Riki

Riki the Stealth Assassin is a melee agility hero that uses stealth in order to surprise enemies and quickly kill them. His trademark ability, Permanent Invisibility, allows him to sneak into the shadows to hide and slip by without giving himself away. This allows him to close in on the enemy and drop his devastating Smoke Screen, which cripples fighter and spellcaster alike. Blink Strike allows Riki to chase with impunity, and Backstab makes running from him even more dangerous.

Gameplay
Riki's invisibility is both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. On one hand, it makes him able to surprise enemies and farm with very little concern. On the other hand, without invisibility he has no real defense. He still has to watch out for revealing items such as Dust of Appearance and Gem of True Sight, as well as abilities that prevent him from going invisible. If he stays alive and picks off lone enemies, he can quickly get out of control.

Smoke Screen provides a powerful Silence and gives enemies a high miss chance, as well as slowing them down. If targeted properly, it can hold an enemy down long enough to finish them off. However, enemies must stay in the area to be affected. A good strategy is to throw a Smoke Screen in the enemy's path, rather than where they are presently. Blink Strike is Riki's chase and escape ability. It operates like other Blink abilities, in that it allows Riki to teleport to a target quickly. However, Blink Strike must target a unit. It helps catch up with fleeing enemies, jump into fights quickly, and escape from situations by targeting allies. Blink Strike pairs well with Backstab, because it teleports Riki behind the enemy. Backstab causes any attack from behind to deal additional damage, and allows you to absolutely flatten weaker enemies. If they turn to run, Riki suddenly hits for much more. Finally, Riki's Permanent Invisibility allows him to go completely invisible after a short delay. If Riki's enemies do not have any form of detection, this lets Riki escape with ease and roam freely. If they do, Riki has to rely on his cunning and speed in order to get the drop on enemies, and get out alive.

Tips

 * is a attribute-based carry, thanks to Riki continues to get stronger and stronger as the game goes on, as long as you being capable to farm, kill and get the right items.
 * And because of that, should be your first core item completed, it gives the basic of  needs, the agility scales well with your, and the active Purge helps you in many applications, purging  from you, removing strong protections like ,  from enemies and purging them while inside of , which is your main ganking combo. Always use all the charges before buying the recipe again and search to do the best use of them.
 * Do not walk straight up to enemies and deep into enemy territory and expect never to die. If they have any kind of detection, then Riki dies very fast.
 * As a result of this, make a habit of constantly checking the enemy's inventory for revealing items.
 * His trademark skill is the key that allows  to be one of the best support killers in the game. Since good supports always stay behind, you can flank the enemy team coming around from there and catching the supports as soon as a teamfight begins and the enemy team is so busy fighting yours that they do not realize that their supports are already dead. This strategy also applies to enemy initiators with gamebreaking ultimates like  or, as a good interruption can set victory in critical situations.
 * Riki is exceptional at ganking lone heroes and picking them off one by one. He can snowball easily through just getting lots of kills even without farm. Try to get kills before the enemy starts grouping up however, because Riki falls off late-game as enemies purchase detection items.
 * can target allies and enemies. Jumping to a friendly unit can be useful in case Riki needs to escape, also you can target the enemy courier, allowing for an easy kill.
 * can be a good item for Riki; his allows him to slip away and let the passive regenerate him without fear of interruption.
 * An early gives Riki a good slow that may help with early kills. Remember that since the 6.83 patch  is no longer a UAM, so it stacks with other ones.
 * is good on if you can buy it yet in the laning phase, he has an average low movement speed of 340, Drum helps you with that, increasing your speed to 357. Coupled with  you have a better chasing potential, and the stats are always good.
 * gives good stats and allows Riki to remove debuffs such as without using  charges.
 * Due to the nature of, a well-organised team may be efficient with buying to keep vision of you. You may want to take it upon yourself to 'de-ward' your lane if needs be; if you are without a support, or so that your support can concentrate on other items.
 * Save the early and once the game reaches later stages you can upgrade to  for one more reliable slow that penetrates BKB.
 * You can take as your first skill point and easily take the first Bounty Rune in either side of the river, unless the enemy has any form of detection.
 * is a key hero to catch slippery foes and heroes that are heavily reliant on their own active skills since he can approach without detection and use smoke to prevent them from using escape spells, so its wise to pick him as a counter pick to many heroes like, , , , , however, be careful of enemies carrying escape items, like , , or /
 * Be wary around more durable enemy heroes. Spell Immunity from allows enemies to ignore  and fight Riki, removing his  advantage.
 * Always scout the enemy jungle once in a while, you may encounter some enemy farming alone for a easy kill, also help high mobility heroes like or  to set up a gank.
 * Do not be afraid of enemies carrying, track down their movement and wait, sooner or later they are going to end up alone and when this happens do not hesitate, use the fog of war and approach form the sides, go for the kill and recover the Gem.
 * In some situations the enemy team may have a lot of casters/disable heroes, in that case do not skip the, you can farm one right after finishing your . It gives you a bigger opening in big teamfights to cut down enemies.

Trivia

 * In DotA, Riki was called "Rikimaru"; Rikimaru is also the name of a main character in the Tenchu game series.
 * Riki's fun/alternate name was Riki Martin, which is a pun on Ricky Martin, a famous Latino pop singer.
 * Riki's line upon dying, riki death 09.mp3 "Good assassins never die… they just fade away.'" is a reference to the General Douglas MacArthur quote, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
 * Riki's line Riki kill 10.mp3 "There are none so stabbed as those who will not see." is a reference to "A christmas Carol" where a blind woman says, "I am not so blind as those who will not see.".
 * Riki's line Riki spawn 08.mp3 "I speak softly, but carry a sharp knife." is likely a reference to the West African Proverb "Speak softly and carry a big stick.", popularized by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.
 * Riki has the highest base stat of any hero.
 * In the early versions of DotA, 's was actually Riki's ultimate ability which did not require any channeling and allowed him to place the ward anywhere to attack enemies. Riki's skill set also included a regular blink ability and a critical strike instead of the current  and.