Riki: The Ultimate Assassin

Introduction

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Riki is one of the best gankers in the game. His skills are way OP, especially his ultimate skill - when maxed you become invisible after 1 second. Because Riki is always invisible, the opposite team will have to waste money on Gems of True Sight, wards or dust of appearance, which means that you will have an advantage in gold.

Riki is one of my favourite heroes and that's why I decided to publish my own Riki guide.
My best k/d/a ratio was 42/2/2, and that was when 3 of my team mates left the game, I still managed to win with my remaining team mate. The build I used was similar if not identical to the one shown above.

Pros / Cons

Pros:

• Good Ganker
• Great Escape Mechanism
• Can spy on enemies
• Fun to Play
• Makes the enemy team waste tons of Gold

Cons:

• Very Squishy
• Not every useful Early Game (usually)
• Can be easily Ganked early game
• Addicting
• Causes Enemy team to rage

Items

For the starting order I have only picked the Poor Man's Shield as not only does it always block 20 damage from enemy heroes but it adds 6 agility (6 agility = +6 dmg and +6 attack speed and +0.9 armor).

Next I usually buy Power Treads as they add +55 movement speed, +8 of the selected attribute(always pick agility) and +30 attack speed.

Then I buy the Yasha, to further increase my movement speed and agility. Then to complete Sange and Yasha, I buy Sange.

Crystalys will help you to get lots of crits on the enemy, if you're lucky you can even get a crit on the Blink Strike.

Desolator will give you a bonus of 60 damage and on top of that you will reduce your victim's armor by 6 for a long duration.

Butterfly is one of the best (any my favourite) items in the game, it adds 60 damage, 60 attack speed, %35 evasion AND around 4 armor.

Skills

's Skills

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Skills

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You want to max out your Blink Strike as soon as possible, this is your second best skill after permanent invisibility, this skill will get you tons of kills and combined with Smoke Screen the enemy will have no chance of survival.

Anyway, here is a summary of all the skills:


Smoke Screen
CASTING METHOD: ACTIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: AREA
ALLOWED TARGETS: ENEMY UNIT
Throws down a smoke bomb, silencing and slowing enemy units in an area while causing them to miss on most attacks. Lasts 6 seconds.
Range: 425
Radius: 250 / 275 / 300 / 325
Duration: 6
Miss Chance: 40% / 50% / 60% / 70%
Attack and Movement Speed Slow: 25%
Mana Cost: 75 / 80 / 85 / 90
Cooldown Time: 13

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Blink Strike
CASTING METHOD: ACTIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: UNIT
ALLOWED TARGETS: ANY TARGET
Teleports behind the target unit, striking for bonus damage if it is an enemy.
Range: 750
Bonus Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown Time: 20 / 15 / 10 / 5

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Backstab
Backstab
CASTING METHOD: PASSIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: UNIT
ALLOWED TARGETS: ENEMY UNITS
If Riki attacks from behind, bonus damage is applied based on his current agility.
Damage Bonus: 0.5 / 0.75 / 1.0 / 1.25 Agility
NO COOLDOWN

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Permanent Invisibility
Permanent Invisibility

CASTING METHOD: PASSIVE
TARGETTING METHOD: PERMANENT
ALLOWED TARGETS: SELF
Riki fades into the shadows, staying permanently invisible except while attacking or using abilities. While silenced, Riki will be visible.
Fade Time: 3 / 2 / 1

Jungling

Jungling

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When jungling you want to first use your Smoke Screen which will make the monsters miss a lot (depending on your skill level) and if they have a stun skill, Smoke Screen will silence it.

Jungling can get you the extra gold or exp you need to get your next skill or item.

Working as a team

Let's do this Team!!

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Riki is great in team fights, he will finish off the enemies that are trying to escape or just use Smoke Screen to help your team defeat multiple enemies.

Heroes that stun or that can trap an enemy will definitely help you out.
These are some examples:
Sven
Nature's Prophet
Slardar
Skeleton King
Mirana

Ranked Play

Riki is great in Team VS Team matches, because of his usefulness in team fights. During the mid-game or late game section of the match he will become powerful enough to take down almost any enemy he encounters, making him THE ULTIMATE ASSASSIN.

Therefore, if no-one on your team is going to use Riki then make sure to ban him, before the opposite team picks him.

Summary

Overall, Riki is one of the best heroes in the game and using this guide you can achieve almost anything. When you max Riki's skills you will be able to defeat enemies like Pudge by YOURSELF - yes, without anyone's help!

I hope that this guide has helped you out and please leave some feedback, if you liked it then why not give it a positive vote or +rep me.

I will try to make more guides in the future.

Riki's Best Friends, Victims & Enemies

One of Riki's best friends include:
Lifestealer, because Lifestealer can hide inside riki and then they can both damage/kill the enemy efficiently.

Some of his victims (heroes he can easily kill) include:
Lifestealer
Alchemist
Anti-Mage


So basically, here's some heroes that I know he's not good against:
Broodmother
Bristleback
Bounty Hunter