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Introduction

Hello and welcome to my first Dotafire guide,specifically on

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Bradwarden is mainly a powerful ganker and initiator,as seen from his aoe stun Hoof Stomp and his ultimate, Stampede.

While not as dominating as Axe's Counter Helix early game,Brad's Return scales much better onto late game.

And finally, Double Edge is a strong nuke of 400 DAMAGE when maxed out IN A SMALL AOE,allowing Brad to inflict massive damage to enemies caught together.

Pros / Cons

Some of you may have or are about to realise that there is no chapter on stats.This is due to the fact that if you want to see Brad's stats go right on ahead and scroll over Centaur Warrunner .

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Pros

• Naturally gets very tanky
• High damage nuke
• Two skills with stuns
• 'Noob friendly'/Easy to use
• One of the least mana reliant initiators
• Scales well throughout the game

Cons

• Has natural counters such as necrolyte and Lifestealer.
• Counterganked like other gankers by wards.
• No skill to force enemies to focus him to proc Return.
• No real escape mechanism
• Hoof Stomp has a bad animation and unimpressive aoe.

Skills

Hoof Stomp

Hoof stomp is Brad's signature skill besides from his ultimate.This skill has a 2.75s stun with a decent 85/100/115/130 manacost,allowing Brad to maintain his mana.

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Double Edge

Double Edge is the Warrunner's extremely powerful single target nuke,but based on positioning,can hit multiple targets.It inflicts 400 damage and a ministun to the initial target and 400 damage to the Warrunner himself.

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Return

Return is the skill that allows Centaur to last in battles in the late game.This skill is a wondrous skill that scales to the late game,inflicting 22+ 50% of Centaur's Strength as damage to all attackers.With this,Centaur is a powerful backdoor hero as well.

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Stampede

Stampede is Bradwarden's new gamebreaking ultimate.While it is getting a nerf in the next patch,in my opinion,it will still be a viable and strong skill.What it does is that Stampede grants Brad's whole team maximum movement speed , globally.Enemies walked , or rather crashed into,take damage based on Brad's strength and are stunned.

Items

Starting

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A starting build will consist mainly of 3 Iron Branch , Stout Shield and either a Tango or salve.

Iron Branches are gotten at the start to give a small stat boost and can be built into a
Magic Wand later on.

Stout Shield will let Centaur Warrunner tank hits from enemy heroes and creeps.While some may opt for a Quelling Blade , I feel that it is unneeded as Brad does have a good amount of base damage to last hit with.

Lastly,a Tango or salve can be used to heal up.Brad has a steadily growing amount of strength to give him more hp regen,and does not need too much healing.

Total Cost = 499 Gold

Core

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Brad's core will consist of Vanguard, Magic Wand,boots and a Hood of Defiance.

Vanguard is built if you have started with a stout shield.This may not be one of the best items on Brad,but the amount of health and regen it gives works wonders for early to mid.

Magic Wand is built from the iron branches that you have in the early stages of the game,offering a burst heal when charged up.

boots are gotten for basic movement speed boost.

Finally, Hood of Defiance is able to supply you with a good 30% magic resistance which DOES work on the backlash damage of Double Edge and a 8 health regen per second.

Total Cost = 5359

Core Extension

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A core extension of Bradwarden will have Boots of Travel, Heart of Tarrasque and Pipe of Insight.

Boots of Travel will give Brad the ability to appear almost everywhere,allowing him to backdoor efficiently with Return.It also gives Brad top tier movement speed.

Heart of Tarrasque is a no-brainer for Brad.While it makes you extremely beefy and able to regen a huge amount of health within a few seconds,it makes you a less attractive target nullifying the whole point of Return.

Pipe of Insight can be easily built from the previous Hood of Defiance,with a fun active effect of granting 400 damage block from magic.

Total Cost = 11628

Situational

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Some of you may be wondering,why is Blink Dagger situational?Ever since Brad received his new ultimate,I realised that blink dagger is now not as needed as before.However it is still viable if your enemies consist of fast runners such as Weaver or nightstalker.

Blade Mail is only gotten if you are 100% sure enemies think of you as a huge threat and WILL target you,else don't get it as it makes enemies less likely to attack you.

Radiance and Manta Style are snowball items on Brad.These two items are only really available when you get a good start and keep killing through ganks.As of such,they can't really be considered core items,but if you get a good start,go ahead and pick up Radiance before Manta Style.

Vladmir's Offering should be picked up when you somehow have 4-5 melees on your team,or else let someone else like Bounty Hunter,lycanthrope or Ursa get it.

Armlet of Mordiggian can be picked up by Brad,giving him extra strength into Return and damage for basic attacks.It can also offer survivability if one knows how to 'abuse' the instant health gain.

Satanic is also a very good item,offering a burst of strength and more viable than getting a second heart.The lifesteal AND burst lifesteal will let Centaur stay in the fight longer.

Rejected Items

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To start this list off will be Black King Bar.Obvious as it is,Brad's job is to take damage and soak up as much as possible in a teamfight.By popping Black King Bar in a fight,enemies will start to target other enemies.

Shadow Blade is far worst than Black King Bar on this list.This is mostly due to the fact that Blink Dagger is a far better gap closing skill on Centaur,costing 2150 gold compared to shadow blade's 3000 gold cost,and the possibility of getting countered by a gem,dust or sentry ward.You are able to gain movement speed with your ultimate as well which makes this item COMPLETELY useless.

Butterfly is absolubely unviable for Brad.Let the carry get one and not you.This also goes for items like Daedalus and the like.

Friends & Foes

Friends

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Dark Seer

Dark Seer is the best friend of almost all initiators with small to average aoe stuns.His Vacuum will help you set up Hoof Stomp AND Double Edge easily,and early on he can Surge you to let you kill without your ultimate.He can give you Ion Shell to inflict more punishment on enemies as well.

Lion

Lion and other ranged disablers are powerful allies of the Centaur Warrunner.For the sake of explanation,Lion's Hex will disable an enemy,allowing easy setup for Hoof Stomp. Earth Spike can either initiate,or can be used to follow up on Centaur as well.

Dazzle

Dazzle is a tank's best friend.He can keep you in the fight for awhile longer with Shallow Grave and restore your health with Shadow Wave.He can setup ganks with Poison Touch,and his ultimate,weave gives you a much needed - albeit temporary armor increase.

Magnus

Magnus deserves a special mention,being able to destroy a 5 man team during the mid game just with Centaur.His ultimate, Reverse Polarity will let you setup all your skills by dragging enemies together,and with Skewer, Shockwave and Empower,alot of damage will be dealt within a successful stunlock of these two heroes.

Enemies

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Necrolyte

necrolyte

Necrolyte only has one skill that is a real threat to you,and it is more than enough to whittle you down during teamfights.That skill is Heartstopper Aura,as long as Necrolyte stays in the fight,you lose a percentage of you max heath every second.

Huskar

Huskar's ultimate, Life Break inflicts a huge percentage of damage on the target.Guess what happens when that target is you?A ridiculous 3600 health pool can be brought down to 1800 or even less in the blink of an eye.

Naix

Naix has his amazing skill - Feast to rape you with.This skill inflicts AND steals a percentage of the targets health as a passive on EVERY hit.With Rage he will simply avoid all three of your active skills and eat away at you.And as you may have noticed,the pattern is that Brad should simply avoid fighting against health percentage based heroes.

Conclusion

Bradwarden is basically a powerful ganker and generally a fun hero to use.I have enjoyed playing as Centaur ever since Dota 1.

Dota 2 is an ever-changing game,it is up to players to adapt to the flow of the game.As I have said at the beginning,this is my first guide written on Dotafire and infact Dota 2 itself.As of such,I hope readers will please give me some feedback on how to improve my guide and even maybe help on what kinds of codings to use.

I would like to thank all for reading this guide,and hopefully you would have learnt more something from this guide. =D