Keeper of the Light has been a new favourite of mine after mindlessly picking him one game for a laugh earlier this month and budget Gandalf has also been having a good run in the professional scene recently.
When/Where to play Keeper of the Light
Keeper of the Light can be played as a support hero in position 4 or 5 and is terribly fun to play as I recently discovered. He is an incredibly powerful lane pusher at all stages of the game and his ultimate ability Recall can allow for a swift counter-attack.
Assuming your team already has lockdown in the form of stuns and ultimates then Keeper of the Light is a great pick. If however, you're lacking in crowd control Kotl is not a great pick as his only stun (Mana Leak) is extremely unreliable and you will be slaughtered before you even finish channeling Illuminate.
If you like heroes that can blow up opponents in seconds like Lina then KOTL is not for you, but if you like to be sneaky and cunning to win games and don't mind racking up assists instead of kills then this is a hero for you.
What lane should I go?
Keeper of the Light is great if you're planning to push the offlane for example but not ideal if you're babysitting your team's carry. Try to use KOTL to get an early tier 1 tower and then you're best bet is to roam and help out other lanes as much as possible. Use your swift movement speed to pick up bounties to keep up on levels and stack/kill creep camps with Illuminate to maximise farm for your team.
Much like Pudge the fear-factor of a KOTL will start to play on your opponent's minds and they will start hunting behind the tree line paranoid you are lurking there. This is exactly what you want.
Heroes that work well in conjunction with Keeper of the Light are ideally Strength heroes that have some ability to keep a target in place or a spammable AOE debuff. Axe's Call, Tiny's Avalanche or Centaur's War Stomp are all perfect as you will hopefully be able to hit more than one enemy at a time while also making sure they keep still so you can Illuminate all over them.
Strength heroes' abilities are usually not spammable as these heroes typically have low intelligence and thus a small mana pool. However, as you will find out in this guide Keeper of the Light's Chakra Magic restores mana and also increases mana pools, making KOTL the perfect partner for a Strength hero in the offlane.
Strengths
Incredibly fast (2nd highest base mov speed)
Powerful lane pusher (with Illuminate)
Good defensive spells (Blinding Lights/Recall)
Can Restore mana to allies (Chakra Magic)
Weaknesses
No escape (Weak against heroes like Ember)
Unreliable stun (Mana Leak)
Low HP (Worst base Strength of any hero)
Low Armour (although there is a +7 talent)
Illuminate (Q)
Against less experienced players who are unfamiliar with how the hero works you can easily stay in lane and fire off Illuminates right into their face, but ideally you should be looking to channel the spell from the safety of the tree line giving them no chance to escape. Remember you can release the spell early at any time by pressing Q again and every second charged is 100 damage.
Illuminate is also a very good spell for stacking creeps in the jungle. Simply charge the spell for a split second and fire it into a creep camp to trigger them to run to the source of the damage (you) thus leaving their spot and allowing for a new camp to respawn.
This is especially good if you are worried about being ganked as you do not even need to leave the lane to stack/pull. One some spots, for example the Radiant Ancient camp near the Secret Shop you can actually do two stacks simultaneously (video below), setting up a great bit of easy xp for your carry.
What is more since the range of Illuminate is greater than your XP range, you can actually cast Illuminate and then leave to allow your team-mate to soak up 100% of the XP from the creep/hero deaths. Pretty cool right?
Dangers of using Illuminate: Illuminate is a ridiculously cool spell but you can accidentally steal a lot of farm from your team-mate, so be very careful when you are in lane with your team's carry for example.
Illuminate can also heal: One rather sick advantage of purchasing Aghanim's Sceptre for KoTL is Illuminate will then HEAL your allies for the same damage you deal to your enemies. At max level that means Illuminate can do a 500 HP heal or 700HP if you have the lvl 25 talent.
Edit: The creeps now respawn every minute after the new patch instead of every odd minute so you can do the stack above twice as often!
Mana Leak (W)
Another benefit of Mana Leak is that it is % based, and therefore stays relevant as the game goes late. Moving 100 units will result in a hero losing 5% of their mana. Therefore, to lose their entire mana pool would require them to move 2000 units, which is about the same distance as between the mid tier 1 and tier 2 tower.
To use Mana Leak effectively you need to either use it when you expect an enemy is about to engage or when you expect your enemies are about to flee. Many players use Mana Leak too late which results in the target already engaging team-mates and therefore not losing copious amounts of mana. Although one nice element of Mana Leak is that if the enemy hero's mana is already 0, for example he's been the victim of your team's Antimage or a Diffusal Blade, Mana Leak is an instant stun. Great as it is, Mana Leak should be skilled last.
Dangers of using Mana Leak: One disadvantage of the fact Mana Leak is % based is that in the early game it is not very effective, not to mention at level 1 the spell lasts just 5 seconds. Having to wait for a unit to run an entire screen before being stunned is not what you want , which is why KOTL's stun is not very reliable and most players skill Illuminate and Chakra Magic first. You could possibly justify 1 skill point in it before level 9 if needs be.
If you're running for your life, use Mana Leak: If an enemy is planning on chasing you, for example a hero with a slow like Phantom Assassin, your movement speed advantage is swiftly lost. It's worth turning to cast Mana Leak before you attempt to flee, possibly buying you time later on for you to Recall in a team-mate or Blinding Light away your pursuer.
Chakra Magic (E) aka "GIFF ME MANA STOOPID KOTOL"
Chakra Magic restores 75/150/225/300 mana to a friendly hero BUT that is not all. Another benefit of Chakra Magic which is not so well documented is that it reduces the cooldown of the next spell the target casts, this works especially well in conjunction with heroes who have stuns as you can imagine.
If you're laning with a friend KoTL is actually a great choice for support as Chakra Magic can allow your friend to have essentially unlimited mana and wreck havoc in lane. This actually happened in TNC versus Secret at StarSeries when PieLieDie's KoTL and Khezu's Legion Commander completely destroyed the top lane due to the constant AOE damage.
Chakra Magic has a secret benefit: Not only does Chakra Magic reduce the cooldown on the last spell you cast (including passives) but it also temporarily increases your total mana pool by the amount of mana you were given. Once again this is why KoTL is a brilliant lane buddy for a Strength hero. The mana pool buff lasts a total of 15 seconds.
Dangers of using Chakra Magic: Chakra Magic costs mana to cast which means if you cast it on yourself you actually gain less mana than if you cast it on a team-mate. The casting cost is not huge 25/35/45/55 but it is something to remember when you're trying to calculate if you will have enough mana to cast another spell afterwards. I thought I'd save you the confusion later on.
Spirit Form (Ultimate) aka White Gandalf
Keeper of the Light's ultimate enters him into Spirit Form for 40 seconds and during this time he has access to two additional spells, Recall and Blinding Lights. If you have Aghanim's Sceptre then Keeper of the Light is permanently in Spirit Form which is why the item is a must buy.
Ultimate Ability 1: Recall
Alternatively if your team-mate is fleeing from the would-be assassins you can get him out of trouble by Recalling him to you but only if he has not received damage in the 5/4/3 seconds required to cast the spell. One nice little feature of Recall is it works on invulnerable allies (for example Bane's Nightmare or Naga's Song of the Siren). Only snag is Recall is dispellable.
Ultimate Ability 2: Blinding Lights
Another cool way to use Blinding Lights is to push people onto cliffs or to allow a team-mate time to escape by pushing away the enemy heroes surrounding him. Great for helping you flee a battle, only disadvantage is of course it doesn't work if the enemy hero has magic immunity and it does not stop channeling spells (although it does push them away).
Talents
Keeper of the Lights talent tree does not greatly affect how the hero is played and most of the time the choices are quite simple based on whether you are ahead or behind.
Level 10: The first talents you get to choose from are +20 Movement Speed or +7 Strength. Given Keeper of the Light already has incredibly high movement speed but low base HP, +7 Strength seems the logical choice.
However, the 140 additional HP quickly becomes insignificant as the game progresses, especially as you work towards Aghanim's. If you're struggle to survive by all means go +7 Strength but 20 additional movement speed should be enough to get you out of trouble if you're playing smart.
Level 15: -25 seconds respawn time or +20% XP Gain are the options and given KOTL is unlikely to have an XP problem with how easily he can farm waves, -25% respawn time is probably the way to go most of the time.
Level 20: Your choices are between +7 armour and +10% magic resistance which will depend on what kind of damage you are facing from the enemy's draft. Due to you most likely having Tranquil (+3 armour) and factoring in the armour increase as you increased in level (along with Aghs), your physical resistance should be around 35-40% at level 20.
Your natural magical resistance however remains at 25%. Therefore your choice is either to bring up your magic resistance to around the same % as your physical resistance or to primarily focus on physical resistance for the game your in. You will have to decide when the time comes my friend!
Level 25: +200 Illuminate Damage/Heal or +400 Cast Range. Considering Illuminate's cast range is already ridiculous +200 Damage/Heal is definitely the way to go. +700 HP to your allies and -700 HP to your enemies? Yes please. However, the additional cast range does help with landing Blinding Lights so it is something to consider.
Items
Much like the Talent Tree there is not too much debate on what is the best way to build the hero, the strength of KoTL lies in how you use his abilities. You will want to go Tranquil Boots first and then look to complete Aghanim's Sceptre to gain permanent access to Spirit Form and also a Force Staff to help with escaping from ganks and to make Mana Leak more effective.
My personal favouriteAs for your starting build this is my personal favourite (pictured left). I am by no means a Keeper of the Light pro but from experimenting I found this works well for me so far.
Inspired by Aui_2000's triple Mango Nyx Assassin I go for two Mangos as they not only restore 150 mana when consumed but also give +1 hp passive regen each. This is of course personal preference and you may wish to use your starting gold to buy a piece for a key item instead of consummables.
Standard starting items for KOTLBoots of Speed first is cool but fairly unnecessary since Keeper of the Light already has the 2nd highest base movement speed in the game. They should however be your first item purchase around the 3-4 minute mark.
Once you have Tranquils you basically are set for the next 15-25 minutes, so enjoy ganking, roaming and causing mischief until you get Aghanim's which should come around the 25-35 minute mark depending on your skill level.
Skill Build
Keeper of the Light's primary function in the first phase of the game is that of a harasser and as a source of mana. Therefore, maxing Illuminate and then Chakra Magic is essential. If you feel you are often being chased and unable to roam effectively you can put one point in Mana Leak but nothing more until both your your Q and E are maxed out. Your ultimate is too good to not level up whenever possible.
Final Words
I hope you enjoyed this guide and that after reading you may want to try the hero in the future. I am by no means an expert and this guide is simply aimed at sparking your interest in trying a new hero that I've really enjoyed recently. If you've found it useful leave a comment below or tweet me @MalystryxGDS, I'd love to hear your success stories after reading this.
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