Tinkering about - An in depth guide to Tinker (Post 6.82)

A brief note

It said comprehensive guide but NOW ITS AN IN DEPTH GUIDE SO PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR WALLS OF TEXT

Hello, my name is SHy, this is my first ever guide, although I have read Dotafire guides for various heroes before and so hope to use what I noted as good in other guides in making my own. I really wanted to make this guide because I've found that there are many aspects to Tinker such as farming patterns/play styles that I myself have found out only through analysing some of the best competitive Tinker players (ex: Excalibur, ddz , Arteezy) and gameplay, rather than being able to find relevant info in guides, so I want to make my own covering everything a Tinker player should know, new or experienced, and hopefully if you're the latter then you'll learn a few things that you previously didn't know.

*NOTE that I'm a massive noob and so I apologize if there are errors involving my item explanations like not including all of the uses for Shivas guard or something, as well as not being able to speak as much for a high skill level but that's because this hero scales based on the individual player's skill and has a high skill ceiling now, meaning that if you're a higher skill player you shouldn't really need advice on things like map awareness and knowing when to/when not to TP into a lane for fear of an ambush, but I hope that you appreciate the farming patterns mentioned to keep you from standing around idly and maximize farming efficiency.

A snippet of my Tinker matches on Dotabuff:
(Not actually that impressive its only at normal skill)
http://i.imgur.com/f9h3jNn.png

Introduction

Boush the Tinker's diminutive race is known for its intelligence, its cunning, and its prickly relationship with magic. As a matter of pride, they survive by their wits, and use only those powers of nature that may be unlocked through rational methodologies. Even this forbearance has led to a great deal of trouble, as Boush can attest. Once a key investigator of natural law, Boush the Tinker led a vast intellectual investigation into the workings of nature, founding a subterranean laboratory in the rumored, mist-wreathed wastes of the Violet Plateau. While scorning mages for the dangers they visit upon the world, Boush and his Tinker associates haughtily wrenched open a portal to some realm beyond comprehension and ushered in some nightmares of their own. A black mist rose from the cavernous interior of the Violet Plateau, shrouding it in permanent darkness from which sounds of horror perpetually emanate. Boush escaped with only his wits and the contraptions he carried, the sole Tinker to survive the Violet Plateau Incident.


Tinker is a ranged intelligence hero oriented around nuking and pushing lanes, along with being a good ganker due to his immense amount of global mobility and ability to farm burst/lockdown oriented items very quickly.

In this guide I plan on giving an in depth analysis on Tinker's playstyle(s), farming patterns, and his builds.


Tinker is good if:

- You need global mobility
- You need a farming hero
- You need a pushing hero
- You need a hero with versatility and high skill ceiling
- You like EXPLODING people with burst damage
- You need to kite a carry

Pros / Cons

Pros

- Decent laning phase mid
- Decent mid game
- Excellent mid-late game and late game
- NO COOLDOWNS mid game and onwards
- Global presence/mobility
- Insanely high burst damage potential within a reasonable amount of time
- Very fast farmer
- Great mid/late game ganker
- Very high lockdown of carries if you opt for scythe/eul's earlier on
- Probably one of the best (if not the best) counter pusher in the game


Cons

- Early game isn't great as farming Tinker
- Low movement speed
- Long right click attack animation
- No really reliable escape mechanisms until blink dagger
- Relatively squishy
- Bad tower pusher
- Can no longer reliably farm ancient stacks/Mud golems

Skills

*Note that the use of these abilities will be elaborated on and explained throughout the guide as well as here*

Laser

Laser

Fires an intense energy beam, dealing damage and blinding the target for 3 seconds, causing it to miss all physical attacks.

Cast Range: 550 (1100*)
Damage: 80/160/240/320
Miss Chance: 100%
Hero Duration: 3
Creep Duration: 6
Cooldown 14 Mana 95/120/145/170

Effectively this skill is one of your nuking abilities, that scales really well early on for ganking Tinker, and even later on a Laser/Dagon combo should quickly evaporate a squishy support. It's fairly easy to use, you simply click on the target you wish to use it on to zap them. It's useful for occasionally securing a lasthit that you couldn't have otherwise gotten due to your long right click animation or lack of damage. It's a fairly simple damaging ability, however it's other part is often underrated. Putting a level into laser right away is an incredibly useful ability for CS'ing during the laning phase due to the fact that it causes the enemy to miss their auto attacks for the next 3 seconds. This allows you to secure last hits and denies against a hero with high right click damage, keeping you from falling behind in lasthits against an otherwise difficult mid. This ability will also safe your life against a high damage right clicker like drow ranger, Sven, even a Huskar. I've had it happen where a Huskar has jumped on me, and I shined my laser pointer in his eye and he died to march of machines+right clicks realizing that he wasn't doing any damage with his frantic right clicks. You can make plays with this ability by saving allies from being finished off with right clicks and miraculously surviving ganks. Again, it's still a decent skill mid-late game as 320 damage that can be used again and again due to rearm isn't too bad when used with your other skills, with the 3 second attack missing working well to save team mates.

Heat Seeking missiles

Heat-Seeking missiles

Launches a pair of rockets at the nearest visible enemy heroes within 2500 range.
Search Radius: 2500
Damage: 100/175/250/325
Number of Targets: 2 (4*)
Cooldown 25 Mana 120/140/160/180

Again another burst damage oriented skill that scales well like laser as ganking Tinker. After a Laser/dagon combo, the Heat-Seaking Missiles can easily secure the kill on your target. This skill can only target heros, and will automatically select the two closest heroes to hit with one missile each, will fire one missile if there is only one target hero, and won't do anything if there aren't any target heroes. Due to its immense range, it's an incredibly useful skill for killing fleeing targets within vision who are on low health. With it's surprisingly painful amount of damage early game, you can often discourage pushers by Heat-Seeking Missiles>Rearm>Heat-Seeking missiles bringing enemies down to usually around 50%-60% health, usually causing them to leave or waste consumables. It will use up a too much mana early game for you to spam it to harass an enemy laner, the mana would be better spent on Lasers to secure last hits along with March of the Machines. This isn't important to skill at all as a safelane farmer because you may need the laser to finish off creeps/neutrals and to survive ganks, and you likely won't need Heat-Seeking Missiles to harass because right clicking/March will suffice. This works well in teamfights as well due to it's potential for cleaning up multiple opponents and doing significant damage.

March of the Machines

March of the Machines

Enlists an army of robotic minions to destroy enemy units in an area around Tinker.
Cast Range: 300
Robot Spawn Radius: 900
Robot Collision Radius: 50
Robot Explosion Radius: 150
Spawn Duration: 6
Robot Explosion Damage: 16/24/32/40
Cooldown 35 Mana 145/150/165/190

This is one of the best skills in Tinker's arsenal, and its damage is often underrated by enemies who carelessly walk into it. It's an AoE spell that sends a wave of small robot minions in a specific direction (where you click relative to your hero),and March of the Machines does damage to the targets each time they're hit by a small robot. It's commonly used for farming due to the fact that with this you can push, farm jungles (will elaborate soon), and counter push because one well placed march of the machines can take out an entire creep wave. Spamming March of the Machines on approaching waves of creeps and heroes pushing will force them to have to back up and wait for another creep wave or risk taking an exceptional amount of damage by walking through it, making Tinker such an amazing counter pusher. As I mentioned, this skill is also underrated in that when you're playing farming tinker and you max March of the Machines, it does an immense amount of damage taking diving melee heroes by surprise and often getting a kill or two early on in the laning phase. If an enemy hero stands in level 4 march of the machines for the full duration then they will take 720 damage, more than enough damage early game to ensure a kill, even without them standing in it for the full duration. So, if you march of the machines during an early/mid game teamfight then it can often be devestating and turn the fight around without the enemy team noticing until too late. If you march of machines when you're being ganked, you can laser and start fighting back with right clicks, possibly grabbing yourself a kill or two if you're being ganked by multiple enemy heroes.

*This skill is especially good for jungling as well, see the Farming subsection in the guide for a more detailed explanation*

Tip
This damage doesn't apply to units behind whatever has been hit by the robot, for example a march of machines hits a creep wave from the front, an enemy hero or other creeps behind the front creep won't take the damage of the robots, so it's encouraged to use march of the machines so that it hits the side of an approaching creepwave that is in a vertical line, so that they will take maximized damage.

When the dire and radiant creep waves collide, they spread out to form a horizontal line to attack eachother. In this case, it's better to hit them with a march of machines from the front to hit all of the creeps.


Once you get level 2/3 rearm or are jungling/pushing a large creep wave with level 1 rearm then you should use March of the Machines once, rearm, then use it again 90 degrees from the direction you did it in. This allows for you to hit a maximum amount of targets.

Rearm

Rearm

Resets the cooldown on most of Tinker's items and abilities.
Channeling Time: 3/2/1
Cooldown 0 Mana 150/250/350

This is the Tinker's bread and butter skill and what makes him such a unique and versatile hero. Rearm is pretty self explanatory, you channel for a few seconds to rearm all of your items/abilities, the exceptions being Arcane Boots, Black King Bar Hand of Midas, Helm of the Dominator, Linken's Sphere, Necronomicon and Refresher Orb. What are the implications of such an ability? Well not only can all of his burst damage abilities/items be rearmed but he can also rearm Soul Ring, Boots of Travel(Along with TP scrolls), Dagon, Blink Dagger, and his mentioned late game items. His ability to rearm Boots of Travel means that he can teleport anywhere on the map, March of the Machines> Rearm> Boots of Travel to another lane, March of the Machines> Rearm> March of the Machines> Boots of Travel home for regen or to another lane if you still have mana, AND REPEAT. Through this he has global pushing/farming/ganking presence. Blink Dagger and Rearm allows him to be able to escape into trees, farm creep waves, and safely TP into lanes, and go to jungle camps without really having to walk much at all. And dagon> Laser> Heat-Seaking Missiles> Rearm will OBLITERATE your enemies and output immense damage. I'll cover the items and uses in more depth later on in the guide, but I hope you get the idea of how much potential and power this skill has.
As for use of rearm, make sure to use Soul Ring every time before you Rearm, because that way you lose much less mana and so you can stay in lane to keep farming/fighting, and the mana used from Rearm will mean that when Soul Ring's duration runs out you won't lose any mana unnecessarily. In lane you likely won't have to use this ability much at all, with the exception of when taking camps, or in early teamfights when all of your skills are expended. Early game you'll usually run out of mana from your other skills already, so rearm won't be usable. When the enemy team is pushing and you have soul ring/BoTs for mana, then you can use the mentioned Heat Seeking Missiles> Soul Ring> Rearm>Heat Seeking Missiles combo, the same thing can be done with March of the Machines as well. The reason that on farming Tinker you only put one level into rearm is because the mana cost would simply be too high too efficiently go from lane to lane farming and pushing without constantly having to go back to fountain for regen. When you're playing ganking Tinker you'll want to be able to quickly rearm your burst damage rather than being immobile and vulnerable for 3 whole seconds while your enemy counter initiates/runs away (although that's where Blink Dagger comes in). Late game when you have many different items that can be rearmed and need to be rearmed quickly in order to survive you'll see how difficult this skill can be to master, but obviously level 3 rearm will be required then. A particular combo in the lategame for Tinker is Scythe of Vyse> Rearm> Scythe of Vyse to kite a tanky carry as a pig as you dagon him, and in this case you can't rearm fast enough with level 1 Rearm to constantly keep him as a pig.

Items

Core items


Bottle
Time: Less than 2 minutes
700 gold

On safelane farming Tinker you have the clarities to supplement the mana regen, although once you get BoTs you should get bottle for faster regen in the fountain and in lanes, but as mid farming or ganking Tinker the bottle is the first core item gotten. This allows you to spam out laser for better CS against the enemy mid, along with using march of the machines to grab some gold as you check the rune. You should keep your bottle until late game because the regen not only lowers the time spent recovering in the fountain after running out of mana, but also allows you to stay in lanes pushing longer thanks to the extra mana and regen. Rather than having it sit there and forget about it being in your inventory, add it to your standard routine of Soul Ring> Rearm> Bottle> Boots of Travel. If you have a few bottle charges you can also apply them to your teammates by CTRL+Click the item, then click on a teammate. The fact that you can refill by TPing back to the fountain and go back out to lanes makes this really helpful for your teammates who struggle with consumables. You should get this item through CSing by less than 2 minutes, ideally even less than 1:30.


Time: 10 minutes or less
2500 gold

Boots of Travel on Tinker is pretty much one of the most important core items for a hero in Dota. Why? as I've mentioned, boots of travel is Rearmable, allowing you to teleport anywhere on the map, you should BoT into a lane, push, farm jungle, BoT to another lane, push, farm the jungle if you can, and repeat this until you run out of mana and then BoT home to regen. Get these by 10 minutes or less, and 10:05 AT THE LATEST. BoT timing is so important on a Tinker that I go straight Bottle>BoTs, because the later you get these the later you come online, the later you push lanes, the later you get to that one lane where they're pursuing a low health target that just needs one Heat-Seeking missiles to finish off. Get these through CSing, and if you can't CS the lane then farm the jungle in the spots specified in the farming section of the guide.

Yes get this after BoTs

Soul Ring
Time: 11-12 minutes
800 gold

*A NOTE FOR PEOPLE UNFAMILAR TO THIS ITEM, THE MANA THAT IS GIVEN TO YOU BY SOUL RING WILL BE REMOVED SHORLTLY AFTER, SO DONT CONSTANTLY USE THIS UNLESS BEFORE ABILITIES, BECAUSE IT ISNT JUST FREE MANA*
(I messed up on this when I was starting out)

This item is incredibly important for Tinker, because using Soul Ring before Rearm means that you use much less mana when spamming out your March of the Machines and pushing lanes. This allows you to stay in lane longer before having to TP back to base for mana and allows you to counter push a lot longer. You should get this item about a minute or 2 after BoTs by simply using march of the machines on a few creep waves around the map or simply in your original lane if its safe/not pushed too far.


Blink Dagger
2250 gold

Don't be that guy and skip this, GET THE BLINK DAGGER. This item is SO valuable and so good on Tinker and it's for sure a core item. This allows for much more mobility on Tinker because you can blink into the jungle from lane to farm without having to go too much out of your way to do it, and even if you're the type who doesn't mind the extra time taken to walk somewhere, this Blink Dagger pays for itself. It saves your life when getting ganked while pushing because you can blink into the trees, or over impassable terrain to escape and tp to safety. It can also be used very well offensively, because if someone is pushing a lane and the creep wave is going towards him, you can Boots of Travel into the lane Blink Dagger>EVAPORATE him, making this item a must for Tinker and paying for itself in kills and deaths.
This item is incredibly helpful for escaping other than your standard blinking into the trees in lane, for example, one time I was escaping from a Weaver and Shadow Shaman and got down to 50 health, and turned a corner and entered the rosh pit delaying them from seeing me just long enough for my blink to come off cooldown, allowing me to blink and tp out to safety. I've gotten in many situations like that one, and overall I feel like this item makes Tinker a more versatile hero.

Dagon
Dagon
Time: Around 25 minutes
2750 gold (level 1)
7720 gold (Level 5)

This is one of carry Tinker's bread and butter items and what makes his burst damage so feared. His ability to farm quickly allows him to get a fairly fast (If you're doing well it should be post 25 minutes even a little later) Dagon, and has amazing synergy with his other high burst damage abilities. The combo with dagon should be - In order(Sorry if this was stolen from another guide)- HeatSeeking Missiles> Laser>Dagon, because all of the damage will land at roughly the same time due to projectile and animation time, meaning that the enemy hero won't be able to get off their regen or Magic Wand saving them. Your team mates will watch as you start using Boots of Travel on a creep wave that a lone support/squishy carry was pushing, they start to run away, but its all for nothing because you blink and EVAPORATE them with this combo, as if they were never there, in a big ZAP. Late game the dagon has great synergy with Ethereal Blade and Scythe of Vyse and due to mana restraints and cast animation you'll likely just resort to Dagon and your other core item to deal damage while only situationally using your other skills to finish off low health targets.

Ethereal Blade 4900 gold

Vs.

Scythe of Vyse 5675 gold

This is the big late game item choice; Scythe of Vyse or Ethereal Blade. The difference is simply Fun vs Effectiveness.

If you're REALLY dominating, are newer to Tinker/Dota, or are just in a fun pub environment then you choose E-blade. What it does is it amplifies magical damage by reducing magic resistance by 40%, meaning that your skills and dagon become much more damaging. This means that you can explode people cleaner and faster late game, along with being able to use it to save team mates by making them unable to be right clicked when ethereal. What's the downside? I think that its an inferior item, and that Scythe of Vyse is much more valuable in a competitive environment.

A brief explanation of the item is that your target turns into a defenseless animal for 3.5 seconds, meaning that they hobble around slowly and can't do anything really other than get RELENTLESSLY DAGONED TO DEATH. Tinker is really special with this item, because he can Scythe of Vyse> Rearm> Scythe of Vyse meaning that that farmed as hell Sven is now doomed to be a pig forever, getting dagoned over and over again. This is super important for kiting and taking down really dangerous carries securing the fight for your team, rather than bursting down underfarmed enemy supports/carries who won't be too much of a problem anyway. Speaking of supports, high impact supports such as Earthshaker or Enigma will have a lot of trouble turning the game around as a pig. Scythe of Vyse is also incredibly useful for your late game mana problems, offering you both intelligence and mana regeneration.

The "new" projectile time for Ethereal Blade and lack of disable is also a problem compared to Scythe of Vyse which can instantly disable an enemy who can no longer blink away, whereas an antimage can still blink away while Ethereal.



Bloodstone
4700 gold

Bloodstone is an excellent late game item on Tinker allowing him to regen much better than Bottle with a 200% Mana regeneration compared to a bottle which falls off lategame with your higher manapool and not wanting to rely on tping to the fountain every 30 seconds, meaning that with spamming March of the Machines and other things can be done with minimal trips back to the fountain to regen, as well as having available mana in tight situations. Not to mention that his faster respawn time (given that you haven't died too many times) allows him to not have to worry about being down for his ridiculously long 100 secondish respawn time late game. Overall, this item should be built to replace bottle no matter what, before or after Shiva's Guard depending on how well you're doing conserving mana. Sometimes Scythe of Vyse fixes all of your mana problems and so you can go directly into Shiva's and THEN Bloodstone. If you got E-blade then get Bloodstone as your next item for sure.


Shiva's guard
4700 gold

Shiva's Guard "Emits a freezing wave that does 200 damage to enemies and slows their movement by 40% for 4 seconds." meaning that you can take out creep waves much faster along with helping in teamfights and pickoffs with the extra damage and slow. Overall a great item on Tinker in ultra late game/late game and you could even consider getting this item right after dagon depending on if you're clearing megacreeps from your base or your team could use a slow, but you'll have to make that call. Its fairly costly at 100 mana meaning that you'll need to get a Bloodstone afterwards if you haven't already.

Mid farming Tinker (Standard/ideal)

Starting item options

425 gold

shared tango shared tango

595 gold

shared tango shared tango

Explanation

You actually gank much better with this build than the ganking build later on because you get your dagon faster, so don't be put off by the title of this build and assume that this build doesn't net kills.

I like this build the most and is probably the best for Tinker, as it allows you to farm safely and works the best with a bottle that you'll need later on. I think that Tinker is an alright mid hero because of his ability to harass and CS with bottle regen to back him up as an int hero. He can go up against fairly decent mid heros like Viper and Drow Ranger fairly well and with good map awareness he can turn ganks into kills. Although he isn't as good as tier 1 mid heroes like Puck and Queen of Pain

Items

This starting build is pretty standard, it's fairly cheap at only 425 gold due to the fact that need to get your bottle quickly for the much needed mana/health regen and for faster BoTs. If you aren't as good at CSing as you should be or just don't feel that you'll be using too many spells, then you could possibly skip the mantle and just get a Tango and 3 Iron Branches for a quicker bottle. I sometimes just skip it to speed up my Bottle and BoT timing if I don't think I'll need the intelligence as much.

The alternative tango pooling builds are for more high level mid players/pubs when you're more sure that you'll need less regen, and the null talisman's stats will be incredibly helpful for other things as well as intelligence, although both builds are more expensive so if you aren't a very profficient CSer than I wouldn't recommend it just because you'll get a faster Bottle and Boots of Travel the other way.

Skill build

The first level of Laser is standard in order to lasthit against mid heroes with higher right click damage than you, but there's no real need to skill it other than to shine in your opponents eye so he can't lasthit, not to zap them. Obviously March of the Machines is maxed out first, because not only will it allow you to farm the jungle when the lane isn't safe to lasthit, but it also needs to be maxed for when you get Boots of Travel so that you can start clearing creep waves right away. I max Heat seeking missiles after March of the Machines and before Laser because when you start splitpushing lanes you'll find that using Heat Seeking missiles on heroes in lane will do a surprising amount of damage, and you can do so from a safe distance and regen later. You don't put more than one level in Rearm until lategame because the mana cost is simply too high and makes farming really costly in mana and you'll have to go back to base more frequently. Once you get a Bloodstone/ Scythe of Vyse your mana problems should be solved and by that point in the game being able to rearm quickly is very useful.

*Sometimes if you want to transition into more of a ganker later on rather than splitpushing, or you really need the level 3 Rearm for escaping/speeding things up because you keep getting ganked or there are a lot of hero engagements then you can max it earlier

Global Ganking Tinker

Starting items

485 gold

Explanation

The idea of this build is to max burst damaging skills to really hurt whoever you're laning against in early game along with ganking other lanes and killing targets at half/lower health with Laser and missiles. Through the gold that you get from getting kills you may get later BoTs than with the farming build due to you not being in lane very much, but if you kill whoever you're going mid against a few times as well as CSing well, you should be able to get BoTs really quickly allowing you to gank much more often and transition into the "Global Ganker" part of Tinker in the early-mid game. This build is much more popular with low skill players because not only is it easier to gank lanes in low level games/pubs but is much easier than CSing/farming. I actually used to use this build when I first started playing Tinker and would get around 4-5 kills on other lanes as well as mid before 10 minutes and feel like the king of the world, but I still let whoever I was mid against get free farm and delayed my Boots of Travel timing making me less useful later game as well as not pushing or getting as fast a dagon as I would be getting. This is becoming more and more popular after 6.82 though because a fast level 4 March of the Machines to stack ancients isn't needed anymore. I still like the farming build better because it offers more push and better late game, which is better for this 6.83 40 minute long game meta, but honestly this build is really fun and at ~2K MMR (low level) you'll get plenty of kills for sure. You'll have much less mana problems as ganking Tinker just because you aren't constantly teleporting and spamming March of the Machines.

Items

Fairly similar to the other build in Mid Farming Tinker other than you have more regeneration as well as intelligence from the mantle to ensure you can recover from any ganks gone wrong, as well as not needing to CS or camp in lane much so stats to survive ganks aren't as favoured. The item progression is pretty much the same for both types of Tinkers because once you get a higher level rearm you'll definitely need the Soul Ring and Bottle for mana sustainability, as well as needing a Bloodstone later on because you'll be spamming burst damage skills/dagon at a high mana cost.

Skill Build

The skill build for this is pretty straightforward, the objective is to max your skills, preferably Heat Seeking Missiles at level 4 first rather than Laser just because it scales better. The first level is put into Rearm AFTER that simply because not only is it much more important to level up the damage on your skills but even if you did put a level into it, a level 1 Rearm wouldn't too too much in the way of netting you kills other than a really clutch Heat Seeking Missiles. After that your levels are put into Rearm and March of the Machines just because a level 3 Rearm used for ganks is a lot more sustainable mana-wise than if you were teleporting everywhere using March of the Machines every second, which is why it isn't maxed in the farming Tinker build.

Safelane farming Tinker

Starting items

340 gold

Explanation

*If you didn't know; the "safelane" is bottom for the Radiant and top lane for "dire"
This is how Tinker is often played in a competitive environment simply because mid can be too dangerous and less valuable for him than being a safelane farmer. He can farm camps in the jungle in the spot indicated in the farming section as radiant, as well as being able to get a guaranteed early Boots of Travel given he's getting babysat and/or freefarming. The downside to this build is that he's not your traditional position one right-click carry like antimage, Medusa, Tiny, etc. He WILL top the networth for your team and be incredibly valuable pushing and getting kills, but when it comes to taking down carries and helping in teamfights he'll have a lot of trouble until lategame when he gets luxury items like Scythe of Vyse, not to mention that he A. Can't take very much damage B. Can't carry as hard as other hard carries. Honestly I still think that this won't be much of a problem if you run a hard carry mid like Morphling or Tiny, and so thats why this "Depends". Overall with burst damage/ March of the Machines as well as Laser for missing, he can hold his own to an extent in lane, and so I can't say that this is better or worse than mid, because it

depends

.

Items

This build is more based around regen simply because you won't get your precious Bottle until after you've gotten BoTs and farmed it, or simply skip it and rely on Soul Ring for mana regen. Either way, you won't benefit as well from a Bottle in lane unless your support is controlling runes well, but the regen you brought to lane should suffice. Again the standard Tinker item progression still applies because he ascends to a godly state above lanes and you'll always end up with more or less the same farming strategy globally, it just matters how you get there. I believe that you go into a Soul Ring to farm camps better, and then invest in a Bottle after Boots of Travel just to stay farming longer in lane, and it should pay off in the cash money you get by farming rather than sitting in fountain regenerating.

Skill build

It may have seemed weird that I put 2 points into Laser rather than 1 point in Laser and 1 point in Heat Seeking Missile and this is because this option not only costs less mana; 120 mana vs 215 mana, but it does 160 damage vs 180 damage, which is very small and when you want to conserve your mana in the safelane and should leave it to your support and your right clicks to harass your opponent. This higher level Laser will allow you to "secure kills" (killsteal from your support) in order to ensure you get the gold for the kill as well as laser being impossible to dodge unlike Heat Seeking Missiles. In the midlane/ganking Tinker builds you have a bottle to help you afford the mana cost of this. You max Heat seeking missiles right afterwards though for the valuable counter push and usefulnees in teamfights/squabbles.

Farming

One of the most important aspects of tinker is farming, and when you're split pushing a really worthy farming investment is to blink over to the jungle and use 2 March of the Machines at the spots specified, based on what lane you're pushing.

*The red X's in front of Tinker mark where to click for March of the Machines while standing where the Tinker in the picture is standing, the arrows showing the direction of the March of Machines, and the other red X's marking the camps that will be hit by this*

Mid (Radiant)

Bottom

Top

Update Analysis

6.82

So this is what happened

I was super happy about the 6.82 update none of my favourite heroes were affected by the changes, besides Tinker "Tinker
March of the Machines no longer affects Spell Immune units" which I didn't think was anything bad at all like oh god forbid it doesn't affect people with BKB what a tragedy [/sarcasm]. Then I realized it didn't affect rock golems, which kind of sucks because it means that when he farms jungle camps in the spots indicated in the farming section some of the creeps won't be affected by March of the Machines so his farming is slowed down. Not TOOO bad. I thought it was a bit of a buff, because now when he stacked ancients he had a nice bounty rune or a rune that helped him farm/gank, meaning that he doesn't just lose farm while doing ancients, meaning FASTER Boots of Travel!!!!!

Of course I queued into the server and proceeded to follow my routine of barely laning but instead stacking ancients every minute which would - as usual - ensure pre-10 minute Boots of Travel. This happened and I'm not proud of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiBzYLCi22o

KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! YOU CANT STACK ANCIENTS WHICH MEANS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO LANE, so this hero just got a lot harder; slower farming, slower BoTs, harder life. You can still get 10 minute Boots of Travel if you get Soul Ring aftwerwards and farm the radiant mid spot indicated in the farming guide, but this is now a skill based hero because your Boots of Travel aren't guaranteed.


-not really an analysis more me getting an excuse to share this funny story shhh

Conclusion

Overall Tinker is a really simple hero to build and follow a strategy to get the most out of him, but he takes a lot of practice to get REALLY good at, as well as having a lot of outplay potential, like good use of Blink Dagger, Laser, clutch Heat Seeking Missiles, etc. Not to mention that this hero has a ridiculous amount of active items in ultra late game making him one of the hardest heroes to play at that stage of the game and having to be a million places at once and quickly.

Example of some really cool Tinker jukes by Arteezy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIkpgCSK91w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQi3oXlVdss

Thank you if you read through the whole guide, I hope that I helped improve your Tinker play and even if you're a really good Tinker player there might have been something useful you read.

It took a long time to make and I'd really appreciate feedback, even if its "Wtf why the hell would you build Bloodstone" or pointing out an error in numbers/explanations, I'm not the best player so I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes, so please point them out and know that I'll listen so you don't have to flame me to tell me something. I'm hoping that this guide will be relevant to at least ~High 2K MMR players and some high skill players just because I include some information that's just pro Tinker gameplay observations.
Obviously support/compliments are appreciated too
*Note I think the pros and cons section needs work I have a feeling there's something I'm missing/shouldn't have added


This guide was made for some Tinker players who were struggling at low levels to get the most out of him, and just to learn how to play him in the first place
My other goal is to get feedback from high skill players to improve both my guide and my own personal Tinker play.

To-Do list

-Matchup section