Spirit Breaker

Barathrum the Spirit Breaker is a powerful ganker type melee strength Hero that concentrates on taking out single targets, while lacking in larger team fights. His Charge of Darkness lets him charge towards any target available, while knocking off all enemies in his path. If you see the charge coming, it may already be too late. He is picked mostly for his high damage given by his Greater Bash which crushes the life out of his helpless victims. Barathrum can instantly and quickly move to his enemy via Nether Strike and shock them with a soul-bashing blow. Tanky, mobile and with an array of high-damage knockbacks, including a passive one attached to his right clicks, Spirit Breaker's ganking capabilities are second to none.

Gameplay
Spirit Breaker plays like most ganker Heroes: he singles out a target and deals as much damage as possible while trying not to get killed himself. Charge of Darkness is the go-to gank initiator. It grants vision of the target, and causes him to move very fast towards them, then stuns and deals damage while also disabling enemies that get in his way. Although issuing a move or attack command while charging will cancel it, some items can be activated while charging (such as Black King Bar), thereby adding to Barathrum's power. If Barathrum is disabled while charging, the charge will be cancelled, meaning he needs to pay attention and avoid being stunned. Players will not see a debuff when being charged, making him more of a surprise. Charge of Darkness can also be used to grant vision of the target. If Barathrum charges an invisible enemy, they will still be stunned and will give shared vision, but will not be revealed. Once hit, he can follow up with his ultimate, Nether Strike, another disable that deals high damage and a knockback after a short delay. His aura, Empowering Haste increases his movement speed dramatically. Greater Bash has a universal 17% chance to stun the target, while also dealing damage based on Spirit Breaker's movement speed. This means any items that increase movement speed and attack speed, such as Mask of Madness or Drum of Endurance synergize perfectly with this ability. With a bit of luck, he can cause considerable damage in a short period of time without using either of his active abilities.

Counters
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Explanation
Lane counters:
 * ,, , and all poses disables that will prevent you from last hitting or charging in to secure early kills.
 * 's will knock you back and interrupt Charge of Darkness making him virtually untouchable to you during the laning phase.   also travels faster than you do and can provide his team with an additional early warning tool.

Teamfight counters: Item counters:
 * 's prevents you from using Charge of Darkness.  Be wary of charging in on even a lone Meepo clone because the other clones can  in a second later and easily overwhelm you.
 * and other illusion heroes are hard to pin down if you don't focus the real hero.  can be used to dodge your charge and quickly retaliate while  slows you and reduces the effectiveness of Greater Bash.
 * While can be killed if stunned long enough, your abilities rely on him to be actually targetable.  If he gets  off, he can quickly gain the upper hand.
 * will make every team fight difficult for you.  interrupts Charge of Darkness and Nether Strike, and a well timed  will lead to your demise.
 * If you do opt for, you become an obvious target for devastating nuking abilities if you activate it. The most dangerous of these is getting hit with  by .  Upon cast, it will disable you and stop you from going anywhere, allowing his teammates a window to attack you.  If you're not dead by the time the scythe comes down, the additional damage you'll take from Mask of Madness will finish you.  To add insult to injury, the extra respawn time can lock you out of the game indefinitely.
 * and both prevent you from attacking and dealing your primary source of damage.
 * can be used either against you to interrupt your abilities or defensively to dodge a charge.
 * and both inflict slows that can reduce the effectiveness of Greater Bash.
 * Greater Bash on your attacks can only occur if the attacks actually hit. If your primary target is hit with the buff from, their evasion and defense can keep them alive longer.  Similarly, if the debuff is placed on you, you'll miss your attacks more often and be made more fragile.

Tips

 * Black King Bar can be used without interrupting your charge, activate it just when you get close to the enemy to take advantage of its duration during the fight.
 * Shadow Blade can also be activated while charging, greatly increasing the surprise factor of his charge and preventing easy charge interruption such as Rubick's Telekinesis. In addition, the Shadow Blade bonus damage will be applied to the first attack from invisibility.
 * Use Charge of Darkness to get close, stun your target, and make him vulnerable to your attacks.
 * Nether Strike deals major damage to the target enemy and teleports behind them, wherever they go. You can use this to catch blinking or teleporting enemies before they get away.
 * Greater Bash deals more damage depending on Barathrum's movement speed. Getting items that increase movement speed, such as Sange & Yasha and Drum of Endurance, will greatly improve your damage.
 * Chaining together Charge of Darkness with Nether Strike can deal high amounts of burst damage in a very short amount of time.
 * Spirit Breaker has very little teamfight presence due to his specialized abilities, but he can still be useful at neutralizing targets and forcing enemies back.
 * Charge of Darkness allows Spirit Breaker to run through units, trees, structures and terrain. It also does not indicate your enemies when targeted, letting you setup ganks.
 * When charging enemy heroes in mid game, be 100% sure that they are alone. A lone enemy may wait out in the open while their ally hides in the trees, waiting for you to charge the bait hero, and finally be ganked. Therefore, Observer Wards can greatly reduce uncertainty before charging.
 * Although Charge of Darkness is typically used to get into fights, it can also be used to get back out in a pinch; by targeting a creep in a different lane Spirit Breaker can move quickly to avoid death, then cancel the charge when he is out of danger.
 * Sange and Yasha is a fair pick on Spirit Breaker, as the bonus movespeed improves the damage of his Greater Bash as well as his general speed, improving his chasing ability even further in conjunction with its maim.
 * Despite being classified as an initiator Spirit Breaker is more of a hunter who takes out lone targets or chases down fleeing enemy heroes after a team fight. To actually initiate you will either need an Aghanim's Scepter so that your ultimate has an AOE presence which in turn weakens your carry potential or use Charge of Darkness in a way that would let you bowl through all of the enemy team heroes (such as aiming for the furthest enemy hero while the enemy team is standing close to a line formation).
 * Due to the massive speed boost Spirit Breaker receives while charging (288 more than maximum movement speed), he can catch up to a team fight fairly quickly, even from across the map. While preparing for a team fight you might want to stand at the back of your team and let your allies begin to draw out disables and initiation spells from the enemy, then use Charge of Darkness on your target, this will disorient the enemy team as you are likely to be hitting a few of them on the way to your target not to mention that they will be left with no disables to stop you.
 * Sometimes it might be a good idea to use Nether Strike on a magic immune hero to interrupt their actions as the greater bash will hit them regardless. Situations where for example your team gets caught in a Black Hole by a magic immunue Enigma you can turn the tide of the fight if you can stop him right at the beginning.
 * Because Linken's Sphere triggers on cast, Charge of Darkness can be used to instantly and globally put an enemy's sphere on cooldown.
 * While it does not provide True Sight the indicator will follow the invisible unit being charged and the Charge will still hit an enemy that has gone invisible after being charged. This will cause the ability to interrupt channeling spells being performed by invisible heroes such as Sand King's Sandstorm.
 * With the use of all of your abilities and some lucky bashes, you can keep a single target stunned for 8 seconds. This is a huge stun duration even late game and allows lucky Barathrums to snowball out of control on lone ganks.

Trivia

 * Barathrum's fun names are Roadrunner and Space-Cow, the latter of which is referenced by 's ally line: " earthspi ally 07.mp3 You aren't half bad, for a space cow." The line about the spirit breaker being a "Space-Cow" Is likely a reference to Astral Trekker, one of the famously imbalanced DotA heroes, whose model was reworked into the original Spirit Breaker model.
 * "Barathrum" means "underworld" in Latin.
 * His response Spir attack 03.mp3 "Rampage" might be a reference to who used to be his equivalent in Heroes of Newerth (most of the HoN hero abilities changed since the port)
 * Charge of Darkness' indicator is the astrological sign of Taurus, the Bull.