Aghanim's Scepter Tier List
Over the last year more and more Aghanim’s upgrades have appeared in the game and it can get tricky to keep track of all of them. More importantly, evaluating them is intimidatingly tricky with a game as complex as Dota. Not all Scepter Ugrades are equally important—some of them are almost mandatory, while some offer very little and can even be downright detrimental to the natural progression of the hero.
This Tier List is designed to highlight the relative strengths of the upgrades taking into account the opportunity cost of an item slot and 4200 gold. Some of the upgrades are in fact much stronger than they would appear in the tier list, however in a real-world scenario there will usually be better alternatives. The most interesting and the more controversial tier placements will be discussed in greater detail.
Tier 1—consistently game-changing
Invoker, 
Keeper of the Light, 
Meepo, 
Mirana, 
Night Stalker, 
Pudge, 
Tiny, 
Windranger
Most of the upgrades in this tier require no explanation—the vision granted with upgrades for both Keeper of the Light and Night Stalker is a huge game-changer. The latter is slightly better in terms of providing said vision on-demand, the former has an added strong burst heal.
Pudge has been slowly buffed from patch to patch to a point where he was even deemed a TI-worthy hero by the champions themselves. Granted, it didn’t quite work out as planned, but the upgrade itself is definitely game-changing—it turns an unreliable initiation tool on a 12s cooldown into a similarly unreliable initiation tool, but on a 4s cooldown.
For Tiny it gets slightly more complicated—there is a working build for the hero which doesn’t involve flash-farming, but rather concentrates on constant ganking and pick-offs. Regardless, however, at some point the upgrade will come in handy—it increases the nuke burst of the hero and, more importantly, makes him a very scary objective-taking machine. With enough AS buffs from teammates or items, Tiny can easily take down anything even through the backdoor protection.
Tier 2—consistently strong or situationally game-changing
Ancient Apparition, 
Batrider, 
Chen, 
Clockwerk, 
Disruptor, 
Drow Ranger, 
Enchantress, 
Lina, 
Necrophos, 
Nyx Assassin, 
Pugna, 
Sand King, 
Rubick, 
Shadow Demon, 
Shadow Shaman, 
Timbersaw, 
Tinker, 
Treant Protector, 
Ursa, 
Venomancer, 
Visage, 
Witch Doctor
The most controversial upgrade in this tier is the Batrider one—heroes are frequently spread out enough for it to usually have no effect. However, an often underlooked part of the upgrade is the fact that it allows Batrider to grab enemies who have a 
Linken's Sphere by targeting a nearby creep. This, on top of potential multi-hero Lassos make it a very worthwhile purchase, especially given how it fits the natural requirements of the hero for some extra survivability and mana.
Necrophos’ upgrade could potentially be in a tier higher, however with so many options available, some of them will frequently be superior to the upgrade. Or at least have higher priority in timings—
Octarine Core, 
Shiva's Guard, 
Scythe of Vyse can all be more necessary at a given time, compared to the ability to delete the hero from the game. More importantly, with a heavy focus on defensive supports, the ultimate itself becomes rather unreliable—
Glimmer Cape or Shadow Demon’s Disruption, as well as several other abilities, can render the Reaper’s Scythe almost useless.
Drow Ranger is a weird one, since it is consistently weak, frequently tampering with the natural damage-dealing progression of the hero. It can be situationally game-changing though. In a game where you are facing a push with a lot of summoned units and/or illusions heroes the 
Mjollnir+Aghs build is the absolute best option. In other games, going for stats, survivability and mobility is generally a better alternative.
Tier 3—consistently mediocre or situationally strong
Abaddon, 
Centaur Warrunner, 
Dark Seer, 
Dazzle, 
Doom, 
Earth Spirit, 
Elder Titan, 
Faceless Void, 
Jakiro, 
Legion Commander, 
Naga Siren, 
Nature's Prophet, 
Ogre Magi, 
Omniknight, 
Oracle, 
Puck, 
Queen of Pain, 
Razor, 
Shadow Fiend, 
Skywrath Mage, 
Storm Spirit, 
Techies, 
Undying, 
Vengeful Spirit, 
Viper, 
Weaver
Abaddon and Centaur ultimates fall into roughly the same category—they are a very strong damage-mitigation tools. The problem is, it only works when your team has enough damage themselves, to actually use this extra time. Otherwise, it will quickly turn into a scenario where your team still dies, but in a much slower, more painful way. With some glass-cannons in your lineup, however, these upgrades truly shine.
Legion Commander’s upgrade, with the most recent rework, can actually be very strong. The hero excels in 1v1 scenarios, with potential high damage and a strong passive lifesteal. With the upgrade, she can jump in and focus down almost any target, given her early game wasn’t completely awful. It will either force the enemy to commit disables on the LC or, alternatively, start the engagement as 4v5. Either way, the team with the initiating Legion Commander will likely have a better starting position. It is still very situational, since you need to be sure LC will be able to actually kill the target, but when it works, it works really well.
Storm Spirit is another controversial choice for the third tier, but very much like with Batrider it is the ability to ignore an enemy’s Linken’s what takes the cake. Sometimes it is necessary and can have a high impact on the game. The reason it is a tier lower, however, is because the Aghanim’s Scepter itself doesn’t really fit all too well in Storm’s items—extra mana and health are nice, but it is mana regeneration, damage and disables what Storm is usually after.
Tier 4—consistently weak or situationally mediocre
Axe, 
Bane, 
Beastmaster, 
Bloodseeker, 
Brewmaster, 
Bristleback, 
Crystal Maiden, 
Earthshaker, 
Huskar, 
Juggernaut, 
Leshrac, 
Lich, 
Lion, 
Warlock, 
Magnus, 
Phoenix
On paper both Lich and Warlock upgrades seem incredibly strong, but for the most part both of these abilities should be used as BKB-piercing interrupts, rather than for direct damage. In the later stages of the game, both the extra golem and “infinite” Chain Frost jumps become quite inconsequential, while the ability to interrupt an enemy Black Hole, for example, becomes a lot more important. In either case, there are sometimes better alternatives. In fact, in case of Warlock, Necronomicon II (roughly the same price as Aghs) will offer a significantly higher DPS as well as strong auras and mana burn abilities.
The Juggernaut upgrade fell strongly out of favor ever since the hero was buffed with reduced BAT, which allowed him to scale much better and become a decent hard-carry in the late-game. It can still be ok-ish in certain scenarios, but for the most part the farming-right-clicking Juggernaut is currently much stronger. As such, the Scepter is rarely worth a slot.
Leshrac is roughly in the same boat as Necrophos—there are just too many other items which will work better in the majority of scenarios. A 500 gold more expensive Shiva’s Guard will offer roughly the same benefits in terms of damage against squishier targets, who Leshrac should prey on anyways. It will also immensely boost the hero’s survivability as well as provide a very strong aura and AoE slow on-demand.
Phoenix is an interesting one, but it is too gimmicky to work too well. It can be very useful coupled with certain heroes, such as Terrorblade, Undying or even Invoker, but will frequently fall into the “win-more” category. Refreshing abilities on the hero is nice, but in the meantime your team will have to fight 3v5 and you will risk losing both your Phoenix and the hero inside the Supernova.
Tier 5—inconsequential or situationally weak
Enigma, 
Kunkka, 
Lone Druid, 
Luna, 
Morphling, [missing hero: outworld-devourer], 
Silencer, 
Spirit Breaker, 
Tidehunter, 
Tusk, 
Winter Wyvern, 
Wraith King, 
Zeus
Most of the upgrades in this tier are just straight-up weak. They are inconsequential, gimmicky and rarely worth the price. Three of them however, are a question of opportunity cost and slot-efficiency.
Enigma’s upgrade is a great late-game addition. The problem is, between the usual Mekansms, Black-King-Bars, Blinks and Refreshers, there is rarely a slot for this item. All of the previous items, with the exception of maybe Mekansm are non-negotiable—you absolutely need them as Enigma in 99% of the games. And you need them as fast as possible. If later in the game there is an opening for an Aghs upgrade and Shiva’s Guard is already built or a better fit for a teammate—go for the upgrade, otherwise sticking with the regular path is a more consistent alternative.
Luna and Morphling upgrades, on the other hand, are quite strong in a vacuum. The problem is, they are quite bad on the heroes themselves—when played as cores, both of these heroes should opt for stats, damage or survivability items, which are more cost-efficient.
On the other hand, an offlane or support Morphling, who managed to get their hands on the upgrade, is actually not too bad in certain situations. It requires very specific line-ups, but can work very well in the later stages of the game.
Luna can also be ok with an Aghs if your team has a farming mid. As an off-carry, there might be a way for her to squeeze in this upgrade. It works especially well with mobile teammates, since they can jump in with the Eclipse cast on them, obliterating the enemy team, while staying relatively safe. The concept is definitely worth exploring, but as of now, there hasn’t been a successful lineup with and Aghs Luna.
Tier 6—Alchemist’s Gifts
Alchemist, 
Gyrocopter, 
Lifestealer, 
Sven
Three of these upgrades are a joke—they offer almost no value and are probably the last priority even when gifted by an Alchemist. Gyrocopter and Lifestealer ones are almost completely useless, aside from some cheesy shenanigans which only work in lower-MMR games. The Sven one is good when built on a support Sven. The support Sven himself, however, is pretty bad—he can be a situational fit vs. Death Prophet, but otherwise the hero should always be played as a core.
To be clear—gifting yourself an Aghs is usually the last priority, hence the upgrade is in the 6th Tier, but the Alchemist upgrade concept, overall, is actually quite strong. It allows your supports to have a sudden power spike and in certain cases even completely change the flow of the team-fights. Heroes like Disruptor and Shadow Demon can suddenly become the destroyers of the enemy cores, while Invoker or Tiny can greatly benefit from an extra item slot. In this sense, this upgrade can be consistently strong or situationally game-changing.
Closing Thoughts
Currently, 89 heroes have an Aghanim's Scepter upgrade and the figure will most likely keep on rising. Moreover, it is quite probable that some of the weaker ones will get buffed or reworked, since they simply never have an impact on the game. With the next update scheduled for fall, there is still quite a bit of time to play with the current iterations though.
Which upgrades do you think were misplaced in the tier list? Share your own experience with the community—there is always a lot of room for discussion when it comes to Dota.
101th comment
lifestealer aghs is the best joke on dota
also silencer aghs are useless better buy refresher instead
IM sorry im low MMR but I really think that Necro agh is underrated.
With blademail and proper positioning you can make a comeback.
have u ever got double called by Scepter morph
luna should be strong -> game changing. you don't rush it but as a third item it will turn teamfights.
sand king, however, is basically unconsequential except for the extra range. only way i see it being game changing is when rushing it against phantom lancer. that's taking situationally to the next level.
naga siren should be at the edge between 2and 3rd tier. it CAN be game changing if you're in a deadlock with the opposite team and the other team has enough depush to deal with illusion spamm
morphling aghs has been used with great success by wagamama, but the fact that the new illusion keeps your stats mean it's best used from an offlane position on agi carry, or on nukers.
earth shaker is weak or mediocre? is it only because you're never gonna farm that much? cauz it's still not breakable mobility on a 5 second cooldown. seeing how blink dagger and force staff are valued, i'd say that one should be rated higher
tidehunter aghs has been consistently purchased by moonmeander. it's an AOE -armor. the only one in the game except assault cuirrass and weave. and it also has a slow and cancel blink dagger on like a 8-10 second cd?
look like the guy who wrote that just opened a bunch of pro games, and rated the aghanim depending on how often the item was purchased...
The fact that Earthshaker's aghs upgrade is described as "consistently weak" triggers me. Much lower cooldown than blink, gives tankiness and mana AND makes the stun from enchant totem instantly apply on the target point as opposed to after a .7 second cast time is honestly pretty strong. The only downside being increased cost and slightly higher window to react to echo slam initiations. No Kappa intended.
As soon as I saw LD at the bottom of the list I realized that this dude has no idea what he's talking about.
Definitely agree that Abaddon should be up a tier, at least. You do need a good team fight line up for it to be worth while, but that is true of the hero generally. You don't pick Abaddon for the dps.
Enigma agha should decrease the BH cd. I am waiting for that
Pff how can Nyx's Aghanims not be highest tier? That thing is so godly on him...
Aghs on Sven is actually really strong in the right situation. The whole team getting a 25 second damage buff is huge. It won me a close game while carrying.
no love for jakiro :'( 30 seconds of fuck you if you place it well, all fights can have a positioning advantage. bkb lats 10s max so choke-point fights are always in your favour. Its not necessary since not upgraded is about 60% of aghs effectiveness but imagine how many trees you can cut down with aghs, aether lense and refresher
I'm an animal.
Pretty insightless article
Finally some proof i can show to all the fucking zeus players who but aghs in stead of refresher because they can killsteal better
how is centaur t3, how is techies t3? do your research lol
so the first thing come to my mind reading this....storm has an aghs upgrade?
A lot of these are wrong I feel.
Visage and Shadow Shaman's Aghs upgrades are not Tier 1 worthy. I would say they're not game changing in the same way something like an Aghs Death Ward is.
Earth Spirit Aghs is definitely T1 if its used correctly. You have to be a decent Earth Spirit player, but its insane if you know what you're doing. It makes his initiation range huge, especially with Blink/Forcestaff. It makes for an insanely good ganking tool, especially in the late game where pickoffs become very important.
Dotabuff, you can do better than this!
I wish OD's upgrade was reverted back to its pre-6.84 form (just the increase in damage multiplier and cast range), though then again in comparison, the spell damage amp you get from Intelligence makes the upgrade somewhat obsolete.
I disagree about Juggs Scepter, played as a jungler and rushing it, or prolly as a midlaner will give enough momentum to deal with almost any core on enemy team in the 15-25 min mark, which may allow to rush the push and get enough space to finish the game early, something very important for a Jugg since he cant outcarry high dps agi heroes like a six-slotted spectre or pa, just telling
well , I've never seen a good aghs lc :D :D
I can't say I agree with Luna's Agh upgrade position. She has an amazing Agh upgrade when paired with heroes like Void, Axe, Alch, or even Pudge. I usually get one of these heroes in my games, often times, two.
And I honestly can't believe you put QoP and Undying in the same category as Abaddon and Dazzle. Both have Agh upgrade that changes them from defensive team fighters into potential high ground pushers just by purchasing this item.