Valuable Huskar guide 6.83 (by Pocciox)

Introduction

Hi guys. I'm Pocciox and I decided to publish a guide on Huskar, my favourite hero, because I feel like this site needs an updated one on him.
He is a durable carry and somebody says initiator. There's also a risky way to play him as jungler (best jungler in the dota world if you are lucky)


Pros:

Awesome mid laner thanks to his harassing power
Strong hero early and mid game, useful late game if six slotted.
Amazing survivability and right clicking
Not mana dependent because only your 1st skill needs mana

Cons:

Low base damage
Needs a lot of skill to remain low HP without going to 0HP
Needs a lot of skill to Armlet toggle with the right timing
Item & level dependent
Has no stun. Enemy can tp out if you don't have allies with stuns
One of the weakest heroes level 1

Skills

First of all: his Skills.

Inner Vitality [Q]


Unlocks the regenerative power of a friendly unit, with healing based upon its primary attribute. If the target is below 40% it will heal faster. Lasts 16 seconds.
Cast Range: 550
Health Regen Bonus: 10
Main Attribute as Regen Above Threshold: 5%/10%/15%/20%
Main Attribute as Regen Below Threshold: 20%/40%/60%/80%
Health Threshold: 40%
Duration: 16
Cooldown 25/22/19/16
Mana cost 170

This is your heal. It's very powerful late game because it scales very well and that's what makes you so durable. You can also use this to push towers, save allies and be a free Urn of Shadows

Burning Spears [W]

Huskar sets his spears aflame, dealing damage over time with his regular attack. Multiple attacks will stack additional damage. Each attack drains some of Huskar's health. Lasts 8 seconds.
Cast Range: 450
Health Cost: 15
Damage per Second: 5/10/15/20
Duration: 8


It's not a unique attack modifier.
Damage type on self is HP removal.
Burning Spear stacks additively when used multiple times on the same target.)
Every instance's duration is independent from other instances. They do not prolong or refresh each other.
Huskar cannot kill himself using this ability.
This cannot be dispelled by anything and deals a total of 40/80/120/160 damage per instance.


This is an auto cast ability (remember to right click it when you are going to jump on somebody). In lane, you want to use it to lasthit as you wont draw creep's aggro IF MANUALLY CAST. Mid and late game, always use this when fighting because it is a really powerful DoT (Damage over Time).

Berserker's Blood [Passive]


Huskar's injuries feed his power, giving increased attack speed and magic damage resistance based on missing health.
Attack Speed Bonus per Stack: 14/16/18/20
Magic Resistance Bonus per Stack: 4%/5%/6%/7%

This is what makes you the nukers' nightmare. at max level, under 3% life, you will have 98% magic resistance. Sounds good doesn't it?
It will also give you a LOT of AS (attack speed) to dish out your Burning Spears.

Life Break [R]


Huskar draws upon his health to break an enemy's life, leaping at a target within attack range to shatter a percentage of that hero's current health, and slowing them. While leaping, Huskar is spell immune.
Cast Range: 550
Current Health as Cost: 35%
Target's Current Health as Damage: 35%
Move Speed Slow: 40%/50%/60%
Slow Duration: 4/5/6
Cooldown:12
Huskar leaps at a speed of 1000 and cannot be disjointed.
Most debuffs will be removed upon cast.
The damage to self is magical. Thus, it can be reduced by magic resistance (including the effect from Berserker's Blood).

The leap stops oly if Huskar is disabled during the leap or the target moves more than 1400 units in 0.015 seconds. For example: you jump on a Queen of Pain who uses her Blink while you are in mid air. The leap wont be disjointed and you will keep following her.

Use this skill to initiate a fight and don't worry to use it on creeps to push faster as its cooldown is really low. It can also be used to slow enemies and to escape by using it on an enemy's creep.

Items

Starting items are quite simple. Blades of Attack are the armelt part that we get first because of the low huskar base attack. You will need this item to lasthit.
Tango is for regen in hard lanes.

CORE
Warning: wall of text incoming.
Armlet of Mordiggian this might be the best item on huskar.

It gives you some hp regen, armor (you NEED armor), attack speed and attack damage (65 if activated. that's a lot for a 2500 price) . The active will also boost your hp by 475
If you rush this early, you will be able to:

tower dive fleeing enemies
1v1 everybody
push (by tanking)towers
SOLO ROSHAN (I'm the only one I ever saw doing this in pubs and ranked matches)

thanks to its active. There's a thing called armlet toggle, wich you have to use to do this things, that's really an useful thing on Huskar.
Basically, when you activated it and you're under 475 hp, let's say 200 hp, you want to quickly press 2 times the button you binded it to.
This will allow you to be back to 475 in 0.7 seconds. This means that if you don't get any damage in this time you will be healed each time you do this.
I suggest you to train in a lobby with towers because otherwise you will panic and fail.
Trust me ;).
I got a good feeling with this item and now I can armlet toggle in 1vs3 sometimes.

How do you solo rosh with this item? like I said you before, you can armlet toggle any source of damage that doesn't do more than 475 damage in 0.7 secs. Roshan doesn't. What you need to do is use a Smoke of Deceit before entering the pit (to not get spotted by enemy's wards) and position yourself as far as you can from roshan. Then start using your Burning Spears on him. He will come to you and attack you. Continue doing this until you get to 475 hp. Then, simply activate armlet, wait he backs to his normal position, armlet toggle back to 475. Repeat. Profit.
Again, remember to train in a private lobby before doing this in pubs or you will panic and fail horribly.

Remember that with Armlet toggle you can't dodge any kind of DoT because that will inflict you at least 1 damage when you have 1 hp so you reach 0 and die.
I've put a video on how to solo roshan with armlet in the end of this chapter. Dotafire didn't wont me to put it here, the video screwed up all the rest of the chapter. I'm sorry.

Morbid Mask Must get. This will mitigate the -40hp/second armlet downside and will help you to heal after you finished a fight with low hp. No downsides and fairly low price. Also a part of the Satanic



Thread Boots I choose this boots because they offer more survivability than the others. Phase boots give you unnecessary damage and chasing power, tranquils aren't needed because of the lifesteal and mana boots are completely unuseful for him early game.


Extensions!

After you succesfully ganked some enemies, you should start doing some mid game decisions.

Is there a ADC (attack damage carry) that is annoying you? Buy an Heaven's Halberd and completely disarm her. This item will provide you 25% evasion, some strenght and 25 damage. It will sometimes slow the enemy's AS and MS (attack and movement speed) you hit by 20% making it almost impossible to flee you (unless they have a Blink )


Black King Bar

This is a core item if enememies have a powerful teamfight combo or a Heaven's Halberd because this 2 make you so useless. Get this if facing Invoker, Lion , Earthshaker and Tidehunter .

Satanic If you just came out fed by a great teamfight reaching 3200 gold, start building this. get the Reaver first.
Remember to activate when you are low hp because you will get the most out of it.
I suggest you to activate your Black King Bar meanwhile or you will get stunned and waste its duration.

Aghanim's Scepter Since the last update this is a great last item for huskar. This is a power up for your ultimate that lowers its cooldown to 4 (less than Blink) and does 65% of enemy's current health as damage. Get this if you don't know what else to build.


Late game, sell your boots and get Boots of Travel .

Situationals:

Daedalus Pudge, Centaur Warrunner and all heroes who usually build a Hood of Defiance will hate this.

Eye of Skadi This is an overall good item that offers you a lot of stats and raw hp. I get this if I feel like "What should I buy next?"

Monkey King Bar Get this if facing Phantom Assassin or Butterfly carries.

video by stupidxxxx on solo roshan:

Play Video

Ranked Play

High level players prefer using the high huskar's attack speed to proc effects, like Alchemist does . that's why they build Mjollnir and Veil of Discord. Also, the veil amplifies your ultimate's damage. This build is less item dependent and useful for teamfighting purposes as you help your team too and have an AoE presence.

Laning

You want to have the mid lane. This allows you to get quick levels and fast ultimate.
You also want mid lane because you counter a LOT of mid laners like QoP, Death Prophet, Lina, Zeus...
Your main purpose now is to get lasthits to farm a fast armlet.
If they play aggressively, spam some Burning Spears on them and when they reach 1/3 hp back of. usually, the burning effect (wich is huge and denies bottle and healing salve) will be enough to kill them.

As soon as you get the armlet, kill them 1 or 2 times. don't be afraid of tower diving because you can armlet toggle it. The toughest thing to armlet toggle right now is the enemy's ranged creep.
Many times, I saw a death prophet dying to me and TPing instantly back to lane, then repeat and then call GG and disconnect saying OMG huskar OP Volvo nerf.

If you have some slows or stuns (example: Crystal Maiden)in the side lanes, go there and gank. Don't forget to buy a Smoke of Deceit if you see they warded the area.

After this, you can start to take down towers with your allies and soon little teamfights will begin to occur.

Special mention goes to runes: although you don't buy a bottle and you don't need mana, runes are still useful.
Your favourite are Invisibility and Haste. With these you become a powerful ganker and with invisibility you can enter the rosh pit without having to buy a Smoke of Deceit

JUNGLING

This can be done only on the radiant side. Most of the dota 2 players don't recognize huskar as a jungler but in fact he's the best one if he doesn't find Troll Camps. Also, beware the ranged satyr.
This method involves buying a Quelling Blade and a set of Tango . After this 2 items, the progression is the same as the other build.
Here is a video on how to do this.
Play Video
I did this when enemy's team had a lot of nukers but a stupid teammate called mid after me.

AGAIN: PRACTICE THIS IN A PRIVATE LOBBY BEFORE PUBS OR YOU WILL FAIL HORRIBLY

Pros:
Insanely fast jungling
Not many players recognize huskar as able to jungle or solo roshan early. thus, they won't ward those areas or pick

Techies to counter you like they would've done if you had picked Ursa
Gives more overall xp and gold per minute to your team

Cons:
You have to always be at 1 HP
Risky if you find Troll camps spawn because they can hit you. Use tangoes ONLY if you find them and learn how to kill them when they are returning to their camp so they wont attack you.

Bloodseeker, Zeus. Bloodseeker will see you and make you useless, while zeus will randomly hit you with his ultimate and kill you. don't do this if they pick those heroes.

Friends and Foes

Friends:

Dazzle Will heal you and cast his Shallow Grave on you when you're at low hp. Really powerful combo.
Omniknight This guys makes you immune to physical attacks (your weakness), has a free bkb for you and heals you. Great ally.
Crystal Maiden She has slows that help you a lot to do ganks early game.
Ogre Magi He has anything you need: slows, stuns and mobility steroids.
Io global ganking! yeee
*all teamfighting heroes* they will disable your enemies and they wont do nothing while you dish out 15 stacks of burning spears on them. examples are Earthshaker, Magnus, Enigma , Tidehunter .




Foes:

Doom 'nuff said.
Bane This guy has everything you hate. He has 2 disables, nullifies your damage and has a pure damage nuke.
Invoker 2 pure damage spell with sunstrike and EMP
Bloodseeker jungling is unuseful if he's in the enemy's team, you can't solo rosh too and he has 2 powerful pure damage nukes
Pudge if he's smart, he will use his ulti and rot before hooking you.
all sorts of pure damage.
Ancient Apparition you can't heal if he/she gets you. She will instakill you when you reach low hp.
Axe this guy will destroy you. Don't pick huskar if they have this guy.
wind ranger She has a 100% evasion, a 3.75 sec stun and a ulti that can dish out a lot of physical damage.
Bounty Hunter He will try to oneshot you. Make sure to shut him down early
Nyx Assassin. He will nullify the damage he takes from your ulti and does a lot of physical damage
Timbersaw High mobility and able to nuke you down with pure damage

OP combo. I never lost with this.

Huskar has been buffed A LOT in the last updates.

6.83

Inner Vitality
base hp regen from 2/4/6/8 to 10
regen bonus when hurt form 30%/45%/60%/75% to 20%/40%/60%/80% (late game buff)

6.82
Inner Vitality cooldown reduced from 25 to 25/22/19/16
Berserker's Blood attack speed bonus increased from 8/12/16/20 to 14/16/18/20 this is an enormous buff. At level 1, you have almost the same attack speed you before got at level 3.
-Life Break
Cooldown reduced from 45/30/15 to 12
Damage reduced from 50% to 35%
Self damage rebalanced from 40%/35%/30% to 35% these 2 aren't nerfs or buffs. just rescaling. The aghanim's upgrade is buffed anyway
Slow duration rebalanced from 5 to 4/5/6 (stronger late game)
Slow rebalanced from 50% to 40%/50%/60% (stronger late game)


Armlet price has been reduced by 100 (Recipe cost reduced from 600 to 500) (indirect buff)


And finally. I can't stress this enough.
You see a teammate wants to play Oracle? You MUST pick Huskar. It's a no brainer really (unless they have axe or AA (ancient apparition) )
why? because if you are huskar and you have armlet and at least 1 level on your q, this combo is soooo strong.

1 of the huskar's cons is that you need to stay low on hp but never reach 0. to achieve this, you must heal yourself with items like satanic or your Inner Vitality.
Well oracle FREEZES your health when it's low and you just start tanking all the teamfight damage without dying thanks to your q and later on your satanic. oracle will also be able to heal you without disarming you like he should with other heroes because your magic resistance is so high. For 9 seconds you will be unkillable and permanently with 1 hp if done correctly.

What i do is:Activate armlet and jump on whoever and tank enemies stuns and nukes. When I'm about to die (more or less 475hp), Oracle casts on me his False Promise and i cast on me my inner vitality . Meanwhile, he continuously casts on me his Purifying Flames and after 9 seconds i usually got a rampage and back off with all my hp. With this combo you can tank 2 fountains shooting at you. Don't believe me? Try it in a lobby ;)

I think this should be nerfed although I don't know how. It's really broken. I know there aren't any OP heroes in Dota 2 and everything is balanced but this combo has only 2 counters ( Axe and Ancient Apparition)and has a 20 sec cooldown (not like, let's say, an Echo Slam + Reverse Polarity + Black Hole combo).

Changelog

19/01/2015 Published guide


Please, help me to improve this guide as I want it to be one of the best guides about Huskar.
Thanks for reading my guide :)