BristleHack n' Slash

Introduction

Hey y'all! I'm back with new builds in store, first introducing this build for Bristleback, who is a weird kind of tank, that possess a fair variety of sub-roles: Carry, ganker, nuker, initiator and disabler.
He shines in ganks and teamfights where he will cause huge AOE damage and after a few moments will deal tons of physical attack-damage out of nowhere, while running around like that speedy hedgehog that he is.

Lore

Never one to turn his back on a fight, Rigwarl was known for battling the biggest, meanest scrappers he could get his hands on. Christened Bristleback by the drunken crowds, he waded into backroom brawls in every road tavern between Slom and Elze, until his exploits finally caught the eye of a barkeep in need of an enforcer. For a bit of brew, Bristleback was hired to collect tabs, keep the peace, and break the occasional leg or two (or five, in the case of one unfortunate web-hund).
After indulging in a night of merriment during which bodily harm was meted out in equal parts upon both delinquent patrons and his own liver, Bristleback finally met his match. "Your tusks offend me, sir," he was heard to drunkenly slur to one particularly large fellow from the northern wastes whose bill had come due. What followed was a fight for the ages. A dozen fighters jumped in. No stool was left unbroken, and in the end, the impossible happened: the tab went unpaid. Over the weeks that followed, Bristleback's wounds healed, and his quills grew back; but an enforcer's honor can be a prickly thing. He paid the tab from his own coin, vowing to track down this northerner and extract redemption. And then he did something he'd never done before--he actually trained, and in so doing made a startling discovery about himself. A smile peeled back from his teeth as he flexed his quills. Turning his back to a fight might be just the thing.

Plz-nerfz and Needz-buffz

Plz-nerfz

Needz-buffz

Great base-damage He is so smart (intelligence gain 2.8!) Begins to shine pretty early, and scales even better Damage taken from his back is nearly wasted (40% reduction) Very adaptive in both item builds and where he is able to lane Hits very hard, even without items Makes melee auto-attackers cry Speedy like Sonic Riki WILL cry :D

Horrible strength-gain compared to other tanks Feeds wand/stick charges like no other, seriously Both silences and stuns f***s you more up than they should Pretty easy to gank and kill before level 6

Skillset

Viscous Nasal Goo

Type: Targets:

Active Enemy Units

Covers a target in snot, causing it to have reduced armor and movement speed. Multiple casts stack and refresh the duration. Stack a maximum of 4 times.

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Disgusting ability, but nonetheless it will **** up the opponent, and it got many different uses in different stages og the game:
1. It can be used to help your lane supporter to harass the f*** out of the enemy carry.
2. It can be used to make the melee opponent miss lasthits.
3. It can be used to initiate/cooperate in ganks.
4. It can be used to escape from a dangerous opponent.
5. Punish opponents for being caught between creeps :)
6. Makes chasing very easy.

Works well with armor reduction strategies.

Quill Spray

Type: Targets:

No Targets

Sprays enemy units with quills dealing damage in an area of effect around Bristleback. Deals bonus damage for every time a unit was hit by Quill Spray in the last 10 seconds. Maximum bonus-damage caps at 400.

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With this Bristleback will deal huge AOE damage in teamfights, and it is mainly why he is viewed as a tank; the longer he survives, the damage he will deal, even proportionally due to it stacks!.
This is some of the things you can do with it:
1. Make skilled lasthits.
2. Deal loads of damage even if you have chased your foe into the fog of war.
3. Get all the last-hits on both heroes and creeps in teamfights.
4. Make the enemy team to focus you down first, which will punish them due to Bristlebacks third ability.

Bristleback

Type: Targets:

Passive N/A

Bristleback takes less damage if hit on the sides or rear. If Bristleback takes 250 damage from the rear, he releases a Quill Spray of the current level.

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Blocks an insane amount of damage from behind, ABUSE IT.
Try to bait with it, take the example of Lion's ultimate Finger of Death, and you are on semi-low health, you can try to bait it and bam, the enemy team have lost an important nuke and you have done your job as a tank and soaked up damage, double the win.

Warpath

Type: Targets:

Passive N/A

Bristleback works himself up into a fury every time he casts a spell, increasing his movement speed and damage. The first stack (base) provides larger bonuses. Stacks up to 5 times.

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This ability makes you hit so hard. How hard you ask? Well 150 damage at max stacks, which are EASY to keep up, due to the spammability of your spells and your very high intelligence gain.
This ability obviously also states that you have: High damage.
So the only real stuff Bristleback needs is attackspeed when you focus at DPS, which this build clearly does.

Laning and item reasoning

Now we get into the thick of things. When you start the game, you should buy 2xGG-branches + 2x Gauntlets of Strength + Healing Salve + Tango.

With this build you will have tons of health, fantastic base damage and all the sustain you need. You should preferably go in a sidelane with a support. Always make room for the safe lane, if there is a harder carry who is less survivable than you.
You can go mid, but it will be quite passive until you have gained a few levels and you should probably remove a Gauntlets of Strength from the starting purchases since you usually want your bottle rather quickly.
Now you should just farm your roaming gear up. Bristleback can play rather aggressively in this phase, but if your opponents are smart they will just buy a Magic Stick, beware that you don't feed their stick with charges otherwise they will just have infinite mana and health, which is kinda sad for you. Which brings us to...

Your arch-nemesis

This item screws you over during the laning-phase and this cannot be stressed enough. Check your enemies inventory, if they have this item or its underdog Magic Stick, you better stop spamming your spells and only use them if it is a guaranteed kill. Smart players might even bait you so that you chase them under their tower, and BAM lots of health and mana and they burst/stun you down...

Continuing the game

Now you should wander around and try to get kills, slowing your foes with Orb of Venom and Viscous Nasal Goo, while chasing them with Warpath, and bursting them down with Quill Spray, should be able to do the job, with your strong slow even teammates can catch up and play more aggressively. And when the towers has been dived and the kill been gained it is a good thing that you got the Urn of Shadows to heal both you and your teammates up, while also giving you an optional DOT damage if needed. And if you wander why Ring of Basilius is not in this build it is because it losses its effectiveness way too quickly due to Bristleback's high intelligence gain, and if you are going to get Urn of Shadows, you might as well rush it to make most out of it.
You should immediately try to get your Eye of Skadi up as quickly as possible. If you can't gank anybody, just find a lane to farm in, use Quill Spray to get lasthits, help your team take down towers etc.
Finally when your Eye of Skadi is up, your team should probably head for Roshan, since he will die rather easily due to the Slow and armor reduction from Eye of Skadi and Viscous Nasal Goo. The most important hero takes Aegis of the Immortal and you should start building into Satanic, starting with Reaver.

Why Skadi and Satanic?

You see, Eye of Skadi offers everything you need: Mana, health and attack-speed and an BKB-penetrating slow, that synchronizes extremely well with Satanic. You see Bristleback is extremely hard-hitting due to his ultimate and combined with Eye of Skadi your opponent have no other choice than getting bashed by your mighty autoattacks and their fed hard-carry can get slowed to the extreme in both movement and attack-speed, even if they think they have played "smart" and bought Black King Bar. And for the Satanic, if we compare it to other tanking alternatives:

Good buildup, but not very effective mid-late game. And the extreme regen you gain from it will become overly redundant.

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Very protective against nukers, not a very good buildup and should only be taken if you are expected to tank early and/while nukers have too much dominance.
It delays the carry part of Bristleback which I personally think makes it a waste.

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Great if you can get it early, gank n´ tank like no other. Tower dive like that annoying hedgehog you are. But on the other hand, if you could get good farm early, I would rather go for Radiance. Denied

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The ultimate tanking item, and that is totally true, but the sad part is that you have to leave teamfights when you get low on health and thus miss out on all of your stacks of both Quill Spray and Viscous Nasal Goo. And since Bristleback is so hardhitting the only most fitting tanking item for him is:

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You guessed it! This item synchronizes extremely well with Eye of Skadi, no one should deny your chance of getting the 200% Lifesteal out of it. The manual for this item is pretty simple:
1. You fights
2. You get low on health
3. You fear that you are going to die? If NO go to 4, if YES go to 5
4. Keep Bashing
5. Activate Satanic

Simple right?

With Satanic you will pretty much have a second life, even without Aegis of the Immortal!

Mid-late game

When your Satanic is done, a whole world of possibilities opens.


With your Satanic suddenly DPS = Survivability. So investments in DPS is a well advice.
Let us get through 'em shall we?:

Nukers can you deal with, but disablers annoy you throughout the game, let us give em a bashing!

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Lots of squishies? Time to one-hit'em all

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Need DPS as well as tankability? Here you go. Can't get killed by fountain or any autoattacker (espicially combined with Eye of Skadi slow).

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This does not give as much DPS and survivability as Butterfly, but surely better in an armor reduction strategy, as well as a pushing strategy.

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Only very situational since you already is very BKB-annoying and very anti-carry.
You can also just settle yourself with its underdog Skull Basher

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Sometimes nothing can stop you. Why not abuse that?

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At this point of the game, you should be in the front tanking tons of s*** and remember to turn your back at the right moments. Snot over everybody you see, create havoc, make their escapes and autoattacks useless, stack your Quills and make sure nobody gets away alive. You can do that now, you are Bristleback, make them cry tears and snot, at the very least, cover them in the ladder.

Friends

Aside from the usual disabler, Bristleback is very happy to have a good slower in his lane, since it usually stacks with his own, for an easy early kill:
Windrunner

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These people tend to fall in love with Bristleback due to his powerful disabling slows and armor reduction he provides:

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This can make up for a very high physical damage strategy, and it works every time ;D

Foes

Ahh, these guys are on everybody's love 'n hate lists, they will try to stun you while you face them, and then you are usually not that tanky:

And these type of guys are pretty much the only real bad guys you will encounter. But they will annoy you. Fo' sho.

Outtro

Thank you for reading this guide on Bristleback, I accept constructive criticism and a shoutout goes out to those who make an effort for bettering the Dota community, GJ guys.
Hope you like the guide and please give feedback on anything, whetever it be layout or guide, it will not go unappreciated.