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A little late but someone might read this so I'll throw my 2 cents in:

You max bash first, always. The reason is simple and I'll give 2 scenarios with brown boots only.

Charge maxed first (4/1/1/1 at 7): charge plus ultimate combo does

Charge bash: 36 damage with 2.4 second stun
Ultimate damage: 36 damage plus 150 from ultimate with a 1 second stun.

Total: 222 damage (magical) and 3.4 possible seconds of stun

Bash maxed first (1/1/4/1): charge plus ultimate combo does

Charge: 144 damage with a 1.6 second stun
Ultimate damage: 144 damage plus 150 damage from ultimate with a 1.6 second stun.

Total: 438 damage (magical) and 3.2 possible seconds of stun.




You're giving up almost 220 damage at level 7 to charge faster and gain 0.2 seconds of stun. Any extra bashes also give up an additional 108 damage.

Maxing charge second I agree with unless your team needs mobility, but bash first is too strong. What makes SB able to support is being tanky, able to initiate, and doing pretty decent magic damage without items. Few heroes have that initiation/damage/tanky/disable combination with nothing(really Magnus, but he needs a blink dagger to do it as reliably)

His huge buff (before his nerf) was bash applying to charge of darkness. Actually that's my biggest gripe with SB, all of his scaling comes from bash.

hi.

i didnt play him as pure support yet. most of the time something "in between" as i wanted to stick a bit to current builds, however with everyone insisting on playing carry in pubs (whether they know how to play or not) i finished playing him as some kind of gank-carry-bastard ;-)

i was thinking a bit about the pure support build and about you all discussing which of the 2 skills to max first.....bash or charge!?
and honestly....regarding pure support, starting "real" ganks around the 13-15min mark....i would rather tend to put the first 2 points in charge&bash and then max "empowered haste". as everybody said, both bash & charge dont scale that well early on. empowered haste gives at least 18% speed (plus extra dmg to SB). carries should get their boots quite early and given you're starting ganks around 14-15min in pubs you should be near boots+urn at that time, too. in that case you'll have all of your members run for a good amount faster than the enemy even early on already. 1lvl charge is enough early on and bash you'd only need to "charge-bash" everything in your way when charging, so 1point should be enough there, too!

my 2 cents according on how i experience (low lvl) pubs are played these days

Pressed publish again, is it visible for you now? I could see it all along so i don't know what has happened there.

^the alterantive skill build is not visible, maybe you didn't press the "publish" button (or something)?

First of all thank you. As for the skill build I added a separate tab to show the possible build for maxing CoD first as both skill builds are equally viable and both have their strengths and weaknesses. I agree with you about moving Vlad's to situational and Urn to core but I would still say that Drum is a situational item. I have slightly edited the guide to reflect some of these ideas.

Not true, Vladmir's Offering offers much more than Melee Lifesteal, it offers Bonus Damage and Armour (and Mana Regen, but that's not too important). The Armour is always useful no matter the lineup. As for the Bonus Damage, consider Ranged Heroes who increase their Base Damage by building Stat Items instead of straight up Damage Items, e.g. Luna or Drow Ranger with Manta Style and Butterfly, that 15% Base Damage Bonus can hurt a LOT Late Game.

Also, I wouldn't make Drum of Endurance a Core Item since there is probably someone else hihger up the food chain who will build one early on anyway, and some Mid Heroes like to build Urn of Shadows so that is Situational too imo.

nice guide!
as said b4, id max Charge of Darkness and EMPOWERING HASTE before Greater Bash and just take one level in it, as this is a support guide. While doing so i'd also consider grabbing Arcane Boots if going mek. Also Vladimir's Offering should be listed as a situational item instead of core, and move Urn of Shadows and Drum of Endurance into core cuz vlads will only work if your team has 3 or so melees.

Yeah, I suppose it comes down to how you prioritize the extra Stun, the Damage and the Movement Speed. Greater Bash first is always an option, but I believe the extra Stun is needed 1st and foremost.

The fun thing about DOTA is that there's always more than one way to skill a Hero <3

Returned the skill build to its original form and have added a separate skill build tab for maxing charge first.

@dynasty987 I thought that at first but after some thinking, really due to your role being focused on ganks, it would be more useful to get to a lane quicker and to stun for longer with your Charge. I may change it so that greater bash is maxed second because, like you said, the extra damage and stun is excellent.

@Xyrus

I still think that maxing greater bash first is the most sensible option for ganking. Given that both his charge and his ult apply a greater bash, the extra damage is excellent. Charge of darkness doesn't scale that well with points so can be left at level 1 until the other two are maxed out, in my opinion.

Altered the skill build to reflect Xyrus' suggestions.