Arlott

The two conditions that make Arlott worth locking

Arlott is a conditional pick, not a comfort pick. He needs two things from the draft to function, and if either one is missing, you are playing a mediocre fighter with one dash on a 10-second cooldown.

The first condition is allied CC. Demon Gaze marks any enemy near Arlott who gets hit by crowd control, and that includes ally CC. If your roam is Tigreal, Atlas, Khufra, or Akai, every ult they land hands you multiple marked targets and multiple S2 resets. If your roam is Estes or Floryn with no hard CC, you are the only source of marks in the fight, which means shorter chains and fewer healing windows.

The second condition is an enemy comp that stays still long enough to get marked. Arlott punishes immobile mages (Xavier, Pharsa, Cecilion), backline marksmen who commit to one position (Beatrix, Natan, Layla), and short-range fighters who want extended trades (Fredrinn, Terizla). He struggles against mobile assassins who leave his passive radius before the mark registers (Fanny, Lancelot, Ling) and against anti-dash specialists who punish Vengeance directly (Phoveus, Minsitthar).

Pick Arlott when both conditions are met: your team has at least one reliable AOE CC source, and the enemy has two or more immobile or clump-dependent heroes you can chain through. Avoid him when your roam has no hard CC, when Phoveus or Minsitthar is open on the enemy side, or when the opposing EXP laner is Thamuz or Yu Zhong, both of whom win the 1v1 before Thunder Belt and snowball the lane from there.

If you cannot point to at least two enemy heroes you expect to chain-mark in a teamfight, Arlott is the wrong pick.

The one thing that makes Arlott work

Arlott is a reset machine pretending to be a fighter.

Demon Gaze marks any enemy near him that gets hit by crowd control. His own S1 stun does it. An ally Tigreal ult does it. Even Petrify does it. The eye also auto-marks the nearest visible hero every 8 seconds as insurance. Once someone is marked, Vengeance deals double its base damage, instantly resets its own cooldown, and heals Arlott for 90% of his total Physical Attack. Then the mark gets reapplied by the next S1 stun or the next ally CC, and the cycle starts again.

Without a mark, Vengeance is a single-target dash on a 10-second cooldown that deals half the damage it could. With a mark, it is a spammable charge that heals him, chunks the target, and immediately resets for the next one. The difference between those two states is the entire hero.

Everything Arlott builds, every spell he takes, every teamfight angle he looks for serves one question: can I keep someone marked long enough to chain Vengeance? Petrify over Flicker, because Petrify is a 0.8-second stun that triggers Demon Gaze on demand. Thunder Belt over Endless Battle, because the Thunderbolt proc fires after every Vengeance-into-auto sequence and adds true damage plus a 99% slow to lock the target in place for the next charge. Defense items over damage items, because staying alive through three Vengeance chains is worth more than hitting harder on one.

Laning: the first five minutes

Arlott's lane phase is a survival exercise. His base stats are unremarkable, his S1 cooldown at rank 1 is 8 seconds, and his S2 without marks is a single dash that does nothing special. You do not win trades at level 1. You do not try.

Three things to do before Thunder Belt:

1. S1 at tip range on every wave. Stand outside auto-attack distance and swing Dauntless Strike so the outer edge clips both the wave and the enemy laner. The tip stuns for 1 full second, which triggers Demon Gaze and gives you one safe S2 follow-up for poke damage plus a heal. Do not walk forward after the S2. Walk back.
2. Take S2 at level 2, save Petrify for ganks. Your level-2 spike is S1 stun (marks target) into S2 (double damage plus reset). That two-skill combo is your only trade pattern before level 4. Petrify is on a 75-second cooldown: spend it on a gank follow-up where the mark leads to a kill, not on a lane poke where you burn it for chip damage.
3. Never push past river without vision. Arlott has no escape. S2 targets an enemy, so it cannot dash you to safety. If your roam is not nearby and the enemy jungler is missing, freeze the wave at your tower and farm. A Thunder Belt that arrives 30 seconds late is better than a death that gives the enemy EXP laner a full wave of solo experience.

Petrify over Flicker means you trade escape for mark application. That trade is worth it in teamfights. In lane, it means you pay for it by playing further back than a Flicker fighter would.

The power spike you are farming toward

Arlott's first item is Thunder Belt, every game. Not War Axe, not Endless Battle, not Hunter Strike. Thunder Belt.

The reason is math. Thunderbolt's passive fires on your next basic attack every 4 seconds, and Vengeance on a marked target resets instantly and puts you in melee range for that auto. Each Thunderbolt proc deals 50 plus 100% of your total Physical Defense plus 100% of your total Magic Defense as true damage in an area, with a 99% slow attached. True damage ignores armor entirely. By the time you finish two or three defense items, each proc hits harder than most skills' base damage, and the number keeps climbing with every defensive stat you buy. This is why defense-build Arlott deals more total damage across a fight than attack-build Arlott: the procs scale off the stats that also keep him alive.

The spike you care about is Thunder Belt plus Hunter Strike, usually in the 8-to-10 minute window. Hunter Strike adds 80 Physical Attack, 15 Physical Penetration, and 10% CDR. The penetration makes S1 and S2 base damage punch through early armor. The CDR tightens the chain-reset loop. And Hunter Strike's Retribution passive grants 50% decaying movement speed after 5 hits, which triggers mid-chain and makes it nearly impossible for enemies to walk out of your S2 range.

Before Thunder Belt, you farm. Between Thunder Belt and Hunter Strike, you take fights only when your team forces them. After both items, you are the one forcing fights.

Teamfight positioning and target priority

The reflex when Arlott sees a teamfight forming is to charge in with S2 on the nearest enemy. That reflex wastes the hero.

Arlott does not initiate. He follows up. His job is to enter after the first round of CC lands, because ally CC triggers Demon Gaze on everyone it hits. A Tigreal ult that stuns three enemies just marked all three for you. An Atlas setback that drags two people through your passive radius just gave you two S2 resets waiting to happen. If you charge in before the CC lands, you get one Vengeance on one unmarked target for half damage and no reset, and then you are standing in the middle of five enemies with nothing to press for 10 seconds.

Three positioning rules:

1. Open with Final Slash, not Vengeance. The ult pushes enemies to the edge of its area, deals up to 800 base damage at max rank, and reveals hidden targets for 3 seconds. Use it to compress grouped enemies into a tighter cluster, knock a diver off your marksman, or flush someone from a bush. The displacement triggers Demon Gaze marks on every target hit, which sets up the S2 chain.
2. S1 at max range, always. Dauntless Strike stuns for 1 full second at the tip of the lance and only briefly at close range. The difference between a 1-second stun and a brief stun is a confirmed S2 follow-up versus a whiffed one. If you are close enough to auto-attack before casting S1, you are too close.
3. Chain S2 through the team, not into the same target twice. After your first Vengeance chunks a marked target, the cooldown resets. Charge the next marked target. Each landing puts you in auto range for a Thunderbolt proc (true damage plus 99% slow), refreshes your heal, and repositions you across the fight. Three Vengeance charges into three different marked targets deals more total damage and heals more total HP than three charges into one tank.

If your support is a CC chain like Atlas or Tigreal, enter late and let every stun they land refresh marks for you. If your support has no hard CC, you need to open with ult or Petrify to create your own marks, and the chain will be shorter.

Itemization: defaults vs flex slots

Take the default build as three locked slots and three real conversations.

The locked three are Tough Boots, Thunder Belt, and Hunter Strike. Tough Boots because Arlott walks into CC-heavy fights and needs the magic defense plus CC duration reduction. Thunder Belt because the Thunderbolt proc is his damage engine. Hunter Strike because the Physical Penetration, CDR, and movement speed passive make the chain-reset loop work at two items.

The fourth slot is almost always Dominance Ice. 55 Physical Defense, 500 Mana (Arlott burns through mana during long S2 chains), 5% Movement Speed, and two passives: Arctic Cold reduces attackers' attack speed to 80%, and Lifebane cuts nearby enemies' healing and shields. If the enemy has any sustain fighter or healer (Esmeralda, Yu Zhong, Estes), Dominance Ice is mandatory. If they do not, it is still the highest-value physical defense option because the mana solves Arlott's chain-length ceiling.

The fifth slot is the magic defense conversation:

• Oracle against sustained magic poke (Chang'e, Lylia, Lunox). The shield increase and HP regen extend your presence in drawn-out fights.
• Athena's Shield against burst mages (Eudora, Aurora, Kadita). The magic damage shield absorbs the opening combo.
• Radiant Armor against rapid-tick magic damage (Valir, Esmeralda, Lunox Chaos ult). The stacking magic damage reduction scales better than Athena's Shield against multi-hit sources.

The sixth slot is the survival conversation:

• Queen's Wings is the default. Demonize triggers at 40% HP: 30% damage reduction for 3 seconds plus a 2-second skill cooldown reduction. Defiance increases your damage by 0.25% per 1% HP lost, up to 15%. Both passives reward the chain-reset playstyle: you want to hover at low HP, healing through S2, dealing escalating damage because you are injured.
• Immortality if the game goes past 25 minutes and a single death ends the match. The revive buys time, but it does not synergize with the kit the way Queen's Wings does.
• Blade Armor in the rare game against two or more auto-attack-dependent physical carries. The reflect damage stacks with your Thunderbolt procs.

Mistakes that lose Arlott games

Opening Vengeance on an unmarked target. Without a Demon Gaze mark, S2 deals its base damage (not double), does not reset its cooldown, and does not heal. You just spent your only mobility spell for half damage and now have 10 seconds of nothing. Before pressing S2, check whether the button is glowing. A glowing S2 means a marked enemy is in range. No glow, no charge.

Using S1 at point-blank range. Dauntless Strike has two stun zones: a brief stun on close targets and a 1-second stun on targets hit by the tip. A 1-second stun confirms the S2 follow-up. A brief stun does not. If you walk into melee range and press S1, you get the short stun and the enemy dashes out before Vengeance connects. Open S1 from outside auto-attack range so the target eats the tip.

Building full damage. Arlott's damage comes from S2 resets and Thunderbolt procs, not raw Physical Attack. Thunder Belt's true damage scales off total defense, not attack. Queen's Wings gives damage reduction at low HP, which lets you survive long enough for one more S2 chain. A six-offensive-item Arlott dies after one Vengeance. A defense-heavy Arlott chains four, heals through all of them, and deals more total damage across the fight. This is why the 2.1.30 nerf specifically targeted his "defense build damage."

Forcing trades before Thunder Belt. Before Thunder Belt, S2 resets do not proc any additional on-hit, defense stats are too low for extended trades, and S1 cooldown at rank 1 is 8 seconds. If the enemy EXP laner (Thamuz, Yu Zhong, Esmeralda) walks at you before your first item, you lose. Farm with S1 tip-range poke and wait.

Ignoring the Phoveus check. Phoveus's passive lets him jump to any hero that uses a dash near him. Vengeance is a dash. Every S2 chain gives Phoveus a free gap-close onto you. If Phoveus is open in draft and you lock Arlott, your entire identity becomes a liability. If he is already on the enemy team, never S2 near him unless his ult is confirmed on cooldown.

Key tips