Statseeker

Misconceptions about Bloodseeker

I decided to write this guide because i felt the existing ones had some misconceptions about how bloodseeker and his skills work.

Bloodseeker is a ganker/semicarry. It is possible to jungle him but there are far better junglers out there and he is most effective if he can get ahead in levels and start ganking weaker opponents. This would make him a mid hero but he cannot utilize the runes as good as other mids. (No real need for haste, invisibility or regen)

Nonetheless, Bloodseeker can perform in any lane. He just has to hit 6 to start roaming and ganking. His Bloodbath skill makes him very resistant to harrassment, as long as he gets lasthits. Do not lane a Bloodseeker as a support.

Bloodseeker is a good counter to heroes who rely on invisibility or blink to survive ganks: Riki, Bounty Hunter, Weaver (Timelaps does not remove Rupture), Clinkz, Anti-Mage, Queen of Pain and any squish hero who thinks buying a Shadow Blade to have an escape mechanism is a good idea.

Skills

Bloodrage:

Dispell + Silence + Damage over Time + Damage buff. We leave this skill as a onepointer for most of the game and use it as a silence on enemy heroes in ganks and teamfights. The damage bonus does only apply to your base damage. This is why buying items which give flat damage bonuses like Radience or Monkey King Bar is not efficient on Bloodseeker. To get the most out of Bloodrage, we need stats, and lots of them. You can get this at level 2, 5 or 7 if you are epecting to get a kill in lane because of it. Max this once you have your Skullbasher or an ally who wants it cast upon, the silence + dispell on enemies will be more useful until then - and you dont want to boost their damage too much.

Blood Bath:

For every creep/hero you kill, you get healed by a percentage of its max life. If an enemy hero dies close to you but not by your hand, you get healed for half that amount. Blood Bath lets you survive in lane without the need for lots of regen. It is also good in teamfights as killing an enemy hero may very well bring you back from near death to 100% hp but it requires you to stay alive or all your "life leach" is gone.

Thirst:

Bloodseeker's bread and butter skill. Whenever an enemy hero gets low on life anywhere on the map, Bloodseeker goes into turbomode to chase him down plus gaining true sight vision of the target. We max Thirst asap since we want to gank those squishy invis heroes before they get farmed. Since the last balance patch, Thirst also gives bonus damage when it triggers.

Rupture:

Rupture deals HP-Removal damaged based on how far the target is moving. Bad players will panic when getting ruptured, try to run and die. Against better players, this skill is much less reliable. A Town Portal Scroll or simply standing still render rupture into a 150-350 dmg nuke - not that impressive as an ultimate. Rupture will do no additional damage if the target moves over 1300 Range in 0.25 seconds (max Blink range is 1100 so dont worry about Blink). Black King Bar however does no longer counter Rupture due to the damage type being HP-Removal since the last patch.
The power of rupture is keeping people in place, giving your gank team time to dust/surround/kill them. Ever seen cocky Drow Rangers think they can solo one of your tier 2 towers because of their Shadow Blade? This is how you get them.


In ganks, you generally want to initiate with Rupture followed by an Urn of Shadows charge into a Bloodrage on your enemy. Heroes with invisibility spells should obviously be Bloodraged first so they are silenced - this might save you a dust. However this is only possible if you can get close enough without being seen ( Bloodrage's cast range is small. You have to make the call, if Rupture alone will get them below 25% hp or not. Also, make sure not to waste your Rupture on a Linken's Sphere.

When teamfighting, make sure not to charge in alone and ahead of your team. Your movement speed will be much faster than the rest of your team so keep an eye on your hero and don't mindlessly attackmove/rightclick somewhere. Bloodseeker is not a teamfight initiator. Instead, with this build you can 1) Prevent one hero from autoattacking with Heaven's Halberd 2) Silence a hero for 6 seconds with Bloodrage 3) Rupture a hero to lock him in place. This is almost as much disable power as a Bane provides plus you have a lot of rightclick damage and tankyness.

Item justification

Urn of Shadows: The early urn gives you an additional dot source you can use to get enemies below the threshold to trigger thirst and allows you to heal you or your teammates. The strength and mana regen is also very good for your squishy early self.

Sange and Yasha give nice stats and build into Heaven's Halberd and Manta Style. Both items give you great survivability (stats, evasion, illusions) and the disable from Halberd is great on Bloodseeker, since you wont have much else to cast once you ruptured and raged. Manta Styles illusions also benefit greatly from your stats, just make sure to spawn illusions before you Bloodrage yourself, Manta Style dispells Bloodrage.

If the game goes into lategame the Skull Basher lets you stand your ground against most hardcarries like an antimage - you will have more stats, damage (bloodrage) and you dont need a slot for lifeleach. Especially after they have a BKB to render most of your other disables useless.

If you find yourself getting focused in each fight and you have enough carries in your team you may try the support/tank transition.

The Force Staff counteracts enemies who know to stand still once they get ruptured. It is also a multipurpose tool for positioning, escaping, initiating. However its stats do not benefit a carrying Bloodseeker - the Int is not an issue by the time you can afford it and the HP regen is wasted on Bloodseeker. It is more of a support item.

Blade Mail/ Black King Bar/ Pipe of Insight: These Items boost your survivability in teamfights, to make sure you live at least as long as the first enemy dies. Remember, if you are close to a dying enemy, you get an instant heal that might just turn the tide of a teamfight. You are also the perfect hero to finish off escaping heroes with low hp.

Items i don't approve of:
Butterfly: It is by no means a bad item on Bloodseeker but the Eaglesong is so expensive to farm and Bloodseeker lives a life on the edge. Bloodseeker can't afford the time to farm such an expensive item, you want to use your rupture every minute to make the enemy teams life hell. The Halberd gives you much of the same for a lower price, and it builds out of cheap items. However if you find yourself ahead with 4000 gold it is not the worst option to go for.

Ring of Basilius into Vladmir's Offering: Bloodseeker already has lifeleach from his Blood Bath skill so it is kind of wasted. The mana regen is also not sufficient for your ganking in midgame. Once you have 33 Int, a Sage's Mask/ Urn of Shadows gives you more mana than a Ring of Basilius. Since we get early stats, we reach 33 Int fast. If you want to cast Rupture + Bloodrage every 70 seconds, you will need 230 mana per 70 seconds = 3,3 mana per second -> The 0,65/0,8 mps of Basi/Vlad's doesn't cut it.

Radiance is a horrible item for Bloodseeker. Yes, it will skyrocket your farm but for what? Virutally all carries will outcarry you lategame and the farm you take with radiance is farm the rest of your team doesnt get. It has zero defensive contributions and the damage does not get boosted by Bloodrage.

Generally, you want items with active effects so you can still do stuff while you are silenced and all enemies are above half HP.

Hero synergies

Bloodseeker loves to chase enemies, sadly the rest of his team cant follow him as quickly so an overzealous Bloodseeker may find himself in a tough spot if he chases too far. Therefor heroes with global skills or skills that make people run away work great with bloodseeker:

Zeus' Thundergod's Wrath can not only steal kills, it can also push heroes under the hp threshold for your thrist skill to trigger, revealing them until they heal - happy chasing. Zeus nukes and Bloodseeker chasing power synergize well in ganks.

Gyrocopter's ultimate Call Down also turns global once he has an Aghanim's Sceptre plus his Rocket Barrage and Homing Missle are great at making enemies flee. Using Bloodrage on Gyro after he uses Flak Cannon deals insane damage in teamfights. (See video below)

Spectre has yet another global ulti that makes people run for the hills. Bloodraging Spectre is also viable, after Spectral Dagger was used. Spectre wont care that much about the dot because of the Dispersion aura handing the damage over to the enemy team. If you want to do a Spectre-Bloodseeker combo, go for a Skadi Spectre (lots of stats).

Tiny: Rupture + Toss deals nice damage. Tiny's Grow! skill also gives him lots of base damage so a Tiny with Bloodrage eats towers for breakfast.

Vengeful Spirit: As a ganking partner VS is great. Her Vengeance Aura gives bonus damage based on base damage (just like Bloodrage) and her Nether Swap is the best combo to your Rupture. Rupture + Swap = dead hero.

Pudge: A ruptured target will not move, setting up a free hook for our meat boy. Rupture will then do bonus dmg due to the target moving towards his dinner with Pudge. The massive HP-Removal/Pure damage output helps to deal with targets like Huskar or Anti-Mage.

Invoker: Thirst makes sniping low hp heroes with Sun Strike a lot easier. You may kill squishy targets just with Rupture + Sun Strike even if your enemy has a tp - they can't run. Finally, Bloodrage + Cold Snap work great together for getting pickoffs before level 6.

Final Words

Bloodseeker is a fun hero in lower skill pubs where invisible = invulnerable for most players. He has been continuously buffed in recent patches and is not seeing play in the competetive scene. He might have made the rise from **** tier to tier 2 pick.

He has also seen play in progames, where 5 forcestaffs on his team make his rupture own and his bloodrage buffs gyrocopters flak cannon damage into the high heavens: No Tidehunter vs Re-defining Madness

I also have to give credits to Purge for his Urn of Shadows first and Heaven's Halberd later idea.

Special mention: Phantom Lancer - this is the only invis hero Bloodseeker has a hard time with. Not only is it tricky to find the right one to put your rupture on, he is also able to easily outcarry you.

Please feel free to comment wheter you like my guide or in case I got something fundamentally wrong.