Nerds Hero Builds Project
List of all available builds
FAQ
This repository is used to power up the Spectral Builds website.
What is it?
It’s a collection of Dota 2 in-game guides.
Main things to know about Nerd’s Hero Builds:
- It’s based on (1) immortal ranked stats, competitive matches stats (mainly most common builds and most effective ones) and (2) opinion of high MMR hero spammers. I’m using Dotabuff (guides section), Stratz item stats and my personal immortal ranked dataset for these. My item stats
- These builds are not based on my personal opinion. Exceptions are the cases when I am the hero spammer (Visage, Spectre, Arc Warden, Enchantress, Dark Willow), but I’m researching stats for them as well.
- The goal of the project is to provide a collection of builds for advanced players. I aim to make a build for every hero and any viable playstyle, including some unorthodox ones (like Morphling Support, Core/Offlane Bane, etc). As a final goal I want to have item/spells descriptions for every build, describing tips and tricks, as well as synergies and reasons for this particular skill/item build.
- The builds have a bit “complex” structure that is a bit different of what you may be used to. Check below for more information.
- I’m working on it alone. Sometimes, when a hero falls out of meta, the build may shift, but there won’t be enough stats. Or I may not have time to update it. The builds tend to be viable, but sometimes are slightly outdated.
- I’m open for feedback and your submissions. You can join my discord and suggest changes here. Or you can use GitHub issues for that.
Why?
Unlike Standart Hero Builds (from Torte De Lini) or ImmortalFaith’s builds, every Nerds Hero Guide is built around the idea of player being “advanced” player. A guide isn’t plan for your game, but more like a collection of drafts and ideas that points out general patterns in item builds, suggests situational alternatives for various situations and made with “don’t need to search for an item in the shop” principle in mind.
Brief explanation for guides structure and guidelines
These builds tend to be the “all in one” stuff. The most of items that you may want to buy while playing on the hero in the position are going to be there.
However, there are more categories than usual four you may see in other guides.
The categories I’m using and brief explanation:
- Starting items. Default one for any starting items set. However, there may be multiple categories for starting items depending on lane and position (usually just two). While in strategy phase all of starting items categories will be mixed together, they will be marked with their lanes. There may also be some items you should buy if you have some extra money for whatever reason (e.g. you are support and your first priority starting items are wards and courier, but if somebody bought them already, you will be buying whatever else remains here
- Early. Items you should buy early on. Timing is flexible, but usually it’s what you buy before 5-7 min mark.
- Core. Your main items you need to come online (or start farming, depends on your hero). Usually something before 20-25 min mark.
- Situational Early. Items that may be bought inbetween or instead of early/core items. Example one: you are laning against Batrider and you want to buy Magic Wand, but don’t want to buy it every game on the hero - it goes here. Example two: usually you would buy Mask of Madness, but in the specific game in specific circumstances you would like to buy Hand of Midas for the same reason - it goes here (another axample would be Euls and Kaya).
- Lategame. Extension items you would like to buy after your Core items are done. The order is usually preserved and items in this category are usually your “ideal lategame plan”, however sometimes you may swap things around. In some guides it’s more like a list of suggestions that you may mix and match as you wish.
- Situational. Replacement and extension items for mid to late game. For example, Black King Bar and Monkey King Bar for most of the heroes goes here (you don’t want to buy it every game, but in some cases it may be necessary). Some REALLY situational items for early/mid game are moved here as well, just so they will be available somewhere, but won’t clutter other categories.
- Best Neutral Items. Self explanatory, from tier 1 to tier 4, from best to worst (of the best). Doesn’t include tier 5 items (mostly) since all of them are broken anyway and I don’t want to have three lines of neutral items.
- Other Significant Items. Might be good on rare occasions, but usually aren’t purchased.
Additional categories:
- Core Transition. Used for some heroes that may be played as both core and support. Contains items to turn your support hero into a lategame core.
- Utility. Used in support and offlane core builds, usually contains items that you don’t really need yourself, but need for your team. This category is used separately usually when you don’t really want and need these items for yourself anyway.
All tooltips are parsed on a per-line basis to add Alternatives, Swap Order and Timings metadata.
Usually an item tooltip should look like this:
~15-18 min
An item tooltip text.
Might be multiple lines.
ALTERNATIVES: Boots of Speed, Wind Lace
ORDER SWAP: Hand of Midas
Before
Any of these lines might be absent.
Some additional notes:
- Timing is always placed on the first line. It might be either in
~15-18 min format or ~12 min or ~13:30. The first is preferred.
- ALTERNATIVES might be shortened to ALTS
Before section is only used for situational items to indicate the item’s position on the timeline- Alternatives, Order swap and Before lines use full localized item name. Alternatives and Order swap can have multiple items (comma delimited), though it’s not advised to have more than 2 possible order swaps for an item.
Other notable stuff
- If the guide has three tomes in its last category, it has detailed descriptions.
- Every category is shifted to have 4x items and don’t have lines with only one item in it.
- Skill builds, item builds and talents selections are ALWAYS situational and the builds are made so you don’t need to search around for alternatives too long. However, when in some cases it’s noted specifically that the choice is really situational or there may be list of specific situations for that choice. Items may also have a list of alternatives in their descriptions (good example - Vengeful Spirit Core guide).
How can I use this site?
You can use the builds list to see all the things I already made. You can also go to GitHub of the project to look over all the changes that were made. And you can also leave your feedback at github and suggest your changes here via issues. Or you can go to Spectral Discord and discuss all the builds here.
You can also look over the .build files (they are pretty human-readable).