Could Keeper of the Light be the best mid laner in Dota 2 7.30?

Keeper of the Light has everything you want in a soft support, but those tools now make him one of 7.30’s strongest mid laners.

Mid Keeper of the Light is one of the wildest builds to emerge in Dota 2’s patch 7.30 meta. Top players have used mid KotL to win pub games and even pro matches in ESL One Fall. In fact, Keeper of the Light is the second most-contested hero at the event. Here’s how to bring some of KotL’s mid-lane magic to your own Dota 2 pub games.

Keeper of the Light didn’t get a ton of buffs in patch 7.30. His armor was increased by one and Chakra Magic’s cooldown was slightly reduced. The biggest change was Illuminate being rescaled to a three-second channel time at all levels.

Illuminate’s damage is dependent on the amount of time spent channeling. KotL can now clear creep waves and neutral camps extremely quickly while sustaining Illuminate with Chakra Magic.

Many of Keeper of the Light’s strengths work for an aggressive, gank-heavy playstyle. KotL has a very high base movement speed and can replenish his own mana indefinitely. Blinding Light is usually used to save teammates but on mid KotL it lets you push enemies into Illuminate and deal a ton of damage.

How to play mid Keeper of the Light

Thanks to those Illuminate buffs, Keeper of the Light is one of the best heroes at clearing out the mid creep wave and then taking jungle camps. Core KotL relies on constant access to the jungle, so mid lane is the obvious choice. Cast Chakra Magic and Illuminate the wave then repeat the process on the small camp.

For his early items, Keeper of the Light has to go heavy on stats to supplement his very poor base damage. Getting three or even four Null Talismans isn’t a bad idea, especially since they boost the magical damage dealt by Illuminate. Remember that Solar Bind also reduces enemy magic resistance by 30%. After that, KotL wants Boots of Travel. BoTs boost KotL’s movement speed even further and lets him instantly transition from farming and pushing to fighting.

Dagon and its multiple upgrades are up next. In conjunction with Solar Bind and Illuminate, Dagon makes Keeper of the Light one of the most explosive gankers in Dota 2. Illuminate’s damage is almost entirely dependent on positioning, so Force Staff and Blink Dagger are situationally useful. If the game goes late, Aghanim’s Scepter is an excellent choice for securing teamfights. If you want even more burst damage, Ethereal Blade stacks perfectly with Solar Bind.