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Tango
Ring of Protection
Quelling Blade
Iron BranchIron Branch
Ring of Basilius
Soul Ring
Power Treads
Oblivion Staff
Vladmir's Offering
Boots of Travel
Orchid Malevolence
Manta Style
Butterfly
Heart of Tarrasque
Assault Cuirass
Necronomicon
Black King Bar
Sange and Yasha
Ghost Scepter
Heaven's Halberd
Scythe of Vyse
Monkey King Bar
Hyperstone
Ring of Aquila
Poor Man's Shield
Sentry Ward
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9 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Ah, Broodmother. In my opinion, she can be one of the absolute scariest heroes to be up against, but not because of her DPS or CC. Broodmother is a tricky, fun-to-play carry capable of destroying an entire lane if uncontended. Her unique playstyle of coating a lane in web, and her RIDICULOUS pushing capabilities make her an odd hero to play. Fun, but odd.
Despite her title as a "carry," she's not the best in the late game, and she is very easy to counter. The early and mid game are very important to her, and if she does not get early snowballing, it can be increasingly difficult to carry as her.
If the situation is right (or you happen to be in an easy pub), she can cause horrifyingly early victories, and my job is to teach you how to do just that.
+ Amazing pushing power
+ Early invisibility
+ Early health regen
+ Creates hordes rivaling those of 
Enigma and 
Nature's Prophet
+ Capable of going solo
+ Can move through impassible terrain
+ Can destroy a team with no pushing defense
- Bad base damage
- Bad starting movement speed
- mediocre-at-best stat gains
- Farm dependent
- Web dependent
- Predictable Playstyle
- Not the best in teamfights
- Easily countered by some heroes
Spawn Spiderlings is the ability that allows you to take early towers and amass an army of spiders to aid you in your game.
Quick notes:
- In order to actually spawn spiderlings, Spawn Spiderlings MUST be used 2 seconds before the targeted unit dies.
- Initially spawned spiderlings are stronger than subsequent spiderlings.
- subsequent spiderlings (spiderites) are spawned from any unit that you, or one of you spiderlings kill.
- Spiderlings give your foes less gold, but more experience, and spiderites give your foes more gold, but less experience.
- All spiderlings and spiderites last for 60 seconds.
- Newly-spawned spiderlings are not automatically selected, so you will need to left-click and drag you cursor over all of the units you want to control.
Using Spawn Spiderlings properly:
First and foremost: when taking towers, keep in mind that spiderlings do not deal too much damage, but they do take hits well.
In the early game, you should ideally wait until level 2 of Spawn Spiderlings to start using this ability frequently and spamming it with the help of mana regen/ Soul Ring. Try not to use it too often in the very early stages of the game, as you may overpush the lane and/or run out of mana too soon. Ideally, you want to have the lane equilibrium close to your tower when you reach level three or so; this way, you can start the spiderling spawn, and accumulate more and more spiderlings as you get closer to the enemies' tower. Also, you can use Spawn Spiderlings to slow and nuke an opponent who is likely to die, since this ability also provides for a decent damage-output.
Some good uses for spiderlings
- Tower pushing
- Scouting for enemies/runes
- Harassing, attacking, and blocking heroes (just try not to feed them unnecessary spiderlings)
- Jungling camps without AOE damage (red ursa bears suck with their clap thing)
- Stopping enemy pulls and blocking neutral camps
- Taking hits and drawing tower agro for diving
- MICROING THEM EVEN WHEN YOU'RE DEAD-- it may bring down a tower, or help an ally escape rough gank.
Spin Web is the ability is your bread-and-butter ability. It provides regen, invisibility, and movement speed while you are in the webs.
Quick Notes:
- You need webs early game. If you don't take one level in this at level one, you're wrong.
- Think of webs as 
Night Stalker's 
Hunter in the Night. You are relatively overpowered while in the webs, but relatively underpowered outside of them.
- Do not always rely on the invisibility. It IS great, but if you aren't careful, a support will buy wards and really mess you up
- If someone buys wards early game, you probably want to as well. Counter-warding is key, and with the quelling blade, it's not too hard
- You accumulate charges for web. Although they aren't too troublesome, be aware of how you are managing your webs, as the cooldown for gaining web charges is somewhat long at 40 seconds.
Using Spin Web properly:
When you arrive at your lane, the first thing you want to do is lay down the initial web. The first web should be centered around the spot where the first two creepwaves will meet. If you are up against an early-game counter to Broodmother, then get a TP scroll ASAP, and request to switch lanes-- you WILL have to use at least one web in order to stay alive. if at all possible, try to limit yourself to just the one web, since you will want to set up well on the other lane. The second web should be either behind the first one if the enemies are pushing hard from the start, or further into the enemies' tower if you are pushing more then they are. As the game progresses, you will be able to place webs more freely, and you won't be too restricted to one area of the map, but until then, stick to your own lane and only wander off if absolutely necessary.
Incapacitating Bite is your passive ability that also happens to be an orb effect. Always be aware that this WILL NOT stack with other orb effects.
Using Incapacitating Bite properly:
Typically, you will level up Incapacitating Bite later into the game; around level 8 or so. This ability is quite effective at stalling the escape of an enemy, and if you feel like you can easily kill the poorly-positioned support you're laning against, I would not object to getting a point of this ability early. At level 1, Incapacitating Bite takes away 10% of the target's movement speed. This means that your target will be sufficiently slowed, and you will be able to outrun them. outside of the web with 
Boots of Speed, your movement speed is 345. Let's say that you are laning with a 
Luna with Boots of Speed (movement speed of 380) and you get a hit on her with a level 1 Incapacitating Bite. Luna's movement speed now goes all the way down to 342-- just slow enough for you to outrun her. If, in the early game, you are letting the lane get close to your tower, and their support is sufficiently squishy and overreached, you can totally stall them with your auto-attacks and get an easy kill. The average movement speed at level 1 for most heroes is roughly 305. With one level of Incapacitating Bite, their movement speed goes down to 274.5. Wow. This is usually enough to get a good kill on a support, but it usually only works once, since they will typically be more weary of you next time.
Later in the game, leveling up Incapacitating Bite Tremendously helps against right-click carries, since at level 4, it provides for a 60% chance-to-miss debuff. Likewise, if there is any lone hero without support who isn't the best in 1 v 1 scenarios, you should be able to lock them down and destroy them with the added 40% slow.
The slow and the miss chance both fully stack with other modifiers.
Insatiable Hunger is yet another tool to aid you in maintaining enough HP to fully function in a lane.
Quick Notes:
- The lifesteal from Insatiable Hunger stacks with other forms of lifesteal
- Excess damage and lifesteal are not blocked by BKB, but Insatiable Hunger can be purged
- With a duration of 14 seconds, and a cooldown of 45 seconds, this ult is somewhat spammable (more on that later).
Using Insatiable Hunger properly:
Insatiable Hunger is one of the best forms of lifesteal in the game. since the duration/cooldown ratio is relatively short, do not be hesitant to use it whenever you think necessary. For the most part, Insatiable Hunger is used when you need the extra damage and lifesteal during teamfights, when you need the extra damage to secure a gank, when it will turn around a fight early game (thus allowing you to live and take a tower), or when you need the HP to stay in you lane. If you are at very low HP, you might consider using it against creeps so you can keep the pressure going in lane.
Yes, Broodmother is technically a carry. This does not mean that she will become unstoppable late game, or that she deserves to be played as a position 1 hero. She is a heavy pusher, and if she gets enough farm early game, she can snowball into a hard carry. The main role of Broodmother is that of a pusher. Broodmother is quite capable of competing with other carries in the early/mid game, but her usefulness falls off in the late game. She can still push down towers and barracks, but she will not be much use in teamfights, or most 1 v 1 fights against "real" carries if she isn't overfarmed. When you play Broodmother make sure that you can finish moderately quickly, or make sure that you have a more reliable carry for the possible late game. I usually play broodmother as a #2, but she is technically capable of being played as a #3 so long as she isn't laning with anyone of higher farm priority.
Your main goal as Broodmother is to apply as much pressure as you can to your lane; forcing your opponents to play like spazzes rushing around to defend their towers. This will lead to two outcomes. The first is that your foes do not defend enough, and you take early towers and snowball out of control. The second is that you provide for a constant distraction that leads enemy heroes away from their lanes, allowing your harder carry to farm like there's no tomorrow.
Treat Broodmother as a complete carry when it comes to laning. She will not work in a trilane, and she can have difficulties in classic duel-lanes due to her farm-dependency. Optimally, I play Broodmother as a offlane solo or mid. If you happen to run an aggressive trilane, she can solo the safelane as well.
I have put together three skill builds that I use for any given game. These builds really have the same goal of pushing towers by level 7 or so, however their early games play out differently. As a basic rule of thumb, always put your first point in Spin Web, as it is how you survive and actually become viable in the game.
Balanced Build:
This is the most balanced and least-risky build that I suggest to beginners and anyone who is soloing a lane. The main goal is to push down towers, and to stay in your lane. Although it is less blitzkrieg than the Push-oriented build, it has the highest chance of winning the game since you gain lane sustain (rhyming is fun) with your ult and your levels in Spin Web. Your sheer pushing power with Spawn Spiderlings is vital to tower take-down, so use it well. Later in the game, you earn some killing potential, but for the most part, your job is to take out towers and sustain.
Kill-Oriented Build
This build is not recommended for your usual build. If you happen to be up against a squishy lane with no escape spells, this MIGHT be the build for you. I only ever go this route if I absolutely know that I can secure 2 kills or more with it. When I see that I'm up against a 
Visage or a 
Crystal Maiden or a 
Lich, I will consider running this build since all of these heroes are relatively easy to kill early game due to their lack of DPS and their limited escape options. One other time where you might consider using this build is if you play a hit-and-run playstyle. As Broodmother, you have the unique option to kite slower attack speed melee heroes as a melee hero yourself. With enough hits, you should be able to secure the kill on most heroes if you whittle their health down to about 1/3, and they do not have a sufficient escape mechanism. This being said, by level 5 or so, you really should start to push towers
Push-Oriented Build
This is the risk/reward build. Assuming your opponents have little if any AOE damage, this build will drill a line straight through the opponents' lane, and leave your team with a web-lined path to victory. I do not actually recommend this build if you are going solo, as delaying your ult can kill you due to lack of sustain, but rather as a duel-lane option. In most pubs, everyone runs a duel-lane, and with a support, this build leads to the earliest victories. Also, it puts the absolute most pressure on your foes to defend their lanes. If you do decide to use this build while soloing a lane, be careful-- without your ult, you are more likely to die and lose the push-war, even if you have greater tower-takedown potential. You have been warned.
As I said earlier, Broodmother is easy to counter. Wait to pick her until the last possible moment so your chances of playing against a counter will decrease. Counters to Broodmother are really anyone who has spammable AOE damage in the form of an ability or an item. Be very cautious when playing against heroes with a good AOE output. Also, be aware that Broodmother does require farm to fully function on a team, so do not pick her if your team is comprised of farm-dependent heroes. Likewise, if your team is lacking a #2 slot hero, and the enemy team contains minimal AOE damage, pick Broodmother as she will excel against a weak lineup. Ideally, the enemy lineup lacks cheap AOE spells/damage, armor, and escape mechanisms.
Unfortunately, Broodmother has a lot of foes. Anyone who has spammable AOE spells like 
Pugna, 
Tidehunter, or 
Jakiro will hurt. Likewise, anyone who has cleave abilities or multi-hit auto-attacks like 
Axe, 
Sven, Luna, or 
Kunkka will also hurt. Take into consideration what abilities each hero you play against has when deciding whether or not you want to play Broodmother. Especially take caution to Broodmother's TERRORS...
TERRORS:
Timbersaw. Basically every damaging ability he has is AOE, and he can easily tank through your focus-fire of Incapacitating Bite and Insatiable Hunger. If you play against Timbersaw, I recommend skipping Vladimir's offering and maybe even your Power Treads in order to rush an Orchid Malevolence to silence this beefcake.
Earthshaker. This guy's 
Echo Slam scales with every unit that is caught in it. If you have a host of spiderlings, that means that Earthshaker will deal needless amounts of excess damage if the hoard is caught in Echo Slam. Countering Earthshaker is slightly more difficult then Timbersaw since Earthshaker usually gets a 
Blink Dagger. This being said, I recommend picking up a Black King Bar if you happen to be up against this fake cow.
[[elder titan?
Shadow Fiend. 
Shadowraze is one of the best, most spammable AOE spells in the game, and since he can theoretically cast three of them in a row, he will put a stop to any push attempt you make. Also, this guy feeds off of the spiderlings, and uses them as damage buffs with his 
Necromastery. Not fun.
Storm Spirit. 
Static Remnant + 
Overload = free farm against spiderlings. If that wasn't enough, he can totally disable you and escape from any slows you put on him.
Techies. Now you may think that Broodmother would be great against Techies since you can preemptively explode their land mines, but unfortunately, dota's most annoying hero is great against you. In the early game, Techies can easily stop your push by placing his land mines right up against the tower. This is easy enough to evade in the early game, since you can detonate the land mines with a spiderling, but when Techies reach level 6 they get 
Remote Mines. Remote Mines allow Techies to chose when they want to destroy your push. You may think to yourself right now "Okay, a little annoying, but can't I just buy Sentry Wards?" Nope. Well-- you can, but they won't help much because although you may be able to see the mines, you can't easily destroy them due to the pitiful damage output of your spiderlings.
Venomancer. His 
Venomous Gale will sap the life force from your poor spiderlings, and his 
Plague Wards will be good enough to combat your spiderlings. Also, both Venomous Gale and 
Poison Nova will hit you even if you are invisible, and Poison Nova hits like a truck, and it damages your spiderlings as well as you.
Warlock. Although he doesn't have a great arsenal versus Broodmother, his 
Fatal Bonds can be devastating against a ton of spiderlings. Be careful of this ability and of his ult if you play against him, as both will melt spiderlings.
STRAIGHT OUTTA THE FOUNTAIN:
You must always get a Quelling Blade since your base attack damage is pitiful and you do need the farm. The Quelling Blade will be dropped off later into the game, usually around the time you build your Vladmir's Offering and you don't really need the bonuses. I always recommend getting a set of Tangos to help with regen, however the typical 
Healing Salve + Tango carry-sustain is usually unnecessary do to the regen you get from Spin Web.
With the rest of you gold, you can do a small variety of purchases depending on what build you happen to be using. I recommend getting a Ring of Protection since it is a fountain-shop exclusive, and it goes into the oh-so-desired Ring of Basilius. This is not the only option, seeing as if you want more kill potential, you can load up on iron branches and 
Slippers of Agility to raise your stats. these items will eventually be sold, or upgraded into a ring of aguila in the case of the Slippers of Agility. You most likely wont need a 
Magic Wand since it slows down getting your Soul Ring and ring of aguila, and after you have these items and Boots of Speed, the Magic Wand won't be as great of an item to buy.
Any gold you have left over should be spent ideally on iron branches or on 
Clarity's. Any unused gold from the start of the game is wasted potential, unless you know what you are doing and you are rushing items.
EARLY GAME:
I love me my ring of basillius for Broodmother. It provides you a nice little mana trickle and armor, while it applies armor to you spiderlings, and to any allied creeps. This is a great pushing tool to make your spiderlings more bulky.
Secondly, the Soul Ring is a great pickup, since it greatly increases your pushing capabilities. By allowing you to spam Spawn Spiderlings. Be careful when purchasing/using this item, since it does chip away a good bit of your health.
Third item; Boots of Speed. I'm almost certain that every hero gets boots at some point; for Broodmother, you can afford to delay this purchase a bit, since you gain increased movement speed in you webs and you have unobstructed movement if you are not under attack.
I upgrade my boots into Power Treads since 
Phase Boots are not necessary due to Incapacitating Bite, and 
Arcane Boots and 
Tranquil Boots are just not worth it.
Lastly, you may want to pick up some Sentry Wards during the game if your enemy has them. Counter-warding should not be too much trouble since you should have a Quelling Blade.
MID/EARLY GAME:
I typically get an Oblivion Staff next, and then a Vladmir's Offering or Boots of Travel.
The Oblivion Staff provides a decent enough damage output and mana regen that Broodmother benefits from, and the Vladmir's Offering upgrades your Ring of Basilius and it gives you more bonuses for you, as well as sufficient lifesteal for your spiderlings. The Boots of Travel allow for split-pushing of the gods. Also, the Boots of Travel allow you to travel to any lanes with creeps without having to carry around a Town-Portal Scroll
You can very viably skip the Vladmir's Offering and/or Boots of Travel. they are not necessarily needed core items, but I tend to purchase them in the majority of my games. If your farm is not going well, I would try to get your Orchid Malevolence first, and consider getting a Vladmir's Offering or a Boots of Travel later.
After you have these items, try to build you first big item...
MID GAME:
...your Orchid Malevolence. This item grants you good DPS in the form of auto-attacks, and it allows for much more mana regen (allowing you to drop of the Soul Ring if need be). The active on this item is also plain awesome, as it silences an enemy for 5 WHOLE SECONDS. ALSO, it makes the targeted foe take 30% EXTRA damage for the silence duration. Wow. This is a great pickup for Broodmother, who lacks great attackspeed and mana regen. The active just adds to the awesomeness.
From here, you hopefully win the game before having to buy...
LATE GAME:
...your late game items. Each late-game item has a different function for you, and you generally benefit greatly from all of them. Keep in mind that if you have already built your Orchid Malevolence, you are most likely not too worried about mana regen or intelligence boosts.
1 - Manta Style
+ Adds DPS in the form of summoning illusions. Good for taking down heroes and towers
+ Adds move speed so you can move at a reliable pace outside of your webs
+ Adds pure stats to just make you better
+ Agility boost
+ Is easy to build a 
Yasha and recipe is cheap
+ Is stylish
- Illusions die quickly
- lower boosts than other items
2 - Butterfly.
+ Adds better auto-attacking
+ Evasion helps sustain and be even harder to lock-down
+ Active allows for escaping while outside of your webs
+ Agility mega-boost
- Expensive components
- No Strength or Intelligence boost
3 - Heart of Tarrasque
+ Best regen item in the game
+ Allows you to push, tank damage, go invisible, and then push some more
+ Adds much raw HP and Strength
- No Agility or Intelligence boost
- No damage boost
- Expensive components
4 - Assault Cuirass
+ Adds armor
+ Adds attack speed
+ Adds armor and attack speed to spiderlings and allies
+ Decreases armor for enemies in radius
- No stat boots
5 - Necronomicon
+ Adds even more minions for pushing power and kill potential
+ Allows you (at level three) to see any invisible units/wards
- Expensive to get to level 3
- No great stat boosts
- Harder to use than other items
SITUATIONAL ITEMS:
Black King Bar: If you are up against heavy spell-casters like 
Lion or 
Disruptor, you must get this item. Replace it with the Vlad's/BoT options.
Sange and Yasha: If your farm sucks, and you decided to ignore my Orchid Malevolence suggestion, these are for you. Although there are better items for your use, these are actually quite viable on Broodmother. the maim from 
Sange fully stacks from Incapacitating Bite, the extra bulk helps, and Yasha adds movement speed for your out-of-web endeavors as well as agility. Also, you can very easily disassemble this item to make a Manta Style and a Heaven's Halberd for later.
Ghost Scepter: Not recommended in any random build. Only grab this item if you think you really need it, or if you are up against a team chalk-full of right-clickers like 
Phantom Lancer, 
Huskar, 
Drow Ranger, 
Ursa, etc.
Heaven's Halberd: Admittedly, this is one of my all-time favorites in dota. It is not the best (or even that great) on Broodmother, however it has the maim from Sange, evasion from 
Talisman of Evasion, and an active that stops auto-attackers from auto-attacking. This item is quite nice versus the right-clickers mentioned above, and its usefulness sometimes can justify the purchase of a Sange and Yasha
scythe of vice: The disable is so great. Combined with an orchid malevolence, you should be able to eat any average foe with the immense disable combo. Having said this, the disable is really the only thing you gain from this, as +10 agility is nothing for that price.
Monkey King Bar: Damage and attack speed are nice, and you happen to benefit from both. Also, if your enemies have annoying evasion, this grants you true strike so you are able to hit them 100% of the time. Also, the mini-bash occurs decently often (35% chance) which helps versus channeling spellcasters.
Hyperstone: Raw attackspeed. If you are up against low-mobility heroes, this allows you to get the most hits into a tower/barracks as possible before having to run away. This item also builds into Assault Cuirass which is very fun, but you do not have to feel obligated to upgrade the hypersstone-- it makes a great contribution to Broodmother as a raw item
Ring of Aquila and Poor Man's Shield: If your farm really sucks early game, you MIGHT consider picking these up. I find that if I'm running the kill-oriented Broodmother, I build one of these to secure some early kills.
NOTE:
Just because I have gone into depth about these items does not mean that these are the only viable items for Broodmother. I have seen a friend go for a 
Medallion of Courage and a Assault Cuirass build as a ultility/micro-heavy Broodmother and it worked quite well. Likewise, I myself have purchased a 
Desolator in situations when I needed to hit the barracks and run, as it reduces the armor of buildings.
I understand that this guide is pretty thick. For that I apologize, and I will try to go back and add some more pep to it later. I fully endorse feedback, seeing as this is my very first guide ever. If you would like to contact me directly, email me at [email protected]. In the meantime, good luck and have fun!
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