Bristleback/Guide

General

 * Bristleback's mana woes can easily be remedied by a, since his abilities have extremely low mana costs.
 * One of Bristleback's main weaknesses is his lack of disables, meaning he cannot silence or interrupt an enemy from casting spells. You can either rely on your teammates for disables, or buy an item of your own, so long as it benefits him in some way (a good example would be a, since it gives him good mana regeneration for his abilities, and a devastating hex disable).
 * Beware and, as both of them have abilities that force you to turn and face them for a few seconds, ensuring their and their teams damage is not directed to your back and thus making you far more vulnerable in a teamfight.


 * Viscous Nasal Goo has extremely useful effects, provided that you keep casting it against your target, as it slows their movement speed greatly when stacked up. Since each cast fully refreshes the whole stack's duration, and the duration is more than twice as long as the cooldown, after reaching the stack cap, you can time it so that you refresh the debuff before it expires, instead of continuously casting it whenever off cooldown. This way, you waste less of the duration, save some mana for your quills and can catch up faster to your target.
 * This ability is very effective when combined with 's, as the damage inflicted on the Viscous Nasal Goo target from other bound creeps or heroes is applied to the armor reduced hero at said reduced value. This makes the Bristleback/ lane combination very potent, even into the late game. When combined with area of effect items and attacks, a lot of damage can be dealt very quickly.


 * Quill Spray can be used to secure last hits, whether from range or timing it with your regular attack.


 * Use your passive ability Bristleback to your advantage; anticipate enemy attacks and turn your back on them, so that you can reduce as much damage as you can.
 * Please note that you should not turn your back towards projectiles flying towards you, but the original damage source.
 * An early ability point on this ability during the laning phase can help you stay in the lane a while longer, especially if you are having trouble against attacks.


 * Even if your enemies can easily defend against you with a, you can still heavily damage them with Warpath; as long as you're stacking your spells against them, the bonus damage will do its job.

Items
Starting items:
 * keeps Bristleback healthy in lane.
 * mitigates damage from lane harassment.
 * gives passive health regeneration and burst mana when needed.

Early game:
 * gives valuable movement speed.
 * helps to sustain in the lane and builds into both and.
 * provides you with virtually unlimited mana and synergizes well with.
 * keeps Bristleback in the fight, giving him a chance to potentially use up charges twice for very large amounts of healing, and every two charges will grant him enough mana for an extra Quill Spray or Viscous Nasal Goo.

Mid game:
 * give Bristleback strength to tank up, or intelligence to use more abilities.
 * is one of a few strong early to mid-game pickups on Bristleback. It is best against teams that have a large amount of physical damage. Note that the damage block is deducted from the full attack damage, before any damage reduction (such as from armor or the Bristleback ability) takes place. It builds into a.
 * , as opposed to Vanguard, is a much stronger choice when the enemies rather rely on magical damage. It upgrades into a.
 * provides survivability with armor and attributes. The mana regeneration also helps with casting spells.

Late game:
 * further bolsters defense with armor and health regeneration. Echo Shell can also dispel silences that plague Bristleback, while reflecting many targeted spells back to enemy casters. The mana and mana regeneration also help him to continuously cast Viscous Nasal Goo and Quill Spray.
 * is another large armor item, and it fixes any mana issues Bristleback can have. The active ability also gives Bristleback more presence in teamfights, damaging and slowing enemies in a huge area.
 * grants a huge amount of health and gives you significant regeneration when not in a fight against heroes. It helps in siege situations, where you can soak up lots of damage and then wait a short time to be back at full health. The immense health boost allows Bristleback to use the passive Quill Spray to their full potential, as he can tank significantly more, retreat to heal up and then repeat.

Situational items:
 * is a hybrid pickup of damage and defense. It is strong against teams with high amounts of burst damage, either causing the enemies to take the damage themselves as well, or forcing them to not use their burst damage, giving Bristleback some time to deal with them.
 * is a strong pickup if you're not the hardest carry on your team or the enemy team only has one physical damage dealer that it can be used on. The evasion, status resistance, and strength increase can add a lot to Bristleback's survivability.
 * is built off of a Vanguard, which is also a good item on Bristleback, and is an item any team should have one of if up against a physical damage heavy lineup.
 * is built off of a Hood of Defiance, which is also a good item on Bristleback, and is an item any team should have one of if there are any dangerous nukers on the enemy team.
 * is great on Bristleback if you can get it early in the game after a couple of items to tank up. This is basically a get-more-ahead item, as if you're hard to kill despite putting so much gold into an offensive item, it can be the best item to snowball the rest of the game by farming quickly and dealing massive area damage in teamfights. However, if you get this item at the cost of being tanky, this is a terrible item to pick up.
 * greatly increases Bristleback's survivability, and increases his damage output by lowering Quill Spray's cooldown time.
 * has amazing synergy with Bristleback, as it is one of the few items that can increase the damage of his Quill Spray. It also increases his and his team's tankiness against physical damage, and the attack speed greatly increases his attack damage output thanks to Warpath. It also is a great pickup if there are other carries on your team which rely on physical attacks.

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