Bounty Hunter - The Off Laner.

Live saving guide bro..I finally understand what you meant after playing a few rounds. Off laning is fun after you get your ulti and the item build is perfect! Thanks!

When I go BH, I put two lvls into shurikan at lvls 3 and 4 because it really is only effective early-mid game when everyone is farming and laning. the damage doubles from lvl1-lvl2 whereas the

At lvl 2 it is a 200 dmg nuke, enough to kill heroes that have one bar of health left in a chase.

after it hits lvl 2 I leave it alone and max jinada, taking a lvl in track at 6, putting an extra point in invis, then coming back to max shurikan out.

At later lvls its only really use is channel canceling or chipping a supports health before engaging.

***Whoever said they like to urn bounty hunter, I completely agree with you on grabbing urn early. It helps your mana problems better than RoB imo and since you will be ganking a lot, you will always have charges for it. My teams always thank me for urn heals.

***To the OP: Why no mention of perseverance? It's a great item that solves BH's mana issues, gives a nice regen (bad gank? invis away and regen for a bit), and +10 dmg which makes this a good all around pick up.

I agree with everyone about Jinada maxed first.

here's the breakdown:
Jinada lvl 4 with lvl8 bh = about 69-83 dmg/hit averaging out to 76dmg lvl 1 jinada/12 sec is then 190 dmg while lvl 4 is 247dmg every 6 seconds.

this means that just 3 skill points into jinada gives your a considerable amount of extra dmg and not to mention the extra slow for more auto attacks

at lvl 8
lvl 1 jinada = 190 dmg/12
lvl 4 jinada = 247 dmg/6 = 494 dmg/12

thats about 300 extra dmg every 12 seconds not to include the extra auto attacks from the extra slow

lvl 1 shuriken = 100 dmg/10 seconds
lvl 4 shuriken = 325 dmg/10 seconds

3 skill points = 225 extra dmg every 10 seconds and 65 extra mana used a toss (at lvl 8 you only have about 300 mana total, thats less than 2 throws especially when considering invis costs)

now looking at the reductions jinada is physical and toss is magical when bh is lvl 8 the other team's support should be about lvl 6 and on average they have 3 or less armor (naked) and that equates to 15% physic DR compared to the 25% magic DR

with that lvl 4 jinada would do 210 dmg a hit and 420 dmg/12 seconds after average armor
compare that to lvl 4 shuriken toss that does 243.75 dmg/10 seconds after magic armor

and after a bit you should have a deso and bam you are doing even more bonus dmg off of jinada

this is a simple open and close case as to which skill is better to lvl 1st.

my build at lvl 3 0/2/1/0 (or 0/1/2/0 if i'm being harassed), lvl 4 0/2/2/0, lvl 5 0/3/2/0, lvl 6 0/3/2/1, lvl 8 is 1/4/2/1

as a bonus the deso and vlads combo can allow you to solo rosh as soon as 10 min (thats insane farm though, my earliest was 15 min)

First off, I want to start by saying I love this guide. Used it to get my team to late more often than not, so for that, +1.

I do have a question though, since the recent "nerf" to BH, the armor reduction removed from track, do you still think he's a strong hero? Would going for a quicker medallion after boots, bottle and ring be a good idea? I don't want to give up on BH, he's my favorite hero/off-laner. Just wondering what you think about the armor reduction removal.

You don't need urn, you build Tranquil Boots if you're getting harassed a lot then dissemble it into items to make vlads. If you need mana, drums of endurance and Ring of Basilius will suffice.

I like this build and completely agree with you that BH is not a hard carry at all and should always be solo off laning since that gives your team the advantage to trilane hard or babysit a lategame carry and have a strong jungler. Something like hard carry/babysitter safe lane, non ganker mid lane, initiator/team fight jungler (like enigma), BH off laner as a ganker as soon as u have track.

What do you feel about having a Urn of Shadows early game ? I've found it a great item that gives you some survivability, mana regen and it is great to kill supports that try to flee your combo behind towers. Of course the charges make you a great healer since you can windwalk next to your carry and urn him in case of emergency. I usually don't get basilius as I find Urn gives me enough mana early on but of course it is a must if going for quick Vlads for team fights.

I normally go PMS > Urn > PowerTreads > Wand > Desolator but will try it with phase boots

+1 from me nice guide and good explanation of items and skills.

You should be able to grab CS against a solo safelaner, but it's viable (in fact, the most common competitive skillbuild) to max Jinada at 7. You also don't see competitive BH's often get two levels of shadow walk before maxed Jinada/Toss, nor do they max toss before Jinada due to mana issues. I'm fine with the skillbuild, it works, it's just not the objective best.

And you must not be keeping up with your competitive Dota -- I've seen at least 5 shadow blade BHs in the last week and I only watch maybe 1/3rd of the matches.

To ensure more cs?, Bounty hunter's animation is fine and so is damage, you should not have a problem cs'ing without jinada. Shuriken gives you much better early game potential and the mini-stun is an added bonus. I've never seen a shadow blade pick up in competitive matches and thus have not considered it as an option.

You max Jinada to ensure yourself more CS.

Also, no shadow blade?

I've only ever seen jinada maxxed once during high level games and shuriken 10+.

well MKB is pretty expensive, at lower levels Deso is better because most heroes dont have much armor and not only you benefit from the -armor from deso, everyone in your team hits harder, you can also push towers alot faster

Maxing jinada is what the Pros do actually (watch iG.YYF), you really dont have the mana pool to spam Shuriken even with bottle, Jinada is just more reliable and the CD decrease every level makes it really good, I just find that you cant really throw shurikens every gank especially if you dont get the rune

You really have no justification for your statement yet i have justified my statement with five points found in the introduction. It's clear you're not into the competitive scene as Track giving out advantages in even teamfights is almost always talked about by casters.