3 hit K/O

Diffusal is core. Purging off dust will save your life. Slowing the enemy keeps them in smoke screen.

Also you should max blink strike first as you have no slow/stun early game and so people can just run away with level 1 blink strike (20s cooldown yay).

I personally agree with you, in that Diffusal Blade is more of a noob choice. I played DOTA for a month before I found riki, but since then haven't ever played a SINGLE match with him using it. At most, it can only give about 100 dmg, which is done with a stun with Monkey King Bar. If you have played sniper, it's about the same rate as headshot, which is about every other hit. One of my problems is that I don't like to play with too many keys, so passive bonuses are amazing. Ethereal Blade is what should be on your main hotkey, BoT should be on your second best, and have passive items like Vlad's and MKB in all of the other slots.

I also suggest that you add a Boots of Travel to your guide, so you get good speed for chasing and can have a quicker response time when pushing/defending.

Another thing about Diffusal Blade is that it only has 16 uses, at max. Unless you want to spend your money buying it over and over again, It's not very good.

i feel like diffusal is absolute core on riki. gives a **** ton of damage and the slow keeps them in your smoke cloud longer

<Sense of Humour Bypass> Cmon Guys!

I was wondering, how is getting a Diffusal Blade a noob thing?

Diffusal is a situational item and not only used by noobs.

That aside, maxing blink strike after smoke screen is bad. Really bad. If you want to have two levels of smoke, can't say anything. But, you seem to miss out the fact that blink strike cooldown is reduced per level, which allows easier chasing.

Normally people pick up basher and hyperstone to make up for his ****ty attack speed. Its quite vial to know that too

Sorry, I'm used to a lot of dull people surronding the DotA scene. Still, my comment is true in regard to the original post.

Maybe the joke didn't get more clearly portrayed with the first half, when I called Dagon core on riki and that E-blade was augmenting riki's magical damage.

So for those who maybe missed it... my post was heavily saturated in sarcasm.

Let's look at a level 1 diffusal blade.
22 agility,
6 intel,
20 mana burn.

Level 4 backstab means 1.25 * the 22, so 27.5 dammage. +22 damage from the agility itself, = 49.5 dammage.
adding on the mana burn, 69.5 dammage.
Practically 70 dammage from it, before factoring in resistance.

And level 2 diffusal:
(26*1.25)+26+36= 94.5 dammage.
How the hell is that no dammage.

Additionally, if you say "only noobs get diffusal", then I'm assuming you're playing with competent players. Who buy dust. And know how to just wait out smoke screen instead of turning their back.

Then smoke screen ends, you're visible, and you're dead.

Unless of course, you can purge off the dust.

I'm sorry, but diffusal makes complete sense on riki.

exactly. When you are killing players as fast as Riki does 30 minutes into the game, it doesnt matter if you have leaked their mana. they are dead