Elder Titan Carry guide (a little outdated)

Elder Titan is a melee strength hero most commonly played as a 4 or 5 (and somewhat rarer, as a 3, looking at you Zai). And while I do think the hero is strong in those more normal roles, I am here to propose to you position 1 Elder Titan.

I’ve been playing the hero as a 1 for a while now, and most recently I just got to 8.1k mmr or rank 97 on the NA leaderboards primarily playing Elder Titan 1. Since I got to my goal mmr and ranking, feel free to counter me in pubs, I'm satisfied with where I am :).

Here is my opendota: https://www.opendota.com/players/107579110

My dotabuff: https://www.dotabuff.com/players/107579110

Skill build:

Max Astral Spirit first - this is your main way of getting damage, setting up fights, killing people and even farming. Max this first always.

Echo Stomp - Max this second as it allows you to farm jungle, waves, and sets up for your right clicks or insane ultimate.

Natural Order - Max this last. I know a lot of core ET’s prioritize getting this over Echo stomp but I notice that having higher levels of Echo Stomp allow you to fight much more effectively as early as possible. High levels of this passive is more effective when the enemy has higher armor, which they usually don’t in the early game. I always get a value point in it at lvl 2 though.

Earth Splitter - Take this at 11, 12 and 18. This spell is absolutely insane and can singlehandedly win a teamfight. However, you need echo stomp to be at least lvl 3 to have full usage out of it.

Talents:

Attack Speed- for farming and fighting Damage - BIG DAMAGE Cleave - Lets you scale harder into the late game and get those nice luxury items Earth Splitter CDR - This ult is broken in the late game. The more uptime it has, the better for you.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Elder Titan doesn’t farm, Elder Titan has no late game, Elder Titan has too many counters. So here I am to disprove many of these common thoughts.

Elder Titan doesn’t farm:

Its true, Elder Titan doesn’t farm nearly as fast as other more meta cores, however, Elder Titan makes up for it by being a beastly laner and insane teamfighter as soon as you get your Echo Sabre. With a support that can help you enable kills, you'll more often than not be behind in cs but be ahead in gold from kills. I usually try to hit a timing of Echo by 11-13 minutes, and aghanims by 20 minutes (on winning games I usually get it by 18) With these two items, you can manfight many other pos 1s that are even 1-2 items ahead of you. Elder Titan’s strengths come from his timings. Abusing these timings is what will allow you to win your games.

Elder Titan has no late game:

This hero literally has a passive aura that makes all base armor and magic resist to 0, this makes heroes like Terrorblade or AM feel like supports. Also, 600 damage 20 minutes hurts. 600 damage + crits/bashes/faster attack speed 60 mins in hurts a hell of a lot more. Together with the fact that the hero’s ultimate scales off of their HP, there are few carries that can survive a full spirit ET wacking at them in the late game.

Elder Titan has too many counters

I’m not gonna lie, ET does have many counters. Any dispel takes away his spirit damage and he can be susceptible to ganks from mobile heroes. However, no matter the counter (even Shadow Demon, the hardest counter imo) you can always play around it. My favorite way is to build a blink and play like a tiny where I blink in and two shot a hero and walk away. His early game is his weakest and most vulnerable part but if you can survive that, you’re golden. Now that is not to say that ET can’t fight early. If an ET gets 2-3 heroes in his spirit, someone is getting 2-3 shot

Game plan: My general game plan for whenever I play ET 1 goes like this: Get lvl 3 and boots Try to get a kill Get lvl 5 and phase boots Try to get a kill Get Echo Sabre (11-13 mins) Try to start a fight Get Aghs (20ish minutes) Try to start a fight

If winning: Keep fighting and choke out your opponents, eventually take rosh and end the game.

If losing: Smoke and look for pickoffs then keep fighting, and take rosh and end the game.

After Aghs, I ask myself what items I need to win the game. Its most often Abyssal, but items like AC, Daed, MKB, Satanic, Basher, Blink are all good

Play style:

Sit behind another core that can siege towers, wait for them to go on your core then counterinitiate.

Or Use spirit to scout for enemies when sieging and try and stomp on the way backwards

Farm waves and camps that are safe.

If a hero is splitpushing by themselves, use your full combo to delete them.

Be patient in teamfights by avoiding going in first, unless you have a really good spirit and magic immunity from aghs.

Tricks:

You can use your spirit to return to your main hero even if you are stunned. To do this just use the spell “Return spirit” on the spirit and not the hero.

This means that you can activate magic immunity while stunned (or in euls from a SF combo)

You can use your phase boots or spider legs or both before summoning spirit so it moves much faster, allowing you to get easy spirit hits.

If you don’t see the enemy when sieging highground, send the spirit straight to their base.

This way, you can hit people in base and, more importantly, people don’t look as often for returning spirits so they might get hit and you get an easy stomp off.

You can stack and clear camps with astral spirit as it gives you more armor as well as damage, making clearing camps surprisingly easy on ET.

Be patient, its pointless trying to fight with only 1 hero hit with spirit so don’t return the spirit right away unless you need to.

Who is ET 1 good against?

ET 1 is good against any high agility hero that relies on that for survivability

Terrorblade, Spectre, Jugg, PL, Naga, Luna, Slark etc.

Et 1 is good against heroes that have many units.

Nature’s prophet, Enigma (Careful with blackhole though!), Beastmaster (roar and boar are also very good against you so be careful about this one)

ET 1 is good against squishy heroes you can 2 shot

CM, Lion, Shaman, SF, Invoker (careful of tornado though), Zeus, Lina, etc.

ET 1 is good against high hp but low armor heroes

Pudge, Treant, Undying

Who is good with ET 1?

2: Anyone that can siege or start fights

TA, Void Spirit, Ember Spirit, Storm Spirit, DP, Lesh, SF

3: Anyone that can initiate or deathball down towers

Abaddon, Centaur, Tiny, Nature’s prophet, LC.

4: Anyone.

5: 5s with lots of slows, stuns or buffs are insane

Venge, Lion, Ogre (ET + Bloodlust is insane), IO, Lich, Grimstroke, Snapfire.

Who counters ET 1?

Heroes that can manfight you no matter the stage of the game

Lifestealer, WK, Ursa, Troll.

Heroes that have bkb piercing stuns

Beastmaster, Winter Wyvern, Slardar, Enigma, clockwerk

Heroes that have high bonus armor or buy a lot of it

Dragon Knight, Troll, Clockwerk,

Heroes that have dispels (especially if it goes through bkb)

Doom, Shadow Demon, Ench, Chen w/ satyr, Oracle.

Why play ET 1 at all when there are many other more meta heroes?

You should pick ET 1 because it hard counters many meta 1s right now including Slark, Spectre and especially Terrorblade.

This way of playing ET is also very action-oriented so if you’re sick of playing farm fests for late game then this is a great carry to pick up.

Its also just so much fun. There’s no better feeling than two shotting supports with a well placed spirit or hitting a 5 man stomp + echo splitter.

I’m not gonna say ET 1 is broken or anything, but all I’ll say is, I got to top 100 with this play style and hero

Best wishes, and good luck in your ET endeavors. Feel free to ask me any questions.