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Enchantress is one of the strongest junglers in the game. Her second spell, Enchant, allows her to possess creeps from the start of the game. Together with Impetus, this gives her a strong early game presence. If the lane is hard, she can utilize Nature’s Attendants to heal herself and her lane partner.
In this Enchantress Dota Guide, I will go through hero’s spells, talents, and optimal item builds.
Basic spells
Enchantress shines during the early game. Throughout various patches, she always had a strong presence in the lane. However, due to lack of disables and relatively tricky heal, Enchantress starts losing potency relatively fast.
The hero can zone out opponents from level 1 with a pure-damage Impetus spell. At level 2, she can use Enchant to get strong creeps from the woods and kill most enemies. While Enchantress has low health, her defensive abilities make her rather tanky. Even if opponents decide to kill you, they will need to invest a lot of resources to do so. Alternatively, if they leave you alone during team fights, you can dish a lot of damage with long-range Impetus.
Impetus is an auto-cast ability that replaces your regular attack. Instead of the regular spear, you will throw its improved version that does pure damage based on the distance it traveled. In other words, it is bad for opponents who attack you in melee range, and it’s great for enemies who run away from you.
When you cast Impetus, you will also do regular attack damage. The magical spear counts as a spell, so its damage can be further increased by spell-boosting items and buffs. Similarly, you can buff it by improving your base damage.
However, most players will simply get an item such as Dragon Lance to increase the attack range and, with that, the damage that Impetus causes.
If you wish to quickly maximize the hero’s damage, you can get 4 points in this ability. Points increase the Impetus’ distance as damage. For example, at level 1, the ability does 8% of distance traveled as damage. At level 4, it does 20% of distance traveled as damage. Additional points also reduce cooldown from 6/4/2/0 seconds. Without a cooldown, the spell would simply be too powerful.
Enchant
The great thing about Enchantress is that she has not one but two very powerful offensive laning spells. As mentioned, Enchant allows you to take control of lane and wood creeps. The creep will gain additional health, armor, and damage on top of that.
Alternatively, you can also use the spell directly on enemies. It will slow them for a set duration (it doesn’t do any damage, though).
Once you possess a target, you can return to the lane and start auto-attacking enemies with it. Combined creep damage with Impetus damage can help you kill a lot of opponents. This is especially true if the wood creep has a slow or a disable.
A lot of players use the spell to push towers. At the first level, the possessed creep will last for only 30 seconds, but the duration increases by 30 seconds, with each level capping at 120. This would provide more than enough time to pressure tier 1 and tier 2 towers.
Nature’s Attendants
Officially, Nature’s Attendants is an area-of-effect spell that heals allies around the Enchantress. However, the area it covers is rather small, which is why it will be useless in most team fights. However, it will always provide a lot of utility for the hero.
If you only use it for yourself, Nature’s Attendants can heal a total of 5616 health on level 4, over 12 seconds, with all the talents. This makes it the strongest single-target heal-over-time in the game (if we presume that you’re only using it for yourself). You also have the option of buying Aghanim’s Shard creating three attendants that continuously circle you, thus providing a passive effect.
Together with the hero’s ultimate, Untouchable, Enchantress becomes a really hard target. The only positive thing for enemies is that it has low health. The best way of killing the hero is either by disabling her passive, silencing her so that she cannot use Nature’s Attendants, or simply nuking her.
Untouchable (Ultimate)
Untouchable is a passive ability that reduces the attack speed of anyone who tries to hit Enchantress. While the ability is always very strong, it shows its full potency against enemies that are heavily reliant on attack speed and procs (Faceless Void, Sniper, Slark). However, it doesn’t work against Kunkka’s, Medusa’s, and Sven’s splash damage. Together with Phantom Assassin, these are the best carriers for countering Enchantress.
Even if you buy Silver Edge in an attempt to break the passive, this might prove to be tricky. If Enchantress moves as you try to swing from invisibility, you might not connect with the auto-attack. Ideally, you would want her to stand still so you can hit her.
Sproink (granted by Aghanim’s Scepter)
Sproink is an offensive/defensive spell. When you cast it, Enchantress leaps backward, avoiding all the incoming projectiles. It will simultaneously cast Impetus on the three farthest enemies.
In a way, Sproink turns your Impetus into a multi-target ability. At the same time, it will also increase the cast range by 200, causing even greater damage. While you’re leaping, you can use other abilities and items.
The great thing about the spell is that it targets the farthest enemies allowing you to maximize the distance damage from Impetus. But this also means that you don’t have any control as to where the spears will land. To use Sproink, you need to have at least 1 point invested in Untouchable.
The impetus that you cast will work under the same premise as the regular spell (for example, its damage will be boosted by Dragon Lance and Hurricane Pike).
Enchantress’s spells provide a combination of healing, pushing, and pure damage. The hero can be very resilient early to mid-game, but as enemies gain items, she can be very susceptible to break mechanics. Her lack of disabling can be problematic in some situations.
However, if your priority is to ensure that the carry gets farmed, there are only a handful of heroes better than Enchantress.
Laning
Given the fact that Enchantress is so potent early game and tends to drop off, you will need to win your lane heavily to continue snowballing. This would provide some early game items for you, but it will also make your carry’s life much easier.
In almost every situation, you will start with Impetus at level one. If you think you will be pressured, or if you already took a lot of damage, you will get Nature’s Attendants as the second skill. Otherwise, you will always go with Enchant at level 2.
At this point, you can make several choices. You can continue adding points to Impetus for killing enemies, or you can get points in Enchant for pressuring the tower. Scaling either one has its merits. However, getting more than one or two points in Nature’s Attendants is usually a waste.
Getting 4 points in Impetus is imperative for many players as it removes the cooldown. On the other hand, level 1 Enchant creep will perish after just 30 seconds. While you can still utilize the slow feature, just one point in the skill is not enough to pressure the towers.
Your build often depends on the situation on the field and your position. If you’re playing as hard support, and you’re guarding a carry, you will probably want to stay as close as possible to your tower. So, trying to push early is a bad choice unless the enemy completely vacates the lane (which rarely happens in this patch).
Getting several points in Enchant is much better if you’re in offlane, as it would allow you to quickly take the tower.
Mid game
During mid-game, you have the option of going full offense or making defensive items that would help your team. Enchantress doesn’t necessarily need additional defense, although she can benefit from some magic resistance, which you can get either through talent tree, Pipe of Insight, or Black King Bar.
Given that the hero is commonly played as a support and almost never as a core, it is much better to get items like Mekansm, Pipe of Insight, Crimson Guard, and anything else that would add to the survivability of your team.
Due to inherent defensive capability, you can play very aggressively. Enchantress can start fights by slowing opponents with Enchant and following that with Impetus. Even if an enemy retaliates, they would need a lot of time to take you down.
So, if they start going at you, this should be seen as a win for your team. If the opponent decides to avoid fights, you can invest additional points in Enchant and start pressuring the towers.
Although this might seem counterintuitive, staying in the back and launching spears at enemies is often not the best choice. Even if you have a good score and make some kills, you should find ways to protect your cores and, if needed, sacrifice for them.
Late game
Depending on the talents you’ve got, Enchantress can become a real healing powerhouse. Unfortunately, her capability is limited by the range of the Nature’s Attendants. So, getting numerous talent points into this skill can work against you.
Instead, it might be better to get +45 damage talent (at level 15) and +6.5% Impetus damage (at level 25).
Playing Enchantress is a fine balancing act where you want to tank and provide utility, and at the same time, do descent damage. It all revolves around Impetus and your attack range. Unlike many heroes, where you would buy things such as Daedalus or Desolator, these items are not ideal for this hero.
If you’re a support Enchantress, you don’t want to reach late game. Like Chen and some other healers, her utility progressively drops off as the match goes on. When the opponents get Black King Bars, the best thing you can do is run around your allies trying to heal them, which is a less than ideal way to utilize the hero.
Itemization (Core items)
Dragon Lance and Hurricane Pike
While there are many items you might wish to prioritize as support, Dragon Lance is the best damage-dealing item for the Enchantress. Besides increasing the health, it will help improve the range of Impetus and, thus, its damage. By improving it to Hurricane Pike, you also get the Hurricane Thrust feature that allows you to save allies or nuke enemies.
Hood of Defiance and Pipe of Insight
Whether you’re a core or a support, you should consider these two items. Enchantress is very susceptible to magic damage, and Hood of Defiance and Pipe of Insight should solve that issue during the mid-game. Pipe of Insight is especially valuable as you want to provide some utility to the team.
Mekansm
Mekansm adds to Enchantress’ basic kit. Although the heal is not that important for you, it will help restore allies. Later on, you can turn it into Guardian Greeves, but most players prefer going with Power Threads for increased attack speed.
Aghanim’s Scepter
You can go with Aghanim’s Scepter as an alternative to Dragon Lance. It works similarly by boosting your Impetus and providing some additional health. Getting both of these is crucial for core Enchantresses.
Aghanim’s Shard
Enchantress has a very powerful Shard upgrade. As mentioned, the item creates three wisps that follow her around and provide 48 heal per second. Unlike Nature’s Attendants spell that you need to cast, these wisps provide continuous restoration even when silenced or disabled.
Itemization (Optional items)
Holy Locket
Holy Locket is great for all healers and especially Enchantress. It boosts all her heals by 30%, which is especially awesome if you also have Mekansm and Aghanim’s Shard. On top of that, you also get a nice mana and health boost.
Drum of Endurance
This item has become a rarity as of late, but it is still very potent on certain heroes. For example, it can be great on Enchantress as it provides movement speed and attack speed buff to both her and allies. If you wish to do more damage but also provide an aura, you can create this item. Keep in mind that besides attack range, this character scales very well with attack speed as it allows Enchantress to cast multiple Impetus during a team fight.
Aeon Disc
Given that the hero is very susceptible to burst damage, you might wish to consider building an Aeon Disc. Although Black King Bar is not ideal, as you want to soak some damage, Aeon Disc can help you in situations where you would instantly perish due to a critical attack or heavy magic burst.
Glimmer Cape
Like many other supports, Enchantress can build Glimmer Cape for her team. Besides covering her own flaws, it can also save cores that are facing immediate death.
Talent Builds
Level 10 (+20 movement speed OR +10% magic resistance)
Movement speed talent is great for chasing enemies during early to mid-game. It also adds a bit to your evasiveness. Magic resistance buff is especially great if you don’t want to make Hood of Defiance or Pipe of Insight. However, if you’re getting one of these items, it can be a bit redundant.
Level 15 (+5 Nature’s Attendants wisps OR +45 damage)
The first talent makes Enchantress extremely tanky. But, due to previously mentioned issues with the spell, choosing the damage talent usually seems like a better option. Nature’s Attendant talent is highly situational, and +45 physical damage is better as enemies won’t be able to ignore you.
Level 20 (Enchant works on ancient creeps OR +65 Untouchable attack speed slow)
Given that Enchantresses’ basic defensive kit is so strong, defensive talents often seem redundant. The same goes for +65 Untouchable slow. Unfortunately, by the time you get to level 20, ancients won’t be as potent. While they still provide an aura, the fact you can control them for only 2 minutes makes this spell hard to utilize in important team fights.
Level 25 (+20 Nature’s Attendants heal OR +6.5% Impetus damage)
The first talent more than doubles your healing output. Although it might seem a bit redundant like other defensive talents, Enchantress will barely take any damage during Nature’s Attendants’ duration after the upgrade. Then again, the increase in Impetus damage is also amazing.
FAQs
Question: Is Enchantress a good hero?
Answer: In this particular patch, Enchantress can be a very good hero. Her impact is enormous in the early to mid-game, and occasionally, she can win you games by herself.
Question: How do you counter Enchantress’ Untouchable?
Answer: The best way to counter the ability is by purchasing Silver Edge or drafting heroes that have break mechanics. Alternatively, you can draft heroes who have burst magic damage.
Question: Which hero counters Enchantress?
Answer: Some of the best heroes for countering Enchantress are Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Crystal Maiden, Medusa, and Ogre Magi.
Last considerations
Enchantress is a very good pick in this patch. She helps secure carry’s farm and is very hard to kill. As such, you can utilize her as a tank. But, if you don’t win the early game, it is really hard to get back later on.
The hero has very limited use, but everything she does, she does at a very high level. Furthermore, the very presence of Enchantress in your team can change enemies’’ builds.