A Full Guide to Kunkka(6.88)

best guide on the admiral...but can u update it and also write about supporting or what to do if u have to dual lane...i know he schould not but below 2k mmw you cant choose...

Great Guide ! i need to test it out

So, what do you think of Armlet + drums of endurace for mid game power, armlet has synergy with you beacuse of your rum, also it gives 65 damage so its nothing to joke at.

Theres is also Bots rush and Blink dagger you should look upon

Hey nice guide, upvoted :D Made me win a game with Kunkka :D Here's the dotabuff link!

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/2364158908

(Take note it's in the normal skill bracket because I've been in a lot of games with my newbie friends lately but the build works fine in higher bracket)
(another note I died 3-4 intentionally in this game for reasons closely-related to stupidity)


Only question is that I've noticed that most professional players or Kunkka-players (!Attacker) sometimes build Armlet of Mordiggian why is that? Can you tell me when should I get it or something? Enlighten my knowledge of Kunkka please :D.

I honestly think it is THE BEST Kunkka guide on DOTAFire, maybe even the best guide ever! Fantastic explaintations, beautiful images, fun to read, basically everything that a good guide needs. Voted up, favourited, remembered :D

Appreciated your reply!

I think you thought from "huge AoE damage from far distance" i meant cleave damage, no, i meant ghost ship+ Torrent mostly, and one cleave. thats all!. Kunkka isnt a late-game hero (where cleaves become really useful) he is a early-mid game teamfighter. The main reason i think BKB is useless, is that Kunkka, as a melee hero, doesnt need to jump in and tank that damage, the only cases are very rare ones, where your team went for a full carry team comp (low-level pubs obviously).Also, the thing im trying to say is, if you want to get the full juice of kunkka, you need Torrent and X Marks the Spot for early-game kills, ghost ship for mid-game teamfights and kills, and finally, Tidebringer for late-game creep-wave pushes, and for "discourager" cleave(using your cleave for lowering enemies health points, thus making them fear fighting your team)other than that, i agree on everything else! sorry my comments are like this :O

Shadow Blade is only "easily countered" when you use it as an escape mechanism only and that's not what Shadow Blade is about. On most heroes the reason Shadow Blade is bought is:

a) for upgrading to Silver Edge later if that's necessary(when facing Phantom Assassin, Spectre, some other heroes) and Shadow Blade makes sense on the hero. Usually you replace Blink Dagger with it for that purpose(you can do this with Sven, Dragon Knight or Shadow Fiend, for example);

b) overall synergy with the hero - that's the reason Shadow Blade is core for Slark and a very good pickup for mid/rich offlane Tusk;

c) this hero is able to get it quickly enough to make good use of 175 bonus damage, and more importantly, denying enemy cores the farming space from about minute 15. Imagine you're Luna and you need BKB ASAP, but enemy SF gets a 14 minute Shadow Blade and you can't even farm jungle unless you have vision of him - and you won't if SF knows what he's doing.

C) is Kunkka's case exactly - he can get it fast enough most of the time, 175 bonus damage is super-useful for him because of Tidebringer synergy and he is a great hero to apply pressure with. It also synergizes very well with the hero overall - for example, with X Marks the Spot you can safely destroy creepwaves and stall the enemy as well as deal massive AOE damage, with Boots of Travel you can clear any ordinary creepwave with Shadow Blade cleave hit and Torrent.

Blink Dagger is a viable substitute, especially if you can't get Shadow Blade in time - but that's a different playstyle. It's about preference more than anything else.

If you watch !Attacker's stream you may also notice he loses quite a lot in a strange fashion - he almost always(like 95% of the time) does a great job and is extremely useful and impactful... but his teammates are quite often not because of picks, misplays, quarrels, whatever. But when that happens and he can't carry the game by himself he is still forced to do what he does - because he can't really do anything else. His build is entirely brawling and ganking oriented, with no fallback option because he can't farm nearly as quickly as with maxed Tidebringer. A "hit or miss" build, if you wish. That's how he plays, it's okay and it works more often than not because he plays in 6k+ avg games where most people know what they are doing and this meta, while being greedier(which is also a good reason to got for Tidebringer), still features a lot of early game engagements. But most players don't play at 6k+ avg games and a lot of players don't understand that if you got Kunkka in your team, you better pick some good early-mid game heroes, gather and push the **** out of your enemy because his spells are crazy good. And when that doesn't happen, you better use your 4 second cooldown Tidebringer to get some gold even if your teammates(or you) **** up. Also !Attacker's build is completely combo-reliant and there are heroes that can screw them up - most of them are his natural counters. When you are against heroes like Juggernaut, Omniknight, Outworld Devourer etc. you better farm what you can instead of running around doing nothing with your X and Torrent.

That's right, I won't hit Drow in the face - instead I will get a cleave off the creepwave that will ignore her huge damage reduction from armor, X her, cast Ghost Ship and Torrent, and kill her since that's insane damage burst Drow can't survive. That will basically happen with any hero who has no way to disrupt the combo or survive it and run away.

I also don't get what you want to say - you say that !Attacker's build is better but then yourself state tat ganking is not always the way to go - and if anything, !Attacker's build only makes it worse while maxed Tidebringer will let you farm if there's no opportunity to gank.

BKB is a very sup-optimal item for Kunkka, but in this patch I more often than not have to pick up one just to be able to do stuff. You see, "one-hit wonder" build for Kunkka and Ember Spirit are great, but they have one big weakness(aside from being RNG due to crit).

They don't do enough. Dealing random bursts of damage every X seconds is good on paper, but in reality it just doesn't cut it, unless you have truly A LOT of damage(and this means at least one Divine Rapier or huge overfarm). The best way to lose late game as Kunkka is X yourself, walk in, get a cleave off but get no crit/screw it up/don't hit the enemy carry, then return back to X and wait until you can go in again - if you can, since you have your Shadow Blade/ Blink Dagger on cooldown now.

Your job is NOT done this way. If you have 300+ raw damage on hit and you're sitting here like a good dog waiting for your kit to come off cooldown, you're doing it wrong. If you can't get more hits off because you are getting decimated, get a BKB. Especially when Invoker(a walking AOE disabling menace), Enchantres(oneshot or die, and you can't oneshot heroes without Divine Rapier crit) and other nasty **** is so popular.

That's also the reason the brawler build exists. This patch I often try to go for it, sometimes I even ditch second Daedalus for Black King Bar. Kunkka is not Ember Spirit - he can't do his one-shot wonder nearly as often, but he doesn't need to. He has 2k+ HP from his raw STR gain alone and a ridiculous 50% damage delay buff, he is an excellent brawler if he has enough money and is a decent frontliner overall if you itemize for it.

You comment is not really long, but it's pretty hard to read because of no capital letters or paragraphs. Thanks for the input though, highly appreciated.

dear....dimon? :) hello, i wanted to tell you, i quite liked your guide, and even although im not a fan of blink, in high-level matches (im almost reaching a level where my ranked games have been as hard as competetives :D)SB is easily countered, that 175 damage is CRAZY good with cleave, but i just think blink is WAY better for heroes who need positioning, also, i think your ganker build is a bit... wrong. i think attacker is doing the build quite right in a ganker build, you need a max level X marks the spot ASAP, alongside a way stronger torrent, why? because in ganks you wont go to hit that drow in the face... nope, you wont. you will use X, torrent and ult (the range of a maxed X is 1000, and your ship goes 1000 units ahead of you as well, i use that for reference as im still not very experienced with kunkka). thats it,thats why you dont like tanky heroes, they survive these comboes, THATS why the ganker build is not always correct, THATS why you max torrent and X, because you need your skills for ganking, not auto-attacks, YOU aren't night stalker, YOU dont attack fast, YOU dont have a *permanent* steroid for ganking early game like night stalker's Hunter In The Night, i suppose you want to gank creeps by almost maxing tidehunter :D, also, isnt BKB a bit dumb for a hero who really isnt BUILT to tank? there are things i like to call "defensive steroids" which are abilities like bristleback or kraken shell, kunkka doesnt have one! its not his job to tank that damage with a damage block or a 40% damage reduction like tide and bristleback have it, ITS YOUR JOB TO DEAL DAMAGE FROM A VERY FAR DISTANCE. you ult, torrent,wait for your stun, go in, land one tidehunter, back off, YOUR JOB IS DONE HERE. its like magnus, blink,ult,shockwave,skewer, empower your carry. YOUR JOB IS DONE HERE. other than that, great guide! sorry for the long comment, i love to type :D

Ah I see, I was use your 100% your build andd its great even im lose *team matter* sure urn fill me up in mid game and boost my dmg, and urn help me a lot with blink dagger user since x mark combos hard to hit if enemy got blink :D

I do not get different items when my game is going bad, aside from Blink Dagger there's no real substitute for Shadow Blade. If you are a fan of Blink over SB, then you probably should get it instead in bad games, since Blink basically never falls off, while SB falls off pretty fast. Crit is the next go-to item anyway, no matter how does your game go, it's the best damage item for Kunkka.

Urn is just a really good filler, it's like getting Power Treads on Anti-Mage - delays your Battle Fury, but makes you more capable while you don't have it. Since Kunkka is a very good hero to be active with early, having Urn by that time is way better than having Claymore. Also it lets you snowball easier and it's a good sustain when you are farming, also it's crazy good in early teamfights which should be your priority.

I mentioned X-TP trick in the guide several times, and passing Bottle to a hero that has just returned from fountain is an overall tactic, there's nothing exclusive for Kunkka, everyone can do it.

Thanks for the comment!

May 1 ask some questions, maybe you should add a sector if you losing a lane or mid to follow up the game with other cheaper item or something else. Another one is I kinda confused w/ why build urn, I know it give some durability and mana regen which is so nice for kunkka and big heal for allies or dmg, but is it better to rush shadow blade as 1st item after bottle? and I think its kinda useless to buy urn just for heal since we got bottle here *even losing rune we can use cour to refill it* and in my opinion drum of endurance much better for him. Thanks but overall this guide awesome!! +1

Another trick to refill bottle is x mark w/ tp or ask supp from fountain to tp mid then pass over the bottle


Well im just 2,5k mmr there must be i dont know bout 4k mmr xD

Yes, I've seen that build on one of his latest streams, since Tidebringer is good with just one level in it, he maxed Torrent and X Marks the Spot and that'd be a new ganking build I guess(since for farming maxing Tidebringer is still better), however I still think Treads are kinda meh on him. Unfortunately, I've watched the stream after publishing the guide, so I'll add the new build in the next update, probably withing a month of now.

Nice to see the guide updated, just a note tho, !Attacker seems to go Treads and Torrent maxed by lvl 7 almost every game, so you might want to look in to that build.