LogFAQs > #962260381

107 Techies (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/9/AAAACbAAC35D.jpg
Base Abilities: Proximity Mines, Stasis Trap, Blast Off!, Minefield Sign, Area Detonate, Remote Mines
Shard Ability: Upgrades Blast Off! To deal more damage and also stun enemies in the area of effect.
Scepter Ability: Upgrades Minefield Sign to provide undetectable invisibility in an area around it; also increases the cast range of Proximity Mines, Stasis Trap, and Remote Mines; also increases the damage of Remote Mines.

Hoo boy. Here we go.

Echoing Naga, Techies is infuriating to go against, infuriating to have on your team, infuriatingly-weak early game, and just a general pain in the ass. League players should recognize Techies as Teemo's precursor, except where Teemo works off blinds and DoT traps and autoattacks, Techies is all about his traps to the expense of all else for most of the game. It requires a bunch of mental math to play him effectively, and you better damn believe you will get flamed regardless of how well or poorly you're doing. Muting all chat is a must, and for good reason.

Techies is extremely interesting, though; the sheer threat of one existing in a game turns the entire pick/ban phase on its head. A great Techies will turn entire areas of the map into a horror game as you creep about, hoping not to explode with only a slight beep as warning. A bad Techies will still randomly explode your backline when you aren't paying attention. Games with a Techies in it are either 20 minute curbstomps or 60 minute slogfests; if a Techies is in the game, the game itself is literally a ticking time bomb to victory, and I'll explain why later.

First off, let's point out that elephant in the room: their base damage, attack speed, and projectile speed are garbage, as are their manacosts and cooldowns, simply because even the threat of their base abilities causes psychological damage. Let's go over them now:

Proximity Mines - 3 charges, heavy AoE magic damage after both an arming delay and a detonation delay (about 2 seconds to arm, beep and reveal of the mine, 1.6 seconds to explode.) Can be attacked while visible to destroy them for 25 gold, but has true invisibility (wards won't spot them after vanishing) while primed. Can not (initially) be stacked on top of one another.
Stasis Trap - large AoE root when detonated with a long cast time.
Blast Off - long cast time, large cast range, large AoE magical burst that hurts Techies for 50% of their max health and silences in the area when they land, or stuns with a Shard.
Remote Mines - long cast time but stackable invisible mines; can be selected to detonate individually, or targetted with Area Detonate to blow a large area of them up all at once after a very short delay.

At level 1, three proximity mines will clear a wave in its entirety. At level 6, a proximity mine and remote mine will do the same. Techies can flash farm if the need arises, providing the mines aren't manually detonated by someone scouting it out with the audio cue or a sentry ward. As such, if played with a competent solo laner, Techies will fuck off to a jungle somewhere and turn it into his personal bunker, clearing it out every minute and keeping his health at a 35% or less "butter zone" to kill himself with Blast Off if he gets ganked, or switch it up to gank a lane with Blast Off with its impressive cast range if his constant mana consumption runs near dry.

Techies requires a whole lot of forethought of where a fight is going to break out and mining it, preferably where the mines won't be detected until it's too late. Any scrub can Remote Mine under their own tower if they expect an incoming push or deny an uphill with a stack of Remote Mines and a Stasis Trap to ensure capture, but Remote Mines are potent enough to delete entire teams of clumped heroes outright if they're stacked enough.

Once a Techies gets rolling and gets a Euls and a Scepter, they can actually begin teamfighting on their own, or even being a roaming ganker. Blast Off in to silence, drop a proximity mine, Cyclone your target (removing the Silence, but details,) cast a remote mine or stasis trap, and immediately detonate on the landing. Or Euls and meteor hammer. Or something. Techies can flash farm items quite well and remains a threat even when they have a low level, their abilities are *that scary.*

And there's the problem - Techies tends to be really low level throughout a game in common play, unless played as a Core or a Mid, which no one in their right mind in a pub would allow. If they get rolling, eventually their talents will pick up some of the slack, shoring up their Mana Regeneration or their cooldown limiters on Proximity Mines, adding extra Blast Off damage, or their dreaded level 25 talents - +252 damage (48 less than a Divine Rapier, with no dropping it on death) or the "Mines are now mobile" talent.

Yes, you get to slowly reposition your traps. This means you can adjust the location of your Remote Mine traps, or gather all the Proximity Mines you have placed that haven't tripped in the game yet, and start slowly marching them at buildings, even though they only deal 30% damage. Enemy creeps or towers will not assault them, so if repositioning properly, theoretically a large enough stack of proximity mines (780 magic damage at max, remember, reduced by both the building penalty and building Magic Resistance,) a salvo will flat-out destroy a tower. Or a barracks. Or the ancient (though that's pushing it.)

Alternatively, a savvy Techies can shore up their awful agility growth with some other attack speed or utility, such as a Hurricane Pike, to put the damage talent to good use, and slowly push the uphill with their impressive attack range (because by this point, their awful base damage will have had 25 levels of good intelligence growth to back up the +252, also.)

These are, of course, neglecting the rest of the heroes of the game; if a Techies has certain allies on their team that requires the 60 minutes of farming to come online, the game's all over but the "gg ez pls report techies" you'll hear if you didn't mute the allchat. It's a selfish pick, it's a fun pick, but it's a polarizing pick that takes way too long to come online and is completely useless if a support or core is willing to make themselves suffer a bit to stop your diabolically slow plans, or if the enemy team is capable of fast-pushing before you can set up a good deterrent, or if a Blast Off gank goes awry, or... yeah. They're the only reason Techies is as low as they are - if they came online way faster, they wouldn't add such an interesting and infuriating twist to the game.

Next hero hint: a much less interesting pick, and an unfortunate victim of power creep despite their competitive showing.