Comprehensive guide to Leshrac, the Tormented Soul

This guide aims to become a resource for players who want to learn how to play Leshrac efficiently. I consider him a powerful and fun hero to play, and I hope this guide convinces more people to try him out. I assume those reading this guide already have an idea of Leshrac skills, so I don't explain them here.

Introduction

Leshrac is an Intelligence hero known for his devastating Area of Effect and Damage over Time skills. He's a versatile hero and can be played as either a semi-carry or a support. He's also one of the most powerful pushers in the game.

However, aside from his good Movement Speed, he lacks a reliable escape mechanism and is quite squishy. He also has long casting times in most of his skills, which means it's easy to miss enemies when using Split Earth, and common for them to escape after you cast Diabolic Edict.

While Leshrac can be played in many roles, I'll focus on him as a semi-carry soloing mid for this guide, since it's my favorite role to play when using Leshrac.

Item and skill build

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=128901667

Playstyle

Lane and Rune control

I personally consider Leshrac an excellent semi-carry, and prefer soloing mid when playing him this way. This means I need to apply pressure in other lanes, control the runes and deny as much experience from my opponent as possible.

A lot of people think winning your lane means killing your opponent or at least forcing him to go back to base. While this contributes a lot to winning a lane, it's not the only way of doing so.

Let's assume I'm up against Invoker. I probably won't be able to kill him because of the regeneration he gets from Quas, and he should be able to beat me in last hits/denies if he goes for the popular Quas/Exort build. However, one thing he can't do as well as me is pushing a lane. I can take advantage of this and, instead of actively trying to kill him, focus on farming and getting runes.

Assuming I have vision of at least one rune spot, I should have greater rune control than him. If for some reason he decides to contest a rune, then he'll be missing out on experience and gold, since I pushed the lane to his tower.

Skills

While Split Earth might seem tricky to land at first, remember you can take advantage of your enemy's lack of vision. Unless the opponent's actively moving, you should be able to land your stun with a bit of patience as long as you're uphill and no enemy creeps can see you.

Remember Diabolic Edict also has a casting animation, so using it while chasing might not be the best idea unless you know you can quickly catch up to your enemy.

Lighting Storm is a fairly simple nuke, but you can use it to prevent your enemy from last hitting by animation cancelling.

Pulse Nova is an incredibly damaging skill, but you should try to use it as little as possible early game because of its high mana cost. Once you get Bloodstone, however, this should not be a problem anymore.

Teamfights

Teamfighting with Leshrac is relatively simple, considering you have a bouncing nuke and 2 AoE skills. However, in order to maximize the potential of those last 2 skills, you'll need to be in the middle of the fight. Wait for the initiator to go in, then use Split Earth and try to hit as many enemies as possible with it. Only then should you go into the thick of battle to make the most out of your damage.

Mastering Casting Animations

In order to play Leshrac to its full potential, you'll need to keep in mind casting animations. Most heroes in Dota 2 have cast times, but Leshrac is known for his particularly long ones, which might be frustrating to deal with for players new to him.

Here's a quote from PlayDotA (http://www.playdota.com/learn/animations) that's simple to understand for those of you unfamiliar with cast times:

Originally posted by PlayDotA:

Spells

• Casting Animation: Heroes with spells must go through an animation that consists of two parts, the casting point and the casting backswing.
  
• Casting Point - This is the time between where an order for a spell has been given, to when the spell is actually cast. By canceling here (like with stop command), the unit will not cast the spell and the spell will not begin cooling down.
  
• Casting Backswing - This is the animation which is purely cosmetic after a spell has been cast. This portion of the casting can and should be canceled to prevent your hero from simply standing there moving his or her wand.

Leshrac has an 0.7 seconds Casting Point (from now on refered to as CP) and an 0.8 seconds Casting Backswing (from now on refered to as CB). This means you can save time after casting any of your spells by cancelling the CB, giving you an extra 0.8 seconds to move, attack, cast another spell, etc.

Remember that cancelling a spell's CP will save you from wasting mana or activating its cooldown. You can take advantage of this to bait enemy heroes such as Puck/Obsidian Destroyer/Shadow Demon into using their skills to dodge your spells. Then you can cast your spell, knowing the'll have a harder time escaping it. This is particularly useful when using Split Earth, since you'll be able to hit enemies more often.

Here's a useful video for those of you still struggling with the topic (skip to 2:10 if you're only interested in spell animations):

Rune and lane control

If you're following this build and playing safely, you should be able to have Bloodstone, Boots of Speed, Bracer and Bottle by the 20/25 minute mark. However, playing safely does not mean staying in lane and farming all game. It means you want to gank, but only when you're almost sure you'll get a kill or more out of it.

Leshrac has great lane and rune control, and you should use this to your advantage. When the enemy creep wave crashes with yours at about x:45 (where x is an odd number), use both Split Earth and Lighting Storm to quickly push the wave to your enemy's tower. This will leave him with a difficult choice:

• Contest the rune and lose on a lot of gold and experience and, quite possibly, the rune itself.
  
• Letting you get the rune uncontested, allowing you to gank.

In both cases, you gain a powerful advantage over your enemy, and that's what this game is all about. Exploiting your advantages and abusing your enemy's weaknesses.

Ganking

A lot of people underestimate the power a rune can give you. It can be used for a lot more than refilling your Bottle. The following is a list of my favorite runes for ganking purposes (in order of preference).

• Invisibility: Most of the time, Leshrac needs a set-up stun before using Split Earth. This rune lets you get a perfect stun off, since your opponents won't be actively trying to dodge it. However, if your opponents are going up against heroes such as Bounty Hunter or Clinkz, it would be a good idea to gank another lane, since Sentry Wards might have been placed. Remember you can activate this rune and quickly use a Bottle charge without going visible again.
  
• Double Damage: Leshrac has great starting Intelligence and Intelligence gain, which translates into great damage. Because of this, Double Damage can be quite lethal on him. When I get this rune, I like coordinating a gank with a hero that has a reliable stun (Sven, Chaos Knight, etc.), which I then follow up by Split Earth. Coupled with the damage from the rune, it's usually enough to kill the enemy.
  
• Haste: Even though Leshrac doesn't benefit from max Movement Speed as much as someone like Templar Assassin, that doesn't mean this is a bad rune. Haste lets you position yourself for a Split Earth much more easily and, most importantly, makes it easier for you to block a fleeing opponent, giving your allies time to catch up and attack him.
  
• Regeneration: While Regeneration is quite useful in lane, it doesn't do much for ganking other lanes. However, if you're being chased and manage to get out of sight for a few seconds, this rune might give you a kill on an overconfident enemy.
  
• Illusion: While this rune has its benefits, ganking with it is probably not the best idea. I prefer activating this rune 1 minute before the next one spawns and sending one illusion to each rune spot, giving me greater rune control.