Aghanim’s Labyrinth, for Fun or for Prizes!
The new event in Dota 2 and Battle Pass 2020 gave us the Aghanim’s Labyrinth mode where we can get valuable prizes and a lot of emotions while passing the mode! In this article, we will cover tips and guide on how to play Aghanim’s Labyrinth.
In the August 28th update for Aghanim’s Labyrinth, Valve added a new difficulty level, Apex Mage, as well as three new heroes – Slark, Templar Assassin, and Queen of Pain.
Some heroes have already gained popularity among the participants of the weekly “Aghanim`s trials”, where teams speed through the labyrinth and earn gifts.
What is Aghanim’s Labyrinth?
Basically, Labyrinth represents various rooms where you fight different creeps and bosses. As you progress through the game the difficulty increases. You`ll have to adapt to certain tactics and creep`s abilities.
During the entire walk of the Labyrinth, you will receive Shards and magic fragments.
Shards are used to improve your abilities in the game.
Fragments will unlock permanent passive enhancements. You can unlock the fragments after the game, so you constantly keep getting stronger and stronger trying to get through the Labyrinth.
You can also buy items each time you clean a room.
After completing a trial or room, you have to decide where to go next. Selecting the next path means that you will also have to choose a specific encounter (creeps and bosses that you will have to face).
Encounters
After each room, you`ll have to choose a path. Each path has an icon of Heart, Coin, and Chest.
Chest: Chest Icon will give you Neutral Items, Tomes, and Consumables after cleaning a room. The Tier of neutral items will increase as you progress through the game.
Coin: Everything is clear. You get a Gold reward after encounter. The harder the creeps, the more gold you get.
Heart: If you see a Heart icon, it means you will get an additional life for one of your teammates. Depending on the depth of the wave you will get more additional lives.
How Do you Choose an Encounter?
We will conditionally divide the rooms into several types so that it would be easier to orientate: difficulty, rarity, type and reward
Difficulty
Rooms with non-moving creeps are easier to clean since they can be kited and killed with small packs – like Trents, catapults, etc. – you choose them first.
Rooms with spawning creeps are a little more difficult, but the creeps themselves are killed quickly – Warlocks, skeletons, etc. – your second priority rooms.
Labyrinths, where creeps are constantly running after you are the most inconvenient, it is better to skip them – clockwerk, ogres
The most difficult rooms in the Labyrinth (that you should probably skip most of the time) are Alchemists, Brood and Morphs.
Rarity
Everything is simple here, there are ordinary and red rooms. We always take red ones, as they give Aghanim’s Shards and boost the hero a lot. Except if it’s Alchemists or Broodmother.
Reward
Initially, we choose gold as it allows us to buy key items. However, if you are about to face a hard creep wave or a boss, it will be logical to take hearts.
As for the chests, most neutral items are very random and usually useless before the 12 room.
Next, it all depends…
If you are all set with the main items and have 1-2 lives, you should go for neutral items. Tier 3-4 may be quite imbalanced.
It is ideal to play safe, and with each choice opt for gold, starting from room 13 we take items. But again, this is your best case scenario without deaths.
The balance of hearts in your team is the main indicator of success.
Type
Normal creep rooms are your best pick.
Rooms with a question mark can be quite random. It can be one random non-boss room.
Usually, you would choose it if you are at your strongest.
Although rooms with traps are the easiest ones, and you should always opt for them, most of the teammates do not know how to pass them. But if you play with a well-coordinated party and already know how to go through them, feel free to choose this passage.
Heroes
Honestly, you can play any lineup on the apprentice, magician, and sorcerer difficulty. It all narrows down to knowledge about creeps` abilities, good coordination, and blessing skill tree (upgrades outside the game).
However, there are certain factors you should keep in mind. Usually, any lineup requires a tank, support, and damage dealer. So getting at least Sniper and Winter Wyvern is a must.
If you take a look at Aghanim`s Labyrinth Trials lineups, you`ll see that most players pick Wyvern, Sniper, Tusk, and Weaver.
Aghanim’s Labyrinth Final Tips
The tactics of Aghanim’s Labyrinth is very simple – you need to kite the creeps, that’s why only 1 melee and 3 range heroes are taken.
At the same time, it is important to aggro creeps in small packs, do not rush. Do not forget about the explosive barrels scattered across each room, they do good damage to enemy creeps. It is best, of course, to undermine the barrels with Sniper due to the large attack range.
Also, keep a few simple tips for some rooms:
Drow Ranger Room: Always Buy Dust of Appearance
Aghanim: constantly move and watch the spears
Timbersaw: take him to the bottom of the room, there are fewer trees and he will not be able to use his chain.
Do not buy intermediate items – the amount of gold is limited, buy must-have items immediately (Desolator, Orchid, MKB, Daedalus, Force Staff)
Always save 1,000 gold to buy life from Bristleback
Learn talents according to your role. For example, if you are a Sniper, then you would probably want to choose talents that increase damage. If you are a Wyvern, cooldown reduction, and so on…
Of course, if you play Aghanim’s Labyrinth in solo just to farm the Battle Pass levels or for fun, then you can win with many combinations and tactics. However, if you want to get the best results in Aghanim’s Trials, you will have to adapt to certain strategies, and preferably play in party.
Who knows, maybe you will become the owner of the next Baby Roshan, Kunkka Shoes, or a random arcana. Good luck in the Labyrinth!