Sando's Guide to Jakiro

Introduction

Strengths and Weaknesses

+ Great starting strength and intelligence
+ Good strength and intelligence gain
+ Lots of multi-target AOE abilities
+ Not item dependent at all
+ Not hugely level dependent
+ Strong pusher
+ "Free" harassment ability

- Terrible agility
- Short range
- Slow movement and turn speed
- Slow casting animations
- Lacks burst damage
- Lots of manual targeting

Dual Breath

Dual Breath is an effective AOE nuke/slow that can be very effective for both ganking and pushing. It has it's maximum width at about the same range as your auto-attack, so you want to be at this distance when using it against waves of enemy creeps. It has a deceptively long range (up to 950), so don't be afraid to try to catch enemy heroes with it - just ensure you target it directly at them.

Dual Breath inflicts it's damage very slowly - over the course of 5 seconds it does 80/180/280/380 - which ends up ok, especially considering it can hit multiple targets. It's not likely to melt anyone early game on it's own, but it's still easily your best kill setup.

The big positive here is that it's also a strong movement AND attack speed slow. A 5 second 30% slow is very strong, and easily capable of netting your team kills against heroes without transport abilities. Later on, the attack slow still makes it useful.

One important thing to note here is the damage/per mana difference between level 1 and level 2.

135 mana = 80 damage
140 mana = 180 damage

The efficiency more than doubles between the two, so I'd advise trying to get two points in it reasonably early on in almost all builds.

Ice Path

Ice Path is a difficult skill to get a feel for. It's fantastic for it's cheap, long range, multi-target effect, but always feels somewhat lack-lustre due to it's short duration.

It inflicts a minimal amount of damage, and you only get +0.4 seconds duration per point, making it a poor return compared to your nuking skills. However, you'll often want you first point in this, to secure/prevent first blood, and it can be crucial in 3v3 trilane fights.

Using this skill effectively is all about timing and prediction. It has a 0.5 second delay before forming, and your blimp-like dragon also has to be pointing in the direction you cast it, which can increase the lead time further. You need to actively guess where enemies will be when the path finally arrives, or at least put it where they will have to walk over it to get to their destination.

Any enemy who walks into the path will still be frozen, but only for as long as it lasts. E.g. if you cast a 1.8 second duration path, and an enemy walked into it half a second later, they would only be stunned for 1.3 seconds.

With good use, you can frequently "snipe" very long range stuns with this, preventing clutch teleports and channels. It's also useful for heroes who are untargetable - e.g. a Sandstorming Sand King or Phase Shifting Puck are much easier to deal with.

A good Ice Path is obviously extremely handy in team fights, but it's duration is never long enough to keep heroes in Macropyre for as long as we'd like. Still, try to get in the right positions, and hit as many heroes as possible.

Liquid Fire

Liquid Fire is a handy harassment and pushing skill that actually scales nicely into the late game. It's a zero mana attack orb that you can cast more frequently as you level it up.

The first point to note is that you should ALWAYS manually cast this for optimal impact, control, and because it has 200 more range than when set to auto-cast.

Each time you cast it, you'll light up your target and any nearby enemies, inflicting burn damage and an attack speed slow. This even works on buildings like Towers, and you should make maximum use of this when pushing or diving.

The damage starts at an impressive 75, increasingly slowly up to 150, although with the cooldown decreasing by 5 seconds each time, the potential DPS goes up nicely. The attack speed slow is one of the very few that actually inflicts a % rather than a set amount, so 50% attack speed slow is extremely strong late game.

Generally you want to skill this when you probably can't kill your lane opponent, and simply want to harass them as much as possible. It gets pretty annoying for them, pretty fast, and you can save your mana for when you need it. Ensure you target them when they're not stood near their creeps, or you risk pushing the lane out.

Macropyre

Macropyre is your ultimate, forming a huge path of flame that burns any enemies that touch it. While theoretically it can cause massive damage to the entire enemy team (up to 15,750 for 5 heroes full duration), in real situations it's rarely anything like as effective.

The biggest issue is that enemies aren't simply going to stand around in it if they have any choice in the matter, and 2.2 seconds of stun from Ice Path are no where near the 7-14 that you need. But hey, at least it has a short cooldown so can be used frequently.

There are several factors that can assist you here - the best and most reliable help is team mates who have big AOE stuns and/or other abilities that can group enemies or lock them in place. This gives Macropyre time to work.

The other big factor is terrain - you benefit massively if fights are in particular areas - generally the Rosh pit, and along any narrow paths through the trees around the river. The impassable terrain will contain most heroes and make them stay within Macropyre for longer.

The recent Aghanim's Scepter upgrade for it is quite nice, doubling the length, duration and casting range, as well as upping the damage. However, it's by no means essential.

Skill Builds

I've put up two of the more effective Jakiro builds above, but he's actually very flexible - you can pretty much put whatever blend of skills together for him and it could work depending on your situation.

This could include levelling Ice Path more heavily, delaying Macropyre or almost anything else. It's not unknown to wait until level 10-11 to get Macropyre if your team lacks stuns/lockdown and you need to level Ice Path first to make it effective.

Personally, I find that I'll either be trying to harass the enemy offlaner(s) away with Liquid Fire, or trying to kill them with the combined slow/stun of Dual Breath and Ice Path. Have a 5 second 30% slow and 1 second stun at level 2 can be extremely potent if your allies have the damage to follow it up properly. The AOE of these abilities also becomes much more potent in a trilane.

Many players love Liquid Fire because it's "free", and don't get me wrong, it's a great skill for harassment. However, points in your other skills are what will get your team kills or escapes. Only rush/max LF if not just your lane, but the whole map is really passive.

Role

Jakiro is a support hero - either a #4 or #5, and there's not really any other legitimate way to play him - too slow and short ranged to be an offlaner, very low carry potential.

Jakiro's preferred role is usually as a #5, he doesn't have any particular mana regen skills that normally fit this role, but he has such a large pool and generally cheap costs that sustain isn't really a problem for him. Aside from a pair of boots, he doesn't really NEED anything.

You can play him as a #4, which usually means you'll try and get a Mekansm or Pipe of Insight on him ASAP, depending on what else your team is buying. Some Arcane Boots also help and give the team some regeneration.

Jakiro makes a good babysitter due to his tanky stature and harassment ability. Being able to dish out 75 "free" damage from level 1 comes with the added benefit of it being an orb attack - and therefore not drawing creep aggro.

He's also a strong trilane hero. His ability to harass or threaten kills with very few levels is extremely strong, and he can hit multiple targets.

Playstyle

You'll almost always be a solo support or part of a duo, so it's your job to either make sure your carry gets fed, and/or to be setting up kills for other heroes.

You're actually pretty good at both those things, but will need to play in combination with your allies to be effective - you don't really have the damage or stun time to do much alone.

Being so tanky is useful as it allows you to be a bit more aggressive in your positioning than most supports - and that's very important to be able to land your powers as effectively as possible. However, be aware that your slow speed can make rapid re-positioning difficult.

You need to think a bit like a snooker player (or Windranger) in setting up the best possible angles for your attacks - ideally landing them across multiple enemies from outside their vision.

Start with Ice Path, and then follow up with Dual Breath and Liquid Fire - even a 1 second stun should be enough to guarantee Dual Breath, with it's long slow and higher damage. Congratulations - multiple enemies should now be briefly stunned, slowed by 30% for 5 seconds, and have their attack speed reduced by up to 50% + 30.

In team fights it's important to hit as many enemies as possibilities with your abilities, and generally get them away as soon as possible. All of your abilities apart from Ice Path deal Damage Over Time, so need to be used early.

The exception to this is when your team has powerful lockdown, in which case you'll want to wait for the best opportunity to inflict damage, and then chain Ice Path onto the end of their duration.

For example, if you were allied with Faceless Void, wait for him to Chronosphere, and lay down a Macropyre to cover as many enemies as possible. Dual Breath as many enemies as possible immediately after, and if you have time, throw in a Liquid Fire on their carry. Chain an Ice Path so it lands on as many enemies as possible when Chronosphere is about to end.

You're not really a proper initiator, but Ice Path can provide some utility for both starting or counter-initiating fights.

Items

Starting:



A pretty standard hard support starting kit. We get both the wards and courier, leaving us limited funds for anything else. We have big health and intelligence pools and generally inexpensive spells, so no massives worries about regeneration.

You might even swap the Clarity potions and an Iron Branch for a Healing Salve if you're really worried about lane damage.

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Core:



This is taking hard support to it's logical conclusion - but in this case it's completely true - there are absolutely no other items you NEED. Even Arcane Boots are optional, and you can either pickup items from the extras list, or head straight for extensions as required.

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Optional Extras:



All of these items can be a nice way of gaining extra utility or padding out your stats before picking up utility extensions. This does depend somewhat on the game and your role - if other heroes are picking up key items such as Mekansm, or don't need a Pipe of Insight this game - and how much gold you have coming in. This will be very dependent on towers and assists, so will vary wildly from game to game.

Ring of Basilius is great for trilanes if another hero isn't picking it up, but generally useful anyway for helping with pushing and mana regeneration.

Magic Wand is nice when there's a lot of spell spamming in lane, and can provide clutch healing/mana at vital times.

Urn of Shadows is always a nice pickup if you can get assists or survive team fights, as well as boosting your health and mana regeneration.

Medallion of Courage can work well if your team mates have good physical damage output, generally you can stay out of trouble while helping setup the kill.

Arcane Boots are the most standard pickup on him - the increased mana pool/regeneration is nice, but you're mostly getting them for team utility, and to ensure you have sufficient mana for your abilities.

Tranquil Boots are actually pretty nice, providing extra movement speed and armour, plus some health regeneration. Generally Arcane Boots do more to help you and the team though.

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Extension:



Generally these items are for when you're either in a #4 role, or the team has been doing pretty well and you have enough gold to grab some bigger items.

Mekansm or Pipe of Insight - are both great items on you; you're generally tanky enough to get them off even when under pressure, and they help your survivability too. Generally pick them up if the team needs them and nobody else has got them already.

Force Staff is an extremely useful item for Jakiro, offering better potential angles for optimal ability placement, as well as utility and the chance of escaping. The stats are nice, and frankly Blink Dagger would be overkill considering your slow casting speed.

Eul's Scepter of Divinity is niche, but handy. Lots of mana regen, and the additional movement speed is very handy. Cyclone gives your stun more reliability, but nothing to write home about. Generally you'll pick this up when your team needs more channel breaking abilities.

Veil of Discord gets a lot of people very excited when playing Jakiro - and don't get me wrong, it's a great item, but I think it's impact is sometimes overblown. You generally struggle to inflict a lot of your damage, so the Veil works best when you're also buying it for the team to benefit from. Armour and stats are really nice though.

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Luxury:



Some potential late game luxury items for you to drool over. To be frank you won't see them in many games, and a lot of the extension items are actually more practical and useful. However, you might occasionally find yourself sitting on a lot of cash...

I'd generally advise a Scythe of Vyse as it's frankly never a bad option, the Rod of Atos can be nice too if you don't think you'll ever get the money together for a sheepstick. Boots of Travel are good in late game and can help you push lanes quickly.

Overall the Aghanim's Scepter upgrade is pretty nice, and worth considering if your team can supply the required lockdown to make it effective.

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Situational:



A few situational items to consider - Ghost Scepter for dealing with late game carries and abilities like Omnislash, Necronomicon for invisible heroes, and Vladmir's Offering for the bonus damage and lifesteal for your team.

Good Allies

Jakiro's allies are very important to him - he really works much better when combined with heroes who can keep enemies within the fires of Macropyre.



Probably our favourite carry, Chronosphere is about as good as it gets for Macropyre, and we also have time to cast Dual Breath and chain Ice Path to the end.



All these guys offer some big AOE lockdown or containment, allowing us to make good use of Macropyre and chain our other abilities too.



Will really enjoy the DoT of Macropyre and the effects of your other spells during a long Duel.



Firefly and Macropyre combine really well with Flaming Lasso to ensure a lot of burn damage, and you can easily chain an Ice Path to the end.

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Generally you perform well against enemies with slow, powerful attacks - like Sven or Tiny. You can substantially reduce their DPS output with Liquid Fire. You're also quite an effective anti-pusher. He's particularly good against Broodmother thanks to his cheap AOE and anti-push.

Bad Enemies

Our clunky dragon-blimp can struggle to deal with fast, evasive heroes who can literally run rings around us.



We can have real problems against enemies that can pull or push us out of position relatively easily, making us an easy kill or struggling to land anything effectively.

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Jakiro isn't massively weak against many particular heroes, even the ones who normally prey on supports will find he at least takes longer to kill and provides more trouble on the way down.

Summary

Jakiro is a durable ranged support and that's a very rare thing. His level 1 skills are strong and he offers a lot of general strengths without really excelling in any one area:

+ Strong harassment

+ Slow and stun for early kills

+ Teamfight presence

+ Pushing

+ Some late game scaling

However, he lacks burst damage and stun time, while his ultimate's effectiveness is very dependent on having the right allies to combine with. His mobility and cast speed are pretty awful, and you need to be positioned correctly to get the best out of him. He's an excellent 3v3 trilane hero.