Bristleback

Rigwarl, the Bristleback, is a melee strength hero famous for his array of synergistic, simplistic, and yet effective spells with low mana costs and cooldowns. Though each cast of his spells has relatively weak potency on its own, their instances have a cumulative effect, making the Bristleback quite deadly the longer he stays alive in a fight; this is directly reflected in his ultimate, Warpath, which powers up his movement and attack damage based on the number of spells he recently cast. He is able to increasingly slow his enemies down and reduce their armor with Viscous Nasal Goo and hit them with a barrage of Quill Sprays, making him an effective chaser when ganking enemies. His low strength gain makes him seem less tanky than most strength heroes at first glance, but his signature Bristleback passive substantially reduces all damage he takes from the sides and especially the rear, making him very difficult to bring down if he's facing away from his enemies. In the right hands, Bristleback is a powerful ganker in the early stages of the game, and a powerful hard carry in the later stages depending on how much farm he gets.

Gameplay
 Strategy & Tips Counters & Matchups

Audio
 Responses Sounds

History
 Lore Old Abilities Changelogs

Trivia

 * In DotA, Bristleback's hero model was a quillboar, having a much more boar-like appearance. His loss of boar-like features in Dota 2 was likely made to distinguish him from the quillboar race in the Warcraft universe. As well, his hero title shares the name of a large quillboar tribe in World of Warcraft.
 * Beta information revealed that Bristleback's original name was supposedly to be "Bristlebog", probably to avoid conflict with the aforementioned Bristleback tribe in World of Warcraft.
 * According to an unused voice response, Bristleback was originally designed with tusks.
 * According to 's response ( lycan_rival_20.mp3 A boar is a wolf's natural prey), Bristleback was originally designed to be boar-like.
 * A silhouette of what appears to be can be seen in Bristleback's splash artwork, seemingly still having a beta model/texture.