I forgot to say, the trick is getting a good mana pool. Just a vlemish is certainly not enough. Typically, you'd get a vlemish and unbreakable boots, which should bring it to around 4k mana or so. I just wanted to emphasize how efficient mana potions are for regen (never get a plenor for the regen).

Right but what youre saying is that you'd get Vlemish-->Boots, whereas right now I am convinced that Vlemish-->Plenor is the way to go (can get same number of mana pots either way). I take it you disagree, but imo Sedna doesn't need the +5h/s since she already has grace+banded, and the 600 hp isnt better than 775 mana. The 70% mregen is just gravy (pretty useful gravy, tho). 

The 600 hp would be our point of contention, then. I don't know what playstyle you adopt with your sedna, but on my 'team' we find that 600 hp is a colossal amount of health, especially given most of our healing comes from priests (percentage hp heal). Typically early-mid we would be looking for banded+scalemail+vlemish+nimoth+unbreakable boots, wand of speed, potions, teles and locks, depending on the exact situation. Naturally, you wouldn't use scalemail against an ability nuke team, you may need boots of speed, you need to counter specific builds, etc.

But I digress. What is relevant to this thread, however, is HoL. We went through the "HoL is uber must buy it asap" phase but now it's just not very useful anymore and enemies getting it pose no problems. Against a good team, competition gets really fierce and deaths are just outright rare. There isn't much gold to spare for anyone when the citadel needs attention and it takes a very valuable slot. Hence the view that HoL just isn't that good. I'm inclined to take the stance that anyone can deal with that item, they just need to play.

I have this same problem as TB.  Oak is just nearly impossible to kill unless 2v1'd, and even then, it takes far longer than it should.

Lieu means healing wind 2 not inner grace 2.

I play sedna with lieu in a similar way to you it seems and I cannot state enough how amazing idol priests in combination with healing wind 2 are.

Typically my build goes like this: pounce -> healing wind -> inner grace -> pounce 2 -> healing wind 2 -> heal 1.

Where the rest of the points go depend on the match but I get a new rank of pounce when i can. I only tend to max inner grace once I have the rank of heal that I want, silence and max rank pounce, an extra 5 hp/s + 5% movement speed just isn't alot.  I get enough movement speed to escape and chase from just inner grace 1, boots of speed and wand of speed.

The great thing about idol priests, healing wind and inner grace is that it is mana free healing so my build focuses on getting alot of this. So at level 5 my monks are regulary healing for nearly as much as heal 1 does, I'm giving my teammates and myself a 24 hp/s aura, 34 hp/s for myself and it is all mana free!  I find that in the first 5 levels heal 1 doesn't heal for enough (people shouldn't be taking alot of damage this early anyway), is just too mana comsuming,and thus it means I can't pounce as much, which means that there are less chances to get kills and push people off lanes therefore also preventing damage.

With all this passive healing, it makes myself and my team very durable, you will find that your staying power increases by so much. Idol priests are your best friends, don't leave the crystal without them.

Just played a game with Oak using Shield + Wings of the Seraphim.  He was for all intents and purposes immortal.  It was pretty ridiculous.  We could have killed him if it was just a 2000 heal over 10 seconds (that couldn't be stopped/interrupted) but the combo of being invincible (dropping our DPS on him to zero) while he's still damaging us and healing just doesn't seem to have a counter.

I see no reason why you wouldn't just go for a team full of Oaks doing that.

If anyone knows a way to counter this feel free to share.

Malice,

That style is very interesting, I hadn't thought of things quite that way before, and I'll give it a try. I just have some questions regarding items... do you start off with the level 1 monk idols right away? If so, does that weaken you early on against DGs that bought combat gear? You mentioned Boots of Speed... I find that I don't ever have room for them since I'm full with Vlemish+Plenor+Scalemail/Nimoth+Banded/UBBoots+Gauntlets/SlayersWraps. What do you leave out? And do you use the Anklet? (I do). 

Also, what DG do you usually pair up with? My partner usually uses Ooze Beast, tho we were considering trying Erebus tomorrow night. 

Well as far as pantheon goes, every dark demigod except queen has a stun (foul grasp, mass charm, frost nova). If he's attacking you while he's healing then he places himself within range of your stun. My mate tried this tactic and all it took was just to hold your stun ready and watch for his shield. If you try and time it right so that he's just clicked HoL/WotS before you hit the stun then he has to wait for them to cooldown while you finish him off. Most Oaks I've found who use that tactic don't bother with speed upgrades so they can't get away.

I used to use the swift anklet in combination with boots of speed for +25% movement, my consumable items were usually teleport scrolls, capture locks and mana potions.  The problem that I realised with this is that, I have alot of movement speed but I don't need it all the time, I only need to be fast when I'm chasing/running away.  So I decided to swap the anklet for the amulet of teleportation, and teleport scrolls for a wand of speed.  With free teleports, the wand of speed is paid for in 5 teleports, and the rest is money saved.  I still use the anklet on prison, it is too open and there isn't enough stuff to teleport to.

Sedna is best when she is with her teammates and the great thing about the amulet/wand of speed combo is that I'm very mobile,  the combination helps me be where I need to be, pretty much when i want. For example I can teleport in if someone needs help, to assist with a gank or if I see a flag being capped, I can teleport in on it to try and save it, if not lock it and run away.  You just have to watch you don't get caught out with stuff on cooldown.

The item I don't buy is gloves, and I only get boots of speed if wand of speed isn't enough.  I just find that gloves don't do enough, sedna's sustained damage is already so low.  I can't say i've used them much though, I'll try them out. I generally use pounce to catch people out and part of focus fire/burst.  I also never buy the plenor helm.  I don't need a huge mana pool or insane regen.  I just need *enough* to be able to use my abilities regulary. mana potions provide enough on demand regen, are more cost effective unless the game lasts a very long time and by the time I run out of them and mana, I'll have enough gold to go buy items, locks, upgrades etc. anyway.

Usually I buy idol monks, sell the idol and depending on who I'm up against scalemail + capture lock + mana potion or banded armour + mana potion.  Since idol selling is being changed in the next patch I'll probably still buy idol priests and a mana potion.  I try and use my superior health regen to my advantage in the early levels, I won't be able to go toe to toe with more damaging DGs, but I can run in, pounce and run out, wearing their hp down forcing them to back off or try and outlast their mana.

I usually pair up with Lieu, who plays oak.  Sedna + oak brings so much utility to the table, and we can support and work with the style of pretty much every other DG, they really provide such a back bone to a team and penitence + pounce is a lot of burst damage.  Ubs make great teammates as well, your healing keeps them up and you can use pounce, silence and foul grasp to really screw up your opponents.  Rooks are great too, you'll have so much pushing power. Not played with many QoTs but I hear sedna works well with her, so much defensive power there.  You'd obviously have alot of chasing power with erebus.

Xavior,

If you hadn't noticed the conversation Lieu Malice and I are having has nothing to do with you. Please mind your own business. 

Malice,

I've tried your monks+wind build, it seems really strong in 2v2s where my partner and I can control the pace of the game. If we can drag a battle out into several engagements then we invariably last longer because of the massive free healing over time.

However, in larger battles it seems to be less strong. With more DGs on the field health can dissapear faster, and its very easy to get ganked before your monks can work their magic. In one game in particular I had TB in my lane (Leviathan), which normally is easy since I can easily endure his spells and eventually chase him off with Pounce, but there was a really aware Regulus in the other lane who would always tack his snipe onto TB's fireball. It was very difficult. 

Still, 2v2 is what I care most about, and since it seems strong there I'll continue testing the build. 

Threads do not belong to the person who started them. When you create a thread you are putting your words out there to the public, like throwing someone to the lions.

Xavior, you don't seem to get the point that the shield+HoL trick is a small percentage of the total healing that goes on in the battlefield. This is just oak himself, nevermind other demigods helping each other. At the point of the game where it's actually worth it to use the shield+HoL trick, Oak's own healing sources are much better. That's just Oak healing himself. He is also healing everyone around him, other generals are healing Oak back, people are chugging potions and 50 hps from gear heals more than the HoL trick.

If shield+HoL is overpowered then Oak buying priests must be horrifically overpowered because they are far better.

Im pretty sure thats why PMs exist.