Kestrel's Regulus Build

By Ke5trel on December 11, 2009 1:41:50 PM from

I've been playing Regulus since September 08, and I'm seeing a bunch of threads about him, so I thought I'd toss up a guide on how I play him. Next time I play (might be a while, since Dragon Age is like crack) I'll see if I can't put together a decent replay or two.

Assume Cataract 3v3 unless noted otherwise.

Skills:

Snipe
Scope
Mines
Snipe II
Mark
Tracking
Mines II
Mines III
Save
Mark II + Mines IV

Items and Upgrades:
Favor - Renewal

Alternative Favor Items: Until you are comfortable with this Regulus' role it's fine to go Swift Anklet - the speed keeps you out of trouble.

Heaven's Wrath - most people use this like a hammer, but it's actually a scalpel.

You raise the enemy "flee" threshold tremendously once your opponents see you use HW to get a Snipe kill through fog of war enough times. If you are using it just for grunt kills then you are wasting it, imo

Scaled Helm
Two Combat Mana Pots
Observation Ward

Unbreakable Boots
Currency I
Vlemish Helm
Plenor Helm
Wand of Speed
Priests and Angels or Catapults
Giants

My reg is built in two stages.

Stage I:
1. A complete Snipe Blitz. Renewal + Scaled Helm + mana pots allows you to snipe from the field through level 4-5 without return to base, and Snipe I and II cost relatively little mana for their range. If your team is any good it means you control all the flags and develop a respectable rank advantage (if your team is no good then you made a serious error playing Regulus). If your opponents make any mistakes it means you are getting kills, early. Even without mistakes they are behind their towers or hitting home for most of the early game. To reiterate - spam the hell out of snipe, all the time. We'll talk about Snipe Tactics and Priorities further down.
2. Levelling - you are the mid guy, both because it sets you up for the snipes and because you are fast enough to cap mid and make it back to your lane tower in time for grunt xp. The combination should put you on par or higher level than most of the other players, and if you are getting last hits on the Snipe then you'll quickly outstrip everyone else. That's important, because this Reg peaks early.
3. Towers - any time you are left alone in a lane you are putting pressure on enemy towers. Your auto-attack damage is pathetic, but you can hit from outside tower range, so your opponents have to send someone over eventually unless they want to lose a tower early
4. You are and will be throughout play the weakest, squishiest DG on the field. Your map awareness and positioning need to be flawless to make this build work, or you will be ganked repeatedly. At this stage you are never, ever going to be within melee range of an opponent. You will never be within Swap range of DA. You will never exchange shots with a competent TB, and you stay far away from Erebus. If you are just starting out with this build you might want to go with Swift Anklet rather than Renewal so you have more time to respond.
5. You are buying currency I, either because you are getting the kills or because you need less gold than anyone else on your team. Basically once you have unlimited mana you are set, and you can get that with less than 5k gold.

Stage II:
1. You have at least two points in Mines and one point in Mark, you have Tracking Bug, you have a huge mana pool and great mana regen. Grab some ports and go hunting. You are in the business of interrupting any tidy 1v1 situations you see develop with a Snipe/Port/Mark/Mines/Pew Pew/Mines/Snipe, and business is good.
2. When you aren't aiding your more robust pals you are mining the daylights out of enemy towers or setting up mines as a protective barrier against DGs while you whittle them down with pew pew. If no other targets present themselves you can snipe towers across the map while doing this.
3. You are spamming Mark like it's going out of style. Every enemy DG should be carrying a mark, all the time, and as soon as they use an ability you should be replacing it on them. The ability has ridiculous range, so you don't have to engage the bad guys to use it.
4. You are using your abilities as an equalizer. You can't match the autoattack damage of your opponents and you are so much squishier than them. You have to be sneaky, a guerilla in the mist. Stack your 6 mines and have three more waiting, never engage on equal terms, and jump in on every hurting enemy. Use your bugs to make sure enemies go all the way back to base to heal up, rather than just behind a tower. The thing to remember about Reg is that his best abilities don't require him to be anywhere near the target. Embrace that.
5. Once you are cheaply geared you can spend money on grunts. Once you have catas you can start making portal runs. Reg isn't like Oak or LE - he can't run through the portal towers and expect to get out again against a good team, so it's probably best to get some cheap speed items, knock the towers down first, and get the Gold/Celerity flag to neutral or better before you start. Once you do that, though, mining the approach and locking portals is what you will be doing through endgame.

OK so that's what it looks like, Sniping early and often, and building up Mines and Mark to bring the pain. Now let's talk about map control.

Map Control and Reg:

I was talking to Orcun and Posidenii (best Reg/Rook combos in the biz, back in the day) a few months back about the merits and flaws of Reg. I was saying he had no map control, that he would always get pushed off of a flag by any other DG, and would always be second-tier as a result. They made a very simple counterpoint.

*Map control isn't Reg's job. It's his allies'.*

If your reg is trying to push LE off of the fortitude flag then your reg will be hurting, and so will your team. But if your allied UB is trying to push LE off the flag and you are throwing in a couple of snipes from mid then LE will have to retreat or die.

Your job as Reg is to give your allies leverage and help them net kills or towers. That's it. So let's look at the primary tool you will be using to make that happen.

Sniping Priority and Usage:
You want your snipes to mean something, because they cost you mana. Here's the priority of targets I use:

DGs:
Reg (especially once you have Tracking Bug)
TB
DA
Rook
UB
Oak
QoT
LE
Sedna

*Notice how all the assassins are on top? Yah, that's because they don't have monks unless their allies are giving them some. Any time you can target the monks first you should, assassins depend on them to stay in the field early.

Tactical Priorities:
Critically wounded opponent
Opponent committing to battle with ally
Enemy Reg
Non-Sedna opponent without monks
Opponent uncommitted to battle
Enemy outer towers
Enemy portal towers
Enemy center lane towers

When you roll Reg chances are someone on the other side will too, because he's fun to play. The enemy Reg will always be a priority target, because he is squishy, but also because if you leave him alone he will negate you. A good enemy Snipe Reg is about the only thing that will force you to buy breastplates, because he will be trying to suppress you exactly the same way you are trying to suppress him. You gotta keep that guy pinned down, and that's why you got Tracking Bug, right?

Peaking Early - Snipe will be effective through enemy level 7 or so, and Mines and Mark will hold their utility through enemy level 12. After that you are going to have more trouble being effective. If you make it to enemy level 15 and the enemy citadel isn't ankledeep in siege then you have a serious problem and will lose.

If things go according to plan, however, your early and constant sniping has given your team the edge it needs to end the game while you are still strong. You have a rank and tower advantage, use it to buy your siege grunts as soon as possible. Apply pressure to mid until they are a presence, and then lockdown enemy portals. You aren't going to win late 3v3 battles at the center of the map against a good LE/Rook/UB team, so don't try.

Conclusion: In the right hands and with the right team this Regulus can take on any opponent set of DGs or players. You really need to push your map and situation awareness beyond what any other DG requires to make it work, however. I've had a lot of fun with this build, so let me know if you have any questions or comments, and I'll see if I can't rustle up a replay or two

+118 Karma | 19 Replies

Good guide. Is there something I don't know about Vinling helm?

Not a bad build. I have never liked MotB myself, but have seen it used very effectively.

You should join gkrit discussion on mod balance, especially the reg thread. Love to see your opinions.

Vlemish, not Vinling, my bad

Verry good guide, compared to other reg guides.

Conclusion: In the right hands and with the right team this Regulus can take on any opponent set of DGs or players.

I supose you could take on any opponants and have a fun game but i still dont think you get a close to even chance of winning.

From my expercience, playing defencivly and not giving away any kills untill level 10 will resault in reg being very weak late game and reg not being overly useful when it comes to protecting/taking portal flags. (I do have to lol sometimes when teleing out or cap locking when only a reg is there, i know that reg is not supose to be there if played right but it is 2v3 in this case)

This is the first proper compeditive reg build (at least in a while) and if people play it well it does need to be taken seriously. I still think if the enermy has a plan for it though you will stuggle or need a bit of luck to win games.

As always, I say forget scope 1. Save the point and get mines 2 and snipe 2 at the same time. If not, get mines 2 before snipe 2. You need the ability to push, and mines 2 gives you that ability like magic. It's a sight be behold: At first your just harassing with mines. All of a sudden, your mines really hurt, and you push.

They also kill off the lesser healing minions by sending them flying, making you force mana use on generals.

Quoting grimunk,

reply 5

Umm scope I is for tower range and makes you multideminsional cause people leave the reg lane alone.

And for the guide itself I find replacing mark I with maim to be the most effective. I use Heavens Wrath for early game leveling/lane control. I play with people who hold one lane while I bounce back and forth. Rarely does my lanes tower take grunt damage and I have there tower down in no time. Once it is down. i use it only for opposing DG Damage not to mention it applies Maim*aoe style*. Outside that I think this strat is solid. This is the only strategy I use with Reg. He might make it 2v3 when it comes to holding flags. But he doesn't require expenisive items so I carry 2 locks and 2 tele scrolls for locking my flags.

Great Strat!

As the OP said, wrath is a scalpel. If you want to push a lane, you do it by making sure you can out-dps whoever is pushing against you. If there is a general there, and there will be if it's anything like a high level game, he'll have healing minions. Those minions need to die before you can think of pushing him away.

Wrath, I think, sends the lesser healing minions flying. Later ones, like bishops, seem to be much more planted. They should be, considering their cost.

This replay shows my build - not an optimal one, and not optimal play by me, but considering that it was vs a top player team of erebus, UB, and oak, and that we dominated in kills (my team certainly was good too), shows that reg is very strong if played correctly, and almost OP if played thoughtfully. At one point I repelled the UB and killed the oak all alone. I had no need for scope, and had no problems keeping my level high enough to stay in the game. SoR provided me with a 20% cooldown, meaning a 20% dps boost, or setting up a trap in 80% of the time, which makes a huge difference.

This replay shows my build.... At one point I repelled the UB and killed the oak all alone.

This is not a reg thread is a reg build thread. And peter's erebus won you that game you were 2-4, and in that event they played more poorly than you played well.

Keep the thread about the OP build, this build is first about reg with a compeditive focus in a long time. Ke5trel know what he doing when it come to new (at lest semi) compeditive builds.

Though i do have to ask, Ke5trel, why do you not consider taking BotS and get amour instead of mana potions?

Favor Item: Staff of Renewal always

I tried the 2 mana pots and they are well worth it. You won't have enough mana otherwise. Snipe is strong at forcing someone out of the lane in the beginning, so you wan't to use it every 12s if you can, therefore you need the pots. You are squishy anyway, so you don't want to directly engage melee dgs. The 400 health wont matter. You can towerhug easily in the beginning, and you'll need the scope vs UB, even with scope spit is a problem. You usually don't wan't to go in the UB lane. You cycle ffrom mid to the other non-UB lane. For all of this to work, you need a team that knows how to push and control the map. I'll post a replay later. It isn't perfect but it shows some basic use of this build, not high skilled play though.

Quoting nzac,

reply 8

This is not a reg thread is a reg build thread. And peter's erebus won you that game you were 2-4, and in that event they played more poorly than you played well.

I'm aware of the thread is about. I didn't say anything about reg, but contrasting the choice of scope vs mines: IMO, mines is stronger than scope. Perhaps you're thinking about my post here in the context of my posts elsewhere. I'm certainly not intending to push things that way here, so I don't want to delve into this further here.

But I still think mines II give you more punch than scope because you and throw them at buildings from a safe range, and you can use them to do significantly more damage. They send small units flying, so you can clear creeps while you do the damage. However, it might be good to try getting mines II instead of snipe II while getting scope.

Jona__

Favor Item: Staff of Renewal always

I honestly think this is probably the best choice. Like the OP said, you can start with anklet if you're not confident with when to push and when not to. Later in the game you really feel the need to throw mines lots, and lots, and lots. I also can't count how many times snipe cooled down just in the nick of time.

Quick tip: if you see UB, don't ever engage, ever.

http://www.gamereplays.org/demigod/replays.php?game=51&tab=upcoming&show=details&id=103950

- Basic krestel build
- Yes, thats not how to play UB

I love a regulus that constantly snipes a general with monks by the time you snipe again the damage is healed. You should really point out the Snipe is mostly to be used on opposing assassin DG's. Unless they are engaged in a battle.

Thanks for another great strat guide Kes!

Quoting ntropy,

reply 13

http://www.gamereplays.org/demigod/replays.php?game=51&tab=upcoming&show=details&id=103950

- Basic krestel build
- Yes, thats not how to play UB

POC === Piece of Crap....?

Proof of concept... I'll post a better one as soon as I have one.

Though i do have to ask, Ke5trel, why do you not consider taking BotS and get amour instead of mana potions?[/quote]

See ntropy's reply. I need the mana, early, but I don't want to give up Renewal to get it, and I don't need the armor because nothing is hitting me.

Grimunk, looking at your build, on paper it makes good sense, but on first approach I'd be using mana that I need to keep my snipes up. I'll test it out and see, again, though, it will be a while.

[quote who="HorseRadish" reply="14" id="2475091"]I love a regulus that constantly snipes a general with monks by the time you snipe again the damage is healed. You should really point out the Snipe is mostly to be used on opposing assassin DG's. Unless they are engaged in a battle.

That's what the target priority was getting at, HR. You don't snipe a Sedna with Wind and Bishops when a fleeing TB is available.

Replies bolded, since the forums don't appear to like nested quotes

This is kinda funny I posted a thread about 2 weeks ago as a fairly new player asking if this was a good build/play style. Other then using AF instead of MotB it was exactly the same, and even my gear + play style was exactly the same. I had like 6 or 7 guys pop in and say that the bild didnt make sense and that I should forgo snipe completely or max it out if I was going to use it. One guy even said all the "good" regulouses do that... I have actually since started to use Motb level 1 + AF then get Motb 2-3 at around level 13ish.

Otherwise I play reg exactly this way with much success.

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Kestrel's Regulus Build