General DiscussionWin with storm spirit

Go bottle wand raindrop treads kaya
bloodstone

Ur laning stage isn't too important, just try not to die too often and pull even on farm
Be careful of ganks pre 6
Don't pick this hero into instant cast stuns (Shaker, sk), silences (nighstalker, skywrath, disruptor), a bullying midlaner (viper, razor), roots (cm, tree) and also am
Most of these however (silences and roots and even bullying mids) can be played around with a euls or bkb tho, but it still forces sub optimal items
Just get pickoffs till u snowball
Go for backline Squishies and out of position people
After bloodstone ur items open up, tho u usually want orchid, u can go bkb or euls if needed, or linkens if there r certain targeted disables that r ruining ur day

Not sure if my info is helpful, as I am 2k too, but if I lose my lane I stack up on mana regen(raindrops, clarities, getting tunes with bottle) farm jungle and only come back to lane when creeps are near tower, then burst them down.

Tinker, puck, silencer would make your lane difficult and they might get a kill if you try tower dive killing them. I prefer getting a Euel's scepter against silences and orchids. Always block your creeps specially against tinker. Getting creeps to your high ground becomes important against that hero.
Disabler gankers are your biggest enemies as well. Lion and shaman would also get you easily. Night stalker too can disturb you a lot but usually he needs some levels before he gets his second skill.

When winning the lane you can go for a bloodstone. Check what next. If there are supports like jakiro, rubick or some pos 5 supports orchid can be helpful. It could be used to complete bloodthorn against PA or evasion. Get eul's scepter against silencer, and get a bkb after bloodstone+orchid or after bloodstone as per the requirement. If there is not much lockdown, you could go for a shiva's guard. A shiva's guard provides you better man fighting. If you're badly losing, think before getting a bloodstone. Getting bloodstone makes you a bit tanky but if you die you make a loss. If you're badly losing the lane go for an orchid to hold the game and wait for your carry to get fat.
Just my opinion. :)

^orchid first is ass
please go KAYA on this hero ty

also u shit on tinker, just survive the laning stage with lots of regen, and then shit on him

Kaya into BS is the only way to play storm
Thanks

In laning stage almost everyone beats you so u farm jungle and try to clear waves.

Tinker isnt even that bad against storm. Only ultra lategame tinker cant do much until storm shows himself. You know, the one who gets the initiation on other wins.

There ia no way a storm can beat tinker in 1v1 lane. Some other heroes would have to show up.

On storm you are mostly going to be farming till 20min (when u have bloodstone + kaya)
Some ppl prefer treads some go straight arcane -> bloodstone. With treads its possible to solo kill tinker by abusing his turnrate (constantly zipping over him) if you do it well enough, he shouldnt be able to laser u.
If the game is too fast u might have to skip kaya. For example when enemies have early push, you should go for early bloodstone. This way defending high ground successfully means 29350439650 bloodstone charges.
Sometimes you can even go treads kaya orchid. This way you can play a lot faster game and be by far the strongest hero on the map once you have orchid. When you do decide to go for this build, there isnt a lot of space for mistakes. After kaya bs orchid u should get bkb/shiva/linken/lotus/bloodthorn/aghs, depending on game.
There are also games when you have no time for orchid, but have to go bloodstone -> linken. Some people say you have no damage and cant kill anything like this but holy fuck they're wrong.
Try to be as efficient as possible with zaps.
Once you have acquired bloodstone/orchid, whichever u decided to get first. You should get vision in enemy jungle and farm it/their safelane area. That area is really efficient for storm and you can get some easy pickoffs there.
You should always look out for what is the most dangerous hero against you. Whether you jump and kill him with him having no chance of retaliating or you wait till he uses his abilities which are good against you.
Storm vs antimage - Storm is the best hero in the game for catching him (in most cases you need followup), antimage is the best hero in the game for punishing storm's mistakes.

do not be afraid of picking storm into silences/antimage/difficult mid matchups. this is how you learn to play in difficult scenarios (would avoid doing this in ranked until you're confident). i find that i win most of my games vs antimage as storm, like inx said, he is great at catching the am. avoiding deaths early is key as mentioned above as well. most times you won't be getting solo kills in the mid lane, but ask for rotations by your supports to help you out. the tinker matchup is probably my least favorite matchup. i hate it, it's difficult and frustrating, so need to avoid dying in lane. after that its not terribly difficult to catch a tinker and kill him.

as for itemization, i've been doing the arcanes > kaya > bloodstone, followed by whatever i need for the game. i prefer to go orchid after bloodstone followed by sheepstick or shivas, but linkens/bkb may be necessary sometimes. personally i've never been big on the eul's but it is effective and something i should probably consider more often in certain scenarios.

U lose to tink in lane, but I almost always beat him later
I mean a tinker will often not be able to gank you in your jungle safely most of the time but you can considering your mobility
Also I find tinker has suboptimal solutions to orchid
Bkb orchid storm feels like I can't lose to tinker.
Idk in my bracket positioning is a huge problem for players so abusing it with storm is really easy.

Surviving as Storm is key to win. Never initiate if there is an even slightest possibility of dying (esp. after Bloodstone). Standard build is Wand, PT, Kaya, Bloodstone, BKB/Linken, Orchid. Sometimes if u have a really great game & there is not much threat you can go Orchid before Linken/BKB. Always prioritize surviving over kills. Fighting into Storm with 25-30 bloodstone charges is a pain in the ass, he feels super OP at that point. However, if you have 5 charges, he feels like twice times weaker. Aghs is situationally OP, you should consider it at some point. With Nullifier + Bloothorn not many heroes can survive ur initiation. Also farm, farm and farm. Storm is easily top5 strongest late game heroes in the game, he might even be the strongest if not countered. Build up your bloodstone charges & let your enemy feel fear from going anywhere solo.

^^this guy is right

U can say any hero needs to “kill people and not die”, but it’s 1000x more important on storm due to how he works

storm is my most played hero, tinker is probably my 2nd most player hero and i in my experience storm is terribly overrated against tinker.

NICE STORM WIN RATE DOOOOOOOOOD XD

80% of the storm games on this acc i first picked storm x)

NICE TINKER WIN RATE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOD XD

yee boii

Then what's ur solution to orchid storm? R u gonna euls or smth? If storm gets farmed there is no way for tink to survive against orchid nullifier storm spirit

Then what's ur solution to orchid storm? R u gonna euls or smth? If storm gets farmed there is no way for tink to survive against orchid nullifier storm spirit

Washed up. You're a 2k player. Beating a noob tinker. Don't try to be glad about it.

U don’t get gone on or ur a bad tinker and need to die

Ur probably playing against people who stand there channeling rearm in vision/stay in the same patch of trees for more than 2 seconds

using Q right after an auto attack will proc your passive

probably one (of several) huge storm spririt tips.

Another one is sometimes you are better dodging into enemeis than away cause of turn rate.

I mean I'm just asking dude, I didn't say my games r the perfect example, just asking how u do it.

when someone says laning stage isnt important as mid hero who need a lot of farm...

First of all against tinker it's terribly hard to get orchid at decent timing. Secondly your place as tinker is in trees, always out of vision. Thirdly before storm gets orchid you can fucking terrorize him and easily get a hex by 28min. At best, storm barely haa orcgid but YOU are the predator with the hex, always ready to fuck him up

Storm vs Tinker was never harder. Before jungle nerfs even if you lost the lane hard vs him, you could still comeback through it. Both of the heroes heavily depend on laning. In general imo Tinker counters Storm because of how much he can shut him down in the lane. All his timings should be faster than Storm's. Vs Storm u always go kaya-hex, not aghs.

Do u guys have any general guidelines for knowing how far storm can/should jump to a target at different stages of the game?

Ok, Im pretty sure I just suck at farming with tinker
In that matchup isn't aether better than Kaya?

GET BOTH.

@Jacked - as far as he can safely jump back without dying.

Isn't both slot ineffecient?

As far as tinker is concerned, kaya is like a must. Kinda a substitute for bloodstone on tinker. But without aether this hero dies. I need both. But if you're having a good time farming, aether becomes useless pretty soon.
But I've seen people skipping aether on pro scenes and high mmr.

I personally only build Kaya & take range talent. I find lens not slot efficent. Also people should consider force instead blink, it's underrated. You can be way more agressive with it because it's harder to kill you.

^blink is literally mandatory, u can do force alongside if really necessary but its way beyond ideal.

the solution to storm is nothing item wise until you buy hex, you just need to not get caught until that point. if he buys bkb before ur hex u need to either get the jump on him or continue not getting caught

the only time its really annoying is either: bkb+shiva or linken+bkb (+orchid ofc), the first because he catch u in tress and orchids and its impossible to dodge even if ur very far away from where he balls. the second is almost impossible to laser+hex him before he bkbs in a fight unless he has mega downs

if u rEALLY care about the storm player u can go lens to hex, kaya to hex, or both to hex. then go back for aghs or go straight into dagon. if the hero has bs and orchid only and he gets hexed, hes going to fucking die

tinker shits on storm in a 1v1 anyway and wins a lot of 2v2s so as long as u dont have my teammates (kappa) u should beat him in lane

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3595113283

Here is the game with force instead blink. I did it for the test & it worked really well. It let me be more agressive without worrying that when they close the gap I will be owned. I was surprised it worked that well. I still go blink instead force, but for sure it's also pretty legit. I recommend people to test it.

I just checked your games OP. Don't take vortex till lvl 11. It's garbage. You will do way more dmg without it if you know how to jump. It also slows you & at lvl 1 with early items it's just bad. You can maybe take it if they dive you in the tower & vortexing would give u a kill on the enemy mid. Beside that NEVER get it. It's not worth it. In your bracket some noobs might flame you for this, but you will win more games & that's what matters in the end.

I take vortex at lvl 8-9

You press R then hit. W then hit. Q then hit. R then hit. Q then hit. Repeat until u have no mana.

And watch out for Anti-Mage.

If you find orchid is a problem to tinker then buy lotus orb
Kaya + aether tinker = 6355518887536668900187365 mana
-> You can max ulti asap