Boom Shaka Laka! He's On Fire! | A DibsMid Guide

Introduction

Huskar the Dunkar. If he wasn't in Dota, I swear he would be in a basketball game. The man has mad hops. One of the most notorious pub stompers in the game, all you need is one feeder to get you so unbelievably powerful you can take the enemy team on all by yourself. Sort of an all or nothing hero, if you do good you do great, if you do bad you fall flat on your face and get told to uninstall. This guide is meant to keep you on the former of those two more often than not. I only have one build for him because I believe this is the only good build for him. Other builds will work, but not nearly as well, IMHO.

Before we begin, this is a guide that specifically focuses on playing in a solo middle lane, but that doesn't mean this guide wont be useful for lane play too. These are my personal builds that I have used in pub matches and know they work from experience, but they are only pubs. It might work for higher levels of play, but I wouldn't know. So without further ado, here is my guide to the Michael Jordan of Dota, Huskar the Sacred Warrior.

Role

Huskar is an exceptional pub stomping carry. Not a very viable hero for competitive play as he is quite easily counter-able with good teamwork, communication, and experience. He is not a hard carry as he doesn't need to farm until the late game, yet he is not a semi-carry as he deals mad amounts of damage. It would be appropriate to say that he is an all-game carry. He will never outcarry a fed hard carry, but he makes up for that by being effective all game and denying the enemy carry that feed that he needs to become powerful.

Pros + Powerful throughout the whole game + Low cooldown ultimate terrific for ganking + Ult does damage based on % of HP, not a set HP amount + Little to no mana management required + Weaknesses easily remedied by items + Can solo Roshan

Cons and Solutions Problem: Relies on low health for DPS Solution: Know when to be cautious, and BKB Problem: Susceptible to burst damage Solution: BKB (magic) & Heaven's Halberd (physical) Problem: HP management required Solution: Lifesteal Problem: Very little CC Solution: Must rely on team for CC

---

Best time to pick is when you do not have a designated mid-lane hero, no jungler, and the enemy does not have much early game ganking potential.

Avoid picking him up when the enemy has large amounts of burst damage and stuns ( Lina, Lion) or if your team already has enough designated carries (there should be no more than 2).

Skills

Inner Vitality

Inner Vitality

Type: Targets:

Active Allied Units

Unlocks the regenerative power of a friendly unit, with healing based upon its primary attribute. If the target is below 40% it will heal faster. Lasts 16 seconds.

---

Notes:

• HP percentage is checked every second and the regeneration adjusted accordingly.

Summary:
This heal is basically a Super Tango. It's primary use is to give you lane staying power in the early game, and to heal up either yourself or a teammate after a team fight. Remember that it heals much more if the target is below 40% HP, so keep that in mind when you are deciding when to use it and who to use it on.

---

Burning Spear

Type: Targets:

Auto-Cast Enemies

Huskar sets his spears aflame, dealing damage over time with his regular attack. Multiple attacks will stack additional damage. Each attack drains some of Huskar's health. Lasts 6 seconds.

---

Notes:

• Damage type on self is HP removal.
• Burning Spears stacks additively when used multiple times on one target.
• Huskar cannot kill himself using this ability.

Summary:
You get one point into this to orb walk. There is a guide later that describes orb walking, but the primary point of it is that you can attack the enemy hero without drawing creep aggro. You do not want to put this on auto-cast, as you want your Helm of the Dominator to be your orb once you get it.

---

Berserker's Blood

Type: Targets:

Passive Self

Huskar's injuries feed his power, giving increased attack speed and damage for each 7% of missing health.

---

Notes:

• There will be a special effect when Berserker's Blood is giving a large bonus (60% missing health).
• First stack lasts from 100% to 87% of Huskar's maximum HP.
• Maximum bonus (14 stacks) is achieved when Huskar has strictly less than 3% of his maximum HP.

Summary:
Simply put, the lower your health, the more pew pew. This synergizes well with your Helm of the Dominator because the lower your health gets, the more damage and faster your attack, which means you get health back faster. This makes it very hard for you to die, and it isn't unheard of having a fed Huskar take on the entire enemy team.

---

Life Break

Type: Targets:

Active Enemies

Huskar draws upon his health to break an enemy's life, leaping at a target within attack range to inflict a percentage of that hero's current HP, and slow at the cost of his own vitality. While leaping, Huskar is magic immune. Slow lasts 5 seconds.

---

Notes:

• Huskar will charge up to his target, becoming magic immune, before doing the effects.
• If used on a magic immune target, the damage will not be dealt but the slow will not be blocked

Summary:
This is your ganking/initiation skill. Take half their health and then slow them as you watch a rain of spears come down on their face? Sounds like a pretty good ultimate to me.

Items

Typical items to begin with to give damage, hp, and items for potential upgrades. Even though you have Inner Vitality, you have a very low mana pool and it is still useful to have HP regen items with you.

Morbid Mask This builds into your Helm of the Dominator, gives you the ability to jungle (if the situation deems it appropriate), and keeps you from going back to base ever. A necessary first item.

Boots of Speed Makes your ganks more effective and reduces transit time between the lane, jungle, and ganking. Once you have your ultimate your ganks will be almost impossible to escape from.

Helm of the Dominator Gives you much needed armor, additional damage, lifesteal, and helps you jungle better. If you're confident in your micro you can pick up a creep and use him along with you. The alpha wolf is a great creep to have as his packleader's aura gives you a 30% increase in damage. Centaur's have a stun and the Ursa Warrior has a slow, but due to your slow it is much less useful than the Alpha Wolf. This can later be upgraded to a Satanic, a great item on Huskar.

Power Treads Power Treads are taken for the attack speed boost and additional strength stats. Phase boots are not necessary because Huskar has his ultimate to slow, Arcane Boots are not needed because Huskar doesn't need mana, and Boots of Travel are only a situational late game item if countering a Tinker or a Nature's Prophet.

These items are typically gotten if you had a hard time getting farm (poor last hitting) and/or your ganks were unsuccessful (enemy had wards or were playing conservatively)

Bracer A decent stat item that also gives a bit of a damage boost. This should only be gotten if you are dying often and cant seem to get enough gold for any better items. If gotten it is highly recommended that you upgrade it to a Drum of Endurance.

Armlet of Mordiggian This is a great item that is part of the core for most builds, but I think it is an optional pick. Optional as in if I am absolutely dominating, then I will skip it. Otherwise it is a definite pick up. It synergizes very well with Helm of the Dominator, as the drain from the armlet will be restored when attacking. The active also gives you a huge boost in survivability, it is basically a free reaver when turned on. All the passive bonuses are nice to have but are not essential needs. For its bonuses, it is one of the most cost efficient items in the game.

Medallion of Courage A great ganking item, as you can leap in, put the armor debuff on them, then kill them even faster than you would have before. Not a core item because you already kill the enemy heroes pretty quickly, although sometimes that few seconds really matter. This will also help you kill Roshan faster, especially if you are going to be solo Roshing. The armor is nice but along the lines of Armlet, it is not an essential need.

Drum of Endurance Another item that is one of the most cost efficient items in the game, if you decided to get bracer then this is a definite pickup. You move a little faster, you attack a little faster, and the active can be used in both team fights to give you the edge or when pushing a tower to take it faster. The stat boosts you get from this is basically equivalent to that of an Ultimate Orb, for 375 less gold. Those stats along with the auras and damage boost, this is never a bad item to grab.

Urn of Shadows Another upgrade for your Gauntlets of Strength, and since you will be ganking so often you will build up lots of charges in this. The heal is nice but not necessary for you as you have inner vitality and lifesteal, but it is a good item to use on teammates to help them out. Just make sure that no one else is getting it before you get it.

Black King Bar This is absolutely essential. This eliminates your biggest weaknesses, burst damage and disables. You can really let loose once you get this, you will be attacking, and constantly healing as you attack. Your lifesteal cannot be stopped as you cannot be stunned, or bursted once your health is low. The lower your HP gets, the faster you will attack and the only thing the enemy team can do is right click you, which makes you stronger and faster, which means you heal faster and stay alive. It's a virtuous circle for you, a vicious circle for the enemy team.

Blade Mail It makes the enemy make a hard choice. Should I attack huskar and hurt myself, or not attack and have him hurt me. It's a lose-lose for them. If you decide to get this, I would suggest getting health items and strength items such as Heart of Tarrasque, Satanic, and Eye of Skadi for the health boost, while avoiding Assault Cuirass, as an increase in armor will reduce the effectiveness of blademail if the enemy decides to attack you instead of avoiding you. AC's effectiveness wouldn't be reduced with Blademail if the enemies main DPS is coming from magical damage or pure damage.

Assault Cuirass Attack speed is something that I enjoy on Huskar. You have lifesteal so your health typically won't be low unless you are in a team fight, and he attacks (relatively) slowly with high amounts of health. The armor aura is added survivability for you and your team and armor debuff for the enemy will have you killing them just a little bit faster.

Heart of Tarrasque A strength bonus and health bonus, not bad but I think the money could be spent better elsewhere. With lifesteal, the health regen passive is redundant. It works well in synergy with blademail, as previously stated, and can also be gotten if you are going a pure tankiness route. I don't like it and typically don't get it, but it is a viable item to be gotten.

Shadow Blade An item that is fun, not practical in matches with competent supports. Most often it is used defensively as an escape mechanism, although I think its uses as an offensive item are much more potent. The enemy has little time to react when a Huskar pops out of invis using Life Break right next to them. It works, but is easily countered by gem, dust, and sentry wards.

Satanic No more worries about getting too low on health. If it drops too far for your liking, pop the active on this baby and get a whopping 175% for 3 seconds. With as fast as you will be attacking at low HP, 3 seconds is good amount of time. Boosts your basic lifesteal from 15% TO 25%, and gives you some added strength. A very very good item on Huskar, definitely a priority item.

Heaven's Halberd Now lets assume that the enemy team has an Ursa that has gotten very fed. It's hard to compete with a right click DPS hero like Ursa since he attacks so fast and goes through your BKB, especially one who also typically also has lifesteal. The solution, Heaven's Halberd. Use the active and disarm him for 3 seconds (4 seconds for ranged hero), and then avoid 25% of his attacks. The maim is nice, especially now since it is not an orb effect, yet with your slow it is not a reason to get the item. It also gives decent strength and damage. Another examples of carry heroes that HH would be good against are Lifestealer and Phantom Assassin.

Daedalus Gives you crit, and with your attack speed at low levels. So much DPS. Pure damage item, one of my favs to get, usually after a health item, attack speed item, or straight to it if I am absolutely dominating.

Monkey King Bar Another pure DPS item, great for countering an enemy with Butterfly or Heaven's Halberd.

Mjollnir Synergizes very well with this build. Lifesteal between procs of Chain Lightning, some attack speed for when your health is up, and a quick double tap to give yourself a lightning shield. If you can get Skadi with this...ugh...soo good. My favorite way to build Huskar no doubt.

Eye of Skadi Another item that synergizes well with this build. Gives fantastic stats, a health boost,and a mana boost which isn't important at all but you still get it. Now the orb effect can be combined with lifesteal, can you say OP much. Expensive item though, so keep that in mind.

Gameplay

This is where you are the weakest. If you get shut down here, there is little you can do to recover for the next stages of the game. Last hit and deny per usual, keeping an eye on your health. It is nice to be between half health and three quarters health, as it really helps with last hitting, but be careful not to let yourself get too low. Take into consideration who you will be laning against. For example laning against a Zeus, keep your HP up. Better to lose out on a couple last hits than die from his insane early game burst damage. Make sure to orb walk the enemy heroes with your burning spear, but keep your primary focus on those last hits as you want to get that Morbid Mask as soon as possible. It's nice to harass someone out of the lane, but you can potentially overextend this way and die, caution is extremely important at this point in the game.

At level 6 you should begin to gank, or at least begin to plan a gank. Ganking an enemy lane is typically 3 versus 2 to your advantage. With your ultimate it is pretty much 3 versus 1 and a half if they are both at full health. What I'm trying to say is that it should be very easy to successfully gank and rack up those kills. Most of your gold at this point should come from hero kills, with intermitten jungling between ganks. Typically when I begin to gank, I have another hero shift mid. This gives you a gold and experience advantage over the other team, most of the time.


Soon the enemy will be grouping up, to keep in check your reign of terror. This is where BKB becomes essential. There WILL be cc and they WILL focus you, if you played correctly in the early game. Even if the enemy team didn't feed you kills, you are still a very dangerous hero just as long as you have lifesteal (and are about the same level as them). Use BKB during teamfights. Too early or you may waste precious seconds of magic immunity, or too late and you are already being focused down. Typically you will want to travel around with at least one other person, if pushing a lane or going to gank, just to be safe. Once you play with him enough you will know when you can go off alone or when you should stay with your team. If you are not pushing/counter-pushing, ganking or teamfighting you should be in the jungle getting some jungle creeps. Your lifesteal lets you easily jungle.

Roshan at this point of the game is an option. I believe the earliest I have done a solo Rosh is at LVL 14, but I definitely had to leave and use Inner Vitality and heal up at some point during the rosh. I have died before from rosh because I did him too early and was stun-locked. It sucks, but you have been warned. The solo experience is nice from rosh but if you don't think you can do it alone you can always bring a buddy.



This is where either you are already doing fantastic and dominating, or you have not done very well and are getting stomped. Rarely with Huskar do you have a close game, but if it is then there isn't much of anything I can tell you to help you. At this point, it's about knowing how the game is played and not how the hero is played.

Allies & Enemies

Dazzle This guy is thee single best support you could have on your team. With Shallow Grave, your health will go down to 1, and you wont die. Your like a greek god, and the enemy heroes are all the little people on earth that are your playthings. Well, for 5 seconds at least.

Omniknight He will heal you when you are low, he gives you magic immunity, he is another support that compliments Huskar very well, although it does rely on the skill and intelligence of the Omniknight player, do not expect him to do the right thing until you know he is good.

Treant Protector All of this guys skill cater to you skill set. His Living Armor gives you armor and HP regen to your benefit in the early game when you don't have lifesteal. Nature's Guise so you can pop in and gank. Leech Seed to keep your HP up in team fights. His ultimate Overgrowth to allow you to dominate team fights unhindered. All in all a very helpful skill set for you.

Pudge When Pudge goes mid, you can make sure that he gets no farm, and much less experience with your range advantage. You will be able to harass him with your orb and drive him from lane. You will almost always win if you get hooked and rotted. Instead of running, as Rot will slow you, attack him faster and faster until he is dead. You will need to worry about the Hook, Rot, Dismember combo though. As you should have lifesteal by the time he is level 6, if you survive the combo you should be able to kill him and survive.

Templar Assassin Your burning spears counter her Refraction, that's about the extent to how much he counters her. Careful when ganking her as she will pop refraction as soon as she sees you jump at her.

Squishies Squishy heroes will melt under your spear. They are Huskar food.

Axe His ultimate is an instant kill at low health and it goes through BKB. If he gets a Berserker's Call off on you, perhaps with Blade Mail,and can cut your HP down low enough to ultimate you, pretty much you're ****ed. Your BKB will counter Berserker's Call before it is cast so keep that in mind. This also is the only skill that works on a hero under the effects of Shallow Grave. Make a mental note.

Juggernaut His ultimate Omnislash will go through BKB as it is physical damage, and if you are caught alone it will decimate you. Be careful when you are facing a good Jugg.

Shadow Fiend Has very strong burst damage early game, although a double edged sword. If he runs out of Shadowrazes and you are not dead yet, he is a very, VERY vulnerable target.

Razor The problem is he can steal your damage using Static Link, making you deal little damage and steal even less health. That in combination with a nuke that can strike you twice and an ultimate that goes through BKB, he is not only a strong counter but a pretty capable hero to 1v1 a Huskar.

Viper His skill set slows, deals damage over time, and deals more damage the lower the health of the enemy is. This are three very dangerous things to Huskar. Viper is a very capable mid lane, and if you try to orb walk him, he will orb walk you right back. His range is higher than yours by a significant amount, so he will be able to hammer away at you without taking any damage himself. He is, IMO, the worst hero for you to mid lane against.

Ursa A right click lifesteal hero that attacks crazy fast. If he doesn't get farmed or fed, then he wont be a problem, which means Shut Him Down. Gank him in the jungle, make sure Roshan is warded, do not let him get a gold or level advantage on you, and you will be fine.

Lifestealer Very similar to Ursa. A typical build for lifestealer is one that gives him attack speed, and he already has leech life, along with a magic immunity skill, he is going to be one tough cookie. Better for you is that his leech life doesn't steal as much the lower your health gets, the worse thing for you is he is incredible hard to gank with Rage.

Phantom Assassin Your worst nightmare as enemy carries go. If she gets farmed, she will obliterate you. Dat crit. Along with the fact that her typical build is getting a Helm of the Dominator and Black King Bar herself, there is nothing you can do when she pops that BKB and her critical will typically win over your mad attack speed. Don't let her get farm, and consider getting Heaven's Halberd to counter her.

Treant Protector He is a great ally, but also a tough enemy. His ult will keep you from doing anything, and in those 3 seconds you can easily be focused down. His ult will disable through BKB, but if you wait until after the ult to use your BKB, it will be dispelled. You have to make a choice between taking the damage or taking the disable. His other skills will be a bother to you as he can help his allies escape with invis and he gives them armor and health.

Burst Damage Magical burst damage from Lina, Lion, Tinker, Zues, etc. will obliterate you since you will typically not be running at full health. As long as you are careful until you get to BKB you should be fine. Once you get BKB, these abilites will be of little bother to you as typically heroes with high burst damage are quite squishy heroes. A special mention to Tinker, as he is also a hard hero to mid lane against and caution must be had when doing so.

Blink Heroes Blink heroes are just hard to gank, and you should coordinate with your team to gank those that do like Anti-Mage and Morphling. It usually is only a problem when trying to gank the carries that can blink. Try to avoid using your ultimate on them without coordination with your team.

Permanent Invisibility

Invisible Heroes Just like the blink heroes, they are hard to gank. Typically they are carry heroes too like Riki or Clinkz, where ganking them is essential to shutting them down. More of a nuisance than a counter to huskar.

Ultimates Watch out for ultimate's that go through magic immunity (i.e. Black King Bar). Here is a link to a list of ultimate's that penetrate BKB in some fashion.

Video Guide

I made this video as a practice run. Not any editing, just trying out the recording software and the youtube channel and whatnot. I tried to explain what I was doing but it is more me showing by example. A bad example at that, as I did NOT play that well, but I don't really like Huskar that much and don't want to be bothered to make a better video. The next ones I do will be more "guide"-ish than this.

DibsMid's Half-Guide To Huskar

Additional Resources

Orb Walking

Ultimate Abilities that work through Magic Immunity

Conclusion

Finally got a video up, it's not really what I want but its just the start. Lemme know if you like it and I will try to get more videos up for my next guides and maybe for some of the ones I have already done if the people really want that.

Constructive criticism is greatly encouraged, but please be nice since I am a very sensitive man....