If you want huge DPS and mobility, I've heard of Phase Boots and Yasha. The downside is you're really fragile so you need to position yourself and decide when to jump in. For more survivability you get ultimate orb.
Basically, if you're not aiming to be a farmfest am, you rush Manta because it syngergises very well for you.
Theres the reaaaally old Vanguard+Basher build but you do so little damage with it and it requires considerable farm.
If the game is going really bad, Threads, Cloak + a few stat items. This is when you have to contribute to fights.
I've seen some people like Luminous go for treads, vanguards, yasha, vlads. Should try that out sometime too.
Personally if the enemy is playing really aggressive and it's hard to farm from the start I would go for:
Treads, yasha, bkb, vit booster, vlads, basher.
When it gets into late game and I am able to afford it upgrade yasha to manta, vit booster to heart, basher to abyssal, then sell the vlads (a support can buy vlads) and get a butterfly.
Edit:
I would rather turn the stout shield into a poor man's shield.
Have a casual vit booster to turn into a heart.
It's natural to have tranquil boots in the vlads build since you can take the parts out to make the vlads anyway, which means regen should be ok.
If you really need more regen from the ring of health still just leave it as a casual ring in case the game slows down and you can still build a bfury and flash farm to 6 slotted.
What I'm saying is I would never actually turn the stout + ring of health + vit booster into vanguard.
^ My personal views and does not represent Dotabuff.
"I'd really like to play AM more because he seems fun" I stopped at this sentence. But really, if you can't farm well a Vanguard or a simple Vit Booster is pretty good on him as he has blink and spell resistance. Also a yasha just gives him tons of DPS for his price.
@Sam Fuckin' Peckinpah
What I was saying is it feels really rewarding to play him in a lot of situations (nothing beats blowing up a split push prophet with Magina) but without a lot of items he's really not much of a threat to the enemy team and can be shut down so easy (in most games the enemy team is just gonna pound on you like a pack of rabbid wolves) and I was wondering if somebody out there managed to find a skill/item build to make Magina more "safe". The battlefury rush build seems like an "All in" sort of thing, if you don't get it in time and manage to make good use of it, you just lost.
just go for a battlefury before 20-25 min and go cut the forest then manta style before 30 and heart heart of tarrasque before 40. And dont forget to help your teammates because if they totaly down nothing will help you
Back then a good build on AM used to be
Phases, Vanguard, Manta into situationals
Blink into phase helps you being super aggresive during laning and in general that build was meant to be able to fight early. It is an old build, however It might fit your needs
I tend to build to fit who I am fighting, if they have a lot of int or agi heroes I focus more on armor buffing and attack speed - so items such as STOUT, TREADS( for the health or dps gain ), most players I see going gor yasha first but getting the ult orb into MANTA gives you greater str and agi, Then focus on getting either a BUTTERFLY or an AC depending on their agi heroes.
This build focuses on boosting AM's attack speed letting him burn more mana from heroes with large pools stopping them from using them in team fights. The speed boost from MANTA combined with blink gives great escape and chase potential. VLADS is an item I would ask my supports to get. BATTLEFURY to me is a luxary item or if we have a magnus on the same team as it combo's well.
I don't get why people think battlefury is so bad if you're not going to afk farm. It's still 65 dmg, mana regen and hp regen. Gives you longevity so you don't need to return to base or pop consumables. Say you're laning and you get that ring of regen early, can really give you staying power. It's not ridiculously expensive and builds well in pieces. Compared to say deso it's a few hundred gold more, trades armor reduction for hp/mana regen. I don't get why people hate it so much and say it's for afk farm only. You can push lanes really hard with it, which maybe isn't AM's ideal role but with blink he can push a lane and escape fast.
Last couple of days I try something different other than that standard BF rush on AM. Just my thoughts:
1) Treads, PMS and Necronomicon(sooner the better) - it gives you a lot of hp, great damage from necro, it synergies with AM ult, it allows you to fight early because of the demons from necro. The downside of this build is lack of regen so you have to rush vlads after or replace treads with tranquils.
2) Treads, fast Vanguard(around 5-8 min, not later) + Vlads - a lot survivability, can fight early if the situation requires, all these items are cheap so there won't be a problem to farm them.
3) Linken's sphere - while it may look like a weird item for AM it's not that bad. It gives mana regen, hp regen, +15 stats and of course the passive effect from linken's that makes AM basically ungankable.
All these builds are viable but if you see a situation where BF(even a fast one) would be a burden to your team and yourself, that's usually a lost game.
Ok, listen: BF is a requirement on AM unless you are doing some sort of specialty strategy that includes your other 4 players. In the case of being crushed hard in the beginning, you STILL get BF. The only differences:
1.) Get stats instead of mana burn, mana shield, and high levels of blink (go 1 point into each followed by stats until your game is recovered). This gives you more HP to man fight and help the team as well as survive ganks. You don't need high levels of blink, because you aren't flash farming the jungle anyway, blinking away won't stop your raxes from dying, and it only helps in the rare case of being ganked (you can blink away again after blinking). In this case, you have the man fight stats, so a TP to save + you and them fighting together should suffice.
2.) Get treads before BF. Again, this gives you more hp and man fight. With a stout shield, you can even start to jungle a bit if lanes are off limits, especially if you acquired your ring of health for your BF already.
3.) Nothing else changes after this - get your BF, get your blink skill maxed, and go flash farm wherever you can - their jungle, your jungle, any available lane, and so on. Carry a TP.
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Basically, I'd like to hear what others generally go for when they play AM and know they won't be able to do the 30 min grinding.
The reason I'm asking this is 'cause I'd really like to play AM more because he seems fun, but I rarely win with him (don't know if it's the skills or the build) as opposed to some other melee agility carries which I'm very successful with (spectre/juggernaut).
Please post your thoughts/experiences.
Thanks !