Introduction
“They picked me! No one ever picks me.”
Ogre Magi is a melee intelligence support hero. He is famed for being a luck-based hero capable of dealing huge burst damage… if the RNG gods smile upon him. Being largely item independent and having decent stats, he makes for a viable support or utility hero.
Although he sometimes makes appearances in the competitive scene, where his reliable stun and team-based steroid buff are both considered good in the right line-up, he is primarily viewed as a somewhat trollish or left-field pick because of his reliance on sheer luck thanks to his Multi Cast ultimate passive.
You can find our complete character profile for Ogre Magi here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Very good, reliable stun
- Decent slow
- Great steroid buff for teammates
- Potential for huge burst magic damage
- Item independent
- Fantastic stat gain and quite tanky
- Fun to play
- Hilarious lines and banter
- Really easy to play – good beginner hero
Cons
- Very one dimensional hero
- Generally considered something of a troll pick – in public matchmaking picking him may annoy your teammates
- Damage output almost entirely luck-based
- Melee attack range makes support duties more difficult
- Damage is completely negated by spell immunity
- Poor move speed and lacks mobility
- Mana issues
- Typically poor lane support
Item Build
Starting Items
You’re playing as a support, so act like one. Make sure your team has both a Courier and a set of Observer Wards at the start. Often you can split the cost between yourself and another support, but if not then you need to buy both.
After that, for starting items you want to get plenty of regen: a set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, and a Clarity. If someone else on your team bought Wards or Courier at the start then you can grab a couple of Iron Branches and an extra Clarity.
Early Game
Observer Wards are core whenever they’re off cooldown, naturally. Make sure the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark as well.
Grab some basic Boots of Speed as soon as possible, and upgrade any Iron Branches you may have into a Magic Wand.
A Soul Ring is a fantastic item selection on Ogre, especially if you're struggling to accrue much farm and your Arcane Boots seems a very long way off. As of Patch 6.82. Ogre has 2.5 base health regeneration (up from 0.5), so the health loss from using the Soul Ring active is soon negated by his high base health regeneration. This means that as soon as you can afford to purchase a Soul Ring you'll have enough burst mana to cast Fireblast fairly liberally.
A special note for Orb of Venom: this is an amazing early laning item on Ogre Magi. Since he has incredible good starting stats and one of the best stat gains in the game, not many heroes can trade blows with him in the early laning stage. An Orb of Venom will prevent kiting from ranged heroes and allow you to deal a lot more harass than a melee support hero has any right to be dealing.
Try to make use of an early Orb of Venom to zone out the enemy offlaner, but avoid attracting creep aggro. Also note that the slow stacks with the slow from your Ignite ability.
Core
As always, ensure that Observer Wards are bought whenever they come off cooldown.
Arcane Boots are the upgraded boots of choice for Ogre. You have quite a small mana pool, despite being a fairly mana intensive hero, so Arcane Boots will help significantly in this respect as well as allow you to provide burst mana regeneration for your team. Once you have Arcane Boots up and running you’ll be able to use your abilities fairly regularly to deal significant harass to enemy heroes.
Luxury Items
Aside from Arcane Boots, Ogre doesn’t have a strict set of core items – your first big ticket support item is entirely dependent on what you feel your team needs. The most common pick-ups are Mekanism, Force Staff or Drums though.
Although all of the below items are listed under the Luxury Items section in this guide, some are more highly recommended than others. In rough order of advised consideration:
Mekanism – You should consider this your priority luxury item if your team desperately needs it and/or the other support player on your team is not building into it. Good stats, good armour, an armour and health regen aura, and 250 burst heal for your entire team. It’s the primary support item in the game for good reason, and so whilst it’s not core on Ogre Magi, it is core for your team.
Force Staff – You can never go wrong with Force Staff on a support hero (assuming you actually use the active!!). A Force Staff can be used to mitigate Ogre's poor movespeed and lack of innate positioning ability. It's great for clutch escapes and also gives you even more utility for your teammates (you can use Force on allied heroes, yourself, and enemies).
Drums of Endurance – I recommend Drums on a lot of heroes, especially supports. You're slow, won’t usually have much spare cash, and you’re supposed to provide support to your team. Drums goes a little way to combating all of these points. The attack and move speed aura affects teammates, the stats gain makes you a little bit tankier, it's a very cost effective item that's easy to build into, and since you will often purchase a Bracer anyway it means you can grab a Drums without taking up an extra item slot.
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; it will allow you to dish out decent early game DPS even though you’re a support, and that’s before factoring in any back-up your allies provide. Also opens up the possibility for an early Roshan for your team.
Eul’s Scepter of Divinity – Eul’s gives fantastic mana regeneration and a huge +40 move speed, which really helps out Ogre, who has naturally poor move speed and feels quite immobile.
The active is also good for taking an enemy carry out of the fight for a couple of seconds in the late game. In that respect it’s sometimes referred to as a poor man’s Scythe of Vyse, the downside being that the hero selected cannot be attacked. Nonetheless, it’s useful for buying your team time and for allowing your abilities to come back off cooldown.
The other downside is that whilst a Scythe use is universally beneficial, Eul’s can sometimes be disadvantageous to your team, perhaps saving an enemy when they would otherwise have died, or trapping an allied hero who would otherwise have escaped. If you’re not confident in your decision making abilities in the heat of battle then don’t go for Eul’s.
Scythe of Vyse – The 3.5 second Hex is superb in teamfights and for picking off enemy heroes though. The enormous cost makes it prohibitively expensive for most Ogres, but if the game is going very late and you're almost 6 slotted it's a great option.
Aghanim’s Scepter – Aghanim’s Scepter gives Ogre a good chunk of health and mana, as well as all-round stats. It also adds a new ability to Ogre Magi’s arsenal called Unrefined Fireblast. This is, essentially, a second Fireblast. As with Fireblast it allows Ogre to stun a single target for 1.5 seconds and deal 275 damage. It is affected by Multi Cast and costs 60% of Ogre’s current mana, meaning it is always possible to use.
Ghost Scepter - If the enemy carry tears through you like a warm knife through butter than save up for a Ghost Scepter. You'll buy yourself 4 seconds in which to do something, such as Force Staff to safety, disable the carry using Fireblast, or just distract them during a teamfight for a full 4 seconds (that's 4 seconds the more important heroes on your team have to punish the enemy team).
Heaven's Halberd - Also another good defensive item that is often overlooked. While Ghost Scepter makes you invulnerable to enemy physical attacks for 4 seconds, Halberd will prevent them attacking anyone on your team for 3-4.5 seconds. On top of that you gain a nice chunk of strength and survivability.
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; an aura which you too benefit from, being a melee support.
Rod of Atos – Huge chunks of health and mana, and an active that slows an enemy by 60% for 4 seconds. I'm actually a fan of Atos, but most people are not. If you like it, you can get it on Ogre as a luxury pick-up.
Veil of Discord – Veil gives decent all-round stats - +6 all stats, +6 health regeneration, +6 damage, and +6 armour, but the main reason it’s purchased is for its active, Magic Weakness. Magic Weakness increases the magic damage taken by an enemy caught within its 600 unit radius by 25%, which augments your abilities superbly. It lasts for a lengthy 25 seconds, making it a great active for teamfights, and won’t just buff your own magic damage output either - it will also increase the potency of any other magic damage spells your teammates cast on affected enemies in that time frame too.
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.
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.
Pipe of Insight - If you didn't buy the team's Mekanism earlier on then Pipe is a great pick-up for your team. If you did, then it's very risky getting Pipe as well as Mekanism - it's inadvisable to have both on one hero.
Boots of Travel - Great for the late game, when you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use.
Skill Build
Fireblast is usually both skilled and maxed first. A single target stun that lasts 1.5 seconds, it also deals high burst magic damage. With a fairly low cooldown of 12 seconds it’s also somewhat spammable, assuming Ogre has sufficient mana to use it.
Fireblast doesn’t actually deal as much damage as Ignite, but it costs less mana to use and, since Ogre has such a limited mana pool early on and Fireblast is his only stun, Fireblast is usually prioritised ahead of Ignite. If you have the mana to support using both – either because you have sufficient mana regen items or because you’re using your abilities sparingly, then begin to prioritise Ignite instead, as its total damage output scales much better with levels.
Ignite is a single target spell which deals a large amount of damage over time and also slows the target of choice (or if multicast is triggered, multiple targets). It is almost always skilled and maxed second. Additional levels in Ignite increase the duration (5/6/7/8), the damage per second (26/34/42/50), the slow percentage (22/22/24/26), and the mana cost (95/105/115/125).
Max Fireblast or Ignite first? To sum up: the damage output for Ignite scales much better than that of Fireblast, but the damage dealt is done so over time, so it is not as reliable as that from Fireblast. And while the slow is good, it too is not as useful as the stun from Fireblast. Finally, it scales much worse in terms of mana cost than Fireblast, which is especially important prior to purchasing Arcane Boots.
For all of these reasons I almost always prioritise Fireblast over Ignite, but there are circumstances when Ignite should be given preference, such as when you get a good start and early Arcane Boots, or you want to deal as much harassment damage early on as possible.
Bloodlust is a steroid ability that allows Ogre Magi to give increase movement and attack speed either to himself or of an ally for 30 seconds. It is usually skilled and maxed last, although when Ogre is picked in competitive Dota he is sometimes picked almost purely for his Bloodlust ability (Alliance sometimes pick him in order to Bloodlust Lone Druid’s Spirit Bear, for example), in which case Bloodlust will be prioritised over his other abilities. This is rare, however, and so is unlikely to apply to you in public matchmaking.
Additional levels increase the rate of move speed and attack speed bonus (10/12/14/16 and 20/30/40/50 respectively). The cooldown remains a static 20 seconds, until/unless you have points in Multi Cast, and the duration 30 seconds, so you will want to focus primarily on buffing your main carry/right-click damage dealer and/or your team’s other cores.
Multi Cast is Ogre Magi’s infamous passive which is usually always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). It gives him a chance, whenever he uses one of his abilities, to use it several times in succession, up to a total of 4 times. On top of that, it also reduces the cooldown on Fireblast, increases the cast range and radius of Ignite, and reduces the cooldown and increases the radius on Bloodlust. Unfortunately it also increases the mana cost of Fireblast, which is why some players prefer to max out Fireblast and Ignite before skilling Multi Cast at level 9.
Extra levels increase the chance of a Multi Cast, and also increases the effectiveness of most of the other passive buffs it grants. Multi Cast is what allows his Fireblast ability to potentially kill an enemy hero straight away, as it means a single Fireblast can deal effectively 4 times it usual damage. It also makes Bloodlust and Ignite AoE abilities. The primary downside, naturally, is that it is incredibly luck-based.
Gameplay Tips
Use Fireblast both as a stun and a harassment tool, especially when you have the mana to support spamming it. The damage it deals scales quite well into the mid game for a stun thanks to Multi Cast, which greatly increases the chances of you dealing more than the standard 240 magic damage the ability deals on paper.
Between Ignite and Fireblast, Ogre is good in chases. Fireblast will lock the target down for a short period with its stun, whilst Ignite can then be used to follow that up with a significant slow. If need be you can also cast Bloodlust in order to increase either your own or an ally’s move speed, further increasing the discrepancy between your move speed and that of your target.
Bloodlust shouldn’t be ignored. Despite it only taking effect for 30 seconds, the move speed and attack speed boost the target gains is substantial. Make sure you’re constantly casting this on your team’s core heroes when you have the mana to support doing so.
Once you hit level 16, your Multi Cast ability gives you a chance to cast Fireblast four times in a row. Although it is a small chance (12.5%), it makes it well worth casting your Fireblast on enemies whenever it is off cooldown just in the off chance that it deals tremendous burst damage/kills them. A 4X Multi Cast of Fireblast deals an incredible 1100 damage and stuns for 2.4 seconds.
If you purchase Aghanims, make sure you use it after you’ve used your other abilities, in order to minimise its mana cost, which is a fixed 60% of your current mana, which means you’ll always be able to use it.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
