Gameplay

Playstyle
Earthshaker is a powerful spellcaster designed to repeatedly stun enemies. However, his naturally low mana requires careful management and selective use, especially during the early game. His Echo Slam allows him to wipe out large groups of enemies, making him an ideal pick against heroes like Chaos Knight, Meepo, Broodmother, or Phantom Lancer. Compared to intelligence supports, Earthshaker has a sizeable health pool. But compared to most strength heroes, Earthshaker is fairly vulnerable and can be easily killed if caught out of position.
Pros	Cons
Numerous stuns. Excellent initiation. His ultimate can destroy a large groups of ememies. Good early ganking. Not item dependent. High strength gain ,for durability in the late game.	Very hard to initating without Blink Dagger. Long cast animations. Easy to harass in lane. Needs a good early game to snowball. Serious mana problem in early game.

Initiator/Support

• Earthshaker is mostly played as an initiator. In early game, he can set up gank with allies and initiate with Fissure. With the help of Blink Dagger, his role is to jump into enemy clusters and chain stun opponents with Echo Slam, Enchant Totem, and Fissure in order. A fully executed sequence will deal significant damage, even if no allies are around to follow up. New players may find it hard to farm a quick Blink Dagger, and should thus play conservatively to avoid early game deaths (and therefore gold loss). Once a Blink Dagger has been obtained, Earthshaker is no longer heavily item-dependent, and can transition into buying support items if needed.
• This build is good for games where it is highly possible that you will have a better hand in early game fights due to your team's draft. It works well when Earthshaker earns money by taking part in a lot of early kills, earning assists and not dying too often.

Brawler

• Earthshaker can sometimes be played as a brawler, stacking damage items to make Enchant Totem more effective.Purchasing a Daedalus, or even 2 of them, will potentially one-shot frail enemy heroes. Players who go this route require significant farm, and therefore often start in the Mid Lane.This build needs positioning directly next to the target,and with Earthshaker's poor mobility, getting Blink Dagger or Aghanim's Scepter is important. Aswell, reliying on Enchant Totem casts may call for an Octarine Core later. Players should discuss with their team prior to choosing this build, as most teams expect Earthshaker to be played as an initiator/support.
• This build is for core farming Earthshaker. It is based on high damage bonus from Enchant Totem combined with damage bonus from fast Shadow Blade. First, such Earthshaker chooses his target, then activates Enchant Totem, then goes invisible and attacks his victim. If the victim didn't die after that, Earthshaker finishes it off with his other abilities and the second Enchant Totem because its duration is longer that its cooldown. Two Crystalys' are also a good choice for this build.
• A downside to this build is that it usually foregoes Earthshaker's mana problems and thus, it may be needed to invest heavily on Clarities or a Bottle.

Ability Builds

Generic Earthshaker
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Brawler Earthshaker
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Tips & Tactics

General

• Due to his costly abilities, Earthshaker needs good timing and game sense to be effective.
• In the early game, Earthshaker is very easy to harass in lane. Players should play conservatively except when setting up a gank with his allies.
• Earthshaker should look for ganking opportunities around the map,to reach his item timings.
• Alternatively,if roaming gets difficult, he can stack a medium camp many times and farm it.Make sure to communicate with your teammates and teleport if they need help.

Abilities

Fissure

• At 1600 range, Fissure is one of the longest ranged stuns in the game.
• Use Fissure to block off enemy retreat or reinforcements.
  • Earthshaker is exceptional at ganking the mid lane, because at a good angle, Fissure can completely block the enemy midlaner from running back to their tower.
  • In the same manner, Fissure can be used to block ally or enemy creeps to alter their meeting point in lane.This can force the enemy to farm closer to your tower, making them vulnerable to early kill attempts and easier chasing.
• Keep your finger on the Stop hotkey (S by default) to immediately cancel the cast animation if it looks like you're going to miss.
• Fissure creates an impassable ridge and splits two adjacent heroes between the ridge.
  • Fissure is useful for separating a fleeing ally from a pursuing enemy. This requires practice, as it is quite common to misclick and wall off both heroes on the same side.
  • The impassable terrain is effective in splitting the battlefield during a teamfight. However, improper use of Fissure can prevent melee carries from inflicting damage on or chasing the enemy.
• Fissure's long range can be used to snipe off retreating enemies.
• Fissure has a long cast animation and may be interrupted in a hectic fight.

Enchant Totem

• Enchant Totem has a very long cast animation and can be interrupted,
• One of Enchant Totem's main roles is to stun enemy with Aftershock. It can be used as a mini-initiation ability with Blink Dagger or its Aghanim's Scepter upgrade.
  • Beware of its long cast animation: enemies may simply walk out of the Aftershock radius.
• With Aghanim's Scepter, Enchant Totem provides greater mobility options, and can be used to traverse around the map and bypass terrain obstacles, such as cliffs, entirely.
  • Blink Dagger could be discarded to free up a slot for another item when obtaining Aghanim's Scepter, though the leap has a noticeably longer initiation time compared to Blink Dagger, and quick and perceptive players can dodge it easily.
  • Take note that while it allows Earthshaker to leap into the air and circumvent certain mobility-inhibiting situations, it does not prevent enemies from targeting and attacking him, nor does it disjoint projectiles.
• Enchant Totem has a very low cooldown, allowing Earthshaker to repeatedly return to the fight during long engagements.
• The Enchant Totem buff lasts seconds, meaning that it should be pre-cast before a fight to maximize Earthshaker's damage.
• Enchant Totem is useful for last hitting buildings. However, if the team's carry is around, Earthshaker should yield the last hit (and therefore extra gold) to them.

Echo Slam

• For maximum damage, use Echo Slam around as many enemy units as possible.
• Use the Aftershock stun duration from Echo Slam to follow up with other abilities.
• It is not always best to use Echo Slam to initiate. Experienced players often stay back during fights, waiting until enemies are grouped up before jumping in.
  • That said, some team compositions are very dependent on Earthshaker to initiate. Use sensible judgment.
• A well placed Echo Slam is one of the few abilities that can turn around a badly losing game.
• There are certain positions that enemies will natually group up. This includes Roshan pit, the high ground around Tier 3 Towers, narrow paths such as river, places without vision such as uphills, or even at times when they are ganging up on a teammate.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango provides health regeneration in lane.

• Iron Branch gives basic stats and can be built into Magic Wand, also allows more regeneration from Tango.

• Clarity potions allow him to cast Fissure more often, since its mana cost is relatively high and Earthshaker's mana pool is small.

• Enchanted Mango provides extra health regen, also an extra mana source in a pinch for an extra Fissure.

Early game:

• Magic Wand can be a good source of health and mana restoration if the enemies use their abilities often, and can even be used in a pinch to get enough mana for his Fissure.

• Smoke of Deceit should be considered to set up ganks.

• Arcane Boots are important to compensate for Earthshaker's low mana.

• Soul Ring is an alternative source of mana in the early game, allows for liberal use of Fissure.

• Tranquil Boots effectively regenerates the HP loss from Soul Ring.

Mid game:

• Blink Dagger is an indispensable item for Earthshaker to initiate with Echo Slam. It can also be used to chase fleeing enemies to take them down with his Enchant Totem.

• Aether Lens, after Arcane boots, improves the range of all spells,but most importantly, allows initiating from even further without anticipation from the enemy.

Late game:

• Black King Bar helps a lot in fights, preventing Blink Dagger from going on cooldown,or getting off important spells.

• Refresher Orb allows Earthshaker to use his skill one more time in teamfight, providing a theoretical 9 second chain stun in late game than can even bring down the entire team. Note that the first Echo Slam usually clear up the creep wave and summons so the second one won't be as effective if used immediately.

Situational items:

• Infused Raindrops provides excellent protection against magical harassment, against which Earthshaker normally has no defense.

• Eul's Scepter of Divinity increases mana pool and mana regeneration. The active adds an additional disable on enemy, also dispels silence for a spellcaster as Earthshaker.

• Ghost Scepter can kite enemies and buy yourself time if being constantly focused by physical attackers.

• Glimmer Cape increases Earthshaker's magical resistance. The active can help himself or ally to escape when enemy has no detection.

• Shadow Blade is a great initiation or disengaging tool.Casting Enchant Totem together with Shadow walk can gather some good damage to catch a squishy enemy off guard and help kill them faster in the mid game.

• Lotus Orb gives you additional armor and regen. The active can dispel debuff (especially silence) from you or your ally, also reflect all targeted spells.

• Octarine Core increases durability and mana, and provides cooldown reduction,which synergises with all of Earthshaker's spells.

• Scythe of Vyse offers a hard disable which is useful in late game.

• Daedalus increases damage output from Enchant Totem with raw damage and critical chance. It is an unorthodox build and favored by more combat-oriented Earthshaker builds.