Bloodseeker, A Support?

After 6.84, like Techies (except one game where an ally thought it was a good idea to run techies against Spectre) and Charles ( Leshrac), Bloodseeker just disappeared, because his thirst overbuff, which was the only part of him that was overpowered, got nerfed down to worse than it was before 6.83, and he lost his ability to mid because of this.

I picked him for the first time since 6.83, I played him as a support in the jungle (really poorly, I ended up roaming and healing my allies in their lanes). Turns out he's actually kind of useful in this role, keeping his allies healed with usage of bloodrage while they farm, and is good if you pair him with some big burst damage cores, and in the case of my game, it was my friend on Sven (easy ultra kill), and the Zeus that was berating me for being underleveled as a solo support. Any cores that are reliant on their movement are actually countered pretty hard by Rupture too, which worked out, because I managed to kill the Anti-Mage on the enemy team twice. Blood Rite also rocks in teamfights without BS putting himself in danger to cast it. In this particular game, I went for Vlads, because lifesteal was good on 2 of my cores.

I am not a regular Bloodseeker player however, so people who play him more, do you think this is the new best way to play him? As a support, healing your allies, helping their burst, and starting teamfights? Or the older way of making speed and damage items so he can get kills and gain momentum and carry the game?

Or is the hero unplayable no matter what you do?

Support BS was a thing in like 6.83 for a while.

The issue is that he's really greedy in a support role, because he has to be a passive jungler till level 6, because he brings almost nothing to his team before that save like Bloodrage buffs, but those are rarely worth it in the laning stage.

And a passive jungler right now is just awful. Even aggresive junglers are awful right now, because it applies too much pressure on your lanes.

I guess in like super gimmicky global strats it could work, very situationallly.

The hero just needs some buffs. Since the absurdity is gone, now he just needs something else to make him pickable.

I love how these things I've been suggesting since 6.82 were ignored and now someone else is saying it like it's new and being discussed. Yes, it works. Yes, it's very greedy. No, it's not good in this meta.

It was attempted when Bloodseeker was reworked, but IIRC the verdict was "meh". Hardly anything changed since that time really.

Unfortunately it's just not really that useful:

+ Self heal and extra damage for your core(s) while they're farming, if you're around
+ Good AOE silence/nuke once levelled
+ Global tracking/vision of enemies on low health
+ BKB busting Ult that can be quite nasty on melee cores

- Very level dependent for a support
- Speed/damage boost from Thirst not that useful without items, and is unreliable
- Minimal harassment/lane presence, or ganking power before 6
- Bloodrage extremely strong but situational, can easily get your allies killed as help them
- No stun or slow ( Rupture...kind of?)

I'd suggest he's probably more useful as an offlaner - can sustain well if not in danger of being killed outright, use Blood Rite to adjust lane equilibrium...quite tanky early on. Still, no reliable escape, slow base movement, not a particularly good play maker. It's hard to see where he fits in again at the moment.