No longer- Stealth Assassin

Against riki, pick Bristleback and equip him with dust. GG riki.

guys guys guys why are people missing the point of playing riki

and somebody boasting about winning against bounty and riki in one team. LOL that riki would have been a noob
sladar will obviously get u then win against them if the riki is a noob
why will sladar lose and riki win
let me tell you why
riki is a hero who has to play smart
he has to surprise and try for the kill if it fails to instant kill don't try to chase just leave
then and you can go surprise someone else
basically a good riki will just smoke then attack use diffusal blade and blink to kill bfore sladar stuns
if it haapens so that sladar is out of smoke just back off into invisibility and wait for another chance to come dont try to follow even if sladar is low on health
(ie his health is more than 2-3 hits dont follow)
this way riki can win against sladar
as for gem countering riki
it is a pipe dream boys
all it will give you is an advantage till riki kills the guy carrying gem
also riki's scouting ability will be severely compromised when you have the gem

when riki gets the gem then all your wards are dead which means you will be at even more disadvantage than before

if the other team dewards and then go rosh leaving you blind then things start snowballing and you lose the match

only buy gem if you have a big fat carry who never dies in 1v1 against riki or any other hero then you make a support stay with him at all times and when possible push as 5 and force teamfights
this is not always possible in many games which is why gem does not counter riki always
there are specific rules about buying gem if not obeyed it will be like buying a rapier and handing it over

Love the combination of a guide on how to play, then turning it into an "Anti Riki Guide". You glorious bastard. A lot of good info in here, both for playing Riki and for playing against him.

There are only a couple of things I disagree with:

1) where you state that Riki is a joke pick in medium level pub games. I'd consider myself at least at the mid-level of Dota skill levels, by no means a noob. I've been playing Dota since before Allstars but didn't fall in love with it until Dota 2 and I've been playing it since beta, but I digress. My point is this. If played correctly, Riki is effective in some way at every level of Dota play, if it's stomping noobs at the bottom, or countering certain carries at the top, Riki never ceases to be useful. My MMR on a team is over 3400, and I have certainly played Riki in those games several times. I play Riki often, in the "medium level pub" games and can promise you that I do outstanding even by the standards of other Riki players.

2) that Riki can't be countered. Completely untrue. Everything with Riki, absolutely everything, is the element of surprise. That's why he does so good in low end games, because he will ALWAYS surprise. Slardar and Bounty Hunter are outstanding counters to Riki, if you throw your ult on him, he will immediately back away unless a team fight or gank against you is already in progress. Sure they can be purged, but Slard can simply ult him again. Gem of True sight is an outstanding counter for Riki as well. Dust and Sentries can both be avoided, so they aren't as effective. Of course, a hero with a gem can be avoided as well, but it makes getting into a team fight difficult and may throw off your positioning due to trying to avoid a specific hero with a Gem, or even trying to kill them first when you should be killing someone else.

Again. Outstanding "How to play against Riki" guide, I just disagree with those two things.

Nice guide. First time I saw an anti-guide though. Changed my perception against riki

Nice guide. First time I saw an anti-guide though. Changed my perception against riki

The point of the guide is to show that riki isn't simply countered by the ability to see him.

Slardar is almost never picked in high level games, Yet Bounty Hunter and Nyx Assassin see fairly good amount of play.

Wards and dust are very common in high level play, at that (regardless of if the enemy actually has invisibility heroes) and often times you will see high level players pick up Shadow Blade.

---

Thank you for pointing out that I listed Backstab as magical. I was thinking of Blink Strike

Now, on the point of counterpicking. We could sit here and talk about the moral implications of counterpicking and weather it is "fair" or "balanced" or "part of the game" to counterpick. Instead, I will give my brief opinion.

Counterpicking should be reserved for draft modes, modes in which you are designed to counter-pick and tactically pick. I do not enjoy games in which my team choses good lanes and the enemy team chooses no heroes so they can match their lanes to "counter" ours. And yes, that can and often does backfire, since if they only choose hero counters without any forethought in their lanes they will fail, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the purpose of the mode isn't drafting, but rther just pick and go.

I do not suggest a blindpick type mode like League has, since that cannot function in Dota anyway with being allowed to pick multiple of the same heroes. I just wish for there to be a penalty for not picking before heroes are allowed to enter the game. A gold penalty would be really really good. That allows you to counterpick but gives you a cost for doing so, similar to pressing the random button and not liking your hero.

nice idea but... Backstab deals PHYSICAL dmg and not magical. check it out here if u dont believe: http://www.dota2.com/hero/Riki/
So pls erase the Phrase riki is dealing mainly Magic dmg...
You are right whhen talking about Riki beside his invisibility but in my opinion he is a strong carry who got a early- midgame Advantage through his ulti and Backstab lets him carry earlier. His backstab synergizes with items and thats it.
Ofc his smoke is very viable against escape heroes.
Apart from that a nice guide though i just dont understand why People Keep losing against such a hero who cant take a few hits if detected and when early ahutdowned completely useless.
Dont wanna Show off but here for example:
Yesterday i played a Pub when the Opponent picked bounty as well as riki. (we had a th, a jugger, a rubick and a qop). Ofc in that case i picked slardar. Thats number one: you should always get ONE counter pick at least.
´Then We lost top lane against bh but it could have been worse. I switched from solo bot to mid to help out against a roaming riki and bh. Afterwards we lost top and bot first Tier. The reason i stayed mid was following: We had with my ult had some detection in direct combat a slightly fed bh had no Chance against slardar or our jugger. So we started pushing mid to force an early teamfight. We won 2 of them slightly but then got one time destryoed because we had to less truesight and our Teamwork was ****. As soon as we respawned nearly all buyed wards and dust even me. The next Team fight was easy as we totally bursted them down with our stuns... They could do from now on nothing against us since they hadno antipush or a tank as well as no disables. We picked them up one by one since they always werent rly caring about detection...
I just want to say that heroes as bh or riki offer completely no tankiness no disables (i know cloud) and pretty Team relying if not fed.

so u plan to write anti guides? cool

Hmmmm, adding items for carries too might be a good idea, you are correct. I shall get on that!

I was too focused on what supports might do, since they tend to be the ones who die in my experience.

Pretty sure he's been spamming on quite a lot of guides right now.

The guide, apart from the spelling errors, has little to be improved on. Images would be nice, but they're not really needed especially for counter-guides like this. In terms of the content itself, it's really hard to suggest on as you basically said everything. The Smoke Screen evasion tactics portion is the obvious star of the guide. It's something not known that much and is the most helpful part.

Considering Riki's playstyle (suddenly appearing out of nowhere) though, sentries (not gem and dust - just sentries) do counter him in a way because it gives vision before he actually jumps at you, allowing you to have some space to rush to a nearby tower for teammates to rush in.

Though this is obviously a guide for supports that aim to evade Riki, in almost no cases should a squishy support be alone, at least in mid to upper class games. If we put carries into consideration which are in danger of being ganked by Riki, then I would suggest adding Heaven's Halberd into the items. The disarm helps a lot (half of the smoke duration) and the added tankiness and evasion make great tools for evading his DPS. He can get out of it by using Diffusal Blade charges though, but then he would lose one charge that could have been used on you.

Monkey King Bar is also a viable option as a carry. If the only reason you're dying to Riki as an equally/more farmed carry is the miss chance you get because of the smoke, then it might be a good option to just manfight him inside the smoke. This helps because by doing this he won't be getting any Backstab procs, except the one he gets from Blink Strike.

I was so happy to get more comments, and then it turns out to be some advertising for some other persons guide on my comments. It really is unfortunate, as I do want to improve on it.

lol'd so hard. Most ironic (and tbh stupid) post I've seen all week.