General Discussionneed to learn from the best AMs

he's not underpowered, he scales very well for late game.

of course he scales well for late game he's a carry

Half of playing AM is relying on your team mates to open space for you.

You aren't "online" to fight until you have BF Vlad Yasha... that's just my two cents.

You shouldn't always rush BFY first. It's situational, and sometimes it's better to rush Manta if you're up against silences like Clinkz, or Vlads if you want to join in the teamfights earlier than usual because your team can't defend without you.

Also if you're not in a 5stack that's communicating on skype, I wouldn't recommend picking antimage.

I fuckign suck currently as AM with shitty 1.7 kda. Teach me how to AM guys. I usually solo queue so me winning kinda depends on how well team is doing early game

go watch how dk.burning play am...but normally his team open space for him to farm.

dont die + farm a lot thats all AM need
blink in to fight and ks every hero/squishy support that you see
start split pushing non stop after you build manta + carry TP
build:
poor man shield -> ring of health -> tread -> battlefury -> quelling blade -> manta -> Basher/BKB/Heart -> Basher/BKB/Heart -> Butterfly
all those map awareness thing is kind of easy for AM player if you compare it to playing spectre
i don't have record on my profile, but i'm a good friend of good carry player :D

PS: quelling blade after battlefury is a must

if you ask me how i prefer to play AM
my build: basillus -> boots -> vlads -> tread -> vit booster -> manta -> heart/BKB
i'm not farming machine type lol, i don't like it
http://dotabuff.com/matches/323072451
FYI i almost join every fight in that game

there is nothing to learn about the hero, u just have to know how to play dota to play am

Just bare in my mind getting treads before Fury ONLY if u think u got really low hp, be selfish as much as possible till it's minute 30+.
Usually an Antimage player would go 1 lvl of blink, 1 of mana burn, 1 of shield, ulti, and 3 points into stats at lvl 7, then start maxing out blink then mana burn, u can skip maxing mana burn to get some points into shield if u are playing against a high magic dmg heroes like lion.
Don't get vlads EVER.
When to get vlads:
U think u can't win, therefore go for rat doto strategy.
U can't out damage enemies carry head to head. Like skeleton king for example.
U are having troubles farming, and going for jungling half of the time.

In conclusion, get it only if ur team is losing.

U can try going vanguard if u are having troubles farming, but u need to get it before minute 15 or so, and don't go for fury after it, get manta instead.

The most important thing is ---> u need a gd support to have a gd start, getting 60+ creeps in 10 minutes.

As much as you are struggling you are ahead of the average pub AM by a lot already.

pub winrate 41.4%, you have 46.5%
pub KDA 2.12, you have 3.44
pub gpm 440, you have 496

You have put almost 100 games into this so lets make a more serious investigation and watch some games. With 99 AM games in dota 2 you probably have got the mechanics about as good as you are going to get it. So lets look for tactical and strategic ways to improve.

last 3 games were AM, and lost.... a good place to look
http://dotabuff.com/matches/413889704
http://dotabuff.com/matches/413866983
http://dotabuff.com/matches/413836090

413866983 throne dead at 21:58.... that's not a game AM can win. But maybe there is still something to learn.

So...we have an aggresive tri-lane of ES, Mirrana and AM... with a safelane sniper and kroblelus mid. I assume you did not que with these people. This is a lane that requires coordination to work. Your ES positions very badly making it take forever, but you do get the FB. Krobelus gets destroyed mid by getting massively outplayed by tusk.

ES roams top and fails the gank so badly WR escapes after killing sniper. Tuskar takes his advantage from mid and quickly begins taking your team apart. So you are losing 4 v 5 as NP afk jungles contributing nothing to the laning phase.

If players had stats on we could probably see that you just got unlucky and your team picked heroes they don't know. But that information is hidden. Anyway, in a game like this where things are going very badly you need to get treads and the dmg parts of your bfury first. Get the RoH and Void Stone last. This will give you a lot more ability to do something mid game with slow farm and no farming space... this game probably nothing would have worked. But if you take that more robust item progression and there are opportunities, you can get kills. If you need more regen, buy salves. Don't get RoH if your team is losing lanes. You spend about half this game at full health, full mana, regening nothing from that 1875 gold worth of items and unable to do anything because your max hp was low, ms slow, dmg small, and attack speed slow.
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413836090.... throne down at 35:09, that is not a good time for an AM game, but its not impossible. You got bfury and manta this time. Unfortunately the replay is not available.

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413889704... 55:36 min game. This is one an AM should win. Lets see what happened.

You have safelane farm with disruptor supporting you against an offlane puck. You strike a good balance between harrasing the puck and farming. By 10:10 you have 52-20 cs againt 8-4 for the puck and have killed puck twice. So you are off too a good start and have seriously limited pucks ability to have a mid-game impact. Puck really should have been mid and Mirrana against you offlane instead. Good job taking advantage of their mistaken lane choice. Probably puck was intimidated by the prospecTt of facing OD mid.

This game your lanes are stable and you have safe farm with some occasional harassment. Rushing bfury with just boots of slowness and getting RoH makes sense in this situation. As good as your farm was, you still missed 30 lasthits in this free farm period. Qblade costs only 5 lasthits. You should buy it asap. This will dramatically increase your farming rate after you have the bfury as well as allowing you to get it sooner. As it is your Bfury still arrives in your hands at 14:28 after some confusion with the courier delayed it a bit.

At this point your team is up 7-3 on kills and towers are 1-1. You are well on your way to a winning game of AM. So what goes wrong?

At 23:40 you die to clinkz who has orchid and you just barely did not have manta before this first time that he finds you. If you had qblade you could jungle about 30% faster. You would have already had manta style and killed the clinkz instead making him never want to gank you again.

You are against a mirrana and a clinkz. Rubic also often steals shukuchi from weaver. You should be carrying dust throughout the mid-game. Its only 90 gold per use and kills are worth 300 or more. There was a major teamfight at 26 min. Weaver had dust but failed to use it. You almost teamwiped for zero kills. Don't count on others to have true sight covered for you. If they do, great. But have some yourself also. Antimage is often alone.

Heart is definitely the right choice next, since clinkz already has MKB. Another major teamfight at 33 min. Again you lost due to lack of dust. If you had used a dust you would very likely got a triple or ultra kill and won the fight. That stout shield has now been blocking tiny amounts of dmg for about 25 min longer than you needed it. A qblade and your farm is far faster, a couple dusts and you easily win the game.

On the back of the next teamfight they rax two lanes. That is really the end of the game although it goes on another 20 min. Only the carelessness typical of pubs gives you another chance. You make a really excellent attempt to throneit, but unfortunately when it really counts you forget to use manta style after you buy back and port to the throne at a critical moment so puck escapes you and is able to hex you again. Hit manta that one time and you win the game.

bro u need to care about picks silence is the worst thing am can ever had dont pick am if enemy team have that kind of skills

farm bfury, then farm everywhere untill you feel safe that you can win in fights=gg
manta>silence

I think AM is about the following:

Good last hitting skills.
Fast farming with blink.
Escape ganks with blink,you also need wards and etc..
You should know when to enter the fight,and when to run from it..you must choose your target wisely, and you should use your ulti wisely.

did anyone read relentless post lmao

Just proof read, well he just basically telling
- he's already doing good compared to average Anti-Mage
- Anti mage cant fight short game <25 mins game
- TS fail to execute "farming with battlefury" method because he didnt buy quelling blade after battlefury
- TS had wrong item buying sequence
- TS doesn't have enough reflex/decision making to do in teamfight

http://dotabuff.com/players/143020839/matches?hero=anti-mage&game_mode=&match_type=real

watch my games you'll become a good player in no time

my AM is the best

You must play selfish with AM.
Just ignore the team fight unless you are 100% sure you can get a kill or two.
Try to split push and trade towers instead if they 5 man and take your towers .
Actually even with AM you can fight early , if you got tread + bf around 13-15min.

It is all about decision making.

413889704... 55:36 min game.
Yea I could have won this game. Felt really bad losing it.

The reason I pick AM alot and lose alot is whenever I play a game badly with any hero, I will pick him over and over again until I win. And I lose over and over again with AM, hence I pick him over and over again. I wonder why people could have 80% winrate on this hero, because if 46% of the winrate is due to having a good team to withstand the pressure in the early to midgame, how did people win the remaining 34%. Thats what I'm looking for.

I will try building quelling blade. Disdained this item because I believed it reduced the number of hits required to clear a creep wave by 1 max after battlefury, a very insignificant amount.

I also have a good sense of the game, but still I cannot figure out what I could have done better to change my AM game (unlike other heroes), which is why I brought it here.

Be selfish, just don't give a shit to wut is happening to ur team :D
If u watch any pro player play dota, u will find him farming with cm, stealing kills with wisp.
And never ever try playing with a bad mood, u would be the reason to why u lost the game.
Picking the hero every game trying to win a game with won't work unless after 3-4 games, that is wut I experienced.

he's not hard at all, just blink away whenever you think youre gonna see an enemy hero. It's hard for your team because they have to 4v5 for 40 minutes while you are farming/split pushing

each game is different, if you want to win with am you have to adapt to how the game is going. sometimes rushing battlefury isn't always optimal. he is a hero that is seen and played to farm fast so everyone forgets about survival/fighting builds for him. you can try going drums phase vlads/vanguard manta/basher, depending on your choice. you can still farm relatively fast since you have blink. ppl hate on me when i build.maelstrom on him thruout that build, it cheaper than battlefury and does almost Tue same thing for you though. i mean bfy is great on am especially a fast one, but it doesn't always win you the game. imo battlefury just makes his split pushing more threatening and minimizes the amount of risk you take staying in lane for too long.

http://dotabuff.com/matches/305096829

Burning gets Qblade on Antimage

http://dotabuff.com/matches/206047455

Loda gets Qblade on Antimage

http://dotabuff.com/matches/236799590

TC gets Qblade on Antimage

It really is a lot faster for farming. http://dotabuff.com/matches/410036734
Here is a replay recent enough you can still download and watch it. This game features #8 ranked AM Beesa vs #18 ranked AM player Fear on the drow. Watch Beesa perspective and see how he uses the Qblade to increase his farming speed.

^ coincidentally I watched that replay of Beesa's AM. His team was winning the early-mid game so he had a lot of space to farm.
Wonder if you know how to find this replay of sneyking's AM
http://dotabuff.com/matches/402110501
Clearly he carried his team with a 8-18 bat and 4-15 wr.

lol am is ez get dat 13 min bfury then farm for another 40 minutes once ur six sloted with 20k gold in the bank just incase u need refresher and dagon 5 to kill those 2 creeps in ur base and ur good to go

Unfortunately you have to save replays within 7 days or they are removed. Even today there are still limits to how much data can be stored. That game is 11 days old.

lol, don't have to bring burning or whatsoever guys

common sense -> 225 cost efficient item (112.5 investment):
- works with cleave (except tidebringer)
- works with illusion
- increase 32% damage to creep (helps in pushing + farming + clearing camp 33% faster[times it with how many camps AM should clear])
- and helps to cut trees necessary to get position to blink

what's the cons of building it after battlefury really

Most important thing with Anti Mage is `Do not die` . Whatever happens you need to try have 0 deaths all game,and it`s really hard to loss than,if not just total stomp or total outdraft by other team.But if game is at least a bit close and if you don`t die you almost can`t lose.
But if game is hard early and you are like just Treads and ring,and you see fights at other lane Tp there and fight,help your team even you have 600 hp and not too stronK can have big impact in situations like that.Also always after queling blade and ring buy poors man shield. Gl

last hitting is not hard. Get QB if you can't last hit for shit, but definitely pick it up once you get battlefury, PMS is good for contested lanes. Build RoH -> Treads -> Battlefury

ez game from there, if there are enemies with silence, then play "safer" than normal until you get Manta, and always keep an eye out on the map, because you can still get jumped by a few heroes. Generally its best to have your team doing something that requires the enemy to focus elsewhere on the map, kind of like chains tinker who has his team constantly pressure mid lane while he split pushes and farms both side lanes for some mad cash

edit: also you can be quite aggressive against some heroes in a 1v1 lane, which might cost you 1-2 CS, but saves you from random denies and harass from abilities, gimps their xp/gold as well

@Terrible
if you think AM get QB for last hitting you are wrong
they get it after they got BF

i wrote that in my first line, but thanks.

As everyone who is not delusional knows... lasthitting is very difficult. The best lasthitting pros in the world get qblade asap to make it easier. Meanwhile plenty of pub fakers pretend "they don't need it" and miss 30 or 40 lasthits in the first 10 min. Don't wait until after bfury to get it.

As in basketball some might pretend that shooting free throws is easy... and yet even pros miss lots of free throws.

Your team will always need supports warding for you if you wanna play am, so I would advise to you to play him with a stack. Get BF as early as possible, if your middle needs help ganking your BF will give you lots of early on damage, and ulti to get the kill. You should be farming in the jungle and blinking around, and while your farming see if the safe lane is open and if it is, start pushing the lane and maybe get some hits on the tower or destroy it(you need to be careful if you dont have wards, you might wanna not push at all). Once you get your manta(can be switched for a bkb if they just have too much lockdown), you are still squishy(bkb will help vs nukes). I would advise to try to fight if your team needs it, but dont overextend. Your next item depends on the circumstance. I will generally get something as to a heart for the most survivability or a mkb if they have evasion(then get heart). Right now, you are strong and your team should be trying to fight and get towers. You will want to farm every second you are not fighting or be pushing. By the time you get towers and more farm you should have an advantage and proceed to win the game.

P.S: If you have a disabler support in your lane, try to get him to harass the enemy hero(you can do it too), and the one time he overextends kill him, and get first blood(or not, depends). Also, AM can be very dangerous early game because the BF gives a lot of damage, but you are still very squishy.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong about anything(I know I am:P)

@relentless, last hitting is piss easy in most matches as AM with support. If not, and you are contested its a different story. If you remember not too long ago when defensive tri-lanes were popular, in nearly every match the carry in their safelane both got free farm, and in many of those matches pros did not buy QB until after they got battlefury.

If you are missing 30-40 last hits in the first 10 minutes with someone like Anti-mage (melee + low BAT), then you really must suck at last hitting. Its one of the most basic skills as far as uncontested lanes go, and if you are getting anything less than 70 last hits (not including denies) without any interruption (ie. killing/avoiding a gank/pushing) with AM, then the problem is with yourself.

Shooting free throws is not even close to being the same thing..if AM was ranged, had a long animation (like Clinkz/Lina/CM) and had very low base damage, and QB gave him +32%, then you would have a good argument..unfortunately he doesn't meet any of that, and he should almost never be last hitting under the tower under free farm either. Because you start with a Stout Shield and have regen to tank the creep wave (if your support pulls or something, or even if there are just 1-2 enemy lane creeps left), and when your regen runs you should have RoH anyway.

Really Relentless, stop trying to make the point that last hitting is some ridiculously difficult aspect of the game, because it definitely is not.

edit: obviously if you are that shit and you miss that many last hits without QB, then you should be buying it. Of course if you aren't retarded and are able to click on units within a large time frame (given that you know when this time frame will appear, as it is not random), then fucking lol

honestly you do not need to rush battlefury every game you play with am . and yes last hitting in an uncontested lane should be simple but lots of ppl waste cs in games. in a lot of cases ppl are more focused on acquiring kills than farming properly causing this. last hitting is easy, consecutive and productive last hitting isnt. in comparison its like playing guitar hero, as your level of comprehension grows the morefnotes you will be capable of hitting and in a consistent manner. it is a basic skill and concept but in situation comparisons it requires practice

What build that is most succesful for me atm:

branches x3, stout sheild, salve, tango > poorman's shield, wand, brown boots > ring of health > power treads > battlefury > yasha > vit booster > Manta > Buttefly/HoT > Butterfly/HoT