Dragon Knight — What Does a Hero Truly Need?
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Dragon Knight is not a flashy hero. The first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions Dragon Knight is “vanilla”. It is a hero with a stun, a nuke, an armor and regeneration passive and an ultimate that turns him into a dragon. The latter part might sound exciting on paper, but it is far from it in an actual game. At the same time, Dragon Knight remains one of the most consistent and flexible heroes in the game, frequently picked by mids who are more than willing to sacrifice their own spotlight for a better chance at victory.
Recent trends show a steady growth for both Dragon Knight’s win and pick rates since 7.07 balance patch hit the game and looking at 7.07 changes as well as professional play for the hero one thing definitely stands out — there is no single, dominant build for the hero. His item choices generally revolve around one or two core items, but depending on his talent choices his role in the game can be vastly different. And that makes one of the safest and most reliable picks in the current meta.
The Medusa Treatment
Medusa made a comeback into high level pubs and the professional scene with the changes introduced in 7.07 and to a great extent it was the result of her talent changes. The level 20 +800 Mana talent might be the reason she was even considered in the first place, but it was level 10 and 15 talents that allowed her to keep on par with the rapidly accelerating metagame.
The same can be said about the Dragon Knight. 7.07b changed his level 15 talent that used to give +40% XP to a significantly more proactive +35 damage talent. Coupled with a +30 Attack Speed talent at level 10 it made Dragon Knight not only a very strong pushing tanky hero, but also a much bigger threat in teamfights.
However, it was merely a gateway to professional players noticing the hero and currently, despite having higher success in pubs with a damaging build, the pro-scene is frequently concentrating on the utility aspects of the hero with a +2 mana regen and +300 health choices, further increasing the potential of the hero as a strong frontliner with decent control.
Initiation and teamfight
There are two items that are purchased on the hero regardless of the game and sometimes both of them are built together. Blink Dagger and Shadow Blade have become the staple for the Dragon Knight, allowing him to initiate and get attention from the enemy, forcing them to either use their cooldowns protecting themselves or suffer a considerable amount of damage.
Blink Dagger is a vastly superior initiation item that can’t be countered with sentries and given instant projectile in melee form, doesn’t have a counterplay, apart from strong dispels from Abaddon, Legion Commander or Oracle. At the same time, Shadow Blade allows the hero to deal even more damage, while having a situationally useful progression into Silver Edge.
Which of the items you need will change game to game and there are games where having both can be the optimal choice. As a rule of thumb, however, you generally want Blink Dagger when playing against highly mobile heroes and when some of your teammates are interested in going Shadow Blade themselves, as the utility of invisibility goes down with extra sources of it on a given team.
Going for both is generally done to ensure better initiation, when the enemy has vision heroes on their team, such as Keeper of the Light, Beastmaster or Night Stalker. It is rarely used for its bonus damage and is more of a consistency boost to Dragon Knight’s initiation, especially when you are playing against a squishy target you absolutely can’t ignore.
Another reason to go both is the Silver Edge progression, which is a relatively cost-efficient item that can be situationally game-winning.
Regardless of your choice, Dragon Knight should almost always go for a Black King Bar and this item is present in all of the professional matches on the hero, as it helps with initiation follow-up in terms of damage and survivability.
The latter part of the item progression is quite open-ended with frequent Bloodthorn, Assault Cuirass, Monkey King Bar and Mjollnir pickups.
Closing Thoughts
Dragon Knight has 57% win rate in the pro-scene and 52% in the 5k+ games this month, making him one of the most successful heroes of the patch. Despite that, there are very few complaints about the hero and no one seems to think that the hero is overpowered in the slightest.
As mentioned previously, he is one of the most reliable heroes in the game, but it is his flexibility that makes him rather powerful and in a way, unique. Dragon Knight starts the game as jack-of-all-trades core: his laning stage is secure, but he isn’t particularly threatening either. He is relatively tanky, but isn’t as survivable as heroes like Tidehunter or Abaddon. He deals a decent amount of damage, but nowhere near actual hard carries. And he pushes relatively well, but not on the level of Death Prophet and the likes.
And it is up to the player to make the correct choices when it comes to Dragon Knight. What does this hero truly need? This is for you to decide.
Anyone knows how manta interact with his ult? and Nethertoxin to his dragon blood?
Coolest spell in da game.
For his ult, reduce the duration, increase the manacost and increase the cooldown but give him free movement.
he is a balanced hero, really needs his ult to fight properly
The only melee hero that can zone out a sniper in a 1v1 lane. Pure awesomeness
Sentences like "Blink Dagger is a vastly superior initiation item" are mildly triggering, you are not buying shadow blade to initiate teamfights against real players
I find shadow blade actually very weak on him, drums blink just seems to rest the case in terms of tankiness, mobillity and siege power. Still though, consider shadow blade before/ after blink if you are facing high mobility heroes.
Elder Dragon Form cooldown from 100 to 145/140/135 seconds (6.51 patch reverse) :3
And we gucci xd
We need a aghs upgrade. Like a Elder Black Dragon. Which, poison the target, splash damage, slow, and a
fucking200% critical on 30% chance.It took me 4K games to learn that holding alt also self-casts similar to double tap... I accidentally imprisoned myself at the worst time against a DK. q-q
I am using him more lately because of the talent and laning stage.
@BohrInGame™
Manta in dragon form creates dragon illlus with its advantages.
It can be situationally game changing, especially when enemy has little AoE and a lot of single target skills.
Which reminds me, I just used it in my last game, and did one hell of a 3-man-wipe when walked on enemy, and Shadow Shaman couldn't disable my main body.
He's a good pos 2
not flashy???
hahahahahaha try going up against a late game dk with ac heart mjollnir and bkb in dragon form, dont think there is a bigger hero form in the game with those gigantic wings, you'll turn tail and run like his bitch
@LF terraria teammate
Are you buying it to initiate against fake players? What's your version of why people buy shadowblade?
DK always lacked damage, compared to other carries.
Indeed. the recent version changed this..
As mentioned he has strong talents, and the new mana (and health) regen formula should also be welcome to that low int hero.
One Bloodthorn, gives him mana and additional DPS.
He now can become a strong carry.
And another 40 damage 800HP talent at level 25.
Agreed, hes not as tanky as an Abaddon or Tide, therefore he is not mana dependant, and in worst case he can pick up a Soul Ring to spam Fire breath.
+ strong early game
+ strong talents
+ mana problems solved through new mana formula and (somewhat new) items e.g. Bloodthorn
Hes not the flashiest, but his fire breath with some additional hits can still clear a wave.
Lets say, at least he doesnt need a battlefury for that.
If DK is OP, maybe buff his counters. e.g. make Heartpiercer pierce spell immunity, add more items for break (maybe add break into urn).
Reduce his lvl. 20 talent from +150 GPM to +120 GPM and maybe reduce his base armor from 1 to 0 :D :3
@Sunset Stalker
Break into urn would massively overpowered. Items have a necessary expense to them that provides value to the base skills and their counters. In other words, Bristleback would never be picked if he could be countered by such a cheap item. The fact that it costs so much to temporarily counter his strongest aspects makes him a valuable pick. A cheaper item would make it far easier to negate heroes that have much stronger passives, such as Drow or Beastmaster, who all have two passives that are fundamental to their design.
That's just an example, not an opinion on the current stregnth of these heroes per se, but the same formula could apply to DK here. With that in mind, what would be better is to lower the impact of his passives, or lower slightly the price of items that apply break. Nullifier comes to mind for that...it's just too expensive right now.
Мид он не проигрывает, а зачастую и даже выигрывает...
all you really need is just afk mid for the first 10 min until enemy is diving your teamamtes tower, and get tread drum dagger and armlet, then bkb ofc situation may applied. Shadow blade is rly more of a situation item, i wouldn't rly go for it, maybe against lower rank
totally flexible but apparently you want to get blink and sb on him always... pretty contradictory
The talents at level 20 and 25 are REALLY good. Doubling Dragon Blood and +40 Strength when combined with Heart and AC makes Dragon Knight nearly unkillable. This makes Dragon Knight actually one of the hardest carry heroes in the game, provided he gets sufficient farm. He will outmatch even Sven and Chaos Knight in the very late gem.
Да лох он