Ultimate Minotaur Guide : Son of Minos

1) Introduction:
 
Minotaur is a tank hero. You are a living shield, designed to control the ennemy team and tank their damages while your teammates take them out one by one.
As a consequence, your whole stuff will be based on defensive's stats. Keep that in mind: you are useless if you're alone, and your mates are helpless when you're away. Protect your carries at any cost, even your death is worth if you save them.

Tank role is not the most rewarding one, looking at the stats. But you are one of the most important characters of the team.
In practice, to master Minotaur you'll have to learn how to engage properly, knowing the situations in which you can win the fight. Your engage is the most important moment of the fight, the following moves of your mates and the ones of the ennemy team will depend of it. Playing a tank is before anything else taking decisions.

Play Minotaur in a duo lane if possible, to maximise the power of your second spell. You can also play him solo on a side lane, if your team got a jungler, as you are hard to kill, to keep the lane safe. Do not play him middle, as you can't farm the side jungle's camps, and have no roaming* possibility (you'll lose your rage meter while roaming).


2)Skills and attributes

Skill maxing order: 3/1/2
(1/2/1/3/1/2/1/3/1/2/1/3/2/2/2)

1st skill: Despair Hammer
Wields a warhammer and deals 330/360/390/420/450/480 physical damage to enemies within melee range in front of him, also lowering their movement speed 65%/65%/65%/65%/65%/65%. If in Rage Mode, attack range will greatly expend.
Use this skill to increase your rage faster, deal some damages and mostly to slow down ennemies.

2nd skill: Motivation Roar
Encourages himself and surrounding allies, regening 340/370/400/430/460/490 HP for himself and giving allies 50%/50%/50%/50%/50%/50% healing. If in Rage Mode, a Rage Regen effect will be activated for 2/2/2/2/2/2s, allowing him to sustain HP loss after taking damages from autoattacks.
This skill will allow you to sustain damages in lane, mostly for yourself, but also for your lane mate. The rage bonus will help you diving ennemies, grants you tankiness against ADCs* and AD* fighters based on autoattacks.


3rd skill (ultimate): Minoan Fury
Strikes the ground in a row, causing shockwaves that deal 180/240/300 pts of physical damages to nearby enemies as well as 180/240/300 pts of true damages*. Also lowers target's movement speed 70%/70%/70%. If in Rage Mode, his striking speed will increase, he will deal an extra attack, and enemies will be knocked airborne.
A successfull engage depends of your ultimate. If you catch many ennemies in your ultimate while in rage, you'll stun ennemies for a long time and deal a huge amount of true damage*. If you are getting engaged, always try to fill up your rage meter before using your ultimate, unless you can finish off an ennmy with it, or if you know you won't be able to stack it fast enough ; in this situation, use it as early as possible to start your rage mode, and support as well as possible your team in the fight.

Passive: Rage Mode
When abilities or basics attacks hit enemies, Minotaur will become more enraged. When Rage is full, Minotaur will enter in Rage Mode and receive extra armor and magic resists (effects increase with level), as well as extra effects for his abilities. When Rage Mode subsides, Mintoaur will be unable to build up Rage for a time.
The rage is the most difficult feature to master as Minotaur. You will either be a good Minotaur or a bad one, depending on the way you stack your rage. Always try to keep it high, waiting for a good upportunity to engage a fight, but don't let the rage meter get filled until you're ready to start the fight. For this reason, be careful with the poke* of the ennemy team.
You will generate 2 rage points for every successful autoattack, 2 other points every seconds you are spending in fight, your 1st skill and ultimate will give you 2 rage points for every ennemy you hit and for each hit.
Your rage starts decreasing after 5 seconds without getting any rage point. You lose 3 points of rage every second, until you reach 0.
Your rage duration is 10 seconds, and your rage generation cooldown is 5 seconds.
Always try to keep your rage meter around 90/100. (tip: you can see your current rage count by looking at your characters stats, see them by clicking on the arrow on the right handside of your screen)
EDIT: Since patch .82, rage loads faster.

3)Loadout: stuff, mastery and emblems


Stuff:
Recommanded gear (stuff):
Core items: (cost 7100)
-> 1. Demon's Advent
-> 2. Warrior Boots
-> 3. Cursed Helmet
-> 4. Bloodthirsty King

    -> 3 examples of builds

1. Demon's Advent: costs 2170 ; 920 HP, +54 Armor
Deter: When an enemy hero attacks, this ability will reduce his/her attack power 6%. This effect lasts 2s and can stack up to 3 times.
Many Minotaur players start with Blade Armor. But it only gives armor, meaning that you are defenseless against magic and true damages. Furthermore, it's passive is not worth it early on, as autoattack damages are too low to efficiently reflect them.
Demon's advent will give you both HP and a good armor buff, giving you tankyness against all characters, you'll be more efficient in early tanking  this way. Moreover, the passive effect of this item will reduce your ennemies damages up to 18% if fully stacked, for you and your teammates. Great help in supporting your team.
Synergies well with warrior boots and Cursed Helmet, which are the following items you'll buy.

2. Warrior Boots: costs 690 ; +22 Armor, +40 Movement Speed
Valor: Physical defense will go up 3 with each basic attack recived, for an increase of up to 15 points, lasting 3s
High synergy with Demon's Advent, the more you'll stay in fight, the more you'll tank physical damages and the less your ennemies will hit.

3. Cursed Helmet: costs 1860 ; +920 HP, +50 Magic Resistance
Sacrifice: Deals 1,5% of one's max HP as magic damage per second to nearby enemies, and inflicts 50% bonus damages to minions.
NECESSARY item. Will give you a slight protection against magic damages, increases your health pull and deals huge magic damages around you. The more HP you have, the more magic damages you will deal around you. For this reason, Demon's Advent is better than Blade Armor as first item, which will only give you armor.

4. Bloodthirsty King: costs 2380 ; +1550 HP, +75 HP regen
Bloodlust: A kill or assist regens 20% of hero's HP within 5s. 10s cooldown.
This item will give you an enormous pull of HP, that scales with Cursed Helmet. Besides, the passive effect will almost always ensure you to be safe in fight as soon as an ennemy dies.


Late items: Mostly depends of the ennemy team characters and builds. Sometimes, game won't be long enough for you to get those items. Here is a list of the items that might be worth to buy, depending on the situation. Get another armor item in most of situations, unless there is 3 AP* characters or more in ennemy team.

-> Heart of Steel: costs 2260 ; +880 HP, +30 Armor, +35 HP Regen, +20% Crit strike rate reduction
Use this item if there are many characters that might critical hit you. (stuffed with Blade of Despair, Scarlet Phantom, Thor's Sting, Blade of Destruction...)

-> Blade Armor: costs 1660 ; +90 Armor
Counterstrike: Deals 25% of opponent's physical attack as physical damage to an attacker when a basic attack is received.
Use this item if there are many AD* characters, regardless of their critical statistics. The damage deflection late on will help you taking down AD(Cs)*, or at least preventing them to lifesteal on you.

-> Immortality: costs 2120 ; + 800 HP, +40 Magic Resistance
Rebirth: Resurrect 2s after dying and get 15% HP and a shield that can absorb 600-2000 damages. Shield lasts for 3s. Cooldown for this effect is 180s.
Use this item if there is at least 2 AP* characters in ennemy team, if there are not many assassins in ennemy team, and if ennemy's AD* characters have a big anti tank stuff (Wind Chaser!). This will help you surviving in battle and give you a nice HP buff. Get it if you often die in fight and lose fight because of this. DO NOT get it if your carries are getting killed first by assassins in most of the fights, you'll be left alone and you won't survive after reviving.

-> Saint's Refuge: costs 2050 ; +900 HP, +56 Magic Resistance
Refuge: Every 30s get one shield that can absorb 450-1150 damage. (Shield effect increases as the battle goes on)
Use this item if there is at least 2 AP* characters in ennemy team, and if there is many characters that might poke* you in ennemy team. Gives you more consistant magic resist and HP than Rebirth.


Abilities:


Flicker is probably the best choice. It will help you engaging when your ennemies don't expect it. You'll unlock it at level 19 (account level), and it has a 120 seconds cooldown. Learn to use it in the gameplay's part.
If you haven't reached the level 19 yet, or if you are playing in Brawl mode, get Purify instead. It will greatly help you when you are in the middle of the fight, getting CCed* again and again, to let you use your Rage ult. Unlocked at level 15
You might get Assault (lvl 7) or Interference (lvl 11) if you're too low level. The first will help you engaging, not as efficiently as Flicker, as your ennemies will see you coming and will CC* you. The other one is a great help to dive* ennemies, or take down towers faster.


Emblems:


Get Tank emblems in most of the situations. Because you are supposed to tank. Yeah.


You might get Physical emblems instead, if you haven't unlocked tank ones yet, or if they are too low level.


4) Gameplay


General:
The mechanic is not really hard to understand. You must learn how much rage you'll get by using your first skill. As said in the "skills" category, it gives you 2 rage points for each ennemies hit by the skill.
Your goal is to use Flicker to close the gap between you and your targets, use the first skill to max out your rage meter, and ultimate, everything as fast as possible: you might get CCed* if you're too slow. Do not proc your rage before using Flicker, or the ennemy team will flee.

Early game:
You are really strong early on. Attack as much as possible ennemies, and then heal with your 2nd skill. Try to proc your rage as much as possible, to poke* with your first skill your rage mode skill 2 is an awesome help for diving, do not hesitate to take your chance.
If you are playing with a jungler, wait for him to come and get your rage meter ready, then use Flicker towards to close the gap between you and ennemies, use your first spell to get your missing rage, and instantly use your ultimate. Your job is now done, let your mates deal damages, try to slow as much as possible ennemies with your first skill, tank the towers if needed and if you can dive.
Like any other character, don't forget to clean side jungle's camps between 2 creep* waves when playing a duo lane, to get more gold.

Mid game:
Whenever one of the two towers of your lanes gets destroyed, you and your ennemies might start roaming* a lot. As a tank, you might have issues farming, as you have no real way to deal damages to minions. Try to follow your carry if you were playing in a duo lane, or depush the solo lane you were playing in and gank mid sometimes. Make sure to follow your ennemies' moves, not to let your midlaner getting dived*. Just like early game, if you have a good opportunity to use Flicker and engage the ennemy team, then go ahead.

Late game:
In late game, when many towers are destroyed, many players will clear really fast lanes and jungle. It will be really hard for you to keep your rage around 90%. Ask your team to let you a jungle camp to keep it high (just let him attacking you, no need to finish it off, keep him alive for later if needed), or try to get slightly poked by the ennemy team. More than ever, your engages are REALLY important. Any awesome engages might make your team win, any fails might make your team lose. Always make sure that your 4 mates are behind you before engaging. React as fast as possible whenever one of your mates gets caught, if you can save him. If he is outpositionned, then let him die. If you try to save him you'll end up getting killed, and your team might die as well trying to help you.
If you are playing with a splitpusher*, keep pressuring the lane you are in with your 3 other mates, and as soon as someone in the ennemy team leaves the lane to depush, engage the fight.


5) Counters


You are weak against:
-> Any characters that can catch and kill your carries easily counters you. If your rage is too low, you won't be able, most of the time, to save your mates:
- Franco
- Akai
- Saber
-> Characters with big dashes or stuns, that might either escape from your ultimate, or stun you instantly after using Flicker:
- Nana
- Bruno
- Clint
- Fanny

You are strong against:
-> Fighters that can't deal you significant damages:
- Balmond
- Sun
- Alpha
-> Characters with no instant/big dash:
- Karina
- Ruby
- Bane
- Layla
-> Characters that DPS* mainly with autoattacks:
- Miya
- Yun Zhao
- Moskov


*Glossary:*

- AD(C): Attack Damage (Carries) (physical damages)
- AP: Power Damage (magic ones)...
- Carries: Characters that scale* the most of the game, meaning that they are quite weak early on, but will deal most of the damage late on. AP carries deal magic damages, AD carries deal physical damages.
- CC(ed): Crowed Controll(ed), abilities used to prevent an ennemy player from doing actions, such as attacking, using spells or moving. Roots (can't move), Stuns (can't move and attack), Slows (movement slowed down), Silences (can't use spells) and so on are all considered as crowd controlling effects. They get cleansed by the ability Purify.
- Creep: Also called minions. Spawn on lanes to attack towers. Kill them to get gold.
- Dive: Attack an ennemy under his turret's range.
- DPS: Damage Per Second. One of the main roles of any MOBA*, with support and tank. They get offensive stuff to burst down the ennemy team, with AD* or AP* damages.
- MOBA: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Kind of games whom Mobile Legends is classified as.
- Poke: Abilities of characters to deal you damages from afar and flee without you being able to deal them damages. Shields/Recover items/abilities will help you countering them.
- Roam(ing): Move out of your main lane, to go on another one and try to kill the ennemies' laners.
- Splitpush: Pushing multiple lanes at once, by letting a character alone on a lane, while the other players of the team pressure another one. The splitpusher must be a good duellist, and must have efficient ways to escape whenever ennemy team rotates.
- Scale: Characteristic of a skill/character to grow up in power with time and stuff. A good scaling skill often has a good damage ratio, but low basic damages.
- True damage: Damage that aren't reducted by any resistance in the game. To tank true damage, get more max HP.