Introduction
"I speak for the trees."
Tequoia, Nature's Prophet (hereafter simply 'NP'), is a ranged intelligence hero who is popular in both competitive and non-competitive Dota 2 thanks to his global ganking and damage-dealing presence, ability to flash farm, and incredibly strong pushing potential.
Although squishy, he has the potential to evolve into a deadly right-clicker later on in the game, and will always pose a strong split-pushing threat that means he can buy his team time to farm up and avoid taking unfavourable fights (he is the king of so-called 'rat dota').
You can find Nature's Prophet's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Global ganking presence from level 2 onwards
- Global damage dealer when he hits level 6
- Strong jungler & flash farmer
- Amazing base & split-pusher
- Good comeback potential even if team falls massively behind
- Can transition into a strong semi-carry
Cons
- Squishy
- Requires farm to be a threat
- Vulnerable to ganks when split-pushing
- Requires good map awareness and decision-making abilities
- Unreliable lockdown and no stun or slow
Item Build
Starting Items
The two most common starting builds are:
1 - Gloves of Haste, 2x Clarity
or
2 - Ring of Basilius, 2x Clarity
Go for option 1 if you want to rush a Hand of Midas as quickly as possible. Hand of Midas is one of Prophet's two core builds (the other being Maelstrom) and the faster you get it the better... usually.
Option 2 is a more efficient but less popular option. It will delay your Hand of Midas/Maelstrom but it gives you added utility, benefits your push (the aura benefits your Treants, allies and creeps), and allows you to stay in the jungle without returning to base (thanks to the mana regen and the increased durability of your Treants).
Farm the jungle with your Treants, keeping an eye out for any potential offensive ganks that will allow you to pick up a kill or assist a teammate with Teleportation, or grab a courier kill.
Micro your Treants to ensure you get the most efficiency out of them; when one is low pull him away from the jungle creep so that his attacks go onto a healthier Treant. With more levels in Nature's Call you'll be able to use one of your Treants to stack a jungle camp every time the clock hits X.54.
Core Options
First up grab some Boots of Speed, then decide whether to go Midas or Maelstrom. As far as upgraded boots go, these can be either Power Treads or Phase Boots.
Phase is the go-to professional build, but does leave you squishy because it lacks the health infusion that Power Treads provide. The advantage of Phase Boots is that they make you hit pretty hard from an early point, making your lane and teamfight presence much stronger, and give you good mobility.
There are two popular core builds at present - the old-school Hand of Midas rush, and the increasingly popular Maelstrom build. Both rapidly accelerate your farm (Hand of Midas slightly moreso, and also grants an experience boost), and both also give you some good attack speed, but Maelstrom will make you more effective in teamfights and has good upgrade potential (Mjollnir is a great luxury item on Prophet).
Luxury Items
With that, you have your core, and now your options are wide open. The most common pick-ups, in order of utility/popularity, are:
Scythe of Vyse - At first it may strike you as a bit odd. Scythe does little to improve your pushing power and gives you little in the way of added damage. Why is Scythe the most common next item then? Besides the mana regen, which is a fairly minor consideration, it's all about the lockdown that the Hex active provides. This gives you immense amount of utility. It can be used for lockdown in teamfights, to initiate during ganks, or even defensively to buy you time to Shadow Blade > Teleport away. As NP you are also one of the fastest farmers in the game, meaning your Scythe should come very early, even though it's your third big-ticket item.
Mjollnir - Mjollnir will further accelerate your farm and pushing potential (the lightning allows you to quickly burst your way through jungle camps and lane creeps). If you went for the Maelstrom build it's a no-brainer in terms of luxury extensions; even if you went Hand of Midas it's still a good option.
It will also make you even stronger in teamfights - the Static Charge and Chain Lightning abilities are often under-estimated in their damage output potential, and the attack speed will make you something of a decent DPS'er.
Necronomicon - Necronomicon is another fantastic pushing item. It can be used defensively (you can spawn your Treants and Necro creeps whilst hidden in the safety of fog of war or the tree lane and use them to push if the enemy team are not on the mini-map. You won't push as fast, but you also won't be in harm's way and you will force out a defence). Necro is doubly good if the enemy team have an invisibility hero because, once upgraded to level 3, the Necro Warrior will give you True Sight.
Orchid Malevolence - Orchid is great on intelligence heroes that are capable of transitioning into semi-carry roles. The Soul Burn active will amplify your right clicks and the silence can be used offensively and defensively to great effect. The mana will also allow you to more liberally cast spells and actives on items.
Desolator - Desolator is great on NP. 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 makes you a very quick base pusher.
Assault Cuirass - This will give you greater utility for your team, assuming there is no other, better carrier on your team. It, too, synergises well with your push-focussed strategy because the minus armour works against enemy units and buildings. It also stacks with Desolator, meaning you'll have -12 armour in total which allows you to shred through buildings (for context, Tier 3 Towers have 25 armour, Melee Barracks 15, and Ranged Barracks a mere 10).
| Tip: Tier 1 Towers do not have any backdoor protection or health regeneration, and the Ranged Barracks has no health regeneration, making them good targets for pick-offs. |
Monkey King Bar - A great right-click damage item that gives you numerous other benefits as well. It is very expensive though, so should probably be purchased as a 5th or 6th item. With MKB you can transition into a semi-carry with good right-click damage and the ability to take on heroes with evasion, but you also become a stronger pusher because MKB gives you True Strike, which means you will not miss when attacking uphill (great for more safely positioning yourself when pushing the enemy base).
If you decide to go all-out push then a typical item line-up will look like this: Boots, Hand of Midas, Shadow Blade, Scythe of Vyse, Desolator, Necronomicon, and then you can sell your Midas when you're ready to build an Assault Cuirass or MKB. But any of the luxury items listed above can be switched in for any of these items based on personal preference.
Situational Items
Shadow Blade - Traditionally a core luxury extension, Shadow Blade has fallen off in popularity in recent patches because of its relative cost inefficiency at present (the offensive stats for gold investment is poor). It's still viable, but more geared towards a rat push-centric play-style.
If your primary function in a given game is to split push, then Shadow Blade gives you a solid mobility boost and an escape tool for getting out of the lane asap when necessary (Shadow Blade does NOT cancel Teleportation, so you can TP to safety under the cover of invisibility).
Shadow Blade also has potential as a ganking tool - you can teleport into fog, Shadow Blade, and then initiate on the enemy - but there are almost always better options.
Blink Dagger - The ultimate mobility item. Now, I wouldn't advise it in most cases, but good Nature's Prophet players are increasingly opting for Blink Dagger as a luxury pick-up, mirroring its rise in popularity in the competitive scene.
It doesn't augment your damage, or even your pushing potential all that much, but as a positional tool it is unrivalled, which for a very squishy but also potentially crippling right clicker can be paramount in teamfights. Only go for it if you're already fairly experienced with the hero though.
Black King Bar - Good on virtually any hero. The reason it's not prioritised typically on NP is that you lack item slots and will in general be avoiding fights past the mid-game. It is a core pick up if you intend to be involved more in teamfighting than pushing though, and if you go the semi-carry route you'll probably need one in order to be able to get off your right clicks.
Daedalus - If you are transitioning into a semi-carry for your team then Daedalus is a great right-click item. It doesn't give you as much pushing power as the items listed in the Luxury section though.
Mekanism - Not typically recommended, but if you have a pushing line-up you may need to buy one for early team pushes. You may also need to be the Mek purchaser if your team entirely lacks support. It will give your own pushes more sustainability, but that's rarely a major concern for NP anyway.
Dagon - A special mention for Dagon, which is always a fun item to build in order to insta-kill squishy opponents, and which is often picked up on NP in pub games. But that really is all it gives you - burst damage - and nothing else. Not recommended unless you're just messing around with friends.
Skill Build
Prophet's skill build is almost a popular opposite of his item build. While there are a multitude of viable items for NP, there's really only one proper way to skill him (the most notable exception is when people take Teleportation at level one and 'cliff jungle', but this is really not advised and your team will hate you if you do it).
So, at level 1 you skill Nature's Call regardless of whether you're jungling or offlaning. Assuming you're jungling, spawn them from the fountain when the creeps spawn, regenerate your mana, and then start jungling. This allows you to almost kill off one set of jungle creeps without any cost to your mana.
At level 2 you put a point in Teleportation. Look out for opportunities to Teleport into the lanes to help out allies if they're being dived, to pick off enemies if they're low on health, or to grab a courier kill.
At level 3 get a second point in Nature's Call. At this stage it becomes much easier to jungle without worrying about the Treants dying too quickly. At level 4 put a point into Sprout. This allows you to keep an enemy in position when going for ganks.
| Note: Sprout is easily countered early on by a Quelling Blade or Tango, as well as certain hero abilities and items, but even then it still keeps an enemy occupied for a second or two so is well worth getting. |
After that, max out Nature's Call to maximise your pushing and jungling potential. The second skill you want to max is Teleportation for the reduced cooldown, and finally Sprout.
Always get your ultimate, Wrath of Nature, at levels 6, 11 and 16, but DO NOT use it early game just to farm creeps. As tempting as it is to get the extra gold income those random creep kills give you, it will hurt your team; stealing farm from the other lanes and pushing the lanes out. In the mid and late game this is fine, because your job is to push the lanes, but in the early game it will only hurt your team and means you won't be able to use it when you may most need it (during teamfights).
Instead, Wrath of Nature should be used to help out in ganks, tower defences, or teamfights. The damage is actually deceptively high. While it is only 140 on the first hit at level one, it can hit multiple heroes and the damage increases with successive bounces, such that it can actually do almost 300 damage towards the end of the ultimate. Thus try targeting it at a different part of the map from the area you actually want the most damage to be dealt.
Gameplay Tips
This build guide for NP works on the assumption that you're jungling, but NP is also a popular offlaner (more so in competitive Dota 2 than in pub games). As an offlaner, he can easily go into the jungle to grab experience and gold if he's shut out of the lane, whilst returning to the lane should the opposing team decide to push the tower. If he's not shut down by lane supports he can force rotations through his right click and Treant harassment.
Sprout can be used not just aggressively to trap enemy heroes but also defensively. When used on yourself or an allied hero, you will be in fog, and thus cannot be seen unless they have true vision of you (for example from Bounty Hunter's Track). This can buy you some extra time to Teleport to safety. Similarly you can Sprout enemies defensively and then run away.
Although Sprout is easily countered by a Quelling Blade or a Tango, you can cast Nature's Call on the Sprout. This will cause Treants to surround and likely trap the enemy, which can be a much more effective way of keeping them in place.
| Tip: Sprout can be used on towers to block their vision and momentarily halt their fire. Consider casting it during tower dives or base pushes. |
As mentioned above, one reason Shadow Blade synergises so well with NP is that its active (Shadow Walk's invisibility) does not interrupt channeling, and thus you can use Teleport or a TP Scroll from the cover (and relative safety) of invisibility.
Although Teleportation can be interrupted, it is not actually cancelled and NP will keep attempting to use the ability until you manually cancel it, die, or manage to Teleport. The interruption will not put it on cooldown and will not cost you mana - both take effect only once it's been successfully used.
| Tip: Double tapping Teleportation will Teleport you to the safety of your Fountain. |
There are some very solid hero counters to Nature's Prophet. If any of these are in the game you're probably going to have a rough time and should probably re-consider picking him: Spirit Breaker, Bounty Hunter, Wisp/Io, and Nyx.
Last Updated - Patch 6.82.
