Failed badly at Kunkka...

What the title says. I could blame the headache that emerged halfway through the game for my extremely bad play, but I also want to know some Kunkka initiation techniques (other than X-Torrent), and when or when not to use the Ghostship.

1. Pick Kunkka
2. Get a Dark Seer
3. Ghost Ship + Torrent + Vacuum
4. ???
5. Profit.


Pretty much, get some good initiation heroes such as Naga Siren and Dark Seer they work very well with our lovely Kunkka.

If I do not have initiation partners, like in my failed game, is there any way to guarantee a good torrent-boat?

The enemy being unaware, probably stay back when the fight starts and use your combo when they don't think about you.

Kunkka is great at harassing in the lane phase with tidebringer but bad at finishing off an enemy. So one approach is to get a partner that can help by stunning and nuking the enemy once you weaken them and chew through their regen items.

You are also better against a melee carry because of tidebringer. Your goal is to slow down an enemy melee carry early game and have a solid team fight mid to late game.

IMO

Learn to land the Torrent.If you land a torrent after 1-2 hits in lane with Tidebringer, at level 6, you have an ensured kill. Torrent + ghost ship is OP.

Kunkka is currently my most played and best played (According to the performance bar...)! I was making a guide for him, but it's hard to find time to complete it. Here are some tips I can offer:

1. Start your laning phase off with a splash, and splash as often as possible. Don't only splash on last hits. The more splashes, the more harass, the better.

2. After 7 when farming a wave try to limit yourself to 4 attacks or less. If you splash to last hit the first creep of the wave, the next two will normally lose HP at roughly the same rate. So hit one of them an additional time (The one taking damage from your ranged creep). Then last hit it. Your splash will be up now, and you can splash the 3rd melee creep, which will also kill the ranged creep for the first 20 minutes of the game or so. Not doing the 3rd attack (Non splash) will cause you to miss one CS per wave because of Kunkkas poor attack speed.

3. Go early game build. I normally lane Kunkka, and I go a casual perserverance, which goes into linkens later. Without consistent bottle charges, you're out of mana after one combo. With Kunkkas low CD spells, you need mana regen and you can spam boats, which should consistently win big team fights.

4. Predict if you're going to land a torrent. If you're going to land it, throw boat on top of the torrent. From the stun/slow of torrent, it's easy to land boats.

5. Max X. Don't let it sit at level 2. The range increase is too valuable.

6. If you catch a hero out of position, use your full combo on them in a team fight. Here is the combo (You have to max X to use it this way): XmtS the hero (It has 900 range). Cast torrent on the X (You should still be 900 range away). Boat on the X (It travels 1000 range, so will land slightly behind them, but will usually land). Mash the **** out of "E" (Or whatever "Return hero to X" is set to for you). Splash off of something.

7. Splash does damage based on what type of unit you're attacking. It has nothing to do with base armor of the target, but only the type of armor. The highest splash damage will come from splashing off of siege units, then ranged creeps, then melee, then heroes (Depends on your "state", like if you're invis or anything). Here are some notes I have from practice mode using Phase, SB, Crit, and no crit. It lists the items, what I splashed off of, and the damage done:

Hitting with Phase, and shadowblade (Not activated)


Siege
[16:47.60] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 264 damage (1651->1387).
[16:47.60] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 264 damage (2164->1900).
[16:47.60] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 264 damage (1442->1178).
[16:47.60] Kunkka hits Siege Creep for 132 damage (500->368).

Melee
[16:53.10] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 262 damage (1401->1139).
[16:53.10] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 262 damage (1947->1685).
[16:53.10] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 262 damage (1191->929).
[16:53.10] Kunkka hits Melee Creep for 233 damage (550->317).

Range
[16:59.47] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 260 damage (1156->896).
[16:59.47] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 260 damage (1739->1479).
[16:59.47] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 260 damage (944->684).
[16:59.47] Kunkka hits Ranged Creep for 260 damage (300->40).

Hit AM, splash onto KOTL/DK
[17:05.70] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 259 damage (912->653).
[17:05.70] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 259 damage (1531->1272).
[17:05.70] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage for 139 damage (698->559).

Hit DK, splash onto KOTL/AM
[17:10.86] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 259 damage (667->408).
[17:10.86] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 259 damage (571->312).
[17:10.86] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight for 101 damage (1315->1214).




Hitting with Phase, and Shadowblade (Activated)


Siege
[19:58.96] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[20:01.06] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 406 damage (1651->1245).
[20:01.06] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 406 damage (2164->1758).
[20:01.06] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 406 damage (1442->1036).
[20:01.06] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[20:01.06] Kunkka hits Siege Creep for 203 damage (500->297).

Melee
[20:08.15] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[20:08.99] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 412 damage (1266->854).
[20:08.99] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 412 damage (1826->1414).
[20:08.99] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 412 damage (1054->642).
[20:08.99] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[20:08.99] Kunkka hits Melee Creep for 367 damage (550->183).

Range
[20:17.72] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[20:18.65] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 414 damage (879->465).
[20:18.65] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 414 damage (1495->1081).
[20:18.65] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 414 damage (664->250).
[20:18.65] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[20:18.65] Kunkka hits Ranged Creep for 414 damage.

Hit KOTL, splash DK/AM
[21:32.97] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[21:34.73] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 413 damage (2164->1751).
[21:34.73] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 413 damage (1442->1029).
[21:34.73] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[21:34.73] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light for 265 damage (1651->1386).

Hit DK, splash KOTL/AM
[21:39.97] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[21:40.87] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 407 damage (1402->995).
[21:40.87] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 407 damage (1043->636).
[21:40.87] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[21:40.87] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight for 159 damage (1663->1504).

Hit AM, splash KOTL/DK
[21:42.60] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[21:45.70] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 411 damage (1008->597).
[21:45.70] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 411 damage (1544->1133).
[21:45.70] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[21:45.70] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage for 221 damage (646->425).

[23:33.10] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[23:34.47] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 407 damage (1651->1244).
[23:34.47] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 407 damage (2164->1757).
[23:34.47] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 407 damage (1442->1035).
[23:34.47] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[23:34.47] Kunkka hits Wisp for 407 damage (473->66).



Hitting with phase, crit, shadowblade (Activated with crit proc)

Siege
[36:19.46] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[36:20.80] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 966 damage (1778->812).
[36:20.80] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 966 damage (1195->229).
[36:20.80] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 966 damage (982->16).
[36:20.80] Kunkka loses Shadow Walk buff.
[36:20.80] Kunkka hits Siege Creep for 483 damage (500->17).

Melee
[34:51.63] Kunkka receives Shadow Walk buff from Kunkka.
[34:52.70] Kunkka hits Dragon Knight with Tidebringer for 963 damage (2163->1200).
[34:52.70] Kunkka hits Keeper of the Light with Tidebringer for 963 damage (1651->688).
[34:52.70] Kunkka hits Anti-Mage with Tidebringer for 963 damage (1442->479).

Also, I normally go phase, pers, SB, crit, linkens. It depends on the game, but that's a pretty solid build I've found for public games.

*Cough
Shadow Demon

If I may add... This is because cleave damage does not get reduced by armor, I believe it only gets reduced on the main target.(last part might be wrong).

You are correct! If I splashed a Razor by hitting a DK, then splashed a Razor by hitting a CM... Razor would take the same damage. However the CM would take significantly more damage than DK because armor is taken into account for the damage that is splashed off of.