Introduction
“Your once and future king is crowned!”
Wraith King, formerly known as Skeleton King prior to his remodelling at the end of 2013, is a hardy melee strength hero traditionally played as a carry in public matchmaking where he has a high win rate, but who is rarely picked competitively.
The hero is famed for only having one active ability – a damage-dealing stun - and three entirely passive abilities, the most notable of which is his ultimate, Reincarnation, which acts much like an Aegis of the Immortal and grants Wraith King a second life.
Our detailed character profile for Wraith King can be found here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- In-built Aegis of Immortality
- Easy to play – great beginner hero
- Good pub stomp hero
- In-built life steal and critical strike
- Scales well
- Very durable
- Good stun
- Current version of Reincarnation is very strong
Cons
- Passives have little impact early on
- Susceptible to kiting
- Huge mana issues
- Countered by mana burn
- Lengthy cooldown on his ultimate
- Not at all viable in higher levels of matchmaking
Item Build
Wraith King is usually played as a safe lane or dual lane carry. Occasionally he will be forced to jungle, because public matchmaking mentality has him down as a viable jungler, but he is a slow jungler and so this is generally not advised. If no other options remain, however, he can do it. Less likely still is the support Wraith King, which is actually better than it may at first seem, given that he has a reliable stun, a team lifesteal aura, and a surprisingly great teamfight ultimate. This guide will focus on his traditional role as a core hero.
Starting Items
A good set of starting items for Wraith King are:
- A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, a Quelling Blade, and 3x Iron Branches.
This gives you plenty of starting regen, a Quelling Blade to help secure last hits, and Iron Branches to give you some starting stats.
Alternatively, if you’re worried about facing substantial harass, you can swap the Quelling Blade for a Stout Shield, and get one less Iron Branch.
Early Game
Grab your basic Boots of Speed and then consider your options. If the lane is quite comfortable and you’re getting good last hits go for a Hand of Midas rush in order to really accelerate your farm.
If you’re not getting great farm then skip over the Hand of Midas and get straight to work on your core items, starting with your upgraded boots of choice (either Power Treads or Phase Boots). Typically Power Treads are the boots of choice, for the extra health and attack speed and carry potential, but as Wraith King is often kited quite badly Phase Boots are an alternative option, giving you the superior mobility to help cut down on kiting.
Finish off your early game pick-ups by upgrading your Iron Branches into a Magic Wand.
Core Items
My upgraded boots of choice on melee cores like Wraith King are Phase Boots. It’s tempting to go for Power Treads, because they give good stats and attack speed (all stuff Wraith King greatly benefits from, right?). And you won’t be lacking in damage anyway once you start working towards your next items, so you don’t gain much from Phase Boots’ damage increase. And Power Treads are recommended by the default in-game guide.
Why Phase Boots then? Quite simply because of the active phase ability. With Power Treads you really will feel far too slow to effectively chase down enemies, and being a melee unit the lack of phase will become a real annoyance. Phase Boots will allow you to keep on top of an enemy who decides to flee you, even once the slow from your stun wears off, and ensures you can’t be path-blocked by annoying creeps or enemy (or even allied!) heroes who get in the way and body block.
The other core item for Wraith King is Armlet of Mordiggian. Despite the recent nerf, which made Armlet toggling slightly less effective, it’s still very much possible to toggle. Armlet also gives a nice damage boost, additional armour and health, and health regeneration on top of the active toggle ability.
| Tip: ‘Toggling your Armlet’ is the process by which you turn off and on Armlet’s active ability in order to quickly regenerate your health when you’re low, and effectively save your life when you would otherwise die. The key is to turn Armlet off when you’re at very low health and expect a killing blow, but to do so before such a blow hits. Then straight away turn it back on, so that your health pool regenerates. If timed correctly - between instances of damage - you will regain enough health to survive most auto-attacks/abilities. |
With that you have your core, and so can take part in fights and be an effective damage-dealer.
There are a couple of situational items you may wish to pick up at this stage: Drums of Endurance and/or Soul Ring.
Drums is a popular early pick-up in Dota, as it allows you to fight much earlier, giving you great stats for its cost and being quick and easy to build into. It’s especially good if you’re fighting early and fighting often.
Soul Ring is another item you should give serious consideration to. Not only does the ability to gain 150 burst mana mean you’ll be able to use your Wraithfire Blast stun more often, but it’s also a fantastic counter to mana burn. Heroes like Lion will often be picked to lane against Wraith King, as his mana burn can render WK incapable of using his stun and his ultimate. With Soul Ring you can ensure you have the mana necessary to trigger Reincarnation upon death.
Luxury Items
When it comes to your luxury item choices there’s a lot to choose from for Wraith King. Some of the more effective pick-ups include:
Assault Cuirass – Assault Cuirass is often picked up as a luxury item on Wraith King. A nice attack speed boost, which synergises well with your passive abilities, good auras for your entire team, and a minus armour aura that affects enemy heroes, creeps and buildings makes this a great all round carry item on Wraith King; he becomes tankier and much more deadly at the same time.
Black King Bar – It naturally makes you tankier and gives you some additional damage as well. Most importantly you have the ability to become Spell Immune, which is crucial for Wraith King, who will be at the forefront of engagements trying to deal right click damage, making him a prime target for magic casters and especially stuns. It also helps make you less susceptible to being kited.
Abyssal Blade – Talking of anti-kiting, Skull Basher into Abyssal Blade is a fantastic way of helping to prevent this. It gives you a nice chunk of health and damage, but most importantly you gain two additional forms of lockdown that go through Spell Immunity – an active ability that will give you 2 seconds of stun and a passive that gives you a 25% chance of a 1.4 second stun. This is extremely useful if you find yourself being kited and prevented from doing your job of right clicking in teamfights.
Desolator – A good damage boost at an affordable price. Wraith King needs neither critical strike nor lifesteal because his passives grant him both. This frees him up to take Desolator’s minus armour as his choice of unique attack modifier. The minus armour from Desolator also stacks with Assault Cuirass, making it especially good if you go down that route.
Heart of Tarrasque – 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 – If you do feel you die too quickly in teamfights consider Heaven’s Halberd instead of Heart of Tarrasque. You get a nice chunk of health, damage, and bonus effective health (through evasion), but you also become an anti-carry thanks to the Disarm active.
Mjollnir – A very underrated item on WK. While most people tend to focus on building damage on him, the other side of the coin is attack speed. Mjollnir will massively increase your attack speed, which in itself will increase your damage output as well as increase the number of critical damage procs you get from your passive, and it makes your life steal passive more effective. Mjollnir is an especially good option if you’re facing a push-heavy line-up, or an illusion-based carry (such as Phantom Lancer or Terrorblade).
Situational Items
Soul Ring, Hand of Midas and Drums of Endurance have all been discussed above. They’re potentially great early game pick-ups, depending on how the game is developing at that stage and who you’re facing off against.
Monkey King Bar – Very high damage, a small attack speed boost, and True Strike, which will allow you to counter any evasion heroes (such as Phantom Assassin), agility carries that purchase Butterfly, or strength/support heroes that buy Heaven’s Halberd.
Divine Rapier – Finally, there's always the Divine Rapier option if your back's against the wall and defeat is almost imminent or you feel you're so far ahead you just want to have fun. WK is a more viable Rapier carrier than most, thanks to his Reincarnation ability. If you manage to get Aegis you basically get three lives, and thus need to die three times before it will drop.
Skill Build
Wraithfire Blast is typically skilled and maxed first. A stun which deals damage and then slows by 20% for 2 seconds once the stun has ended, additional levels increase the initial damage from the blast and the damage over time. As Wraith King’s only form of lockdown until/unless he purchases a Skull Basher/Abyssal Blade it’s vital that you have access to it.
Vampiric Aura is usually skilled around level 4 (the precise timing is very much situational) but maxed last. The only exception to this rough rule of thumb is when you’re forced to jungle early, in which case you need to prioritise it in order to remain in the jungle early on. Vampiric Aura is a passive ability that grants both Wraith King and any nearby allied units lifesteal from their attacks.
It is actively bad to skill this early on when laning, because creeps gain the aura and thus you will push the creep wave out, when you should be attempting to keep it as close to your tower as possible. Only once the laning phase starts to break down, or your team wants to push the enemy tower, or you head into the jungle (whichever happens first) should it be skilled. Sometimes this will be early on, around level 4, other times it’ll be quite late in the game. Adjust accordingly.
Mortal Strike is usually skilled last, although it can be skilled second, and tends to be maxed second. This gives you a chance to deal critical damage from your attacks. It is a static 15% chance at all levels, but the critical strike percentage increases with each level.
As the skill’s effectiveness is based entirely on your right-click damage output, it is largely ineffectual early on, and only scales well once you have items. For this reason it is often not skilled until later on, with most WK players taken a couple of early points in Stats initially instead.
Reincarnation is always skilled (level 6, 11 and 16). It effectively acts as an Aegis of Immortality, granting Wraith King a second life when he dies, so long as he has 160 mana for it to trigger. It has a lengthy cooldown of 260 seconds at level 1, but subsequent levels reduce it considerably. The other effect of Reincarnation is that it slows enemy units within a 900 unit radius by a massive 75% for 5 seconds.
Reincarnation is one of the key reasons Wraith King has such as a high in percentage in public matchmaking, as it makes most engagements 6v5 affairs. The recent buff which added a slow effect upon death also makes it a surprisingly potent teamfight ultimate.
Gameplay Tips
Wraith King’s limited mana pool makes effective mana management crucial. If Reincarnation is off cooldown you need to ensure you always have sufficient mana to trigger it should you do. For this reason it is better to hold off on using your stun if you don’t have the mana to support both; once you come back to life you do so with full health and mana, allowing you to then use the stun.
Although Wraith King is famed for being a ‘1 button’ hero, because he only has one active ability in Wraithfire Blast, one of his core item pick-ups is Armlet, which takes skill to learn how to use properly. Practice and learn how to toggle Armlet effectively before picking Wraith King if you want to get the most out of him.
Don’t skill Vampiric Aura early on if you’re laning, it buffs your creeps and will cause the creep wave to push towards the enemy tower before you’re ready for it to do so, giving the offlaner valuable gold and experience.
Reincarnation is effectively hard countered by mana burn. If the enemy team takes Lion, or an agility carry that commonly picks Diffusal Blade, like Phantom Lancer or Spectre, consider not picking Wraith King. If you do pick him a Soul Ring is highly recommended in order to try and get the burst mana you need for Reincarnation a split second before dying.
| Tip: Although mana burn will prevent Reincarnation, silences do not. Silence is largely ineffective against WK as it only affects his ability to use Wraithfire Blast and not any of his other abilities |
Note that if Wraith King dies whilst holding the Aegis of Immortality, Reincarnation will be triggered first, not the Aegis.
Last Updated - Patch 6.82.
