Ancient Apparition Guide: How to Play in Dota 2

Ancient Apparition (AA) is a ranged intelligence character who happens to be one of the best support heroes in Dota 2. This eerie-looking hero can dish out a ton of damage in every stage of the game and win team fights with powerful CC abilities. AA is typically a position 4 or 5 support with crazy early-game potential thanks to multiple slows and a disable. However, the hero also has decent late-game scaling and can transition into a right-click build. What’s even cooler is that AA has a global ultimate, so you can impact the game while literally standing inside your base. So, hop into our Ancient Apparition guide in Dota 2 for a detailed review of the hero's abilities, builds, strategies, and pro tips.

Ancient Apparition Hero Overview

It’s only proper to start our AA guide for Profilerr with a more in-depth introduction of the hero. The first thing you think of when seeing Dota 2 Ancient Apparition is his Ice Blast — the hero’s ultimate that counters all healing and instantly kills opponents below a certain HP threshold. Other than that, AA is one of the strongest lane harassers in the game. All of the hero's abilities slow enemies, his kit includes a disable, he can deal significant damage from long range, and there’s also an ability that increases the magic damage enemies take. A very solid pack for support/nuker to fight for map control and stomp games.

Ancient Apparition Abilities Overview

To start the main part of this Ancient Apparition guide, let’s go through the hero’s kit and how to use it.

Death Rime (Innate Ability)

Death Rime is Ancient Apparition’s bread and butter. When AA’s abilities hit, they apply stacks that decrease move speed (2% per stack) and deal damage over time (10 per stack). At max level, Cold Feet applies 8 Death Rime stacks (10 if you pick the left talent on level 10), Ice Vortex applies 4, while Chilling Touch and Ice Blast apply 2 stacks each.

Death Rime can be further improved via the Bone Chill facet, adding a strength reduction effect to all AA’s abilities.

Cold Feet

Cold Feet is Ancient Apparition’s 1st spell. It’s a mid-range (700–1,000) target ability that slows enemies and freezes them in place if they stay in range (725/750/775/800) for 4 seconds.

As good as it looks on paper, Cold Feet can be pretty much useless if the opponent walks out its range. But hey, that’s why all the variations of the Cold Feet combo exist. Whether it is a reliable stun from an ally, or an item like Atos or Eul’s, a good combo can elevate Cold Feet to the next level, granting it chain-stun potential.

Note that Cold Feet is dispellable by items like Manta, Satanic, Disperser, and abilities like OD’s astral, Puck’s shift, Void Spirit’s Dissimilate, and more. You can also get yourself or an ally out of Cold Feet range using Force Staff or with mobility spells like Blink, Astral Step, or even Pudge’s Meat Hook.

Ice Vortex

Ice Vortex is a long-range (1,200) debuff that slows enemies, deals minor damage, and increases the magic damage they take. Another important thing about Ice Vortex is that it actually provides vision in the fog of war and on high grounds. This is especially useful for AA support, as it helps with dewarding, chasing enemies, or ruining opponents’ positioning by cancelling Blinks.

However, the most epic way to use Ice Vortex is to combine it with your ultimate or your teammates’ nukes. Remember the famous 6 million dollars Echo Slam? It wouldn’t be possible without the entire enemy team standing inside an Ice Vortex.

Chilling Touch

Chilling Touch is your pass to winning the laning phase. It’s an auto-cast attack modifier that increases AA’s attack range (60/90/120/150), deals additional magic damage (30/60/90/120), and applies a 100% slow for 0.7–1 second, depending on the skill level. Note that each chilling touch usage comes with a 3-second cooldown, even on max level, so you can't really spam it without Aghanim. The Scepter removes the cooldown and reduces the mana cost, turning AA into a magical machine gun.

So, how does Chilling Touch win lanes? If the enemy support can’t trade with you or your core player efficiently, they will try to avoid you to save their resources. In this case, you just hit the enemy core and try to set up a kill for your lane partner. If the enemy support tries to trade with you, exploit the ability’s low cooldown and long range while keeping your distance. This way, you can set up lose-lose situations for your lane opponents.

Note that Chilling Touch doesn’t give enemies stick/wand charges, allowing AA to win most regen battles. However, make sure to have enough mana and mana regen for the laning phase, as without mana, AA is just a juicy low-health target.

Ice Blast (Ultimate)

Finally, let’s have a little Ice Blast guide. It’s one of the few Dota 2 global ultimate abilities, applying debuffs and dealing decent damage (250/325/400). It pierces BKB and cannot be dispelled. The projectile tracer also gives vision for a few seconds, so you can use it to scout important areas freely every 60/50/40 seconds.

As for using it, launching the projectile is easy — just like with Clock’s rockets or Zeus’ Nimbus, just press the skill button and click on a point anywhere on the map. Once you launch the projectile, its skill name will change to Release — a sub-ability that you need to press to detonate the projectile. If you don’t press Release, the Ice Blast will just move off the map and disappear.

On top of its other effects, Ice Blast applies Death Rime stacks. The ability also synergizes perfectly with AA’s strength reduction. The less strength, the less HP, and the more chances for you or your teammates to drop opponents below the shatter health threshold (12/13/14%), allowing Ice Blast to one-shot them.

Ancient Apparition Skill Build

The most popular AA skill build may seem kind of weird at first glance. However, the logic behind everything is clear once you get how to play AA support. Note that the build suggests taking the first talent at level 11, and none of the skills are maxed before level 6. With that in mind, here’s the Dota 2 skill order for AA:

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

And here are the Ancient Apparition talents to use with the build.

Ancient Apparition Item Build

As for most heroes, AA item progression can be put into three broad categories.

Starting Items

A starting Ancient Apparition build is nothing unusual: Tangoes, Stick, Blood Grenade (because as AA you always have early kill potential), and of course, Sentry Wards to block off pulls. If you trade smart instead of spamming your abilities, mana won’t be an issue as long as you don’t forget to contest lotuses. Remember that you can always get clarities or mangoes if something goes wrong, so don’t buy them at the start of the match.

Early & Core Items

During the early game, the main Ancient Apparition items are Boots and Stick. Upgrade them to Arcane Boots and Magic Wand ASAP, as you rely heavily on mana. As for the first core item, go for either Force Staff or Glimmer Cape for a more traditional support gameplay. However, if your partner lacks reliable stuns, consider taking Rod of Atos or Eul’s Scepter of Divinity. Both items combine perfectly with Cold Feet and can be upgraded into Gleipnir (more control) and Wind Waker (more save) for late-game scaling. As a side note, if you have this hero on your team, by all means, bring a lot of CC. Your AA lane partner will thank you later.

Situational & Luxury Items

AA situational items include, but are not limited to:

1. Shard if you can't get it from Tormentor.
2. Lotus Orb if there are a lot of targeted spells on the enemy team.
3. Scythe of Vyse for more control vs Pucks, Ams, Ursas, etc.
4. Gem — combined with Ice Vortex vision, it will leave your enemies blind.
5. Solar Crest — a highly underrated support item that most pros go for in large tournaments.
6. Aghanim for late-game scaling into a right-clicker.
7. A Refresher orb AA build is viable in the late game, but don’t prioritize it as a support.

How to Play Ancient Apparition (Gameplay Tips)

Now, let's discuss Ancient Apparition Dota 2 tips for different stages of the game, from the early laning phase to late-game teamfights.

Early Game (Laning Phase)

During the first 10 minutes of the game, AA is a very strong lane harasser because of his Chilling Touch, which has a relatively low mana cost and a low cooldown. If you maintain good positioning, you should always be able to come on top in terms of resources. Also, don’t forget that Ice Vortex can scout treelines during laning, which is particularly strong with Chilling Touch's long range.

As for pulling, note that even though Ice Vortex provides vision, it doesn’t block neutral camps. So, you will have to do it by body blocking or using a Sentry just like any other support.

Mid Game & Late Game

In the mid game, AA support build makes you one of the most capable nukers, not to mention the spell amp it grants your teammates. One of the best AA gameplay tips we can give you is to take your mid laner and a 2nd support to gank the map and secure vision in crucial areas as soon as you hit level 6.

Going on into late-game fights, make sure to keep good positioning — your job as AA is to use your mana pool to its full potential without getting noticed. The range of your spells allows for it, so stay focused, utilize fog of war to your advantage, and you’ll cause a lot of impact while receiving virtually no damage in return. As for your ultimate, don’t rush it — wait for a good opportunity when your team initiates or counter-initiates. And of course, don’t forget that you can use Ice Blast to scout the map.

Counters & Synergies

No Dota 2 hero guide would be complete without mentioning counters and synergies, so let’s quickly go through AA’s friends & enemies list.

Ancient Apparition synergies are the heroes with CC, slows, high attack range, and magic damage:

1. Tiny;
2. Beastmaster;
3. Centaur Warrunner;
4. Chaos Knight;
5. Muerta;
6. Nature’s Prophet;
7. Mars;
8. Terrorblade;
9. Gyrocopter;
10. Sven.

Ancient Apparition counters are the heroes that can easily get on top of him:

1. Anti-Mage;
2. Phantom Lancer;
3. Spectre;
4. Weaver;
5. Windranger;
6. Riki;
7. Puck;
8. Clinkz.

Common Mistakes

Last but not least, let’s check some of the common mistakes AA players make so that you don’t have to wonder how to improve AA gameplay:

1. Using your ultimate too soon. Wait for your team to initiate or for enemies to commit. Early casts often miss or have little impact.
2. Using Cold Feet when there’s no setup. Make sure your ally has a stun, root, or slow to hold the enemy in place. Otherwise, it rarely triggers.
3. Not using your ultimate to scout. Ice Blast can reveal key objectives like Roshan or jungle rotations. Use it for vision, not just kills.
4. Not using Ice Vortex for vision. Constantly drop Ice Vortex on cliffs, treelines, or high grounds to prevent ganks and set up fights.
5. Stacking vortexes on top of each other (it doesn’t work). Spread them out to cover more area and maintain vision.

FAQ