Bear of madness (6.84)

Introduction

This is my very first guide so please go easy on me :). as the title says it is a noob's guide to play ursa. I an writing this guide based on the knowledge i gathered through experimentation, the wiki, other guides and the many games i have played with him. This is how I feel he is best played. This guide is based purely off pub match experience and is not tournament based in any way. I have made this guide detailed and in depth so please give me your in depth analysis :).

Skills

Lets first go over ursa's skill set.

Ursa is an agility mid game carry who deals high bursts of physical damage. His main unique characteristic is his third skill Fury Swipes which deals stacking damage to his opponent. This means the longer the fight lasts the higher advantage you have (Thats not to say that fights take long with ursa).

Earthshock

Earthshock is an area of effect slow which slows all enemies by upto 55% in a 385 radius for 4 seconds. This, In most scenarios is enough slow to kill fleeing enemies before they get too far. This however wont help u catch high mobility heroes such as Puck or Clockwerk. Although this will be blocked by Black King Bar and can be purged by Diffusal Blade, it cannot be blocked by Linken's Sphere.

Overpower

Overpower Makes you attack at maximum attack speed for the next 3\4\5\6 attacks. This has a few special properties:

• You will always attack at max speed regardless of your base attack speed, buffs, slows and debuffs.
• unaffected by Linken's Sphere and Black King Bar but can be purged by Diffusal Blade'
• 15 second duration and 10 second cooldown.

This means that the enemy cannot stop you from dealing 6 attacks without stunning you or disabling you. Also, if you activate overpower, wait for a few seconds and then attack, overpower will be available for a second use again. This, combined with a Black King Bar means you can get 12 stacks of fury swipes on your victim in a matter of seconds.

Fury swipes

Fury Swipes is ursa's main and most unique ability. This ability adds one stack of 15\20\25\30 damage bonus per hit every time you hit the enemy within the last 15 seconds. This damage goes through spell immunity and spell block and the debuff cannot be purged. This means that if the enemy does not immediately stun you, they are guaranteed to take stacks upon stacks of this damage combined with Overpower.

One thing to note here is that this bonus damage is physical damage, meaning it can be avoided by becoming etheral and can be reduced by having high amounts of armour.

This damage also cannot crit, cleave or be increased by damage increasing abilities like Quelling Blade or Empower. However, ursa can lifesteal off this damage.

Enrage

Enrage is ursa's ultimate and in my opinion one of the most powerful abilities in the game. When activated, It removes any existing debuffs and grants 80% damage resistance for 4 seconds and multiplies your fury swipes damage by 1.5/2/2.5. effectively, after using one overpower (6 stacks) 180 bonus damage becomes 270/360/450 bonus damage. This makes even the most tanky heroes fall like dominoes and even the most powerful nukes mere mosquito bites.

The damage reduction is applied to all incoming damage in all types including puredamage and damage from Blade Mail this works alongside your normal reductions (armour, magical damage resistance) so the effect is extremely high. For example Laguna Blade with aghanim's scepter deals 950 pure damage. with your ulti on it deals a mere 190 damage. Finger of Death which deals 1025 magical damage will deal a mere 153.75 damage after reductions.

This is also useful to escape a dangerous scenario eg: if Bloodseeker applies Rupture to you and chases you along with his teammates. Just pop your ult and you have 4 seconds to run\ blink away and you will take minor damage.

Items and gameplay

Starting items

In this guide, I am assuming you are going to jungle with ursa so,for starting items I recommend getting 2 sets of Tango, a Healing Salve and a Stout Shield. You will have 65 gold left over which i suggest saving rather than using to buy an iron branch.

Alternatively you can skip the stout shield and go for another salve or another set of tangos. The limiting factor here is how efficient you are at jungling. Your aim with this is to hopefully use these items to sustain yourself until you get a Morbid Mask after which you will not need any more heals.

---

Core items\Early-mid game

In this guide your core items are items which are crucial to reliably get kills. The first item you buy should be a morbid mask into a mask of madness. The reason I prefer mom over Vladmir's Offering is because of the active berserk which gives you 17% movement speed and 100 attack speed which is excellent for chasing own fleeing heroes. As soon as you get this and your ultimate, you should purchase a Smoke of Deceit and go kill roshan. this will put you at level 8.Next, get phase boots as chasing is your main concern. With this much equipment you are ready to gank with a support who can stun or nuke.

If you are unsure you can get kills,continue farming and get a blnk dagger (or alternatively a Shadow Blade). this should put you at level 10 and you should have a level of earthshock ready. Now you are ready to gank. Stick with your team and initate ganks with either shadow blade or blink dagger with earthshock. If you have someone with a stun on your team, let them stun first. If you get a good stun or earthshock off, you should easily get a kill. Push and try to take out the enemy's tier 1 and tier 2 towers. you should also get a Skull Basher by now.

If your team is dominating, the game will often ind in the mid game, if not, then we go into the late game. you should be able to purchase A Black King Bar by the end of the mid game.

---

Late game\luxury items

If the game transcends into the late game, then you are at a slight disadvantage since you may be out carried by heroes like phantom assasin and anti mage. You will need to start playing more defensively and let your team fight a bit before jumping in and killing the enemy carry.Regularly kill roshan and make sure your team benefits from aegis of immortality and Cheese. Be sure to take advantage of any supports you have at this stage of the game. I will now go over each luxury item and it's uses.

Abyssal Blade gives you a reliable 2 second stun which goes through spell immunity and a large damage bonus. use this to kill the enemy carry with a Black King Bar before he does any damage.

Butterfly adds evasion, attack speed and armour and gives a great boost to your survivablility and damage output when overpower is on cooldown.

Desolator gives a damage boost and reduces your enemy armour giving you about 30% more damage output. However, it is a unique attack modifier and you will have to substitute Mask of Madness with Vladmir's Offering in your core items.

Eye of Skadi is a powerful slow and gives a huge boost to all stats. As an added bonus, it can be combined with lifesteal attack modifiers. One of the best items to have on ursa but only if you can get it fast and reliably enough.

Diffusal Blade can be very useful as it provides both agility and intelligence. It's purge is useful on heroes who rely on certain buffs. It's mana burn can quickly drain the mana of a spellcaster due to your high attack speed. especially useful to prevent Wraith King from reviving with Reincarnation

Moon Shard can be consumed for extra attack speed while overpower is in cooldown. it is not worth it to have it take up a slot in your inventory in favour of more useful items .

Heart of Tarrasque gives a massive health bonus for extra tankability and health regen for sustainability. recommended for sustained pushes if your team does nto have effective heals.

Assault Cuirass give aoe armour and attack speed and reduces armour for your enemies. useful in team fights.

Shiva's Guard gives high armour and powerful aoe slow. good for teamfights.

Friends and foes

Friends and foes of ursa are the same people. Heroes with high burst damage and\ or long disables. These include Lion, Lina, Earthshaker , Tidehunter, Viper and so on.

A special mention to Omniknight since he is particularly good at both helping and countering ursa. Since ursa is always next to enemy heroes, his Purification is always effective as both heal and damage to both allies and enemies. His Repel can be used instead of a Black King Bar and saves ursa a precious inventory slot. His Degen Aura prevents being chased and helps chasing and his ultimate Guardian Angel prevents ursa from doing\taking any damage.

Another special mention to Dark Seer who can increase your damage output with his ion shell and solve your chase problems with [[surge.

Thank you for reading this incredibly lengthy guide. please give me constructive criticism. thank you!!