Dota 2
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Chaos Knight- Creating Havoc
By Azula
If you are expecting the usual Chaos Knight build that uses an armlet, stop reading here. In this guide, I offer my way of playing the chaotic carry, which focuses on being faster than your opponents. This quite detailed guide was designed for beginners to intermediate players that want to learn a bit of what Chaos Knight does and my play style of him. However, anyone should be able to understand it.

This is my first ever guide, so any constructive criticism and helpful comments are more than welcome.
   
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Introduction
Chaos Knight (previously known as Nessaj) is a melee strength ganker and semi-carry hero. He is the only strength hero that naturally create illusions and in this guide, I use this to the advantage. Surprising and picking off single, unsuspecting targets is probably the best way to play him because unlike most other carries, he can be a scary opponent early game too. If you want to spend your whole game jungling with him, you are wasting amazing potential. His ultimate is a great pushing ability and combined with some unusual items, you'll have a high win rate.

His base stats are:

530 HP and 208 Mana Points
He has a very unpredictable base attack. 49-79 base damage
3.96 armour and 325 base movement speed.
Being a lot faster than most heroes can give Chaos Knight a significant advantage when chasing down enemy heroes.

Chaos Knight has 1800/800 sight range and 128 attack range.

He starts with 16 Intelligence with a +1.2 gain. So he is really going to have some mana problems.
He has 14 Agility with a +2.1 gain, which is a better Agility gain than most Strength heroes.
His Strength starts at 20 and has a +2.9 gain every level.


Why Choose Chaos Knight?
Why?

  • He is durable, which is good for any nukers the enemy team might have
    • Chaos Bolt has potential to be one of the longest stuns in the game
      • By using your second ability, Reality Rift, you can easily get close to enemies while gaining bonus damage. If you have many illusions, this will almost always guarantee a kill on most heroes.
      • His phantasms are the best illusions in the game and work very well with his crits.
      • He has the best and coolest-looking mount in the game. :D

      Why Not?

      • I highly recommend buying lots of clarities or a bottle in the early game to sustain his mana needs.
        • Unless you have great micro skills, Chaos Knight cannot do as much as most heroes in team fights.
          • For the above reasons, I do not recommend Chaos Knight to new players.
Skills
Chaos Bolt

Chaos Bolt is an unpredictable stun that can last anywhere from a lowly 1 second to a game-changing 4 second stun. It can also do any amount of damage from 1 to 275. This is disregarding any levelling up, however, as the maximum and minimum stuns and damage scale as the game goes on. This skill costs 140 mana.


Reality Rift

An ability unique amongst heroes, Chaos Knight's second skill, Reality Rift, brings and target towards Chaos Knight whilst bringing Chaos Knight forwards. This skill also brings any illusions that you might have, and once you get to a high level, you can completely trap anyone with phantasms. It has 550/600/650/700 range and 60/100/140/180 bonus damage per level. The mana cost is 50 for all levels.


Chaos Strike

A simple crit-based ability, Chaos Strike has the lowest activation chance in the game, but deals the highest amount of damage. The chance always remains at 10%, but the crit is 125%/175%/225%/275% per level. The crit also reduces the target's armour by 5 for 8 seconds, making it even easier to pick off squishier heroes in a gank, and also helps to make heroes like Axe or Sven less durable and easier to break down



Phantasm

Chaos Knight summons phantasms. These illusions deal all of the damage, but take twice the normal damage. There is a 50% chance of summoning an extra phantasm. By using Reality Rift, Chaos Knight can bring all of his illusions to the enemy. Phantasms last for 42 seconds and can be used for three main purposes: scouting, destroying towers and of course, killing any lone, vulnerable enemies. The mana cost is 125/200/275, with a 140 cooldown and 1/2/3 phantasms per level.(excluding the potential extra phantasm)
It is interesting to note that this ability leaves Chaos Knight invulnerable for 0.5 seconds, allowing him to dodge any nukes or stuns if you time it right. A majority of negative buffs are removed upon using this ability.
Items like an Armlet or Mask of Madness will only affect all of the illusions if you activate them before summoning any illusions or phantasms.
Skill Build

This is what I recommend to skill. However, you do not need to stick to this build and can change it or modify it in any way. Normally I level up Chaos Strike at the start and then leave it, but I also suggest levelling up Chaos Strike to the maximum to avoid relying on mana at the start of the game.
Any suggestions in the comments are welcome.
Starting, Early and Core Items
Start:




Sage's mask assists with some basic mana regeneration, and clarities are a must. Buying a Sage's Mask will also allow you to buy a very helpful item for Chaos Knight- Soul Ring.




Early Game:

Power Treads are the most common and most effective boots on Chaos Knight. Intelligence is normally the best option, but some extra strength is always welcome.


By using the Sage's Mask from the start of the game, building a Soul Ring is easy and effective. One of the most easy-to-build and useful items for Chaos Knight, I believe a Soul Ring is vital to Chaos Knight's success because it can solve his mana problems while granting a small health regeneration bonus.

While it may seem out of place, a Blade of Alacrity will not only benefit your attack speed and defence, but it can be used to build some very helpful items later on.


An item that is completely optional, I find that the bottle can be very useful in the early game and can be used to avoid making trips back to the base.


Core Items:

OR It is best to pick only one of these. A Yasha can obviously be combined with a Sange to create a Sange and Yasha or a Manta Style, both of which are highly recommended. However, a Diffusal serves an entirely different but effective purpose. I only suggest buying a Diffusal if the other team has any casters. (Skywrath, Pugna, Outworld or Lion are some examples)

One of the only items you'll need for playing Chaos Knight. Not only can it help the team, but it also allows you to chase down anyone you need to or otherwise escape. The extra Intelligence is also not to be ignored.

A Sange will complete your Sange and Yasha, but I recommend it to be later used for a Heaven's Halberd. The slow may seem minute, but it will really help later in the game.













Situational Items
These are items you might want to finish off or build to assist you. Keep in mind that Chaos Knight does not require any expensive items to do well in the game.

Heaven's Halberd is one of my favourite items because of the amazing disarming active, which is great against most ranged heroes. It also grants extra damage and a significant amount of strength as well as 25% evasion. When you add this to a Diffusal Blade, there is no way any enemy can escape the wrath of Chaos. It also looks really cool and has the best item name in the game.

I have mixed feelings on the Sange and Yasha. It can be easily disassembled at any time, but I feel like the things it offers are not worth the price. If you have already built a Drum of Endurance, you are probably going to be faster than most heroes anyway. So building a Sange and Yasha is completely optional, but I think a Manta Style is a better use of the Yasha.

Manta Style. One of the best items for Chaos Knight. Creating even more illusions can really confuse enemies, and you can use it to push even more. It also grants Intelligence, which again, is great.

The only reason to buy this item is if you have any extra money from all of that killing you were doing earlier. It grants amazing bonuses for many things, and again, allows you to slow enemies and amplify their damage taken. If you aren't already killing them with a single critical strike, you'll need this. Amplifying damage can be pretty damage for Chaos Knight.


To fully utilise Chaos Knight and his illusions, a good boost would be regeneration and damage. A Heart of Tarrasque will help with this, and will let you survive more easily if you happen to be ganked. I recommend this item for more defensive players.


When paired with a Heart of Tarrasque, Chaos Knight will be very hard to kill, but it will be very easy to kill others. Black King Bar is another item that isn't completely necessary, but very useful, all the same.
Allies
Chaos Knight can easily solo a lane, but it is always helpful to lane with a good Support.

Keeper of the Light can obviously help with any early game mana problems you might have, which means you could possible skip buying a bottle or even a Soul Ring. As long as he doesn't drain your farm, Ezalor is one of my personal favourite assists to any hero. If you are new to the game, you can get a friend to play this easy hero for you. They also are both fundamentals of the Universe, and Chaos Knight has been looking for Ezalor's head for years.






Again, Crystal Maiden assists with mana, but not as actively as Ezalor. However, she serves a different purpose, which involve her stun and 'Crystal Nova'. If your Chaos Bolt or Reality Rift is out of mana or still on cool down, Rylai can easily stun them or slow them with Crystal Nova. If you manage to stun and entrap an enemy, she can use her ultimate to possibly wipe the other team at the same time. However, she is squishy, so you might have to end up looking after her instead of the other way round.






While Dark Seer is usually played as a solo or with 'wombo combo heroes' like Magnus or Enigma, I feel like he can work well with Chaos Knight, too. Eon Shell+Phantasm+Reality Rift+Chaos Bolt= a dead enemy. The speed boost is great too, and Vaccum is almost like a free Reality Rift. :D I like thinking outside the box. Comment below if you think this works with you or not.







When low on health or mana, Io is who you should call. Overcharge can really benefit you when dealing with a tank or a few enemies at a time. Wisp's relocate is great for banking, obviously. Getting kills with Chaos Knight isn't vital, but greed can be good.









Omniknight is a great assist to Chaos Knight, because of both his healing capabilities and his second skill, which allows magic immunity. Unlike all of the other assists that I have previously mentioned, Omniknight is the only other hero that is actually tanky. If you use Reality Rift+Purification on level 1, that should be +180 damage, if used in succession. 'Repel' is also useful against most nukes and stuns that Chaos Knight could be vulnerable to on the first few levels. Another reason to pick Omniknight with Chaos Knight is because of his slowing passives, which can allow you to get that extra bit faster for the kill.



Because of all of the slows that Venomancer brings, I can suggest pairing him with Chaos Knight. You can probably tell that this build focuses on being quick enough to kill, and you'll most likely have no trouble with Venomancer in terms of speed. One problem with Venomancer is that he runs out of mana rapidly, so he'll probably need to go out of his way to buy Arcane Boots.







Skywrath Mage. Arguably one of the most annoying heroes in the game. He has slows, silences, nukes... and that makes him a very good partner for Chaos Knight. One way of getting a quick kill is Chaos Bolt and then Mystic Flare. But he could also be useful by spamming Concussive Shot while you are running away, or Mystic Seal when you are facing heavy nukers like Lina, Lion or Zeus. Mana won't be a problem for either of you with a pair of Arcane Boots.






Chaos Knight works well with most heroes, but this is my final recommended hero to assist him. Not only can Shaman turn enemies into a brilliantly feeble fowl, but he can also bind enemies for your phantasms to wreck havoc on. What is worse than several immortal flaming plane-wandering knights beating your tower to rubble? Ten flaming serpents doing it at the same time.
If you play with Chaos Knight and Shadow Shaman on the same lane, it will always be a fast game.


Enemies
If you don't have good micro-managing skills, then these heroes are a threat to Chaos Knight when you have lots of phantasms. Another counter to Chaos Knight are heroes with Area of Effect spells, but generally speaking, Chaos Knight should have a very limited amount of problems.

Whether you are going solo and suddenly he shows up, or when you are in a big team fight with your phantasms, Earthshaker is just going bully you all game. With his Blink Dagger and multiple stuns, Chaos Knight is someone you probably will not want to pick if the enemy has an Earthshaker already.








Like Earthshaker, Lich is going to destroy your illusions and you too, unless you have good micro-managing skills. When his ultimate is on cooldown, he will slow and annoy you with his Frost Blast. His Ice Armor is going to slow you and render you unable to do much killing, so again, I do not recommend playing against a Lich with Chaos Knight.








While he may seem out of place here, Outworld Devourer can actually be a big threat to Chaos Knight. If Outworld lanes with a disabler, he can have enough time to use his ultimate on you, which should actually do a large amount of damage. His first skill, Arcane Orb, does more damage to illusions, therefore removing the strength of his ultimate. He is only a minor threat, however, if you can get close.




Conclusion
To conclude, I made this guide to cater for all players, including new ones. Chaos Knight can be played in almost any style, but this is the one that I usually go with. Your strategy should be to stay on a lane until you are ready to gank, and then go kill some unaware heroes.

Any feedback and constructive criticism is very welcome, and I would like to know what you thought of the build. If you have any advice please tell me below in the comments.

This is my first guide, so I hope it went well and was easy to understand. Thank you for reading.

Note: Most of the images are not appearing for me in the guide, please tell me below whether this is just a fault of my laptop or if this applies for you, too. Fixed! :D
35 Comments
HANZone 8 May, 2016 @ 4:50am 
at least give him some lifesteal XD
EVA 6 May, 2016 @ 6:56am 
lol, its this 2010 ck build?
comes straight from battlenetXD
reddbest01 4 May, 2016 @ 10:10pm 
ck is a counter to OD
CAPTAIN AHAB 4 May, 2016 @ 9:48pm 
+medusa as a threat to ck
76561198131134319 4 May, 2016 @ 12:56am 
zzzzz ty
3 May, 2016 @ 4:33pm 
How do you make the hero build, as in, the part that shows up in the game. I tried making a build, but I have no idea how to add the slots so it will tell you what to buy in game and what moves to get. anything helps. Thanks
filho da puta de merda 3 May, 2016 @ 2:36pm 
Also if you don't mind my intromission yet again, I would also strongly recommend going for an Armlet in a lot of games. Crazy dmg, survivability, attack speed, if you armlet toggle very well you can get away alive from some impossible situations. Yeah the downside is it drains your HP but it works on your illusions, meaning you can activate it, use your ultimate then de-activate it so your illusions will get the Armlet active buff permanently(and it won't drain their HP). Plus, if you get a Tarrasque you can keep your armlet active all the time.

I hope some of my ideas prove to be useful to anyone around here, thanks for reading :)
filho da puta de merda 3 May, 2016 @ 2:32pm 
I think you should add Invoker to the list of counters too, since he has A LOT of AoE spells which can wreck all of your illusions and he can also burn your mana away with EMP. Also my personal favorite build is maxing both Chaos Bolt and Reality Rift by level 8, meaning I only get the passive at level 9 and ultimate at levels 10 and 11. Overall this has been the skill build that worked the best for me, since his ultimate is not really that great at lvl1 and by level 6 I don't have that much mana & mana regen to be able to pull off stuns, rifts AND an ultimate anyway.
Azula  [author] 3 May, 2016 @ 2:15pm 
@Minx @Destiny
Sorry, my bad. I edited that section of my guide to include the armour reduction.