Introduction
“Beware the wolf.”
Lycan is a melee strength carry famed for his pushing potential. Traditionally viewed almost solely as a jungler, significant nerfs to his Summon Wolves ability meant he fell out of favour both competitively and in public matchmaking.
He has seen a sudden return to popularity in recent months, however, with a shift in play-style from jungler to safe lane farmer.
You can find Lycan's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Absolutely amazing pusher
- Can kill Roshan early on
- Wolves make for a great scouting tool as well as increasing your DPS
- Strong ultimate form
- High DPS and move speed with ultimate
- Has an escape mechanism if needs must
- Can jungle if necessary
Cons
- Nerfs have made it hard to jungle from level 1
- Will also struggle as safe lane farmer unless he is babysat
- Very reliant on his ultimate form
- Mana issues
- Not the best late game carry
- Item dependent
- No lockdown
Item Build
As mentioned at the start of this guide, Lycan has traditionally been laned as a jungler. Nerfs in patch 6.75 hit him hard, though, increasing the mana cost of his Wolves and decreasing their health from 400 to a mere 200 at level 1. This significantly slowed down his jungle progression, as you can no longer rely on the Wolves to tank neutral creep damage and must instead take the damage yourself, meaning a return trip or two to the well and a tough start. It is still possible, and as such I will lay out his jungle items and skill build.
The more popular way to lane Lycan nowadays is as a safe lane farmer, thanks to its increased popularity in competitive Dota. There are issues with this too, though, especially in public matchmaking. Most notably he has a very weak laning presence and is a melee hero, so he’ll need substantial babysit support in the lane or else he’ll struggle to maintain a good creep kill count if the lane is even remotely contested.
Starting Items
Wherever you’re laning Lycan, be it jungle or safe lane, your early, core, luxury, and situational items remain the same. The main difference comes in respect to starting items, and potentially the need to ship out some regen (or return to the fountain) if you’re jungling.
Jungling:
If you’re jungling this is the typical starting build nowadays:
- A Quelling Blade, a Stout Shield, a set of Tangos, and a Clarity.
Note that this is 5 gold more than you start with; as a jungler you can remain in base after the starting horn and so get the gold necessary to purchase the extra Clarity. You also want to summon your Wolves just after the creeps spawn, regen your mana, and then head out into the jungle. This gives you a slightly easier start.
However, you’ll still need to tank the neutrals most of the time (unless your Wolves are about to time out, in which case they can tank the damage until they die), and you’ll still need to return to the fountain at least once when you get low on health and mana (do the same summon and regen trick you did at the start to get an extra set of Wolves for free).
It’s slower than it used to be, and you may feel you’re wasting a lot of time, but it is still viable and you can get your Vladmir’s Offering in a decent time. As soon as you have that you can jungle with ease and Roshan early on too.
Laning:
If you’re laning as Lycan and don’t expect to struggle in the lane then the typical starting build is:
- A Quelling Blade, a set of Tangos, a Ring of Protection, and 2x Iron Branches.
This gives you good starting stats, a little bit of regen, and an early start on your Vladmir’s Offering. If you expect lane harass or have an unreliable babysit support you can go for a Stout Shield and swap out the Ring of Protection and 2x Iron Branches.
Early Game
Early on you want to upgrade the Ring of Protection (if you have one; if not get one) into a Ring of Basillius.
Also grab some basic Boots of Speed, so that you’re not a sitting duck prior to level 6. Since your ultimate gives you such high movespeed you don’t actually need to upgrade your boots in the early game; indeed, in pro games he often forgoes all but Boots of Speed entirely until the late game.
Core Items
Vladmir’s Offering is your main priority. You want to get it up and running as quickly as possible. Not only will it make jungling an absolute breeze, but as with Ursa it also allows you to solo Roshan as soon as you have it up and running thanks to the lifesteal it provides both Lycan and his Wolves.
A good tip is to buy a Smoke of Deceit after you’ve bought your Vladmir’s Offering. Smoke yourself up inside your own territory where you know there are no enemy wards and then go straight to Roshan and kill him. This way, you will not be spotted entering the pit by any enemy wards that may be looking out for an early Roshan attempt.
You’ll get solo experience and gold from the kill, which is fantastic, and your team will more than welcome the early infusion of gold from Roshan. You’ll then be able to transition straight into pushing.
Next on your priority list is Necronomicon level 3. Lycan is an absolute beast at pushing/split-pushing; with level 4 Wolves, level 3 Necro units, and his ultimate form off cooldown he is arguably the best tower and base pushing hero in the game outside of an Aghanims Tiny. It also increases your DPS to a surprising degree – don’t under-estimate the damage output from Wolves and Necro units.
Now you may wish to upgrade your Boots of Speed into Power Treads if you haven’t already. As I mentioned earlier it is not unheard of for Lycan to forgo upgraded Boots until the late game, when he can purchase Boots of Travel to send his split-pushing potential through the roof, and this is definitely viable. If you do want an early upgrade to your boots, however, then go for Power Treads; the perfect mid-game boots for a highly mobile strength carry.
Luxury Extensions
Lycan has quite a few fantastic luxury item choices. Which you prioritise first is largely going to depend on how the game is progressing (getting locked down and killed off in teamfights? Go Black King Bar. Enemies kiting you? Get a Skull Basher then an Abyssal Blade. Mostly focussed on base pushing/sieging? Go for an Assault Cuirass or maybe even Desolator).
Black King Bar – If the enemy team is able to lock you down hard then consider going Black King Bar as your first luxury item in order to be able to actually get stuck into the fights and not stun-locked to irrelevancy. It naturally makes you tankier and gives you a small damage boost.
Ideally you do not want to be forced into BKB first, but if needs be then you absolutely should.
Assault Cuirass – Great all-round item to get on Lycan – good for fights and even better for pushes. Assault Cuirass’s attack speed and minus armour aura both make your carry potential go through the roof when combined with your already high base damage.
The extra armour will also make you that much more tanky. The multiple auras benefit your entire team, and the minus armour works on structures, which makes your already incredible pushing potential absolutely insane (no one can push faster besides a farmed carry Tiny).
Skull Basher into Abyssal Blade – The go-to combat item for a carry that lacks lockdown.
Skull Basher will give you some damage and a nice strength boost, which will augment your health pool and increase your. But the primary reason for purchasing a Basher is for the passive chance to stun through Spell Immunity for 1.4 seconds. This gives you lockdown your sorely lack otherwise, having to rely solely on your teammates for lockdown or your superior mobility during your ultimate form to chase enemies down.
It’s well worth upgrading into an Abyssal Blade too, as that not only increases your damage significantly it, it also gives you a secondary, active stun that lasts for 2 seconds and also goes through Spell Immunity.
Desolator – The damage is nice, it's quite an inexpensive offensive item, and the minus armour makes you hit harder. The minus armour doesn't just work against enemy heroes and creeps either, it works on buildings. Desolator thus makes you an even better base pusher.
Satanic – Very expensive but it doubles up as both a fantastic offensive and defensive weapon. You get a nice chunk of health, very handy life steal from your attacks, and the chance to heal yourself back up when low on health using the Unholy Rage active. I like to liken this to the health effects of Roshan's Cheese. As long as you're able to attack, you basically get your health pool completely regenerated.
Will make you a full on tank. Your health pool will be enormous and you’ll also hit a lot harder. A good luxury item if you feel you’re falling in teamfights too quickly, but I prefer…
Heaven’s Halberd – Halberd will make you deceptively tanky. 20 strength is a nice boost to your health pool and damage, whilst 25% evasion means you'll mitigate a lot of damage. It also has utility for your team, thanks to the ability to Disarm an enemy physical DPS'er for 3.0-4.5 seconds. This makes it an especially great option if (as Lycan is prone to) you find that as you approach the late game the enemy carry is starting to have a larger impact in fights than yourself.
Situational Items
Medallion – A situational early game pick up if you want some minus armour and mana regen. It’s often purchased in competitive Dota as it allows quick access to Roshan (the minus armour makes Roshan a breeze to take down), it’s also a good combat item in that -6 armour is going to make your auto-attacks hit a lot harder.
Monkey King Bar – Huge attack damage, mini-bash, and a little bit of attack speed. It also grants you True Strike, making it the ideal pick-up to combat agility carries that would typically build into a Butterfly or which have evasion built-in (such as Phantom Assassin).
Boots of Travel - When you are at that stage of the game when you’re becoming 6 slotted you can swap out your initial set of boots for Boots of Travel (assuming you bothered to upgrade your basic Boots of Speed earlier). It frees up a slot you would otherwise have reserved for a TP Scroll and makes you much less susceptible to split-push.
Skill Build
As with the item build, Lycan’s skill build initially depends on whether you’re laning with him or jungling with him, but after level 4 the skill build is identical. The first skill build (pictured above) shows the old-school jungling build. The second skill build (pictured below) is for the currently-popular laning Lycan.
The difference lies in getting an early point in Howl and Feral Impulse if you’re laning, as the Wolves provide little off the bat when laning whilst the direct buff to your damage will help secure last hits (as well as make your lane supports hit harder when you activate Howl). Regardless of build, however, Wolves are maxed by level 7, you ultimate is taken at level 6, and Feral Impulse tends to be maxed second over Howl.
Summon Wolves is, as the name implies, an ability which allows Lycan to summon two wolves to aid him in battle. This is always maxed first. The wolves cost 145 mana to summon and last 55 seconds. Additional points increase their health, damage, move speed, and attack rate. At level 2 they acquire critical strike. At level 3 they acquire invisibility when not attacking. At level 4 they gain 15 health regeneration.
They thus scale superbly with levels and become a major augment to Lycan’s own damage output. They allow you to access the jungle early on (from level 1 if necessary, although this is much harder nowadays for the reasons explained above), and they give Lycan the ability to solo Roshan early on.
Howl is an aura which can be activated to grant both Lycan, his summons, and his allies bonus damage for 10 seconds. This is maxed last. That is not because it is a bad ability, by any means – you and your allies gain 14/26/38/50 damage, and your summons gain 5/10/15/20, which is pretty substantial. The main issue is that Lycan lacks for mana early on, mana which he needs for Summon Wolves, and so Feral Impulse is given skill priority as it is a passive.
The reason an early point is gotten when laning Lycan is that the damage buff is a fantastic boon for your lane supports. If you are aggressive trilaning, or defensive trilaning, you can really punish enemy heroes and force them to burn through consumables at a rapid rate by using Howl whenever the teams start trading hits.
Feral Impulse is a passive ability which increases the damage and attack speed of Lycan and his units. This is maxed second. The increase scales reasonably with levels (15/20/25/30% damage bonus, 15/20/25/30 attack speed bonus). It is also a percentage-based damage buff, which means it scales far better late fame than the bonus damage from Howl.
Between Feral Impulse and Howl not only does Lycan have incredibly high damage potential, but so do any minions under his control – both his Wolves and any Necronomicon units he summons (which is a key reason Necronomicon is so highly rated as an item on him).
Shapeshift is Lycan’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). This causes Lycan to shapeshift into a wolf for 18 seconds, whereupon he gains 650 speed, a chance to critical strike, and increased night vision.
It has three primary uses. Firstly, it’s obviously the main way in which you engage in teamfights; without Shapeshift you’ll deal significantly less damage and are infinitely more vulnerable. Secondly, it’s a superb escape tool because it gives you max move speed. The cooldown is fairly high at level 1, so you ideally do not want to waste your ultimate merely to escape, but you can if necessary. Thirdly, it makes you base sieging and split pushing potential insanely high – your damage is increased and the fantastic mobility it gives you makes it hard for the enemy team to punish your antics.
Gameplay Tips
At levels 3 and 4 your Wolves gain permanent invisibility, which is only broken if they attack. This makes them great scouting tools if your team lacks vision of a crucial area (such as an area of the jungle, Roshan, or the runes), it’s also a good way of allowing highly mobile heroes that purchase Boots of Travel to gank or join teamfights.
| Tip: If you are jungling as Lycan wait for the starting horn to blow and then Summon Wolves. Stay in the fountain and regenerate your mana to essentially get a free set of Wolves – you’ll need them now that the jungle is much harder for Lycan to work through efficiently! |
Howl has a global range, so even if you’re not involved in a gank or teamfight you can cast it to help out your team; the bonus damage they acquire from it may prove clutch.
Howl is useful early on if you’re laning as Lycan, as it gives not only your own hero a damage buff but also any lane supports your have, which will make their harassment of enemy heroes more effective – cast Howl if your teams start trading blows.
Feral Impulse passively buffs the attack speed and damage of all of your summons, including Wolves and Necronomicon units, making Lycan a great Necronomicon purchaser. With two Wolves and two Necro units your DPS is extremely high in the early and mid games – you can really punish people who under-estimate the damage output of your summons.
Shapeshift actually gives 650 movespeed not just to Lycan but also to his summons – another reason he is such a good candidate for Necronomicon, and also why you should always spawn your Wolves when engaging in fights; they really do contribute a lot.
| Note: Lycan cannot actually be slowed whilst in his ultimate form, except by stuns. Purges and hexes do not remove the move speed buff, making those abilities useless against him. In short, you need only be worried by stuns. |
Last Updated - Patch 6.82.
