When is the vanguard any good?

 

Few Mekansm don't efficiently work together anyway. This may also be useful to evaluate how good is scout shield, pms and Tidehunter with his Kraken Shell are but the focus is on the Vanguard. This wall of text tries to figure out when is Vanguard slightly more reasonable to get, just because I almost never get it and it doesn't feel right.

General Info Vanguard

Bonus 250HP, Regen 6 HP/s. Vanguard is the 25'th most popular items people get in publish and suddenly it has a ~55% winrate. Damage block 80%, damage amount 40 for melee, 20 for ranged. Damage block uses PRD. Damage Block will occurs before any armor reductions. Costs 2225 gold.

What is important?

The following decides about how much damage will get blocked, higher - more relevant:

• Melee or ranged damage block?
• Farming woods or not?
• How close to the frontline your positioning should be? (At the front lane - initiator, core - something at between, sups - staying at range)
• Number of ranged heroes in the enemy team (more ranged - more rightclicks);
• "Real" attack speed of enemy heroes - defined by BAS, speed buffs, agi gain and itembuilds/"meta";
• Amount of your own hp. (more hp - you survive longer - more procs for damage block);
• Whether enemy heroes have illusions or summons. Also if enemy is likely to get necronomicon or manta style.
• Amount of spells which deal blockable damage and their "spamability".

 

Methodology

If you want to do some calculations yourself: to get total damage reduction in %, you should take 3200 (for melee, 1600 for ranged, but who cares about ranged?) and divide it by damage value. R = 3200/x. e.g. 100 damage physical attack/spell will on average get reduced by 3200/100 = 32%. It includes block value and block chance and percent multiplication, works for values over 40. Comes out Vanguard isn't that bad lategame. Even with enemy hero having 200 rightclick damage - Vanguard still reduces 16% of that damage.

Spells with physical damage

The spells which add physical damage to the attack (manaburns, windwalks, fury swipes, searing arrows, feast) are irrelevant because they don't get decreased again. Spells which do one damage instance and have a not spammable cooldown are also irrelevant. (Slithereen Crush, Unstable Concoction).

• Razor -  Eye of the Storm: This is actually both huge and the biggest find for me. Damage from this spell is 37.5/50/62.5 without Aghanim's Scepter or with it, making a 40 damage block really big, in percents it's 100/80/64%, which, multiplied by block chance (.8) results 80/64/51% - not bad at all. Razor with Aghanim's Scepter (and god forgive us,Refresher ) will often bring your armor below 0. Vanguard shines if your armor goes below zero. It'll deduct incoming damage BEFORE it's getting multiplied by your negative armor. E.g. you have -10 armor, and you get hit with 50 damage from Eye of the Storm. Without Vanguard you'ld recieve 69 damage, but with Vanguard it'll be just 14. Feel the difference. Following this logic if you play a low-armor hero who should be tanky(Timbersaw, Doom Bringer) and your enemies have a lot of minus armor - Vanguard can be a gamechanger.
• Ember Spirit  -  Sleight of Fist. Regular rules.
• Tidehunter- Anchor Smash. Laning versus tide as a melee hero can be really tough, one may have issues with both lasthitting and staying at lane. 75/125/175/225 damage, with Vanguard block it gets reduced by 53/32/23/18%, damage reduction considering proc coef.: 42/26/18/14%.
• Axe - Counter Helix. Damage: 100/135/170/205. When block procs it get reduced by 40/32/23/19, multiplied by proc: 32/26/18/15%.
• Juggernaut - Omnislash . One slash does an average of 212 damage, which gets reduced to 172 with a 80% chance. That's a 15% damage reduction. Omnislash also adds physical attacks based on your attack speed, but they can also be blocked.
• Lone Druid - Spirit Bear - Entangling Claws (Anyone knows of damage gets blocked one time or on every instance of damage?)
• Centaur Warrunner  - Return. Damage: 16/18/20/22 + 26%/34%/42%/50% of cent's str. Vanguard's block will completely block this passive at level 1. Let's stay we have a level 14 centaur with 100 str - that'll be 22+50 damage, 77 and over 50% of it will be blocked with 80% chance -> 42% damage reduction.
• Dazzle - Shadow Wave. Damage: 80/100/120/140. Total reduction: 40/32/26/23%. 

 

Heroes who have major attack speed buffs

 

• Troll Warlord - (Battle Trance, up to 34 per stack, up to 4 stacks), rampage (Battle Trance, up to 180, works on himself and allied heroes);
• Windranger - 400 IAS, no comments :)
• Alchemist - this guy can have the highest attack speed in game, 5 attacks per second is no joke;
• Weaver  - geminate attack can also be blocked, his beetle also deals physical damage and can be blocked;
• Beastmaster -  Inner Beast;
• Clinkz  - Strafe;
• Legion Commander - press the attack;
• Night Stalker has a good attack rate after parents go to sleep;

 

Heroes with summons or illusions

• Terrorblade - he also gets decreased BAS in Metamorphosis;
• Naga Siren;
• Phantom Lancer
• Chaos Knight
• Lycanthrope - has summons and decreased BAS while shapeshifted, also Feral Impulse decreased attack time for him and all of his units;
• Lone Druid - roots are also physical, and rapid buffs him and his summon on attackspeed;
• Broodmother - all of her summons have attack value below what Vanguard blocks;
• Visage - his freakin birds can suddenly color someone's face in red. Maximum damage on each familiar is 56 / 98 / 154, which is "in the zone" where Vanguard is really good.
• Enigma, Chen, Enchantress, Invoker, Venomancer.

Please note that Rhasta's Serpant wards and WD's ward do not get blocked by Vanguard.

Heroes with high agi gain and Morphling

• Morphling (3+Morph) :)
• Phantom Lancer (4.2);
• Terrorblade (3.2);
• Phantom Assassin (3.15); 

 

Heroes who often rush IAS items

 

• Mask of Madness - Faceless Void, Sven, Spirit Breaker, Sniper, Drow Ranger;
• Mjollnir - Sniper, Mirana, Faceless Void, Alchemist, Nature's Prophet;
• Butterfly - Riki, Bloodseeker, Faceless Void, Juggernaut, Luna;
• Assault Cuirass - Wraith King, Doom Bringer, Legion Commander, Lifestealer; 
  
  

Who else would get Vanguard ?

Axe, Timbersaw, Centaur Warrunner and, partially, Spectre enjoy being hit. Each of them have procs which depend on them being punched and it created (or even dictates) a certain gamestyle where taking damaging is a regular thing. Vanguard has a bigger value on these heroes.