Quote:
Originally Posted by Russell Wilson
I usually play BS mid and build him as a tanky race car. (4.3k solo) His win % on dotabuff reflects his strength this patch. I start stout shield (pms if needed) quelling, aquila, (sometimes wand) treads/phase (treads better for fighting, phase is better to phase through stuff with 700 ms). Blademail has synergy with the bloodrage and is good against some lineups. Drums/S&Y > bkb if needed. Luxury is bfly/abyssal/skadi/mkb. You won't be able to stand up to true hard carries late, but you can through the mid game and you should also get a farm advantage since the hero farms v. fast, ganks well, and cleans up fights.
All of his abilities are good, especially thirst after the recent buff. You have bonus move speed and damage throughout the game now. Max thirst first. You hard counter weaver, slark, AM, sort of QoP.
His W is good for forcing enemies to move and can turn teamfights if you hit a few targets who over-committed or got disabled.
His steroid has lots of uses. Note that with a few levels its duration is longer than the CD. cast it on creeps in lane if you are taking tons of harass. you can trade hits and crush lots of people mid due to your heal and dmg and MS. You can cast it on an ally and yourself. You can buff a zeus or lina, etc. You can cast it on yourself and an enemy so they take double dmg from you and you get double the heal. (also works to heal from an ancient.)
Rupture is extremely strong against many heroes.
I've also seen people start eul's and dagon for more of a utility nuker role. You do so much dmg that people can't tp. The Ms and Tp interrupt and infinite mana from euls is decent. I want to try this build myself, but it seems like my team always has plenty of nukes. You can lane him flexibly and jungle with no tangoes if you use quelling to burrow into the trees. (you start quelling stout 2 branches)
just to add my own opinion: don't get aquila, don't get drums. Almost always get stick/wand. Treads is practically always better than phase. Phase can be good against a team with a lot of summons, like you don't want furion treants blocking your ****. Mjollnir tends to be really good in most games, it shreds supports who can't buy bkb, and you don't even need to hit them.
don't max thirst first. You almost always want to max blood rite first, it's really strong for team fights if you place it well. I usually go 1-4-2-1 by 8.
Something I've learned from experience: Rupture is not very good against qop. Her blink is 1300 range, and if any target moves more than 1300 distance within 0.25s, rupture will deal 0 dmg. I've found qops blink tping from my ruptures so often that I've just stopped casting it on them. However, it's very good against blink dagger and antimage blink, both of which are less than 1300 range.
Last edited by Dr. Wily; 05-28-2015 at 04:01 AM.