Go With The Flow: Redefining Bloodseeker

I made an account just so I could give you props on this guide. For the record, I hate the bludskya. Both your prose and your advice are excellent. From your build and advice you can tell that either you are an expert or have watched one. Really. It's perfect. People are probably complaining because they died when they failed to follow it to a t and died. Bloodseeker's stats just seem to suck so badly throughout the whole game and the advice to pick up stats before maxing Q is great because by the time you pick up the 4th level of Q at lvl 25 you have that much more base agility from the +stats to really make it hurt. Only thing is I picked up Q at level 4, instead of 7, to help sustain earlier. Which you made concession for in case of heavy harass but it helps with less, how you say, talented? people as well. Between level 4 and level 7 went by pretty quickly on the match that I finally won with him though so it didn't seem to make much difference. Maybe it'd been better if I'd waited.

Probably because Valve implemented him into the game? Why do you ask?

Why does such a hero exists??

You miss some pretty key factors about Bloodseeker as a whole and his kit. First and foremost, as others have mentioned, you do not address the need to counter Town Portal Scroll you will loose many kills to this laps in judgement and Skull Basher is an easy fix to the problem but Monkey King Bar is better if you have a strong flow of cash.

You choose to forgo leveling Thirst in favor of blood bath which has a relatively significant impact to your game play and your team's game play. Ultimately during the first 7 minutes of the game (roughly when you should reach level 7) you will only be getting creep kills (not so much hero kills) and during that time the melee creeps will only provide you with 55/82/110 hp and the ranged creeps provide less at 30/45/60. I can see where you are coming from with this tactic as when you hit level 5 you can essentially instantly receive the health a single tango would provide by killing a melee creep. However, you have to consider that you are most likely contending for last hits with at least one enemy hero and they, if they are smart, will be harassing the **** out of you. The whole "ignore the enemy hero and focus last hits" to maintain your health pool works in some match ups but not in others. For example it works well against a Zeus, Skywrath Mage, or Sniper but it is only mediocre against Queen of Pain, Pugna, or Necrophos and is completely trash against Lone Druid, Viper, or Tinker. Each level of Thirst, after level 1 which is only 5 dmg, also grants an additional 10 dmg per charge which is just shy of 2 free Blades of Attack at level 2 (hero level 3), that when combined with the bonus move speed, if you have couriered yourself Boots of Speed, of 52.5 (a free extra pair of Boots of Speed) will allow you in most cases to get a kill on the mid hero by diving them or at least driving them out of farming range. Also, chances are you can combine this tower dive with when one of your side, or other, lanes has one or two heroes harassed to below 50% (btw the information for Thirst on dotafire is not accurate see: Dota wiki) giving you a total of roughly 30-45 bonus damage (that is equivalent to a free Mithril Hammer or Demon Edge) and 52 to 157 bonus (total of 402-507 with Boots of Speed) move speed at level 3 for a quick dive/kill. When considering this you have to remember that the average hero has 500-600 health at level 3 means that 2 charges of Thirst grants you enough damage to take about 4%-5% more of their health per hit (total increase of 50% to your base dmg) and 3 charges would be 6%-7% (total increase of 72% of your base damage). This advantage could even get you an early kill on a Viper which is important if you want to beat that hero in lane. Level 3 Thirst is even more powerful once you hit level 5 because each charge is a free Mithril Hammer's worth of damage.

What you really have to remember is Bloodseeker is a killer not a farmer.

As far as blood rage goes you should have 1 level by level 3-4 depending on how committed you are to leveling Thirst, you should really have 1 level by lvl 4. This is a quick and dirty way to give 120 (90 after average magic resistance) to an enemy as harassment and it most likely only grants them 10 bonus damage so it shouldn't hinder your ability to last hit and keep the effect on them, the silence also allows you to safely tower dive against most every hero.

I also don't like the fact that you don't emphasize the need for agility on this hero. This is extremely important because blood rage's +120% damage is only boosted by additional agility (not raw damage), that's roughly 2.2 bonus damage when you are raged per each point of agility (this would mean getting a Manta Style would get you 57 bonus damage when raged. You also don't mention Manta Style in your items. The synergies with every part of Bloodseeker's kit is crazy, it provides health, agi, move speed, attack speed, and a very powerful utility activation. Getting more agility also boosts how much dmg your illusions do.

Your game play is about spot on but your skills need some work. As with every hero skill build is extremely versatile and needs to be situational depending on the heroes you are up against. Such as blood rage you want to keep it at level 1 if you are needing to silence enemies (especially carries) a lot but you would want to max it before lvl 16 if you have the ability to really buff a teammate that is built around their base stat ( Sven) or yourself. Also, Thirst is your most powerful skill for chases, ganking, and detecting careless enemies farming off screen).

Very nicely written guide, well articulated ideas. i love how you have put a lot of emphasis in actually explaining how to fight and move during the game, rather than the guides that solely justify skill and item builds, but give no advice in actually playing the hero.

I definetely agree with the comments insisting the pickup of a poor mans shield. it's too good to pass up. And i generally prefer to build a wraith band and a basher over a sange and yasha.

What could be good is to perhaps include a best friends & worst enemies section. It's very helpful for players trying to decide when to chose bloodseeker, and when to avoid picking him.
For example, with my favorite hero at the moment being Phoenix, i find bloodseeker really screws with me (cant dive, and Phoenix always finds himself on low hp, giving bloodseeker a nice advantage).

Also perhaps a little bit of colour, some pictures, and hyperlinking items/heroes you are talking about would make the large amount of text much easier to digest, just a thought.

An excellent guide. +1 from me.

I always wondered why any agility hero would make Sange and Yasha when they can make the much more efficient Drum of Endurance + Yasha + Orb of Venom. Or simply Yasha + Orb of Venom because BS doesn't really need HP or mana pool from the drum. I mean SnY isn't horrible but it's more like an item for strength heroes.

Please add Skull Basher to the "absolute must" list : BS can't break town portal scrolls. Being a chasing hero is completely useless if your targets can simply TP out.

The first controversial part of this guide is that it mentions Sange and Yasha as a core item, implying that it should be purchased in most games while the item itself is quite underwhelming because of a rather weak passive and mediocre stats, and unlike other heroes like Chaos Knight, Bloodseeker is not the best Heaven's Halberd + Manta Style carrier.

The second part is that you put stats over Bloodrage, and while you do mention in the guide that you CAN get more points, your build rather discourages it.

Also,



This will most likely be false in decently coordinated play, as Bloodseeker has no escapes and is an excellent gank target because of this. If you're one of those kind of people who only get the value point in Bloodrage exclusively to use it as a silence, then you would still be better off getting that value point earlier to keep yourself safe.

Why do you prefer stats over Bloodrage? I mean, a 120% boost to your damage is good, right?

Generally well written, it reads well. As noted, could use some more colour and linking to spruce up the appearance a bit. Have a look at Dr D's guide to formatting.

On the actual build, I'd suggest generally getting Bloodrage at level 2 over Thirst - the long silence and damage can be pretty handy to secure/escape a gank. Half decent players aren't generally going to give you Thirst stacks this early anyway.

The other big miss is a Poor Man's Shield early on - it's not expensive (300g upgrade), but does a lot for both your damage block and damage. I'd also say you should consider early Black King Bar/ Skull Basher/ Eul's Scepter of Divinity along with your S&Y.

I think you need to address a bit the other two key BS issues - picking the right enemies to lane against (you dominate some, are dominated by others), and how to deal with Town Portal Scrolls - your Nemesis...

Consider a Skull Basher instead of s&y. It lets you scale better into lategame with an Abbysal Blade. Also consider Butterfly and Ethereal Blade. You can amplify your base damage by 120%! Oh and remember NEVER EVER silence a Morphling. 8{P

Nice guide bro :)) but one advice here .. It is a biig wall of text, so for the love of dotafire please format it a little bit. at least use * so it links to the database, use colors, bold, italic and text spacing.. it is interesting if you read but 90% of the readers dont like unformatted texts ..

P.S. This is only an advice, write as u wish :))

Great Guide man!

Just a thought - maybe you should mention how the uses of Bloodrage differ depending on which level it is? You can use it to silence casters in the beginning, but at the max level it gives you a mind-bending 120% plus damage, not something you'd wanna give over to the opposing Sven :P

Valar