Deathball Lineup Involving a Position 4 Ursa

So guys I know dont be a greedy jungler and all that stuff.

But think about it guys. Ursa doesnt need an incredibly fast 7 min Blink Dagger. You can get Blink on him at the 15 minute mark with almost as much of an impact. I am thinking of putting him in the jungle and play him like a ganking position 4. Basically like a 4th core! Pair him with a Position 1/5 with a stun or slow and he can gank lanes. I was thinking in some sort of a deathball lineup pairing him with heroes like Shadow Shaman and Dragon Knight.

Alright I've set up a line up for this:

#1 Lone Druid/ Anti-Mage
#2 Dragon Knight
#3 Phoenix/ Clockwerk
#4 Ursa
#5 Shadow Shaman

First up, I was thinking for a carry fit for early pushing and can survive ****ty lanes with the Shadow Shaman support. LD could get CS relatively safely, but I figured that he cant utilise aegis if the immortal very well if the enemy targets the bear and nit the hero, so I suppose Anti-Mage can be used as a Pos 1 replacement although he will contest farm harder than Lone Druid.

Second I think of Dragon Knight because he can push towers quickly and has a stun that Ursa can use when he is ganking. Maybe he can be replaced with good ol' Viper in this case because he utilise Aegis better than DK. Not Razor I think, Ursa will get kited if he ganks mid since Razor lacks movement impairing abilities. E: And Razor's Pushing Power comes online later than DK's. So yea, maybe Viper and Razor but I would prefer Dragon Knight.

EDIT: I think Silencer can be placed as a Pos 1/2 here, the Global Silence would indeed be very helpful and he's not a very bad Aegis holder.

Third I was thinking Phoenix. I have a lot of tanky cores, so why not? He can sow chaos in the battlefield while my tanky cores distract the enemy. They will give time for th egg to deal damage, in addition to him getting Mekansm as core item. Other choices would be Clockwerk and Beastmaster.

Fourth is Ursa, the big one. With Shadow Shaman as support he can gank lanes without much fear of kiting. He's going to build Morbid Mask (Could buy Orb of Venom before) p, boots, Blink Dagger, Solar Crest, maybe vladimir's offering. As I said, he dont need a record breaking Blink Dagger timing and his supposedly Pos1 farm could be given to another Pos1. Jungle, gank lane, take Rosh, push towers.

Fifth would be Shadow Shaman, a support that would fit the strategy. He has great lockdowns that would benefit Ursa very well and his ultimate would quicken tower pushing. Problem is hes not very defensive if a support so my safelane will be a bit harder, but it wont matter because my Ursa can gank the lane as early as level 2 <2 mins.

So there you have it guys, unconventional I know, but it might just work! This strat gives the Aegis of the Immortal+Tower Advantage. However one weakness I find in this draft is that taking Roshan is so easy these days since every support get Medallion of Courage to take Roshan early, but I want to know you guys' opinions on the draft. Besides, with DFire so quiet lately you guys have no choice but comment here Kappa

Ha! I choose not to comment! :P

But seriously, I think the farm might be a tad bit too contested with the ursa. There are heroes who can play as a ganking 4th with insanely more utility (IMO). Can't remember any from the top of my head but I'm sure others have some heroes in mind.

Do they gave what Ursa gave though?

In this build he offers:
-A quick, early Roshan (Aegis Advantage)
-Winning his safelane
-A farm independent fourth core <-- Biggest One

I suppose one can argue that the first point doesnt really matter with supports getting Medallion every game. On the third, I suppose he dont give much utility, and that might be the draft's biggets problem. But The Pos 3 is a utility Position a lot of times, perhaps I dont need any more.

There are several problems with a Position 4 Jungling Ursa, if you don't wanna read the rant below, here's the summary:-

You're underfarmed, inefficient at Ganking, easily Ganked, have no way of recovering and bring 0 Utility to your Team.

---

1) Ursa needs to Snowball

This is the biggest flaw with Position 4 Ursa ^ .

You're making the game considerably harder by crippling his Farm. He is not Enigma, he can't Jungle very fast and worst of all, Jungling makes him very susceptable to Ganks since he needs a Morbid Mask in order to keep his HP up. This is exacerbated by the current Meta with strong Counter-Junglers like Bounty Hunter and Dark Seer seeing a lot of play.

Ursa cannot catch up and recover like Tiny, Troll Warlord or Spectre. Beyond scrub tier, you're going to be free food for Supports and Offlaners. Die even once with this setup and you're unlikely to have any impact in the game whatsoever.

By 15 mins, most Cores will have a big Item, usually a couple of 2k Gold Items like Blink Dagger, Helm of the Dominator, Yasha, etc. or a bigger Item like Orchid Malevolence.

Taking twice as long as usual to get your 1st Core Item is a huge disadvantage and CRIPPLES your impact in a game.

---

2) Ursa needs to take Roshan

You might think this is easier to do since you're a Jungler, after all, you're only ever on the map when you're Ganking, so Position 4 Ursa is better at taking Roshan, right? ...wrong

As I said earlier, you are susceptible to Counter-Jungling, that also means the other Team will no doubt set up a Ward in your Jungle to watch your movement. You might manage to Smoke of Deceit into Roshan, especially if you Smoke at a Tier 3 Tower, but it's going to be just as obvious that you're missing from the Jungle as it would be that you're missing from a Lane.

Since you Rosh slowly, you also have to think about Rocket Flare, Psionic Trap, Plague Ward, etc. how easy is it for your Rosh attempt to be revealed and stopped?

Agreed, it's faster to have a Position 1 who can Rosh early combo up with a Support who can get Medallion early.

---

3) Ursa does not make a good Ganker without levels

So, your plan is to combo with Shadow Shaman, right? Ignoring the fact that Shaman should never be the Hard Support, let's look at the combo. At lvl1, you have Shackles as an Intiation.

It has a Cast Range of 400

Umm, okay, but a lvl2, he has Hex...

It has a Cast Range of 500

Shadow Shaman himself needs setup in order to land his Disables (I'd go more into why he's terrible as a Position 5, but this thread is about Ursa, so let's stick to that).

...okay, so we've established that Shaman is terrible at setting up Ganks, what about alternatives for setting up Earth shock? Earth Spike, Artic Burn, Nightmare, etc. You have a few good options and once you land that extra 25% MS Slow (it's going to be lvl1 for a long time) you can probably get a Kill.

The problem? How many Offlaners can you take down with it?

• Earthshaker - will Fissure you before you get anywhere near him
• Clockwerk - good luck getting past Power Cogs
• Dark Seer - doesn't care about your puny 90 damage and he has Surge
• Mirana - will leap away before you get close

So...you can't Kill the Offlane, what about Mid? You can certainly Gank Heroes like Shadow Fiend, Dragon Knight and Viper, but you can Gank these Heroes with just about any 2 Supports. You're probably going to get interrupted by the other team's Support when they TP in to save the day though.

---

*inhales for round 2* 8{3

---

Welp, you already answered that one

I already answered this (the answer is he doesn't)

...you're going to have to run this one by me again... Ursa is...Farm Independant? Pretty sure I never saw anything to indicate this in 6.85 patch notes. 8{(

Im on mobile and my reply will be a bit messy here.



Ursa IS farm independent. His core is a Blink Dagger... Thats it. Other items such as Deso, or even Phase and Vlads is luxury on him. Every hero has their core items and Ursa only needs one.

Dont underestimate his damage Xyrus, more than once I seen melee cores getting too close for their own good. He dont need to snowball from the absolute start, he can go from behind (albeit not as good), he dont need much farm. He can play from behind, Xyrus, I've seen this before. You argued that he cant cathcup like Tiny or even trol warlord even though he has as much of a burst potential as he does.

And of course its not going to be an afk jungling Ursa, he's going to roam around.

You argued that Ursa takes Roshan slowly, but has it occured to you that he dont have to do it alone? Playing Ursa isnt about cheeky arosh attempts, he dont even utilise Aegis that well. He roam around, get kills, take Rosh, push towers. Teams take Rosh with MoC (where they group up) all the time, they can do the same with Ursa, its not going to be any different. Besides, Ursa or a support can buy MoC as well.

Why wont bringing a truck load of damage impactful? You said that he brings *0* utility to the team, does burst damage not count here?

And why wouldnt Shadow Shaman land his disables? People got caught out of position all the time. People died to Shadowraze all the time. People got caught by Dragon Tail, who has less range, all the time. People died to Pudge all the time.

Isn't Shadow Shaman way too greedy for that lineup? I mean, you already are going greedy with a 4 position Ursa, but adding a level dependent support to the lineup seems suicide to me.

I suppose you and Xyrus have some merit in this, other alternatives exist, Winter Wyvern to name one. But I need some more lockdown. Crystal Maiden sounds good here too. I was thinking that Phoenix could help with wards after a few items, and Ursa wont really be farming creeps after his Blink Dagger.

Xyrus, Troll and Spectre don't play catch-up first of all. They have no farming steroid and no intetest in buying one (could argue battle trance is one, but it ain't).

Back to Ursa. This was a pocket strat done by Zai while in EG and as far as I can remember it involved level one rosh. Ursa jungle is slow albeit not as dangerous as Xyrus puts it.(choke points, young padawan). Burst damage unfortunately is not utility. Utility is about helping your team either with your skills or items. Ursa has neither, earthshock is ****py as a utility skill.

I would cut off LD/AM from your draft and just put Ursa pos1, get that 7 min blink, get the kills, snowball, and have a utility jungler such as Enigma or Prophet that can still push with the team or split.

And if I think about it more, Enigma fits perfectly here. You have a lot that works well with black hole: DK splash, Breathe fire, Clock cogs, rocket and hookshot or Phoenix's everything(literally everything) SS's Ether Shock and Mass Serpent Wards. Even if you use wards in teamfights you can still push quickly with eidolons. He's a natural mek carrier. A lot to protect him while channeling.

Back to Ursa, you'll find that in a real game he'll need more than just blink. If not kited, evasion and being slippery is his bane. With evasion and invisibility being so easily obtainable on everyone now, (glimmer cape and solar crest) Ursa will end up neeeing MKB, a sheep or an abyssal later,(depending on the situation) to lock down his target. (not counting dust and gem - which you will buy eventually as well)

Sorry but all I could think while reading this was - DOESN'T , DOESN'T , GET , GET. But on a cell, hmm , I'll give you a one-time pass.
Xy pointed out the rest.
Highly situational , Better alternatives.

Well my plan was having a fourth core, the offlaner could give some utility with 3 heroes rampaging the battlefield, unlike the comventional two heroes. High DPS team is basically the plan here. Again this is mostly experimental.

Also Wulfy if you could provide me the EG game It would be appreciated. Just a name would be fine.

@Abaddon What are you trying to say

Anyways I think I got enough answers.