Laning Discussion: Bristleback Jungle

This is more of a theory craft, but I still posted it under gnereal discussion with the "hero discussion" and my soon to be more "laning discussion" threads;

So, Bristleback is an extremely strong laner and a powerhouse in the early-mid game. His spammable abilities make him imbossible to manfight or get away from, and he will ONLY DIE if you drain his mana or gang up on him. However, he is traditionally played as an offlaner and occasionally a farming safelaner. This idea, that of the jungle support Bristleback, is a new idea that I was toying around with in my mind, and I decided it actually sounded viable.

The idea is this (only works on dire side); you can get XP and gold off of the pulls at 12-14 (1:13, 2:13, 3:13, etc.) seconds after every minutes, but after doing so you return to the hard camp nearest the dire base. At 53, of course, you aggro the creeps to pull them, but then you run to right beside the trees of the adjacent medium camp, and use Quill Spray at 56 seconds (ideally 55 but I don't think you have time to aggro the hard camp and get to the medium camp trees in two seconds) to pull that camp as well. You continue this process until you have the desired amount of stacks at which time you can clear both of them using Quill Spray while turning your back so as not to take too much damage. In this way, you are not only providing extra XP to someone on your team by not being in their lane, but you are also pulling for your safelaner and making up for it somewhat on the stacks.

For the build I would probably say that you rush Arcane Boots --> Mekansm since you are playing as the support role. If done correctly, using this strategy, you could have mek by 6-7 minutes or mek-arcanes by 9. By minute 7 or 8 you should hit level 6. Not too bad for a support, eh?

So like Io jungle or Keeper of the Light jungle.

I see, it might work.

More like Keeper of the Light, I would say. I'm personally not a huge fan of the Io jungle (probably because I've never been able to do it successfully). However, I feel that this strategy is much less greedy than the Io and KOTL jungle tactics, because you are also pulling during the process, whereas in KOTL jungle this is not occuring.

So you're giving up on a lane powerhouse for petty jungling? Not worth it. Remember, if it works, doesn't mean you have to do it. Dazzle jungle works as well, but involves buying 3 couriers to spam Shadow Wave on them. Imagine if you get caught.


I'd rather have Bristleback disrupt enemy farm than jungle and give my team more XP. With Keeper of the Light, the story is different. He is so easily ganked, it's not even funny. He can also farm faster than Bristleback in the jungle thanks to double stacking with Illuminate if dire, triple if radiant(involves attacking a camp as well). (Don't think it works on the reborn client because they changed spacing and the camp spawn squares).


Point is, if it can lane, let it lane, if it is just a liability / supportish role (runing up hitting twice the offlaner, sometimes casting Chakra Magic, let it jungle and get it's own XP).

You make good points, but what if by jungling you are creating a solo offlane position that is taken by, say, an Undying or Viper or Venomancer which, if used correctly, are even larger lane dominators.

If you're Chain-Pulling, then you're making your Safe Laner suffer. It's okay to Farm the Pull Camp at 00:30 if you can clear it before 1:00, but the Pull Camp needs to be there to balance out the Lane. If you chain pull, you're just making it easy for the Offlaner to sit nearby and leech much more Exp than they should ever get (they're getting Exp from your Lane Creeps AND the Pull Camp).

Considering Bristle can't really fight off someone higher leveled than him early on (it won't take long for you and your Safe Laner to get outleveled by the Offlaner), your plan actually helps the other Team more than your Team...if their Offlaner knows what they're doing.

The thing is, with a Jungling Bristleback, you're going to get outleveled by the other Team's Cores...so you're not going to be much us in Ganks or Teamfights. Keeper of the Light does not care if he's outleveled, and he can support more independant Laners that can harrass by Spamming Nukes like Luna, Phantom Lancer, etc. with the help of Chakra Magic, so he can balance presence in the Lane with Stacking and Clearing Camps.

Well, you can Jungle Io that way, but you don't need to Pulls to make it work.

Play Video

This ^ is the closest video I can find (it doesn't use Mid Range Spirits + Right Clicks, but it's not hard to imagine that part), but the way to do it is to stack up on Claritys, using Long Range Spirits to Stack, and Clear Camps quickly. You can switch

At lvl1:-

Spirits do 8 Damage to Creeps every time a Spirit touches them.
All 5 Spirits complete 1 revoloution every 2.3 seconds regardless of how far they are from Io
The Spirits' duration is 19 seconds

5 * 8 / 2.3 == 17.4 DPS

17.4 * 19 == 330 Damage every time you use Spirits

...and that's just at lvl1

Having said that, Satyr Tormentors and Centaur Conquerors have 1100HP, so it can take a while to clear them (hence why I recommend using Mid Range Spirits, so you can Right Click the tougher Creeps down).

Bristleback isn't a solo offlaner anymore, or at least he shouldn't be. He benefits too much from farm and levels, and suffers too much when doesn't get them to be a solo offlaner.

Otherwise I agree with the statement that you are actually helping the enemy team more, because you fall behind, and Bristle wants to be on a somewhat even level of farm as enemy cores, or ahead so he can keep spamming quil's and building warpath stacks to deal massive damage.

You benefit more from just sticking him in the safe lane as a 1 position, and then having a conventional 4 position stack and pull.

I think you misunderstood me. The pulls are not necessary every minute. I was saying that perhaps you could do a stack pull in the first minute, but then only pull when the lane is being pushed up too far. Just like an Io jungle, the pulls are NOT neessary to make it work.



Again, I don't believe this is true. By jungling the Bristleback, you are creating a 2-1-1 as far as laning, so your safelaner will have a dedicated support with him. If the support is doing his job, then the offlaner will remain zoned and suffer.

That is dependent on the offlaner in particular. If they pick a Tidehunter or a Centaur Warrunner say, you can't zone them with a single hero. Not even Skywrath Mage, because you buy 8-12 tangoes, and you simply have more HP than he has mana to burn it with.

And thus they get faster level progression, probably faster item progression, and thus are further ahead than they should be.

Also, you have made there other lanes better, because they have a support duo that can rotate and you don't. Like, you will struggle to put pressure on the map, and the enemy can abuse this.

I mean again, in the right level of pubs it can probably work. But that's because everything works in pubs, and generally greedy **** doesn't get punished like it should. Because this is incredibly greedy.

And I still think it's just better to have a 1 position bristleback, and then have an actual traditional jungler instead.

1 position Bristleback is definitely better. I don't dispute that. However, I think that in the situation where there is a zonable offlaner as well as weaker enemy supports as far as ganking, this bristle tactic could be EXTREMELY potent. If you make your arc boots and mek timing then it would be possible to push safely and thus take better control of the map. You could also make very strong ganks after Mekansm, or even before (as the kills will help you to farm it), since all Bristleback needs to get kills early game is 5 or 6 casts of Quill Spray