Ceb analyzed Topson’s performance as Dragon Knight: “He’s incredibly resilient.”

First of all, he doesn’t buy a Bottle. I think that’s pretty important: he spends as much gold as possible on stats. He pushes the lane, and that’s a good approach on DK because you have excellent tools to prevent your opponent from finishing off creeps. Breath of Fire reduces damage, and then you can upgrade the stun—that way, you force Earthshaker to miss his last-hits. <…>

Level six is a very strong moment for DK. You gain extra movement speed and poison damage. Very few heroes can actually continue to stand up to him on the lane. Plus, you can take down towers.

So here, Topson should tell the team: “Guys, I’m level six—the catapult’s coming.” It should be practically impossible for Earthshaker to return to this lane, right? He isn’t even level six yet.

After the Blink Dagger, he buys the Soul Ring because he probably realizes that the Keeper of the Light won’t always be around. As you can see, he has major mana issues. To farm as DK, you need to constantly cast your first ability as soon as it’s off cooldown. <…>

Reducing the cooldown on Breath Fire brings it down to nine seconds. This is exactly what allows you to farm very quickly as a DK. So be sure to always take this talent, not the one on the right. Trust me.

He bought Shard first, and then started building BKB. In this game, that obviously makes a lot of sense: the enemies’ damage is almost entirely magical.

As for the Shard—it pairs perfectly with Keeper of the Light, but overall, I consider it one of the best items for this hero. The damage is insane. It lets you farm and take down targets. Only 80 mana with a 20-second cooldown—the utility of this ability is simply incredible. <…>

The next item he builds is the Octarine Core. That’s exactly how you deal damage as DK: you constantly use your abilities, and the Octarine Core helps with that. You do have mana issues, and you farm using your abilities as well. Using your ultimate is, of course, also very important.

This hero isn’t heavily reliant on basic attacks. More precisely, he uses them, but he’s truly a hybrid hero: he deals both physical and magical damage.

He has Octarine, and level 20 is a great point for a power spike. Breath Fire’s damage becomes insane: as you can see, it’s currently 320, but it’ll be 540 if the cooldown is under seven seconds. With Keeper of the Light, which refreshes his abilities, this hero can likely deal 2,000 damage to a target he blinks toward through attacks and spells. That’s absolutely insane.

And, as you can see, he queues up Overwhelming Blink. Why is this a great choice? It increases your damage, makes you even more survivable, but most importantly—it disables all Blink Daggers.

In addition, its area of effect is increased by your passive ability. That’s why Overwhelming Blink is much stronger on DK than usual. <…>

Now he’s essentially using his ultimate as soon as it’s off cooldown. And why not? It lasts 60 seconds, and with Octarine, it cooldowns in 75 seconds.

On DK, he always goes first. He’s incredibly tanky. Yes, he also has the Shield Rune now, but that’s exactly what you should be doing: be the first to engage the enemy, because in most games, enemies can’t just turn around and attack you.

He picks Earthshaker—literally the best pick. Even with Doom, it’s practically impossible for enemies to turn around and attack him. He has 3,000 health and a BKB.