A guide to Bounty Hunter - Slice is Nice

Introduction

Bountyhunter is a great carry, and is great at chases and can harass lanes Well using Jinada (if the enemies are melee). He is a great 1:1 ganker, and if things go wrong, he can just slip away using Shadow Walk, regenerate his health and then slide back into battle as if nothing happened at all. This makes him one of the most powerful carries, giving even Faceless Void or Spectre a run for their money - (witty there, eh?). his Jinada allows guarrenteed last hits on creeps, and of course last hits on heroes too, which are important if you want to dominate the game. He can use Track to catch escaping heroes, or ofcourse to get a little movement speed, or a little extra gold if needs be. His Shuriken Toss is pro earlygame, although it drops off a little lategame, as people start to buy hearts and whatever. This is why it is great for getting kills early on - it catches escaping heroes with ease. This all sounds great, but unfortunatly you have to be good at him to dominate by so much. This is where (i hope!) my guide will come in handy, allowing you to adopt the methods i use when i play him (and im sure the way many others play him too) to hopefully become BEYOND GODLIKE.

Skills overview

Shuriken Toss: When activated throws a spinning blade at the targeted unit. Inflicts high damage (100/200/250/325) and ministuns. Cancels channeling items such as teleportation using scrolls, and stops disables such as Shadow Shaman's Shackles or Enigma's Black Hole.

Jinada: Deals a passive 200% critical strike and a 4 second maim (slows attack and movement speed by 25%) every (12/10/8/6) seconds.

Shadow Walk: Upon activation, renders you invisible for (15/20/25/30) seconds until you attack or use an ability or item such as Shuriken Toss or Tranquil Boots. Does not dispell most channeling abilities upon you.

Track: Upon activation, Tracks an enemy hero and grants a gain in movement speed (20%) to allies near the tracked hero. If the target dies, you and nearby allies collect a bounty in gold. Gives true sight of the targeted unit for the duration.

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PLEASE NOTE

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> Track goes through magic immunity
> Gold from Track is added as reliable gold, and is recieved if the target dies when the spell is active, regardless of how they die or who kills them.
> Shadow Walk can be used to dodge spells, such as shots from towers, or incoming stuns. it requires practice to avoid damage using Shadow Walk, but it can be done.
> Breaking Shadow Walk with a physical attack adds an additional 30/60/90/120 damage to your attack

Pros / Cons

Pros:

Great ganker
high DPS
can outchase heroes
brilliant escape mechanism
Not item dependant
Melee

Cons:

Melee
Low mana pool
Difficult earlygame farming
Has a weird chicken fin on his head

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I put Melee as a pro and as a con because its neither good nor bad. you can have difficulty farming at the beginning, which is bad, but you can also use more items, such as a skullbasher. This puts Melee down to preferance - if you don't like playing Melee heroes, Then bounty hunter is probably not the hero for you.

Friends and foes

Friends:

Any support hero with a healing ability (as always) such as Chen or Dazzle.
Anyone with a disable or a stun or a slow, such as skeleton king or Shadow Shaman
Anyone who can isolate a hero from a group, such as Dark Seer
Any nuker hero who can take single heroes low and you can finish them off, such as Lion

Foes:

Anyone who can gain true sight of you without shopbought items such as Slardar's amplify damage.
Anyone who can stun or otherwise disable, such as Pudge or Shadow Shaman
Anyone with escape mechanisms such as Weaver or Clinkz

Item Choices

At the beginning of the game you will be faced with a question: What items will I buy? The simple answer is: It is entirly situational. If they have alot of squishy heroes such as Rubick or Zeus It isn't required to buy damaging items such as a Desolator, but it is reccomended to buy items such as a Battle Fury due to its regen stats and the extra damage. If there are alot of tanky heroes on the enemy team such as Tiny or Night Stalker It is reccomended to get multiple damaging items, and a Desolator in particular to reduce their armour.

You may ask Why buy Tranquil Boots? The answer is this: They are the cheapest boots (excluding Boots of Speed) and they have the highest movement speed bonus (excluding Boots of Travel) and they have some useful health regen stats (+3 HP regeneration) and a bonus +3 armour. But the main reason why I reccomend you buy these boots is their active: Restores 170 Hp over 10 seconds. This is really useful because if you are in a lane with enemys, which are harassing the hell out of you, you can just jump back to your tower, activate them and go back in with 170 more health (damage taken during the duration from enemy heroes or from roshan will stop the restoration process, so be sure to stay out of enemy reach). This is so good because it has unlimited uses, so it stops you from having to make regular trips to spawn, or buy Healing Salves and waste your money on them rather than rushing your Battle Fury.

A Poor Man's Shield is very useful earlygame because of its passive which blocks incoming damage. Although it is not required, if you are having difficulty farming because of harassers, then you should buy this. on the other hand, if your farming is going extremely well and you get first blood, you should get this too, because you have the extra gold to spend on it.

After getting those items ( Tranquil Boots, Poor Man's Shield, Battle Fury, Desolator) your item choice is entirly situational. If the enemy have one or more stunners on their team (such as skeleton king or Chaos Knight) it might help do get a linkens sphere so block their stuns. If they have people bothering you with magical damage, pick up a Diffusal Blade.

Gameplay

There are many ways to play Bounty Hunter. The first one is hit and run, which consists of you going invisible using (lvl 2+) Shadow Walk, walking up behind the enemy and hitting then with Jinada, and then instantly going invisible again with Shadow Walk. This method can be very effective for picking off players on low health, but can also be dangerous if you are silenced during the duration of you being invisible, or if you run out of mana after revealing yourself. this is why it is always important to check if you have the 50 mana to perform Shadow Walk once becoming visible.

Another technique is to tank, which is achievable by running up to the enemy (visible or invisible) and attacking them. (hopefully) their natural instinct would be to run away, giving you free hits on them, and once you have taken them low just finish them off with a throw of your shruiken toss. If they start to teleport away, simply shruiken toss them and the teleportation will be canceled (works with Nature's Prophet's Teleportation).

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If you have your own technique or have found one with might be useful to other people, please post it below, and I will add your method into this section.

Earlygame

Earlygame, bountyhunter is in his weakest phase. Being a melee hero without very strong harassing abilities is dangerous earlygame. this is why it is important to farm for as long as possible, no matter what is going on over the far side of the map. if you just stick to your lane and farm, with Tranquil Boots you are able to avoid taking trips to spawn. this allows maximum leveling opportunities, which are the key to being a succesful carry. REMEMBER: The most important DotA 2 equation: Kills earlygame = Kills lategame. This means that if there is someone in your lane, go for a kill... you might be able to snag first blood, if not then just a kill, and with that you are a step closer to showing the enemies the full potential of you and your Bounty Hunter.

In terms of items, Upgrading your ring of regen into a pair of Tranquil Boots is a must, as you need the healing ability to stay in your lane, allowing maximum farm time. Tranquil Boots also have a neat +80 speed bonus, which is a great addition to chases, and escapes. Picking up an early Poor Man's Shield is'nt necassary, but is completely situational. if you don't think you need it, dont get it, but if you do, then buy one... they really do help. If you are laning with enemies with stuns, such as skeleton king, it is important to level up Shadow Walk as soon as possible, because of the dodging method used by players to go invisible when the missile is launched, so the missile misses and you waste half of skeleton king's mana pool. also be sure to pick up a few sentry wards if you are farming against someone like Clinkz or Riki, so that you can counter their invisiblity, or foil planned ambushes.

Mid game

By now, you should have your core items. (if you dont have your Battle Fury or Desolator by now, you have probably strayed away from farming and have gone ganking too early). Be sure to get these items before ganking, or get at least one of them (I normally rush Battle Fury first, because of the mana and health regen. Once you obtain these items, go out hunting... the real game is about to begin for you...

You should attempt to pick off lone heroes straying around the map, do not attempt to solo groups yet, you are not quite strong enough. Killing stray heroes will increase your levels and gold rapidly, so it is important to get them, so that you have a very high level and gold advantage over the enemy team. this is where your vlads will come in handy. you can use it to jungle and eventually solo roshan.

Once you have started to become successful with your kills, and hopefully minimal deaths, the enemy team will finally realise its you causing all the trouble and will focus on you. they may buy a Gem of True Sight or sentry wards, so just kill off the gem holder, and place your own sentry wards to detect theirs. All you need to do now is mill around the map, damaging (if not killing) enemy carries to interrupt their farming. This will gain you and your team a significant advantage, allowing you and your teammates to push with ease, not worrying about the enemy Spectre or Faceless Void.

After this, Winning the game shouldn't be a problem whatsoever. All it requires is that you dont do stupid things (like running into the enemy spawn) and constantly keep the pushing pressure on the enemy team. Be sure to pick up a few luxury items which suit your situation best.

Lategame

At this stage in the game, Bounty Hunter is at his prime. With high damage and (hopefully) good items, he will be able to appear next to an enemy, and within seconds they will be dead, not knowing what happened. In public matches, when playing against someone like bounty hunter, nobody buys wards, or dust etc. This is why public matches are great, because you are able to get kills early on without worries about wards. Later on though, the enemies will soon realise you're causing the damage, and WILL buy Sentry Wards, or a Gem of True Sight or maybe Dust of Appearance. This is why you have to be careful late game in case someone does happen to have one of the above. If youre doing really well, and the enemy have difficulty killing you, it may be useful to buy a Gem of True Sight to check for Sentry Wards or other true sight items.

At this point you should have got your Desolator and Battle Fury, and if you don't, i'm afraid you wont dominate the game as much as I promised at the start (unless the enemy team is REALLY bad), but you will be able to dominate none the less. Once you have these, you should start building a rapier (if you think you can survive reliably with it and not die). Once you have a rapier, you are unstoppable, and will be the enemies main concern. Just keep encouraging pushes, and wipe enemies who stray too near off the face of the earth. You should then be able to penetrate the enemy lines and destroy their ancient without much trouble.

Overview

Bounty hunter is a powerful stealth carry hero, who excels lategame. He is a great hero who can quickly pick off isolated heroes, and can win chases because of the maim from Jinada and the speed from Track. If you want to dominate the game, BE SURE NOT DO DIE MORE THAN ONCE EARLY ON! Deaths early game = deaths late game; Kills early game = kills late game. Simple. Thats all you need to become a pro Bounty Hunter.

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This is my first proper fully conclusive guide, so suggestions would be appreciated. If you have any questions (or spot any mistakes), post them below, and I will reply and take action as soon as I see your posts. Feel free to add me HERE if you have any further questions. Please rate kindly and fairly, as I put a lot of effort into making this guide for you. Thanks, and good luck!

-MukL.