[Hero] Anti-Mage - Page 9

0. Why batrider is awesome
I. Introduction (to me and batrider)
II. Pros and Cons
III. Hero Basics
IV. Skill and Build Justifications
V. How To Play

0. Why batrider is awesome
I personally think people need to just pick characters because they're cool and awesome, enter batrider. He leaves a burning trail of fire in his wake has he flies over trees, burning them down, over cliffs, through heroes and creeps just to lasso you. The psychological impact of a bat rider charging towards you has made many dota players plug pull simply out of fear. Of course he has to do this in style, I mean, what do you drive? A hondai? A ford? He drives a bat - you can't touch that. Yeah, I'm a bit shallow, but that's fine. I wanna play dota as flame splurting, terrain diving, bat riding badass.

I. Introduction (to me and batrider)
I'm going to be honest, I didn't even know this character existed when I saw him for the first time. I was watching a replay of two Chinese teams with a friend I always played with who was better than me at the time and we were calling out the bans, theory crafting away like we knew what we were talking about. When it came down to the last ban, we both said Rhasta the shadow shaman was going to be banned, and to both of our surprises, the icon for batrider popped up. When I saw it, I had no idea who he was just by the icon. If you've played dota for a long time, you can imagine how weird that feels, icons define the character. And that was it, I didn't know who he was, never seen him in a game of mine and obviously never played as him but suddenly he was ban worthy in this pro replay and I had to find out more!

So, enough about me, who is batrider? Well, batrider is one of the rare breeds of intelligence heroes who can be found in the scourge intelligence side. The cookie cutter int. heroes are either burst nukes with stuns that go around ganking everyone at early levels and initiate fights mid game or the I have a heal so I'm going to play support and babysit/jungle. Well, batrider is a nuker that has no long stuns and no burst damage; instead, he deals sustained magic aoe damage that gets stronger and stronger as the fight goes on. And when I say gets stronger, I mean it gets to ridiculous numbers. However, to do that damage, he must put himself in near melee range. He also has one of the strongest single target disables in the game, able to drag an enemy helplessly behind him, so being in melee range isn't all bad.

II. Pros and Cons
Pros:
+ Can make fights 4v5 almost instantly from initiations
+ AoE slow can ensure no escape from team fights
+ Strong Sustained AoE magic damage
+ Hard to kill when played correctly


Cons:
- Must be in close range to do most things
- No dependable stun/no long stuns
- No AoE intiation
- Takes time to do damage/slow


III. Hero Basics

Strength: 23 + 2.0

Agility: 15 + 1.5

Intelligence: 24 + 2.5

Nothing special to note, above average str gain, average agi gain, below average int gain.

Detailed Stats:
Attack Animation: 0.5 / 0.54
Damage: 48 - 52
Casting Animation: 0.3 / 0.7
Armor: 2.1
Base Attack Time: 1.7
Movespeed: 290
Missile Speed: 900
Attack Range: 375

His attack animation isn't stellar, but it's not bad either. The 0.7 backswing on casting is pretty bad though, so animation cancel those sticky napalms. It's by no means crystal maiden bad, but when you're dragging someone with a timer on your lasso, you wanna make every second count.

The attack range is very mediocre, it means he does have to be careful of double stun lanes when he last hits.

Skills:
I don't know if I can even do those fancy tables so I'll just link you to playdota, you can read all the intricacies of the skills there. I'll leave my commentary here though.
Batrider Skills



First thing to note is that his sticky napalm has 700 range and flamebreak has 1500! range. This is hilarious in lane as you are very close to creeps trying to last hit at a mere 375 attack range but then you start sticking them from behind your range creeps and suddenly they can't turn around to run. The flamebreak's range coupled with 0.5 ministun can snipe that one sneaky opponent trying to juke in the trees for a free tp home. (especially at the side shop trees)

Second thing to note is that sticky napalm is badass. Yes, you're are reading those numbers correctly, 3 second cooldown, 10 stack max, at level 4 it does 9% slow per stack, 25 extra damage per stack and 70% turn slow at all levels. So yes, in 30 seconds you can slow in a 375 AoE for 90% and amplify damage by 250 for all your skills and auto attacks. That 70% turn slow is very significant, especially in team fights, if you get sticky napalm on someone who's out of position charging towards you, they will not be able to retreat because of the slowed turn. Similarly, if a team fight is petering out with your team on top, the enemy can't turn around and run away very quickly. It basically makes it a nightmare to position in team fights.

Third is the firefly which does 80 damage per second and the sticky napalm amp. damage. You also literally shoot fire out of your ass when you fly around, which is often sufficient reason to pick the champion in a pub game.

Finally his ult is very self-explanatory, just beware that you can't lasso and dagger back to your team. It goes through BKB like most ults do and only has 50 seconds cd at lvl 3.

When to Pick:
+ Pub games when people don't always have good ward sight and team work
+ Low number of stun on the other team, you can't die if they can't stun you
+ Not a lot of natural bkb users

When Not to Pick:
- Enemy has strong AoE initiation, they will just counter initiate on you with blink daggers
- Your team needs a dependable stun, the ult just doesn't cut it.

IV. Skill and Build Justifications
Skill Build:
+ Show Spoiler +

Justification:
Nothing special about the general build, basic math shows that napalm does more for your damage than anything else, especially because it affects your auto attacks too. Remember to animation cancel. Your first 3 levels depends on what you're doing. If you're afraid of being level 1 ganked then get firefly, if you want to harass at range then flame break, and napalm if you're doing a 3 man gank and don't have a follow up stun for some reason so you need to follow up on the initiating stun. There are people who never get flamebreak until napalm and firefly are maxed, and that's fine since it does a lot more damage, but everyone carries tp scrolls with them so I like having that ministun and knockback.

Item Build:
Starting Items

(tangoes, healing salve, gg sticks, magic wand, str gauntlets, int robes, animal courier, magic wand recipe)

Ordered by importance:
First two are obvious, they help you stay in lane.
Magic wand is simply amazing for baiting mid game and gg sticks are so efficient there's no reason not to get them.
Gauntlet if you feel vulnerable against a double stun and int robe if you're having trouble last hitting, combined with gg sticks can get you a fast 8 dmg, which helps.
You shouldn't be the chicken buyer, but if you're mid and no one bought chicken then you need to or you'll lose mid.
Magic wand recipe to buy the magic stick in a side lane works if you randomed and have a lot of money.

Laning phase

(tp scroll, magic wand, urn of shadow, boots of speed)

If you're in a side lane, complete that tp scroll and magic wand, urn is very good for staying in lane and the health and mana regen never hurts. Boots because being slow is bad. Wards if you have to, again, you're not really the support, you need to finish your core so if the opponent has a bane or pudge mid get that ward for your lane, else skip it.

OR


(tp scroll, magic wand, boots of speed, bottle, wards)

The solo mid build, you'll need bottle for runes and if no one is warding for you then you'll just have to suck it up and buy it yourself. You do not want to lose rune control, an invis or haste usually means 2 kills in pub games.

Core

(blink dagger, black king bar, force staff)


(boots of travel, power treads)


(blood stone, hood of defiance, blademail)

So the core is broken down to 3 types, 1. things that lets you ult, 2. boot upgrades, and 3. stuff that makes you not die (fairly important). It's also broken down into 'I'm dominating this game" and "I'm not doing so well".

Blink dagger lets you ult whoever you want. BKB lets you fly away with your prey and force staff is basically poor man's version of dagger but you can also force staff yourself with lasso without breaking it, so it has that going for it. Note: a force staff on someone trying to poke is hilarious as they fly into the warm embrace of your lasso. You'll only want to pick at most 2 from these items, BKB and one of the other.

Always get travels if you can without gimping the other 2 cores.

Pick one of the three depending on the situation, maybe two of the three. Bloodstone if you're killing everything that moves but otherwise get a hood for defense. I know blade mail is questionable, but I like blade mail because when stuck in napalm people rarely try to run and they just start beating on you. When you activate blade mail it makes them think twice.

Luxury

(sheepstick)

What's twice as good as one disabled player?

Situational

(eul's scepter)

Alright, full disclosure, this is my favorite item in the game so I'm completely biased. The obvious con is that it's a 2800 gold item, and that's huge. But it takes someone out of a fight for 2.5 seconds, and I think that it's worth it. Whether it's saving yourself or if you're ganking a lane with 1 stun you can stop the stun. It has so much utility if you can farm it up in a reasonable time, but it's definitely not the best item in the world by any means.

V. How to Play
Laning
In most lanes you should be the aggressor. Do not pick the lane that has a spectre in it, you are not a baby sitter and you need someone in your lane that has kill potential. Your focus should be to last hit and look for over extensions. If the other lane pushes too far, hit them with a napalm and you can get 3-4 auto attacks on them if they have to turn around, with the damage amplification you're hitting them hard. Coordinate attacks with your lane partner and any gankers, you should lead with napalm to see their response. If they start running then you can start stacking and give your partner a easy stun, especially if it's a skill shot, and the stun gives you more time to stack napalms. Naplam is amazing if someone is facing you and melee, abuse it in lane.

Mid Game
If another lane is losing hard then you need to go gank it, with your lasso starting with 3 second duration and your napalm it's hard to escape a bat rider gank. Remember, firefly -> lasso -> move a little -> start stacking napalms -> move more and stack napalms as much as you can. Getting high napalm stacks is the most important thing you have to worry about because it makes firefly and auto attacks hurt! Flame break and push an enemy away if there's two of them. Beware of double burst lanes/double stun lanes, make sure your team is away that you're coming to gank with spam pings cause you might just get bursted down if they don't stun for you.

Team Fights
Initiate when you can pick someone important off. This means you have to constantly check the items on the heroes. Yes, int heroes are squishy and generally important, but if that really bad warlock is lvl 7 and the solo mid centaur is lvl 14 and dominating don't just jump on warlock when he inevitably goes out of position. Yeah, it's good to get a pick, and generally you shouldn't target tanks, but make sure you always know who's worthy of your lasso! That's so important I'm going to say it again, constantly check character progress to make sure you know who's worth of your lasso! Rhasta is tasty and important, but if he's 0/10 and has no idea what he's doing, it's not worth it.

Second part of team fights is splashing naplam on everyone. If you think you're going to win the fight spread out napalm so no one can run, but generally you should max stack it on the 1-3 heroes you want to focus on and then firefly then and flame break everyone else away. Your job is to make sure the other team can't get in good position with your skills.