7.00+ Strygwyr/Bloodseeker Blades of Thirst

Introduction

Hey guys it's me Whosnuker and this is my second guide to Strygwyr/ Bloodseeker and overall. Please give me some feedback on anything to improve and try not to be so harsh please and thanks. Bloodseekerr is my main hero in the game and I play him as a core. He has a really strong early game and mid game but unfortunately slowly dies off in the late game which is why you want to end the game really fast when you play him. Unfortunately for me, I always mess around too much when I get the lead and never end the game so I lost quite a few games but I am still boasting quite a record playing the guy. Yes I know everyone loves to max out thirst and run a million miles an hour but don't. And before you guys start ranting in the comment section of this guide, please give it a chance and try it out. It works really well and if you all just give it a chance, you'll understand. Thanks and enjoy the guide. By the way, this is quite a long guide so please read the ENTIRE thing before you decide to bash me for it :D.

Pros and Cons

Pros
-Really strong early game
-Good ganker
-Exceedingly great mobility
-Great damage output
-Easy hero to last hit/deny with
-Easy hero to farm and get ahead in levels with

Cons
-Has no built in stuns(no stuns in my guide either)
-Semi-fragile
-Rupture can be countered by a Town Portal Scroll
-Not the easiest hero to master but quite easy to play
-Doesn't do the best against ranged heroes in lane but he can make it work

Item Build

Alright so first let's talk about my personal item build for Bloodseeker. So for the starting items I like to get Boots of Speed, a set of Tango, a Clarity, and a Town Portal Scroll. I prefer this item build since I don't max Thirst first, the Tango keep you going at the beginning stages or if you are struggling in lane, the Clarity is since Bloodseeker uses a lot of mana when he casts spells, and finally the Town Portal Scroll is just a general utility item for when you want to gank or need to quickly get back to your lane after a gank.


For the early and semi mid game items, you want to get Power Treads, a Magic Wand, Sange and Yasha, and a Shadow Blade. Power Treads are just a generally good item on every hero since it gives good stats. For Bloodseeker, you want to have them on the AGI type unless you are on the level 6 mark in which you want to toggle into the INT type when you start casting. The Magic Wand is a good item on the hero because most players just love to spam a bunch of spells to try to stop you from killing them even though it doesn't work and you can use that to your advantage to heal and continue fighting without going back. The Sange and Yasha is one of the best items for Bloodseeker. It gives him a lot of really good stats (Yes, I know it's not the cheapest items when talking about stats), some attack speed and damage, and some movement speed. The main thing about the Sange and Yasha is the maim chance. Since in this build you don't max Thirst first, this maim chance is a really good ability to have, especially for heroes that can outspeed you such as Slardar.Finally, the Shadow Blade is good for ganking and scouting out heroes. It is also an item that you want to use to escape fights to either heal and come back or to entirely retreat. If you want to come back I'll explain that in another section of the guide a good way to do this.

For the main part of the mid game and part of the late game, you want to build a Blade Mail, Radiance, Silver Edge, and Boots of Travel. The Blade Mail is just for heroes that can fight you without any fear. A few of these are Troll Warlord with his semi permabash combined with lifesteal and Phantom Assassin who you can't hit if she has her blur skilled really high. Radiance is quite a given. It gives a small evasion boost which Bloodseeker really enjoys, it has an AOE burn, and kills creeps around you. This pretty much replaces the Mjollnir in every other guide and in my opinion, it's better since it's not a chance and you don't need to be hitting the creeps for this to work. The Silver Edge is to cancel passives and pretty much give an upgrade to your Shadow Blade. Self-explanatory, good against heroes like Phantom Assassin and Abaddon. Final item for this part of the game is the Boots of Travel. These give you really good movement speed and good mobility. You can hop into ganks with this or teleport out if you desperately need to. Also lets you avoid buying Town Portal Scroll which is 50 gold in your pockets :D. When you get to this point, remove your Power Treadsfor Boots of Travel.

For the full on late game items, you want to build a Butterfly, into a Moon Shard, and complete it with the upgraded version of Boots of Travel. Generally, you really shouldn't get to this part of the build unless you are extremely ahead of the game or your team decided to drag the game out for some reason. Butterfly gives really good stats and that 35% evasion is really really good, the Moon Shard is just like any other hero. You buy it and eat it just for that small bonus attack speed and just finish your tier 2 Boots of Travel because you have that spare gold. Remember to keep buyback if you need it, though, since these items aren't really that needed and having buyback could save your team and help you win the game.

Skill Build

Alright time to get on to the Skill Build Part of the guide. So first you want to skill your Blood Rite. This spell gives you an early advantage since it does pure damage. Use this when you get the chance to zone your enemy out of lane for a bit and get early farm and experience. Your next skill should be Bloodrage. Use this skill with Blood Rite and it'll do good damage as well as heal you if you kill a creep with it. With Bloodrage, you should be able to stay in lane and it makes last hitting and denying a load easier since it gives you an attack amplification. Just to note, denying creeps with Bloodrage active still heals you. For some reason, many people don't know that so just want to throw that out there. Your next skill will be Thirst just to put a point into it and get that small damage and movement speed buff. After that you want to max your Bloodrage but get Rupture when you can. The reason behind this is to help you survive in lane as it heals more as you level it up and after level 3, you can always have l, it can deal over 300 damage with Bloodrage active. That is a lot of damage considering it is pure. The last skill to max, and everyone's favorite, is Thirst. Thirst gives you the movement bonus and attack damage you need to finish someone off pretty much. Skill Rupture whenever you get the chance and same with the talents. favorite, is Thirst. Thirst gives you the movement bonus and attack damage you need to finish someone off pretty much. Skill Rupture whenever you get the chance and same with the talents.

Bloodrage

Bloodrage is the first skill you want to max. This skill give you really good lane control as well as increase damage and survivability. As you level up Bloodrage, the damage amplification grows from 25%/30%/35%/40%. Along with the damage amplification, the health you get for killing another unit also increases from 19%/21%/23%/25%. By maxing this, you are able to stay in lane for much longer periods of time when other heroes would have to retreat. It is also possible to have more than one unit bloodraged at a time. This spell is also really useful when teamed with a Drow Ranger that has a Dragon Lance or a Sniper to increase damage done to towers or just simply on a Siege Creep. Not much more to say about this as it is one of the most basic spells in the game. You gain more damage, receive more damage, and get healed for each kill you get.

Blood Rite

Bloodrite is the second ability you want to max. This skill give you a good zoning tool in lane and a really good farming tool. As you level this skill up, the damage increases from 120/160/200/240 (195/235/275/315 with the talent buff) and the silence duration also increases from 3/4/5/6. Keep in mind this is pure damage and not magical or physical. You can also have Bloodrage on you or the unit you plan to be hit and increase the damage from 168/224/280/336. This also combos with Rupture since it forces heroes to stay in place making it easier to hit them with this spell. Final note to this spell is when you click to use it and it shows the AOE that it will hit, you want to use it so the enemy is at the closest part to you. So if you were in the midlane, you want the closest part of the Blood Rite to be about where the creeps are. This will generally land ranged enemies towards the middle if not closer to you. For some reason, players have a tendency to run towards their tower so by placing it in this fashion, you pretty much have a 95% hit rate.

Thirst

This is the last ability you should max (except for, of course, Rupture and your talents.) This is the ability everyone loves to max first except for me and the people who give this guide a try and enjoy it :D. Thirst gives good movement speed and vision on enemies about to die so you can chase them down. Enemies below 25% of their health are revealed to Bloodseeker whether they have invisibility or not since it also gives true sight. Enemies below 75% of their health start to give Bloodseeker movement and attack buffs. The maximum damage Bloodseeker can get for each hero increases from 16/24/32/40 and the maximum movement speed increases from 16%/24%/32%/40%. Along with these buffs, Thirst also removes the 550 movement speed cap. This gets really fun when you have a team fight and everyone gets low.

Rupture

This is Bloodseekerultimate ability. This ability forces enemies to stay still or die. Any enemy affected by Rupture is dealt damage based on how far the affected united moved growing from 30%/45%/60%(44%/59%/74% with talents.) This item can be upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter To give you a cooldown time of 40 seconds instead of 60 and 2 charges instead of 1. I highly encourage you don't buy this item as 60 seconds is a really low cooldown if you compare it with other heroes' ultimates. This ability is, however, countered by Town Portal Scroll as those count as teleportation not movement. Any movement greater than 1300 units does not count as movement, however. An example of this is like Queen of Pain and her Blink at max range.

Combos

-The most basic combo is Bloodrage and Blood Rite. The damage amplification is really good when added with the pure damage that Blood Rite deals.
- Rupture and Blood Rite is quite obvious as Rupture causes enemies to stay in place making it easier to hit them with Blood Rite. You can also use the Bloodrage and Blood Rite with the Rupture for even more damage output.

Heroes

Good With
- Pudgeand his Meat Hook work well with Rupture and while Pudge uses Dismember, you can easily hit them with a Blood Rite
- Legion Commander can easily cast her Duel as the enemy can't move and once again, you can easily hit the enemy with Blood Rite once she's in the fight to quickly end the duel.
- Spirit Breaker with his Charge of Darkness can chase down enemies that are affected by your Thirst vision when you know you won't make it in time.
- Nature's Prophet and Io both have a global teleport skill so that is also a good lockdown skill if needed.

Good Against
-Personally, I feel like Bloodseeker is good against Phantom Assassin. Since many heroes can't get through Blur, this hero's pure damage come in handy. Rupture will hurt her if she decides to Phantom Strike you or another unit and Blood Rite will deal a ton since she doesn't have that good of an HP pool.
- Slark, also in my opinion, gets destroyed by Bloodseeker since many players love to jungle once he hits level 6 and gets Shadow Dance. Since Slark is constantly getting hit by creeps and using Dark Pact, his HP gets really low and provides True Sight to the enemy team and that disables his passive health regen.
-Pretty much any jungle heroes that are hit by neutrals in the early game.

Bad Against/Countered By
- Axeis a huge counter to Bloodseeker. What a surprise right? I mean no one expected that... With Bloodrage active on you almost always, as it should be, Blade Mail and Counter Helix destroy your HP
- Storm Spirit isn't really a counter to Bloodseeker. The only thing about Storm Spirit is that his ultimate gives him immunity so Rupture doesn't affect him while he is in Ball Lightning.
-Any high nuke damage spells such as Finger of Death or Laguna Blade and any extremely high DPS heroes like Sven with God's Strength and a Echo Sabre
- Blade Mail destroys you since it reflects both Rupture and Blood Rite damage back at you.
-Etheral Blade+Dagon combo. This destroys most heroes since it is like the most broken strat in the game but with Bloodrage on you, it will destroy you more than normal.
- Linken's Sphere is quite an obvious one as it blocks your Rupture
- Lotus Orb since it reflects Rupture back at you and you really don't have a good way of dealing with it.
-Final one is the new Spell Shield upgrade if the opposing Anti-Mage decides to buy an Aghanim's Scepter as this will reflect the Rupture back at you.

Lanes

The best lane I like to play Bloodseeker is in the mid lane. Bloodseeker can really zone out opponents and he can also use the extra experience. You should always be fighting for this lane with a few exceptions. These exceptions are Alchemist if he really wants it, Sniper, Huskar, Templar Assassin, or Storm Spirit. Other than that, you should always take mid. If one of those heroes are on your team, take the safe lane. You want a support with you if you can get it but if not lane with whoever you can get and just farm since you can most likely out damage your laning partner once you get Bloodrage going. Never, and I repeat, NEVER go to the offlane. This is a really, really bad lane for Bloodseeker. He is not durable enough to be in the offlane and does not have the stats nor skills to survive there long. If you have to, than go to the jungle but if you do than this is probably not the right guide for you.

Runes

This is just another section talking about runes. It's not important so you don't have to read this but it's good to know.

Haste- This rune isn't that necessary on Bloodseeker as his Thirst gives him enough movement but you can take this if no one else on your team is nearby or needs it.
Invisibility- Take this one unless there are other heroes on your team that can use it a lot more such as a Legion Commander once she gets her Duel. Use this rune to scout the enemy side and try to get some pick offs.
Illusion- This is not that good of a rune on a Bloodseeker. The only real good use is to scout a bit or to farm the enemy easy camp once you get your Radiance.
Double Damage- Take this rune if you can get your hands on it. This increases your damage insanely as it doubles your Thirst damage not just your base damage. You can do so much with this rune from pushing to fighting.
Bounty- Literally the most boring rune in the game unless you are playing Alchemist. You really don't need this rune as you get enough by just ganking and farming but if you are around and you see one feel free to grab it.

Conclusion

Well this is the final chapter of my guide. I hope you enjoy it and please try it out before you think bad of this guide as this really works. Please leave any feedback you have in the comment section and good luck on your future games.
This is an example of my game and this isn't even that good of a match.
And this is a video of a game I had a while back before the 7.00 patch. It's still the same build just without talents. Play Video