Support Huskar?

So, I've messing around with Huskar on some lobbies and I've come across the possibility of a support Huskar. Huskar could be a good support in lane due to the fact that he zone out enemy heroes with Burning Spear and due to the buff to inner vitality making so that it becomes pretty spammable at level 4, with it's cooldown being 10 seconds (meaning you could cast it 2 or 3 times in a teamfight).

As for the item build, I think Huskar could be a pretty legit Mekansm carrier since he only has one spell that uses mana and the fact he's usually at the center of every teamfight. I've also toyed around with Arcane Boots/ Guardian Greaves and the arcanes are fairly solid on him as they give a lot more up time for inner vitality. The greaves themselves give Huskar mana, some armor and stats so they're not entirely out of place on him. The other item that's starting to grow on me is Solar Crest as it gives him armor and evasion, two things that let him have a chance at surviving against physical damage dealers.

I'm still messing around with different items, seeing what works and what won't. What your guys' take on the possibility of a support Huskar?

If you had to, you could. Just other supports are better.

Isn't this the answer to all of these types of questions?

It's actually pretty legit. You can have a really good laning stage with some specific carries, reliably win your lane and get a lot of kills.

You can make up some really sweet kill combos with carries who have good lockdown, e.g Chaos Knight, Slark... anything that keeps enemies in range of Burning Spear.

For the item build, yes you can't go right-click armlet route...so I think it's best to go Sando style nuking Huskar with Veil of Discord and Aghanim's Scepter, and Ghost Scepter/ Blade Mail to stay alive and/or feed in style. Sure Mekansm can work if you can get one early off a good lane.

Slight downside is that if you can't wreck your lane or you fall behind in some way...you'll end up with a Huskar with no farm which kind of sucks.

So yeah, zone out and/or kill any offlaner(s) you see with a good lane combo, and if they leave the lane just get the towers because Huskar pushes really fast.

Play Video
Need I say more?

I think Fed has a legit point. The fact that you are a support is based (loosely) in the fact that you have utility skills/buy utility items. Utility skills are things like heals, disables and auras. I can see a troll suppport Huskar because of his heal, but the rest of his skillset brings nothing to the table but damage - take his ulti for instance, you literally jump on the enemy causing damage, so if you're doing this as a set up for a kill of another person, that person has got to have some blink ability to be able to get in range.

I can see the items you mentioned working on him - but does he scale late game with nothing other than Guardian Greaves? I'm not sure, whereas other supports scale very well with it and other utility items.

Solar Crest, on the other hand, I imagine being a good pick-up, even if you're playing carry/semi-carry, because Huskar's Achiles is he suffers if he has to go against someone with strong physical damage. I'm a great fan of building this type of "semi-utility" items even in carrys, so they can contribute to the team with more than just damage.

Ultimately, Sofa is right: some heroes are considered supports because they do that role better. Still, I had this game where I run a support Drow Ranger for the early to mid game, and we won :P

Here: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1646758398

There is nothing left in the end that shows the fact that I support because come mid game I started building core items and Venomencer took on the support. But by then he had his Aghs completed and I felt happy trolling around (I suck at Drow, core or support). I think she can be a decent support because she has a silence and a aura (that I maxed asap to help Bunkan), and contrary to other supports, if she just goes quickly into the jungle, she can have all the money needed to buy wards and smokes a-plenty. And I got to transition in the late game and still be a bit useful.

But that build has little "support" about her, since the Aghs is for you alone (again, except if you use your ultimate well in teamfights to give the kill to the carry) and Veil of Discord can be useless in a non-mage lineup. The same goes for the other items, except for Mekansm, naturally.

You're talking about not playing Huskar as a support, but only as a not-core in the laning stage, transitioning to something that's at least semi carry. But can you go full utility with him? I'm not sure, I think he falls off with little farm (which is the necessary result from supporting).

It's an interesting idea...something I've thought about before. You definitely need to find a way to boil down his item build to the absoltue bare essentials - probably like Urn/Veil/Aghs or something.

He's a powerful harasser, good heal (especially for primary stat heavy allies - it scales on that) and his ultimate is also a strong slow, in addition to damage. He has some issues though:

- Heal is expensive, especially on a strength hero.
- How much farm will get without a core role?
- Will that farm be enough?
- Likes to fight on low % HP...if your overall HP is low...is that enough?
- Can't really roam or gank before 6 unless his team do a lot for him
- Need to adapt his playstyle somewhat, enter the fight a little later, or deliberately tank nukes for others etc

I'd say a reasonable comparison is Silencer - strong lane harasser, somewhat level dependent, no stun, big teamfight ultimate. Huskar has a heal + slow, but less teamfight impact.

It's probably worth experimenting with, he could make a reasonable #4, but I suspect you need the right composition around/against him, and a reasonably successful early game for assists/kills etc. If nothing else, people won't be expecting it :).

Playing support isn't about healing your team or buffing them. This is dota not league of lemmings...unless you're playing Dazzle or Omniknight...there are no healers in this game xD

Just look at e.g Venomancer, the whole point of the hero is dealing AOE damage in teamfights, that's pretty much all the hero does besides spamming wards. Same for Skywrath Mage, Leshrac, Witch Doctor, Visage...all they do is deal damage. I mean, even freaking Crystal Maiden is all about the DPS :)

Playing support is really about two things : winning your lanes, and having game impact later in the game with low farm. "game impact" can mean literally anything. A support Chaos Knight who builds damage items and goes to rat the enemy base is much more impactful than a ***** Crystal Maiden player who thinks sitting back in fights all the time and popping mek is a good way of playing the hero :)

For me Huskar with Aghanim's Scepter and Ghost Scepter definitely qualifies, since he hits a hero with a huge nuke every 4 seconds, has a spammable heal with the mana items you bought, and is very, very hard to kill (a ghost form Huskar takes literally zero damage). That's good enough for me.

I think it's eventually going to be the best role for him, as a greedy 4, or a weird 3. Like the more I look at it, the more insane his Ag's upgrade is, because it's 4s cooldown for 65% HP damage. He's a pretty meh one position or two because regardless of how much farm he has, he can usually be beaten by an equivalently farmed core.

You pick up Solar Crest into Ag's, and in team-fights, your aim is too either a) go for an enemy core without BKB and ensure they die to spears + Life break, or b) go for the supports, and kill them in seconds. Because you can jump on someone and get 3 or 4 stacks and spears on them, and they probably burn out. If you survive 4 seconds, jump on the next guy ect ect.


You also aren't awful in rotations assuming the other heros involved brings cc because you clearly have the damage out-put ect ect.

Like, it's an inconventional support, but he's extremly good for harass, sustain and for scaling nuke potential, and it means you stop caring as much for BKB's. And if you snowball, great you suddenly have a 4 core line-up.

In essence, he's a support who helps you team by deleting heroes from fights as they start, and ramps up the chaos (And with Ag's, he forces focus on you, because otherwise you have him going ham on your entire team before long)

Just tried out the Aghanim's Scepter, Veil of Discord and dagon build on my brother's ID, it works ****ing wonders, I got 43 out of 46 kill participation and 29 kill on myself (more than enemy team's combined lol), supposedly I didn't die that much as well, but you know... it was fun tanking all enemies solo, I even got a rampage there lol

Well, I mean, my brother's ID only plays in normal skill while I'm always on very high whenever I play solo stack, probably that plays a role as well XD

P.S: This is what the Solar Crest does on Huskar, check out the video from 1:36 for the Huskar action

Play Video