General DiscussionZeus builds

Zeus needs mobility items. Blink/Force/Eul's are all usually good pickups.

I really like blink dagger on zeus. It may just be me but it is my favourite.

In mid you farm up your bottle and arcanes and should choose between a force or blink to give you initiation and escape.

Once you have that my next favourite to buy is a veil of discord. It will allow you to solo kill almost anybody in the early game and keep you relevant later.

I know now people are like okay now its time for aghanims and refresher. Not for me. I like to get a scythe or an orchid and just terrorize the enemy team. Refresher may be worth it later but you can be more efficient with your item slots than an aghanims for sure.

Best of luck

aghs, refresher is optimum build. Only go forcestaff if your team is losing or getting ganked alot. If you're not saving allies with it don't bother. veil is nice, but don't bother with euls etc... It's like playing bloodseeker and not rushing radiance etc... any other builds just sub par.

Rainbow and Discodude are right, best zues is mobile zues... if you are in doubt ... .check out the best Zues in the world:
http://dotabuff.com/players/67760037/matches?hero=zeus&lobby_type=&game_mode=&match_type=real

I get starting items depending on enemy mid, then I go bottle, arcane, blink/push, veil, aghs, refresher. I've seen orchid do work too because of the 30% bonus single target damage

First of all you have wrong skill build in your last zeus game. You should take chain at level one, passive at level 2, max bolt (take ulti), finish maxing passive...

Build i make usually is: starting items: 2 carities, some tangos and gg branches... You can even go with 3 clarities if this will let you farm your bottle with chains without a problem. Ofc you use chains to farm, passive is for harras, bolt costs to much and does too little to have point in it before levle 3, it's not logical to cast it before like lvl 4-5...

Now bottle of course and arcane boots, probably magic wand.... Now you definitely need a forcestaff or blink dagger. Unless you play at >3500 or more like >3000 you srsly need that forcestaff or you will die. Now make point booster for hp and mana, it's very cost efficient item for it's stats. Now you can finish aghs or make veil or hex. Sometimes you may need ghost scepter too.
Tbh i never experimented with dagger it could be good, but only if you are snowballing, forcestaff let's you live longer in clashes, while dagger is not reliable vs gap closers, aoe, invis, long rage stuns.... Maybe dagger after fs could be good...
Lastly you can make refresher i guess but i would consider it only if hex wasn't needed. But usually my zeus games end before that.

Btw watch merlinis games he is very impressive player ( he streams on twitch too)...

Tbh one thing i should implemented in my build is ethereal blade and early soulring ;o it's like never make it...

Btw agha only increases ur ulti damage by 123 damage after 25% reduction at level 3... It's good mainly for stats...

My winrate with zeus was 60% (before play with tards 2-10 people) and mostly item for him was "Blademail" since he gain 2.3 str per lvl and on each tf everyone gonna focus you isn't bad idea have a item that can return around 800 damage also it provides good defense/atack damage.

3 branch 1 tango > bottle > arcanes > force > aghs > refresher > sheep

71% wr 5 KDA

I go veil eblade when its really one sided

Source: http://dotabuff.com/players/79461888/matches?hero=zeus&lobby_type=&game_mode=&match_type=real

skill build should be 13222421114333S4 don't max static second arc is crazy good

if ur miles ahead then u can max arc but it drains a lot of mana if ur constantly using it, and i prefer to spam it for static as it does enough dmg to lasthit pretty well at lvl 1 anyways

I like soul ring as first item and 4-1-1-1 build on Zeus at level 7.

3/4 of your static procs over an extended engagement are from arc, and they're not going to be hitting multiple people unless you seriously fucked up.

With arcanes and a staff + your massive int gain you shouldn't have that much trouble casting arc a few times.

Also, arc gets more efficient as you level it, not less. Lv 1 arc is 1.2 damage/mana, lv 4 is around 1.8 damage/mana. Your goal should be to expend your mana pool to kill people, not to kill people with as little mana used as possible.

Static is very odd. You need to be relatively close to proc it, and it doesn't hit through bkb. It's very noticeable sometimes, but it isn't reliable.

Lv 4 arc is more magic damage over 10 seconds than your bolt! Maxing this skill gives you a 33% increase in overall damage, very very important in the midgame.

Btw by the time you max arc you shouldn't be spamming it unless you're pushing or fighting, your base damage gets rather high

Solo mid, 2-3 Clarities and nothing else at the start of the game followed by a bottle rush under 2min. If there are assholes camping your 2min rune or somehow the creep wave is pushing into your tower which shouldnt be the case especially with arc spam, bottle courier from 2-4mins. Past 4min mark, you will have the upperhand at lane control with superior nuke dmg from bolt as well as night time vision.

Aghs on Zeus is extremely overrated. Increase in wrath dmg is thrash for a 4.2k item. You're better off getting a naked point booster then investing the rest to build into a refresher or rushing blink/fs

if everything looks positive and u got openers the best is just straight scepter (fast one ofc lol or drop it) else i rather get my blink cause zeus is all about mobility...lack gold? go for a slow force (buy by pieces) or an euls... not doing much? get that mass increase magic damage item.
remember ur supposed to roll with zeus... stagnation is bad

@Yan
AgS is overrated?! You must be joking, right?
Refresher is useless, if you don't have enough mana for ult+refresher+another ult. And even if you do, you need more mana to cast other spells too. Thats why people buy AgS first, refresher second.

bots do refresher first and it rly works well too... just depends on your alternative build

Refresher first isn't actually that bad, as you gain more damage from casting your ult twice than you do from getting Aghanims. Not only this but the utility of 2 ultimates is good as well, if you don't cast them both instantly you get around 6 seconds of vision AND true sight on all heroes across the map. 200% mana regen is nice too.
Not recommending rushing Refresher, but imho it's more useful that Scepter

but refresher doesnt increase mana pool, and mana regen isnt effective unless ur mana pool is larger

people maxing chain & no aoe.. i just cringe.

whippin out magic mana

u only need to press mana boots twice for refresher to work with double ulti

i wouldnt ever max arc and skip aghs to refresher hell no

I only played a couple non ranked games with him so far, but it was really fun. Should Zeus ever be picked if you can't mid? I picked him one game and someone picked viper second and claimed mid, made me off lane. It was ok since their safe lane was garbage I was fine, but viper also went bottle and it was really hard to cast anything without it.

Other question is it seems like zeus is countered pretty easily by ganking/silence heroes like bloodseeker, bounty, riki, even spirit breaker if you don't mini stun him just right on the charge. Should you ever pick zeus right off the bat? It's kinda like damned if you do damned if you don't cus you won't get mid if you don't first pick in AP quite often.

best zeus in world (db rankings): http://dotabuff.com/players/103729052

always force staff and euls http://dotabuff.com/players/103729052/matches?hero=zeus&lobby_type=&game_mode=&match_type=real

dagger/force or both + veil = ez win

Typical skill build: Q, E, W, W, W, R / W, E, E, E, R / Q, Q, Q, stats, R / stats

Items (mid): three branches, tango --> bottle, boots, wand --> arcane, force staff, aghs --> veil, eul's, refresher

Items (side): three branches, three clarities, tango, salve --> boots, wand --> arcane, force staff, aghs --> veil, eul's, refresher

I build Refresher near the end game because you'll actually have a mana pool to support it by then. Veil is good after your core Aghs because it gives you good stats, armor, regen, and boosts your magical damage (and likely your team's). Since Zeus is really helpless in many instances, I think Eul's is great for making escapes and positioning. If you can target the enemy's carry with the cyclone, even better.

Situational items: ghost scepter, scythe, bloodstone, boots of travel

Also, if you think Zeus needs a buff, what would you recommend?

I think some base MS and attack range buffs would help. Also, I'd like to see Aghs reworked. Maybe keep the damage buff but turn it into pure? Is that too OP? All he does is magic damage and he falls off quickly late game.

Or perhaps make it so every enemy hero hit with your ult gets an arc lightning spawned on them. You could use it as a pushing skill instead of a "kill securing" skill. Now you'd have to choose between leveling arc lightning or static field first.

Who said he needs a buff? He has 4th highest win rate this month, 2nd highest kda. He's a very strong pub hero. I think maybe increasing his attack range to 450 from the abysmal 350 would make sense so you can last hit without only using chain but it's not that necessary.

zeus doesnt need buff and i personally think this skill build is the best one

c g g c g w g c c r r r r S w (r=passive and S=stats) (c=chain and g=pikachu)

I tried euls last game and it feels really strong. Went force-euls-veil.

Veil damage does feel much better than aghs tbh

http://dotabuff.com/matches/552749216

I don't think blink is optimal as a first item, force is much more reliable defensively.

If you want an offensive extension i'd honestly go either veil for damage or atos for catching up to people who run away

Bottle/Force Staff/Veil, in that order.
Blink Dagger I wouldn't recommend on this hero until you already have the Staff, because he doesn't need to position himself on the offense as much as he does on retreat. He doesn't really have a Ravage or an Echo Slam kind of ability, he does his damage by being just on the outside of the fight rather than in the middle, and Force Staff keeps you from getting flanked which usually means death for Zeus.
From there you get multiple routes of doing your thing. Aghs/Refresher is popular. There's also Bloodstone, Sheep Stick, Atos, Orchid... but Mjollnir is easily the best item on Zeus because more lightnings.

mushi playing zeus right now!
using the dagger build
http://www.twitch.tv/joindotared

he's going force staff and scepter afterwards! why not direct scepter? he needs even mroe mobility this game (doom, ck, bat, wisp)