A versatile build for lane and teamfight support.

Don't be afraid to deviate from the skill build if the situation calls for it:

Dual Breath versus Ice Path varies a lot. If your team already has enough hard lockdown, you should focus on Dual Breath as it's a very potent nuke if both waves hit (they have a 0.3s delay in between the fire and ice wave) with an added slow. If your team is low on Stuns, you should focus on Ice Path as the increased duration and lower cooldown is quite significant (while the damage stays bad).

Liquid Fire is extremely good since its buffs. Free harass without drawing aggro and strong for early tower pushes. Late game it can be used on the enemy carry in teamfights to slow his attack speed.

Macropyre is great AoE damage which messes with enemy positioning on a very low CD.



Early Game Item Choices:

MAGIC WAND: Magic Wand is generally a great item, but if your lane is going well enough and the enemy team doesn't have 'spammy' heroes you might consider going straight for Arcanes/Mek instead.

RING OF BASILIUS: The Ring of Basilius can be picked up during laning if you don't happen to lane with a carry going for a midgame Aquila or Vlad's build. Remember to turn it off until you want your wave to push.



Mid Game Core Item Choices:

ARCANE BOOTS: Arcanes should be the boots of choice, as your skills are all on a rather low cooldown and if you're also carrying the mek you will want to have enough mana at all times.

MEKANSM: Jakiro is a great Mek carrier and unless you have a solo mid or hard laner who can get it earlier, like a Dark Seer, should be acquired as early as possible via stacking and pulling jungle camps or gank/countergank/assist gold. More than one on a team is rarely useful as the aura and the active don't stack.

URN OF SHADOWS: Urn is a rather underused item in lower skill brackets, especially on Support heroes. The +6 STR helps your survivability immensely and the +50% Mana Regen is very handy. The active seals the deal as it can be used to either patch your team up between fights without having to waste the Mek cooldown or to finish off fleeing enemy heroes. Only the Urn closest to an enemy kill gets the charges, so more than one per team rarely makes sense.



Mid Game Situational:

This is where Item Choice gets tough. If you picked up both Mek and Urn, always carry a TP like you should and are also the one support doing all the warding, you'll only have one inventory slot left. Or none if you also have to carry the detection against Invis heroes. You should generally be able get one, or at most two, items off that list, so choose wisely.

PIPE OF INSIGHT: It is rather expensive, but if nobody else wants to build it against a Magical Damage heavy team, you should get it.

VEIL OF DISCORD: Decent stats and a useful active if you have lots of Magical Damage on your team.

EUL'S SCEPTER OF DIVINITY: It is rather situational and I generally pick it up if I need another hard interrupt to stop an enemy from channeling things after I already used Ice Path or if there's no hard stun on the team to set up ganks.

GHOST SCEPTER: Disturbingly underused in lower brackets and can be incredibly important against an enemy carry which can either burst you down or stunlock you (Sniper with MKB on top of Headshot being the worst offender) before you can get off a single ability. The stats are rather nice as well. Can backfire if the enemy has some magical damage nukers that are out to get you due to the damage amplification.

VLADMIR'S OFFERING: It can be very situationally picked up if you already built the Basilius and nobody else is building it for your carry. Except for the HP regen, he'll have all the benefits from it without wasting an inventory slot on it as long as you manage to stay alive.

DRUM OF ENDURANCE: It's just generally a good, slot and gold efficient stats item with a useful Aura and active if nobody else got one.

BLINK DAGGER: is the positioning tool, but it has no buildup and saving up 2150 Gold can be difficult as a support.

FORCE STAFF: *THE* fallback support item if you can't think of anything else you or your team needs. Great utility for every situation.



LUXURY ITEMS:

You will rarely have the spare Gold for one of those unless your team is already winning hard or the game goes very late.

BOOTS OF TRAVEL: Frees up an inventory slot which is worth every Gold if you already have the Mana Pool and regeneration to sustain your skill spam (which you should have at that point of a game unless a silencer stole all your INT).

SCYTHE OF VYSE: One of the best disables Gold can buy (technically Abyssal Blade's active stun is even better, but on top of it being even more expensive I hopefully don't have to explain why building one on a ranged INT support is rather questionable). Get it if you really need another late game hard disable.

SHIVA'S GUARD: Get it if you need to tank it up a bit and for the anti-carry aspect of its aura. The active is quite useful in fights as well.

ORCHID OF MALEVOLENCE: Only slightly cheaper than Scythe of Vyse, but the buildup is a lot easier. Get it if you need to take a BKB/Manta-less caster out of teamfights.

AGHANIM'S SCEPTER: The Macropyre upgrade is rather underwhelming with only a 25% increase in damage and a slightly longer (but not wider) AoE and cast range, but the stats are still good.