Gameplay

Playstyle
Legion Commander is a ganking carry whose damage potential is theoretically unlimited. She is able to heal, buff herself and her allies with Press the Attack, and finish off enemies with Overwhelming Odds. With each victorious Duel, the Legion Commander becomes even more unstoppable. However, if she fails to win regular Duels, her damage may suffer as a result, rendering her much less useful as the game goes on.
Pros	Cons
Strong nuke vs crowded enemies specially heroes with summons and illusions. Tanky during laning phase. Good jungler. Extremely dangerous against frail heroes. Good base movement speed.	Low armor. Dependent on winning Duels. High mana cost during laning phase. Vulnerable to all source of disables. Can buff enemy carries if she loses Duels.

Laning

Legion Commander is a competent solo offlaner. Overwhelming Odds, her nuke, means she can harrass and last hit safely, and can pull the hard camp from farther away than most melee offlaners.

Jungle

Legion Commander is a semi-competent jungler thanks to the attack speed/health regeneration of Press the Attack and the massive lifesteal from Moment of Courage. She should come out of the jungle every time Duel is off cooldown though, or she will be ineffective.

Ability Builds

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

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

Talents

Tips & Tactics

• Legion Commander can be a threat to the majority of heroes with just a Blink Dagger and Blade Mail.

General

• Legion Commander is surprisingly similar to Axe, in terms of how she can be played.
• Even though Legion Commander is technically a carry, she needs to also gank early to increase her bonus damage from Duel.
  • Be sure to take advantage of any ganking opportunities, instead of farming endlessly away from your team.
• Legion Commander works best in coordinated teams that can effectively soften and disable a target for her to kill with Duel, and thus snowball as a hard hitting dps carry.
• During early to mid-game, try targeting the softer casters or supports, like Crystal Maiden and Shadow Shaman. This way, if you were to lose a Duel and they gain the bonus attack damage, it won't affect your team in the late-game as these heroes rely more on their spells than their attacks.
• It's very benefical to build items that allow you to initiate such as Blink Dagger.

Abilities

Overwhelming Odds

• It's a really powerful nuke; think of it as a smaller Echo Slam on a much lower cooldown.
• It's most effective against multiple enemy heroes, so it's best to save this spell until you can hit all the enemy heroes in your lane.
• Using this in the jungle is often a waste of mana due to most camps only having 2-3 creeps, and stacks often having multiple magic resistance auras.

Press the Attack

• Remember that this spell heals and dispels debuffs. Use it on allies if they are low on health, or need a stun or other debuff dispelled.
• Press the attack has a very long cast backswing (0.93 seconds), and should be cancelled whenever possible to take advantage of the attack speed as soon as possible.

Moment of Courage

• The lifesteal and extra damage allows Legion Commander to jungle as early as level one.
• The benefit of leveling this skill is minimal in the early game. A second point is enough to jungle sustainably, after that it's usually better to max her other skills first.
• Take advantage of enemy creeps by dueling near the creep wave. They will attack you and thus proc Moment of Courage more often.
• During the laning stage, take advantage of this ability by aggro-ing enemy's creeps while going in for a deny.
• The instant attacks from this passive act like a situationally active attack speed boost which can put her effective attack speed above the normal 600 attack speed limit.
• Deals full damage with lifesteal added.

Duel

• Even if an ally deals the killing blow during a duel, the attack damage is still applied to the surviving duelist.
• In the early game, Duel easier targets like supports to make sure Legion Commander gets the bonus damage.
• When Dueling enemies with more health, make sure Legion Commander has the damage and/or assistance to. Otherwise, you may end up granting bonus damage to the enemy carry.
• Generally, DO NOT Duel enemy carries unless they're very low on health already.
• Due to the double edged nature of Duel, attempting to use it liberally on targets in teamfights can sometimes give bad results for you and your team.
• Initiating with it is not always the best choice as duels should ideally not last long in order to avoid being stunned and denied of your success.
• Duel will silence and mute both participants, so you should use your abilities and items before starting a Duel.
  • Since Duel pierces spell immunity, use this against an enemy hero that channels a spell. For example: If your team was sucked by a channelled Black Hole, use Duel to interrupt the enemy Enigma.
• With Aghanim's Scepter, Duel reduces all sources of damage that does not originate from either combatant, thereby increasing the odds of success of Legion Commander winning a Duel if focused, and allows her to initiate and survive until reinforcements arrive.
  • Take note that although both participants take reduced damage, it does not mean that other Heroes are useless in such a situation. Enemy Heroes can still hamper you with disables and other abilities, such as through Bashes and auras, or assist your opponent such that you do not secure a win, such as Shallow Grave or Astral Imprisonment. Likewise, the same can be applied to Legion Commander if a Duel happens to go wayward.
    • Special mention goes to Axe's Culling Blade. If Legion Commander happens to be at a low enough health threshold during a Duel, Culling Blade can and will kill her regardless of her immunity.
  • Although it is still incredibly risky, depending on circumstances, if you happen to be ambushed by an overwhelming presence (such as by five Heroes), it is possible to survive such a situation by intentionally Dueling an opponent since you will reduce all other sources of damage except from your opposing duelist. Be sure to target Heroes with low attack speed and/or low damage to reduce the chances of you dying from such a situation.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango is great for regenerating vs low damage harrassment or trading in lane.

• Healing Salve is useful for a big burst of early lane regen.

• Enchanted Mango are a great choice since it gives you burst mana and gives passive HP regeneration. Don't be afraid to fly more of these on the courier, they are very cost effective and can give instant mana without having to be out of the lane for 50 seconds with a clarity!

Early game:

• Quelling Blade is a necessary first item as any core melee hero so you jungle and get as many creep kills as possible to get as much gold to build your items up. It also increases your jungling, both in speed and efficiency.

• Bracer can be a great item in harder lanes where you need extra stats and magic resistance and just to increase farming speed in the jungle.

• Phase Boots are an amazing choice for early survivability vs physical damage, unit walking and easier time catching up to people after using Overwhelming Odds.

Mid game:

• Blink Dagger is the usual initiation tool for a Duel to build on Legion Commander.

• Blade Mail can help deal more damage during Duels when the Duel target can easily out-damage Legion Commander, such as Huskar, Sven, or Ursa. It's also great against ranged enemy carries in particular, since they may be able to attack and kite Legion Commander before she even approaches melee range to start counterattacking, but they tend to be very fragile, such as Drow Ranger, Windranger, or Sniper.

Late game:

• Black King Bar is an all-rounded useful tool to avoid disables. Although it's less needed for debuff immunity during Duels if you already have Aghanim's Scepter, it can provide a secondary source of spell immunity if needed.

• Shadow Blade is usually the correct choice because it can be a good initiation tool for Legion Commander if the enemy are farming apart and are not playing as a team since it means you will have an easier time gap closing without being spotted. Blink Dagger is generally much better but Shadow Blade and it's upgrade Silver Edge, can definitely have their worth in some matches when passives need to be disabled for you to win Duels or contribute to fights.

• Assault Cuirass is beneficial when your team has low tower push capability or needs better physical damage resistance. The armor reduction and bonus attack speed are very helpfull during duels.

• Desolator is a straight damage dps increase, it's good if you are ahead and are against enemy heroes with very low health pools or no ways to negate the effects of the Desolator.

Situational items:

• Mjollnir boosts Legion Commander’s farming speed a lot since Moment of Courage can proc Chain Lightning. Mjollnir’s active, Static Shield furthers this while also increasing damage output during Duels and/or team fights. In addition, the raw attack speed and damage are always welcome on Legion Commander.

• Abyssal Blade is great when you need a reliable lockdown without the reliance on Duel, usually when you have a lot of bonus damage from said ability. It also makes you much more tanky with the Vanguard component and is an overall great 4th or 5th item on Legion Commander.

• Heaven's Halberd increases your survivability by giving you strength, status resistance, and evasion. Use the active ability to the target you want to Duel to let you have more chance to win the Duel. It can pop enemies' Linken's Sphere before using Duel.

• Monkey King Bar is always good against enemies who have any form of evasion as Legion Commander requires right clicking later on.

• Moon Shard you should consider getting this once you have gained some respectable Duel damage, it grants a huge boost to your attack speed that paired with Press the Attack will melt down enemies during Duels; can be consumed to gain half it's bonus and free a slot.