Introduction
“Judgement comes!”
Omniknight is a melee strength support hero. Unlike most supports he lacks lockdown. This combination of attributes makes him a rare pick (melee supports are few and far between, let alone ones that lack lockdown), but what he does bring to the table is an incredible healing bomb as well as both spell and physical damage immunity abilities, making him a defensive support beast in teamfights.
Omniknight's complete character profile can be found here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Fantastic healing ability
- Can give a teammate Spell Immunity
- Can grant the whole team physical immunity for several seconds
- Can turn the tide of a teamfight with his abilities
- Strong mid and late-game support
Cons
- Huge mana problems
- No stun and no lockdown
- A very situational and greedy support pick
- Lacks laning presence
- Weak early game
Item Build
Omniknight is usually played as a lane support in public matchmaking. He is a very rare pick competitively, but when he is picked up it is sometimes in order to lane mid. Generally this is not to be recommended in public matchmaking unless you can guarantee a favourable laning match-up – most popular mid heroes are great at zoning Omniknight out and preventing him from farming. The safest option is to be a defensive lane support, but to only pick him up if the second support hero has lockdown.
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. Finally, you can round out your early game purchases with a cost-effective Bracer, if you feel you lack raw stats.
A situational item purchase to consider at this point is a Soul Ring. Omniknight is a very mana greedy support, but lacks a large mana pool or high mana regeneration. An early Soul Ring purchase is perfect for allowing you to use your abilities when required early on. If you feel your Arcane Boots are a long way off then it’s well worth investing in a Soul Ring at this stage.
Core Items
Arcane Boots really are the upgraded boots of choice for such a mana hungry hero as Omniknight, who has no in-built mana regeneration ability like Lich. Two of your three active abilities all have fairly high mana costs and for the mostpart low cooldowns, so you’ll be burning through a lot of mana even before you purchase a Mekanism, which is your next core item.
Mekanism is your priority core pick-up. 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.
Mekanism is an absolutely fantastic item on any support, especially a healing support like Omni. Mekanism is absolutely necessary for your team with its burst AoE heal and armour but 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.
Luxury Items
Drums of Endurance – Great all-round stats to help tank you up, cost-efficient, easy to build into, and gives your entire team bonus attack speed and move speed auras.
Aghanim’s Scepter – The perfect luxury item providing you’re able to afford it. On top of +10 all stats, 200 health, and +150 mana, Aghanim’s provides a substantial buff to your ultimate, increasing the duration from 6/7/8 second to 8/9/10 seconds, allowing it to affect buildings, and increasing its radius from 600 units to being global.
Heaven’s Halberd – A good defensive item that is often overlooked. Halberd will prevent a single target attacking anyone on your team for 3-4.5 seconds. On top of that you gain a nice chunk of strength and survivability.
Eul’s Scepter of Divinity – Eul’s gives fantastic mana regeneration and a huge +40 move speed, which really helps out Omni, 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.
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 your 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).
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 or even 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).
Refresher Orb – If you’re filthy rich you can double up on your ultimate. 12 seconds of spell immunity for two allies and 20 seconds of physical immunity (assuming you already have Aghanims) for your entire team and all of your buildings should be sufficient to win any teamfight.
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 supports, but if the game is going very late and you're almost 6 slotted it's a great option.
Shiva’s Guard – Another highly expensive luxury item. +15 armour and +30 intelligence are nice bonuses on top of a 40% enemy attack slow aura and 40% movement slow and 200 magic damage AoE nuke. A good defensive, anti-carry teamfight item that provides a lot of team-wide utility.
Situational Items
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.
Pipe of Insight – Not an ideal pick-up if you bought the team’s Mekanism (having both on one hero is very risky), but always a good item to have if the enemy team has any magic damage (which they almost certainly will).
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. And, of course, being melee yourself you get a lot out of it too.
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. Good for some decent stat gain as well.
Skill Build
Purification is a ‘healing bomb’ ability – it heals allies whilst damage enemies in an AoE. It is always skilled and maxed first. Purification heals a chosen friendly unit for 90/180/270/360 health and will deal those same figures in pure damage to any enemies within a 260 unit radius of the allied unit/hero that is healed.
It is a potent heal ability, and also deals high amounts of damage because it deals pure damage, however the small radius it affects makes it somewhat unreliable as a nuke – most enemies will try to move outside of the affected radius if they anticipate you’ll use it on a target they’re attacking. However, this makes it supremely useful when used on allies that tend to be the focus of attacks.
Repel grants spell immunity to a chosen unit. It tends to be skilled and maxed second, although some players prefer to max it last. Repel grants 6/8/10/12 seconds of spell immunity to the target unit.
This effectively allows you to give one of your cores the spell immunity from a BKB and then some. The popularity of that item (which is based entirely on that property), speaks for how strong this ability is. It will protect one of your cores from burst magic damage as well as most stuns.
Degen Aura is a 350 unit radius aura which slows enemy units. It is usually skilled and maxed last, although some prefer to prioritise it ahead of Repel. It slows enemies’ move speed and attack speed by 10/18/26/34%.
The small radius of effect is Degen Aura’s primary weakness – a minus 34% attack and movespeed aura is extremely potent, but will often not make its presence felt in teamfights unless Omniknight is at the heart of them. Nonetheless it is useful when your team is chasing down enemy heroes and when teamfights converge on cramped areas.
Omniknight’s ultimate, Guardian Angel, is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). It grants Omniknight and allies within a 600 unit radius of him physical immunity for 6/7/8 seconds. This is an incredible teamfight ultimate, which will allow your team to completely withstand any physical DPS coming out of the enemy team for a lengthy period of time.
Gameplay Tips
Purification deals pure damage if it hits any enemy units, making it a very potent nuke, however the area of effect is just 260 units around the healed unit, making it an unreliable nuke. Think of it as a heal first and a nuke second.
You cannot heal an ally with Purification whilst they are spell immune – this includes spell immunity from all sources, such as BKB, Lifestealer’s Rage, and your own Repel. If you intend to make an ally spell immune with Repel and also heal them, make sure you use Purification first.
Repel removes all purgeable buffs and debuffs when cast on a friendly unit. It does not, however, remove the buff from Guardian Angel, so you need not fear the interaction between the two.
Repel can be cast on enemy heroes/units as well as allied ones, so be careful when attempting to use Repel on a friendly hero if they are in the middle of a packed skirmish – the last thing you want to do is essentially grant a free BKB charge on an enemy hero and have them subsequently destroy your team because of it.
Since the cooldown on Repel is almost the same length as the ability’s duration at level 4 (14 second cooldown, 12 second duration), you can cast it on your primary carry prior to your team initiating a teamfight, ensuring they have spell immunity throughout those first few seconds of the engagement, and then be able to cast it a second time should the teamfight drag on.
Degen Aura is decent for chasing/allowing teammates to catch up to an enemy hero, but its most useful function tends to be as an anti-carry aura during teamfights – 34% attack and move speed slow is actually quite strong against enemy cores that lack Black King Bar or in-built spell immunity.
Guardian Angel should be saved for teamfights. 6/7/8 seconds of physical immunity for your entire team can be absolutely game-changing.
Guardian Angel works through spell immunity – so your core heroes will be able to benefit from both physical immunity and spell immunity at the same time.
Between Guardian Angel, Purification, and Repel, Omniknight has an unprecedented ability to keep his teammates alive in teamfights, making him a great defensive support. Just remember to use Purification before Repel!
Last Updated - Patch 6.82c.
