1. Overview 1.1 Itemization 2. Captains 2.1 Lance 2.2 Adagio 2.3 Lyra 2.4 Catherine 2.5 Flicker 2.6 Fortress 2.7 Phinn 2.8 Ardan 3. Mechanics 3.1 Body Blocking 3.2 Stacking 3.3 Peeling 3.4 Vision Control 4. About The Author

Arguably the role with the least love, yet the most influential role, captains are protectors who takes the damage for the team and/or protects his allies. A captain's role is to provide vision, engage a team-fight, start objectives, protect allies, disrupt enemy team, and it is a very stressful, but vital role. There are currently 8 viable roamers: Lance, Catherine, Lyra, Ardan, Phinn, Flicker, Fortress, and Adagio.

Knowing what items to get is important to being a successful captain.

The Fountain of Renewal is undeniably the most influential support items. When playing as the captain, it never hurts to rush the Fountain of Renewal. However, in the case of Adagio and Lyra, the Fountain of Renewal can come later in the build due to their built-in heal, allowing Adagio and Lyra to prioritize other important items. Fountain of Renewal's heal scales with missing health, so holding onto your Fountain till the last possible moment before healing is usually the best way. However, it is important to heal your allies before they die so the best time to health is when your allies are below 30% health. Fountain of Renewal shoots out an projectile, this can help you determine close-by enemies when enemy captain use their Fountain. In some cases, it may help you determine the location of an invisible enemy.


The Crucible is an item that I find have the most arguments on whether to get it or not. I personally recommend this item strongly due to its ability to do some insane clutch saves with its barrier. Crucible is a must-have item against Verse of Judgement, Blast Tremor, Crystal Ringo's Hellfire Brew, Oblivion, and Forced Accord. Additional, it is a good item to have against Gauntlet, Aces High, Yummy Catnip Frenzy, From Hell's Heart, Bangarang, Valkyrie, and Death From Above. Like the Fountain of Renewal, Crucible's barrier scales with missing health, so if you are not using it to block huge crowd controls, it is best to hold on to it and use it for low health allies to maximize the barrier strength.


Atlas Pauldron is every basic attack based carry's nightmare. A common misconception is that weapon powered heroes are the only heroes that will be weaken by Atlas Pauldron, but truth is that any hero that heavy relies on basic attacks will be severely weaken by Atlas Pauldron regardless of their damage path. Atlas Pauldron is best used as follow up when engaging after using either Impale, Blood for Blood, Merciless Pursuit, Truth of the Tooth, Arcane Passage, and Forced Accord. For Adagio players, the best time to use Atlas Pauldron is when you slow down the enemy with Gift of Fire to guarantee landing it. Note that if you plan on being a backline support and the enemy don't come after you often, Atlas Pauldron is not needed.


War Treads, like Fountain of Renweal, is another must get support items. No other items is as good for engaging and disengaging as War Treads. With the new item Echo instroduced, many Catherine tend to pick it up for that 5 second silence. War Tread is a nice "counter" to that. If you see the Catherine using Blast Tremor the first time, activate War Treads to disengage, then use your Crucible to block the second Blast Tremor.


Contraption is the best item to counter Taka, Kestrel, and Flicker. Only get this item if you plan on providing vision for the entire game, not just early game. Also, keep in mind that Contraption is the cheapest item that will provide you with the most Cooldown Speed. See more information on Contraption at Vision Control


Stormcrown is the best item for increasing your objective clearing speed. Keep in mind that Stormcrown does very little damage against enemy heroes so items like Aftershock is way better for teamfight damage. Another important thing to note is that the true damage have to be charged up to deal its maximum damage. So while the charging time is very short, building a ton of attack speed will only increase your damage output slightly.


The Nullwave Gauntlet is super-effective if your team composition is based on heavy burst damage/heavy cc. Good tip is to engage by using the Nullwave Gauntlet onto the enemy captain. The enemy captain would have two choices: to waste their crucible, or to take the silence. If they decide to take the silence, this is when you follow up with all your damage, this is also a great time for Blast Tremor, Forced Accord, and Verse of Judgement.


Shiversteel is an item that is rarely seen now, but this item synergizes well with the captains: Lyra, Fortress, Ardan, and Lance. The reason why you may want to pick this item up is if you need to keep the enemy close by for your carries. This is also an amazing item to help peel for your teammates.


The Metal Jacket is what is consider a selfish item that doesn't provide any team benefits. As of now, the only captain that can provide team benefit with the Metal Jacket is Phinn with his Polite Company. The only case a captain should ever get the Metal Jacket is if the enemy team is double Weapon Power.


Just like the Metal Jacket, the Aegis doesn't provide any team benefits and it is consider a selfish item. As with the Metal Jacket, Phinn is the only captain that can provide team benefits with the Ageis and a captain should not buy the Aegis unless the enemy team have double Crystal Power.


Echo is a very risky item that you should only buy as your 6th item. Because this item provide almost zero helpful stats, it is often better to buy another item. Catherine is by far the captain that will benefit the most from echo with her 5 seconds of silence from her Blast Tremor. Phinn may be able to use his Forced Accord twice, but it is better to take advantage of his perk Unstoppable and build more defensively. Flicker with echo can go for a 18-20 seconds of invisbility with his Moon Cloak. Ardan can even set up 2 Gauntlet, but anyone can just use boots and a Reflex Block to easily escape. Also, beware Fortress player, activating Attack of the Pack twice will cancel out the first pack of wolfs, so no 6 wolfs.


The Aftershock is by far the best item that allows Captains to deal chunks of damage but also provide helpful stats like cooldown reduction. This item should be picked up after your core items completed and you desire more damage. Captains like Catherine, Fortress, Ardan, and Lance have abilities that synergize well with Aftershock. Heroes like Flicker with his low cooldown can take advantage of Aftershock too.


The Poisoned Shiv is an item that should usually be the 5th or 6th item for a captain. The main purpose for this item is to counter Adagio, Lyra, Ozo, Krul, or sometimes even Rona, and Blackfeather. Basically, get Poisoned Shiv if an enemy is causing you many problem with built-in healing or have Serpant Mask, Poisoned Shiv, Eve of Harvest, or multiple Fountain of Renewal. Synergizes exceptionally well with Ardan, Lance, Fortress, and even Lyra if you want to build weapon on support Lyra.


In all events, you should always pick up the Crystal Infusion instead of the Weapon Infusion due to the additional cooldown reduction Crystal Infusion provides.


Minion Candies are usually not too useful. However, with the new aggressive Crystal Miner, A minion candy can really help stop a jungle invasion, especially if you are behind and you need help killing the enemy team.


The Ironguard Contract is an item that is mainly used to help out captains who can't tank too much damage such as Catherine, Flicker, and Fortress.


The Dragonblood Contract is mainly used if you plan on being aggressive early on.


The Protector Contract is mainly used for early defensive purposes. It is helpful for captains with no direct ways to protect their allies such as Lance, Catherine, Flicker, and Fortress.

Lance

Lance is the best captain if you need to peel for your teammates and if you need early damage.

Partisan's Technique Slot: Heroic Perk Lance's basic attacks damage every target along their path. However, his attacks are slow to land and attack speed is less effective on him. Instead of energy, Lance uses stamina to activate his abilities. Purchasing items with energy and energy regeneration increases his stamina and stamina regeneration. Max Stamina: 100 + 30% Max Energy Stamina Regen: 25 + 50% Energy Regen

Items such as Sorrowblade and Stormcrown allows Lance to have extremely fast clear times. Although Lance's attacks are slow, his perk works well with Shiversteel and Poisoned Shiv since his can apply them to multiple targets. A combat roll plus Shiversteel can set up for an easy Impale.

Impale Slot: A Lance lunges forward and strikes through his opponents, dealing weapon damage and rooting them in place (max 1.6s). Overdrive: At max rank, ths ability also resets the cooldown of Combat Roll if Lance hits an enemy. If this attack hits at least one enemy, Lance will immediately recover from the ability. Deals reduced damage to minions.

A single weapon blade can turn this ability into a surprisingly high damage ability early on. However, crystal will increase root duration. Only use this ability to escape if you are crossing over a wall, because often times walking is way faster than impale and miss.

Gythian Wall Slot: B Lance smashes enemies back with his shield, dealing weapon damage and also stunning them if they collide with a wall or structure (max 1.6s). Afterward, he holds his shield steadfast, greatly reducing incoming damage from the target direction by up to 90%. Overdrive: At max rank, Lance ignores all negative effects (from any direction) while this ability is active. Damage reduction is 50% effective against turrets. Passive: Lance strafes around the enemy he has most recently attacked. While strafing, he reduces damage from the target's direction by up to 50%.

Build some cooldown speed and you got yourself an annoying peeling ability that will make your enemy want to tear their hair out. This can also block a lot crowd control with the overdrive. Although Impale does do more damage if you upgrade it, Gythian wall is the better choice to upgrade first due to the high damage reduction passive it gives. The passive allows Lance to be an excellent body blocker too. A tip I learned is that when attempting to stun the enemy, tap where you want them to go, not tap on the enemy.

Combat Roll Slot: C Lance rolls in the target direction. His next basic attack within 2s will strike quickly, dealing bonus crystal damage.

Of all the Captains, Lance have the less game-changing ultimate abilities. However, Combat Roll is an extremely useful ability to rush to your allies aid and can perform some clutch body blocking as well as some impossible escapes to prevent an ace. A combo you can use to maximize your damage output is Combat Roll - Impale - Basic Attack (with slow from first combat roll) - Combat Roll - Basic Attack. Combat Roll also can set up some great group stuns if you roll in front of your enemy and push them into a wall.

Alpha excels at engage but lacks escape, Lance can help peel for Alpha with Gythian Wall as well as push away anyone trying to finish Alpha off while she is rebooting

Lance roots enemy allowing Reim to follow up

Lance roots the enemy and allow glaive to afterburn in and get an easy gank. Great for early game and mid-game

Special Items:

Lance is one of the roamers that have items not listed in the itemization section:
Shatterglass combined with a Crystal Infusion can maximize Lance's root and stun durations. Consider this item if you feel like you want more damage and your crowd control duration isn't long enough.
While Sorrowblade provides no team benefits, it will greatly increase Impale damage. Only build this against squishy enemy carries.

Adagio

Adagio is the best captain to pair up with fast auto-attackers. Build a lot of health to make his Gift of Fire stronger.

Arcane Renewal Slot: Heroic Perk Whenever enemies burning with Arcane Fire take damage from any source, Adagio regenerates 25% of that damage as energy.

Take advantage of this and apply Gift of Fire to as many enemy as you can. You shouldn't have energy problems

Gift of Fire Slot: A Heals a target ally, then splashes Arcane Fire onto nearby enemies. If Adagio heals himself, he'll also apply a heavy slow to nearby enemies. Arcane Fire (status effect): Burns the target every second and causes Adagio's other abilities do deal more damage. Burst heals the target instantly, followed by a gradual heal over the next few seconds. Burst Heal is increased by 9% of Adagio's bonus health. When cast on self, slows nearby enemies by 70% for 0.9s. Resets basic-attack cooldown on activation.

Gift of Fire is a burst heal that burns all nearby enemies. One of the best times to use this ability is when you ally is standing near a lot of lane minions or in the midst of the enemy team. You shouldn't lost energy if you use this effectively. If you know you are going to die, try to cast this to the nearest ally.

Agent of Wrath Slot: B Temporarily boosts an allied hero's next several basic attack for 6s. Deals bonus damage to enemies afflicted by Arcane Fire. Bonus damage is increased if Adagio casts this spell on himself. Resets basic-attack cooldown on activation.

Agent of Wrath is best used on an ally that attacks fast so that they can use all the stacks before it disappears. The damage is increased by Crystal Power so a Shatterglass can be worthy of consideration, or even an early Crystal Bit.

Verse of Judgement Slot: C Adagio channels for 2s then deals heavy damage to all enemies in a wide ring around him. Enemies burning with Arcane Fire are also stunned. Adagio temporarily gains fortified health while channeling.

Gift of Fire slow + Verse of Judgement is almost guaranteed a triple stun. Try to use Verse of Judgement only if all your abilities are on cooldown and enemy already used Crucible.

Ozo works great with Adagio due to his perk allowing him to take more heal as well as his Three-Ring Circus which applies Agent of Wrath

Rona works great with adagio due to her high attack speed and her Red Mist, which let adagio regain a lot of energy from one gift of fire.

Adagio helps Taka with his clearing speed and allows crystal Taka to have more consistent damage

Lyra

Lyra is the best captain when it comes to shutting mobile heroes. Build a lot of health for the Imperial Sigil.

Principle Arcanum Slot: Heroic Perk Lyra's attacks are arcane missiles that deal crystal damage. if she holds her ground after releasing an attack, she automatically follows up with a heavy attack. Each channeled missile consumes 15-20 (level 1-12) energy, but Lyra can continue using these even if she runs out of energy. Light attack damage: 60-95 (level 1-12) (+40% crystal power) (+100% weapon power) Heavy attack damage: 70-180 (level 1-12) (+120% crystal power) (+100% weapon power) Heavy attack slow: 0% (+0.05% of bonus max health)

Lyra's arcane missiles make items like Shiversteel, and Stormcrown really effective. Lyra can also buy an Alternating Current to help damage enem carries. An Alternating Current also allow Lyra to take advantage the existing slow on her perk more effectively. Lyra's missiles also makes her a great lane bully while her allies can safely farm.

Imperial Sigil Slot: A Lyra creates a sigil that heals nearby allied heroes and damages nearby enemy heroes. Reactivate this ability to detonate the sigil, dealing heavy damage to enemies while providing a move speed boost to allies inside and immediately consuming the remaining duration to heal at 30% effectiveness. The healing per second is increase by 15% of Lyra's bonus health. The sigil depletes faster the more heroes it is healing/damaging. The sigil has vision, so it can see enemies. The Detonation deals 50% less damage to minions.

In a team fight, try to place the Imperial Sigil directly under the carry you are trying to heal, ping them if you need to let them know. While the burst heal no longer exists, the burst damage is still there so you can still pick up kills by throwing the sigil and exploding it. Imperial Sigil also provides vision so you can check bushes with it, however, I do not recommend this as if a team fight automatically breaks out, your heal would be on cooldown. Imperial Sigil's speed boost can help with early ganks if you time it right.

Bright Bulwark Slot: B Lyra creates a walled zone around her, damaging and applying a slow to surrounding enemies. Enemies inside the zone are slowed. Enemies attempting to dash through the wall are stopped. Enemies who cross the wall take the same damage and slow again.

This one ability can counter many other abilities and even shut down some hero's kit entirely. Time it right by placing it down the moment the enemy tries dive into your allies. It can cancel many gap closer including Yummy Catnip Frenzy, X-Retsu, Rocket Leap, and many more... A good escape is to place down bright bulwark and then use Arcane Passage to get away. The enemy team shouldn't be able to follow via portal.

Arcane Passage Slot: C Lyra teleports to the target location, creating portals at both ends that allow anyone to teleport across. Portals last for 8.5s. After travelling through a portal, heroes must wait 4.5s before re-entering one. Enemies inside of Lyra's Bright Bulwark cannot enter a portal. Heroes standing directly on top of a portal as it forms must step off the portal then re-enter to use it.

Arcane Passage is a great engage, especially paired with an Atlas Pauldron. Arcane Passage can also allow for interesting back doors. You can also peel for teammates if you time it to teleport right in the way of the enemy, sending them back to your original location.

Reim lacks engage, Lyra provides it with either the movement speed boost from Imperial Sigil or Arcane Passage. Plus Bright Bulwark also stops any mobile heroes, giving Reim an easier time

Ozo takes greatly increased heal from Lyra, which can make Ozo very hard to kill

Catherine

Catherine is the best captain if you are facing high burst heroes or you have high burst allies. Build as much cooldown as you can after your core items are done.

Captain of the Guard Slot: Heroic Perk Catherine gains 1 armor & shield every time she stuns or silences or silences an enemy hero with her abilities.

Catherine's perk allows her to be strong later the game goes. Unless you are going to fight soon, try to stun the enemy as much as you can to build up the stacks. Getting an early Chronograph will help you out a lot later on.

Merciless Pursuit Slot: A Catherine gains a burst of move speed. Her next basic attack is replaced by a powerful stun attack. Resets basic-attack cooldown on activation.

Merciless Pursuit is Catherine's main crowd control and should not be used whenever it is off cooldown. It is important to hold your stun and use it to disrupt the enemy at the right time. For example: stunning an Ardan out of his Gauntlet is a huge game-changer, same goes for Verse of Judgement, or even Big Red Button and many more ultimate abilities. Tap on the target you want to stun before tapping Merciless Pursuit. This way, the game walks Catherine over to the target so that even if they attempt to stack, you can still stun the right target. It also helps with stunning enemies mid-air.

Stormguard Slot: B Activates a protective bubble that reflects damage back to nearby enemies - especially when it comes in large bursts. Reflects any damage above 7.5% of base maximum health. Reflect damage is spread out to up 3 nearby enemies. Each reflection reduces the shield duration by 0.2s. Also damages enemies around Catherine while Stormguard is on.

This is one of the best trolling abilities of all the captains. Great against huge bursts of damage and weak against small ticks of damage. Stormguard makes Catherine one of the best body blockers. Whenever your stormguard is off of cooldown, try to intentionally take huge damage, such as activating stormguard and stepping into Active Camo mist. Keep notes of what you can deflect damage off of and only activate stormguard to body block that damage. Don't activate stormguard without a purpose. Also, I have learned that the damage reflected is calculated before defense, so building a lot of defense won't lower your reflected damage. Another thing to keep in mind is that while Crystal power doesn't increase the reflected damage, you still gain cp-life steal and you can increase the damage dealt with a broken myth.

Blast Tremor Slot: C Catherine slams the ground, damaging & silencing enemies in a large cone in front of her.

Blast Tremor is one of the most influential ultimate amongst Captains. If you want to, you can get 5 seconds of silence with an Echo. Try not to engage with this ability due to the fact that it is easy for the enemy team to just turn around and disengage. Use it after the fight started so that it is harder to notice it, especially if enemy carries are tunnel-visioned. Usually you want to follow up with high burst damage right after the silence.

Catherine stuns the enemy carry and sets up an easy Rocket leap for an easy gank.

Catherine stuns the enemy carry and sets up an easy Afterburn for an easy gank.

Flicker

Flicker is great working with high burst melees as well as other invisible heroes. Requires some extreme team coordination to be effective.

Willow Whisper Slot: Heroic Perk Flicker gains stealth and a move-speed bonus when in brush for 2s. Flicker can then leave the brush and remain stealthed for 3s. Flicker has true sight while stealthed. Taking damage, attacking or using abilities removes stealth.

This ability is great for scouting ahead, plant scout traps in unsuspected places, land atlas pauldron successfully, and great for ganks. Keep flares on you to check for scout traps that can ruin your plans.

Binding Light Slot: A Flicker commands his fairies to swarm the target location for 2s, dealing damage to enemies within it. When the effect expires, fairy light roots any enemy heroes still within the area.

Binding Light got to be one of the hardest abilities to land. You should always try combo this with Fairy Dust or even Shiversteel to guarantee landing Binding Light. This ability is most effective if you place it at the entrances of bushes so the enemy doesn't see it or suspect it.

Fairy Dust Slot: B Flicker swirls fairy dust around him for 3s, slowing and dealing damage to anyone inside the dusted area. After 3s, the dust ignites, dealing a burst of damage.

Fairy Dust is great against melees. Most effectively used is if you combine this with Flicker's perk. This will be your best ganking tool as well as peeling ability.

Mooncloak Slot: C After 1s, Flicker and his allies temporarily gain stealth and a move-speed bonus. The stealth will break when a hero uses an ability, attacks or takes damage. All heroes affected by this ability will have true sight while stealthed. After a short time, that hero will stealth again so long as Mooncloak's duration has not expired.

Mooncloak is a team invisibility and it is a global ult! Try to signal your teammates with pings to let them know you are planning on using the ult. It is best used as an engage if you have already checked the area out with a flare. Always keep track of you allies, because there can be times when they are being chased and can be saved by invisibility and it doesn't matter where you are since the ult is global.

A great invisible duo. that can strike out of nowhere. Great for early game fights

With the help of Flicker, Krul can sneak up on enemies now without being spotted, plus Flicker's Fairy Dust is great combined with Krul's play style.

Fortress

Fortress is the best Captain if you intend on full aggression. Fortress is also a great counter to Flicker.

Packmates Slot: Heroic Perk When Fortress is near an allied hero, he will move faster after 1s. He will maintain this move-speed bonus so long as he's alongside any allied hero.

Fortress's Perk allows him to excel amongst mobile junglers. For most of early and mid game, you shouldn't need to build much beyond Sprint Boots until you are ready for the War Treads. When facing off against a fortress, if you see him running at high speed, often times you can tell there is another enemy near him.

Truth of the Tooth Slot: A Fortress lunges at his target and marks it, granting allied heroes increased move speed and lifesteal towards his target.

Truth of the Tooth is a great engage ability and it also works great with Aftershock. The best time to use this is if you know your allies will follow up with a lot of damage to take advantage of the brief life-steal it provides. In desperate situations, you can always wall jump with Truth of the Tooth to a minion with a scout trap.

Law of the Claw Slot: B Fortress claws his target, causing it to bleed for several seconds. After receiving 6 basic attacks from Fortress and his allies, the target is dealt a burst of damage based on its maax health and receives mortal wound (reduced healing). Overdrive: At max rank, the burst of damage additionally slows the target by 40%. Bleeding damage per second: 10 (+15% crystal power)

Law of the Claw is great to use as a follow up after Truth of the Tooth. It is good to have a fast attacker on your team to detonate the stacks that is applied with this ability.

Attack of the Pack Slot: C Fortress summons a pack of wolves. Each pack wolf seeks out a different enemy hero. It takes three separate attacks to kill a pack wolf. Wolves apply bleeding with their basic attacks. Wolves take normal damage from abilities and are granted 20% of Fortress' bonus defensive stats. Fortress gains fortified health and attack speed when the wolves are summoned. Wolves take damage equal to 75% of their max health from turrets.

Attack of the Pack is one of the best abilities to counter Flicker. Whenever you are taking an objective and you need to know if any enemy is sneaking up on your team, use this to reveal their locations. This is also great for engaging because the enemy team have to choose between attacking you and let the wolves bit them or kill the wolves first and let you have a few seconds to attack them. The wolves can be great body blockers too.

Speedy Duo and great for early game engages, can set up for some aggressive jungle invades.

Another speed duo that excels at chasing down their enemies

Nothing will escape this duo. Blackfeather is great for detonating the stacks for Law of the Claw.

Phinn

Phinn is the best Captain if you need to protect your entire team and keep the enemy team near you. The more tankier you build, then better.

Unstoppable Slot: Heroic Perk Phinn cannot be stopped or stunned. All movement-impairing effects are instead reduced to moderate slows, and stuns are converted to silences. He even shrugs off attempts on his life, passively gaining 18% additional armor, shield and max health from items and effects.

As the name suggests, Phinn is an unstoppable tank that can negate many crowd controls. For this reason, it is great to pick him against captains that relies heavily on crowd control like Lance and Catherine. His perk can also render Ardan's Gauntlet useless. His perk also allow him to be one of the tankiest captain late game.

Quibble Slot: A Phinn slams his anchor down on the targeted location, heavily slowing enemies for 1.1s. Overdrive: At max rank, the slow becomes a stun! Deals reduced damage to minions.

In all scenarios, always take the overdrive first. This is great for helping to clear minions. An easy combo to use is Polite Company, and then Quibble to follow up. Keep in mind Phinn's weak spot is under him since it is hard for Quibble to hit there. A single Crystal Bit can make Quibble a surprisingly hard hitting ability early on.

Polite Company Slot: B Phinn stomps the earth, damaging all enemies in a wide area and nudging them toward him. The effect reverberates around allies, temporarily granting them fortified health. Fortified health increases by 5% of Phinn's bonus health and 18% of Phinn's bonus armor/shield.

Polite Company is a great ability to pull mobs, pull any enemy that is hiding at the edge of the bush, and great for peeling enemies off your allies. Polite Company also allows Phinn to be the only captain that can make Metal Jacket and Aegis have team benefits. Polite Company can also cancel X-Retsu from my experience.

Forced Accord Slot: C Phinn throws his anchor in a direction. After the anchor reaches its destination, Phinn yanks it back, damaging all enemies in its path and pulling them back to him.

Forced Accord can be both good and bad. This is another great ability to peel for you team. There are certain heroes you would not want to pull in towards you allies, such as a Reim. Krul, and even a SAW. Force Accord may not be able to pull the Kraken, but it can pull the gold miner, which can make for a funny steal.

Krul needs stickiness, Phinn can provide that by pulling the enemy team in.

Phinn's kit greatly helps out Rona with her Red Mist

Blackfeather's rose trail greatly helps out Phinn

Really slow duo, but a melee's nightmare to deal with

Ardan

Ardan is the best Captain if you need to protect your squishy carry early on and group the enemy up. Always stack on as much health on Ardan as you can.

Julia's Gift Slot: Heroic Perk Ardan benefits from purchasing health items. Whenever Ardan takes damage, he heals for 0.8% of his missing health, but no more than 75% of the damage taken. Instead of energy, Ardan uses a yellow meter called Vengeance. Vengeance builds over time and can also be gained with basic attacks, critical strikes and abilities. Because Ardan doesn't need regular energy, 5% of bonus energy and 50% of bonus energy recharge are converted to crystal power.

Due to Julia's Gift, Ardan can easily tank the minion waves and keep it alive without losing too much health. Be sure to build heavy health items such as Crucible and War Treads to maximize the perk's effect. Attacks like Forward Barrage that deals small ticks of damage shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Vanguard Slot: A Ardan dashes to protect an ally, granting them a 2s barrier and a burst of move speed. This also slows and damages nearby enemies. Overdrive: At max rank, Vanguard grants 50% Vengeance when cast on an ally. Using this ability on himself results in only half the barrier, speed boost and no Vengeance gain. Barrier scales up with 35% of Ardan's bonus health. Any time this ally takes damage, Ardan gains Vengeance.

Just like Ardan's perk, Vanguard takes advantage of heavy health items. Vanguard is an excellent ability to peel for you teammates due to its slow. Always take the overdrive on this ability due to its valuable range increase. When escaping, try to take a separate path than your allies and then if any enemy decides to chase you, wall jump with Vanguard over to your allies. When starting the game, if your laner intends to go to lane and not meet up in jungle, give your laner a Vanguard when you go separate ways so that he can get to his lane faster.

Blood for Blood Slot: B Ardan rushes forward and punches his target. Overdrive: At max rank, Blood for Blood deals an additional 15% damage. Blood for Blood can only be activated when Ardan has 100% Vengeance and will consume all of it. Blood for Blood triggers basic-attack effects.

Blood for Blood is great for closing the gap between you and and the enemy carries. Always try to follow up with Atlas directly after, or even activate Atlas before you even reach them so that you can almost guarantee to land it. If you use Vanguard onto an ally that is taking a lot of beating, you can refresh Blood for Blood cooldown really fast. This will proc effects like Aftershock, [Stormcrown], and Shiversteel.

Gauntlet Slot: C Ardan leaps to the target location and projects a perimeter around him. Enemy heroes who touch or cross the perimeter are stunned and take crystal damage. If Ardan leaves the perimeter, it is immediately destroyed. Ardan instantly gains full Vengeance upon using this ability.

Whenever you can, always try to stun as much enemy as you can with the wall as you are placing it down. Try to wait until the enemy stuns are on cooldown first to not get interrupted. A good fighting strategy is for your teammates is to weave between the walls. This ability can be great at preventing heroes such as Taka, Glaive, and Krul from diving into your allies because the wall stops any engage attempt and if they take the stun to get outside of the Gauntlet, you allies can step inside and they will need to take the stun again to get inside.

Alpha lacks an reliable escape, Ardan can help her escape with vanguard. An nice bonus is that Ardan can also trap the enemy inside Gauntlet and set up an easy place for ALpha to explode.

Ardan and Glaive is a great duo for early ganks. Anyone attempting to leave the Gauntlet will be punted back by the Glaive's afterburn.

Reim's lack of engage is filled by Ardan's vanguard. Barrier on top of fortify health make Reim really hard to take down.

Blody Blocking is the act of blocking a skill-shot for your allies. Catherine with her Stormguard excels at blocking heavy damage, and even reflecting damage back. Ardan's Vanguard also excels at rushing to an allies aid and body blocking damage. Other captains such as Lance with his Combat Roll+ Gythian Wall and Fortress's Attack of the Pack works for body blocking too. Always stand in between the ally you are trying to protect and the enemy that you plan on blocking in order to react quickly. Keep in mind that unless you are intentionally taking the hits, you should avoid the skill shots if you know that your allies won't be hit by it either to not take unnecessary damage.

Stacking is almost never done nowadays, but it is still somewhat effective against single-targeted carries. Stacking is the method where you as the captain stand on top of the carry you intend to protect and with luck, the stutter-stepping carry will not be able to clearly tap on your carry, thus preventing some of the damage. Stacking can also mess up tap-targeted abilities such as X-Retsu and many others. Beware however as there are many counters to stacking. Prime examples are Rocket Launcher and Julia's Song. To stack effectively, you need to be able to match their pace, so captains such as Fortress with his Packmates excels at stacking while slow Phinn will likely to struggle with stacking.

Peeling is the act of stopping an enemy from getting close to your allies. There are numerous ways to peel for your ally. An important tip to note is that it is best to either stop the enemy midway or wait until the enemy have used all their gap closers before peeling so that they have no other ways to get to your allies. Shiversteel is an item that lets any hero to be able to peel for their allies. Abilities such as Impale, Gythian Wall, Bright Bulwark, Merciless Pursuit, Fairy Dust, Quibble, Polite Company, Forced Accord, Vanguard, and Gauntlet helps with peeling. Overall, Phinn is by far the best captain for peeling.

As the Captain of your team, one of your many jobs is to provide vision. Having vision allows for map control as you will be able to track where your enemies are and what their items are. The best time to plant traps is mid game when you have your core items and still have item slots open while being able to afford traps. There are many ways a captain can provide vision:

The Contraption is usually the go to option if you plan on providing vision for the WHOLE GAME. This allows you to place down a Scout Trap or fire a Flare. You can fire a Flare, and fire a flare from a Contraption at the same time, allowing for double flare, great for chasing invisible enemies like Taka, Kestrel, and Flicker. Keep in mind that Contraption costs 2100 gold, which you could buy 42 Scout Trap, or 84 Flare. So make use of your Contraption to make it worth it.

The Flare Gun is generally a good pick-up for early and mid game if you need to use many flare. A Flare Gun's cost is worth 24 Flare. Late game, you may want to sell this item for another item you need or upgrade this item into Contraption if you need to provide vision against heroes like Taka, Kestrel, or Flicker. If you have planted enough traps early to mid game, there isn't much you will do with a Contraption so it is better to upgrade your other items or just sell the Flare Gun.

Scout Traps are mines that you can plant down that provides vision until an enemy steps on them. Try to use more Flare rather than scout traps if you notice the enemy captain uses a lot of flares. In case you don't know already, multiple scout traps on top of each other lowers the damage of the scout traps that explodes after the first one. With the new aggressive Crystal Miner, it is definitely worth it to plant traps at your backs and the bottom corner so that your crystal miner can catch any enemy and chase them around. Also, you will know if there is a scout trap around you if lane minions or the crystal miner is attacking you when there shouldn't have been vision.

The Flare is an item that costs 25 gold and temporary provides vision while a Scout Trap costs 50 but provides permanent vision. While the Scout Trap sounds like the better deal, if you can defuse an enemy scout trap whenever you use you flare, then technically you are only spending 25 gold to make the enemy lose 50 gold. Keep in mind, while a Flare provides you vision, it actually also gives away your own location because the enemy can trace the projectile back to you. Also, a flare doesn't have to cover the entire bush to grant vision of the entire bush, this way, you can reveal multiple bushes at once.

Imperial Sigil is an ability that only Lyra have. Usually support Lyras should save this as a heal, but a Lyra can throw the sigil into a bush and it will reveal the bush. This is similar to the Heliogenesis as it doesn't keep revealing an enemy after it is duration expires. This also don't reveal Scout Trap.

Similar to Mooncloak, only Flicker have this ability. While this doesn't provide vision, it allows Flicker to act as the vision by scouting ahead invisible.

Similar to Willow Whisper, only Flicker have this ability. While this doesn't provide vision, it allows anyone on the team to act as the vision by scouting ahead invisible.

Basically a trio of homing flares. Great against invisible heroes as they persistantly chases them, but this is only exclusive to Fortress.


Here is a map made by me as to where to place mines: (If you are on Team B, just reverse all the trap locations)

Hello everyone, I am BlueBerryPie. My favorite role is Laning but I usually balance myself between Carry and Captain and sometimes jungle. In this guide will be all my tips I have learned from experience. Currently I am only PoA Bronze, so my guide may not be of use to pros, but thank you for reading this far, this is my first attempt at creating a guide so feedback would be nice. :)

Also, the guide is done for now, but it is to be updated.