Strafe logo
Solar Crest is the best item in Dota 2 patch 7.35

Solar Crest is the best item in Dota 2 patch 7.35

Dota 2
19 Dec
Otomo

Every Dota 2 patch has certain items that stand out due to how obscenely powerful they are. Wraith Pact dominated the meta in 7.32c, while 7.34e saw Blademail picked up on nearly every hero. And now it's Solar Crest's turn.

The item was remade in the latest update, with new components in the recipe and updated stats. The results? Solar Crest is now the best item in Dota 2.

Five reasons you should buy Solar Crest in Dota 2

Vengeful Spirit Blessing of the Crested Umbra Vengeful Spirit is more stunning than ever. (Credit: Valve)

Solar Crest has great build-up

Solar Crest is a pretty cheap item, with a total cost of 2700 gold. It also comes with a fantastic build-up. Players can go for five different stat items in any order they want, giving them a lot of versatility.

Players can start with a Fluffy Hat and Ring of Protection for more survivability in lane. Wind Lace's extra movement speed is always useful as well. We recommend aiming to finish Pavise first and then finishing Solar Crest.

This combination of several cheap and useful items makes Solar an incredibly efficient item to go for, as the parts are affordable and each one provides a useful benefit.

Fantastic all-around stats

Dota 2 Phoenix is a great Solar Crest buyer. 13 damage on Universal heroes seems good! (Credit: Valve)

The overall stats for Solar Crest are fantastic for the cost, there is not a single bad or wasted bonus from the item, regardless of who buys it.

An extra six to all attributes means every hero will benefit from it, with Universal heroes receiving nearly 13 extra damage. Players also get six armor and 25 movement speed, two incredibly valuable bonuses.

Extra health and mana are also great, 200 health is a big boost early one, as is 300 mana. I find raw mana to be one of the least useful stats but it still helps.

Overall with Solar Crest, you get a lot of cheap useful components that combine into an item that provides five different useful bonuses, what's not to like?

Shine is a powerful active

Treant Protector is a solid Phantom Assassin counter Add a Solar Crest and watch allies survive one crit from PA. (Credit: Valve)

If I had to pick just one reason as to why Solar Crest is worth picking, it's because Shine is an amazing active ability.

Shine provides the user or his allies with a 400 physical damage barrier that lasts eight seconds on a 16-second cooldown. That's 50% uptime and you can use it on yourself before jumping into fights or simply to keep your health high while jungling.

Barriers are a fantastic way to save allies, as they can be used on someone with one health and they would still be able to survive a few hits. It's far superior to just providing extra armor as it did in the past, which was nice but did nothing to save someone on the verge of death.

Oh but the barrier isn't the only thing Shine provides, as you also get bonus armor, movement speed, and attack speed, whether you use it on allies or yourself. This gives Shine a huge amount of utility, as you never want to walk around...unshined (that's a word right?).

And the active costs no mana, cause Solar Crest is flawsless.

Suitable purchase for most roles

Abaddon is one of the biggest winners in Dota 2 patch 7.34d

The nice thing about items that provide everything is that everyone wants to use them. Solar Crest is usable on pretty much every role in Dota 2 patch 7.35.

Hard supports such as Vengeful Spirit and Undying love it, Roaming supports like Bounty Hunter and Venomancer benefit from all the stats, while Visage and Viper are offlaners who like it as well.

It's just a matter of time before mid and carry roles start buying the item. Hell Solar Crest has a 61% win rate on Death Prophet, so why not?

Useful at all stages of the game

Undying Dirgeful Overlord Undying is a jack-of-all-trades well suited to any situation. (Credit: Valve)

One nice thing about Barriers in Dota 2 is that they are affected by armor and magic resistance. If you have 10% physical resistance then it takes 444 damage to take down Shine's shield. If you're walking around with a huge amount of armor and say, 50% physical resistance, then Solar Crest can absorb 800 damage before exploding.

This means the item is always worth purchasing. Early-game enemies don't deal huge physical damage, so absorbing 400 is very helpful. Later on, allies have a lot of armor and physical damage becomes a bigger problem, but guess what? Shine is still valuable.

Unlike certain items such as Phylactery and Magic Wand, which are useful early but fall off late-game, Solar is a good item to get early and keep throughout the entire match, never feeling like wasted gold with all the bonuses it provides.

The reasons above are why Solar Crest is the best item in Dota 2 right now and should definitely be part of your shopping list if you wanna grind MMR fast in the current patch.

READ MORE: Khanda and Parasma are introduced in Dota 2 patch 7.35

Featured Image Source: Strafe Esports

Comments (0)

Log in to comment on this match