Glaive is a melee hero, who excells at different roles through all stages of the game. In the early game he is an excellent ganker, in the mid game he is also pretty much a beast with this build, that is of course he gets a good timing on his items, but on that later. And late game, well, GOODBYE EVERYBODY!!! Of course, like every hero, Glaive has pros and cons, because otherwise the game would just be boring and pointless. So here we go - the
pros and
cons of GLAIVE.
PROS
Excells in all stages of the game, however...
EPIC late game
Can deal damage to a crowd and not only to one person
Very versatile
Quite a bit of raw HP
Can gank the lane constantly to get that BOOOOOOOTTYY!!!
CONS
Doesn't have a lot of armor himself
Can be easily killed using magical sources of damage, especially in the early game, so...
Can be countered in the early game by constant ganks
Can be countered if the enemies have a hellish load of armor early on in the game
As you can see, this build has more
pluses than
minuses. So, let's talk about the item choices.
First of all, you need to buy 3
Halcyon Potion. They not only provide with that extra bit of survivability to escape from ganks, which believe me, can happen at any time, but also will give you a bit of health and even mana regen, which are crucial for a jungler such as
Glaive. As well as that it will mean that you will always be able to use your
Afterburn at will and that can be used either as an escape mechanism to get away from ganks or as an initiation tool to go and gank the lane whenever you want to do so. Finally, using this build, you will be farming most of the time in the game and
Halcyon Potion, especially when coupled with the regen from the minion in the jungle, will make sure that you will be able to stay there as long as humanly possible.
Then, you have the
Ironguard Contract, which is very important for a jungle carry like you. It will provide a huge boost to your farm if you are going to play this build properly. Basically, because about half/quarter of the time you are going to spend in the jungle farming and so taking damage constantly you are going to get a hell of a lot of money. As well as that, when you are going to go gank the lane and your carry will last-hit the creeps, you will still get at least some gold from it. Lastly, it provides you with that extra little bit of health regen, which can sometimes be crucial to your survival.
Finally,
Flare Gun. Oh boy, it can help you SO MUCH as a
Glaive. First of all, a couple of tips on when to use that precious 1 charge of the
Flare Gun. Whenever the enemy uses THEIR charge, you should know that they are most probably scouting you out to gank you. Therefore, whenever you see that you are being "Flare Gunned", know that the enemy is most probably just lurking around the corner, waiting to eat, 'cause believe me, in the early game you are a delicious piece of meat (OM NOM NOM). And so, whenever you see that this is happening, immediately use YOUR charge. Secondly, if you want to go and farm your creep camp that is just near the enemy's territory or even if you dare to farm on the territory of your nemesis, use the
Flare Gun to make sure that there are no opponents sitting in the bushes waiting for their breakfast to come to them. Lastly, I have already mentioned that you should always keep a Flare Gun handy whenever you have a
Taka on the enemy team. I have seen so many times, how this hero escaped on very low HP in his
Kaku and it was this inattention to
Taka that made him snowball (become stronger and stronger) to eventually become a BEAST in the late game. To prevent that from happening, you should never be afraid to reveal him with your
Flare Gun whenever he goes into his
Kaku.
Sprint Boots, then turned into
Travel Boots are very important for
Glaive. I recommend for the first 300 Gold that you will earn in the jungle to instantly buy your
Sprint Boots from the "jungle shop." It will not only give you that extra bit of movement speed to chase down the enemies which are escaping from you in those early skirmishes, but can also help you to escape from the ganks of the enemies, which is very important to a successful late game. Then, as soon as you manage to accumulate 700 gold, you should go and buy your
Travel Boots. They not only add to your tankiness and survivability by giving you that extra 150 HP and 3 Health Regen, but will also give you the chance to move around much quicker between the camps and thus significantly increase your farm rate, because of its passive skill which gives you +1 movement speed outside of combat. Finally, this upgrade also decreases the cooldown of the active movement speed boost, so you may not be afraid to use it to chase down escaping enemy heroes or to get away from the ganks. You should aim get this item by around the 3-3:30 minute mark to get maximum efficiency out of it.
Scout Trap is also a very important aspect of playing with
Glaive. They are that important because with good min-map awareness they will help you avoid any incoming ganks. There are several places where I usually place my Scout Traps and here they are -
You should also know that when you are playing
Glaive, especially when you play with friends you are technically not the one that's meant to buy, because it will disrupt your farm and it can come to be pretty costly and a support should buy it, blah, blah, blah... Still though, I usually buy all of the mines myself, because only you as a
Glaive can know where to put your mines, so that they can be most beneficial to you.
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