Interesting DoTA 2 Insight Topic

Listening to the podcast in our satcom shed i heard them discussing underrated and underutilized heroes in the competitive scene, the 2 they unanimously agreed on were Bristleback and Dazzle.
I agree entirely with this, Bristle is a phenominal hero that absolutely can carry, and Dazzle is great as well, with an awesome skillset. Combine the two in a lane and you have insane power.
In HoN the ports of these 2 heroes were commonly banned awhile back because of their synergy, and potential in all phases of the game.
Bristleback, even though people will simplay stat a magic wand counters him, how hard do you think you'll be countering him with stack slows, armor debuff his ultimate buff? Combine it with dazzle and you have multiple armor debuff's, multiple slows and dazzles heal which is pretty strong in the laning phase..lets not forget stacking spines, yes use your wand, but your armor will still be reduced and spines stacking can mean a major pain in the ***.
Consider the HoN pro build for armadon for bristle, phase boots and radiance centric followed up by a bkb and a heart maybe?
Any input on this, DoTA Insight Guys are pretty knowledgeable, im wondering what the more experienced guys on this forum think.

For bristle you want to go all in tank items to slow you to live longer for more quills. The only aggressive item I would get is medallion to turn squishy early game supports into food.

As for Dazle he is picked to win mid game. He can be useful with bristle since the four seconds of extra life would give more quills.

This is a duo lane. Mostly in competitive line ups there are tri lanes, you could throw in a jungler like enchant though.

This looks like it work really well if you threw in some good anti- push heros like Tinker or beast master.

Part of bristlebacks problem is he is tanky and not much else. Stack up the tank items and quill blade, hit 30 minutes then let alchemist hit him till he falls over.
Spray is good early game but like all straight damage spells, doesn't last long.
On a plus side, with his slows, he is actually a decent support with his chase down and spray. But even with this, other heroes do it better.
Poor bristle back. You and tusk should of just kept pub brawling.

I don't really see what bristleback offers to the team. He's a tank, which requires enemies to attack him in order to be effective. A competitive-level team will simply ignore him, and he is powerless to stop them killing his team. Quills aren't nearly as good as standard ~300 damage AOE nukes ( Storm Hammer, Breathe Fire, and many, many more), since they require much more time to deal the same amount of damage, and have no accompanying effects). Not to mention they are easily countered by a 200 gold Magic Stick, which even the hard supports can afford. To be a decent, competitive carry, a hero generally requires a farming ability (Alchemist, Nature's Prophet, etc.) or insane carry potential (Weaver, Lifestealer, Phantom Lancer, etc.) Bristleback has neither of these, and would easily be outcarried by a more suitable pick for the role. Like mattyg said, he's a pub brawler and nothing more.

I don't see the issue with Dazzle, but there's no way he would be paired with Bristleback (because BB will never be picked, and also because it would be a trilane)

The name of the game for supports these days is aggression aggression aggression (with defensive fallbacks). Nyx, Naga, Kotl, Chen, Enchantress, Rubick, Wisp, Visage, all have tremendous aggressive potential at all stages of the game, while being really hard to kill.

Bristleback and Dazzle are not agressive by any means, even if they are hard to kill. One might argue for Dazzle's skillset to be aggressive, but the poison sucks till it's lvl 3, the heal is mediocre and falls off fast cuz it's physical damage, the grave is OK and the Weave is really situational.

BB is actually a decent farmer in the aggresive trilane (like what SEA teams do with windrunner). He offers a slow and has good damage with the qiull stacking+nasal goo. IDk if you guys have the the vid but there is one where bristle kills 4 people just with quills. Hes a hero designed to win the game early and is a great chaser. If he gets ignored, he will just chase down a hero.

Dazzle is another aggresive support. Hes great in the aggresive trilane since his teammates cant be punished for dives. Something like an alchemist, dazzle and nage or sd would kill pretty easily with minus armor and heal bombs. Weave is actually a pretty good spell in a prolonged teamfight(which is why he and bristle being paried is good).

Almost all of you are missing 1 crucial thing that makes Bristleback awesome and manly: Warpath. In case any of you hasn't noticed, it gives a stacking damage and speed buff. The damage potential of Bristleback is completely insane with just a few attack speed items. Armlet of Mordiggian must be highlighted here because you can easily keep yourself in the fight with some toggling, and your Bristleback will make your enemies pay for trying to kill you, since you can keep toggling to keep your health up. They'll end up with less health than you if they continue chasing you without a powerful nuke.
I used to simply face my back towards the opponent when I was playing him back then, but after I realized how much damage I can do, I always rush straight into battle and bash their heads in. Although you may argue that I'm not fully utilizing Bristleback, with a little micro, I can turn around to block some of their attacks and spells in between mine (thanks to the quick turn-rate).

All in all, I'm not saying that tanky Bristleback is bad, I'm saying that carry (or snowballer) Bristleback works and is really fun too :D


EDIT:
I use Mekansm everytime play tank-style Bristleback. Any comment on this?

Its a good item if no one else on the team is a good mek carrier. The problem with bristle is he doesn't have much late game potential and he makes the lanes wierd.

The problem with Dazzle in pro games is that he isn't a good fit for tri-lanes - he doesn't have a good initial stun and needs levels to really be effective. He's a great dual lane hero, but you hardly ever see these. He's also very underrated as a pusher.

These two do make a good pair in pub games though - good hard lane duo.

Dazzle isn't great in a trilane, but with any other disabler and a suitable aggressive carry his heal will destroy heroes and offer more sustainability to your carry, and with Bristleback, you have stacking slows, stacking armor debuffs, and if they get close you have a heal.
Warpath is wayyyy overlooked, farming with bristle isn't too hard, with phase boots you'll have unrivaled pursuit while ignoring towers because BB doesn't care about those.
Radiance is fantastic as well, burn damage on top of his slow and stacking spines, haha good luck bringing him down before he wipes a team