Huskar

Huskar the Sacred Warrior is a ranged strength hero who is an effective ganker and carry, with both great benefits and risks offered. He is known to be a powerful adversary in most games, as his damage per second can easily kill other heroes at any point in the game assuming no one is near by to save them. Unlike most heroes, he doesn't use mana much to use his abilities, rather, he sacrifices his own health to inflict the highest damage possible. His passive Berserker's Blood defines the power of sacrifice; he gets more dangerous the more he gets hurt. This gives him increased magic resistance and attack speed depending how much life is missing, and the given magic resistance and attack speed are staggering, potentially having the highest damage output in the earliest stage. Huskar can use his own life force to attack using Burning Spears which scorches foes and gives him an advantage early on. Due to the health cost of Burning Spears, his Berserker's Blood activates, granting him the ability to decimate any target. Inner Vitality magically heals Huskar or his allies, regenerating health each second based upon the target's primary attribute, and heals more when the health is on a critical level. His Life Break is his most dangerous ability and a risky one too. Charging towards his target, Huskar sheds a large amount of life force to cut a target's current health to fractions. This is great to use as an initiation spell, as it deals immense damage based on the target's current health, breaking it down, allowing Huskar and his allies to feel the pain that the Sacred Warrior felt. Courageous and fearless, Huskar is powerful at any stage of the game, and is willing to suffer and face death, for him to contribute and deliver a marvelous victory to his team.

Counters
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Tips

 * becomes more powerful with less health due to Berserker's Blood, but can still die. Figure out when enough is enough.
 * Huskar's abilities synergizes well with each other, and  both use up health, and feed your  increasing your damage output while  makes you more durable.
 * Remember that Burning Spears will stack on an enemy. You can manual cast them repeatedly on laning phase to harass enemies without drawing creep aggro. When you can regenerate health enough to sustain Burning Spear, switch it to auto-attack and burn them down!
 * If you are low on health, you can turn it off at times to recuperate health if you have lifesteal.
 * provides huge amount of regen especially when at a low HP, you can use it on yourself or your allies before jumping into a fight to increase their durability.
 * Don't worry about casting it too early before a team fight as it has a fairly long duration and its cooldown at max level is just as long as its duration. This will reduce the chances that you are caught off-guard and become disabled long enough before being able to cast it. This will also increase the chance that you can re-cast it during a fight in case that you are Purged or another team mate is in dire need of regeneration.
 * Always use Inner Vitality before using your ultimate to increase your chance of surviving and reduce the toll on your HP done by your ultimate.
 * With enough mana regeneration, you can even use Inner Vitality constantly, mitigating the need to return to base. This makes heroes such as and  a good ally of Huskar.
 * is also a viable situational item if you find yourself constantly out of mana because the static HP regeneration of Inner Vitality alone is enough to recuperate the loss of HP from Soul Ring even at level 1 while also providing a net excess of stat-based HP regeneration. Having a constant source of mana will also enable Huskar to cast Inner Vitality to his teammates who might need it at the time.
 * The ability to reduce Huskar's HP on demand also provides a tactical advantage that can be used before a fight. However keep in mind that the HP removal is not mitigated by Berserker's Blood and as such is dangerous to be used when at a really low health.
 * lowers the target's current health by about 1/4 (1/2 if upgraded), and lets Huskar jump to his target rapidly. Consider between chasing a wounded enemy and dealing damage to a tough one.
 * Be wary of heroes who has high natural magic resistance like due to his  because using Life Break against them might deal more damage to you than to them. Same can be said against heroes who usually build  or.
 * You should also be warned not to use your ultimate on a hero who has an active spell immunity or else you lose a percentage of your health while the target does not. However, the slow will still pierce through spell immunity.
 * is important to keep in mind on Huskar since you don't lose a percentage of your health when you use your ultimate while spell immune.
 * As Life Break deals magical damage to an enemy relative to his current health, it is possible to kill any enemy in one hit with the help of damage amplification, provided it is not spell immune or has access to very high magic resistance (e.g. ).
 * It is possible to use certain combinations of items and heroes together with Huskar to kill any hero instantly. For example applying the effects of, and  to a target and then hitting them with an  upgraded Life Break will cause an instant death. However building all these utility items onto Huskar himself will destroy a great deal of his carry potential. This same effect can be achieved using  instead of Veil of Discord or  instead of Ethereal Blade.
 * Beware of heroes with as they can destroy you if you use Life Break on them recklessly.
 * A special mention goes to who can use  immediately after countering your Life Break.
 * A similar case is who can reflect Life Break using  and then follow up with any of his other abilities to finish you off.
 * Also it is worth noting that any hero using Blade Mail with sufficiently high health will kill you if you use Life Break on them assuming that you don't have spell immunity.
 * Building an enables Huskar to destroy enemy heroes with high health very quickly. The reduced cooldown will allow Huskar deal magical damage equal to 73.74% of the enemy's health in 4 seconds if he is able to use Life Break twice in succession. You can also use Life Break on multiple different enemies in a team fight making it easier for the rest of your team to finish them off. It is also worth noting that building an Aghanim's Scepter will enable Huskar to constantly apply a 60% slow that pierces through spell immunity.
 * If timed just right, Life Break can be used to chase an enemy with a or a similar escape skill. In most cases, if an enemy hero used their escape skill while Huskar is airborne, Huskar will still be able to finish his jump.
 * An Aghanim's Scepter will also allow Huskar to reposition in teamfights frequently. In the event that you are being focused on by a melee carry who happen to have spell immunity, you can jump to other ranged or far off enemy heroes. This will give you a chance to kill them off and resulting into an even trade, stall enough time so that the duration of the melee carry's spell immunity runs out, remove debuffs, recast Inner Vitality and if you have an Armlet of Mordiggian, toggle Unholy Strength twice to regain some HP. Even without an Aghanim's Scepter, this tactic can be used if you did not initiate with Life Break.
 * The most important part of this tactic is the ability to remove debuffs. Since Huskar is really vulnerable to debuffs, jumping to another enemy while you are slowed, rooted or disarmed will give you a chance to turn the tables against your enemy. An example of this would be 's Break which removes Huskar's magic resistance for quite a duration.
 * increases Huskar's survivability significantly. At 30% health, and level 4 Berserker's Blood, you have 83% magic resistance, allowing you to keep your health in place while taking physical attacks if you have lifesteal and decent damage from items. It is also worth noting that with enough stacks and health left, it can help you survive finishing spells that deal magical damage such as,  and.
 * While with Berserker's Blood Huskar is nigh impossible to be killed by magical spells alone, be very cautious of pure damage. Dealing with heroes such as  and  can result in death, as using your ultimate in their presence can have dire consequences, since some of their spells aren't reduced by magic resistance.
 * Huskar is a great counter against heroes that rely mostly on magical damage like, and . If an enemy team consist of mostly or even entirely of spellcasters consider maxing Berserker's Blood first.
 * It is important to remember that the magic resistance from Berserker's Blood DOES NOT equate to magic immunity, a common mistake for new players is to treat it as such. Huskar is still vulnerable to huge burst of magical damage when at nearly full health. Examples of this would be at point blank range (most likely after using Life Break) with the maximum amount of souls and stacks of  both of which could kill Huskar even at full health. Berserker's Blood works best against gradual magical damage or damage spread over multiple instances like, , , , , , and , all of which are almost impossible to be used to kill Huskar since their damage will be greatly reduced. But keep in mind that some of these also provide debuffs like stun, slow and silence that could hinder Huskar.
 * Berserker's Blood also gives Huskar a huge attack speed bonus when at a low enough health. This enables Huskar to deal a significant amount of damage with Burning Spear and damage increasing items.  or   makes Huskar even more dangerous at team fights because it enables Huskar to maintain the maximum number of stacks for a short duration before dying.
 * or is a good item to pick to proc Chain Lightning as much as possible and to increase your farming potential.
 * is a decent item if against low mana pool heroes such as to prevent them from using their abilities. However this is not recommended as it does not provide neither strength nor damage and is quite a hefty investment.
 * is a good pickup due to its 35% chance to deal a 100 damage mini-stun and if against heroes with evasion like, or any carry who is planning to or already built evasion items like Heaven's Halberd or Butterfly.
 * and are also viable items because Huskar will proc Bash at a decent rate due to his attack speed. When Skull Basher is upgraded to Abyssal Blade, he can make use of Overwhelm after using Life Break. Keep in mind that melee carries will still proc it more even if you have the same attack speed, you do however have the range advantage.
 * Keep in mind that the attack speed from Berserker's Blood is unreliable as it depends on your current health. If you are your team's main carry, consider building attack speed items like Mjollnir and Assault Cuirass to further boost your DPS.
 * Huskar's armor is relatively low even until the middle stages of the game and thus if your ultimate is used carelessly the enemy team will only require one or two disables to allow their own carries to kill you. In this respect you must pay special attention to heroes with long duration disables like, , , etc. or invest in items that increase your durability so that you could survive such encounters and even use yourself to bait out the enemy's skills to make it easier for the rest of your team.
 * could be bought first when planning on building a Helm of the Dominator. Due to Huskar's reliance on Burning Spears for damage and not from physical basic attacks which you rarely use against creeps in lane, an early Helm of Iron Will offers more benefits than buying an early Morbid Mask and will allow Huskar to regenerate more in the laning phase. You can even buy 2 Helms if you plan to build an Armlet of Mordiggian too, a +10 in armor and the bonus 6 HP regeneration will reduce damage in the laning phase significantly and will allow you to spam Burning Spear.
 * provides regeneration, armor, and burst heal that could make a significant difference when low in health. Since Huskar only has one skill that uses mana, Mekansm gives a way to utilize Huskar's remaining mana and in higher tier games, Mekansm on Huskar is not unheard of. It could also be paired with a to further add to Mekansm's burst heal.
 * Huskar in general is very vulnerable to disables due to his tendency to be low in health, and if he is using life steal he is dependent on his ability to attack to survive fights. will allow Huskar to attack relentlessly during its duration and hopefully will last long enough to kill off the enemy disablers. Linken's Sphere's spell block will also work better in some situations such as against,  or.
 * in theory is the best boots for Huskar to tank up as it will provide a huge amount of armor if he is below 20% HP and the free mana will make it possible to keep Inner Vitality up indefinitely. Keep in mind however that it does not provide significant DPS, its passive works better if you have a huge amount of HP already, and cost whopping 5300 gold in which the components are less useful to build on Huskar save for Mekansm. It is best that you build it after your major HP item or better yet let a more natural carrier on your team build it so that you can build other boots.
 * A casual will drastically improve Huskar's survivability and can be used to build an  or a  or both if you plan to stack armor. Since Huskar is already durable against magic damage, Stacking armor will help reduce his second biggest weakness which is physical damage. However if against pure damage heavy lineup, stacking strength or HP items is still the better solution.
 * Huskar benefits greatly from strength as each point increases his survivability by increasing his health and regeneration rate from while also increasing his damage output. However if you only gear for strength, you might not have enough damage to fight effectively in the late game. Also keep in mind that armor will provide you with more effective HP against physical damage than strength in later stages of the match and as such should not be neglected.
 * provides literally every stat that Huskar needs to be more effective and its Unholy Strength provides a way for Huskar to control his health. If you are able to practice armlet toggling, it will drastically improve Huskar's damage output and allow him to use it to survive fights as long as there is no Heartstopper Aura or Radiance Aura or you are not afflicted by any DPS debuff. An important fact to remember is that its active ability also adds to Inner Vitality's regeneration.
 * gives a massive HP regen bonus from Inner Vitality, it allows Huskar to keep Unholy Strength active indefinitely and it gives enough health to allow you to be at a low enough percentage to increase stacks from your Berserker's Blood but not low enough to be bursted down. This also complements an Aghanim's Scepter pickup as it will allow you to use Life Break sparingly, even against Roshan or creeps.
 * and its upgrades, , and provides a good amount of strength to cost ratio and gives a fair amount of utility.
 * provides strength, armor and 25% lifesteal. Its active could also be used in a pinch to keep yourself from dying.
 * Huskar has no natural escape mechanisms and it makes committing into a fight very risky if it does not go as planned. Consider building escape items like or its upgrade  or even a  because it will provide you immense survivability that no strength, HP or armor item that can replace.
 * Huskar is effective at dealing with lone targets, but often time struggles when enemies are grouped up. Don't get too complacent, even if you can take on anybody on the enemy team. It's usually best to let somebody else initiate, and then come into the fight when the enemies are spread out, that way, you can take them on one at a time and most likely win each of the duels.
 * When faced with physical damage dealing heroes and you have no counter-pick on your team, it is wise to build items that specifically counter them so that you can duel them such as, or in special cases  for heroes with escapes like  or.
 * Huskar has a huge early game presence, however there are many heroes that is difficult for Huskar to fight and as such is a very situational hero to pick. Some hero counters include:
 * is a special case since the ability he uses to initiate Meat Hook deals pure damage but the abilities he uses to secure a kill (Rot and Dismember) deal magical damage. If he uses Meat Hook to initiate a one-on-one fight, Huskar will almost always win assuming he has put levels into Berserker's Blood. However be careful if you initiate with Life Break since Pudge can use Rot and Dismember to reduce Huskar's health to a point where Pudge can use Meat Hook as a finisher. He can also ruin your positioning and disable you long enough so that his team can kill you. When fighting a Pudge, it is best that you wait out his hook and put priority in Berserker's Blood first. In the event that Pudge builds a Force Staff or a Blink Dagger or even walks towards you to initiate, be quick and cast Inner Vitality to yourself, the regeneration will mitigate the damage from Rot and Dismember, and in most cases will save your life from a close range Meat Hook.
 * is a dangerous counter to Huskar due to Huskar's tendency to stay low on health. Thirst will make it easy for enemies to track Huskar and give Bloodseeker a free buff even if he's away from Huskar, and both of his damaging spells (Blood Rite and Rupture) deal pure damage. If Huskar is Ruptured and then uses Life Break, it will deal a huge portion of damage because it deals pure damage and the fact that Life Break makes Huskar travel a significant distance. It is best to increase Huskar's durability when facing Bloodseeker. Also don't forget to cast Inner Vitality to yourself if you think you cannot dodge Blood Rite because your survivability will be drastically reduced without it.
 * is arguably the most dangerous counter to Huskar because his ultimate disables Berserker's Blood when upgraded. Not only does it deal pure damage, it also removes Huskar's durability against magical damage, reduces his attack speed significantly and prevents him to use Burning Spears and Life Break, essentially reducing Huskar's ability to deal damage akin to a creep and rendering him useless in a fight.
 * deals a huge amount of physical damage and her Blur makes Huskar's attacks miss by 50% effectively reducing the number of times he can stack Burning Spear and lifesteal, and she commonly builds a Black King Bar. However her early game presence is limited, if you manage to build an Aghanim's Scepter and a Monkey King Bar in time, you will have a great chance of defeating her. It is also crucial that you build tanking items like Heart of Tarrasque and Assault Cuirass to prevent her from bursting you down with a lucky hit and living through the duration of her Black King Bar.
 * is a dangerous hero to face if the match reaches the late game. Her Laguna Blade when upgraded with an Aghanim's Scepter deals a huge burst of pure damage and her Fiery Soul makes her a decent hitter. Be cautious and don't allow her to farm, press your advantage as she does not pose significant threat to Huskar in the early game save for her lengthy disable Light Strike Array.
 * is a difficult hero to pin down and attack due to her Windrun and her Shackleshot can disable you long enough for her to kill you with Focus Fire. When dealing with her, it is best that you team up with another hero who can prevent her from escaping or build an Aghanim's Scepter to constantly apply your slow. If she is the enemy's main carry, also consider getting a Monkey King Bar. If she does fill in for main carry, try to not go on her in the late game until you obtain it. With an Aghanim's Scepter and a maxed out, her physical damage output far outclasses yours and with her evasion, you'll barely be able to touch her before she kills you. Lotus Orb can also be considered as it will allow you to reflect either or both Focus Fire and Shackleshot which will give you an enormous advantage against her.
 * is a durable semi-carry who can match Huskar toe to toe in the early to mid game. Due to Blade Mail being a commonly build item on Axe, refrain from using your Life Break against him unless you're sure that it is on cooldown. Do not get in range of Berserker's Call and just kite him with Burning Spear. If he manages to build a Blink Dagger, be more wary and do not engage in fights unless you know where he is and use Burning Spear to make his Blink Dagger unusable for a long duration. If he attempts to perform a Backdoor against you in the early game, you can also just kite him because your attack range is greater than the range of Counter Helix and his Battle Hunger deals magical damage which will not be able to kill you.
 * 's is extremely dangerous to Huskar since sacrificing his health can easily bring him to the kill threshold of frostbite.  During the frostbite duration, you also cannot heal, preventing recovery by Inner Vitality or Armlet Toggling and making fights even more risky.
 * deals intense physical damage (Especially under the effects of his ultimate ) and has a high-damage 2 second disable that is typically use for initiation purposes and therefore is likely to throw it before your magic resistance is up. Daedalus is a very common pick for Sven due to his ability to cleave a crit to multiple enemies, dealing gigantic damage, and almost without exception build a Black King Bar which cuts out the damage from Life Break and Burning Spears - As such, in almost any given stage of the game, Sven's damage output is enough to take you out with little problems. If you wish to approach him, do so when his ultimate is on cooldown/unavailable due to low mana, he is at low health, and his black king bar is on cooldown. Alternatively, an Orchid Malevolence could be considered in order to silence him and prevent him from activating his powerful ultimate, as well amplify all damage he takes, giving you a good edge against him in a one on one. However, due to Orchid Malevolence having little synergy with Huskar's kit, you should only do this if you absolutely need to kill him and no one on your team can provide the support necessary for the task.
 * deals almost exclusively physical damage and is among the greatest in this department thanks to his passive, while his ultimate reduces all incoming damage for 4 seconds by 80% and dramatically increases the damage of his fury swipes stacks. As such, the best possible source to fighting an Ursa without the help of your team is to buy a Silver Edge and disable his passive in order to cut out a huge portion of his damage and effectively negate the offensive aspect of his ultimate. Until that happens, it's best not to go him, especially if you know his ultimate is off cooldown - In the majority of circumstances, Ursa's damage output will demolish you.
 * deals high physical damage, has incredible attack speed and a passive bash, disabling you for potentially very long periods of time, especially very late in the game when his attack speed is astronomically high.
 * not only has the ability to summon up to four illusions, capitalizing on the fact that Huskar is not good versus crowds, but every single illusion deals just as much damage as the original, effectively multiplying his damage output by x4. Additionally, he has a stun that can last up to 4 seconds, a quick and effective way to close the gap between himself (and his illusions) and you with, and a powerful critical strike that his illusions share, allowing for him to burst you down with ease.
 * further capitalizes on your ineffectiveness against crowds by releasing an army of illusions which by the end game can kill you just by themselves - Your lack of escape mechanism also hurts you do to his ability to endlessly chase you with his low-cool down slows and speed buffs. Additionally, he gains momentary invulnerability with, allowing him to very easily dodge Life Break.
 * is a very special case of a spellcaster hero that can kill you regardless of whatever your status is, as all of his abilities (Sans  if it does not hit trees) deal pure damage, meaning they will completely ignore your magic resistance and burst you down just as well as it could to anyone else, and going on him can prove quite difficult due to, making him a slippery foe. Meanwhile, his ultimate, , dealing pure damage per second, slows based on how much health you have missing, effectively capitalizing on your need to be at low health to be powerful to slow you, making your already severe lack of mobility even worse.

Trivia

 * Huskar's name might be derived from the old Norse word "Huskarl", the title given to the highly-skilled bodyguards of important Norse lords and kings.
 * His name might also be derived from Huáscar Inca, a leader of the Inca Empire in the 16th century. Huskar's lore also connects him to, who is a Shadow Priest (Fits in the Native American shaman role).
 * Before 6.79, you could use a and then manually cast  on enemies. You would take little Magic damage since the Magic Resistance provided by  reduced the incoming magic damage significantly, while also being immune to physical damage because of the ethereal state.