🎉 Spectral Wrapped 2023

Nerds Support Axe

axe
Axe
Offlane Support
Hard Support
Updated: 2/28/24, 2:55 PMPatch 7.35cAuthor: Leamare
Hero stats
8,835
50.91%
172
43.60%

Description

Axe is a tanky strength hero who excells at brawling enemies to death. His natural tankiness and skill set allow him to chase people down and take as much damage as your team needs while also providing high amounts of damage and crowd control.

Main game plan as a support Axe is to chase people down with Battle Hunger (supports first) to win the lane (or switch to jungle if it's not possible anywhere on the map). Winning the lane and transitioning to Urn and other "brawling" support items allowes Axe to keep up in fights and tank enemy damage while also using Berserker's Call, disengage, regen and come back to fight to use all spells again. Lategame Axe with Aghanim's Scepter and Battle Hunger talent allow the hero to deal even more damage in lategame and be practically unkillable with Octarine Core.

Starting Items

tango
ring_of_protection
branches
branches
branches
blood_grenade
enchanted_mango

Skill Build

Talents
2x Battle Hunger Armor Multiplier
25
+100 Berserker's Call AoE
+1 Bonus Armor per Culling Blade Stack
20
+150 Culling Blade Damage
+30 Counter Helix Damage
15
+-12% Battle Hunger Slow
+12% Movement Speed per active Battle Hunger
10
+4s Culling Blade Speed Bonus Duration
Skill Build Timeline
axe_battle_hunger
axe_counter_helix
axe_battle_hunger
axe_berserkers_call
axe_battle_hunger
axe_culling_blade
axe_battle_hunger
axe_berserkers_call
axe_berserkers_call
talents_tree_full
axe_berserkers_call
axe_culling_blade
axe_counter_helix
axe_counter_helix
talents_tree_full
axe_counter_helix
axe_culling_blade
talents_tree_full
talents_tree_full

Main Build

Early Items
ring_of_protection
boots
magic_stick
phylactery
Core Items
tranquil_boots
blink
Lategame Items
ultimate_scepter
travel_boots
aghanims_shard
octarine_core
heart
assault
overwhelming_blink
refresher
angels_demise
Situational Early
urn_of_shadows
vanguard
glimmer_cape
Situational
vladmir
pipe
sheepstick
force_staff
black_king_bar
shivas_guard
blade_mail
invis_sword
heavens_halberd
lotus_orb
crimson_guard
spirit_vessel
Alternatives
tranquil_boots
phase_boots
Order swaps
There are no elements

Build Timeline

Early Items
ring_of_protection
boots
magic_stick
Item #1
phylactery
Situation
urn_of_shadows
vanguard
Item #2
tranquil_boots
Alternatives
phase_boots
Situation
glimmer_cape
Item #3
blink
Item #4
ultimate_scepter

Lategame Items

Lategame Main Route
ultimate_scepter
travel_boots
aghanims_shard
octarine_core
heart
assault
overwhelming_blink
refresher
angels_demise
All Lategame Items
ultimate_scepter
crimson_guard
sheepstick
vladmir
heavens_halberd
invis_sword
force_staff
shivas_guard
spirit_vessel
pipe
black_king_bar
travel_boots
blade_mail
angels_demise
refresher
overwhelming_blink
assault
heart
octarine_core
aghanims_shard
lotus_orb

Neutral Items

Tooltips

Spells Tooltips

Battle Hunger

So here's the deal. Early on it's the best spell to contest bounty runes, bully people on lane, get supports out of the lane and be the king. You can chase people with it, it has low mana cost, it scales well and has low cooldown. You can use it on core after player gets a lasthit. And you can play without blink because of it, just by getting movement speed bonus. And in the lategame with Aghs it turns into 1920 magic damage AoE spell with damage reduction effect

Counter Helix

You can get a point into it early on but as as pos 4/5 Axe you want to be active on the map. It can be good to max early if you don't have anything to do at all and just want to farm, but it's not the way to play it. One value point is enough to bully people and the Battle Hunger makes all the work early

Berserker's Call

Going past laning stage it's your main spell to play. You can still use Battle Hunger to close the gap but it's the AoE non-dispellable crowd control that makes you so useful in midgame fights. However, don't be too aggressive as you're not the tankiest being alive. Usually you want to hide and wait for the opportunity to use Call reliably (e.g. after stun setup or enemy getting close) then either kill the enemy if you're stronger, otherwise you want to disenga

2x Battle Hunger Armor Multiplier

Berserker's Call AoE is a good talent, but +120 Battle Hunger DPS, especially in combination with Aghs, is a stupidly high amount of damage

Items Tooltips
blink

Situationally could be purchased early (after urn) but it's better to get later (sometime after Vessel or Aghs)

ring_of_protection

Additional armor for better brawling and to use it for Urn

magic_stick

Since you have a low mana pool and gonna fight a lot, you are going to get a lot of charges and, most importantly, a lot of value out of it. Just try to hold your charges instead of usinc stick as a panic button

tango

You are going to be brawling a lot, trading your HP all the time. You can replace one Tango for Salve, but Tango works better wor what we're doing

vladmir

You don't really need Vladmir's by yourself and usually it's the item your position 3 is going to buy but if nobody's going to buy it and your team is heavy on physical damage - why not?

pipe

Against high magic damage lineups

urn_of_shadows

As you will be a position 4 in your team and going to fight a lot, this is pretty natural to have urn. Not only you're going to get a lot of charges, it will also give you precious mana regen that you need, armor and a little bit more magic damage. It also works well incombination with Berserker's Call. You use Call, disengage from the fight, heal yourself and then come back

sheepstick

Additional mana/lategame control

force_staff

May serve as a disengage tool or to save teammates (but usually purchased to get from Diffusal carriers)

assault

Additional armor and useful aura

heart

Natural item for a tanky brawler like Axe

shivas_guard

Natural addition to magic heavy build, giving even more slow and armor

blade_mail

Even more armor! Even more mana! And it's one of the best items to kill enemy cores during Berserker's Call as they can't stop attacking you and you will have a ton of armor anyway so they will take much more damage for sure

invis_sword

Additional initiation

heavens_halberd

Additional HP and regen amplification from Sange and pretty useful active component for your team

tranquil_boots

If you don't really need armor, can't get urn but need out-of-fight regen, have a bad game and is going to jungle or just don't have a lot of money

lotus_orb

vs a lot of dispellable spells

crimson_guard

vs summons heavy lineups

glimmer_cape

Saving teammates and dealing with focus

spirit_vessel

HP, mana regen and a ton of magic damage/degen. Even as a healing source it becomes more powerful in late game