Table of content Top
Introduction Top
Lance is a new hero, introduced in 1.18
He seems to be a tanky protector, but
do not underestimate him. He is able to swiftly dash through the battlefield, has excellent crowd control ability, can chase his opponents and finish them off, can deal some damage when enemies are busy trying to kill your teammates - and well... he can tank as well.
How one hero can do that much?
Keep reading
Basics about Lance Top
His basic armor and shield are both high, equal to 100 at level 12. Average value for armor/shield within other heroes is about 81
This means that you don't really have to build much more armor/shield. Small additions from
Fountain of Renewal or
Atlas Pauldron can be sufficient in many cases. You can buy
Metal Jacket or
Aegis when at least two enemies are building WP or CP
His HP is high, equal to 2185 at level 12. Average value for HP within other heroes is about 1600 HP
With a few items that can easily exceed beyond the 3000 HP, so it takes time to kill you
His basic attack damage is pretty good as well, equal to 179 at level 12, while average is 141
This is helpful early game - a small damage difference can help you win a fight at level 2
His attack speed is weak and items with additional attack speed are only about half as strong as usual (tested a bit this issue)
So buying e.g.
Tornado Trigger isn't the best choice
His attack range is awesome as a melee (same as Vox), and his basic attacks are able to damage multiple targets at once
That is why Lance is a great hero at solo lane, able to quickly earn lots of gold. Additionaly,
Bonesaw may be a considerable option to buy, as you'd be able to shread armor of multiple enemies
Lance doesn't use energy, but stamina
It regenerates quickly, so after a brief moment you will always be able to use an ability. His cooldowns are pretty low, so buying
Clockwork is a good idea, to keep them even lower
Abilities Top
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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 + 20% Max Energy
Stamina Regen: 15+50% Energy Regen
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Lance strikes through his opponents, dealing weapon damage and rooting them in place (max 1.6 seconds). If this attack hits at least one enemy, Lance will immediately recover from the ability.
Overdrive: If this hits an enemy, it also resets the cooldown of Combat Roll.
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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%.
Active: Lance sweeps opponents away with his polearm, dealing weapon damage and also stunning them if they collide with a wall or structure (max 1.6 seconds). Afterward, he holds his shield steadfast, greatly reducing incoming damage from the target direction by up to 90%.
Both the passive and the active damage reduction are 50% effective against turrets.
Overdrive: While active, Lance ignores all debuffs (from any direction).
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Lance rolls in the target direction. His next basic attack within 2 seconds will strike quickly, dealing bonus crystal damage.
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Item choice Top
All right guys, I will keep it short.
Lance is most efficient when playing as a protector and roamer. That means there
isn't six-versatile-items build you can pick every battle. It
ALL depends on whose is on the battlefield with you.
Now, a quick review on proposed ones:
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You are a roamer, and you should focus on helping your team (even if you are capable of more). Fountain is crucial if you want to keep your buddies alive. Additionally, Lance doesn't have any HP regeneration, so passive from
 Lifespring helps greatly (I usually buy it on first shop visit). This is almost like a core-item
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600 more HP and reflex block for your whole team. Your base armor and shield is high enough to absorb some damage, so you can focus on gaining HP. Reflex block is also great when fighting heroes like Adagio. If none of your enemies has really dangerous ability, you do not need it
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30% cooldown reduction, some energy, health and true damage (it overpasses shield and armor!). A small bonus for someone who's basic attack doesn't deal much damage, and a huge boost against turrets, minions, Kraken etc. (lets you earn some gold in the jungle when fighting alone!)
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It will help you deal additional damage with your abilities and it gives you damage reduction and longer stun from
Gythian Wall, plus longer root from
Impale
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A must-have if you are fighting against
 Taka or
 Kestrel to reveal them (and really helpful in other cases). Energy regen and HP bonus are also cool, but what makes it great is additional 40% cooldown reduction
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Reduces attack speed by 65%, for 5 sec in a small radius (so enemies will attack you just as fast as you do, lol). Buy when facing
 Krul,
 SAW,
 Rona or other enemy building attack speed.
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For next 4 sec your basic attacks applies movement slow for 2 sec, and you get 500 HP. I love this item, because it it great when chasing enemies (rooting with
Impale isn't always enough). Buy when facing some irritating kiter (such as
 Skye or
 Ringo). Remember that your basic attacks can hit multiple targets - and with
Shiversteel you can slow even whole enemy team at once!
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15% of enemy's max health is about 300 damage (and 150 HP heal to you). Small cooldown and energy regen bonus. Lance's cooldowns are pretty short, so you'll have plenty occasions to use Aftershock
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Surely best item for ability-spamming. No other item gives this amount of cooldown reduction, energy and energy recharge. 30% CP amplify is a cool bonus
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It a new item introduced in 2.0 update, and it offers some interesting features. With it you can silence all utility items of a hero for 5 seconds (40 sec cooldown). It is an option to consider when fighting against enemies relying greatly on utility items. Usually it should be used against their captain, to prevent him from using eg.
Crucible when an ally Adagio is using his ultimate or
Fountain of Renewal when enemies are low on health. Additionally, if you see that eg. CP
 Joule bought
 Echo and is using it to channel her ultimate twice a time, consider silencing her with
Nullwave Gauntlet. It also offers some small cooldown reduction, energy regeneration and health, which is nice.
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It depends on what enemies are building and what you bought earlier (e.g.
Fountain of Renewal, gives additional 75 shield, so buying
Aegis won't be a good idea unless there is heavy-crystal build within enemy's which gives you some beating).
Journey Boots for smaller cooldown on sprint,
Halcyon Chargers for additional energy/cooldown on abilities,
War Treads for whole team sprinting and 500 HP. Pick one which you prefer.
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145% WP ration on Lance's
Impale is an explanation
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Great counter-item when your allies are morons and are both playing WP.
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You can surprise enemies like Ringo with sudden damage burst (all right maybe not a great burst, he's a fkn protector, but you know what I mean)
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Items howto Top
OMG SO MANY OPTIONS???
Yeah, you have to be prepared to save your allies, any way it is possible - by blocking
Adagio's ultimate, by healing them when they are low-health. You should cover the map with scout traps, so every move of your enemies will be known. You always enter the bushes first, always escape last. Always try to attract enemies to yourself, so your allies won't be put in much danger. You should be tanky as hell. You should be your teammates' inventory and use your items when
they need it. You should respond strategically to whatever enemy is building.
You are not a damage carry, but you are carrying your team to the victory.
It is not easy task, but good support
can change the course of battle
So now a bit of how-to pick items properly. During normal battle you should buy:
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1-2 cooldown/energy items (
Clockwork,
Contraption,
Stormcrown,
Aftershock,
Nullwave Gauntlet)
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1-2 damage-enhance items (
Stormcrown,
Aftershock,
Shatterglass,
Sorrowblade,
Tension Bow)
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BOOTS (
Journey Boots,
Halcyon Chargers,
War Treads)
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Counter/support items (
Aegis,
Metal Jacket,
Atlas Pauldron,
Shiversteel,
Fountain of Renewal,
Crucible,
Bonesaw,
Nullwave Gauntlet)
Why?
> Lance
greatly relies on his crowd-control abilities. He needs a bit of cooldown reduction and energy recharge. Keep in mind that when I say 1 or 2 items, I mean that you should pick them to have around 40-50% cooldown reduction. So just single
Aftershock won't be sufficient, but single
Clockwork would.
Nullwave Gauntlet and
Stormcrown would be good as well (55% cooldown reduction).
> Enemies usually don't attack captain-protector heroes, because they are hard to kill, and there is more dangerous carry to take care. This is where you can surprise them and
win some 1v1 battles. Having
Aftershock after enemies like Phinn is cool, while
Stormcrown let's you quickly earn gold alone (
very helpful) and take Kraken/turrets even quicker.
> ******* YOU NEED SOME SPEED
> Counter/support items are
essential. Your carry won't be able to kill
Taka if he'll disappear and you won't buy
Contraption. Adagio's ultimate would harass your team if you won't buy
Crucible and so on...
Remember - don't buy many items with "Activate" icon. Having eg.
Crucible,
Contraption,
War Treads,
Atlas Pauldron,
Fountain of Renewal and
Shiversteel will make it extremely difficult to use these items at proper moment. You may even find yourself activating them all at once if you panic at some situations!
You should probably have max. 3 activatable items!
So these are examples of my favorite builds:
General tactic, strategy, tips ect. Top
Start with
Oakheart, 2x
Halcyon Potion,
Flare,
Hourglass, and
Gythian Wall and go to jungle. Halcyon Potions are to keep you full health, Flare if you are afraid of enemy invade. If enemy isn't invading your jungle just keep clearing your part of a jungle and you''l be fine. Don't go back to shop - that'll be waste of time. If enemy invaded your jungle and killed you - buy
Flares and
Scout Traps. You have to grant vision to your team, so you won't be surprised again. Keep in mind tha tLance is powerfull early game, and enemies won't usually invade when they see you. After 4 minutes, when the jungle shop spawns buy
Lifespring and 5xScout Traps. Place them in bushes near your shop, bushes between your jungle and Gold Miner, and in the both double-minion spawn points. Now you'll know if enemy is approaching and if they are clearing your jungle.
If your laner is having a trouble go say "Hello" to him and help a bit. You can even try to ambush enemy laner with
Impale, maybe that will secure a kill. If not, he'll be scared of going toward your turret.
I like to rush
Stormcrown after
Lifespring because it let's me clear jungle and lane efficiently when one of my allies died.
Anyway, even if you are not going for that item, try to get some for energy/cooldown reduction next. After that, you should probably finish
Fountain of Renewal.
Lance is a good hero for early ambush. Even if I like to play him safe, at level 5-6 you can try to invade enemy's jungle, if your jungler is strong enough. Short cooldown on
Impale and
Gythian Wall really helps a lot. They won't run far away, and will get stunned every few seconds. If it turns out your jungler isn't as strong as he thought he is, stunning enemies will let him escape to the save position.
Reminder - always place scout traps in mentioned areas (and some additional in the lane if you want to).
I won't tell you how to use
Lance's abilities - it is quite simple. If you have any experience playing roamers or Vainglory you know which heroes are dangerous for your teammates, and you should come up with an idea how to stop them.
Just remember:
-Your goal is to keep enemies away from your carry and close to you (unless for on team with Rona, and she's using her
Red Mist, lol)
-Stunning them is always a good idea
-Rooting with
Impale won't work if you are too close to the enemy
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Combat Roll is good for positioning/running away
-Block from Gythin Wall works at 360°, and has a small duration
-When full built you are able to escape from almost every fight
-When played properly you can give almost non chance for the enemy to escape
-Your damage output can be at least decent, and surprising
-Activating Fountain of Renewal when allies has 1 HP won't help them much when enemies are attacking them. Good way to save them is to activate Crucible, then FoR and War Threads (if you have these items)
Enemy counter items Top
Here I will try to recommend some items to counter another heroes.
Adagio
Crucible to save your buddies from his ult
Alpha
If played as WP and relies on attack speed, build
Atlas Pauldron. If she goes full CP, her ult may cause tons of damage - think about buying
Crucible. But tbh, she's hard to counter with items
Ardan
Usually builds lots of HP items. Build
Aftershock and maybe
Crucible to let your allies escape from his ult (it's priceless). If he buys lot's of utility items consider
Nullwave Gauntlet.
Baron
Crucible to counter his dangerous ult if he goes CP.
Blackfeather
Hard to counter, really. Don't buy much HP as his Feint of Hearth is based on it's percentage.
Catherine
Crucible to save buddies from stun/silence (timing requires a lot of skill tho).
Aftershock if she builds HP, stun her all the time.
Celeste
War Treads to close the gap to her if your allies are melee. She usually doesn't build much deff, so
Sorrowblade is an option (early ganking is recommended).
Flicker
Contraption all the way. Place Scout Traps everywhere, help your laner early when he is vulnerable to ganks
Fortress
Hard to counter
Glaive
If he relies on attack speed -
Atlas Pauldron
Gwen
If she doesn't build deff, go for
Sorrowblade -
Impale will deal tons of damage
Idris
If he goes WP with attack speed - Atlad Pauldron
Joule
Crucible against her ult if she goes CP! If she builds much deff try
Bonesaw (she can have over 400 armor on her front)
Kestrel
Contraption!
Crucible in an option against her ult.
Koshka
Crucible to prevent her from stunning allies her ult (requires good timing). Don't build much HP if she goes for
Aftershock
Krul
Atlas Pauldron and he is easy to kill
Lance
Aftershock is an option (if he goes HP that will really hurt him).
Lyra
If she doesn't build deff -
Sorrowblade.
Ozo
Don't build much HP if he goes
Aftershock.
Crucible against his ult (it's not that hard to time is properly).
Petal
Build
Sorrowblade/
Stormcrown to kill her
Munions quickly
Phinn
Aftershock all the way.
Reim
Hard to counter
Rona
Atlas Pauldron and
War Treads
Ringo
He probably won't build much deff. Build some WP and gank him from early game. If he goes CP -
Crucible to protect teammates from his ult
Samuel
Crucible against his ult may be an option but he is hard to counter.
War Treads to chase him!
SAW
Atlas Pauldron if he goes WP
Skaarf
Hard to counter - I only recommend
War Treads to chase him
Skye
Hard to counter - I only recommend
War Treads to chase her
Taka
Contraption!
Vox
Hard to counter - I only recommend
War Treads to chase him
Showcase Top
I will post here some score results of playing
Lance
Build: Fountain of Renewal, Clockwork, Aftershock, Journey Boots, Aegis, Stormguard Banner
(it was 2vs3 almost entire battle)
Build: Contraption, Clockwork, Aftershock, Fountain of Renewal, Crucible, Journey Boots
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