Tychus.Findlay v1.68

[Ironsights]

Tychus Findlay: The bad, bad man's guide to surviving AA Hell

 

Greetings! For my 500th post, I decided to make a character guide. Given the current state of the game, specifically relating to Pubs, you are probably getting pretty tired of being destroyed by AGI AA carries. If that's the case, this is an effort to help.

 

Change Log

 

 

1-12-13: Due to changes made to Talents in version 1.70, Talents have been altered for this build.

 

 

 

The Short Guide

 

 

In case you want the facts without the fluff.

 

hero: tychus

talents: spell resist, armor, life regen, zeal, fortify, speed increase

Starting skills: Explosive round, Healing

Items (durans buckler) Explosive Retrofit, Executioner's Axe, Barbed Plating, Shrapnel Cloak, Force of Entropy, Organic Carapace

 

 

 

Why Tychus?

 

 

I have chosen Tychus as the go to answer for how to survive AA Hell. The question is why.

1-Rip and Tear, the heroic passive, not only makes all his skills better, but it means he has solid attack speed without having to stack items. Since he is meant to not die, he will keep shooting, and the longer he shoots the better he is. Thus you can stack items to boost your damage or survivabiltiy without having to worry about weapon speed.

2-Explosive round, here after called boom shot, is a decent aoe that deals increased damage and is good for beating down fragile carries.

3-Self healing: its a must!

4-Smog Grenades help you catch or escape, very handy against the mobile enemy

5-Juggernaut: makes rip and tear faster while giving you insane damage resist. Very helpful

6-RANGE: its just so, so hard to lane against toxi or nova with a melee hero.

 

 

 

The Items

 

 

Starting Item: Duran's Buckler, because its what any tank needs to start the day

Next: Explosive Retrofit, it boosts your Strength (damage and life) while giving you Farm ability.

Then: Executioner's Axe, not only does it shut down their leech but it gives you Strength and Agility

Next up: Barbed Plating, turning the enemy's damage against him

Then: Shrapnel Cloak, because sometimes they need to stop hitting you and spell resist is awesome.

And then: Force of Entropy, since you dont want them running and you don't want you dying.

Finally: Organic Carapace, because more health, more strength, and sweet regen really seals the deal

 

ENERGY POTIONS are your friend in the early game! Keep that Heal active!

 

 

Don't forget, once all this is purchased, buy the three stat-boosting potions regularly to keep yourself at max power.

 

 

 

The Skills

 

 

Boom Shot: Used for farming until you have a retrofit, used as a damage boost against heroes after that

Healing: Use this frequently; you don't want to be sitting around half dead when a gank hits.

Smog: Used for catching or fleeing, don't forget to lead your target!

Jugger: When things get dirty, armor up. No reason to take more pain than you have to, and keeping the rip'n'tear active can be crucial.

 

Skill Order

Boomshot and healing first, then smog at level three. Focus on boom shot from there if being aggressive, or healing if on the defensive. Grab Jugger whenever Its open. Once maxed on Boom and Heal, grab level two on slow, then all three stat boosts, then the last two slows.

 

 

 

 

Tips and Tactics

 

 

A good trick right from the get go is to pair up with lord Z running similar talents. Z can run in, ring/haste them for heavy damage while you run up, boom/haste them, and if they live you can throw a slow to seal the kill. Often gets first blood around level three, and induces much rage.

While the above is still doable without the speed boost adn attack speed from haste, it is much harder and riskier.

 

If you find a speedy foe trying to run off with no health left, and you are fairly sure you won't need it in the next 30 seconds or so, blast the shrapnel cloak. 300 Spell damage can seal the deal.

 

Use Shrapnel cloak sparingly against single targets. Its great in a team fight or when ganked, super in Shadow's ulti, and boss when saving an ally in Zera's bubble, but popping it too soon will leave you vulnerable when you really need it, reduces your barb returns, and worse could open you up to a gank if you've just been baited. That cool down is OH so long when shadow and leo are on your ass and you popped the SC at the first site of leo...

 

Assists are a good thing. You are playing a tank, the kill won't always be yours, and that's ok. See an enemy running from your carry? Throw that smog! Pretty sure you can hurt them all, but are going to die? your teammates are there, go for it, let them clean up. One dead tank for a team wipe is well worth it. And sometimes, when you know your toast, go down shooting. Assists still pay, after all.

 

As was mentioned before, invest in energy potions. These babies seem costly early game, but they keep you in that lane making that money, which is where you need to be. heal baby, heal.

 

Only use heal when Rip'n'Tear is max (your gun barrel burns, FYI) as it heals for double, in half the time, and nearly isn't worth it otherwise.

 

Don't be afraid to Heal your team, especially in a fight. Keep them all in the fight.

 

If you are feeling confident late game, selling that Retrofit for a Masamune can make you a murder machine unless you are too badly outnumbered.

 

It takes roughly a thousand minerals to buy all three stat potions and an elixer. Do this every ten minutes or so (sans elixer if you already have it) once you are at max items.

 

Remember, when fighting near enemy tower and no hero is present, shoot the tower. Explosive Retrofit will still kill nearby creeps. This lets you push fairly hard.

 

Always shoot hero spawns. Seriously, kill the lings, the marines, the infesteds. And do it with retrofit. Spend NO mana to reduce the enemy DPS and waste their energy. Always good.

 

Careful shooting towers with retrofit if an enemy hero is near by. The AOE may hit the hero and get the tower focusing on you.

 

If through some strange occurance none of the enemy AA's are using leech, feel free to swap the Axe for a lightning rod. You are now a lane pushing beast.

 

 

 

 

 

Well folks, I figure thats about that. Enjoy!

[Rohtube]

not bad

[Chimera]

Another good farming item for Tychus that gives strength and useful weapon speed is Lightning Rod. When you're still laning you will take down their creep waves very super fast and do a fair bit of damage in team fights. I like your build in terms of overall tankiness though, even against high damage burst casters it would be good due to the fact you heaps of health and a bit of spell resist to negate most of the damage.

[Ironsights]

Another good farming item for Tychus that gives strength and useful weapon speed is Lightning Rod. When you're still laning you will take down their creep waves very super fast and do a fair bit of damage in team fights. I like your build in terms of overall tankiness though, even against high damage burst casters it would be good due to the fact you heaps of health and a bit of spell resist to negate most of the damage.

 

indeed.

 

This build is specifically designed to do well in the current pub environment and that means it has to do two things: kill agi carries and survive cyprus lol. As you noted, the high health and moderate spell resists make that last one a lot easier.

 

And lightning rod is a good option...I just prefer the retrofit because it blows things up...and tychus (and me, can't lie) seems the sort that would smile watching things go boom... >.>

[Spooky]

Usually u want Electric Mantle on tanks instead Shrapnel Cloak. Shrapnel is much better for support heroes with worse tankyness. And instead of Carapace, Darwin's Might late game is much better.

[Ironsights]

electric mantle is overrated, honestly, and shrapnel allows you to pull off some pretty sick maneuvers.

 

Darwin's might is pretty great, but ultimately I go with the carapace because of the raw HP, which allows you to survive nukers more readily.

 

I have to agree, your variation may be perfectly viable, but I do not see it as superior.

[Qlx]

electric mantle is overrated, honestly, and shrapnel allows you to pull off some pretty sick maneuvers.

 

Darwin's might is pretty great, but ultimately I go with the carapace because of the raw HP, which allows you to survive nukers more readily.

 

I have to agree, your variation may be perfectly viable, but I do not see it as superior.

I agree,

...nice guide. I've never played him oO..

Maybe i will now :D

[lOvOl]

Main thing this lacks is items to get around Tychus' lack of mobility in which case you need either superior speed or a small hadron collider. Even though he can be very tanky and stand his ground, he has to escape trouble much of the time and in pubs you are more likely to have cowards on your team, than people who will stand their ground with you. DST is also a good item on him for this reason alone as it gives him an outlet for escape if things go bad. Spell resist and a DST will make it a lot harder for him to die than simply stacking health and armor. Sliptyde scythe is a good item on him as well cause it gives great spell resist as well as a decent speed boost in maintaining pursuit.

[Ironsights]

Smog grenade, when used at full stacks, actually gives you a speed boost. This can be useful for escapes. Shrapnely cloak is also good for gettign away, since it keeps them from beating on you while you run. Mixed with self healing and juggernaut...Tychus can get home if he wants to.

 

As for innitation, I usually don't bother with this build. Tychus, especially once fully geared, doesn't really have to start the fight. He just shows up and starts shooting something important, and the enemy either loses towers to him or tries to fight him, which usually means they die. Or I am escorting our carries, which again mean I don't have to jump in, I just have to be there and be dangerous.

 

Furthermore, Haste is pretty good for getting around Tychus's mobility issues.

 

And honestly, if you are in a spot with Tychus where you need to run, you probably made a bad choice to get there in the first place.

 

Plus, keeping in line with the personna I see in Tychus...there isn't much running in him. You go all in, stand your ground, and take as many of tehm with you as you can...and with this build quite often you will take more of them than you. Im always amused when I'm left standing at the end of a team fight where 5 enemies and four allies died...and I just mosey on up to an objective and start blasting.

[JohnRipley]

I should say I play him in absolutely different way. I build it dps-tank that can carry pub game.

I dont want to survive DPS hell I want to become one.

 

Talants:

+15 damage, Leech, attack speed, HP, armor, speed

Skills:

EGEGEREGGGRWWWQQRQ (I expect a lot of butthurt when you read this). To Justify: As you will see I build dps who dont need much mana. Early game I only use E to kill/escape, mid game for R and late game I add W. Q is just a waste of mana and R'n'T charges for this build and not needed for farming.

 

Start with

which is much better than one duran's item and still have money for ward which is very much needed.

go to short lane (place the ward next to tank to avoid being ganked)

Farm like hell to get Sabre for sustain and income.

Then rush for

and farming gets easy + you can deny a lot and harass melee heroes a lot with Tychus attack speed (I update STR+AGI potions so have about 150-160 damage at this stage with G-stats learned)

This should give you kills and usually T1 destroyed

Then I get and go gank or just convince my mates to go full frontal (depends on enemy team and how fed they are)

 

After this it depends on situation:

and (not necessarily in that order). With hammer and pyre its just killing time for Tychus.

then

or or both

then

After that its varies but usually

for wave control.

Remaining space usually used for some more spell resist or tankiness and can be filled earlier if game demands it.

 

Strategy is pretty simple and dumb: Farm like there is no tomorrow/last hit and deny, if squishy enemy hero in range - aim it, and if it doesnt run - E (not so much for the kill but for lane dominance and farming). Wards are important and sometime I can do short lane solo if enemies are easy to manage.

Of course this is just a baseline and items are flexible after pyre. If I manage to get pyre early its gg.

 

This build is very effective against hard dps chars as Tychus can effectively deny early farming for them by denying creep with higher attack speed (read: switching to another target) so switching lanes against those heroes is good thing to do. I already saw few times shadow heroes switch away from my Tychus to another lane. That why I get AGI potions, G-skills, Sabre and +25 damage first.

 

Reasons to pick this Tychus:

- general rule: diverse damage sources

- My team don't have much DPS heroes (for instance if there is already darpa and nova then I'd rather pick drake/barlog/vorpal)

- There is also another tank already in our team (if not I take pure tank hero - Vorpal/Barlog/Drake/LZ because imo there is always should be tank)

- I'm lazy and just want to right click everything

 

PS: Vorpal+Tychus+Kerrigan team its just pub trolling imo

[Ironsights]

would be amusing to lane my tychus against yours in TM some time just to see which pushes harder.

[Ironsights]

Updated the guide due to changes made in 1.70

 

New talents are listed since haste on a tank is obsolete.