Pubstomping with Ursa

Introduction

This guide will not include any jungling strategies. There's already a Ursa jungling guide on dotafire, so you might wanna check it out if you're looking to jungle. This is more of a ganking-carrying guide for ursa.

The pros/cons of Ursa

Pros:

-Has a lot of health.
-Extremely dangerous in melee range.
-Pretty easy to play.
-High first blood potential (you will require teamwork for that though).
-Effective in pretty much every stage of the game, though you'll get stomped in late-game if you don't farm enough.
-More level-dependant than item-dependant.
-He can solo Roshan and ancient creeps.



Cons:

-Easily countered by: disables, some items, whole enemy team focusing on you.
-Not a good chaser.
-Enemy team usually focuses on ursa first, due to his extreme damage up close.
-Some mana problems late-game.

Ursa's abilities

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Ursa slams the earth, causing a powerful shock to damage and slow all enemy units in a nearby area for 4 seconds.
Radius: 385
Damage: 90/140/190/240
Slow: 25%/35%/45%/55%
Duration: 4
Cooldown: 6
Mana cost: 5

This ability lets you to initiate an enemy. Blink dagger/shadow blade to an enemy > cast earthshock infront of him > kill. Useful ability, but i think it's better to learn this ability when you've got fury swipes and overpower maxed out, as this ability will just waste your mana without giving too much of a slow to the enemy.

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Using his skill in combat, Ursa gains increased attack speed for a set number of attacks or until the duration expires.
Radius: 365
Effect: 400% Attack speed
Duration: 15
Number of attacks: 3/4/5/6
Cooldown: 10
Mana cost: 45/55/65/75

One of the abilities, which make ursa an ursa! This ability lets you to attack at MAX SPEED for a period of time or hits. Especially useful early game - 3 quick slashes on an enemy combined with Fury Swipes passive will surely make him retreat! You will use this ability and Ravage all the time when fighting. Also, it shines at taking out enemy structures too!

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Ursa's claws dig deeper wounds in the enemy, causing consecutive attacks to the same enemy to deal more damage. Each hit on the same target within 6 seconds, including the first hit, deals damage and increases the damage taken by subsequent attacks. If the same target is not attacked after 6 seconds, the bonus damage is lost.
Fury Swipes is a Unique Attack Modifier, and does not stack with other Unique Attack Modifiers.
Bonus damage per attack: 15/20/25/30
Duration: 6

Yes, the bonus damage stacks! At level 4, this ability will go like this: *Your melee damage* + 30 > *Your melee damage* +30 +30 > *Your melee damage* +30 +30 +30 ... and so on, till he's dead!

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Ursa goes into a frenzy, gaining a percentage of his current health as bonus damage. Lasts 15 seconds.
Percent of current life added to damage: 5%/6%/7%
Duration: 15
Cooldown: 25
The main reason why you will want a tanky Hp build. Let's say you deal 40 damage each attack and you have 2000 health, 7% of 2000 is 140, so you will deal 40+140 damage, combine that with overpower and it will turn into nearly-insta 6 swipes of 180 damage(not counting fury swipes passive)! Note: this is just an example. This ability basically makes the enemy run in terror, because if an instakill ursa is approaching, who wouldn't run ?

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Skill build

First, you should max out Fury Swipes and Overpower, while picking up Enrageat lvl 6 and 11. The reason why i don't pick Earthshock is because the 25% slow for a skillpoint in early game is not worth it. Investing in 'extreme damage' early game is a much better option, especially if you've got a teammate with slows.
If you and your teammate are looking to get first blood at level one, you should start off with Overpower, instead of Fury Swipes.
My usual skillbuild:

1. Fury Swipes


2. Overpower


3. Fury Swipes


4. Overpower


5. Fury Swipes


6. Enrage


7. Overpower


8. Fury Swipes


9. Overpower


10. Earthshock


11. Enrage


12. Earthshock


13. Earthshock


14. Earthshock


15. Stats


16. Enrage


17. Stats


18. Stats

Item build

Gameplay

First few levels

As an Ursa, you should probably go into a Suicide lane (if on dire - top, if on radiant - middle), due to more ganking possibilities, which i will explain later. Just do the last hit/deny thing, while watching out for perfect moments to gank and get first blood. If you're getting harrassed too much on your lane, consider getting more tangoes (use your courier for that) or you can just stay near the mobs in a place the enemy can't reach you, but you still get the experience. If you see a ganking opportunity, go for it!

When you get 500 gold, go to a side lane shop to buy Boots of Speed, for better chasing. Next, you're going to buy Ring of Regen, Ring of Basiliusat the side lane shop too, use your courier to get you the ring of protection, which is needed for Ring of Basilius (it's not for sale in the side lane shop, though one item needed is). When you get enough money, buy a Morbid Mask for 900 at the same shop, then get 300 more gold to 'construct' a vladimir's offering.

If you're losing and your lane partner can't gank, try to farm as much as you can! You have to get that vladimir's offering as soon as possible!

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Mid-game

This is when Ursa starts shining. After getting vladimir's offering, go kill Roshan (how to kill him will be explained later) for Aegis of the Immortal. Alright, you should doing whatever your team requires. Go gank with your teammates lanes where most enemies are, destroy towers. When you're near a ancient creep camp, kill them for ~300 gold (use overpower+enrage combo on them).

Buy Phase Boots! You should be using it's active ability all the time. When you get enough gold for Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade, buy it! Continue ganking and pushing, try to win!

If you're losing and are underfarmed stay near your team, don't go anywhere alone if you don't know where the enemy is. Go where your team goes and kill anyone your team kills. When you're feeling safe, you should go farm lane creeps/ancient creeps for gold!

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Late-game

After getting all the core items, the real fun begins. Lone enemies will be really easy to gank. Just blink/approach with invisibility to an enemy, cast Earthshock, do your Overpower+ Enrage combo, BAM, he's dead. If not, use your phase boots active to chase him. Don't forget that blink dagger and shadow blade are good chasing tools aswell!

Continue doing your pushing+ganking+farming lane creeps and ancient creeps stuff till you get enough gold for Sange. After that, get Yasha to construct Sange and Yasha and other items from my item build!

Try to push like mad now, you have a lot of health, and you can try doing Enrage+overpower combo on enemy towers, this works really well. Be aware of your surroundings though, you don't want to get ganked!

If you're losing at this stage, well, you're probably gonna lose. Stop farming, start ganking enemies with your team like there is no tomorrow.

How to gank as Ursa

Early game

Ask someone on your team, who has slowing/disabling skills to come on your lane!

First, you gotta reach level 2 to get Overpower. Try to get behind the enemy while they're attacking your creeps, communicate with your partner, ask him to slow/stun the target you've set (try to gank a squishy enemy), get behind him, cast Overpower and kill! If the enemy managed to escape, don't worry, he's really injured and demoralized, he should be scared to farm your creeps by now!

An example:

And yes, the shadow shaman died.

Mid-game

You should have gotten shadow blade/bink dagger by now.

If you've got Shadow Blade:
- Go invisible
- Approach an enemy
- Hit Q for Earthshock
- Hit W and E for Overpower and Enrage
- Keep clicking on the target till he dies.
- If the situation gets too bad, run!



If you've got Blink Dagger
- Find an enemy
- Get behind him, so he doesn't run away. (You can just teleport to him if you're close enough)
- Teleport to an enemy's face
- Hit Q for Earthshock
- Hit W and E for Overpower and Enrage
- Keep clicking on the target till he dies.
- If the situation gets too bad, run!


So yeah, this is the way you initiate into 1v1 fights. You will most likely win, as the enemy can't escape from the 55% slow.
Works best against squishy targets, like most INT heroes.

Late-game is pretty much the same as Mid-game

How to kill Roshan

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Soloing Roshan should only be attempted after getting vladimir's offering.
Why solo Roshan as Ursa? Well, you're one of not-so-much heroes who can do it! Getting an eary Aegis will basically turn 5v5 teamfights into 5v6. Oh and you get A LOT of experience and gold for killing him! Killing him at level 7 (considering there were no teammates nearby) should get you +2 levels! This is a very good boost, considering Ursa needs upgraded skills to gank more effectively!

Follow these steps for a successful Roshan solo:


1. Get vladimir's offering
2. Grab a sentry ward from the store.
3. Place a sentry ward somewhere near Roshan's cave entrance.
4. If an enemy observer ward appears, destroy it!
5a. If there were no wards skip to step 6
5b. If your sentry ward spotted an observer ward, retreat and wait for atleast 1-2 minutes! The enemy will have noticed that you're attempting to solo Roshan and might come in to gank you! After waiting for some time, skip to step 6.
6. Cast Overpower Enrage and kill him!
7. Take Aegis of the Immortal

Killing Roshan at level one

This method requires that both Ursa and Lich know what they're doing!
Yes, it is possible to kill Roshan as early as level one. It might sound costy, but well, you'd get a huge early-game advantage! If you manage to kill him, you and your teammate will get to level 3 just before the creeps reach their enemy creeps!


To kill Roshan with a Lich follow these steps:
1. Both Lich and Ursa buy atleast two of Healing Salve and Enrage. Ursa gets Fury Swipes and Lich gets frost armor at level one. Lich casts Frost armor on Ursa and himself of course.
2. Lich engages and tanks Roshan till Lich falls to about 30%-40% Health
3. Lich retreats, Ursa engages Roshan. When Lich has retreated, he uses Healing Salve on himself, while attacking roshan from range.
4. When Ursa falls below 30% health, he retreats and drinks a Healing Salve, while Lich tanks him again until he's at 30%-40%.


Continue these steps till Roshan dies!

Now you're probably asking, isn't that dangerous, what if the enemy comes to gank us?
Well, my answer is that no one would actually expect anyone to kill Roshan at level one! Roshan's cave is only visible when there's a ward or a hero inside, so enemy wards at common spots like runes won't detect you!



There are more Ursa + Insert_hero_name_here combos for killing Roshan, but that's an example which works just fine. There would be a lot of text if i'd put every single Ursa + hero combo.

Friends and foes

Final words

Well, i hope you read my guide and enjoyed it! I'm always open for Constructive criticism, i will simply ignore anyone who says 'this guide sux!', provide me reasons, why this guide sucks!(if you think so). Use this guide and Fight all strife with Ursa!