From the Official Heroes of Newerth forum by Kingcomrade
I figured I would write a short guide to him just to give new HoN players who are unfamiliar with DotA's Sand King, now Magmus, an introduction to his skills and his role.
What is Crixalis/Magmar?
+A stunner
+A powerful AoE ult
Role: Ganker, Lane Pusher, Team Fight Initiator
Dominant Game Period: Early and Midgame
Soloable: Not recommended, he's better with a partner
Carry: No, don't try to steal kills
He is a melee hero with low to average stat gain and mediocre starting stats. Through the game he is a hero that relies on his abilities rather than his autoattack.
While there is more to him than that, these are his important attributes.
What are his skills, and in what order should you get them?
His first skill is Lava Surge (Burrowstrike). This skill is a blink attack that stuns and nukes everyone in a straight line to your destination. It's his bread and butter skill. It does moderate damage and has a moderate stun time. This is the skill you max first. This spell CAN be cast on the ground and used as a blink to escape.
His second skill is Steam Bath (Sand Storm). This skill makes you invisible and creates a area around you which causes low damage over time. You only need one level of this skill. It can be used to "juke" nukes. A typical noob strategy is to get this skill, go to your lane, turn it on near the creeps, and just sit there. This makes you a BIG target. If the enemy gets any wards to your lane, has any AoE stuns, or any way of getting at you then you are a sitting duck. It also prevents you from last-hitting, and is useless against ranged heroes. It is generally not a good idea. This skill is used mostly for two things: juking nukes, and delaying either until teammates arrive to help you or your cooldown on Lava Surge or "Portal Key" is up so you can escape. This ability -can- be chained with a ultimate->blink->lava->steam but I find stats more useful as you can autoattack for slightly less damage while benefitting from higher HP and mana pools. That combo is useful if you are initiating teamfights to keep you from immediately becoming focused, but it's less about damage than the invisibility.
His third skill is Volcanic Touch (Caustic Finale). When Mag gets a last hit on a creep, or hits a creep and then they die within .25 seconds, they explode doing relatively high damage to all units in an AoE around the dead unit. This skill will be your second you max, but you will not get it immediately. This skill pushes the lane. This is actually a negative attribute early on in the game, as you want to keep the creeps in the lane as close to your tower as possible
His fourth skill is Eruption (Epicenter). After channeling for 2 seconds, a consecutive series of "stomps" or shockwaves will impact around you, increasing in area after every pulse. It does very high damage and slows everyone hit. The spell begins AFTER and lasts for several seconds AFTER the channeling, if you are stunned before the channeling is over your cooldown and mana are wasted and the spell is not cast. Afterwards, however, the pulses follow Magmus as he moves, rather than staying where he cast it, so you want to chase your enemies. This is Mag's main contribution to ganks and teamfights. However, something to notice about this skill is that its channeling time is longer than the duration of Mag's Lava Surge stun.
edit- I just read elsewhere that, unlike in DotA, the damage of his ult does -not- scale according to distance, which is honestly a bit OP in my opinion. I don't know if it is true or not.
edit2- Confirmed. This makes his ultimate pretty amazing, Magmus is now the premier AoE ult hero, eclipsing even Behemoth.
His fifth "skill" is stats. Early in the game, typically before your second level of ult, you will be getting stats instead of Volcanic Touch. Since Mag is a STR hero he has a relatively small mana pool, but he relies on his spells, so he needs the bonus mana.
If you are laning against only melee heros who are not great at harassing, it is okay to forgo stats to get a level Volcanic touch early. If they are dumb enough to continue tanking it, you can get more levels. It provides effective harassment in that situation.
So, what is his stock cookie cutter skill build?
1) Surge
2) Steam
3) Surge
4) Stats
5) Surge
6) Ult
7) Surge
8) Stats
9) Stats/Volcanic Touch
10) Stats/Volcanic Touch
11) Ult
After that, max Touch, then max stats, then max Steam Bath.
If you don't feel like you need Steam Bath you can get an early level of Volcanic Touch and get Steam Bath at 4, or get stats at 2 as well.
Note that an early Volcanic Touch will push the lane sometimes making it more difficult to farm.
What items are useful on Magmus?
+Cheap stat boosters (Fortified Bracelets, sometimes Glowstone)
+Burst mana regen (Bottle)
+Enhanced Marchers
+Portal Key is usually core
+Shrunken Head can also be used but has less utility than portal key
+If nobody else is doing it, Wards, you're not prime for it because you DO need some farm
Portal Key, Lava King's ultimate, and the Shift key
Portal Key is used so that you can safely channel your ultimate outside of danger, then immediately blink into the enemy mass and stun them. The technique for this is simple. You sit out of sight/range and you press R to begin channeling your ult. Then you hold shift (which will put your next command into a queue) and press Alt+Q (hotkey for your portal key in inventory) and click near the enemy heroes, then let go of shift. You can try to delay your click for 1 second or so to get better accuracy.
Before you have Portal Key, shift queuing still works, but is not as important. His method of initiation before he has Portal Key is simply to lavasurge an enemy then immediately spam the button for his ult so that as soon as possible it begins channeling. Hopefully the enemy hero won't react in time to stop you, if they can.
Working with Teammates:
Before you have Portal Key, teammates can ensure that your ult goes off without a hitch. In normal DotA, Sand King is often paired with Lion, a hero with an AoE stun very similar to Crix's. The idea is that Crix burrows into the enemy, then a second or so later Lion uses his own stun. This ensures the enemy is chain stunned for the duration of the ult's channeling. This can be done with a little coordination with any hero with a ranged stun. This tactic translates over into HoN almost the same. There is no Lion, but there are other stunners.
Shruken Head:
Some players prefer to use a Shrunken Head instead of (or in complement to) a Portal Key. It's more expensive, but it also gives damage and stats which are helpful. In this case you activate the Shrunken Head, burrow into your enemies, then channel your ult. This lacks the element of surprise that a blink attack has, but still works and is okay for beginners since all the hotkeys and timing needed for a proper blink ult is sometimes overwhelming.
What does a typical Magmus's inventory look like at the end of a typical game?
2 Bracers (Fortified Bracelets), Phase Boots (Enhanced Marchers), Bottle/Magic Wand (Bottle/No Equivalent), Blink Dagger (Portal Key), TP Scrolls (Homecoming Stones)
What luxury items do you want?
I believe if Magnus starts getting overfarmed he has 2 major items to choose from.
Totem of Kuldra (Guinsoo): Since Mag's ult drops off in effectiveness later on, he can still help his team by adding another disable to the team's arsenal
Heart: Simply for survivability and keeping the enemies from feeding off you, also gives a bit of bonus damage
How should you play Mag?
Early Game:
+Farm boots bottle blink
+Support your teammates in ganks (you can use your blink stun to get in front of the enemy and block his path, slowing him down so your teammates can get closer)
+In general conserve your mana for when it's needed, as a STR hero your mana pool cannot support spam (too bad HoN doesn't have Keeper of the Light, one of my favorite Crix combos. KotL Illuminates, SK stuns to keep them in the blast zone, chakra whoever needs it, repeat)
Mid Game:
+Gank when ult is up
+Use ult in teamfights, try to keep important enemy heroes stunned
Late Game:
+You aren't as useful as you used to be in team fights, just keep spamming that stun on enemy channelers and DPSers
+Your role changes to one of a pusher, using lava surge and volcanic touch to instagib creep waves and get the lane moving towards the enemy base
A simple farming/pushing technique:
Once you have volcanic touch and a significant mana pool, as you get higher in levels, and the creep waves start getting very large, Magmus becomes both a good farmer and a good PUSHER. The technique used is simple. You approach a creep wave and lavastrike through the melee creeps to the ranged creeps. Normally this will get the ranged creeps down to 1-hit. You hit them, which will proc volcanic touch, killing any other ranged creeps and bringing the melee creeps down into 1/2-hit territory. You go hit one of those and the creep wave is all dead due to caustic finale. It's very quick and easy.
Other notes:
Magmus is obviously part of the tried-and-true dual stun lane technique and in general likes to lane with combo-ers
As a melee hero he wants to lane with someone ranged
Magma King operates like a DotA hero, Puck, when initiating. He goes in with his spells blazing, then often immediately uses sand storm (like Puck uses his phase shift) to avoid getting immediately focused down. His ult continues to pulse while he is invisible.
His ultimate does more damage the closer the enemy is to your hero
His ultimate slows, keep this in mind when ganking
Don't get Runed Axe, it doesn't help him much. He has low INT which is bad for the mana regen, and he already has a pushing skill
Don't try to use Sand Storm to farm
Magmus can ward but he is not the best candidate for it until after he has his portal key
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