[G] Low Level Guide to Spirit Breaker

Scorch

Austria3371 Posts

July 14 2013 11:45 GMT

Hey there, everyone! Today, as my first post in the Dota 2 forums, I'm bringing you my guide to

Barathrum, the Spirit Breaker

Disclaimer: I'm new to Dota 2 and MOBA games in general. As such, this is a guide by a low level player for low level players playing low level games, and you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. However, I've found decent success in low level pubs with Spirit Breaker. My credentials? Being 11-1 with Spirit Breaker in low level pub games. Yay.

Introduction
Spirit Breaker is a melee strength hero who excels at ganking all over the map. Unlike other ganking heroes, he comes straight at the enemy instead of using cowardly stealth shenanigans. He can absolutely dominate the early and mid game. While he is a decent initiator in team fights, his usefulness tapers off towards the later stages of the game when carries get out of hand and people don't run around alone any more. However, if he gets off to a good start, he can stay useful all the way to late game as a (semi) carry.

In the Beginning...
Spirit Breaker's stats are 29 + 2.4 STR, 17 + 1.7 AGI and 14 + 1.8 INT. At level 1, he has 701 HP and deals 65 damage, which puts you ahead of just about anyone else. In a straight up duel, few can match you, and it stays that way until midgame. You should try to use your early advantage to the fullest in order to get ahead of the curve and stay on top as long as possible.

Abilities
Charge of Darkness

+ Show Spoiler [Skill description] +

Charge of Darkness

Ability: Target Unit
Affects: Enemy Heroes
Spirit Breaker fixes his sight on an enemy unit and starts charging through all objects. All enemy units passed through and the targeted unit will be hit by a Greater Bash. If the targeted unit dies, Spirit Breaker will change his target to the nearest enemy unit to that location.
Mana Cost 100
Cooldown 35

Charge Speed: 600 / 650 / 700 / 750
Stun Duration: 1.2 / 1.6 / 2 / 2.4
Cast Range: Global

Spirit Breaker shares vision with the target for the duration.
Charge of Darkness will follow and stun an invisible target, but does not grant True Sight of target.
Greater Bashes units in a 300 radius along Spirit Breaker's path when colliding with units while charging.
Greater Bash does not use Charge of Darkness speed for calculating damage.
Blocked by Magic Immunity. If magic immune after cast, it is not blocked.
Blocked by Linken's Sphere.

Your signature move. You charge towards any enemy hero or creep on the map at high speed, ignoring obstacles along the way and stunning and damaging your target and anything that stands between you.
Charge can be cancelled at any time, and you shouldn't hesitate to do that if necessary. If you get stunned while charging, you're basically screwed, so consider getting a BKB if that is an issue. Some items (Mask of Madness!) can be activated while charging. You can use charge to get around the map quickly, for example to rush to a lane to push or defend, or to catch up with your teammates after dying. You can use it as an escape mechanism by charging something remote. The main application is of course to gank enemy heroes. If the target dies while you're on your way, the nearest legal target unit is chosen instead. Charge also hits invisible units, but does not reveal them.

Empowering Haste

+ Show Spoiler [Skill description] +

Empowering Haste

Ability: Aura
Affects: Allied Units
Causes Spirit Breaker to gain higher movement speed. His presence increases the movement speed of nearby allied units.

Bonus Movement Speed: 6% / 10% / 14% / 18%
Radius: 900

A straightforward movement speed aura. Movement speed is convenient in general as it helps you and your teammates manouver around, flee from enemies or chase after them. Movement speed also gives you damage via Greater Bash.

Greater Bash

+ Show Spoiler [Skill description] +

Greater Bash

Ability: Passive
Affects: Self
Damage: Magical
Gives a chance to stun and knockback an enemy unit on an attack, and gives a buff to movement speed as each successful bash occurs. Passively grants bonus damage based on movement speed.

Cooldown 1.5

Bash Chance: 17%
Bonus Damage: 10% / 20% / 30% / 40% of movement speed
Stun Duration: 1 / 1.2 / 1.4 / 1.6
Knockback Duration: 0.5
Knockback Distance: 100
Bonus Movement Speed: 15%
Speed Duration: 3

Does not stack with Skull Basher or Abyssal Blade.
Destroys trees units are pushed into.
Does not affect Roshan.
Damage blocked by Magic Immunity, the bash is not.

Your main source of damage. Greater Bash knocks back, stuns and deals damage based on movement speed. Greater Bash has a chance of occuring on a basic attack. More importantly, it always occurs when using Charge or Nether Strike.

Nether Strike

+ Show Spoiler [Skill description] +

Nether Strike

Ability: Target Unit
Affects: Enemy Heroes
Damage: Magical
Spirit Breaker slips into the nether realm, reappearing next to his hapless victim. Upon reappearing, a Greater Bash of the current level occurs and deals bonus damage. Upgradable by Aghanim's Scepter.

Mana Cost 125 / 150 / 175
Cooldown 75

Damage: 150 / 250 / 350
Cast Range: 400 / 550 / 700 (with Scepter: 550 / 700 / 850)
Scepter Ability: Level 4 Greater Bash on target impact
Greater Bash Radius: 250
Scepter Cooldown: 20

Teleportation and damage is delayed 1 second. Spirit Breaker is magic immune during this delay.
Damage blocked by Magic Immunity, the bash is not.
Blocked by Linken's Sphere.

Your ulti. You just teleport to a nearby target and hit it with a Greater Bash with extra damage. Good for finishing off an enemy hero. You could also use it for the disable, but there's a considerable delay before the strike.

Skill Build
1 Charge of Darkness
2-3 Greater Bash
4 Empowering Haste
5 Greater Bash
6 Nether Strike
7 Greater Bash
8-10 Empowering Haste
11 Nether Strike
12-14 Charge of Darkness
15 Stats
16 Nether Strike
17-25 Stats

We start out with one point in Charge, then our priority is Nether Strike > Greater Bash > Empowering Haste > Charge of Darkness. Why max out our signature move last, you ask? Because that "only" gives charge speed (which is not taken into account for damage) and stun duration. Greater Bash, too, gives stun duration, but also more damage. Empowering Haste gives damage as well via Greater Bash while just being useful in general.

Item Build
Starting Items:
Tango
Healing Salve
Stout Shield
(Branches)

Early Game & Core:
(Bracer)
Boots of Speed
Urn of Shadows - should get plenty of charges and heals you up after a gank
Morbid Mask
Power Treads
Mask of Madness - movement speed and attack speed is more damage and stun

Late Game/Luxury/Situational:
Some damage item (MKB, Desolator, Daedalus, Mjollnir)
(BKB)
(Aghanim's Scepter)
(Heart of Tarrasque)

Gameplay
Spirit Breaker is a good pick if the enemy team has a lot of squishy heroes. You can go top or bottom, but not solo. As is the case for many heroes, your ideal laning partner is ranged and has a slow or stun. The early laning phase should go pretty smoothly, as Spirit Breaker starts out very strong with a good health pool and high attack damage for last hitting. If an enemy hero in your lane gets low from harassment, don't hesitate to charge and finish them off. You can tank a few hits from the other hero or even their tower. Getting first blood and one or two additional kills in your lane before level 6 is quite realistic.

When you get your ulti, you can start looking for easy prey around the map. The juiciest targets are those with low health and no good escape mechanisms, like Sniper or Zeus for example. You can easily take on most Intelligence and Dexterity heroes, so be confident. Just have an eye on the minimap at all times and see if you can spot someone alone. Charge, then hit them a couple times. If no stun procs and they try to run away, use your ulti. Yes, getting lucky with bash procs helps. Of course, you can also gank a lane with two or three enemies if you have teammates there. Just make sure to ping and communicate in time. If you have life leech, you can jungle a bit between fights.

Spirit Breaker is really fucking strong in this phase of the game, bordering on overpowered. The many kills you should get not only feed you, but cost the enemy gold and farming time, thereby putting your whole team ahead. Also, the potential of being charged anywhere on the map strikes fear into the enemy's hearts and discourages doing anything alone, like solo pushing, jungling or warding.

This kind of gameplay goes on for quite a while now, until level 12-14 or so. At this point, you should have your core items and have the best stats in the game by far. However, now team fights start to become the norm and more and more enemies overtake you in raw dueling power. If you can still find good targets wandering around alone, take those. Otherwise, you'll have to join in on the team fights. Spirit Breaker can offer initiation and his aura to his team, but that's about it. His forte is clearly ganking. If possible, charge a hero in the back in team fights so you stun everyone along the way. Fleeing enemies are easy prey for Charge (if it's not on cooldown) or Nether Strike.

The game is often already decided at this point. If things went well for you and you can get a big damage item early, you can continue killing stuff and even carrying your team. On the other hand, if you didn't get enough of a head start, things look grim for you. Your mobility is still useful for pushing lanes, but a Spirit Breaker who cannot pick off single enemies is not much use otherwise.

TL;DR: Dominate the earlier phases of the game by ganking to your heart's content and hope you get ahead enough to still be useful later on.

Outro
So this is it. If you like a hero with the potential of completely dominating the early and mid game (and the later stages as well if you're on fire), give Spirit Breaker a whirl. I apologize for any facepalm-inducing crap this guide may or may not contain. As I said, I'm a lowly noob myself. I hope this is helpful anyway. GL HF!

igotmyown

United States4291 Posts

July 14 2013 12:14 GMT

Empowering haste level 1 gives 6% movement speed. With boots you have 340 movement speed, so 20.4 movement.
Each level of greater bash gives 10% of movement speed, so that level 1 empowering haste gives you a whopping 2 extra damage per level of greater bash, on each charge.

An extra .4 seconds of charge stun is 1/4 of an attack (actually the level 3 will give you an extra attack without any ias, level 2 with some).

1/4 of an attack is over 16 damage, with base damage. Charge will give you the most burst damage until you get ult, once you get ult bash gives you the most, and empowering haste the least.

Empowering haste is only good if you have to chase them safe lane and have no orb of venom.

Mithhaike

Singapore2759 Posts

July 14 2013 12:23 GMT

The correct build most of the time is maxing Charge+Greater Bash first without any points into Empowering Haste imo.

Your underestimating the value of max charge. That movement speed plays a huge role in determining can you get there in that 1sec before he gets under the tower, or that 1sec before your allies die.

Skills priority = Greater Bash > Charge > Empowering haste, ult taken whenever possible.

As for item build, MoM is good yes, but it also makes him extremely weak as he takes +30% dmg
Always, always go straight BKB after MoM. No excuses, it will help to mitigate the extra dmg taken.

agahamsorr0w

Netherlands359 Posts

July 14 2013 12:37 GMT

maxing charge first seems essential to me for a ganking sb for the extra time stun and a better and faster gank. haste for ally ms boost and chasing/running power next and bash last since the proc chance remains the same.

your build is for carry sb who farms and doesnt gank at all. then lv 4 charge would be useless since you farm in lane 15 min and never leave the lane. sb is not the best carry though so i wouldnt reccomend to try to hardcarry with him. also, ganking sb gets urn, carry sb rushes mom to farm faster (and its obviously a good item on sb)

Scorch

Austria3371 Posts

July 14 2013 12:43 GMT

That is certainly true for purely damage purposes, and I wouldn't fault you for maxing Charge before Haste. However, being fast offers some utility of its own. I'd advocate at least getting one level of Haste at level 4 because being faster than the enemy is useful in many situations. How highly you value additional movement speed beyond that is a matter of personal preference. You also have to take into account the possibility of the additional stun duration being redundant, because a Greater Bash might have procced in that time anyway.
In any case, thanks for the feedback. I never thought of stun time as circumstantial damage before.
Again, go ahead and max Charge before Haste if you like. The guide describes how I do it, and it's totally ok to do it differently. + Show Spoiler +

As long as you max Nether Strike and Greater Bash first

Mithhaike

Singapore2759 Posts

July 14 2013 15:03 GMT

On July 14 2013 21:37 agahamsorr0w wrote:
maxing charge first seems essential to me for a ganking sb for the extra time stun and a better and faster gank. haste for ally ms boost and chasing/running power next and bash last since the proc chance remains the same.

your build is for carry sb who farms and doesnt gank at all. then lv 4 charge would be useless since you farm in lane 15 min and never leave the lane. sb is not the best carry though so i wouldnt reccomend to try to hardcarry with him. also, ganking sb gets urn, carry sb rushes mom to farm faster (and its obviously a good item on sb)

You max bash because despite the same proc chance, the damage it adds onto your charge & ultimate is huge. It's what gives SB his death-combo, because of greater bash. Greater bash higher duration stun is also extremely useful, especially against heroes that have escape mechanism, this will allow you to get kills that normally you wouldn't.
The buff to greater bash is what makes SB such a powerhouse now, please please max it instead of haste first.

In all, greater bash will always be maxed first, as to charge & haste which you max first I would say haste is the 1point wonder, charge should be maxed out 2nd.

MrTortoise

1388 Posts

July 14 2013 20:14 GMT

guide to spirit breaker:

dont be that guy who goes 4-0-0 then dies 12 tiems charging people behind tier 2/3 towers.

its not cool, its not funny. Go do drugs ... you might get laid.
Dont charge people with natural blinks

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

July 14 2013 20:23 GMT

Where you actually play the hero significantly affects your skill order and item selection. A farming SB can expect to max Bash first, but an off-lane SB should be maxing charge first almost always. You are vastly underestimating the value of how much charge speed helps ganks. This has been discussed on the topic of off-lane SB in GD before. Off-lane SB in high-level Chinese pubs virtually always maxes Charge first. Also, he is usually picked there as an off-lane solo and not as a farming hero.

Whether or not you level Empowering Haste depends on your team. Teammates that can follow-up ganks from long range due to blinks/mobility skills or long range nukes generally do not require Empowering Haste, while melee/shorter range heroes benefit greatly from being able to move into range of your gank target faster.

TheSubtleArt

Canada2527 Posts

July 14 2013 22:36 GMT

SB is actually a really solid choice to solo offlane, especially in pubs where you're most likely facing a dual lane and won't be zoned out as effectively. Honestly I think it's the best role for him, since you need early levels more than you need farm (I don't think SB as a farmer is particularly good), and generally work better when you're ganking throughout the laning phase.

Mask of madness is pretty situational. Drums should definitely be considered as a midgame item. Assault cuirass is also really good if no1 else is building it.

LSB

United States5171 Posts

July 15 2013 00:46 GMT

#10

A spirit breaker support/ganker build I go for is

Starting
2x Gauntlets of Strength (or 1x Gauntlet and Ward)
2x Tango
1x Salve

Or
1x Gauntlet of Strength
1x Tango
1x Salve
1x Courier
1x Branch

And once I get Urn+Boots I go ganking.

Also I don't level up empowering haste until I'm going ganking because I don't want to push the lane (just leave the skill point open). I max charge first to increase the stun duration, and the charge speed

I really like armlet on spirit breaker. Makes you hit like a truck and gives you more attack speed and survivability. As well as being very easy to build. Armlet+Treads+Urn is good enough to solo kill anyone but a farmed carry for a while.

If we haven't won yet, I transition to semi carry/initiator by building attack speed and I get Mjollnir and then Assault Currass.

I really don't like Mask of Madness. A lot of the times you have to serve as the initiator on your team, and being straight in the center of fire is not the time you want to take 30% more damage. I prefer Armlet to Drums because I spend a lot of time back in the fountain (I charge at the fountain a lot, since it doesn't reveal my positioning and I recover the MP from using charge) and I don't think I can take advantage of the extra mana Drums offers.

EDIT: BKB for carry of course, and Ags I think of is situational for if your team really needs more initiaton.

igotmyown

United States4291 Posts

July 15 2013 02:34 GMT

#11

Drums cost efficiency is pretty mediocre on spirit breaker. Attack speed increases spiritbreaker's damage more than almost any other hero, since he can get up to 200 damage per hit from greater bashes, so drums is a very expensive ias item, small damage item.
Armlet is much better.

TheYango

United States47024 Posts

July 15 2013 03:55 GMT

#12

Movespeed stacking in general is also less compelling (making Drums less of an appealing item to buy) because the MS-to-damage conversion got a lot worse when the % MS damage got moved from Empowering Haste to Greater Bash. Old Empowering Haste added 16% MS to every attack, while the new Greater Bash adds 40% MS at a 15% proc rate (or an average rate of 6% MS per attack--slightly lower if you account for the fact that Greater Bash has an internal cooldown)--meaning that while you get higher burst damage from a guaranteed double-Bash (with Charge+Nether Strike), your overall damage MS-based output is lower over the course of a fight.

Discarder

Philippines411 Posts

July 15 2013 10:29 GMT

#13

This guy really dominates pubs insanely well He just clicks an enemy hero with charge of darkness and its almost always a guaranteed kill. How do you counter this guy?

Surprise.820

United Kingdom1276 Posts

July 15 2013 12:13 GMT

#14

Disabling him ASAP.

edit: I really dislike the MoM trend

Just give him other ways of attack speed without sacrificing his tanky qualities.

igotmyown

United States4291 Posts

July 15 2013 13:14 GMT

#15

It depends whether you expect the enemy team to try to split push alone or team fight. It's not too useful to build bkb if they spend as much time trying to farm some corner of the map by themselves.

LSB

United States5171 Posts

July 15 2013 15:28 GMT

#16

On July 15 2013 19:29 Discarder wrote:
This guy really dominates pubs insanely well He just clicks an enemy hero with charge of darkness and its almost always a guaranteed kill. How do you counter this guy?

I like using a melee carry that buys basher (then abyssal), after getting a bit of items you can just turn and manfight. A little more farm Spirit breaker is just traveling free gold.

In addition the rest of the team has to stick together and not feed the space cow.

FFGenerations

7088 Posts

July 15 2013 21:28 GMT

#17

pick lion and ward to counter him

for sb i go boots -> dagon

yeah

Irratonalys

Germany902 Posts

July 15 2013 21:57 GMT

#18

Im not a fan of mask of madness on Spirit breaker, if a charge goes bad you are stuck , possibly stunned and receiving 30% bonus damage. sucks to be you.

Im a fan of Shadowblade on Spirit. Activate invis during your charge for the ultimate surprise, and add another 150 damage of burst to your combo + a (sort of) escape if your charge goes bad. damage/attack speed not bad too.

Hagen0

Germany765 Posts

July 15 2013 23:10 GMT

#19

To counter SB you need good communication, decent map awareness, tp scrolls for everyone and lots of disables, preferably ranged stuns/sheeps that can even stun him out of charge. Unfortunately, all of the above is hard to come by in low level pubs.

Baggage

Hong Kong593 Posts

July 16 2013 02:46 GMT

#20

Shadowblade is super dope on Spirit Breaker. It really helps doj'ing wards and forces enemy supports to buy even more wards, making them even poorer and less combat effective in teamfights.

1 2 Next All

Please or register to reply.

[G] Low Level Guide to Spirit Breaker

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming