Skaarf , yet he wasn't my best I was surprised that I can do both great and terrible at the same time and the more I played him the more I come to understand he can be very powerful but does have a very complex play style and in my experience maybe the most difficult hero to master in the fold
Skaarf play style ,
Skaarf is both a very long and short ranged Mage at the same time who needs to switch range according to situations but generally played from a very long distance: Spitfire is the longest ranged ability in the game yet to come with a range of 12.5 making him an exceptional poker with a very high CR on it providing him with good burst his B ability
Goop is medium range ability with a maximum range of 7.5 and his C
Dragon Breath is of a range of 10.5 now those aren't small numbers so why did I call him short ranged? The reason is the best way to use his B and C in some situations is not from maximum range to maximize the damage , you need your opponent to walk the entire flaming
Goop plus sometimes using your
Dragon Breath while your opponents are on the edge might cost you to lose them which you don't want and finally the infamous heroic perk
Fan the Flames now many people from the survivors of 1.4 hate this perk to an extent of someone who hate his ex after a complicated relationship XD Skaarf sadly isn't
Celeste , that cutey does have a CC ability and her helio is very frequent making her able to dash damage and heal with the right build boosting survivability;
Skaarf does have a built in
Aftershock ? Aftershock does give 15% max health damage every 1.5 seconds if we want to calculate the average damage per second it will be 10% per second that is exactly the maximum damage
Fan the Flames currently do per second when completely fanned so it is very useful but you need to be careful of short range Skaarf makes an excellent siege Mage? Skaarf ,
Skaarf isn't
Vox ,
Ringo ,
Celeste ,
Joule ..etc meaning you can't play him like other laners if you ran to a
Taka when playing
Vox you can kite him and best vox players can survive even with little health and get the kill , good
Celeste players can CC a
Taka get a nova and ult if possible with good aim also can get a kill , well sadly breaking it skaarf can't do any of this he doesn't have a CC his burst is really high but his overall dps is fairly low ,
Celeste helio is 1 sec cooldown
Skaarf is 3 sec :(
Shatterglass : shatter glass is a great item and is recommended in most situations since he scale very well and you need all the juice for the ult in 1.5
Broken Myth : great purchase after you buy some form of crystal I would recommend at least 100 crystal before the purchase (exclude the heavy prism needed to finish BM) in order to get the maximum damage SG with BM give you lot of poking and bursting damage
Frostburn : well you don't see frustburn often but in some situations I highly recommend it , specially on him , skaarf doesn't have CC or escaping/kiting mechanism so frust burn can provide him with a kiting tool stopping some Melee heroes from wrecking him apart such as : fortress , krul
Eve of Harvest : eve is a good item on skaarf and give him some sustain , why he needs it? , first help with ult people tend to focus him when he ult with no eve he could be busted down before it even starts , even when a little bit low you can sustain yourself using your high range , you can heal good amount from lane minions , skaarf get jumped on in the cooldown of his spitfire since it is an opening if it misses or the target back out preferably don't start him with eve unless you are new to skaarf and having trouble sustaining or adapting to his play style you will find yourself mid game in able to dash good damage and starting to lose team fights
Clockwork : clockwork isn't a must but never less a good item on him , if he is going to poke he needs the extra energy sustain eve isn't enough for playing the poking part plus the cooldown is pretty nice you poke faster and goop can be casted more frequently a good play style is to take the overdrive of A and B and leave 2 points in C with this purchase
Alternating Current doesn't really have a great synergy with him , he does have high CR on A and B skills and he is an ability Mage , he is fragile needs distance , all those reasons and more if you like to use it you can try it on someone who relies on auto attacks like cp vox
Reflex Block for the safe usage of his ult and from there you have 2 ways to go , play it safe or aggressive;
Aegis or
Crucible and probably another defensive item like metal or atlas or a fountain, NOTICE: only go second defensive item if enemy can reach you easily like taka and koshka , and it hard to stay at a distance and you are having some hard time surviving Spitfire for harassment effectively and don't miss last hits or overextended , usual combo is spitfire
Goop , couple of autos Dragon Breath from the bushes , you can use it to initiate a team fight in either of the tribushes next to gold mine Dragon Breath from the edge of team fights where people a little bit behind won't see you coming and you will be safer Dragon Breath , high burst damage hero could burst you down before ult starts specially if you were not full healed or playing aggressive style and the 20% healing from eve of harves won't be enough , best way to defend that ,
Spitfire,
Goop and either try to kite him if you can or try to dance around goop to make him take for most of the duration while also fanning the flames Goop on one or two enemies
Krul on your team if your opponents are slowed and light it just the moment before they get out of it to get still the damage Goop can stay for 10 seconds before the overdrive use it! , if you have to extend beyond the 50 lane mark line goop in front off the bush so enemies would be slowed when they get out of the bush get some last hits and get back Dragon Breath if enemy team is trying to secure gold mine if done right you have the potential of stealing it and grabbing a kill or two Skaarf has a very fast objective clearing gold mine , minion mine Broken Myth you can take kraken quick but keep a
Spitfire to last hit capture the kraken so he won't be steeled remember you have high burst
Krul ,
Skaarf can provide some stickiness for
Krul using his
Goop but harder to pull since they both don't have great early game
Fortress also synergies well with
Skaarf he can help speed up his
Dragon Breath when pursuing and get a couple of extra autos for
Fan the Flames
Catherine , is great with him he need some CC to pull things off catherine can peel people off him stun people for his ult and provide great utility and survivability for the team in general
Glaive ,
Glaive is an excellent choice he is very good with peeling using
Afterburn , he is very tanky and a good glaive can afterburn someone into your ult plus the longer your team mates can stay in a fight the more fireballs you can spit plus it give you more time to position for a good ult Taka , taka also a good choice wp taka will split the damage making countering harder plus
Skaarf is a very good burst damage hero add
Taka burst and you can explode somone pretty fast
Adagio , a bit harder to pull but the healing from adagio can replace the need of eve of harvest you can easily replace it with a clock work going for a build like {SG , CW , FB , BM, boots , defense} Joule is also a good choice a close one to glaive but he has the upper hand in peeling although a stun from her could get you a clean ult
Ardan is an ok choice even though his ult can give you a great clean ult yourself it is not the same as before it is not a one hit kill ultimate and you need to think of ardan for the entire game , he has weak early game and can't peel people of you that good if someone reached you the health barrier won't save you Skaarf ,
Glaive ,
Catherine : tanky team extremely good peeling very good AOE damage
Spitfire but make sure of few things first don't miss farm for harassment cause your early game has already been compromised use the window between last hits effectively , make it look unpredictable don't try to get close or move when you
Spitfire just while attacking a minion harass , try to make your first play at level 6 , his level 6 is very strong usually I try to take gold mine to lure enemies and get an clear
Dragon Breath or try a gold mine steal with ult, don't overextend with
Skaarf and use
Goop in front off lane bushes to slow enemies when you have too , mistakes with him are deadly Skaarf as a sieging Mage to protect objectives while staying safe from a distance Celeste otherwise play him using the range and pick fights on your term on your positioning the best team fight for
Skaarf when opponents has already took few fireballs in the face making them weaker for the team fight Skaarf is better when your team is pushing the enemy team out since you will have more vision and control and enemies will be grouped to defend turrents or other objectives easier to harass them without being able to harass back
Skaarf good for competitive play? Skaarf is in his own spot he is good on many play levels I have seen "FooJee" play him in 1.5 in VG play lv and pull him amazingly but I still don't think he can compete in a lv of ESL or VGL since we haven't seen him almost at all in those big tournaments plus there is the bug in 1.5 Dragon Breath nerfed with no increase in it is CR , he is weak prior to lv 6 since his perk is weaker than 1.3 early and Idk if that was intended he has always been a good early game fighter and probably the duration of the refresh on
Fan the Flames should scale with cooldown or something cause it has been harder to fan the flame I mean by a lot harder Skaarf make sure to try him out he is very fun to play and what is more fun than setting somone on fire right?
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