Dr. Clinker?

Introduction

This is a guide to Tinker. I'll try to give a simple guide based on how I learned to play tinker by experience and by watching other players such as Playmate and EG.Misery(for pubs ofcourse). I never made a guide before, nor have I been on this site for long so forgive me if my guide lacks polish. Also, I'm admittingly not a dota veteran, so forgive me if my jargon is off as I come from a different genre of competitive games.

About Tinker

Tinker is a Hero very dependent on his nukes and spells for damage and farming. Tinker is a very squishy hero, and must depend on his items in order to avoid damage since he lacks any natural escape. He also is a very mana hungry character and his spells not only have a high cost, but long cooldowns without rearm. He requires both good map awareness to better utilize boots of travel, as well as have good micro for the plethora of active ability items he can use as well as trying to avoid CC and nukes with his good foot speed or items.

Pros and Connies

Cause why not?

+Very powerful ganker early game, with powerful and long range nukes
+Can make the most out of active ability items
+Fast and super mobile with BoT
+Great pusher and farmer mid game
+Great counter pusher/defender

-Squishy
-Extremely mana hungry
-Very dependent on BoT
-CC/Silence kills you

Items

When it comes to items, tinker is rather straightforward. Boots, boots, boots. Get those boots of travel, they are extremely important to tinker, pretty much a necessity. Your goal is too always get boots by mid game at the latest. I'll explain why below.

Start

First, start out with 2 mantle's, a tango, healing salve, and 2 iron branches. The mantles are there to help his mana pool and regen early on so you can better harass with lasers.

Early

andare important when your going to start ganking. Get those runes, additional sustain, and boots help you get to the lane obviously. If your team is doing good and your getting early ganks while your dominating mid lane, you can rush straight to BoT. Generally speaking though, you should get a bottle the overwhelming majority of the time as a bottle will help out later in the game as well.

Core

At this point, after a few ganks, you should be able to get boots of travel
There is no question, you're getting boots. They help offset tinkers extremely hungry abilities by giving you constant mana refills. They also allow you to be a very good farmer, pusher mid and late game, and give excellent map control with rearm so that you could also defend towers and join teeamfights in a moments notice. oh, and lastly they also give tinker some good movement speed for his squishy *** which is welcome to dance out of range of enemy CC and to run away for a quick tp. Soul ring gives tinker both passive and burst mana regen which is important for tinker, and can be constantly be used and somewhat recycled with rearm. Null talismans give tinker some nice stats for those mantle's, however lately I find myself just skipping talismans and rushing to shiva's. You can get them if you think you need it. Generally speaking though, I think you can usually skip over them.

Late

Finally, when it gets to late game, getting a Shiva's and Scythe of Vice seem to be the most popular items on tinker, and I agree. I generally get shiva's first for the extra armor, the great slow AOE, and it's cheaper. Also, Shiva can further help your already insane pushing and farming power. Next comes scythe. Speaking of why to get Scythe, it provides good stat boots, crucial mana regen, and ofcourse a disable which tinker lacks. Due to re-arm, he can hex continually, making it a very scary item on tinker. I'd like to see someone run away from a tinker with a-lot of mana and a scythe. Hex, Laser, rockets, re-arm, Hex...oh the fun. You can get Scythe before Shiva's although I strongly advise getting shiva's first, and NEVER skip it.

Luxury/Situational

And...if it's still going manta style gives even more stats, and gives the illusion ability for more damage for tower pushes, team fights, and to confuse the enemy and making sure they don't CC the real tinker. I see linken's as another decent choice on tinker, for defensive purposes, the mana regen is always handy for our mana hungry friend. Most importantly the spell block to make sure tinker doesn't get any CC on him.
Force staff is another mobility item I see on tinker sometimes. If you were to get one of these, i'd get it not too long after boots. Force staff as some decent stats on it, and isn't too expensive considering how tinker is a farming machine later game. The main reason to get it is the push ability for juking, and saving your squishy butt from ganks when you're pushing. Just push yourself deep into the tree line and TP the hell out of there. It can be a good investment if they enemy team is gunning for you and you know there coordinating ganks. It will also help positioning in teamfights and keep you away from tinker killing threats, be able to pull in runners and move teamates away from threats, and thanks to rearm, will be able to use every nuke cycle. It will delay your shiva's though but then again, so will getting ganked. As far as defensive mobility items go, this in my opinion is by far the best one on tinker for it's cost and it has good synergy with rearm.

Eye of Skadi and dagon are also some decent final items. Eye of Skadi gives you some good stats and a slow for chasing without having to use Hex. Dagon can give you some much needed added bursting power late into the game.
Ethreal Blade is one last item I've seen on tinker that I can see working, albeit rarely. It can save you from physical attacks carries like Lifestealer. It can also act like a mini disable much like pugna's as well as amplify your magic damage(which you have a lot of.) The stats aren't great, and it's quite costly, so it's VERY situational.

Items to avoid

I know the game recommends this, but valve is just trolling new tinker players. Why not? Firstly, it is not affected by rearm, and it takes the slots of other items that tinker can make the most out of. Secondly, your not some auto attack carry or in your face strength hero. Your damage comes in bursts and from a range. BKB isn't worth it because you don't deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time in range of CC which BKB is good for. You shouldn't be rearming in the middle of a big teamfight, and if you were to use BKB for that purpose, it would only help you for so many rearms. There are better anti-cc items for tinker's playstyle. Lastly, the stats aren't good at all for tinker for the price. Don't get this.

Sometimes I see blink, but it provides no stats, cannot be used if you get hit even by an auto attack for three seconds, and you already have plenty of mobility with BoT that you don't need to be blinking everywhere. Personally I don't see this as a worthy investment on tinker. Force staff can affect teammates as well as enemies, gives better stats, costs less mana per use, and is not put on cooldown by attacks. Oh, and they cost nearly the same. I think as far as saving yourself from ganks and tinker killers, force staff is better. Leave blink for the initiators.
I have seen many tinkers get this before boots of Travel or shortly after, and I would heavily advise against this. Firstly, and item that costs this much should never come before boots, which opens up your farming potential. Secondly, i'd have to say that the Soul Ring is a MUCH cheaper and more effective mana sustain, with an active that works well with rearm and gives tinker burst mana regen which I feel he needs often. You'll also have bottle and a tp back to base. The HP regen isn't needed on tinker because again, the idea with playing tinker is to not get hit. Any HP regen needed should be taken care of by TP'ing back to base or using a bottle. If you do get hit with tinker, no amount of HP regen will save you anyway.

Skills and order

All of tinker's abilities are good in one way or another. They also costs a ****ton of mana, so they aren't spammable, and doing so will leave you with nothing. Make sure to use tinker's spells when they count, even when you have boots. Personally, I feel tinker's skill point timings are based of when you get certain items, rather than a set in stone order. Still, his first two skills should always be maxed out first.

Laser

Fisrt and formost, max out laser. This is an excellent nuke, and very strong early game. Of the two nukes, laser costs less mana, has a much lesser cooldown(you won't have rearm early game), ignores magic resistance(counts as Pure), and blinds/disarms the targets physical attacks for three seconds. This is your primary source of damage, and a good one at that. It has one weakness, you need to get close to someone to use it, usually close enough for them to hit you back. This can mean you trade nukes or get stunned, which neither of those are good.

Heat Seeking Missile

Want to Seek that heat?(No, I'm not alluding to THAT) Then this is the skill for you. This is tinker's second nuke and one with the most versatility and should be maxed out a close second. Like laser, rocket's do a lot of damage, especially early game. They also have insane range, and lock on to not one, but the two closet heroes automatically(they have to be in vision though, if only one is in range, one rocket will be fired). They are quick to fire, so you can shoot these on the move with only a small animation. They are great for poking and pushing back heroes from lanes getting close to your tower, you can just spam them from afar when you're late for a teamfight or finishing off heroes. While they are damn good, they have their weaknesses. They costs more mana than laser, while not doing quite as much damage. They also have a much longer cooldown, and can be shaken off by blink, going ethreal, or by going invisible and can be done on reaction easily. Lastly, if you fire rockets out of range, the mana and cooldown are wasted. As such try to maximize your rockets and there chance of hitting by trying to get two heroes in range and that don't have one of those missile breakers or have already used it.

March of the Machines

March of the machines is tinker's primary source of farm and pushing power. Mid-game, re-arm and MotM become a monster farming tool, allowing you to get the last hit on every single damn creep in that wave almost every time. Early game, you don't have the mana to sustain this and would better used on your nukes for ganking, and at early levels, and without rearm, it won't get as many last-hits as you'd like it too. Further more, your not going to want to push your lane which MoTM will do. Max this out after the nukes and when you have at least one point in re-arm. Some other things you should know that it damages magic immune units, and can be surprisingly effective in team fights when placed at the right time in the right place. Can also deal with those pesky invisibles (*cough* SK *Cough*). I'd also like to mention that this skill is proabbly one of the better counter pushing skills, as it's huge AOE, decent damage and ability to hit any unit makes its very hard for teams to push with a tinker that is supported as it gets rid of both creeps waves and deals very good damage to heroes that linger. No team wants to fight under a tower with no creep support and in MoTM's AOE.
Rearm

Initializing in 3...2....1..
This is tinkers most unique and powerful spell. Rearm resets the cooldowns on all of tinker's items and ability cooldowns at the cost of mana and a channel time. Essentially, a refresher orb without the cooldown. This allows tinker to get a lot from active ability items more than most heroes. This combined with boots make tinker mobile, and offsets his mana hungry weakness. However, on that same note, rearm comes with a cost. It is 150/250/350 mana to use at all levels. There is no point in using rearm, when after the spell, you have no mana to use left anyway. At level 6, you cannot afford to use this whatsoever, you simply don't have the mana pool. As such, don't get a point into rearm til at least level 9. You should have one point into rearm before you get boots of travel, so use that as a sign of when to put a point into it. After boots, and later levels when tinker has more mana and sustain, rearm because a very useful tool in just about everything tinker does. From dealing damage, to pushing, to mobility...etc. One level in rearm will last you quite a while, you can get level 2 after shiva's, or just wait until after Scythe to max it out. You should have level 2 by Scythe at least. You should have the mana pool and mana regen to afford an extra hundred mana. Now that your in late game you'l need to dish out damage as fast as you can, and a 3 second rearm will not be kind to you this late.

Just note, rearm uses mana when activated, but the cooldown reset doesn't occur until AFTER the channel time. DO NOT PRESS BUTTONS during rearm, or kiss that mana bye bye. You can use shift up commands without breaking the channel.

Rearm doesn't affect all items, Black King Bar, Necromonicon, Arcane Boots, Helm of the Dominator, Hand of Midas....or Refresher Orb are all not affected by rearm. So no, you can't have infinite magic immunity.

Stats

Not a skill, but important to mention nonetheless. While getting stats on tinker isn't super important, neither is maxing out rearm. As such, After you finish maxing his three skills and have one point into rearm, you'll always be pouring points into his stats. It not so much of a question when to, it's when NOT too. After MotM is maxed, generally you'll be getting stats until you at least get shiva's. Then you can get one more point in rearm as said above. You can still keep going stats even when you get shiva's, but after you get Scythe, you should give the priority to rearm.

Playing Tinker

Laning Phase

With tinker pick up your items, and then go solo mid. This is usually deemed optimal for tinker as he is a good solo hero and can harass the hell out of the enemy hero. He also really needs the levels and farm early. The gameplan is to get Boots of Travel asap. Tinker's Auto attack isn't the best, but you have to make do, so practice last hitting and try to keep your lane back. Don't attack unless your going for a last hit. Don't be afraid to use laser once in a while, but keep an eye on your mana. Don't just laser every 30 seconds. Try to widdle them down and them when your laser level is high enough, try to finish them off with a laser, rocket combo. Don't forget about those runes, they can help you further control your lane.

Ganking Phase

Once you got enough money for boots and a bottle, this is when you start ganking. Get those runes, and see which lanes need a gank. Your laser and rockets are extremely powerful during this phase and should be maxed out, or close to it. Have your laner initiate, and then hit them with a laser rocket combo. Laser who you know you can kill, then the rocket them. The other enemy (assuming it's a 2 lane) will probably be scared away by your other rocket and perhaps even ganked by one of your teammates if you got the stuns. Remember, your squishy as hell, so be careful even when ganking, lest it be turned around on you.

Also, don't assume they know your coming, always call out when your going to gank with a simple "omw bot/top". Perhaps a little ping if your into that sort of thing.

Early/Mid Game

Now you should definitely have your boots by now, if not earlier. Now you farm, farm, farm. Use rearm and BoT to teleport to the front of some juicy creep waves and cast March of the Machines. Generally, you'll want to rearm and then cast it again for double the damage and pretty much guarantee'd gold on every creep in that wave.

You'll also be responsible for defending towers that are being pushed like say by prophet or chen, do a little pushing yourself, as well as trying to be a part of group fights as much as possible, and boots helps you out with this immensely. Early game your team is going to need your nuking capability, so show up or be square.

Remember to not just TP anywhere nilly willy, especially when your in their side of the map and they are MIA. You are very gankable so plan your every tp and be prepared run and juke. If your really nervous about being ganked, a force staff as this point can be a wise investment.

Also, don't be a hog. Chances are, there is a carry or semi-carry that can also use farm. Try to TP to lanes that are empty and not to lanes that one of your teammates is at unless they don't need the farm. Let the other farmers that don't share your mobility have the creep waves close to your territoy and you take the ones that are deeper into enemy territory. After all, you can tp in, farm it and tp out in under 8 seconds, they can't.

Late game

While you'll still be farming and pushing, at this point it's going to be mostly team fights and ganks. Make sure that your not the one getting ganked and remember, never lead the charge as tinker. You should always should be away from the heavy hitters and using your nukes from distance and be dancing away from there's. Always be moving and never stop. This is easier said than done, but it's something tinker needs to do, hit them with Shiva's then get out of there and start nuking and hexing. Hex high priority targets like carry's or important supports like omniknight. Don't forget that rearms resets these items, so don't just keep nuking, keep hexing and shiva'ing when you get chance as they'll play a vital role in team fights. Don't forget about other active items like manta style which can be casted every rearm.

Dangerous Heroes

Silencer

Silence is bad. Nuff said.

Slardar

He's fast, and if he gets near you he'll stun you, kill your armor, and then bash you into the dirt. Stay away from him.

DoomBringer

You need spells and items. Doom takes away spells and items for 13 seconds and does significant damage. You lose.

Anti-Mage

Granted, he beats a-lot of people, but you especially mid-late game. He's more mobile than you, he's tankier than you, and he can kill you faster than you can kill him. Oh, and mana break and mana void own you. Hard.

Pudge

This can be bad for you if the pudge is a good pudge and went mid-lane. Stay behind your creeps, and when he moves, you move with him. Always keep a creep in between you and pudge, and when he's out of vision, be extremely cautious. Also, don't go anywhere near him, if he slows you with rot, he'll set you up for an easy hook.

Lion

Not so much dangerous later game, but early game he can be very annoying. He has two very good disables, which tinker no like. Also, he has a point and click super nuke. Always be cautions if the enemy team has a roaming lion. One stun on you can be a lethal combo.

Tiny

Tiny is another character with a very strong burst. Getting avalanche and then tossed is an instant kill. Keep your distance, but with blink there really is no surefire defense. It's bets to shut him down early.

Side lane tinker....ARE YOU MAD?

Generally, tinker is played has a solo mid hero, but since we're talking about pubs here, a side lane tinker can workout. Personally the skill build and skill order seems mostly the same to me. Whether solo midlane or duo sidelane tinker's nukes should still be maxed first for harassment and early ganks. If your partner has a stun, this can set you up for easy ganks. You could replace a bottle for nulls, or get a soul ring early since your no longer the "rune" guy and will lack mana sustain especially since it will take longer to get boots. The same rules that apply to other side laners still applies to you. Try not to push the lane, last hit and deny, and make sure you pull back when there mid is missing because you are very squishy and have no escape mechanism to save you.


Once you get boots however, I feel tinker plays the same as he would going solo mid first. Your still going to get shiva's and scythe after, and your still going to be farming and pushing. The main difference is that it will probably take you longer to get that point than if you went solo mid lane.