Guide to Dragonus, the Skywrath Mage. Dragonus is the epitome of all glass cannons, and as a rule, more HP for him is a must.

He can play any lane, but midlane is preferred due to his strong harrassment capability. Well, don't go to midlane if you know there are heroes that counter you though, like Nyx Assassin, etc.

Dragonus can play serveral different roles, but this guide will be on how to be the ultimate glass cannon. Finishing off the supports in a teamfight ASAP is your main responsibility, and chasing down stragglers and survivors is your secondary responsibility. Outside of teamfights, try to harrass and kill off the hard carries on the enemy team if possible, and gank as much as possible.

If you won't survive no matter what, remember to at least cast your Ultimate before dying. Please don't attempt to target multiple targets with it though, 3 heroes is the max you can go about it. The damage is spread evenly across the number of heroes hit (not including Illusions and non-hero targets, so don't hesitate against using it on Manta'd heroes or those with the Image Split ability like Naga Siren, Chaos Knight, etc). With 3 targets in the AoE, you'll be doing a maximum of 400 damage with level 3 Ultimate.

Dragonus might have extremely high burst damage capabilities, but he is not without weaknesses. His horrible Strength gain means you'll desperately need HP items to avoid being cannon fodder, and he specializes in taking out individual targets; you'll face great difficulty surviving ganks from multiple heroes. Also, he has no fast way of farming creeps until you get Bloodstone (which allows you to spam Arcane Bolt on creeps whenever it is ready for use), so your gold will mostly come from hero kills.

Now, onto the skill build. Fairly simple, max both Arcane Bolt and Ancient Seal ASAP, taking one level of Concussive Shot, and getting Mystic Flare whenever possible. The rest will be pumped into stats instead of maxing Concussive Shot because the slow duration and amount remains the same throughout. The way you go about leveling Arcane Bolt and Ancient Seal is flexible though, do as you deem fit. Regardless, by level 10 you should have maxed both. Taking stats over extra levels in Concussive Shot is straightforward; you'll need the extra stats more than the measly 50 damage increment and 2 second-faster cooldown per level.

If possible, don't initiate a gank with Concussive Shot. It'll simply alert the target and allow him to escape beforehand. The only situations where you'll have to initiate with Concussive Shot is when the target has a Blink Dagger. Start with Ancient Seal to prevent usage of skills (note that it won't stop item usage) and use your Rod of Atos after that, while spamming Arcane Bolt whenever possible. Alternatively, you can attempt to predict the target's path of movement to land a Mystic Flare if he's slowed enough, to guarantee a sure-kill. Do note Mystic Flare uses a considerable amount of mana, Pugna's Ward will certainly kill you if you're not careful enough.

Once you have your core items (Rod of Atos, Ghost Scepter and Bloodstone), you can choose to transition into a support role with Mekansm, wards, etc, or continue to build toward a fully Intelligence-based build for maximum firepower with Arcane Bolt. At level 25 without any items, Arcane Bolt deals 318 magic damage before reduction. That's fairly high for a spell with 70 manacost and 2 second CD.

All in all, Dragonus is a powerful mage that excels in taking out single targets and chasing down survivors, as well as silencing the hero with the most dangerous spell in a teamfight (Magnus, Enigma, etc). Unlike the other burst damage specialists like Lina or Lion, he can somewhat scale into lategame fairly decently because of the stats multiplier on Arcane Bolt, but don't count too much on it as 1.6x isn't exactly a very big amount.