Strategy
Gameplay[]
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Spirit Breaker usually serves as an initiator/ganker/tank role in the team. His skillset requires player to check for any ganking opportunity across the map, while helping his team secure space and farm. If he does so, a successful early-mid game Spirit Breaker can snowball into a semi-carry and crush his foes, carving a path to victory for his team. However, Spirit Breaker suffers from lack of area-of-effect abilities and poor attack speed, and can lose his efficiency against heroes who either stick together or who are capable of performing interceptions on his ganking attempts. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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Roamer[]
Spiritbreaker makes for a strong roaming support.His Charge of Darkness is a strong initiation tool on weak cores and allows him to catch them across the map.His spells also lock down enemy heroes long enough for his team to follow up for a pickoff.The main objective of this map presence is to force enemy reactions and make space for the team's carry to farm safely.Spiritbreaker should aim for relatively cheap,disruptive items in this case,which boost his teamfight potential or survivability
Offlaner[]
As a greedier role and because of his chunky health,Spiritbreaker can be played in the offlane.If paired with a support,his spells make a strong lane and can terrify the enemy carry out of it.This position offers a bit more farm,and so Spiritbreaker should aim for items such as Assault Cuirass or Mjollnir that can help his team or improve his poor attack speed.Nonetheless,he should look for ganks and perhaps heroes in the enemy jungle,given that he usually survives most early manfights and his flash-farming ability is lackluster.
Ability Builds[]
| Generic Spirit Breaker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 20 | 25 | |||||
 |  |  | | |  | | | |  | | | | | | |  | | | | |||||
Talents[]
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| -4s Charge of Darkness Cooldown | 25 | +25% Greater Bash Damage |
Bulldoze 400  All Damage Barrier | 20 | +17% Greater Bash Chance |
| +45 Damage | 15 | -3s Bulldoze Cooldown |
| +4 Armor | 10 | +500 Night Vision |
Notes:
- The night vision talent does not counter any vision reducing effect.
- Grants bonus attack damage.
- Does not benefit illusions and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.
Tips & Tactics[]
General[]
Greater Bash average stats
Greater Bash average defense value
- Chaining together Charge of Darkness with Nether Strike can deal high amounts of burst damage in a very short amount of time.
- Spirit Breaker has little teamfight presence due to his specialized abilities, but he can still be useful at neutralizing targets and forcing enemies back.
- When charging enemy heroes in mid game, make sure that they are alone. A lone enemy may wait out in the open while their ally hides in the trees, waiting for you to charge the bait hero, and be ganked. Therefore, Observer Ward can reduce uncertainty before charging.
- Despite being classified as an initiator Spirit Breaker is more of a hunter who takes out lone targets or chases down fleeing enemy heroes after a team fight. To actually initiate you will need to use Charge of Darkness in a way that would let you bowl through all of the enemy team heroes (such as aiming for the farthest enemy hero while the enemy team is standing close to a line formation).
- Because Linken's Sphere triggers on cast, Charge of Darkness can be used to instantly and globally put an enemy's sphere on cooldown.
- Spirit Breaker's abilities allow him to keep stunning a single target, controlling them during long teamfights.
- Due to the massive speed boost Spirit Breaker receives while charging, he can catch up to a team fight quickly, even from across the map. While preparing for a team fight, you might want to stand at the back of your team and let your allies begin to draw out disables and initiation spells from the enemy, then use Charge of Darkness on your target. This will disorient the enemy team, as you are likely to be hitting a few of them on the way to your target. In addition, they will be left with no disables to stop you, as they might have used them already on your teammates.
Abilities[]
Charge of Darkness[]
- Use Charge of Darkness to get close, stun your target, and make him vulnerable to your attacks.
- Black King Bar can be used without interrupting your charge, activate it just when you get close to the enemy to take advantage of its duration during the fight.
- Shadow Blade can also be activated while charging, greatly increasing the surprise factor of his charge and preventing enemies from easily interrupting the charge (like Rubick with Telekinesis). In addition, the Shadow Blade's bonus damage will be applied to the first attack from invisibility.
- Charge of Darkness allows Spirit Breaker to run through units, trees, structures and terrain. It does not indicate to your enemies when they're targeted either, letting you set up ganks.
- Although Charge of Darkness is typically used to get into fights, it can also be used to get back out in a pinch; by targeting a creep in a different lane Spirit Breaker can move quickly to avoid death, then cancel the charge when he is out of danger.
- While it does not provide True Sight, the indicator will follow the invisible unit being charged and the charge will still hit an enemy that has gone invisible after being charged. This will cause the ability to interrupt channeling spells being performed by invisible heroes.
- During teamfights, you can spam Charge of Darkness in order to create chaos and disrupt your opponents' formation, so try to target the backliners in order to get the most stuns possible.
- Use Charge of Darkness to stomp and clear creeps.
- Because Charge of Darkness can be cast globally, it is ideal for popping out a Linken's Sphere everywhere especially when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter.
Bulldoze[]
- Spirit Breaker can use Bulldoze while charging, increasing his movement speed, thus allowing Greater Bash to deal more damage.
- Bulldoze's bonus status resistance helps Spirit Breaker tank enemy disables after he has initiated on them with Charge of Darkness.
- With the Lv 20 Talent, Bulldoze only has a 2.5 second downtime. Don't hesitate to keep casting it for a near permanent buff.
Greater Bash[]
- Greater Bash deals more damage depending on Spirit Breaker's movement speed. Getting items that increase movement speed, such as Drum of Endurance, will improve your damage.
- Optionally, granting items that provide attack speed such as agility-based items can make Greater Bash proc more.
- Always try to angle Spirit Breaker in a way that you may push your enemy away from safety, the chances that you will get multiple bashes are slim but should still be considered.
Nether Strike[]
- Nether Strike deals major damage to the target enemy and teleports behind them, wherever they go. You can use this to catch blinking or teleporting enemies before they get away.
- Sometimes it might be a good idea to use Nether Strike on a spell immune hero to interrupt their actions as the greater bash will hit them regardless. For example, if your team gets caught in a Black Hole by a spell immune Enigma, you can turn the tide of the fight if you can stop him right at the beginning.
- Avoid stealing kills from your carries. Try not to use Nether Strike when the enemy is already doomed.
Items[]
Starting items:
- Tango helps Spirit Breaker sustain during the laning phase, preventing him from returning to base due to enemy harassment.
- Healing Salve restores health as well.
- Iron Branch is a cheap and effective way to improve Spirit Breaker's low mana pool, as well as his health pool.
Early game:
- Boots of Speed are essential for Spirit Breaker, as the improved speed will allow him to escape deadly situations, as well as catching up to an escaping enemy. The bonus movement speed will also provide additional damage because of Greater Bash.
- Magic Stick is a useful burst health/mana item if the enemies in lane will be casting many spells. It can later be built into a Magic Wand.
- Urn of Shadows aids ganking as it grants mana regeneration and healing. The damage over time can also cancel enemy healing items like Healing Salve and Bottle.
Mid game:
- Power Treads give attack speed, so Spirit Breaker will have a better chance of proccing Greater Bash.
- Phase Boots can be acquired aswell,depending on personal preference.Apart from the extra armor and damage, Phase active offers a lot of damage to Greater Bash. It can build Spirit breaker into a strong nuker.
- Magic Wand is good for burst health/mana while providing a boost to his attributes compared to the Magic Stick.
- Mask of Madness gives bonus attack speed and movement speed when activated, increasing both the damage and frequency of Greater Bash attacks.
- Black King Bar makes you immune to many abilities that interrupt your Charge of Darkness, allowing you to engage and damage your target unimpeded.
- Blade Mail helps with survivability and counters enemy burst damage,as Barathrum's base health is very high.When activated after his combo,it makes enemies unlikely to focus on you.
Late game:
- Assault Cuirass will give Spirit Breaker a large increase in attack speed, as well as providing an attack speed/armor aura to nearby allies. The extra attack speed will cause Greater Bash to occur more often.
- Silver Edge grants you invisibility which could be useful for escape or to further increase your ganking/roaming capabilities. Attacking to break invisibility will disable enemy passives, reduce their damage, and give you a powerful 300 damage strike. It also grants a decent amount of attack speed, attack damage and attribute bonuses, it can also be used during charge before hitting your target in order to avoid getting disabled and thus avoiding breaking your charge.
- Mjollnir provides excellent capabilities for Spirit Breaker as it grants not only significant attack speed, but also a lightning proc and the lightning shield for teamfight presence.
Situational items:
- Heaven's Halberd will not only increase Spirit Breaker's durability because of the added evasion and status resistance, its active ability can disarm enemy carries relying on physical attacks.
- Monkey King Bar increases attacks damage and allows Spirit Breaker to hit enemies with evasion.
- Drum of Endurance increases the movement speed and attack speed of both himself and his team. The bonus movement speed and attack speed synergize well with Greater Bash.
- Moon Shard gives Spirit Breaker the largest single-item-slot increase in attack speed in the entire game, which causes Greater Bash to occur very frequently. Thus, it should be considered to keep it through the majority of the game until a more effective item can be purchased, at which point the Shard can be consumed and replaced - The attack speed bonus will be halved, but having a permanent 60 attack speed bonus without needing an inventory slot for it is extremely useful.
- Lotus Orb gives you good survivability stats and mana regen to allow you to use Charge of Darkness with little need to ever return to base for more mana. Its active will also make your initiation abilities stronger as spellcasters will need to think twice before attacking to nuke you or shut you down.
