I. Introduction
II. Abilities
III. Tactics
IV. Variations
I. Introduction
Nymphora is a tricky hero which may be played in different ways. If you need a DotA-Reference it would be a crossover between Furion (Prophet) and Ezalor (Keeper of the Light), but without summons. She is really fun to play, she can be powerful but will always be fragile. New players should stay away from Nymphora.
...and if she is idling for a second flowers will grow all around her. Awesome, isn't it?
The little fairy is a ranged intelligence-based hero. That means that she gains additional damage when increasing the attribut intelligence.
And thats what she looks like:
II. Abilities
Volatile Pod
You put down a glowing seed at target location. After 3 seconds the seed will deal damage to enemies in range and heal all allies in range. This is pretty much your primary skill and you will use it from level 7 on to farm every creep wave, as long as you have mana.
Grace of the Nymph
Underpowered skill that will get buffed soon(tm). Until then you will take the spell on level 9 so you can keep spamming Volatile Pod. Sometimes when you babysitter a carry hero it might pay off getting level 1 early to keep him alive.
This spell allows you to cast your next spell for no manacost. If you dont have enough mana to cast the free spell it will be "greyed out", but you can still cast it. If you cast the spell on allies you need to tell them "as long as the cute butterfly is over your heroes head you can still cast a spell even with 0 mana".
Its greatest weakness is that long cooldown of still 60 seconds once you get it to level 4. Good thing is that it also works on items and some of them have very high mana costs for usage.
Nymphora's Zeal
Thats the core skill of your combat prowress. Imagine the spell like a boomerang. You target a location and a white light will fly out to that location and then return to you. Both times it will stun targets and "charge" you. You can have up to 10 charges and each charge increases movement speed abit and attack speed by 20%. Means a good stun that hits 5 creeps/heroes at the same time will give you 10 charges and freaking 200% attackspeed. If Volatile Pod is on cooldown and you need to farm a creepwave use this spell. The 10 seconds are enough to auto attack a whole wave down and get every last hit.
Most obviously your basic combo is to put down a Volatile Pod next to an unsuspecting enemy, then stun them and autoattack them down because they will have low health and you deal more damage and move faster for 10 seconds.
Keep in mind that careful aiming will greatly improve your combat prowress if you not only stun like 2 heroes, but also a couple of creeps because of good positioning.
Teleport
Good name. I request that the spell is renamed to something less stupid. Anyway, it is your ultimate which means you can take the skill on 6, 11 and 16 and yes you will take it. Teleport is the main reason Nymphora can fulfill her role as pusher, gank and support hero.
On level 2 and level 3 you can take additional players with you. That way you can bring your allies faster into battle, gank players easily and even save allies from certain death.
It does not share cooldown with Post Haste Boots.
My suggestion on levelups is the following:
1. Volatile Pod
2. Nymphora's Zeal
3. Volatile Pod
4. Nymphora's Zeal (or Grace of the Nymph)
5. Volatile Pod
6. Teleport
7. Volatile Pod
8. Nymphora's Zeal
9. Nymphora's Zeal
10. Grace of the Nymph (or Nymphora's Zeal if you took Grace earlier)
11. Teleport
12-14. Grace of the Nymph
15. Attributes
16. Teleport
17+. Attributes
III. Tactics
This guide is for new players that actually need a guide. If you consider yourself to be a somewhat good dota player you prolly wont read guides anyway. This isnt competitive gameplay, but for publics.
Early on you will focus on lasthitting and denying and only use your Volatile Pod to heal in emergency situations. Do not rely on Volatile Pod as healing. This only leads to a quick death against many heroes. Play like you do not have a heal and only use it to counter heavy harassment.
Once you feel safe enough you can rely on manareg and your heal to stay alive.
Once you hit level 4-5 you can start bursting a hero down by droping a pod followed by stun. Together with a partner this will kill most heroes and you shouldn't be solo mid anyway.
To buy items you will use Teleport and an Orb from the outpost. Teleport to the base or secret shop, get your items and back to the lane with the Orb.
I suggest starting out with 2x Pretenders Crown, 2x Runes of Blight and 1x Manapot as beginner, personally I buy Courier/Wards or Ring of the Teacher, depending on team and lane.
After this it depends. Manatube, Marchers and turning the Pretender Crowns into Fortified Bracelets is a good choice.
I suggest going for Totem of Kuldra, Hellflower and Stormspirit as Items. They all provide disable utility as well as a decent DPS increase which grants you 3 advantages over many other items:
First the disables (cyclone, hex, silence) allow you to fulfill your support role so that the carry heroes can kill stuff. Second as you are very fragile they also allow yourself to survive. And finally they give you tons of damage. With those 3 items you have around 300 dmg already and your attackspeed after stun means you melt faces. Unlikely most other casters you scale pretty good into lategame. Many so-called "carry heroes" died to a fairy bursting them down 1v1 between silence, stun and hex.
Anyway.. Manatube and Marchers should be the first two items, then the Fortified Bracelets. If you farm well I suggest going Blessed Orb (Totem of Kuldra Item) early for more HP, else you can build Hellflower or Stormspirit step-by-step as they dont require expensive items.
And only leave the lane with Teleport, walking is a waste of precious experience.
Once you hit level 7 and Volatile Pod is level 4 the farming begins. Walk up to a creepwave, drop the pod so that it will also hit the ranged creep and then hit every melee creep twice with your auto attack. In most cases you end up getting all last hits.
Even if you only support another hero and dont try to get last hits he can get.. you still get lots of gold.
Use your Teleport to finish off low hp heroes that run away, to save allies and to gank enemies. In group fights remember that you are not initiator and do NOT run in first. You only die rather quick. Once the fight starts, throw your stun, drop the pod and then autoattack something to death and use your disables (if you have hellflower, totem or spirit) to take out the most dangerous heroes.
For example if Magmus teleports into your group with his ultimate up it is a good idea to cyclone him. Or if your team starts attacking heroes that have escape spells (magebane blink, scout stealth, ..) you want to hex those with Totem of Kuldra.
And finally the issue of "boots". Never go Steamboots, ever. Basicly you need to check if there are heroes which require Enhanced Marchers. If a Behemoth is in the game or a Pharaoh is in the other team you want Enhanced Marchery to ignore their movement restricting abilities. If not I suggest Poste Haste Boots. It might be overkill for some, but the ability to not only port to the base to heal and instantly port back again is great. You can be everywhere, really everywhere. You can even play taxi and teleport to allies and then teleport them away. It helps you to take control of the map as you can change your location every 30 seconds.
If you have trouble making gold settle for Enhanced Marchers.
IV. Variations
My way of playing Nymphora is not the only way of playing the little fairy. Keep that in mind. Also you might want to adjust your item build depending on the game. Shamans Headress vs Heavy Nukers is a must, if no other supporter was picked, if they have trouble farming or simply because you are the best choice for it... you might want to go Astrolabe, too.
Personally I also like going Codex. Its fun and good for boosting K:D ;)
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