An Important Quote from Saw
"SAW. PUSH. TURRET".
"IF CONDITIONS UNSAFE, SAW LEAVE. SAW NOT COWARD, SAW MAKE SMART DECISION."
- Saw
Starting Items
Option 1:
(1) Weapon Blade (x2) : Double Weapon Blade for aggressive early game damage. Most Weapon Carries will start off with a standard Swift shooter + Weapon Blade while Saw can start off with Double Weapon Blade which provides early dominating presence.
Option 2:
(
OR
)
(1) Weapon Blade : Builds into Sorrow Blade.
(2) Light Armor OR
Light Shield: If you expect to receive a lot of harass from Weapon or Crystal Carry, pick either defensive item. Heros such as Celeste can really punish Saws impaired movements. A Light Shield will help reduce the damage.
(3) Minion Candy : Strengthen your minions. Allows one to push lane harder or alleviate the pressure when the opposing teams minion wave is about to crash into your turret. Note: Minions will to attack opposing enemy Heros who attack you. Buffing minions during a 1v1 trade in lane means more damage to opposing enemy Hero.
Abilities
Spin up:
A dual edge sword. This will make Saw very vulnerable but allows him to build items in a way that is very potent. This perk will grant him the power of quadruple Tornado Triggers. It's the reason you can skip attack speed items and substitutes it for just damage and Crit.
Roadie Run:
For a Hero of Immobility, you are presented with an ability that challenges this title. This ability can serve as a second active boots to escape from danger or to finish off low health enemies(up to 40% missing health). The Rolling back part of this ability can also serve as a way to escape but can be quite dangerous if not performed correctly. You might end up rolling into the enemy turret unintentionally. You can also go through walls when rolling backwards which can be useful for flashy escapes.
Suppressing Fire:
Applies a slow onto enemies and covers a great deal of distance. Vital ability for gaining your attack speed. Saw will be vulnerable when activating this ability for 2 Seconds, so be careful when activating this ability. This ability will also reset Roadie Runs cooldown meaning you can Roadie Run > Suppressing Fire(Roadie resets) > Then Roadie Run. This is a must know if you plan to go Crystal Assassin Saw but it is also helpful for playing Saw in general. This is also a great tool for harassing enemy from a far due to its great range.
Mad Cannon:
Not as impactful unless building Crystal Saw. Grants 2 stacks per shot. You can activate any time, so you can activate this in base to load up prior to a team fight. Though the single shots are good for finishing low health enemies off as it does damage based on their missing health(12%).
Early Game
Farming & Laning:
In order to receive your big ticket items, make sure you're farming well. Accumulate that gold for that big investment. While farming, be sure to move around by kiting back & forth. This will make you a little bit less predictable when ganked or when the enemy laner is trying to land skill shots. Saw morphs into a turtle due to his Heroic Perk so farm safely in a distance and careful not extend too far unless Teammate is around.
Saw has the highest Damage per second which you can abuse in the early game. If the laner tries to trade damage with you and you have full stacks, you can ideally out damage them. Saw is infamous for destroying turrets very quickly. Push turrets only if it is safe or your team is around assisting.
Leveling & Overdriving:
Leveling abilities will depend on your playstyle. If you believe you need to be more passive during a particular match, consider leveling up/Overdriving your Roadie Run ability. Each time you level this ability up, you will have a shorter cooldown on Roadie Run. Meaning your escape tool will be available more often. If you would like to be more aggressive, leveling up Suppressing Fire will allow you to apply more pressure to the enemy laner. At Max level, this ability will be able to apply 480 per sec(total 960 damage).
Leaving Lane:
Go back to base if you're low health and out of potions. If their is a lot of lane pressure, ping your turret so either your Captain or Jungler can defend it while you're gone. With very low health, enemy teams can turret dive and secure a kill so just take the safe approach and go back to base.
#ManaProblems:
Conserve your energy and use your abilities moderately in the early game. Each ability consumes a huge chunk of energy. You'll need the energy for a Roadie run to escape out of a bad situation. If you are a Crystal Saw then conserving energy would be difficult in such a case, you can consider an Energy Battery.
Red Item Investments:
Earn enough gold for a Heavy Steal on your first back. You'll eventually upgrade this into a Sorrowblade. If do not have enough for Heavy Steel, you can consider buying another Weapon Blade instead of Six Sins. Six Sins will grants you 15 additional Weapon Damage for 350$. You can receive the same 15 Weapon damage with a Weapon Blade for 300$ which is about 50$ cheaper(Saving 50$). Worth noting if you're desiring an item as impactful while managing your gold.
Defensive Item Investments :
+
Reflex block for Blocking stuns and ultimates. Consider purchasing early Reflex Block against stun heavy teams. Watch out for enemy Heros reaching level 6(Phinn, Koshka, Ardan ultimate's are all Reflex Block worthy). Sprint Boots for running from trouble. Also useful for reaching your team when a team fight breaks out.
Mid Late Game
Raw Damage:
A completed Sorrowblade along with Saws Heroic Perk will deal lots of damage per second. Saw has a passive that grants him 18% Atk speed for each stack(12 stacks = 216% Atk Speed). Compliment this immense attack speed with mostly Raw damage.
Crit Damage:
After Sorrowblade is completed, the next item you typical want to build is a Tyrant's Monocle. This will provide huge damage spikes. Aim for the most vulnerable squishy enemy and avoid hitting the Captain most of the time to be the most effective damage dealer. Consider building another Tyrants Monocle as it will increase the chance of Crits which will deal ridiculous amounts of damage. Saw will be very strong with X2 Tyrants Monocle and SorrowBlade.
True Defense:
,
This guide refereed Sprint Boots and Reflex block as defensive items because they do provide defensive utility. However, this is not enough. Saw will melt quickly before you can be useful and deliver damage. Thus do not neglect real defensive items. Buying a Coat of Plates
and eventually a Metal Jacket
against Weapon Kestrel will increase your survivability to out damage the opposition.
Journey Boots :
Journey Boots will help Saw secure kills and close distances. It's a very good option that I've recently been building over Halcyon Charges. Their are times when you are landing your damage on to an enemy but they've manage to run away and with Full 12 Stacks, you aren't able to follow them for those last finishing auto attacks. You can secure those kills by activating Journey Boots to move quickly while maintaining all of Saws 12 stacks. Being able to maneuver quickly with 12 full stacks can provide effective outcomes allowing you to kite and follow the enemy team while dishing out maximum damage. In addition, Journey boots cooldown will be set to 12 seconds when you land an auto attack which means it will be ready to use again in the next team fight so you can run around with Full stacks every team fight. No more Turtle Saw :D Just remember if you need to close distances, you can activate your boots for the aggressive plays.
Situational Items
Effective Red Items
,
Poisoned Shiv will apply a mortal wound which will affect enemy Heros ability to regenerate Health. It's an item worth grabbing against an enemy Lyra/Adagio/Krul/Ozo/Rona/Grace. Essentially Heros with Lifesteal or health regeneration. It's also pretty useful against most Captains actually because they will most likely build a Fountain. Bonesaw is effective way to deal with an enemy that completed a Metal Jacket. A small investment in a Piercing spear
to compliment your Big Red items can also help a bit against armored enemies.
Adaptive Defense:
,
Saw can be pretty squishy, Slumbering Husk works well against CP Heros with huge Burst(Koshka/Taka/Blue Joule). The Fortified health can buy a couple more seconds to survive in order to continue serving your role as DPS machine. Atlas Pauldron can be affective against melee Heros that stick on you such as Krul(he'll chase and run straight towards you, might as well lower his attack speed). Atlas is typically a not built on Carrys but it can be effective in certain situations.
Examining Saws Weaknesses
Saw immobility poses a number of issues. Firstly, Saw will experience a more difficult time with CP Mages. CP Mages will be able to land their skill shots more easily on a target that hardly moves. CP mages are unfortunately naturally counters to Saw. Secondly, securing kills on fleeing targets is another issue. To alleviate this, one should build Journey Boots as advise above. The best way to work around his inherit immobility is by positioning oneself in safe areas or behind your team while you deal consistent Dps damage.
Atlas Pauldron
Your worse enemy. Essentially every game you play as Weapon Powered Saw can be countered due to this item. Enemies not building this against Saw means their unaware of how detrimental this item can be against Saw. You lose half of your attack speed(50%), shutting down big portion of his Dps. A well timed Reflex Block can prevent an Atlas though. Also having a good captain that can push their Captains away from you helps as well.
Updates and Buffs
Saws old perk that buffed his Defense was removed and instead provided a normal Defense/Shield of 20 at the start of the game. Additionally, update 2.9 granted him a Defense of 60 at max level. This makes Saw one of the more tankier Ranged Heros now compared to other Ranged Heros who end up with 50 Defense at max level. SEMC justification for this was that they understood how vulnerable Saw was due to his slow nature and thus made him bit durable. In addition, all Heros were granted more health in update 2.9, further encouraging survivability for Saw and all Heros in general.
Saw has a strong oppressive early game but had really bad late game damage. However since update 2.9 dropped, Saws late game Weapon Damage has instead been buffed tremendously from 87 damage to 127 damage! Lastly, Update 2.8 has weaken the turrets health from 4000 to 3000 which means you can take down the turret very quickly, especially has Saw! Saw is much more viable and stronger as of update 2.9.
Team Comp
Saw pairs up great with Lyra
. Consider running a team composition where Lyra is sitting in the lane constantly harassing the enemy laner her auto attacks
. Use your greater range and suppressing
fire to bully the laner, constantly apply pressure. Apply this strategy unless your opposing laner is a CP Mage like Skaarf
or Celeste
. Lyra also provides great lane sustain, mobility when she pops her sigil
, an anti dive ability
and Arcane Passage
for gap closing which is all great for Saw.
Closing remarks
Thus the end of my Saw Guide. This is all my knowledge and view on playing WP Saw. This guide was initially meant to be more of an easy short read with mostly brief summaries. I will continue to update this guide every update if possible. If their are some areas that need to be reexamined let me know. Anyways, do your best playing Saw and have fun with whatever informative part of this guide I've equipped you with :)
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