Introduction
“Siren rises from the deeps.”
Naga Siren is a melee agility hero that, somewhat uniquely, can be played as either a hard carry or a support. She is most well known for her ‘anti-fun’ ultimate, Song of the Siren, which puts all enemy units in a huge radius to sleep for a lengthy 7 seconds.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Surprisingly versatile – can be played as a hard carry or a support
- Song of the Siren can be used as an initiation tool or to disengage from a poor fight
- Very high base move speed
- Very high base armour
- Has a disable that goes through spell immunity
- Strong split pusher & good at delaying games
Cons
- As a carry she needs a lot of farm to be viable
- As a support she needs to be paired up with a good partner
- Her disable does not stun and does not deal damage
- Her nuke relies on being almost within melee range of targets
- Melee attack range
- Song of the Siren can just as easily harm your team as it does save it if not timed well
- Need good micro skills in order to get the most out of her
Item Builds
Naga Siren is quite uniquely placed as being a hero that is just as popular in the support role as it is in the carry role. Other heroes that fit into both roles quite well nonetheless have one or the other which is that much more commonplace to see. In the case of Naga you’re as likely to see her played as a carry one game as you are to see her played as a support in the next.
Both are absolutely viable and popular options in the competitive scene, although Naga is much less popular in public games.
Because of the viability and popularity of both this guide will present both options in full. I’ll start off detailing support Naga’s items, followed by carry Naga’s items. Then I’ll present support Naga’s skill build, followed by carry Naga’s skill build, and finally finish with gameplay tips for both.
Support Naga Item Build
As with almost every support in the game your starting items are fairly standard. In particular, it’s your job to ensure that the Courier and/or Observer Wards are bought at the start of the game. Usually these duties will be split between yourself and another hero on your team, but you can’t always guarantee this in public games. If no one else ponies up the gold for one then you should bite the bullet and buy both for your team.
Good starting items for support Naga are:
- Courier and/or Observer Wards, a Set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 3x Iron Branches, and as many Clarities as you can afford.
Early Game
Ensure that the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark. Also ensure that Observer Wards are always purchased when they’re off cooldown.
Get your Boots of Speed up and running first. Naga Siren actually has fantastic base move speed (320), but you’ll still want the added mobility and security that brown boots provide you as a support.
Finally, upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand. You may wish to consider an early Bracer for the cost efficient stats it provides early on and the ability to upgrade it into a Drums of Endurance in the mid-game, but this is optional.
Core Items
Arcane Boots are my favourite upgraded boots on support Naga Siren. Unlike carry Naga, who will use her abilities sparingly for the most part (and even then typically the cheaper of the four for farming purposes), support Naga will actually use her Ensnare and Rip Tide abilities frequently from the get-go. You will also need to be able to call on Song of the Siren at a moment’s notice AND you’ll need mana for Mekanism if you’re the one building it for your team. All told, that’s a lot of mana you’ll be burning through, so a higher mana pool and burst mana regeneration are great to have. Additionally, Arcane Boots provide great utility for your team, and will allow you to more easily pull off being the team’s Mekanism carrier.
Talking of which - if there are no more viable Mekanism carriers on your team that will get it up much faster than you (such as a mid-Viper, or a jungle Chen), then Mekanism should be your go-to core item – it’s absolutely necessary for your team. Be sure to check with your team to see if anyone else intends to build one before you get started on it. If someone else does intend to build it then you can move straight onto a luxury item pick-up.
I love running Mekanism on support Naga. The only real downside is that you may be slow to get one completed, and you pretty much have to get Arcane Boots first. Still, she’s a great holder for the Mek – already innately fairly tanky, Mekanism makes her significantly more tanky and provides a tonne of support and utility for your team.
Luxury Items
Drums of Endurance – Drums of Endurance are a great option because they give you team bonus attack speed and move speed auras, whilst at the same time giving you plenty of stats and being easy to build into (since the components are so cheap you can buy them up whenever you have the spare unreliable gold, meaning you won’t lose much gold when you die). If you already have a Bracer from the early game as well then Drums become a natural extension to your inventory.
Good stats, utility, and cost-efficiency – what’s not to like? The only time I wouldn’t consider purchasing them is if a core on the team already has Drums – the auras don’t stack and so their advantage as a utility pick-up is largely lost, so your team would be better served by something else, such as…
Vladmir’s Offering – Your entire team will benefit from the bonus damage, mana regeneration, and armour auras. It’s doubly good if any of your team’s core heroes are melee DPS’ers thanks to the lifesteal aura. You’re melee too, so you get even more out of it than most supports.
Let’s not forget, either, that Naga is a viable core hero, and although you’re playing a support role in this particular case, should the game go long enough you will gradually be able to transition into more of a DPS role. Vlad’s doubles up both as a great utility item for your team and also an item that can allow you to start transitioning into more of a core role as the game drags on.
Blink Dagger – Blink Dagger is a strong positional item. You can use it to make up for your lack of innate positioning ability (aside from Song, which you don’t want to waste) to get off your abilities. A good alternative is Force Staff, which has the added advantage of allowing you to provide utility for your team (forcing allies out of bad situations, for example).
Heaven’s Halberd – I love picking this up on supports that can transition into cores, like Alchemist or Sven. At this stage of the game you’re actually becoming difficult to deal with yourself and transitioning into more of a semi-carry, so a Heaven’s Halberd (which doubles up as both a good carry item and a support item) is an ideal pick-up. It will make you even harder to take down and also gives you the ability to disarm enemies for 3-4.5 seconds.
Scythe of Vyse – The likelihood of you being able to afford a Scythe during all but the longest of games (or largest of stomps) is minimal, but if you can afford it then definitely get it! Another 3.5 seconds of disable for your team is absolutely enormous, and that’s on top of the stats it provides.
Necronomicon – Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights and for countering any invis enemy heroes. Finally, don’t forget it gives you a pretty decent chunk of stats - +16 strength and +24 intelligence; always nice to have.
Situational Items
Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight – all-important detection. You’ll need at least one of these in your inventory if the enemy line-up features an invis hero. Sentry Wards will also allow you to deward rune spots, and Gem will give you superior vision going into the mid and late game.
Smoke of Deceit – If you roam with another support in the early stages of the game a Smoke will allow you to do so more quickly and without being spotted by enemy wards. Smoke will also come in handy in the post-laning phase if your team wants to gank as 5.
Medallion of Courage - A really good cost-effective early game support item. The mana regeneration will help a lot, especially if you’re roaming, and the minus armour is seriously under-estimated in public games. Also opens up the possibility for an early Roshan for your team.
Pipe of Insight – If you didn't buy the team's Mekanism earlier on then consider getting a Pipe as a luxury item for your team. If you did buy the Mekanism then it's very risky getting Pipe as well - it's inadvisable to have both on one hero, but Naga is actually tanky enough to get away with it, unlike most support heroes. If your team is up against a lot of burst magic damage and is struggling to break the enemy base, I’d definitely consider it.
Carry Naga Item Build
If you’re playing Naga as a carry you need either safe lane farm with lane support or to be mid lane against an opponent that cannot punish you too heavily and, ideally, a defensive ward to protect you from early rotations. If you can’t rely on your supports for these things (or on even having supports! This is public matchmaking after all) then carry Naga Siren is best avoided.
Starting Items
That out of the way, here’s a typical set of starting items for carry Naga:
- A set of Tangos, Healing Salve, Circlet, Slippers of Agility, Iron Branch.
This gives you plenty of regen, which should see you through the laning stage, as well as lots of stats. All of the stat-based items will also come in useful later as components for early game items, so they’re cost efficient pick-ups as well.
Early Game
If you intend to go Radiance rush then it’s not uncommon for Naga to stick with non-upgraded Boots of Speed. If you want some early stats and don’t want to feel stupidly vulnerable then Power Treads are a good early and mid game option.
Convert your Iron Branch into an upgraded Magic Wand, and upgrade your Circlet and Slippers of Agility into a Wraith Band. I feel it’s well worth further upgrading the Wraith Band into a Ring of Aquila nowadays – since its last major patch buff Ring of Aquila has become a very cost efficient stat item that works wonders on agility cores.
After that, it’s time to save up your gold and start thinking about your core item pick-ups.
Core Options
There are three typical core item builds for Naga. These are:
Radiance Rush – This is the riskiest option but it is also the most popular, probably as a result of its popularity in competitive Dota. Basically your goal here is to get a Radiance as quickly as possible, avoiding teamfights and ganks. Once you have the Radiance your farming rate will dramatically increase, as you send your Mirror Image illusions into the jungle and different lanes to quickly mop up creep kills. If you get a timely Radiance on Naga then – providing you can micro effectively – you become a very scary prospect.
The downsides are obvious, however. Your team is fighting a 4v5 battle until you get Radiance, and even then you won’t be ready to fight yourself (though you can contribute illusions to fights) – Radiance is more of a stepping stone to farming quickly and achieving incredible split pushing power.
Until you get Radiance plus one other item you are also vulnerable to ganks, though fortunately Song of the Siren is arguably the best escape and disengagement ability in the game, so you should be able to avoid ganks so long as you play safely.
Drums & Yasha – The slow and steady, combat-ready option. This is probably the safest of the three builds. It gives you good stats, so you’re not going to be as squishy as you are opting for one of the other builds, it also gives you plenty of agility and additional bonuses, such as attack speed and move speed. Again, the other builds don’t offer this. It means you can fight early and often, which although not ideal may be a necessary evil in public games, lest your team lose the game fighting 4 on 5.
The downsides are arguably just as great as those for the other builds, however. Firstly it’s not a cheap item build. Yes, these are largely mid-game oriented items and they are very easy to build into, but bought together they’re also quite expensive too. By extension, they don’t prepare you well for the late-mid game and proper late game – Drums are a mid-game item and fall off in effectiveness fairly early on for cores, and so it may feel like something of a waste of 2,000 gold that could’ve gone towards a Diffusal. Put simply, although they allow you to fight early they may also leave you feeling lacking in punching power. The same certainly cannot be said for Radiance.
Diffusal Blade - The ‘cheap’ option. Diffusal is fairly easy to build into thanks to it having 4 relatively affordable pieces that can be bought whenever you have unreliable gold to spend. It doesn’t give you any survivability, but it’s a good middle ground between the two extremes of Radiance and Drums of Endurance – you significantly buff your damage output without breaking the bank. Although, like Radiance rush, they do still leave you squishy, it does allow you to get a defensive second item much more quickly.
It should be noted that even with the other builds, Diffusal is almost always purchased (and so appears in the luxury section below). It gives you a nice chunk of agility and mana, and the mana burn will make life hell for enemy heroes, especially supports, because your illusions will also benefit from it. The active is also great for offensive chasing purposes and defensively purging enemy debuffs (such as Dust or a slow).
Luxury Items
Manta Style – Considered a core luxury item. Good stats for an agility carry, increased mobility and attack speed, and most importantly 2 additional illusions every 50 seconds. This is useful not just for quickly pushing out lanes and taking down enemy buildings remotely but also for dodging certain silences and projectile attacks/stuns, making you much harder to lock down.
Once you have your Manta you don’t need to fear being Orchid’d and silenced or Dusted; you can simply pop your illusions to dispel both effects.
Diffusal Blade – Also considered a core luxury item. It gives you a nice chunk of agility and mana, and the mana burn will make life hell for enemy heroes, especially supports, because your illusions will also benefit from it. The active is also great for offensive chasing purposes and defensively purging enemy debuffs (such as Dust or a slow).
Heart of Tarrasque – Typically purchased straight after your Radiance, if you went for the Radiance rush build. It not only makes you hugely tanky, it also makes your illusions very tanky too. A Naga illusion army with Radiance aura, a Heart, and the possibility of a Rip Tide nuke is really hard to deal with in the late game. Supports in particular will simply not be able to deal with your illusions or will take considerable damage by doing so.
Butterfly – The ultimate late-game luxury purchase for agility carries – huge chunks of attack speed, damage, and evasion. It makes you much tankier and more dangerous, and significantly buffs your Mirror Image and Manta Style illusions in the process. What’s worse than Naga illusions with Radiance, Heart and Rip Tide? Illusions with Butterfly as well.
Boots of Travel – If you stuck with basic Boots of Speed earlier on (and this is a particular popular decision in competitive Dota), then you’ll want to upgrade them into Boots of Travel when you’re building out your luxury items. If you bought Power Treads earlier then I would recommend replacing them with Boots of Travel once you have Radiance, Diffusal, Manta and one defensive item.
Situational Items
Bottle – If you’re laning Naga mid you’ll want a Bottle, if only for the rune control and free regen that grants you. Bottle is popular even if you can’t secure runes with Naga because you can Bottle crow, which may be essential to allowing you to secure last hits whilst withstanding the harassment the enemy laner throws out.
Bottle is less popular if you’re safe laning, although not necessarily something you want to rule out – the regen can be great at allowing you to maintain your mana pool and keep spawning Mirror Image illusions and using Rip Tide when they arrive at their destination. This way you can farm with them in safety.
A typical 6 slotted Naga looks like this: Boots of Travel, Diffusal Blade, Radiance, Manta Style, Heart of Tarrasque, Butterfly. At that point you’re maxed out, but you can switch out one of those items for something else if necessary (typically when deciding to teamfight, rather than split pushing). Potential options include:
Daedalus – All-in damage build. Very high damage and a chance to Critical Strike. This is for if you’re taking the fight head on, which is not how carry Naga is usually played (you tend to push in the lanes using illusions, maintain map dominance and simply choke the enemy team to death in their base).
Monkey King Bar – Another damage item, this time taken if you need to counter evasion (e.g. the enemy carry is Phantom Assassin, an agility carry that has purchased Butterfly, or a high-impact core with Heaven’s Halberd).
Black King Bar – Naga doesn’t typically buy BKB, but sometimes it is necessary; if you find you’re being shut down in teamfights and unable to get in attack range you’ll need the Spell Immunity from BKB to be able to make an effective contribution to teamfights. That said, you ideally do not want to purchase this; it will feel like something of a wasted item slot unless you’re engaging in head-on teamfights.
Skill Builds
The skill builds for the different Naga Siren play styles feature slight differences in skill order but, perhaps more importantly, her skills tends to be put to wildly different uses depending on the role she's being played as.
As such I will go through both skill build orders and also explain the role each ability plays for the different Naga play styles.
Support Naga Skill Build
Mirror Image allows Naga to create three illusions at will. It is always skilled and maxed last when playing support Naga. At the cost of 70/80/90/100 mana, Mirror Image creates three illusions of Naga which lasts for up to 30 seconds. These illusions deal 20/25/30/35% of Naga’s own damage and take 500/400/300/200% bonus damage when attacked.
On support Naga, these illusions tend to be put to more support-oriented uses, such as scouting fog of war, checking the Roshan pit, stacking creep camps, delaying enemy pushes, split pushing, and harassing enemies with Rip Tide.
Ensnare is a disable which holds enemies in place for a few seconds. On support Naga it is always skilled first and maxed second. Ensnare allows you to pin an enemy down for 2/3/4/5 seconds.
It has a lengthy cast range of 650 units, and a low-ish mana cost of 90/100/110/120, making it a great initiation tool for ganks, however it deals no damage and does not stun, so only tends to be effective as a set up for allies to follow up on.
Rip Tide is Naga’s only magic damage nuke. It is always skilled second but maxed first. Rip Tide deals 130/160/190/220 magic damage to all enemy units within a 320 unit radius of Naga. It also reduces those units’ armour by 2/3/4/5 for 8 seconds.
Rip Tide is a strong nuke but the main problems is that, when played as a support, Naga will typically wish to avoid getting up close and personal with enemies. Nonetheless, it’s a potent nuke and the minus armour buff is great for any physical cores on your team to follow up on.
Song of the Siren is Naga’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). Song of the Siren puts all enemy units within a 1250 unit radius of Naga to sleep for a full 7 seconds. Units cannot be attacked whilst slept, but Song of the Siren is a great way to set-up teamfights or to allow your team to disengage from a fight that is going badly.
Carry Naga Skill Build
Mirror Image allows Naga to create three illusions at will. It is always skilled last but tends to be maxed second on a carry Naga. At the cost of 70/80/90/100 mana, Mirror Image creates three illusions of Naga which lasts for up to 30 seconds. These illusions deal 20/25/30/35% of Naga’s own damage and take 500/400/300/200% bonus damage when attacked.
On carry Naga, Mirror Image allows you to really accelerate your farm – you can split the illusions up and send them to separate lanes or creep camps in the jungle to farm, either using the aura from Radiance or your own Rip Tide nuke (which is also used by her illusions when cast by Naga). This allows you to farm remotely in safety whilst also pushing out the lanes.
Ensnare is a disable which holds enemies in place for a few seconds. On carry Naga it is always skilled first in case of a level 1 gank but is maxed last. Ensnare allows you to pin an enemy down for 2/3/4/5 seconds. It has a lengthy cast range of 650 units, and a low-ish mana cost of 90/100/110/120, making it a great way of pinning enemy units down so that you can get within attack range.
Rip Tide is Naga’s only magic damage nuke. It is always skilled second but maxed first. Rip Tide deals 130/160/190/220 magic damage to all enemy units within a 320 unit radius of Naga. It also reduces those units’ armour by 2/3/4/5 for 8 seconds.
It synergises superbly with your DPS role when playing Naga as a carry, as the minus armour makes your physical attacks much more potent. The high magic damage is also great for clearing creep waves or jungle camps with your illusions or for contributing damage to early teamfights if necessary.
Song of the Siren is Naga’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). Song of the Siren puts all enemy units within a 1250 unit radius of Naga to sleep for a full 7 seconds. Units cannot be attacked whilst slept, but Song of the Siren is a great way to set-up teamfights or to allow you to disengage from a fight that is going badly or to escape from an enemy gank whilst you’re farming.
Gameplay Tips
Naga, when played as a carry, tends to be played more as a pushing/split pushing carry than a teamfight carry. Once you have a decent amount of farm you can use Mirror Image to spawn illusions and then send them to separate lanes or jungle camps in order to farm more efficiently and also push out the lanes. For the mostpart, you will be avoiding teamfights, until you become ridiculously farmed.
Mirror Image also allows you to mount decent high-ground defence without putting yourself at risk. Using the illusions you can whittle down enemy creep waves before they reach high ground and can also use them to secure jungle farm when you would otherwise be starved for creep kills due to your defensive positioning.
| Tip: Upon casting, Mirror Image makes Naga invulnerable for a split second, which allows you to dodge some stuns and damage instances if you time it correctly. |
Mirror Image also dispels most debuffs upon cast, which allows you to remove negative buffs like silences, slows, DoT abilities, blinds, etc.
Ensnare is a great means of keeping enemies locked down so that you can get in range to attack them or to use Rip Tide, it’s also great at preventing enemies from escape, as it disables them for up to 5 seconds.
| Tip: Ensnare reveals invisible heroes for its duration, making it a great way to prolong true sight vision on pesky invis heroes like Weaver or Bounty Hunter. |
Ensnare also goes through spell immunity, so it can be a fantastic way of wasting an enemy core’s BKB charges. Once they activate BKB use Ensnare on them to keep them locked down and to prevent them from going ham on your teammates.
| Tip: Most people aren’t aware of this, but Ensnare can actually be used on animal couriers, so you can lock it down for an easy kill and gold bounty for your team if you spot it out in the open. |
Ensnare is a disable, but it is not a stun, so it does not prevent enemy heroes from casting their abilities – it merely prevents them from moving or blinking. It will, however, interrupt channelled abilities that have already been cast.
Rip Tide is a great magic damage nuke and armour reduction ability. Be sure to try and hit multiple enemy units to get the most out of it, and to target enemy cores with it in teamfights so that the armour reduction takes effect on them.
Naga’s illusions (be they from Mirror Image, Manta Style, or an illusion rune) will also cast Rip Tide, making them great ways to deliver your magic damage nuke to enemy units or creeps if you fear being put out of position by approaching them yourself.
Song of the Siren has a number of fantastic uses, including:
- Saving allies who are otherwise about to die, giving them time to run away or Teleport out to safety.
- Saving yourself from an enemy gank or dive.
- Delaying an enemy push when those 7 seconds could prove crucial (such as allowing your teammates to teleport back to base, to resurrect after dying, or to deal damage to the enemy base)
- Holding retreating enemies in place so that your team can surround them and pick them off
- Pausing the action near the Roshan pit if he is low, so that you can finish him off and steal the Aegis for yourself
- Catching enemies in bad positions, allowing your team to re-position themselves and prepare their abilities for when your Song ends
- Allow yourself and your teammates to set up for a teamfight (for example by using your Mirror Image illusions and splitting them up so that they cover a wide area and effect all enemy heroes when you use Rip Tide)
- To isolate an enemy who has activate BKB, allowing your team to focus on him without worrying about his allies
| Important: As amazing as it can be, Song can also bite your team in the ass big time is not used at the right time. Enemies under the effect of Song of the Siren cannot be attacked and will not be affected by any abilities unless they activated Black King Bar or spell immunity before you cast it. Time its use poorly with your team, therefore, and you could end up wasting all manner of huge impact teamfight abilities like Black Hole, Eclipse, Ravage, etc. |
Remember also that the area of effect of Song of the Siren is 1250 units around Naga Siren, and that this AoE follows Naga. Thus, as Naga moves away from enemy units or heroes that have been caught by it they will wake up. If using Song to, for example, allow your team to disengage from a poor fight, be sure to be the last person to bail, lest your leave an allied hero behind to die.
Song of the Siren can be prematurely cancelled, by pressing R a second time, so if you do mess up and cast it whilst an allied hero is using a channelled ability, for example, or your team is ready to fight, you can end Song early.
Last Updated - Patch 6.82.
