Support Bloodseeker

So I've had this idea floating around for a while about how bloodseeker could possibly fit into a high level team. I am really thinking about a pro team rather than pubs as there is a disparity between blood being a pub stomper and a trash tier pro pick.

Drafting

In the draft why pick Blood? Obviously you would want him for his true sight of half health heroes. In this regard he works very well with the currently popular Invoker, Ancient Apparition, Spectre.
He can also be an effective counter against popular offlaners. Possibly the hardest counter in game to Timbersaw cancelling his maneuverability and main damage outputs with his silence. Other hard counters are heroes like weaver and batrider although to a lesser extent. In fact there aren't many offlaners who don't heavily rely on magic to escape trouble.

The real downside to blood taking up a position as a support is his absolute lack of stun or even a slow. This means you would want some really good lockdown on your other support probably as well as at least one of your cores.
Laninig

As you probably guessed from the last paragraph I see him working in a tri-lane. As a 4 position jungling. He's not the most efficient jungler in the world. But not the worst, I have seen people do it effectively as a carry but admittedly not for a while. However, with creep pulls and maybe a 5 position Crystal Maiden helping him out I don't see why he couldn't be very effective in that role.

As said the main benefit to the team in this stage is his silence. Bloodrage has an insane duration of 6/7/8/9 which completely shut down the escapes of many offlaners. In conjunction with a Crystal Maiden stun this should be enough for your carry to earn an early kill. Or force the enemy offlaner into such a passive style of play that they would barely receive any gold or XP. Lets not forget that the silence also works both ways providing your carry with extra last hitting power. What more could you ask of a support?

Ganking

It's what the hero is designed for and a very useful tool in your supports. Most mids like offlaners also rely on escapes. Especially the very popular Ember Spirit who is dominating the pro scene at the moment. He's probably less effective in team fights at this stage so taking on the opposing trilane might be too much. After blood hits level 6 he obviously gets dat ult. In a pro game he really needs to have stuns around him for this to be effective. Due to the obvious counter of tp scrolls. But it's main benefit is forcing a fight by forcing a hero out of position
the enemy then has the option to leave them to die or fight possibly at a disadvantage.
Items

There are many common support items that benefit a Bloodseeker possibly more than carry items do. The force staff for instance. But also why not a Eul's? Cheap way to cancel those tp's solo, increased speed and enough mana to spam spells and then some. The mek, I don't think I have ever seen a bloodseeker with a mek. He rarely needs it compared to other heroes. He would benefit from the tankyness it provides, so I'd say he's a good candidate. Grand total of 7250 round it up to about 10k with boots and consumables and I think it's a reasonable amount for a support. Perhaps with a luxury Halbred to give him some extra durability.

(p.s. the items guide on this site is out of date Mek 2300 instead of 2306 Eul's 2700 instead of 2800)

For these reasons I think he could be a viable support in the pro scene. Situational certainly. I think you would need to get the invoker on your side. Probably not too good against pushing line ups. And I can't see the passive Chinese style picking him up. But Russian style....Empire, Rox.Kis it could be really effective.

What do you guys think? Bat**** insane or a vague possibility?

First off, as soon as I read about a support Bloodseeker in a competitive team I instantly thought about semi-jungling like you do on CM or SK. And you actually talk about it, so I'm not the only one with these kind of ideas.

As for the support BS himself, he gives little to no laning presence. That being said, I don't think he can become popular for the same reason why jungle Ursa and Lifestealer aren't: you are basically stuck with only one lane support and, unless your team has a support that can keep your carry safe without help (like in most Enigma-based teams), you're way more vulnerable. It's a very greedy pickup, though I agree with you about the Mekansm and all the other utility items (BS in fact doesn't need anything to do well).

But still, in my opinion a support BS can't become a "common" choice in this meta for the following reasons:

• He has no crowd control: this is probably his biggest problem, and you know how big of a problem it is after losing hundreds of kills because of Town Portal Scrolls. I'd rather pick a Shadow Shaman, Lion or Skywrath Mage if needing silences (if you count the Hex as a silence);
• He has no teamfight spells. All of his abilities - minus Thirst - are single target-based, so you aren't gonna do much in teamfights unless you manage to catch the enemy carry out of position. So, a Hero like Bane would be better to keep an enemy in place;
• He has no laning presence, but we already talked about it.

For these reasons, I don't think having a support Bloodseeker would be a good idea. Having global true sight is not worth it when you have to sacrifice a potential support with teamfight spells or hard disables. Well, unless you already have lots of stuns and, again, your team can handle a dual lane versus a possible aggressive trilane. He could work in a global-based team with Heroes like AA, Furion, Wisp and maybe even Zeus, but he'd still be very situational.

I can see your point about lane presence. But I think you may be underestimating that silence slightly. 6 seconds at level 1 7 seconds at level 3. The same duration as silencer's ult maxed with Aghs! Against a solo offlaner like weaver for example he cannot come past his tower too much as he'd have no escape. Stick a silence on Nyx assasin no stun or spiked carapace. Bat rider no firefly. Timber no Timber chain. In combination with another support who does have more lane presence like a cm, bane, venge, SS or Lion. The offlaner would be seriously starved of xp and gold. Leaving the 2 supports to go roaming after a few levels. His single target abilities would be particularly strong precisely because he's against a solo offlaner.

I suppose though the real downside is if the other team switches up lanes and goes either aggressive tri-lane or even dual lanes. He'd have a much harder time. To the point it might break the strat completely. But even if the other team does that they are giving up a lot in xp and gold from other heroes unless they have drafted for that kind of line up. I think it could benefit from a carry who has a bit of lane presence themselves. Sven, Naga, Wraith King is even being picked up these days.

TO expand the conversation a bit what do you guys think could be done to the hero to make him viable in pro games but not a buff that would make him OP in pub games?

As I was writing the OP I thought about removing the damage from Bloodrage and adding a mini stun. Destroying the easy TP escape. Is that too much?

It seems reasonable, but I'm not sure this would be enough to get him into the pr0 scene, for the reasons Peppo discussed. He might work in certain situations such as picking off Split-Pushers like Nature's Prophet, but that's all I can see him doing if he gets this buff tbh.

You've put forward a good case, but it's a little difficult to see it really working out. Possibly as a super-situational pick again specific heroes and with the right mix of other skills around him - e.g. against kite-able carries, offlaners who are super reliant on their abilities to escape etc. Quite like the amount of confusion it could cause to their draft too :)

The issues:

- BS needs probably early Stout Shield and Quelling Blade in order to jungle anywhere near efficiently, even then he can get very low on health at times, potentially making him easy meat for that bored/roaming offlaner, or the enemy mid.

- His silence gives substantial additional damage to enemy heroes at higher levels (hence why you keep it at level 1 for so long), so becomes less useful in some ways, or at least requires careful casting/use on your own carry etc.

- No stun/slow or team fight powers. Needs 6 as early as possible, almost useless against dual/trilanes.

- A lot of his skills/survivability are related to last hitting/being near dying enemy heroes, you'd definitely need more equipment for that.

Interesting idea though, could even work in the right circumstances. I'm still hoping one day they pick Huskar :)

Thanks! That is actually my highest hopes for this thread. I mean you're never going to take a trash tier hero, one of the lowest used heroes in the game and turn him into a tier 1 or tier 2 pick. But as a super situational, kinda cheesy, gimmicky, surprise strat that's good enough for me (and bloodseeker) :)



Yeah I largely agree with all of this. With the jungling I did test it against bots and I'd say you need one or the other with QB or stout shield which lets you get tangos and a either obs or courier. You would need to rely on pulls. And the reason I've used Crystal Maiden as the example of a second support over someone like Bane is that you would need her help using frostbite to clear hard camps with Blood taking the last hits and much of the XP. This in itself is another big problem as it would put a lot of stress on whoever is the other support. Although saying that it is how pro teams have jungled heroes like support kunkka in the past. At the end of the day pro's are pro's because they are efficient at what they do they know every trick to get the most out of the jungle.

The silence is definitely a spell that falls of hard in late game against most heroes. This is why while he's super situational. He could work against some of the current meta heroes. I mean putting a long silence on a storm or ember spirit during a team fight, even if they have super high damage right clicks it should be enough time for other heroes to disable and focus them. Or at worst force out a BKB charge.

For team fight potential I think rupture is a nice semi-pseudo-disable. In a 5v5 scenario like I said it forces the other team to fight when you want to. Either that or they have 1 hero tp out at the start of a fight and you chase the rest of them down as they retreat. It's a good spell to take the other team out of position. And we know how important positioning is at that level. It's like the opposite of Glimpse or Nether Swap but with similar effects.

I think ultimately though it's very hard to argue that these benefits are better than a Tide hunter with the same amount of farm or an Earth Shaker or whatever. Only thing I could say is to harp on about the length of the silence and just how important I believe silences in general are against these current spell reliant heroes in the current meta. Ember, Storm, Puck, Bat, Timber, etc a silence against these heroes at any stage of the game is potentially better than a stun.



Thanks for the positive comments, I'm just glad it's not completely insane. :)

And your wish is my command

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