Kunkka

Kunkka the Admiral is a versatile melee Strength hero built with an arsenal of powerful area-of-effect spells. These spells are nukes that have long reaction time, but can disable and disrupt the enemies' position. He is mostly played as a carry or an initiator or even a spell nuker. He is known for his Tidebringer sword, which magically gives him the ability to cleave a large area around him on his attack with heavy potential damage on his next attack, which refreshes at a given period of time. Torrent calls upon the element water to rise and burst out, dealing damage, disabling them up high, and slowing them on impact. There's a delay on this skill before it activates, so Kunkka must be wise in using this ability. X Marks the Spot targets any hero or Admiral himself to be marked on their last spot, before returning to his or her spot for a given time. Useful in setting up tricky spells, escape prevention, or even saving allies, X Marks the Spot makes the Admiral a great battle strategist. His ultimate lets him summon a Ghost Ship, which travels on ground, until they crash on their destination, stunning and damaging enemy armies on that location. The Ghost Ship also bolsters allies with Kunkka's Rum, granting them bonus movement speed and numbness to damage. Ghost Ship is difficult to land, all the more so because its UI is slightly obfuscatory; but a good Ghost Ship absolutely cripples an enemy team. Capable of inflicting high burst damage with his spells, controlling their position while able to survive the mayhem when his spells are used properly, Kunkka is a mighty offensive team fighter, built with strong physical and magical damage output, and indeed, can turn the tide of a battle.

Gameplay
Kunkka is powerful because of his Tidebringer ability, which adds cleave to his basic attacks and increases damage. When used in lanes, this can quickly take out multiple creeps, or to focus damage on a single creep, for maximum farming and control potential. His other ability, Torrent, disables enemies for a short time, allowing him to gank and harass easily, as well as escape from a fight he has no chance of winning. X Marks the Spot allows him to improve the effectiveness of his Torrent ability, as well as allowing him to gank and escape with practice. It pairs well with other spells and heroes, letting Kunkka snap an enemy back in place for a hard blow. His ultimate, Ghost Ship, reduces the damage taken by friendly heroes for a short time, and can stun enemies if aimed properly, making a great initiator for large and small battles.

Tips

 * Tidebringer is your signature ability, and should usually be trained early and maxed out first. Notable exceptions would be when having a stun to chain would be advantageous for early kills or you need a mechanism to prevent escape heroes from running away.
 * Use Torrent to initiate battles and disable opponents.
 * Try to get raw damage to maximize your Tidebringer damage.
 * X Marks the Spot works well with Torrent to ensure you a hit.
 * Ghost Ship delays half of the damage dealt to allies, making it great for short team battles.
 * Train Torrent first if you're going for First Blood, otherwise, train Tidebringer.
 * Try dual laning with heroes such as Crystal Maiden, Shadow Demon, Bane, or Vengeful Spirit. Their disables will help you land your Torrents.
 * Avoid taking damage in team battles as much as possible, you don't have as much health as your allies!
 * Use a high leveled X Marks the Spot on enemies who are trying to flee using a Town Portal Scroll and they will be brought back to the X no matter how far they've gone!
 * The classical combo should be: Torrent and then Ghost Ship, but you can add X Marks the Spot before them if you are targeting a single unit.
 * During team fights, either initiate with your combo when the enemies get clumped together, or wait until the battle starts and use it when they get clumped.
 * You can use X Marks the Spot and a scroll of teleportation to go back to your base, refill your bottle, and go back to your previous location.
 * Ghost Ship will always appear a specific distance behind Kunkka and end a specific distance from Kunkka(The only exception being if Kunkka is facing away from the edge of the map, but the ship will still travel the fixed distance infront of him). The distance at which the boat appears and hits can be seen by mousing over the ability and noting the radius circle behind and infront of Kunkka. Practising memorising the distance the ship travels in a practise game with cheats and wtf mode on can go a long way to pulling this wonderful ultimate off successfully.
 * Another method to pulling off successful ultimates is to always set the target point for Ghost Ship to anywhere out of Kunkka's range. That way the end point and radius circle will always be placed where you clicked the target.

Trivia

 * Kunkka's official alternate/fun names were "Daelin Proudmoore", "CoCo", and "Captain Obvious". Daelin Proudmoore was a campaign boss in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne; his hero model is borrowed by Kunkka in DotA.
 * Kunkka is also the name (or online handle) of the artist who made numerous pieces of loading screen art for DotA. The Admiral hero was given his name as a tribute to his work.
 * In his DotA biography, it is stated that some people called him "Jack Sparrow," but it was never seen as his name in-game. Jack Sparrow is the name of the main character in the Pirates of the Carribean movie franchise.