Bloodthirster

Intro:

GRAR! This is a demon who wants blood!

Actually, I don't know what to put for this section. Bloodthirster is a fun Str hero who requires a little bit of getting used to due to his low mana and mana degen. However, despite these, he is incredibly good. Two of his skills give him mana per unit hit, and one allows him to regain life for each killed unit while also giving an attack boost and huge cleave. On top of this, he is very resistant to spells and attacks, and is generally just a huge badass.


General Playstyle:

Despite being a Str hero, charging in is usually not the best option for him. Also against common sense, Bloodthirster performs better the more he is outnumbered. When you see an enemy hero surrounded by creeps, that is the moment to strike. The reason for this is that his jump and Melee AoE skill give mana based on how many units they hit. Due to this, jumping onto a sole hero is often not as useful as jumping onto a hero accompanied by waves of creeps.

Notice how I keep talking about the jump? Well, against just creeps, walking up and smacking them in the mouth is just fine, but as soon as a hero shows up, you have to start being on your guard. Hang back a bit, and have your jump ready. Wait for the right moment, then pounce and proceed to dismember the poor sap who dares challenge you. Remember, if there are nearby creeps still alive after the jump, the AoE, or, if you have enough mana for it, the ultimate, are great things to use right after a jump into such situations. The ultimate for healing and damage purposes, the AoE for damage and more mana. Hell, sometimes you can even pull off all 3!

Leveling skills and skill usage:

In general you want to level your jump as fast as possible. The way you level the rest depends on the situation. I suggest having at least 1 level in each skill by level 5 (1 in his AoE, 3 in his jump, and 1 in his passive). If you are against a caster heavy team, or someone getting the feedback item, you may want to level your passive more. If you're against a Str hero or Grandmaster, you probably want to level your innate moreso than the passive or AoE.
Otherwise, the AoE isn't bad for lane pushing, regaining mana, and general damage. That being said, while I would get one level of it at level 2, I suggest leveling your innate before putting more points into this skill.


As for the usage of these skills, as explained above, most of the time, your skills will be used following a jump, mana permitting. Otherwise, use common logic. If you're surrounded, use your AoE, if you have full mana, need HP, and are fighting waves of creeps and hero(es), then hit your ulti. If you see something moving at any time, at least ponder using your jump.
And when in doubt... jump something.


Items:

This guy benefits from standard Str hero items (Bionics, Terminator armor, Big Choppa or Sword of Secrets), though the agi armor can be useful, and Combat Drugs are amazing on him, and a definite must get for late game. In general, this hero can completely disregard int items, unless you really want mana burn. If the other team is really caster heavy, you may consider getting an iron halo, though this hero needs it a lot less than most, especially after getting the terminator armor.


Heroes who compliment him:

Librarian: Mhmmm... Stuns mean you get to hit them more, meaning more mana/attack speed bonus. His buff is also awesome, and his ulti is a stun and a debuff, so it compliments you even more. This duo is also very likely to piss off casters. Member of the Space Marines, Chaos' greatest enemy, or not, this guy helps you out a lot!

Lord of Change: Did somebody say more stuns?

Big Mek: If you've ever played Bloodthirster, there has to have been a time when you stumbled upon a Focus rune, and your heart leapt, knowing just how beastly you were about to become. Well, Big Mek can do that to you almost permanently (I think... never actually tried it.). On top of that, the buff bestowed by his ulti is what we consider awesome. He also has a team TP skill, but it's not the most reliable move ever... You're better off having him toss you. Still, none of this matters when you realize you can have mana... near limitless pools of mana! On Bloodthirster!

Far Seer: Bonus armor, Bonus attack speed (for more mana!), a slow, and a move that makes them take more damage. What more do you need? Oh, yeah, the Armageddon spell of doom +4!

Warphead: Warpath feels like a brutal blood orgy to the Bloodthirster. The only downside is that it eventually ends. Oh, and 'Ere We Go! helps Bloodthirster with his problems catching runners.

Grey Knight: Despite being one of his more feared enemies, Grandmaster of the Grey Knights makes a great teammate. When he and the Bloodthirster get together, they can give casters a really tough time, and they make a great pushing team to boot.



Heroes who give him a hard time:

Grey Knight/GrandMaster: You already have low max mana, and a innate mana loss, and his aura definitely doesn't help your cause. It is but the beginning of your problems though. Sure, his ulti won't have as bad of an effect since 60% of your max mana is only 60, but it will almost always do full damage because, between his other moves, you quite simply shouldn't have much mana. This will be a problem, for unless you leveled up your innate a lot, he will, with his skills and attacks, stack damage on you faster than you can on him. As a result, you always want to approach him by jumping at him, preferably when he is surrounded by enemy creeps to regain mana. Hopefully, you can even get enough mana back to use your ulti, and the cleave should allow you to kill off his creeps, healing you, while focus firing on him.
When faced with Grandmaster though, try to bring in backup, and failing that, play a careful game of cat and mouse. Don't attack him if he isn't in a position that benefits you, and don't try to chase him unless you're sure you'll get him.

Necron Lord: This guy can be a real bitch. We have an innate that allows us to gain insane attack speed the more we hit, and regain mana on each attack. He has a skill that causes any attacks on him or his allies to deal up to 8% of the attackers max life back to the attacker. In other words, it kind of rapes us. On top of this, his blind is a pain, and I'm not sure, but he may well be able to gaze of flames us out of our jump (KoS can hook us out of it after all.)

Big Mek: While he doesn't present a direct threat to you, he can make it so you never have mana, making life a pain for you. On top of that, he is a great support hero, and can really make your life annoying. His damage output is pretty good as well, so beware around him, especially since you'll never have enough mana around him for a jump, but he'll always have mana, and thus be able to TP chase you or run away from you. By late-game though, the mana drain shall be the only problem he gives, though it is a fairly big one.




That's all I got for now. May throw in more a bit later.

I have tried Type-4-Dragons Item build and its amazing on this guy 2 marks of krone, terminator armor, Swords of Secret ,Huge Choppa, and wings
OH and by the way you did an amazing job with this it looks great its impressive

im impressed

The way I played it this afternoon, and dominated by late game (granted this was 2v2, but my opponents were good and since it was Grey Knight and Far Seer, they completely shut down my somewhat newbish Zoe partner.), was with (in order) jet pack, bionics, spiky bits, terminator armor, combat drugs, iron halo (Get that Far Seer shit away! Magic resists gogogo!), sword of secrets, and Khorne Chain Axe.

By the end, I was almost literally unstoppable due to the insane IAS and life drain, not to mention my ulti pretty much was a free "refill HP" button by that point.

That being said, Mark of Khorne is a good idea for him too, especially in the early game, though I suggest trading it in for combat drugs, spiky bits, or a Khorne chainsaw Axe later in the game.



But yeah... I actually saved the replay because after that game, I seriously think his innate may need it's IAS gain nerfed a bit.

his ias and ms from fury was nerfed this version btw
(100 => 75% max ias, and 34 => 25% ms i think)

Yup saw that. Haven't tried it yet, but it looks good.
I mean, his IAS will still be scary good with the right items, but shouldn't be overpoweringly so.

yeah, and it was really the insane ms that was a problem XD

Yeah it was, but the IAS was too high too. With the items I've mentioned, against other good heroes (Far Seer and Grey Knight), both of whom had been outfitted as best they could in their opinion, by the end of the game, they could not hurt me, since my IAS and lifesteal allowed me to regain life faster than they dealt damage. The very little damage I was keeping, mainly from spells, I could shrug off with a single use of my ulti.

lmao, well neither of those two heroes are particularirly good dps heroes... so i can see how u dominated them

go up against surment/kharn/karandras, then see how u fare

Uhhh, Bloodthirster < Lucius/Karandras, especially Lucius. You know why, but I'll explain..

Let's see. -40% damage reduction slaps lifesteal in the face from lash of torment.. Additionally, with his shield, he can further resist 40% of damage, which means that's 40% of your damage that's not giving you lifesteal. It's pretty bad for melee dps heroes against a fed lucius. oo

Karandras is just going to come up from behind while invis and do have your health in damage before you can respond, all the meanwhile increasing his damage + ias with every hit.

I personally don't like the cooldown on sword of asur, though. Is it such that it can only trigger every 10 seconds, because that's counterproductive against things like the Bloodthirster, who hop into your melee range and rape you in 10 seconds?

Asurmen's skills have great synergy, but I'd like to see an Asurmen vs Bloodthirster fight.

umm, for the record, the 40% reduction doesnt reduce liefsteal, because its a triggered heal... but yeah, good point

and sword doesnt have cooldown, the jump on sword does he can crit however many times he wants XD

I tried. Wait, which 40% reduction? The lash or the shield?

oh, shield lash is just a cripple

Heh, that's what I thought.

True. Not saying he's invinc, but yeah... they still couldn't scratch me, at equal or higher levels, and equally good items. Considering how much damage Far Seer can deal with her ulti, life drain, and +25% damage taken, that was still kinda bad. That being said, you guys are right.

But uhhh.... weren't 2 of the 3 heroes you mentioned (Karandras and Asurmen) blatantly OPed in the last version... you know, when this was written? :laugh:

lmao XD asurmen hasnt been nerfed yet and karandras got the shaft in two skills XD

Uhm, Lucius would like to have a polite word with you. He wants a contest about it, too

Lucius with:

Combat Drugs
Raven's Talons
Implant Attack
Autarch Armor (Is that what it is? The invincible one)
Force Weapon
Emperor's Standard

That'll give him around 250 damage per attack. Opening with his ult gives him 8 free attacks without reprisal, so that's around 1600 total damage. And then he hits with a cooldown of 0.4 seconds, while the effectiveness of your lifesteal is cut by 40%. All the meanwhile, he's burning your mana away, so i don't know how many spells you'll be able to get off. And if you do trigger your spells, he can bubble-shield and resist 40% of your damage for 10 seconds, so you either run away and not attack him or attack him and get a 1k nuke back at the end of 10 seconds.

Although the reduced life steal worries me, he'd a worthy match.

should i warn you that u have 3 orbs? andonly lifesteal wold work there?

Well, not at all in my oversight, would that do.

*slightly dislikes the removal of lifesteal from Raven's Talons, but understands it's for balance*

Remove Force Weapon, Implant Attack, and Raven's Talons, replace it with Sword of Secrets, and two random other things. Or keep Raven's Talons and stack Agi.

lol yeah, its for the best XD
and i like the name bubbleshield

Hmmm... best way to counter this: Rape Lucius over and over during the first 15 minutes when he has jackshit for HP

Glycine wrote:Uhm, Lucius would like to have a polite word with you. He wants a contest about it, too

Lucius with:

Combat Drugs
Raven's Talons
Implant Attack
Autarch Armor (Is that what it is? The invincible one)
Force Weapon
Emperor's Standard

That'll give him around 250 damage per attack. Opening with his ult gives him 8 free attacks without reprisal, so that's around 1600 total damage. And then he hits with a cooldown of 0.4 seconds, while the effectiveness of your lifesteal is cut by 40%. All the meanwhile, he's burning your mana away, so i don't know how many spells you'll be able to get off. And if you do trigger your spells, he can bubble-shield and resist 40% of your damage for 10 seconds, so you either run away and not attack him or attack him and get a 1k nuke back at the end of 10 seconds.

Although the reduced life steal worries me, he'd a worthy match.

The Bloodthirster, without his ult, with the right items, hits for about 300 dmg per attack. without his ultimate, and has something like 50% damage resistance, as well as as much if not more than 4k HP. Basically, the whole fight would be decided by how much mana the Bloodthirster has at the start, what level of Fury he has stacked, and how many creeps Lucius is standing near. If you're standing in the middle of an army, and the Bloodthirster has full mana, he -WILL- fuck you up, no matter what hero you are and what items you have.

Heh, yeah, that ult is rape.

I've been in a 1v1 with I think it was Grey Knight, and a Far Seer was firing from behind. I turn on my ult, and the huge cleave killed the Far Seer before the Grey Knight, whom I was actively attacking.

That's the thing, though. Bloodthirster is very easy to wear down when there aren't mobs for him to feed off of.

In a pure 1 on 1 situation, like an gank or a chase, he's an excellent hero nevertheless, but as noted, he needs the pieces to fit in the right spot to rape. Fortunately for him, those pieces come quite often, but not in all situations.