General Agreement. After where possible I'd put point into crits for mad AA damage - prob after lvl 10 tho, since this is a solid team build.

already posted back when DA came out.  What's next, a new beast build?

1. Spit

2. Ooze

3. Save

4. Spit / ooze

5. grasp

6. Save

7. Spit / ooze

8. free

9. Save

10. Spit / ooze  ?

Just for clarification. This is a satirical post.

this is the build i use and i have been doing pretty good:)

Don't forget you must take Swift Anklet

since we are talking DA, even if in jest, I thought I'd comment here rather than make a new post

1.  You need an allied Oak, Sedna, or QoT to back you up because you will be primary target and even popping sigils like candy (which you should) you will go down fast

1a.  If you don't have an Oak, Sedna, or QoT and you don't know your team well then you shouldn't be playing DA any more than you would TB, Reg, or QoT, just because unless perfectly supported DA sorta sucks

1b.  If you have an Oak or Sedna, you don't know your team, and no one wants to build as a tank then you shouldn't play DA, because you can't tank

1c.  The exceptions to above are things like a TB/UB/DA team, where the DPS is so extreme that you don't have to worry about survivability, or unbalanced PUGs, where you don't have to worry about anything

3.  When supported a good DA counters all Tier 1 DGs with the possible exceptions of minion Oak and LE.

4.  A point in speed early goes a long way toward increasing your effectiveness.  

5.  You can make a case for EOM or Renewal, but BOTF remains the item of choice for this DG

6.  That said, until level 10+: unless ganking you should play him for his Spike and his Swaps - getting within melee of enemy DGs is usually a bad thing.  You can build and use him just like a Snipe Reg in terms of Mana items until you are ready to beef up and brawl

8.  You have one thing you can do well - kill DGs.  With a point or more in speed you are decent with flag and map control.  Warp Area is supposed to help you with grunts and minions, but it doesn't work well enough to be worth investing in.  Stick to what you are good at.  For DA more than any other DG - If you are trying to kill Giants rather than cap the portals they are coming out of or kill the DGs who are trying to cap your portals then you are doing it wrong   

Thoughts?

I say Blood>Renewal just because DA gets into the middle of things earlier and much more often than Reg or TB or even Rook, and once he's within melee if his team doesn't control he goes down so quickly even with Blood and Sigil

Sedna isn't perfect, but through midgame a bramble on DA is tops.  Shield III is the ideal solution, but you could say that for any DG

edit: didn't we play a game where you were QOT and I was DA and you were complaining early that it was a terrible combo?  It worked that game, no?

The game we played with me as queen was certainly a funny game, but cmon the other team had no clue how to play.

Anyway I would say staff is also superior to both Bots since you dont have AOE to take advantage of it and its imho also better than Essence since I doubt that you can play without mana items with only essence.

Why is staff better than blood? Simple. As DA you need 3 things, damage, health(surviveability) and mana,(and AOE and pushing power but you're never gonna get that anyway), now both health and mana can be bought in the item shop, but you cant buy damage in the shop coz gloves suck. Add that staff also gives you 200 hp and you have your favor.

DA early game is the weakest demigod on the field. If you use spine attack every single time it's off cooldown with EoM, you will deal ZERO  damage against generals with monks. 90% of DA's usefulness is from swapping opponents behind towers or onto mines. He needs a gigantic buff to warp area and all of his passives. Levels 1-4 the only character he can nick is TB, but TB does more damage than DA starting at lvl 2.

DA's job is not to fight 1vs1. It is to do maximum damage in a 2on1 or 3on2 and then make sure the weakest cannot escape. This is the mistake of blood builds.

Blood is great, but it runs out of mana way too fast, or DA gets too weak later and DA gets raped when he goes into battle because he has 3.5K life and no armor.

Banded + Scalemail gives you good enough AA rsistance early on.
EoM ensures you can fire spine and warp strike early on, and then have mana to do it again without gimping your life.
This is superior in every way to taking scaled helm.

Warp Area is also good skill when you use it with EoM.

This is an example of how to play DA in this manner.

Fight starts 1on1 between a teammate and an enemy.
Da moves in and triggers EoM at spine range.
Spine, Warp Strike, Warp Area... you have spent no mana doing this, and now you can swap this enemy who just got his face raped.

You will have the mana to do the same thing again inbetween EoM cool down, and after have enough mana in the pool to fire EoM to do it again for free. (then you will need to recharge, as at this point you will only be able to use 1 skill before your mana is gone below the point of using EoM effectively)

I've said it before... warp area should be used on DGs when there are no creeps around so you don't spaze out all over the place. It's 250/500 free damage when used with EoM. More burst damage is better with DA on the initital attack, especially when it didnt cost any mana.

This is alos not an endorsement of DA, he is a bad DG. This is simply the better way to play him.

Yeah, it is not a great item, but it does OK for DA. To be clear, it is the last item you get in a typical game. eg: After you have nature's rec, then you upgrade scale mail to duelist's cuirass.

I don't take it for anyone else. The point being with DA, your other low cost life choices are Hauberk which does nothing really for him or Bloodstone ring, which is not really a bad choice either.

However, if you play DA in the 2on1 scenarios like you should, it is better to be able to have a chance to blow through the enemy's life quickly to ensure they aren't getting away.

Nature's rec proc and a crit proc will be 250 + 300ish DMG which, when you get it, is not bad when you are aiming to finish someone off as quickly as possible so you can move to the next target.