Moonshard is nice when u are snowballing to snowball even more. Otherwise AC and moonshard as 7th item.
usually ac, unless they don't have anything armor reducing, or any agi carries. then you could go for moon shard if you want to rat.
Like 99% you go for AC, even if Moon shard would be good, AC is more versatile.
if they can hurt u w physical dmg, get ac. if ur the badass rocking the gayme and wanna end at 15min mark, moonshard is ok, too.
i guess 80% of the time, it will be ac over moonshard.
There's really no general answer for this, but as general as it can get:
AC:
When you're a hero who severely lacks armor but needs to tank in your team, like Doom, Tiny or LC
When THEY are running an armor reduction strat and nobody else has an AC (sometimes it's okay to go dual/tri AC if they simply melt all of your armor, but it's rarely optimal)
When YOU are running an armor reduction strat and nobody else has an AC (in this case you benefit from only one AC in fights).
When your right click is actually not garbage, if it is, probably just get Shivas and let somebody whose right click is not garbage get AC, because that's bonus 30 attack speed only that person gets.
When you're front lining/tank for your team who benefits from attack speed. If you don't, get shivas instead.
When you're not the only right clicker in your team.
MS:
When you're so far ahead that nobody can kill you anyway, and just want to push and end. This can backfire, though, if you get overconfident.
When you're so far behind that you can't actually tank anything whether with AC or not, so you hope to do as much damage as possible during the disables provided by your team.
When you actually have competent disablers on your team at all points in the game, and just need to attack and burst people with physical DPS, and not tank anything.
When your team's physical damage is very limited, so your team does not really benefit from going -5 armor on the enemy team, but you still need tons of attack speed (like when you're position 1 Sven who only benefits from -5 armor on primary targets)
When you're ganking and going a lot of 1v1 fights with a basher/other proc chance item/ability and can afford to have lower defenses against physical damage (like having lifesteal or just outdpsing everyone).
When you're slark who benefits from tons of weak attacks by stealing stats. AC just doesn't help you that much.
When you're a slot starved hero who needs 3-4 core items to function and you can't decide what to keep but have to buy something for the next fight. You can't "eat" AC.
When you really need tons of attack speed, and most of the opponents' damage is magical.
Basically, it boils down to this:
Is your hero supposed to take physical damage in fights?
NO -> Moon Shard
YES -> AC
With a variation regarding teamplay where you might take one for the team anyway, of course.
But there's no really easy answer, even in same contexts sometimes moonshard is better than ac and vice versa. Like when you manfight, sometimes it's better to have more armor and reduce the opponents', sometimes it's better to be able to attack faster, it all depends on a variety of factors.
Moon shard is a tiny bit more dps than AC but it's not enough to be worth losing all that defensive armor. I don't think I would ever build moon shard first, difference is maybe 10% dps.
Are you comparing a 5.2k Gold Item to a 4k Gold Item? AC, Always. Aura= team benefit; better push, better physical damage, more armor for everyone.
There is no flat difference, it depends on a lot of factors. If your targets have 20-30 armor, -5 armor does jack shit, unless you're running an armor reduction strat where somebody has deso, somebody solar crest, somebody ac, and your picks are slardar dazzle venge etc.
Also 65 attack speed difference is pretty slight if you already have 300 bonus attack speed. But it's very good if your attack speed's actually negative at level 16 (like with tiny).
Difference in AC/MS DPS is much bigger on heroes who don't already have good attack speed, aka, who have really shit agility gains or abilities that impair their attack speed (like Grow). Also minus armor, as I said, gets less effective the more you have, so calculations depend a lot on when you get the item, who you get it against, what your hero is, what other items your hero has, etc. If for some reason you have mjollnir and mask of madness, it's likely AC's more effective, especially if your targets are generally going to have, say, ~15 armor at best.
BTW AC costs 1.2k more than moon shard so you shouldn't just compare how good they are, but if it's worth it.
And also keep in mind that MS can get AC's attack speed without taking a slot... For 4k.
I calculated it once on towers and moon shard was still like 10% more dmg with aghs and treads. Here I'll post it again for shits and giggles.
Link to AC build (with treads and drums):
http://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/hero-calculator?id=lxxdgMTftEZUgXf8
351 dps before mitigation
6894 ehp
Moon shard:
http://devilesk.com/dota2/apps/hero-calculator?id=funp3xECpYs95Chx
471 dps before mitigation
4510 ehp
A tier 3 tower has 22 armor. That's a 56% reduction (rounded) so you do 44% actual dmg. With ac it's 17 armor so you do 49.5%. Fortified armor however takes only half dmg from heroes. So after mitigation on a tier 3 tower:
ac = 351 * 0.495 * 0.5 = 86.875
moon shard = 471 * 0.44 * 0.5 = 103.62
Difference is 16.745 or moon shard does about 19% more.
That's a little more than I remember. The ehp difference is gigantic though and this is also in a bubble only considering tiny. When combined with team dps, just one more person is going to make AC come out ahead.
"f your targets have 20-30 armor, -5 armor does jack shit"
That's not true at all, armor reduction is a linear equation, each point of armor increases ehp by 6%, reducing someone from 30 to 25 is a 30% reduction in ehp, same as going from 5 armor to zero armor.
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title....obviously depends on enemy
some general case scenarios would be useful..i already have a decent idea but im always open to opinion
check my last game as tiny just now....got an AC before MS...was an easy stomp so i basically could have gone either way but if it was neck and neck and i had to make a decision what would have been a better 3rd item?