The Idea Top
The idea behind this build is that it incorporates the extreme damage of an assassin with Glaive's awesome tackiness as well as his ability to do high AoE damage. It also gives Glaive high mobility for chases and running, and even peels and CC. The only thing that Glaive lacks here is sustain damage. Because he happens to have the highest starting WP in the game, even without items his basic attacks give him decent damage, though not enough to go head to head with someone without your abilities.
Who To Play With Top
This Glaive is completely reliant on CP, so playing with Mages and any other CP Carry like Petal is pretty much out of the question. Because this Glaive is also reliant on burst damage, you best choice for a Carry would to be to go with a hero with high SUSTAIN weapon power. Someone like Ringo or Saw is very good, and Glaive is incredibly helpful for Saw, since your Afterburn stops them from getting away from Saw while he has any spin up stacks. A weapon power Joule can be great too since they can take the lane for you and can deal pretty serious sustain weapon damage.
As for Supports, Ardan is amazing. Not only can you knock him into Ardan's Gauntlet, but because you have burst but no sustain, you can go in and out of the Gauntlet to get away from your opponents while your abilities are on cool down. Ardan also deals some pretty good weapon damage, so he works very well. Catherine is super helpful for finishing ganks or peeling for you when your abilities are on cool down so she can be very useful, although Fortress and Adagio don't bring much to help you while you are playing this way.
How To Fight Top
GANKING AND AMBUSHING IN GENERAL
First of all, we are going to cover ganking. When ganking, you obviously are going to Afterburn to your opponent and knock them into your team. But the angle of how you do this is very important. First of all, you are dealing tons of crystal damage, so try to go through the hero you are knocking back, and their support if you can when they play duo lane. Now if you knock your opponent back toward your team too high, your Support can't come in to help with damage and they get away. If you go to low, they simply continue on and escape into the jungle. The best thing to do is steer a middle course so that they can't do either. Your carry shouldn't be in the middle of the lane during this time or their carry can simply focus on him after he gets hit and he may die. Instead, have him try to go down low so that your support is there to protect him and if needed your carry can escape into the jungle. The other good part about this is that as you Carry starts to go low right before the gank your opponent will think he is leaving lane and might push up farther, allowing you to score the easy kill.
The other important thing is to know how to use your abilities. This is extremely important for ganking but it can also be used for any fight where the person might try to get away. When you start, you use Afterburn. Then, you target your opponent and Twisted Stroke. Your critical hits sweep a four meter cone, but all we ae worried about is the four meter part. It hits before you could have used a basic attack and therefore you get an extra attack. It also has a crystal ratio so it does quite a bit of damage. The you kite your opponent while doing basic attacks while your allies attack as well. When you are getting close to the turret or when he is beyond your basic attack range but inside Bloodsong's range, hit Bloodsong. Hopefully you are at twenty stacks and it does full damage. This way of attacking is almost guaranteed to core you the kill.
1V1
When facing someone in a 1V1, the most important thing is to know whom it is you're facing. If it's Skye or Taka, run away screaming. Krul is weird. He can be bursted down but if you can't take him out immediately than run away. Anyone else, follow this basic pattern.
Because CP Glaive is all about burst damage, after you Afterburn into your opponent you knock him back. Hit him at Twisted Stroke's max range then retreat slowly. They should follow, knowing that they can now take you out since you are out of abilities. Except that your abilities are now on very short cool downs. After about half your Afterburn cool down is up, hit Bloodsong. This should now put them very low and they should start to retreat. If they don't, that's still ok. Keep your distance, but always remain about 6 meters away. Once Afterburn is back up. Hit them with it, then try to hit them into the nearest wall. This gets them closer so that you can use basic attacks and your Twisted stroke which should be up by now to finish them off, if you didn't already kill them. For someone like Petal, Adagio or Saw, who have huge ranges, you might want to do your initial retreat into brush to force them to take time to find you, making their range less useful and improving your cool down time. If they don't follow you? Great, you just did tons of damage and took almost none in return.
Obviously this doesn't apply to every single fight and is not always doable, especially early game, but these are just some good tips to follow. Find what works best for you.
Team Fights
When going into a team fight, this is where Glaive's unique attributes really some into play. Along with your support, you are a huge initiator. Try to single out the biggest threat to your carry and Afterburn him into the middle of your team. Have everyone focus him. Use the Twisted stroke at max range technique I talked about in the Ganking section to deal the most damage to this one hero. The fact that both you and your support should be tanks, you shouldn't have lost anyone. At this point, you all start to focus on their team's other damage dealer. This is where you use Bloodsong, hopefully at max stacks. You can also use Bloodsong earlier if you can get both of their damage dealers in it. Try to use the initiating Afterburn to do this as well. By the time your carry is dead, you might be dead. Or maybe your carry or support. But now you and your other remaining ally should be able to finish off their support for the ace. They shouldn't get away, since at this point you should have your Afterburn back. It's down to a science.
Early Game Top
CP Glaive in the early game is not very good. The Afterburn uses almost half you energy and takes 24 seconds or so to cool down so you get your Twisted Stroke first, but then your job is to get the Afterburn up to level 5 ASAP so you can start dealing some damage. Try to jungle as much as possible to gain the levels you desperately need, but once you have a few levels , you can try invading the enemy jungle for some farm steal, and if you get into trouble, Afterburn away, though make sure you Afterburn away THROUGH someone to deal some extra damage. You can go through walls with it so it is a very good escape tool. Otherwise, gank as often as possible, since you are the best ganker in the game, and jungle as much as you can.
Mid Game Top
For this Glaive, mid game is defined as reaching level eight. This is the point where you can start looking for fights. Keep ganking as much as you can, but now you should periodically do a three person jungle invade, which with you, a high sustain WP carry, and someone like Ardan or Catherine, make you almost always win fights, since you will be facing only two guys, and then the third after he realizes what is going on. Use your Afterburn to knock enemies not only towards your side, but also towards the bottom of the screen, so it makes it harder for them to escape to the lane. It also brings them farther away from their laner, making it more time before he catches up and can help out.
After level nine, you pretty much don't improve much more until level twelve, where you max your Bloodsong, so these few levels you have the biggest advantage, use it well. By now you should have your Shatterglass and Clockwork as well as either a Dragonheart or a Reflex Block, so you will be pretty tanky, as well as be able to do plenty of damage.
Late Game Top
Late Game is defined for Glaive as reaching level twelve, where you gain a large power spike. At this point you are very tanky and deal an incredible amount of burst damage, and most teams are somewhat sticking together, so pick many team fights. This is an incredibly powerful team fight comp. Try to use Afterburn to single out their Carry or secondary damage dealer, though it's your pick, whichever is more likely to take out your carry. After all, he is the one who is going to be dealing the most damage after you use your bursts. This is often an assassin. Your high bursts as well as your mobility make you very good at last hitting the Kraken, and most teams won't expect you to cover ground so fast, so you might catch them out often trying to take her on.
This time of the game is when ultimates can get very powerful, so make sure you use your reflex block to block things like Adagio, Catherine, Ardan, Celeste, Skarrf, Vox, Skye, Ringo, Petal, Joule, Rona, Glaive, or Koshka's ults. Damn, RB is useful.
Thanks so much for reading my guide. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them in the comments. Also if you notice any errors I made, please point them out, I would like my guide to be as statistically and grammatically correct as I possible can make it.
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