Tinker

Boush the Tinker is a ranged intelligence hero who relies heavily on his assortment of nukes for ganking and pushing. While he does have rather low stat gain, he is able to reset the cooldown on his abilities, which in conjunction with Boots of Travel gives Tinker global mobility rivaled only by Nature's Prophet, which combined with his two high damage nukes, Laser & Heat-Seeking Missile make him a constant threat. Tinker abilities' mana costs are very high, however thanks to his ultimate Rearm, and Boots of Travel, Tinker can simply to go back to base to refill health and mana, Rearm and go back to the lane to push or gank once more. Acquiring said boots early with a level advantage is key to success, considering he is lackluster without them. With the right items, mana management, and ability management, there is little that stands in the way of this hero.

Tips

 * Tinker is a very mobile nuking hero with powerful pushing and disabling potential depending on how he is built. He should be played around his ultimate, as it allows him to cast his spells and use his abilities multiple times in a single engagement.
 * When pushing out lanes, care must be taken to avoid being jumped on by the enemy. Tinker is a very frail hero who, despite his mobility, can be easily killed if caught and disabled.
 * As well, while Tinker can find farm quite easily by pushing out multiple lanes, doing so can deprive your own teammates of farm, particularly your carries. Combined with the above, this can lead to dangerous situations where your team is unable to do anything without you, and can lead to a loss in the long run as the enemy will be able to kill your under-farmed teammates easily if they manage to kill you once. As such, it is recommended not to push out lanes too aggressively or take farm away from your carries if possible.
 * In general, Tinker is best played in the mid lane, as his skill set allows him to take on most other mids reliably and the farm and early levels allow him to become active much more quickly. He can nuke down and harass the opposing mid and push his lane at will with his abilities, allowing for good rune control.
 * is a strong Pure damage nuke that inflicts blind on its target. It is a powerful harassing tool against the enemy mid as the blind allows Tinker to last-hit a creep that the enemy is attempting to deny, or vice versa.
 * Never underestimate Laser's ability to change the course of an engagement. Using it against an enemy hero prevents them from trading hits due to the miss, and used against the proper target in a teamfight it can force them to retreat or activate a Black King Bar at an inopportune time to remove the blind.
 * Laser can also be used as a supplementary nuke when pushing a lane. The blindness lasts for 6 seconds on creeps, so it can be used on a ranged creep both to remove its attack output and weaken it for March of the Machines.
 * has an extremely long range. With Rearm, you can continuously spam missiles as to harass enemy heroes and wear them down in preparation of a fight.
 * Due to its long range, Heat-Seeking Missile is also a good finishing spell for killing fleeing enemies who are low on health. If an enemy has escaped an engagement but is still within vision range, launching a missile can be all that is needed to finish them off.
 * Remember that vision over the target is required in order for Heat-Seeking Missiles to acquire lock. This means that not only are Observer Wards important in spotting out targets, but that the spell also has great synergy with heroes with vision abilities such as, and , which can reveal targets when ward vision is unavailable.
 * When ganking a target with your burst damage spells and items, it is best to lead off with Heat-Seeking Missile. The travel time can be used to apply a powerful alpha strike to a target by firing the missiles first, and then blinking within range to use your other nukes just as the missiles reach their target.
 * Combined with Aghanim's Scepter, Heat-Seeking Missiles can lock on to four nearby targets at a time. This can allow Tinker to bombard the entire enemy team with large amounts of magical damage, especially when combined with Rearm, softening them up for teammates.
 * is a powerful farming, pushing and counter-pushing spell, as enemies cannot avoid the damage if they wish to attack anything in the affected area. You can overlap several instances of the spell with Rearm, easily nuking down creeps and creating hazard zones that will inflict large amounts of damage to enemies who attempt to traverse it.
 * Keep in mind that the drones will march in whatever direction Tinker casts the spell in. This can make a major difference when mowing down creep waves, as the drones will destroy themselves upon hitting a target. This means that lane creeps can effectively shield each other, leaving certain ones alive for longer (like the ranged creep, which deals the most damage) and preventing others from taking any damage. The most optimal way to March down a wave of lane creeps is in a diagonal angle from behind, so that the drones can hit all of the creeps in the wave, and attack the ranged creeps first.
 * In general, only two casts of level 4 March of the Machines is necessary for killing a creep wave, provided that they are cast in the proper direction. Remember that the drones take time to deal their damage, so don't get too trigger-happy and waste mana on a third cast if you don't see them doing a lot of immediate damage.
 * As well, remember that the drones start their March from one end of the area and take time to reach the other end, so casting the spell in one direction will cause the drones to spawn from the opposite direction first. This can be important in fights as it can allow you to start applying damage to the enemy team a few seconds earlier, which can make a huge difference.
 * March of the Machine's wide area allows Tinker to use it to farm down multiple jungle camps at once, both in Radiant and Dire jungles. As well, his global mobility allows him to farm the enemy's jungle if needed, reserving his team's jungle for his team's carries.
 * It is important to keep in mind that creep movement makes a difference in what direction March of the Machines should be cast in. Casting March in a direction perpendicular to the movement direction of creeps, whether they are lane creeps or neutrals, will cause the most number of drones possible to hit them as they travel.
 * is Tinker's signature ability, allowing him to cast spells and use item abilities profligately as long as he has the mana to do so. Combined with Boots of Travel, it allows Tinker to become one of the most active heroes in the game, globally repositioning himself to push lanes, gank enemies and take map objectives.
 * Because Rearm increases drastically in mana cost as it is leveled up, only one level in the ability should be taken until at least one large mana item can be purchased to buff up the size of his mana pool. The reduced channel time only matters once you have enough powerful items that you can take advantage of in teamfights.
 * You can stack commands by holding Shift (also called Shift-queuing) to prevent unintentional Rearm interruptions. Tinker will perform queued commands immediately after finishing Rearm.
 * One of the most important factors in playing Tinker well is efficiently managing his mana pool. As Rearm removes cooldown limitations on his spells and most item abilities, you must carefully decide which spells to cast in a teamfight or when pushing, as well as how to most efficiently cast these spells depending on the situation. Using an unnecessary spell will reduce Tinker's ability to cast additional spells in the same engagement, forcing an earlier return to base and reducing his efficiency.
 * Always keep enough mana handy to escape and teleport back to base, as Tinker is a very squishy and vulnerable hero when caught out in the open.
 * When replenishing your mana in your fountain, remember that it heals as a percentage of your maximum HP and mana, and adds a flat amount on top. Therefore, it is possible to reduce down time in the fountain by moving your core items to your stash in order to reduce the size of your mana pool, thus increasing the effectiveness of the flat regen. Combined with a Bottle, this can drastically reduce your turnaround time, allowing you to get back into the action faster.
 * Due to his ability to reset the cooldowns on his spells and most items, Tinker can build a large variety of items depending on the situation.
 * is a better item to build than Bracer, as it provides Tinker with more damage, which helps with last-hitting. As such, it is advised to start with a Null Talisman when playing mid, as the extra damage can make a huge difference against certain lane opponents. As well, it builds into a Dagon, which is far more useful on Tinker than a Drum of Endurance.
 * s are very important to purchase on Tinker due to his mobility. As he can jump immediately to the front lines with Boots of Travel, he is uniquely qualified for placing aggressive wards that his team can capitalize on. Forward wards can give him advance warning on incoming ganks, as well as provide vision for painting targets with Heat-Seeking Missile.
 * is a powerful intelligence item to build on Tinker, as it gives many of the same bonuses as a Scythe of Vyse. It can serve as a complementary disable to Hex as Tinker can permanently silence a target in a teamfight when combined with Rearm, allowing him to use Soul Burn on an important spell caster while reserving Hex for their carry.
 * gives Tinker intelligence and some more HP, increasing his survivability. While its slow is a much softer disable than a Hex, its long cast range should never be underestimated, and can be useful as a complementary disable.
 * is a powerful utility item to purchase on Tinker. While it only provides mediocre stats and the armor is not always useful on Tinker, the active ability can increase creeps' vulnerability to March of the Machines, allowing him to push more efficiently. As well, used in a teamfight it can drastically improve the effectiveness of Heat-Seeking Missiles and March of the Machines, to say nothing of Dagon or any magic nukes your teammates have. Combined with Rearm, you can ensure that the enemy is permanently inflicted with reduced magic resistance.
 * can be upgraded from Soul Ring, though it is recommended to purchase a second Soul Ring afterward as the extra 150 mana per cast of Rearm is very powerful. Bloodstone drastically improves Tinker's HP and mana pool, allowing him to cast many more spells on rotations. As well, the active can be reset by Rearm, ensuring that you will always be able to deny yourself if ever caught by the enemy. The reduction in respawn time is also very powerful, as Tinker can return to being active on the map faster, preventing the enemy from capitalizing on his death to take map objectives.
 * does not give Tinker very beneficial stats, however it is useful for augmenting Tinker's already impressive burst magic damage against enemies, especially if he has built numerous intelligence items, and can be used on himself or teammates to grant immunity against physical damage. In a pinch, it can also be used on one of the enemy's carries to prevent them from attacking if Laser was already used on another target.
 * is situational pick-up if you are being threatened by heroes relying on basic attacks such as and, allowing you to disable their auto-attack for 6-7.5 seconds per Rearm between the Halberd's Disarm and your Laser. As well, it can be useful to get if the enemy has built a Monkey King Bar to negate the miss chance of Laser.

Trivia

 * The Tinker's voice actor, Harry "Hal" Robins, also voiced Dr. Isaac Kleiner in Half-Life 2 and the scientists of Black Mesa in Half-Life. Many of Tinker's voice lines reference characters and events from the Half-Life universe. In addition, the name "Violet Plateau" is quite similar to "Black Mesa," and the events described in Tinker's backstory are remarkably similar to the events of Half-Life.
 * Tinker's responses upon killing 's Spiderlings Tink rare 07.mp3 "Lamarr, is that you?" and Tink rare 08.mp3 "Lamarr?!" are a reference to Dr. Kleiner's "debeaked" pet headcrab, Hedy Lamarr.
 * Many of Tinker's lines while using Rearm come directly from Half-Life 2 including Tink ability rearm 09.mp3 "The massless field flux should self-limit" and Tink ability rearm 10.mp3 "I've clamped the manifold parameters to… CY base and LG orbifold… Hilbert inclusive".
 * The Tinker's alternate/fun name in DotA was "X!!", name of a professional DotA player.
 * Tinker's line Tink respawn 08.mp3 "I tink! Therefore I am!" is a reference to the philosophical statement "I think, therefore I am." proposed by René Descartes. Its original Latin words are "Cogito ergo sum."
 * Tinker's line Tink death 10.mp3 "Tinker, failure…Soldier…Fie…" is a reference to the 1974 spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by British author John le Carré about George Smiley (who was played by Gary Oldman in the 2011 film adaptation).
 * Tinker's death line Tink death 08.mp3 "The machine, stops." is a reference to the short story of the same name by E.M. Forster.