Earthshaker

Raigor Stonehoof the Earthshaker is a melee strength hero with several area of effect disables, commonly played as a ganker or initiator. Unlike most strength heroes, he is played more like an intelligence caster hero and is almost entirely reliant on his spells to inflict heavy damage. His Fissure is a versatile spell that affects enemies in a line, used to stun, inflict decent damage, and create an impassable wall of earth for a significant duration. Good usage of this can cut off chokepoints, leaving enemies with no escape routes or preventing them from chasing after endangered allies. Enchant Totem massively boosts his attack damage for one attack, and has a very short cooldown. Aftershock lets the Earthshaker deal additional damage and stun in a small area around him everytime he uses one of his spells, and combos particularly well with Enchant Totem. Earthshaker's heavy AoE-centric kit is most powerful when his enemies are in large numbers and in close proximity. With his Echo Slam, he can deal heavy damage to clusters of enemies. All of Earthshaker's spells (with the exception of his ultimate) have a long casting animation, but with proper positioning, an adept Earthshaker can wreak havoc with his area-of-effect spells. Blink Dagger is an essential item for Earthshaker to be able to properly land Echo Slam within a cluster of enemies. At the same time, because of the high mana costs of his spells, he needs some form of mana sustenance. With his tremendous seismic power, the Earthshaker is never one that should be taken lightly even when he is heavily outnumbered.

Counters
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Explanation
Lane counters:
 * will burn your already weak mana pool quickly with, disabling your . It is a must to put one early point towards to quickly cancel.
 * will make your laning phase a hell on earth with while preventing any meaningful initiation with  and . If you manage to catch him off-guard with a good  from outside his vision leading to a kill, you can somehow make up for it.
 * will keep you away from the creepwave and way too wounded to initiate or chase a kill. If he is on your lane, go roaming.
 * will prevent you from denying his creeps by sapping your mana with when you close in to deny. Also, killing him is rather challenging, given his great escape possibilities with.

Teamfight counters:
 * can greatly reduce your usefulness by casting and disabling your  and  to prevent you from ming enemy team's faces. The  will be usually cast when he spots you before blinking in and can be chained with  upgraded  for a total of 18 seconds if timed perfectly, which is enough for the enemy team to teamwipe you out.
 * can prevent your initiation by spamming his long ranged and . A skilled  with fast reflexes can also fry you with well timed  and  once you manage to blink in, however you will usually be able to  as it has zero cast time.
 * will disable you with as it is global and cancels your  for 10 seconds, which can mean your team's death if you are their main initiator.
 * will disrupt you with and drain your entire mana pool with . Save your  for this combo as it will help offset the mana drain.
 * 's s will easily cancel your indefinitely when he manages to catch you in its radius, having negligible cooldown and manacost. If you are facing, it would be wise to trade your  for a  to retain some potency.

Item counters:
 * Supports with can sneak up on you before the teamfight and disable you long enough to turn the teamfight around, also greatly reduce your damage if they cloak a core hero on their team.
 * Tanks with can kill you once you hit them with  empowered attack or. Do not make hasty decisions.
 * Heroes with will greatly reduce your AoE damage and by extension your impact.
 * Getting hit with will make you absolutely useless for 5 seconds with a short cooldown, keeping you out of the teamfight. It can also shut your mid-game down when used by huge burst heroes like, , , etc.
 * If enemy core heroes have and have time to use it before you blink in and use, you can as well just go home. Your only option is to  them before you die. Who knows, it might kill them, especially if your build includes damage items like  or.

Tips

 * The typical combo is >  > . When combined with a, this combo can surprise groups of enemies with a long chain stun, as well as lots of damage.
 * creates an impassable barrier, which can be effective for stopping enemies from escaping.
 * It is important to keep in mind, however, that this barrier is also impassable to yourself and allies. Be careful of how you position yourself and the wall.
 * is exceptional at ganking the mid lane, because at a good angle, can completely block the enemy midlaner from running back to their tower.
 * In order to stop escaping enemies, use in conjunction with Aftershock when  is on cooldown.
 * Upon initiating, allows for your  and  to disable the enemy team for longer periods of time.
 * Because of the echo damage, is best used in the middle of the enemy team, especially when they have a large amount of units near them.
 * A or  will help you get into position to use . Note that it might not always be best to initiate and it can sometimes be best to wait for the enemy team to start the fight and group up.
 * Try to find a balance between building items that help you be the team's initiator and those which increase your mana, Intelligence and or   Strength so that you can remain effective throughout the game.
 * is often a particularly effective item on, as it provides both health and mana regeneration while giving you the option for mana whenever needed.
 * give more team utility through active mana regeneration, increased movement speed, and an increased mana pool to allow you to cast more spells.
 * Because of, it is a fatal mistake to push against an without taking precautions to not get caught while grouped up. Echo Slam's damage has no upper limit and so  has the potential to wipe out an entire team of heroes instantly if there are enough bodies present.
 * Because of, is particularly effective against heroes that can create illusions or clones, such as , ,  and , as well as heroes that can summon or control units such as , ,  and.
 * While he is primarily a support because of his potentially game-breaking spells, it is possible to play Earthshaker as a physical damage dealer due to the very large amount of damage from Enchant Totem. There are a lot of builds for this, but they usually revolve around cost-efficient Strength items like  and, and then . With these items an Earthshaker can potentially instantly kill an enemy carry (though there is some risk involved). If you wish to attempt this type of build, make sure you have the consent of your teammates first, most will assume you plan on supporting.

Trivia

 * Earthshaker's response " erth ability echo 03.mp3 Chaos Dunk!" is a reference to the freeware RPG game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden