Cresht:Deep Diving the Top Lane

Build and Guide Cresht:Deep Diving the Top Lane

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build   

Metamorphosis > Typhoon > Aquatic Shield *Max Shield first in difficult lanes to survive*

Recommended Talents   

Flicker

Items   

Spear of Longinus, Sonic Boots, Medallion of Troy, Gaia's Standard, Shield of the Lost, Crimson Banner

Arcana   

Indomitable, Assassinate, Valiance

Introduction
Cresht is listed as a supportive tank. With the ability to knock enemies away from himself and his team, or into his team. Cresht can greatly turn the tides of battle. While being considered a tank, Cresht falls more into a bruiser category for this build. With this, we will be doing more damage, while at the same time providing somewhat of a tank for the team. Allowing us a good mix if we have another tank, or simply feel we need to do the damage to carry our team.

Skill Build
Metamorphosis > Typhoon > Aquatic Shield *Max Shield first in difficult lanes to survive*

All abilities are cooldown based only, except for the ultimate that requires rage. Feel free to spam those shields!

Cresht consumes all of his rage to morph into his true form. This causes Cresht to grow greatly in size and gain a huge shield that absorbs all incoming damage. Afterwards, Cresht summons forth a tidal wave in a medium ranged skill shot in a targeted direction. Dealing 400/500/600 damage depending on ability level to all enemies hit, and stunning them at the end of the wave. While riding this wave, Cresht gains a movement speed buff but loses the speed upon leaving it. This is the ability that makes Cresht. This ability makes you the tank you need to be for your team, adds some massive damage to your kit, and can be used to push enemy carries into your team. You can even use this to push enemies away to save your team mates. This ability has a short 40-second cooldown and can be used as late as you want. Since the shield is a flat amount and is not affected by your current health. I sometimes wait for the opportune time to make the tidal wave effective. Which also gives me more time near the end of the fight to have that shield.

Typhoon causes Cresht to swing his lance dealing 360 base damage and knocking back enemies hit. This ability grants rage. When Cresht is under the effect of Metamorphosis, Cresht instead summons a geyser dealing 400 damages. This ability is great for multiple reasons. First, it’s a knockback, which allows you to combo this with Aquatic Shield to knock enemies into whichever position you want them to be in. I use this constantly to knock enemies into an allied tower. With Metamorphosis, you can really keep an enemy under the tower for a great duration, or wherever you want them to be.

Aquatic Shield causes Cresht to jump to a target location, summoning a small area of effect that grants anyone in that area a small shield for a short duration. Under the effects of Metamorphosis, this ability turns into a slightly larger area of effect that deals damage to enemies. Besides using this ability to position, you can use this ability to keep your teammates healthy. This is really his most support style ability. It does have the ability to jump Cresht over terrain as well. So be sure to remember you can cut people off or run away with it easily. It is also important to note that you can't jump in place. You have to move a small distance away from the center of your character to use this ability. 

Tidal Rage is your passive ability. When not under the effects of Metamorphosis, Cresht gains rage with normal attacks and his abilities. When Cresht is morphed, he causes the Earth the shake slowing enemies in the area of effect by 50% and greatly increasing his own attack damage.

Recommended Talents
Flicker - 120-second Cooldown: Teleports your hero a short distance 

Flicker is always a great Talent to use. It’s a free short ranged teleport ability that can get you over terrain or towards a position you want to be in instantly. You need to practice using this ability in your games. Eventually, this will be one of the only talents taken on most heroes. Currently, this is the only ability I take on Cresht, it allows me to use my Aquatic Shield more offensively and still have a backup escape if I get caught.

Items
Spear of Longinus, Sonic Boots, Medallion of Troy, Gaia's Standard, Shield of the Lost, Crimson Banner



Spear of Longinus is a pretty basic start for a lot of heroes that primarily deal with physical attacks and abilities. Allowing us to decrease the target's armor by 50 on hit for 5 seconds at a max of 5 times max trading that much more efficient over time. Now if you are playing defensive against a physical damaging enemy, be sure to buy Light Armor into Platinum Gauntlets first. More aggressive lanes will rush Astral Spear building off of a short sword as the first item. Heavy skill shot matchups should consider level 1 boots.

Sonic Boots are some of the best scaling defensive boots in the game. Being able to ignore a percentage of enemy normal attacks is great for anyone who expects to be hit by those attacks a lot.

Medallion of Troy grants +360 magic defense and a mild shield to block magic damage. Take this ability if you are going against anyone who deals massive magic damage in your lane, or if the enemy team is mostly magic for mid and late game defense.

Gaia's Standard brings a lot of health regen, I generally take this third against champions that are ranged, or simply deal a lot of poke damage.

Shield of the Lost should be built third against physical damage dealing laners who also work off of fast attack speed. Since this ability reduces attack speed by nearby enemies by 30%.

If you are against someone who does physical and is not ranged with normal attack speed. Take this to help you both, survive and kill in the same item.

Build in order after choosing your third item, or in whichever stats you want to build first. These items are all basically the same with a few stats and effects tossed around to specifically go against certain heroes.

Arcana
Indomitable, Assassinate, Valiance

Indomitable is great for granting a bit of everything Cresht uses. You can basically replace reds with Onslaught or Blitz if you do not have these Arcana.

Assassinate grants us some much-needed movement speed due to our need to get around enemies to truly be effective. Guerrilla is a close second here if you prefer attack speed.

Valiance grants some bonus health and cooldown speed. Remember our abilities can be cast as soon as they are up, so some cool down speed will go a long way. However, anything that grants some tanky ability or damage can go here if you prefer. I just like to reduce the time on Aquatic Shield as soon as I can to survive early ganks.

Early Game
Early game before level 4 I normally play a game of keep away with the enemy unless I know they are weak without their ult as well. Cresht gains a lot of his power and tank ability from his ultimate. After you have your ultimate, try to find a good time to use your abilities to attempt to push your enemy into your tower, or towards your side of the map to help out a gank.

Middle Game
At this point of the game you are somewhat tanky, but still really need to pay attention to your rage. If you haven't taken your tower keep spamming your lance to push minions until you take the tower. Afterwards, you will want to use Aquatic Shield to get into locations behind your enemies and use your abilities to push them into your team or away from your team if they need to run.

Late Game
Late game you finally become a great tank. Even without casting your ultimate, you can take a hit, but when you do cast your ultimate, the shield is massive. This will allow you to split the enemies with your abilities easily with low risk to your own safety. Assuming the enemy team is not doing greatly better than your own.

FAQ/Tips
Aquatic Shield doubles as a way to get over the terrain. Use it to gank and run away, as most people won't have the ability to chase you. If they do cast Flicker to chase you, you should still have Flicker to leave with.

You have a lot of ability to reposition the enemy. Try to bait them towards your tower early, and shove them into it with your ultimate and lance abilities. Lots of people will fall for this trick once or twice in the early game if you do it well enough. Granting you an easy lead top lane.

Matchups
(Mina, Easy)   

Mina top lane wants you close to her to use her abilities. You, however, have many abilities that simply push her away. It should also be pointed out that in a 1v1 situation your ultimate is much more useful than hers is. Feel free to fight her at pretty much any point of the game.

(Omega, Easy)

Omega top lane is a cake walk for you. He is extremely short ranged, and his ultimate requires you to be close. Simply use your kit to push him away during his abilities and attack him when you want to. Spamming is a great thing to do in this matchup as his abilities require mana, and yours don’t. 

(Batman, Easy)

Batman top requires one simple thing. He is going to throw a Batarang at you, and attempt to hit you to stun you. Simple push him away and stay away until the Batarang debuff is gone. Afterwards, go all in on him. He pales in comparison to your damage at that point, as that Batarang is a huge amount of his kit.

(Valhein, Hard)     

While you do have the ability to push Valhein around, it is much easier for him to simply stun you and walk away. Especially with his great late game damage to deal with, a good Valhein will simply eat through your shield and kill you quickly. It is to be mentioned that his range is still shorter.

(Arthur, Hard)     

Arthur is easy later in the game, but in the lane, your knockbacks don't really keep him off of you. He will simply run back to you and proceed to deal more damage than you can deal with. He also gains passive armor, which helps reduce all of the damage you work so hard to do. Play this one safely, it's out-playable, but unless you have some real experience with Cresht, id play it safe.

(Zuka, Hard)

Zuka has multiple abilities to chase you down with and deals quite a bit more base-damage then we do. Mainly you are going to want to play safe and wait for a gank. Your abilities to move enemies around will be more helpful late game, but in the lane, he will basically just undo the repositioning you forced onto him.