Bounty Hunter/Guide

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Unreleased Content

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Bounty Hunter is a strong utility support/roaming hero who helps his team by picking off the enemy one by one, holding them in prolonged control and increasing gold gain for his team, giving them opportunities to take map objectives while they outnumber the enemy. However, he is also very vulnerable since his low strength means that he can be easily killed if the enemy catches him while he approaches a target, particularly due to his reliance on Shadow Walk. As such, good judgment and map awareness are key when playing Bounty Hunter, as he must be able to successfully initiate on and kill his targets without the enemy retaliating.
Pros	Cons
Can kill weak targets before they can respond in any way by timing Shadow Walk to stun twice in quick succession. Invisibility to avoid enemy awareness while ganking. Tracks invisible enemy heroes. Forces the enemy team to invest gold on True Sight, which "stacks" with stealing money with Jinada. Fast farming with Jinada and Track. Remarkable basic move speed. Doesnt rely on killing creeps to have high GPM, can easily compensate time spent away from farming by scoring a kill or assist even on targets without high networth. Can make his allies invisible AND 30% damage resistant with a talent, with a stun from attack by obtaining Aghanim's Shard Level 25 talent increases his late-game DPS significantly under effects of Track.	Low STR income. Dependent on mana to keep ganking effective. Has a hard time picking off targets when they are grouped and prepared. Weak team fight presence without Aghanim's Scepter. Countered by True Sight to a degree. No "real" capabilities of safely fighting against multiple enemies other than kiting them away from each other, or using Shuriken Toss bouncing on enemies affected by Track, slowing them.

Ability Builds

Generic Bounty Hunter
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Hero Talents
No Cooldown on Jinada	25	2 Shuriken Toss Charges
+50 Jinada Gold Steal	20	Track Grants Shared Vision
+45 Track Gold	15	-30% Damage Taken in Shadow Walk
+30 Jinada Damage	10	+0.65s Shuriken Toss Slow

Tips & Tactics

General

• One small advantage that Bounty Hunter possesses over other heroes is that he has 1000 night vision instead of the standard 800. This makes Bounty Hunter a powerful night hunter, as he can spot targets at night who cannot see him, and cast Track on them from the Fog of War.
• Check the enemy's inventory any time they appear on the map, and be aware of all enemy players' positions on the map. Knowing if the enemy may place Sentry Wards to give warning of your approach, as well as if they have Dust of Appearance or Gem of True Sight, can save your life as you can prevent yourself from walking into a trap. Additionally, knowing that certain enemies are on another part of the map will allow you to kill your target in the knowledge that their allies cannot reach them in time.
• When playing Bounty Hunter, it is important to stay off the map as much as possible once the laning stage ends. Keep the enemy guessing on where you are, so that they second-guess their decision to farm their own jungle, or push a lane too far forward, or go to any part of the map by themselves, for fear of being found and killed by you and your teammates. By doing so, you can destroy the enemy's economy as they will be too preoccupied worrying about you and not be spending time farming, giving your team space to out-farm them and get a strong gold and level advantage.
• As a roamer, Bounty Hunter should focus on helping out in ganks by using Shadow Walk to approach an enemy who gets out of position during laning, adding his damage output to gank attempts. While he lacks contribution besides his attacks and body-blocking at level 1, once he has a level or two he can add his abilities to the mix.
• Early play with Bounty Hunter can allow him to snipe the enemy's courier from invisibility, under optimal circumstances. As he can wait for the enemy's courier invisibly with Shadow Walk, he can choose to kill it as it approaches the enemy's mid to deliver their Bottle, or snipe it as it tries to ferry detection items to their safe lane supports. However, it requires good game sense and map awareness to know where the courier might appear, so this tactic is only viable at higher levels of gameplay.
• Buy an Observer Ward to give you vision in the enemy's jungle and possibly block their pull camp (although do not be afraid to buy one for yourself if you must move immediately to lane upon connecting to battle). Doing so will alert you to any incoming rotations and ganks so that you can keep alive. Once past the laning stage you should regularly buy Observer Wards yourself, as you can traverse the map with Shadow Walk and place them for your team, giving you map vision to spot potential ganks.

Abilities

Shuriken Toss

• Shuriken Toss is a ranged damage nuke that slows its target upon impact. It will also bounce between enemies that have been affected by Track, applying the slow to each target and Jinada's damage and gold steal, as well, if upgraded by Aghanim's Scepter.
• As it is Bounty Hunter's only ranged nuke, maxing Shuriken Toss as his first spell increases his nuking power and allows him to more easily finish off enemies during ganks. The nuking power is strongest in the early game when HP pools are small and all heroes are more vulnerable to magic nukes.
• When using Shuriken Toss alongside Track to inflict damage to multiple enemy heroes in a teamfight, remember that the initial target does not have to be affected by Track in order for it to bounce. This allows Bounty Hunter to throw the shuriken at an un-Tracked target and it will bounce to any Tracked heroes within range. Using this tactic can be useful for increasing your damage output if you do not have time to cast Track on all enemy heroes before using the shuriken, or for increasing the shuriken's maximum range to 1200 by tossing it at a creep and closing the remainder of the distance from the bounce.
• Be careful about approaching targets to cast Shuriken Toss on them, as its short cast range may put you in unnecessary danger. If possible, try to Track the target first, and use a nearby creep as a target to bounce the shuriken from a safer range. Remember that you can also use the bounce to catch a fleeing enemy hero who would otherwise be outside of its 375/425/475/525 cast range.
• Casting it will pull you out of Shadow Walk, while casting Track will not.

Jinada

• Jinada deals bonus attack damage and steals gold, allowing Bounty Hunter to harass enemies effectively in the laning stage.
• Jinada allows Bounty Hunter to deal bonus attack damage to enemy buildings.
• In the laning stage, Jinada's bonus damage helps Bounty Hunter obtain last hits and prevent denies easily.
• Manually casting Jinada will not draw aggro from the enemy lane creeps.
• The Gold Steal can be useful in getting early game items faster, while slowing down enemy progress.
• Getting level 25 talent for Jinada boosts damage per each attack when autocast is enabled.

Shadow Walk

• Shadow Walk renders Bounty Hunter invisible until he attacks, casts a spell (except Track), uses an item, or the duration expires.
• Shadow Walk is Bounty Hunter's go-to spell for mobility, escape, and initiations, and as such it should generally be leveled first. At level 1/2/3/4, it provides 20/25/30/35 seconds of invisibility on a 18/17/16/15 second cooldown, allowing Bounty Hunter to remain invisible so long as he has the mana to back it up.
• As Shadow Walk applies the stun only after the fade time, it is possible to keep attacking a target during the fade time and still inflict the stun. This can help with ganking as you will be able to still stun twice at the right timing while dealing extra damage, however it becomes less feasible as the spell is leveled due to the fade time shortening.
• Shadow Walk has an instant cast time, and does not interrupt channeling. As such, it can be cast without stopping while moving or channeling items like Meteor Hammer, and can be activated while channeling a Town Portal Scroll, whether the aim is to become invisible while escaping or to become invisible prior to arriving at the teleport location.
• If you're prowling around a lane that you think may have Sentry Ward, try intentionally forcing creep aggro while under the effects of Shadow Walk by right clicking an enemy hero anywhere on the map. If the creeps aggro you, then the enemy team can obviously see you.
• Friendly Shadow, which is obtainable by Aghanim's Shard doesn't break your own Shadow Walk, or any channeling abilities while used on teammates, which can help out while they are casting their abilities, or save them while they are running/teleporting away.
• Be wary that using items will break Shadow Walk only after fade time, but doesn't while its fading. Therefore, actions such as changing attributes on Power Treads or activating the movement speed boost of Phase Boots will break invisibility, so be consider that under the effects of Shadow Walk. However, if you are under effects of Dust of Appearance, you can instantly break invisibility and retain your moving speed by using any item.
• You can use items like Bottle or Healing Salve during fade-in time without breaking invisibility.
• Shadow Walk's duration is always longer than its cooldown. At higher levels, it is possible to strike a target out of invisibility, become invisible again immediately afterward, and then hit them again, all while slowing them. However, this also leaves Bounty Hunter vulnerable since he will be visible and with Shadow Walk on cooldown, making escaping difficult if the enemy finds him before he can turn invisible again.
• Be sure to save Shadow Walk's cooldown for near the end of a gank. If you use it immediately, the enemy will just be able to teleport out with their Town Portal Scroll because you have no more stuns to interrupt the channel with.

Track

• Track is a powerful intelligence spell in any situation, and is a great boon to any team. As it provides True Sight on the target and increases Bounty Hunter's movement speed, it is powerful in preventing the enemy from easily initiating and giving them a mobility advantage during teamfights.
• Track counters heroes who rely on invisibility to escape, as the True Sight reveals their location through invisibility. It is also powerful against heroes with teleport abilities, as they often rely not only on quickly putting distance between themselves and their pursuers, but also on jumping in an unknown direction to make their opponents guess.
• While Bounty Hunter excels at killing lone targets by himself, his team is better served in assisting him whenever he ganks targets. This not only increases the chances of a successful kill, but awards bonus reliable gold to nearby allies. The allied bonus gold exists for a reason, and rewards a team that coordinates kills with Bounty Hunter rather than letting him try to kill enemies by himself.
• Each hit from Bounty Hunter against the tracked hero will always score a critical hit. This means, getting armor-reducing items such as Desolator or even getting Revenant's Brooch, that ignores all armor on attack will benefit from 100% damage boost.
• In a teamfight, try to use Track on as many enemies as possible first, marking them all as potential targets for a bounced Shuriken Toss. Any successful kills will greatly increase the gold bounty received, which can lead to buying more core items faster. However, when ganking a solo target, it is generally advisable to reserve Track until right before you initiate on the target with a Shadow Walk and Jinada combo, in order to avoid alerting them until the last possible second.
• In general, it is wise to Track as many enemy heroes as possible in order to gather intelligence on their locations and movement. This gives your team a powerful strategic advantage since they will not only know the location of the Tracked targets, but may also give warning of other enemies casting certain spells (such as Moonlight Shadow).
• Track allows you to discern how much gold the target has, which lets you know how close they may be to getting one of their core items. After tracking an enemy (especially one of their core heroes), be sure to alert teammates to the debuff (Alt + left click on the debuff in the enemy player's status bar). This also serves to log the event in the chat log for later reference. This allows your team to make the decision based on the amount of farm the enemy has: if they are close to getting another major item, quickly rotating and ganking the target can set them back tremendously, however if they are farming poorly you can choose to engage a different enemy or take the time to continue farming on your side.
• Since Track has such a low cooldown, it is a very good ability to use in order to break an enemy's Linken's Sphere, whether in a teamfight or during a gank. In teamfights, it can render their Linken's Sphere useless ahead of time, and in ganks it can be used as a leader prior to a stronger targeted disable.
• If Bounty Hunter is in the enemy's Fog of War or under effect of Shadow Walk and casts Track on an enemy, his position is not revealed to them, thereby allowing him to stealthily mark targets for his team. However, the debuff status indicator still appears in enemy players' HUDs.
• Given his role, Bounty Hunter has a myriad of choices for items he can build to assist in getting kills against targets.
• Since Track does not break Shadow Walk's invisibility upon casting it on an enemy hero, this is a useful tactic when you are roaming.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango regenerates health for Bounty Hunter to resist enemy harassment.
• Healing Salve also restores health.
• Clarity allows Bounty Hunter to maintain casting his spells, as his base mana pool is quite small and Shadow Walk costs little mana to cast.
• Iron Branch provides attributes that improve survivability.

Early game:

• Boots of Speed are important for survival as an offlaner, and important for getting in position for ganks as a roamer. Buy them as early as possible.
• Orb of Corrosion is a powerful early-game ganking tool.
• Blood Grenade can help in slowing down enemies furthermore.
• Urn of Shadows is a good item to get on Bounty Hunter once he begins roaming, as it firms up his HP pool and gives him some mana regen. Getting successful ganks off will get charges that can be used either to add damage in further ganks or to heal in between ganks.
• Magic Stick is highly recommended on Bounty Hunter, as his small HP pool makes it disparately effective on him and his spells have low cooldowns (and a high mana cost, in the case of Shuriken Toss). A full charge Magic Stick can replenish a large fraction of Bounty Hunter's health, and give him enough mana to cast multiple spells. Magic Wand is powerful for all the same reasons, giving Bounty Hunter additional attributes as well as larger charge storage.

Mid game:

• Arcane Boots increases the mana pool for Bounty Hunter and restore mana to team so everyone can use more abilities on the map.
• Power Treads are giving increased attack speed due to the irregular basic attack speed of 1.5
• Aghanim's Scepter will give Bounty Hunter good attributes, and it will also increase the cast range for Shuriken Toss and will also allow it to apply Jinada on the targets it hits.
• Phylactery will let Bounty Hunter slow enemies and deal damage to them with using Track

Late game:

• Lotus Orb dispels and reflects targeted abilities to protect Bounty Hunter and allies in team fights.
• Guardian Greaves replenishes health and mana to you and your teammates, removes debuffs from you, and the Mend and Guardian Aura abilities are strong during teamfights. It can also be farmed relatively quickly with Track kills.
• Aghanim's Shard will give Bounty Hunter access to Friendly Shadow which will allow him to use Shadow Walk and it's bonuses on allied heroes, allowing them either to escape by running/teleporting away in safety or set up an ambush with a teammate on unsuspecting enemies, chaning the stuns. Using Friendly Shadow on teammates does not break Bounty Hunter's Shadow Walk invisibility.
• Monkey King Bar will give Bounty Hunter lots of attack speed and damage, and will also allow his attacks to deal more damage through both armor and evasion.
• Spirit Vessel, an upgrade for Urn of Shadows will boost Bounty Hunter's health regeneration and mana regeneration, and will also allow him to reduce enemy health and healing.
• Khanda, an upgrade for Phylactery allows to deal even more damage by using Track, converting your attack damage into magic damage.

Situational items:

• Bottle is very effective on Bounty Hunter both as a roamer support and as a midlaner. The low mana cost of his spells and his small HP pool mean that he gets a lot of benefits from the regen, and his mobility with Shadow Walk allows him to bottle runes as needed.
• Satanic allows Bounty Hunter to lifesteal, giving him a measure of sustainability by attacking creeps. The lifesteal it provides is amplified by damage boosts from Track, and the bonus damage and health bonus improve his offensive and defensive capabilities. The most effective time to use it is right before you are about to land a stunning attack from using Shadow Walk
• Linken's Sphere protects Bounty Hunter from targeted spells, on top of the stat and regen improvement. Blocking an enemy from targeting you with a disable or debuff can drastically improve Bounty Hunter's survivability when evading enemy ganks, and can increase the chances of successful ganks by preventing the enemy from counter-disabling Bounty Hunter.
• Orchid Malevolence greatly increases the size of Bounty Hunter's mana pool, as well as giving him powerful mana regen to let him sustain without having to return to the fountain as often. The silence is a powerful ganking tool, as it prevents foes from retaliating during a gank and can help ensure a kill due to the 30% burst damage at the end of the silence.
• Bloodthorn, an upgrade from Orchid Malevolence increases Bounty Hunter's attack speed and damage output. The silence will not only prevent the enemy from retaliating with their spells, but also provide him with multipled over Track's critical hits and True Strike, and a more powerful version of burst damage after silence effect further increases kill probability.
• Desolator is a powerful initiating item as it drastically increases the damage taken from attacking a target with Jinada and Track. The armor reduction helps allies to add their damage in a gank, ensuring a swift kill.
• Revenant's Brooch is a great late-game item to ensure that damage from Track and Jinada with level 25 talent is still going through lots of armor, when Desolator is not enough anymore, and especially when enemy supports buy Ghost Scepter, which will let attacks to go through Ghost Form.
• Blink Dagger and its variants greatly extend Bounty Hunter's already strong mobility and initiating potential, as he can chase and escape over impassable terrain, especially when combined with Track, and "Shared Vision" talent for it on level 20. It can be used in conjunction with Shadow Walk to allow for powerful initiations and chasing, preventing targets from running away and securing isolated kills.
• Aether Lens can be a powerful utility item that aids Bounty Hunter's spell casting. It boosts the size of his mana pool, as well as providing mana regen. The increased cast range allow Bounty Hunter to cast his spells from safer range.
• Abyssal Blade is a main item to prolong the disable from Shadow Walk and Friendly Shadow, and it somewhat mitigates lack of surviveability.
• Scythe of Vyse is an utility alternative item with increased cast range compared to Abyssal Blade, that greatly improves Bounty Hunter's disabling/catching potential. Besides giving him increased mana regen and mana pool, the Hex is a powerful disable that can be used instantly to a target from range.
• Divine Rapier deals double damage under the effect of Track, and it scales even better with Revenant's Brooch turned on, because of the 25% magic damage boost as a new passive, which lets Bounty Hunter's attacks outperform anyone attacks in 1vs1 situations, even against the enemies that use Black King Bar for 50% magic damage resistance.