage for all your spells by 25% and costs a lot less.
Rating: 2, While it does provide an excellent build up of stats for ES, other items are simply better to rush and you can get this later if you really want to.
Another fantastic upgrade, Enchantress is a very interesting hero who roams the map early game ganking with creeps and late game provides incredible DPS for her team thanks to Impetus, with Aghanim you'll be relatively safe attacking from far away and doing a lot more damage per attack.
Rating: 5, Incredible upgrade that really helps Enchantress shine in the late game and provides her with a ton of good stats as well.
Considering that MP's damage is magical you'll be doing around 20% of the enemy'life + (current damage of Black Hole x 4) Which is quite a lot, especially if you add it into another Midnight Pulse which you can cast without Aghanim, problem is nobody can really plan on using MP in a fight because if you see a good Black Hole you gotta use it without delaying so chances of double MP is just too rare.
Rating: 3, It's not bad or anything but firstly you're never going to rush it and there are much better items to get on Enigma, you need Blink, BKB and sometimes Mekansm to help the team before Aghanim is even an option, so you'll rarely see Aghanim on Enigma even though it's a decent upgrade that isn't worth rushing.
Ehh... Void having an upgrade seems so strange to me, especially since it just isn't useful for him at all, sure the cooldown reduction is nice but what's an extra second of Chrono anyways? Void needs damage items to make use of Chrono, not a longer Chrono where he can't do anything. Plus Aghanim gives him 10 agility and that's all it does for his damage.
Rating: 2, I may have been to harsh on this item in the past but my opinion of Aghanim on Void has improved slightly after I played a lobby game against one of my friends and he forced many teamfights and thanks to Aghanim he could Chrono during every fight while my team had trouble since we used longer cooldown abilites like Ravage. It's still not amazing but in some situations it can be very useful.
Not much of a damage increase especially since the second missile rarely hits but the global ultimate is quite interesting, it allows you to assist ganks anywhere, push and defend easily and catch fleeing heroes as well like Sunstrike does.
More useful for a support gyro though since DPS gyro's would rather get an MKB or Butterfly than this, still if you're supporting your team then this is a decent item for gyro.
Rating: 3, Decent but only if you're playing him as a support which you shouldn't.
The problem with rating Aghanim on Huskar is that I never play him that way, in other heroes I've tried Aghanim but here its all just theory for me.
I personally am not much of a fan of Huskar's ultimate, very damaging and all but using it takes a lot of Huskar's own life so it shouldn't be spammed too often in a fight, especially now that Huskar is so OP that all he needs is a lot of physical resistances and he can solo an enemy team easy, I'd much rather go Vanguard, Armlet, Heart and then Heaven's halberd before I even consider Aghanim.
Rating: 2, Not really that bad but you can get much better items and maybe consider it for your 5th or 6th slot.
Do I really need to say how good this is? instead of taking 5 seconds to invoke you now can do it in just 2, your speed more than doubles and no longer wastes mana.
Rating: 5, Incredible upgrade for Invoker, really doesn't need me to justify it.
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| Comparison of Jakiro's ultimate from 6.80 to the new 6.81. Image courtesy of reddit user dodek1000. |
Rating: 2.5, A bit better than ES but not by much, get Shiva's then cast your ulti and enemies will take full duration normal Macropyre damage which will end up being more anyways. It used to be just 2 but thanks to lasting longer and having a huge range buff it's gone up a point, still not worth it though.
A very reasonable upgrade for Juggernaut though more suited if you're losing or playing him as a support since it doesn't really provide much in terms of DPS but the upgrade to his ultimate is quite significant. Not good enough if you're farming like crazy and can afford better stuff but if you combine this with maybe a Battlefury and a ton of attack speed then it becomes quite a viable build.
Rating: 4, Not bad and a good way to go since it gives a bit of everything if you're unsure what you need.
A new upgrade introduced in 6.81 for Keeper of the Light is quite fascinating really, Firstly Keeper of the light is now permanantely in his spirit form so he never has to charge his Illuminate again and he can always use Recall and Blinding light which are useful utility spells, Secondly during the day he has Unobstructed vision so he is like Night Stalker but old and wrinkled and more of the Day Stalker. Lastly during the day Keeper of the Light's Illuminate now heals allies for 75% which will be 375 every 10 seconds making sieging enemy bases with Kotl very nice.
For comparison on how strong he now heals, Keeper of the light heals 375 hp every 10 seconds, Meka can heal 250 every 45.
Rating: 4.5, Really what can anyone say against this item? it's not hard to farm because Keeper of the Light farms like crazy during the game and it's benefits are amazing, it's only downside would be if you're facing (or allied with) a Night Stalker who negates most of the upgrade but that's a very situational handicap.
Aghanim works quite well for Leshrac by providing him with a decent chunk of life and mana to use while also upgrading his ultimate, its benefits are so widespread though that it's a bit hard to recommend this over other items, want to live longer? Bkb, Heart and Bloodstone are more useful. Want to do more AOE damage? get a Veil or maybe even Shivas. Either way Aghanim is good but just doesn't provide too much of anything, Regardless though this should take a slow in every Leshrac item build and therefore gets a decent mark from me.
Rating: 3, Decent but maybe saving for a Heart would be better at first, it's a good 4th or 5th item slow though.
Lets do some math here, assuming 10 bounces hit on a level 3 Lich ultimate you'll be doing 4600 damage, if you have Aghanim you'll do 5500 damage, that's a pretty decent increase however Veil offers you 25% more so if you do 4600 x 1.25 you'll do 5750 Damage which is even better and costs less than Aghanim and that's assuming all 10 bounces even hit. Also Veil increases damage from all other spells on your team not just Aghanim making it an even better investment.
The change in patch 6.81 is that bounces are now infinite but the above math still applies actually because how often will Lich's ultimate go above 10 bounces? it's really similar to Jakiro's problem where enemies simply will not stand around long enough for the benefits of Aghanim to come into play.
You can also do this trick now (WARNING PLEASE LOWER VOLUME BEFORE OPENING LINK! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!)
Rating:2, Worse items exist for Lich but a Veil or Shivas give you 1k more damage and don't rely on 10 bounces hitting which by itself is a very unlikely event.
The increased cast range is quite impressive but just like with Beastmaster a Blink dagger would help you more since you can land your stun more easily then, plus adding damage to Lina's ultimate is not as useful as you'd think since by late game many teams have Pipes or Hoods to reduce magic damage, Lastly Aghanim gives you 300 damage at level 3 Laguna Blade while Dagon gives you 400 damage just at level 1.
Going through magic immunity is a nice touch, before both Lina and Lion had the same effect for Aghanim, more damage but now Lina can go through magic immunity and Lion can finger multiple people at the same time, a useful skill both in the game and in real life. Late game Aghanim is really a viable option for Lina now, the stats are useful for her and being able to pierce through BKB is a very useful skill since she does a hell of a lot of damage, it is the strongest nuke in the game after all.
Rating: 3, I'm quite impressed with how much Aghanim benefits Lina but I still don't recommend rushing it, getting an early Blink or Force Staff is still better and if enemies do not have any form of Magic immunity then it's effects can be ignored, it's a decent upgrade but perhaps for later in the game.
Firstly, loving the 25 mana reduction at max level, makes a huge difference.
On a more serious note though Aghanim on Lion is a bit better as it is for Lina since they have similar spells, the thing here is deciding whether you can use the lowered Cooldown or not, since casting 625 mana twice in 20 seconds is really unlikely to happen with you using Hex and Stun at least twice during that time as well. It is good though for clearing out creeps and combining it with other abilites that can group the enemy together, Vaccum, Black hole and Reverse polarity with Lion can easily destroy the enemy team in a second.
If you can Manage it however then I say go for it, Lion doesn't need blink as much as Lina does because his spells are far easier to aim (although Blink is always useful) you can consider Dagon for more nuking power but being able to do AOE 1k nuke damage every 20 seconds is quite impressive.
Rating: 4, Not a perfect item for Lion, but because of the survivability and an Actual decent upgrade to his ulti, I think its viable.
The problem here isn't that this is a bad upgrade for Luna, it's that usually Luna is played as a DPS carry and for that reason Aghanim isn't as useful for her as it could be, sure her ulti becomes even more powerful but that's not what Luna really needs. You're better off with a BKB or some damage items instead of this.
Rating:2, Its really not a bad upgrade at all, but Luna needs magic damage like Dazzle needs DPS.
I'm not a Meepo player, I really can't micro more than 3 things at a time, but wow just from the description this looks amazing.
Firstly you get an additional Meepo, that's one more net, nuke and slow which by itself is great but even better than that is the 100% Stat sharing, making items so much more viable on Meepo now. Before players had to go mass auras on this guy because nothing else helped his illusions but now items like Heart and SNY are viable options for him later in the game too.
Rating: 5, Extremely useful item for Meepo and I can't imagine anyone skipping this for any reason.
Furion's ulti does a ton of damage and with Aghanim that increases even more, I'd like to calculate it for you guys but let's just say that for damage alone Aghanim is worth it.
With Furion you can go two builds I see it, a DPS build with things like Deso and Crit, or more of a mage type with Aghanim, Refresher and Hex. Casting your ulti twice in a teamfight can do so much damage to the enemy team you'll easily end up with a double/triple kill, it is however the more expensive build and makes Furion less useful early game and in split pushing so choose accordingly what you want.
Rating:4, Excellent item for Furion but not really a core if you plan on going for DPS instead of more magic damage.
Again gotta start by saying that 25 manacost reduction at level 1.
Anyways moving on, the damage increase is not impressive to be honest, sure its an extra 33% but Necro's ulti requires enemies to be low life to be worth casting anyway so don't get it for the damage because other items can either provide more damage or let you live long enough to do enough damage to kill them with your ultimate.
The Cooldown reduction is equally useless since you'll probably get this past level 11, still 15 seconds isn't bad just doesn't affect your at level 16 thats all.
With 3/4 of it's effects being rather pointless (2 have no effect by the time you're level 16) it's still a good item for Necro because of disabling buyback, this is such an amazing (and new) feature for a spell, by disabling buyback you can cast this on enemy carries and win the game simply by preventing them from buying out. Catch an enemy out of position? that's it, its 4 v 5 next team fight and because of that Aghanim is insanely useful late game and when the team with Necro is behind.
Rating: 4, Definitely deserves a slot in Necro's inventory but perhaps rushing it isn't the best option which is sad because half it's effect are only useful if you rush it.
Unlike most other upgrades you don't get more damage or increased AOE or something with Night Stalker, instead you simply go from normal vision to Flying vision at night and that's...kind of useful.
What this does is basically make things like hills and trees worthless for NS, he can see just the same no matter the terrain, this is good when breaking the enemy base because it gives you easy vision of the high ground ( though a Ward can do the same really). Personally I think it's nice but rather underwhelming.
Rating: 2, Not completely bad and the vision is nice in a lot of situations, it just doesn't really improve NS that much to be worth it.
Unrefined Fireblast functions the same as the normal Fireblast except it costs 60% mana instead which is a huge strain on Ogre Magi's mana pool if used with full mana, however using it when you're low on mana means you can spam this as much as you want. This provides you with an incredibly useful additional nuke to use in a fight and provides a lot of useful stats for Ogre as well.
Rating: 4, Takes a whole lot of mana if you use it early which means you'll need a few items to prepare yourself if you use it but with it you can nuke enemies really fast.... assuming you get Multicasts of course.
A new upgrade introduced in the patch 6.78 which allows Omniknight's ultimate to be global and affect buildings. Firstly the global range isn't very useful if you stick as 5 heroes but even then sometimes one or two guys can be caught out and for that Aghanim is useful since it allows you to save allies from across the map. Although it is always a tough choice to blow your 150 second ultimate just to maybe save an ally who can be nuked down, tough choice.
Affecting buildings is basically an additional super Glyph for your team, making them immune to damage and heal 175 life every time you use it, it also gives you a huge advantage in any base race.
Rating: 3, The problem here is that Omni needs so much items to function for his team that spending 4200 gold just to improve his ultimate sometimes isn't worth it, plus if you're sticking as 5 and pushing then it's not hard to get all your allies in the AOE of your ultimate. Protecting buildings is only useful if they actually get attacked, otherwise it does nothing.
Ahh, time to bring out the calculators.
Let's assume OD has a base 100 Int and the enemy hero he is using Sanity Eclipse on has 50 Int, which is better to get Aghanim or Hex?
With Aghanim you get 10 int so lets count that into our equation, OD now has a total of 110 minus 50 from the enemy you have 60 Int for damage, multiplied by 11 = 660 damage with Aghanim.
If you're using hex instead, then you have 135 int, minus 50 from the enemy you now have 85 int, multiplied by 10 = 850 damage from your ultimate.
Hmm... seems somewhat inefficient doesn't it?
It seems in most cases stacking Intelligence items on OD would be the better option, not only do they improve the damage of your ultimate but also make your Arcane orb do more damage as well, while Aghanim just improves your ultimate...slightly.
The increased cast range is barely worth mentioning since SE has such a huge radius anyway.
Rating: 1, Maybe somewhat useful as a last slot item, but that's about it.
The two things to think about with Aghanim on Puck are " Will they break the coil? and if they do what happens?"
With 2 seconds extra to break the Coil it sounds like they are more likely to break it and get all the extra effects, but really if the enemy wishes to break it they will do so within the 6 seconds duration, the extra 2 from Aghanim won't make a difference most of the time. Secondly if they do break it what does Aghanim give you? erm.... an extra 100 damage? Congratulations you've won the game with that.
Rating: 2, Sure it gives some nice stats that might make Aghanim a bit useful on Puck ( lots of survivability ) but if it's damage you're looking for then go for a Shivas instead, 200 guaranteed damage whether they break the coil or not and much more reliable with comparable increase to Puck's survivability.
This is a really hard upgrade to judge actually since I'm not much of a Pudge player however the damage from Dismember is already blocked by BKB so if you're facing a lot of magic immune enemies it's not really worth going for. The life steal is excellent though since at level 16 you will heal a minimum of 700+ health if you get all 3 seconds off.
Rating: 3, While I am not too sure of my rating for Pudge I will say that for me personally I prefer to go more physical resistances and make Pudge as tanky as possible so I can run around and damage the enemy team with Rot while absorbing a ton of damage. Aghanim doesn't suit my style much but it's a decent upgrade overall.
A very impressive upgrade, if it did just one of these effects it would be pretty good but both is just amazing, now you can Life Drain to your heart's content and thanks to that you can deal a lot of damage to enemies making Pugna a real force to be dealt with. Without Aghanim you will have to think whether you want to stop the channeling and cast another spell or continue draining but with it you can easily cast whatever you want and go back to draining life, giving Pugna a ton of versatility although Mana can become an issue.
Rating: 4, Excellent upgrade but you'll need a lot of Mana to sustain Pugna's spells if you go for it so be aware of that.
While it has a rather pathetic effect early on, by level 16 Aghanim is one of the best items on the Queen by greatly reducing the cooldown of her ultimate, allowing you to use it in every team fight instead of taking more than 2 minutes per usage. This lowered cooldown allows her to be an excellent defender as she can just blink into a creep wave and Sonic Wave them all for a huge amount of gold and experince.
Rating: 4, Not quite a core on her but highly recommended as it really boosts QOP's survivability, sadly rushing it doesn't work too well as it's kinda useless early on but gradually becomes more effective as QOP levels her ultimate more.
First watch this.
Now for the actual discussion, firstly even though Eye of the Storm starts hitting buildings that does not mean it reduces their armor, it just hits them normally if there is nothing else to target so if you think getting Aghanim makes Razor this incredible tower pusher then nope, doesn't quite work that way.
So how good is Aghanim on razor? well it increases his ultimate damage by lowering the delay between attacks by 0.15seconds on every level, this is a bit misleading as that's a big increase when the delay is 0.5 yet not quite as huge when the delay is 0.7
Calculator time :D
If the delay is 0.5 and goes to 0.35 that's an increase of 30% of your damage.
If the delay is 0.7 and goes to 0.55 that's an increase of only 22%.
True it's not a huge deal but if you're interested in squeezing every bit of efficiency out of your Razor then consider buying something else early game and getting an Aghanim a bit later on when it's slightly more useful
Rating: 4, While I may not have praised it as much in it's description this is a fantastic item for Razor because it offers him so much, a good chunk of life which is very useful for a hero like Razor and the upgrade to his ultimate is fine too. Razor doesn't need DPS items like other heroes but requires more Survivability and Aghanim offers him that while improving his damage capabilities.
Oooh an Aghanim upgrade on one of my favorite heroes, Awesome.
The increase in range is really useful, it means you can stay out of range easier now and won't have to come so close, this will help a lot against teams with big initiating ultimate like Earth Shaker and Enigma as it really makes it hard to catch Rubick out of position now.
The 5 cd cooldown also means you can steal multiple spells in quick succession making you something like an Invoker now, you can easily steal multiple spells in one team fight.
Rating: 4, I like this a lot although it's not really something you should go for as a first item, it grants a ton of versatility to an already versatile hero but you need to get Force staff and/or Blink dagger first along with Arcane boots so it will take time to get Aghanim, plus sometimes it might be wiser to get a hex or Euls for the team instead although this is more of a personal preference for people, either way I love it.
Quite a striaghtforward upgrade for Sand King, the Ultimate does 2 more pulses and has it's cooldown reduced by 20 seconds allowing you to use it a bit more liberally. Another thing worth noting is that Epicenter grows in AOE the more pulses it has so with 10 pulses final AOE is 700 while 12 pulses give a final AOE of 825.
Rating: 3, it's pretty decent but you only get 220 extra damage from it so you can go for things like Veil or Shiva's and get practically the same increase of damage. All the items can be more useful in certain situations, Shiva's if you're tanking, Veil if you have a lot of burst damage on your team and Aghanim if you engage often, so pick whichever suits you since I am just saying that Aghanim isn't the best item in all situations.
While it's not quite obvious the first thing I will mention is that Demonic Purge's cooldown goes from 50 seconds to 40 which is nice, the real question though is just how likely is it that Shadow Demon needs to use his ultimate twice in one fight? It's a good slow but it's damage is hardly worth mentioning and do you need to remove debuffs from 2 enemies?
To be fair it would be nice to use twice in a fight but I honestly don't see it replacing Force Staff for mobility, maybe Ghost Sceptor for Survavibility, if you want a Hex might be better since it completely disables the team although it's more expensive and blockable.
Rating: 2.5, I have a hard time rating this upgrade because I just don't know how I feel about it so I'll give it a middle of the road rating and hopefully some comments can tell me where they stand, as it is it looks decent but underwhelming so a 2.5 seems fair to me right now.
Aghanim used to provide smaller bonuses to Shadow Shaman but finally it gives him a massive damage upgrade which actually makes it worth it now. Damage practically doubles every level and in fact level 1 Mass Serpent Ward with Aghanim does more damage than level 3 does without it, making it an insanely good investment since you can pretty much get a level 16 ultimate by level 7 or so if you can rush it that fast, which allows you to push and kill amazingly well.
Rating: 5, while it is a bit difficult to acquire since Shaman is better at supporting than farming, it is still worth its price at every stage of the game. 8 Wards doing 130 damage each is 1040 burst and they can keep going so you should always put space in your inventory for Aghanim.
This is quite an interesting upgrade because it does more than just add damage or duration, it also applies a level of Cots on the target which cannot be removed due to the fact that they are silenced.
So what you get is an additional second of silence and potentially damage the enemy for 390 damage and cost them 192 mana, which is quite decent really. I do wonder if you can stack Cots on targets since that would make Aghanim even more viable.
Rating: 4, the thing here is that this upgrade relies on you leveling up Cots and on the enemy having no way of breaking out of silences ( Manta style, BKB) and if they do it does reduce the effectiveness of Aghanim by a lot. Still I think you should always consider giving this a slot but perhaps get it a bit later, after Force Staff and maybe even after Hex.
Mixed feelings here really since Mystic flare is such a strong spell and having no cooldown makes it a really scary ability in a team fight... apart from the fact that casting it just once costs you a whooping 800 mana so twice in one fight is 1600 mana which is really unaffordable even late game.
Rating: 1, I've seen people use it so I know it has Some use but for me this just costs way too much mana and means you can't spam your other spells as much as you should, get something else like a hex and combine that with Mystic flare and that's pretty much the same damage.
This is another very interesting upgrade, firstly the cooldown reduction is huge and allows you to use it twice per fight, the increase in range is decent but really 700 is quite big by itself so this isn't very noticeable unless you get it early, lastly this provides an Aoe aspect to Spirit Breaker and you can do a level 4 Greater Bash ( even if you don't have it) on all enemies within a small radius. The thing is that while this is a great upgrade it's hard to justify if you actually need it, enemies rarely stick so close to each other to allow the Aoe aspect to be useful, the increase in cast range is hardly useful since most of the time Spirit Breaker is hugging his opponent anyways and the reduction in cooldown doesn't aid him in 1 v 1 fights which is where SB excels the most.
Rating: 2, while I do think this is a great upgrade, it's just impossible to justify getting it, the cooldown reduction allows for constant ganks but really you need attack speed and life on SB not Aghanim.
A very core upgrade for tiny which gives him a ton of extra abilities, firstly toss starts doing more damage making you a better nuker, it's not a big increase but it's there. Secondly your attack range almost doubles which again isn't much considering you're a melee hero but these small upgrades are great when all combined. Third you get a better cleave than you would from a Battlefury. Lastly you become an amazing base breaker.
Rating: 4, with Aghanim Tiny can scale incredibly well into the late game as a DPS carry who can take down bases in a matter of second and should always have Aghanim, it is however perhaps not worth rushing since you'll probably need some sort of initiation item ( Blink, Shadow Blade) and might consider getting an Assault Cuiress as well since you have very slow attack speed without it but without a doubt players should get Aghanim on Tiny.
I've yet to see a player use this in a match but it looks pretty nifty, Laser can hit from far away now at 1100 range I believe and Missles are fired 4 at a time so you're going to hit almost all the enemy heroes, you'll have to get this after Travels of course and most players might prefer to get Dagon, Hex and Shivas before but Aghanim on Tinker is definitely something to aim for.
Rating: 3, Looks really good but I've yet to see it and it's probably one of the last items you get to fill slots for Tinker, does it's job well though but not well enough to justify rushing it.
Wow thats a lot of numbers, but does that make this a good upgrade?
Undying by himself benefits a lot from the stats Aghanim provides, he needs life and mana and gets a ton of that just from Aghanim, so that alone makes it worth considering but what about the upgrade?
Well firstly at most you're actually only going to get a measly 5% increase in damage since enemies can either take the max or minimum damage amplification so you're not getting much of an increase there sadly. Next the heal is decent but from creeps who have 550 life you'll get 16.f life instead of 11 life, wow!
The heal increase from heroes is slightly bigger but again hardly anything to brag about.
Rating: 2, In summary you will get 5% more damage from your ultimate and 1% more healing from creeps, 4% more healing for heroes, is that worth it? No but I myself do get Aghanim on undying simply because you get a lot of useful stats so even though the ultimate upgrade is somewhat useless, when combined with the amount of stats you get it becomes semi-viable. Personally I think Aghanim should double the slow it provides for undying but oh well.
The reduction to cooldown is somewhat useful I suppose, 10 seconds is really short and can be used multiple times in a team fight, although Vengeful Spirit is usually easily brought down due to her having to initiate for her team so you might not always use it twice. Still it's a good reduction to have for the cooldown. The ability to swap to creeps seems like it's mostly useful for escaping, if you're caught out somewhere you can simply swap to your creeps and run away, doesn't seem too useful to me to be honest thought.
Rating: 2, Aside from the fact that it's quite difficult to farm for a vengeful Spirit, you gotta wonder why you would need this? it doesn't provide you with any sort of decent damage, if you wanted survivability then get a Shadow Blade and invi away after you swap so it's just a very odd upgrade to have, still if you love swapping then it's a pretty decent upgrade I suppose.
Another one of those " Bring out the calculators" type of upgrade where it's all numbers.
Alright first of all total damage without Aghanim for Venomancer is 432/812/1215
Damage with Aghanim shoots up to 812/1215/1728.
You can basically skip the level 1 ultimate and go straight to level 2 if you can rush Aghanim fast enough, the damage increase is huge at all levels and the reduction to cooldown is pretty amazing as well
Rating: 4.5, the only reason it doesn't get a straight up 5 is because Venomancer's ultimate cannot kill which kinda hurts it a bit here, you do a ton of damage and the enemy can still survive it all. Apart from that this is an excellent upgrade and allows the team with Venomancer to have a huge advantage the longer the fight goes on.
Literally makes Visage's ultimate 50% more useful, how good that is depends on the micro of the player using Visage but it does allow you to get almost 4 seconds of Aoe stun if you can time it well.
Rating: 5, Really hard to determine how good this upgrade is when I don't use visage myself but I see every pro player pick it up when they can and have to take their opinion on it that it rocks, use and figure out if you enjoy it or not.
Not quite as amazing as it used to be when Golems did 100 damage upon landing yet it's still the #1 go to item for Warlock, nothing gives you as much power as Aghanim does.
Rating: 5, Really what else will you get for Warlock? it's useful at all stages of the game and allows Warlock to be played as a carry, combine this with refresher and you pretty much win all team fights.
The damage increase isn't much when you look at it, although do remember that Death Ward is insanely fast so the extra damage adds up over time, the real benefit here is the ability to attack the entire enemy team with this as the attack bounces from one enemy to another, so you'll be hurting quite a lot.
Rating: 4, Extremely useful yet it does kind of force WD to sometimes get BKB + some sort of positioning item to be fully utilized so that's why I'm giving it slightly lower rating, it's still very useful and an item every Witch Doctor should aim for.
So your seconday item damage is no longer reduced which is nice I guess but Focus Fire is somewhat reviled by everyone so reducing it's cooldown and making it more damaging hardly changes anything to be honest, for it's price just get a deso and you'll have a lot more impact.
Rating: 5, Great for the 4 players in the world who use this skill, apart from that it's useless.
It's amazing how level 1 Aghanim is almost the same as level 4 without isn't it? not only that but doing 440 damage at level 6 is so much more useful than 475 at level 16. Zues's ultimate just hits like a truck when you add Aghanim to it and if you can farm a Refresher as well you'll be doing 1200 damage in a team fight while resting in the fountain.
Rating: 5, Rush it, Rush it no matter what enemy you're facing and whatever the situation is, unless you're facing Huskar 1 v 1 then this is the best item you can get for Zues so get it as soon as you can.
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