Guide to Knight Davion - The Dragon Knight

Skill Build:

1. Dragon Tail
2-3 . Breathe Fire
4. Dragon Tail
5. Breathe Fire
6. Dragon Tail
7. Breathe Fire
8. Dragon Tail
9. Elder Dragon Form
10. Attribute Bonus
11. Elder Dragon Form
12-15. Attribute Bonus
16. Elder Dragon Form
17 - 21. Attribute Bonus
22 - 25. Dragon Blood

Item Build:



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Table of contents:

A. Introduction: Dragon Knight's Basic Information
B. Skill Build
C. Item Build
D. Strategy
D1. Skill Analysis
D2. Walkthrough by game stages:
D2a. Early game
D2b. Mid game
D2c. Late game
E. Conclusion

A. Introduction: Dragon Knight's Basic Information



Initial Stats:
HP/ MP: 511 / 195
Damage: 46 -52
Armor: 4.4
Strength/ Agility/ Intelligence: 19 + 2.8/ 17+ 1.7/ 15+1.7
Range: 125
MoveSpeed: 290

Dragon Knight's Strength:

1. Impossible to die in Dragon Form;
2. Stun is imba.

Dragon Knight's Weaknesses:

1. Very boring;
2. Too newbie friendly, you don’t feel accomplished at all.

B. Skill build:

1- Breathe Fire



Breathes fire which deals damage. Cooldown of 12 seconds.

Level 1 - 75 damage.
Level 2 - 150 damage.
Level 3 - 225 damage.
Level 4 - 300 damage.
Mana cost: 100/ 115/ 130/ 150

2 –Dragon Tail



Knight Davion bashes a melee-range enemy target with the fury of a dragon's tail swipe. Stuns the target and deals minor damage. Cooldown of 9 seconds.

Level 1 - Deals 25 damage, stuns for 2.5 seconds.
Level 2 - Deals 50 damage, stuns for 2.75 seconds.
Level 3 - Deals 75 damage, stuns for 3 seconds.
Level 4 - Deals 100 damage, stuns for 3.25 seconds.

Mana cost: 100 MP for all levels

3- Dragon Blood u



Grants Dragon Knight blood from his ancient ancestral dragon heritage, which increases health regeneration.

Level 1 - Increases hp regen by 1.
Level 2 - Increases hp regen by 2.
Level 3 - Increases hp regen by 3.
Level 4 - Increases hp regen by 4.

4- Elder Dragon Form



Transforms the Dragon Knight into a powerful elder dragon with 500 attack range. Lasts 60 seconds. Cooldown of 130 seconds. Will not trigger Techie's Proximity Mines, and cannot be tossed by Tiny.

Level 1 - Transform into a Green Dragon with a corrosive attack.
Level 2 - Transform into a Red Dragon with a splash attack.
Level 3 - Transform into a Blue Dragon with an extremely powerful frost attack.

Mana Cost: 175/ 225/ 300

A Green Dragon has movespeed of 300, and has a “corrosive attack” that slows an unit and deals 8 damage per second for 5 seconds. The corrosive damage won’t stack. If you attack an unit once with corrosive attack, then attack it again 3 seconds later, overall the corrosive attack will deal 64 damage over 8 seconds.

A Red Dragon has movespeed of 325, and has a “splash attack” that deals full damage to all units around the primary target.

A Blue Dragon has movespeed of 350, and has an “extremely powerful frost attack” that deals half damage to all units around the primary target, plus 4 seconds of frost effect.

Both “splash attack” and “extremely powerful frost attack” affect damage to buildings, i.e. if you attack the buildings, units surrounding the buildings will be damaged, vice versa.

Here is the suggested skill build:

1. Dragon Tail
2-3 . Breathe Fire
4. Dragon Tail
5. Breathe Fire
6. Dragon Tail
7. Breathe Fire
8. Dragon Tail
9. Attribute Bonus
10 - 11. Elder Dragon Form
12-15. Attribute Bonus
16. Elder Dragon Form
17 - 21. Attribute Bonus
22 - 25. Dragon Blood

Brief explanation to skill builds:

1. Forget about Dragon Blood. Why spend 4 skill points on something that is worth 750 gold (2 Rings of Regeneration)? Dragon is not a hero that has to harass people by getting close to the enemies and backstab e.g. Stealth Assassin, nor does all his skills melee based e.g. Centaur, Slarder. If you seriously need at least 4 HP/ sec to stay alive I suggest you polish your DotA skills by playing ranged heroes first.

2. Level 1 Dragon is almost useless, the slow effect is minimal, and the additional damage from corrosive damage is negligible.

C. Item Build

Recommended Item Build:

Starting items:
Helm of Iron Will, Clarity Potions

1. Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Boots
2. Ring of Basilius
3. Upgrade Eul’s Scepter of Divinity to Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse, and upgrade Boots to Power Treads
4. Upgrade Helm of Iron Will to Helm of Dominator
5. Heart of Tarrasque
6. Upgrade Helm of Dominator to Satanic
7. Buriza

Final Items:
1. Ring of Basilius
2. Power Treads
3. Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse
4. Satanic
5. Heart of Tarrasque
6. Buriza



Brief explanation to item builds:

1. Ring of Basilius and Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse give you more than enough mana to spam Breathe Fire ALL THE TIME and use Dragon Tail if necessary. Having 2 disables means that the enemies cannot ignore you. Moreover Dragon Knight really needs a larger mana pool because Breathe Fire and Dragon Tail are highly spammable (12 and 9 seconds of cooldown respectively). Very likely you will have to use both skills every creep wave, so it's necessary to get a Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse.

2. Once you have Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse your only role in the team is to tank. That’s why Heart of Tarrasque and Satanic are here.

3. When you really have too much gold get Buriza. It works perfectly fine with Elder Dragon Form.

Further notes on why certain items are bad:

• Battlefury is bad because Elder Dragons can't cleave;
  
• Strength items are more preferred to pure damage items because Dragon Knight is a tank;
  
• Lifesteal orb effect is infinitely better than all other orb effects for Dragon Knight, because Elder Dragon Form deals splash damage, and leeches HP way faster than any other tanks. Moreover, certain orb effects don't work with Frost Attack.

D. Strategy

How should you play Dragon Knight?

Dragon Knight should always be played as a Tank/ disabler. The reason why Dragon Knight can’t be a hero killer is that he doesn’t have steroid type spell (sigh I’ve been repeating myself for a million times already). Splash attack and Frost attack are most powerful when there are a group of enemies, rather than when you solo an enemy. Moreover, considering the fact that you can do slow and deal damage to a group of enemies, you should expect enemies to kill you first, forcing you to get strength items to protect yourself. This in return forces you to be a tank.

D1. Skill Analysis

1. How to use Breathe Fire

a. Breathe Fire is your basic farming skill. If for various reasons you are not harassed, when you engage enemy creeps, hit a melee creep that your own creeps are not attacking until that creep has lower than 300 HP. Next go behind the enemy ranged creep and cast Breathe Fire. You should kill the creep that you were hitting just then and the creep that your own creep were attacking. Now give the enemy ranged creep a final hit. This guarantees at least 3 creep kills. If your creeps are hitting more than one enemy creeps, use the Alt key to monitor all creep health, and cast Breathe Fire and 2 or more melee creeps have less than half life. Of course if enemy heroes are harassing you, don’t do this.

b. Gain early game kills by using Breathe Fire and Dragon Tail. Simply come behind an enemy and hit him until he retreats. Immediately use Dragon Tail to stun him and continue to hit. Once the enemy is out of melee range, use Breathe Fire and pray that you can kill him.

c. Use Breathe fire to quickly clear creeps in front of the tower. In Red and Blue Dragon forms, you will deal splash damage, so it’s very easy to get all creep kills in front of the enemy tower. Simply attack tower and enemy creeps and use Alt key to monitor the creep health. Once all of them are below half HP, breathe fire and earn your bounty.

2. How to use Dragon Tail

a. Combine Dragon Tail and Breathe Fire as mentioned above to get early game kill.

b. When you have Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse the situation becomes a bit different. In team battles, of course you should disable the hero that has the highest damage per second first. Simply hex, walk near the hero, and stun him again.

However, in 1 on 1 situation the combo will be a bit different. First you backstab someone as usual, and stun him as usual. If the enemy has low HP already, then you can proceed to hex him and breathe fire on him. However, if the enemy’s HP is not that low, and you believe that you need to disable him 3 times (2 from Dragon Tail, 1 from Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse), then you should NOT hex him immediately after the stun is over. Follow him for 2 – 3 seconds before you hex him. Now catch up your enemy and continue to whack him. When the hex effect is over, you are ready to use Dragon Tail again (9 second cooldown baby), so whack again and end with Breathe Fire.

In the above situation, you should not hex him right after the first Dragon Tail is over, because if you do so, there is no way you can stun him with Dragon Tail the second time. Dragon Tail works only if the enemy is close to you, and you need the slow down your enemy with hex so that you can catch up with him when your Dragon Tail cooldown is ready.

c. Use Dragon Tail in team battles to stun enemies. This should be self-explanatory.

3. How to use Eul's Scepter of Divinity to lengthen the above combos:

a. Notice the short cooldown of your spells. Dragon Tail lasts 3.25 seconds and has a cooldown of 9 seconds. Breathe Fire has a cooldown of 12 seconds. Cyclone lasts 5.6 seconds. What does this imply? It means the enemy cannot run away from you when you use the combo. Here is how exactly it works:

• Start with Breathe Fire. Hit him once and stun;
  
• When the enemy begins to run, throw him to air. When the hero is back from cyclone, your stun should be ready again;
  
• So stun him once more and hit. When the enemy is still not dead and can finally move, finish him with Breathe Fire. Altogether you Breathe Fire twice (600 HP), Stun twice (200 HP), deals around 6 - 7 hits (let's say it's 500 HP). Evil!

4. How to use Elder Dragon Form:

a. Use Elder Dragon to flee! Remember you will gain bonus movement speed when Dragon Knight turns into an elder dragon. It is very hard to chase you when you run in Elder Dragon form.

b. Use Elder Dragon form to push and kill buildings. While this seems intuitive, there is still a subtle trick. Remember that splash and frost attack damage nearby units, including buildings? The trick is to aim your attack so that you will attack both the units and the buildings. One way of doing so is to charge near the tower so that enemy creeps will gather around you and the tower (that’s why you need high HP!). Then you will clear all the creeps and damage the buildings in less than 3 seconds if you breathe fire at the same time.

c. Use Elder Dragon form to slow down all enemy heroes. This should be self-explanatory. Again the trick is to aim the hero that stands at the middle of the group so that your splash damage hits everyone. In Red Dragon form, your splash damage deals FULL damage to all nearby units so it doesn’t matter which hero you attack as long as they’re all close to each other.

D2. Walkthrough by game stages:

D2a. Early game:

Pick a side lane. You don’t necessarily need a solo lane, because you don’t have to quickly rush to level 6 and do hero killing. Before you max your Breathe Fire, last hit creeping is the key. Once you have at least 3 levels of Dragon Tail and Breathe Fire, you can backstab and do the Dragon Tail/ Breathe Fire combo. Drink clarity potions after you’ve cast your combo. Remember you need at least 250 MP to use both spells at the same time. Your primary goal is to quickly get an Eul’s Scepter of Divinity because you need a bigger mana pool to spam Breathe Fire.

D2b. Mid game:

This is your weakest stage, because heroes do not fall that easily under your Tail/ Breathe combo, and you still do not have Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse. Not much advice here. Now that your mana pool and mana regeneration have improved, you can just use Breathe Fire to farm/ defend pushes, and catch careless enemies with your Tail/ Breathe combo. Remember when things go bad, use Elder Dragon form to run! On the other hand, if your team is pushing, use Elder Dragon Form and charge! 99.9999% of the people don’t know Red Dragon deals full splash damage, and everyone including yourself will be amazed at how fast you pull down towers and creeps.

D2c. Late game:

Late game is all about pushing and defending. Make sure your Elder Form Dragon is ready in all major battles (it does not harm to transform to Elder Dragon Form if you anticipate that major battles will begin soon, because Elder Dragon Form lasts 60 seconds). Your role is just a simple and boring tank. Disable enemies with Dragon Tail and Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse, clear creeps with Frost Attack and Breathe Fire, and then slow down the enemies for your teammates. If you have got Helm of Dominator, get Neutral creeps to assist your team. You’re pretty much doing the same thing no matter you are pushing or being pushed until the game is over. This is why I say Dragon Knight is a very boring hero – you’re pretty much doing exactly the same thing from level 11 onwards!