General DiscussionBounty hunter help

that starting/middle build works only when your teammates know how to play

+

you need 2 be way more active on map

what should i build on starting & middle?
i'm quite active considering i roam to their jungle a lot but seems can't find any kill

I'm not a good offlaner. But at least I'll tell you to get a friend who can play support and give you the wards. When I play support (which means, most times :P), more often than not I buy the wards and give them to the offlaner. I've noticed that good offlaners will do a lot better with that difference of a mere 150 gold...I'll let the people who can actually play the role give you advice on the items, but you can start with that.

An offlane BH does not need to block jungle camps anymore. You can steal the xp just be being in the same part of the jungle, you don't even have to be that close. If you get xp from the pull camp and the lane (you should be able to do this) you will get to level 6 much faster and be able to begin roaming sooner.

Get bottle, Take runes. This will be far more effective than Vlads. Vlads on BH is only good for early team pushing strats and early roshan attempts. You want bottle, phase, deso. Then you may need bkb depending on the game. BH should be very active, seeming to be everywhere about to attack, tracking everyone. You need to control, and bottle the runes to do this.

Ok this is like the 4th BH thread I have seen and I feel I finally need to comment to help people, I am very experienced with him and I love playing him.

http://dotabuff.com/players/85201859/matches?hero=bounty-hunter&game_mode=&match_type=real

Bounty hunter is one of the highest risk/ high reward characters.

-He is incredibly easy to counter from level 1
- He is massively reliant on a team if he doesn't get a 1v1 match up in lane
- Communication with team is paramount
- Only pick him when there is 3+ squishies in all pick on the other side(this is to avoid a worst case scenario)
- If you know the other team will have a jungler, ward their 2 big camps(this completely rapes their gpm + prevents support ganks)

Starting items:

Wards(try get supports to give you them obviously if not buy yourself), 2 salves, tango, 2 branches

The reason I go with this build, Generally you will outlast the opposing carry in terms of regen and you will gain lane control IE: you will actually be able to get last hits and theres nothing wrong with getting a stout shield after the initial couple creep waves, exchanges in regen

Early laning phase:

Ensuring you block the lane as effectively as you can will ensure a very fast level 3.

AWARENESS AWARENESS AWARENESS, most of the time the opposing team will not have sentries or dust until the 1st couple creep waves have past, Ensure that you are constantly checking the supports inventories, if they disappear early on, they are either stacking and pulling or they are having sentries delivered. Go invis and scout where the sentries are you can do this safely by advancing forward slowly and seeing when the opposing support agro's on you, once you have a general idea of the sentries are it will be very difficult for them to kill you.

When laning against a melee carry it's happy days easy mode, Use your jinada only to harass the carry.

The most important thing about BH offlane is getting that level 6 as fast as possible, Don't be in a hurry to gank as soon as you hit 6 either, playing BH is 100% judgement, Carry a TP always and try and keep your mana high because honestly when your carry gets initiated on a tp support from a lvl 6 BH will win you so much control.

If your team is doing well chances are the supports have been forced to rotate and this leaves you in a 1v1 against the opposing carry, if you're able to zone them then its almost as good as early game ganking because you will be acquiring a massive lead and when it does come time for you to gank you will be able to pick off the carry very easily due to the lead you have acquired already.

Mid-game:

If your early game went well, this is BH time to shine, remember if you gain a lead DO NOT GET COCKY, use your invis to scout whether the carry has supports lurking and constantly check opposing team invo's for tp's. Your item build is heavily dependent on the opposing teams characters.

There is many different types of roles you can take BH in

1. Utility

Urn, drums, medallion, BKB, Deso

2. Carry-hunter

OOV, orchid, deso(my favourite)

3. Spastic

Battlefury

When you are playing him, Your goal is to play like an absolute coward, Nothing worse than a Rambo BH who rages his team. You can either force your team to put pressure on or wait for the opposing team to start pushing

ALWAYS use your track, Simply being tracked can prevent the other team from objectives purely because you will have the upper hand on them.

Again I cannot stress this enough BH is reliant on his team(in higher level play anyway) If you're in the trenches, BH is easy mode and you can pretty much solo games by yourself. But I cannot say it more, Be aware of your teams playstyle, if they aren't agressive don't try and force ganks, ensure you're using track always and play like a coward.

-bottle is meh I get it if the mid player can not safely control runes
-block the far camps that are away from lane if they have a jungler and dont bother blocking if they dont
-poor mans >phase > drums > vlads > deso/bkb. If they are a heavy control team I will get bkb sooner
-scout ALL game you should never really be farming lanes after lv 6 unless the other team is sitting afk in their base
-dont play like a fucking pussy, kills = money = win

@[Lk].Zano
tbh i don't believe other people wards other than me
cause if normal support will buy ward and place it to rune ward and don't let me ward anywhere else

@Relentless
I think i have to fix my exp range awareness.

@Icon
omg i've read a lot of guide and they don't mention any of these
they don't suggest to carry TP all the time, the reason was because they don't encourage BH going back to fountain
it seems i'm lacking awareness that needed to play BH
i've played like a coward until now ( i don't initiate ). But track doesn't give me assist :/ almost all of the kills from my team are from track
but seems i mostly lost to tower rush since i don't have counter push

@Sampson
noted on bottle
contradict to what Icon said..
ok no farm lane..

@all
How about tranquil on BH? any comment on this?

Looking at your item choice, you really should avoid getting vlads every time. BH doesn't need vlads and that 2000 gold can be used to buy drums instead (which is a much better choice since the stats increase and the temporary boost of speed can help you run away).

Don't go tranquills on BH, get phase if games is evenish and treads if they're nuking you down hard. I usually just go stout - bottle - magic wand - phase - drums - tp as my inventory slot. That's pretty much enough for most of the early-mid game. You're not going to be farming the lanes ever, you just have to stay invis and make them scared of you. The way a pro put it on a stream - if they see you, they're not scared, if they don't see you, they're scared. Just disappearing off the map will make them farm far less than if they see you in a lane.

The biggest difference I would make in your game is to make vlads into drums and magic stick. That extra little movement speed and hp+mana burst can really make a difference

i think battlefury on offlane BH gets a bit too much hate, but its certainly not an optimal build. It really depends how fast you complete it.

I think going urn/medalion into either drums or deso is solid.

@Gymbuddy
the thing is if i solo offlane, even if i disappear they aren't scared LOL
ok vlads noted

@Concende
yeah not looking into that hard carry build, i'm not a master carry player

a bit confused sometimes when to build urn/medalion/bottle/drums/deso
and which item is a must build on every game

soo i just practiced on my smurf who has around 250 wins total,
wtf got 4 bounty hunter wins streak.. the enemies is so stup1d,
different when i use this account.

you need to gank and finish the game fast, as bounty hunter don't do really good in late game.
build phaseboot then make a damage item (preferably battlefury for regen and damage) followed by desolator.
if you play gondar right, the enemies team will bought true sight and get more scared by you. its the time your team finish the game...

to maximize bfury you need to be farming and showing yourself on the map alot, this is a really poor choice to go with BH. I find drums to be core for BH or else you are just too easy to nuke down

I tend to go
lv
1-E
2-W
3-E
4-Q
5-Q
6-R
then the build will change depending on what heroes I am fighting
If I do not think I am going to be maxing W fast I will be grabbing a poison orb

Item build is usually
start - shield 2 branches and 1 tree and 1 salve =
1-3 - poor mans and boots working on magic stick
6 - usually when drums are being made
after 6 your items depend on how many track kills you can get

Try this skill build: E > W > W > Q > W > R> W > Q > Q > Q > R > E > E > E > U > R > U...
You only need 1 point of invis because you can escape with it as well as initiate with it, which is all it's needed for. Duration and fade time aren't big issues, you need more damage.

Mid game items: Drums, Poor Man's OR AQUIILA, Phase, Yasha
Late game items: S&Y, AC, Abyssal, Deso, Mjolnir, BKB, etc.
You want lots of damage and attack speed, as well as movement speed so you can have 522 MS when near tracked units, and hopefully with all that damage you can 1 shot supports with jinada

there is no reason to max attack speed on BH when his crit is on a set timer.......

attack speed comes with his agi, so i guess you could say its a positive side effect. Another plus is that his regular attacks deal a lot of damage too, so attack speed is still great. BH isn't 100% jinada.

@[ESP*] Wink,
That skill build is bad, go max E>W>Q>Q>Q>R>Q>W>W>W>R>...
Early: tango, salve, stout shield, 2 gg branches
Mid: Phase boots, Jango/Basillus or Vlads, Orchid Malevolence can be nice in some cases.
Late: u should decide wut to go for, go MKB, BKB, Butterfly, if u got no gd carry, though u might still fail to carry cus he is a shitty carry.
U can go linkens to abuse ur stealth power, though stealth playstyle doesn't win u the late game, check if enemy team got lvls that trigger linkens, don't get it if u are playing against SF, LD, Gyro, etc.

Gameplay:
Get ur solo offlane. Keep checking the enemy support items, they might be having some sentries, so don't try to land a hit and expect running away with it. Get ur ult, and don't ever think about sticking to ur lane, keep the ganking train fueled, or just ask ur mid/roaming support (?) to gank at ur lane.
Tracking is waaaaaaay more important than u (specifically) getting the kill, only if the kill is 100% guaranteed.
If u are scouting, and found some enemy hero, don't get way too close to him, he might be having a sentry placed near him and might be baiting u, instead, just track him and w8 ur friends, even a lonely CM might turn into a 5 man gang-bang, yes (even though she is a female).

you play into your strengths attack speed looses its niche on BH because of how jinda works. I am not saying attack speed it worthless I am saying there are better stats to go for.

@iCuP.Lance
i don't build BF on BH since i'm playing offlane bounty hunter and i often solo that lane
and build it as ganker, BF has been known as not efficient damage item compared to deadalus/MKB/Deso
it's also known as farming item

@Sampson
i usually go E->W->E->Q->Q->R like you but sometimes i let E at lv 1.
i prioritize shuriken, and keep 3rd skill to last priority

@[ESP*] Wink
aren't your build is for farming type? since it prioritise on jinada to get last hit damage.

@MapzOr`
yeah i tried orchid build on smurf, it works pretty well
i almost feel like i'm playing clinkz lol,
noted on checking sentry

but really, i don't think build is my problem anymore, it's just my gameplay
it's so much harder playing BH on my main account cause almost every round i got sentried and dust'd
so hard to scout and lingering around on enemy area
also they tend to move in group and push tower which push me to be useless and just spam track everytime
what to do in that situation?

and since i solo offlane, the enemy's carry on my lane are usually farmed (both support + carry are lv 6 when im also 6)
that regen sometimes doesn't work because their nuke sometimes INSTAGIB me but that salve+tree works everytime if
i'm not in that situation

That's were the problem is to be passed to ur semi/hard carries.
If they go 5 man dota, then ur team would need gd AoE to repel such strat, or just split push, and BH is not a gd split pusher.

if the carry and his supports hit lv 6 when you hit lv 6 you need to learn how to get into the right spots for exp

@Sampson, something called double pulling and denying..
But I would doubt that even the support would hit lvl 6 at the same moment u and his carry hit 6.

hitting 6 before the carry in pubs is fairly easy because they tend to suck. Vs a decent team you should still hit 6 before the supports easy

@Sampson & MapzOr`
was talking the other day when i went 0/10 with BH
fought ursa & bane in lane,
axe leeched my lane till lv 4 and then go to jungle
pretty much the cycle like this:
bane missed from the lane a few sec ( to get sentry from courier )
sleep -> damage -> put sentry -> OP instal kill FAGGOT hit me and i'm dead
in that time i haven't made this thread and received a lot of suggestion though

hide in the trees when supports are missing

@Yfay true that Bf isn't efficient as daedalus/mkb/deso compared by damage. but as you mention that you were solo that like to gang, perserverance as regen item is really a good one for ganking bounty hunter(health regen is sufficient to stay on lane) and battlefury extension for the damage or straight to desolator if you do well...
but i wont put bounty hunter as solo offlane because its like giving enemy safe lane a free farm(gondar countered easily from level one with sentry) and maybe its the one that making your team lose. if you want to do offlane please be paired with disabler to shut down enemy safelane.

@iCuP usually when bounty is solo offlaner is because other hero can do better in the jungle for safe farm or a trilane in safe lane.
and the point in solo offlaner bh is to get lvl 6 asap and get bonus gold for the team.

BH is not countered by a lane sentry

all you do is slowly walk invis closer and closer til you see when the supports start attacking you then you know the exact range of the sentry

I hope all the input to this topic will help my pityful BH winrate.

The problem is that you have fuck-all damage by level 6 because you've gone for a 1-2-2-1 build, when the better alternatives are 3-1-1-1 or 2-1-2-1. Shuriken is your main source of early game damage, not Jinada. The extra 25% crit damage you get from increasing Jinada's level is something like 20 extra damage, while Shurikens is 100-200-250-325. Because of the huge discrepancy between the damage of level 1 and level 2 Shuriken, you need 2 points into Shuriken before you go ganking. The damage is doubled.

Jinada is a 1 point wonder until enemy supports start surviving Shuriken toss +1, then the extra damage and lower cooldown starts to have a use.

I like the 2nd point into wind walk because good teams will have wards in funky locations and getting seen outside of stealth can ruin a gank

I usually prefer 2-1-2-1 build because you can practically be invisible all the time until you gank or run out of mana.

if the enemy wards I will try to deward asap most of the times they wont buy more wards early game because they want to keep their gold

-not read the comments-

According to the stats on your most recent games with bh it seems like you've not been very active at all, otherwise not succesful at all.
Not that stats say everything.

Just play safe and roam/give vision to your team as early at possible. (Usuallly around lvl 6 or earlier)
Also max shuriken first, you dont need more than 1 level on jinada as it scales with dmg, which is something u dont have early game.

I usually go 4-1-4 or 4-2-3 depending on the game

@Sampson
thx man, i should be more sneakier with BH

@Androgynous & [TO.] Egeenz
good info, now i will never go back to E->W->E->Q->W->R

Great, keep in mind you do this to get the burst dmg for the early ganks. If you didnt understand why you should level it like that.

Sampon op said bane slept her then dropped ward so it wasn't about finding the ward position, more about not getting initiated on.

suprised at all the players saying to max his invis last.

When i play off lane against a dual lane or tri-lane, i want at minimum two points in invis so that i can stay in lane and sap xp, as well as leave stealth for a last hit and re-enter stealth quickly after.

Honestly, i have been doing 0-4-4 recently to maximize this and just not relying on the shuriken damage. i'll get a point of shuriken for furion or others if we can't stop a TP.... but normally i just want to max my jinada stealth lane harass. The extra jinada damage ensures my farm for mid game items, and against a tri-lane I win if i simply dont die and get xp/gold.

Thoughts?

Maxing harass isnt the best strat since its impossible to harass if they have true sight, and they probably will. Your goal is to grab as much exp as possible and find kills whenever possible. Best targets are junglers and supports that are out lf the lane. But you have to bhrst them down, since every second visible means higher chances of dying. So always max shuriken first (burst + ministun) and jinada. However, having 2 levels of invi, or even 3 is nice. (delay jinada to do so)

@concede
honestly the crit from jinada isnt all the great early game when you have no dmg items. And yea maxing crit works against bad teams that do not have lane sentries but you need th shuri vs good teams when you start to rotate for the fast burst

@mark
If the support is off the lane you just need to play more cautiously. There are times you will need to stay out of exp range(do not do this that often lv 6 is the bread and butter of BH), you just need to predict what they are planning.

@sano
Early game I buy a poison orb to keep a slow up on my targets since I will not have Jinada maxed for a while. It is a cheap item and I just sell it off when I start leveling Jinada up later.