The Worldrunners Charge

DS -|HTM Introduction

Hello, I am DS -|HTM and this is my guide on Spirit Breaker. My guide is built around my personal opinion of the Hero and is a mixture of guides I've read and how he should not only be built, but played. It is built off what I have done myself, which is a mixture of my own ideas and what I have seen others do, to make it the best I will be able to put forward in game with that Hero.

I will be going over the hero in general, my recommended items, and overall play style for each phase of the game (NOTE: I'm not a Pro). Again, these are all of my personal opinions and you can take them with a grain of salt. Start with the build and use it until you get used to the hero before you start to build differently for every match.
Also I request you guys to feel free to comment on my guide and please give me some suggestions on improving this guide

Barathrum, the Spirit Breaker

Role:

Durable / Carry / Initiator / Disabler

Barathrum the Spirit Breaker is a lordly and powerful being, a fierce and elemental intelligence which chose to plane-shift into the world of matter to take part in events with repercussions in the elemental realm that is his home. To that end, he assembled a form that would serve him well, both in our world and out of it. His physical form borrows from the strengths of this world, blending features both bovine and simianhorns, hooves and handsas outward emblems of his inner qualities of strength, speed and cunning. He wears a ring in his nose, as a reminder that he serves a hidden master, and that this world in which he works is but a shadow of the real one.

I greatly prefer the Heroes of Newerth version of Spirit Breaker, as he adds a lot more to the hero, but I digress. This is a site for DOTA2 and it's heroes, so let's talk about the original version.

Charge of Darkness has no base damage, meaning you are relying on the bonus movement speed from it's effect and your passive, Empowering Haste, to deal any significant damage from this ability. Instead focus on it's stun and relatively low cool down early on. This is why contrary to other guides, I suggest getting two points into it early on. It gives you much more use in the laning phase, at the cost of your damage output and Spirit Breaker's dominance over creep score.

What makes this hero is Empowering Haste, it is the source of all of his damage. It grants a passive movement speed bonus to you and your allies, while it gives you bonus damage dependent on your movement speed. The high amount of damage offered early on gives you an extreme advantage in the lane with your ability to last hit and many guides/players use Quelling Blade to enhance this trait.

Greater Bash ensures that Spirit Breaker isn't complete ****, offering a chance to stun with a very good chance to occur. Taking one level provides the same chance, it only improves in damage. In combination with his ability to chase and two sure-fire stuns, he can easily take on most opponents one versus one with relative ease.

Lastly we have Nether Strike, which brings this hero altogether. It provides a short blink, a great stun and if used to it's fullest, you can even use it to disjoint enemy attacks. It is improved through Aghanim's Scepter, which gives Spirit Breaker the ability to use this attack multiple times in a single fight. You would be a fool to not pick it up as the game progresses.

Pros / Cons

Pro's:

Very good Ganker
- great stunner
- good hp survival
- can teleport out and into battles
- gives an aura to others
- good dps attacker
- can catch heroes that run away

- isnt very good when slowed alot
- can only attack 1 at a time
- later game dependant of greater bash

How to play The World runner

Early Stage:

In the early stages you should be concerned with your creep score, you have a good attack animation and Empowering Haste should give you a much higher attack than your enemies, so taking the last hits from them shouldn't be that much of a challenge. If you have a hero that can stun with you in your lane, go for a kill once you have Charge of Darkness. You should be able to put out enough damage for a kill relatively easy.

You will have to get Boots of Speed first followed by stout sheild. From there you should look for opportunities with whoever is middle, to get some kills and work your way towards finishing Power Treads.

Passive Aggressive
Creep Kills/Denies
Sync up with mid for ganks

Don't use charge of darkness follishly.

When you are not charging to gank or charging in teamfights, you need to be farming your items as a carry. Just farm wherever you can as you're the 1 or 2 hero. If a support hero is in a lane farming, tell them to go do something else and let you farm. If you get in trouble while farming, charge out.

You should very rarely walking anywhere to optimize your time. To get places, you should either be charging or use a TP scroll. If you're low on HP, play it safe and get your courier to bring you a Healing Salve or a tango (I suggest tango as the healing slave can be countered and stopped) to heal yourself back up, or go jungle/pull for a while.

The timing to charge for a gank is around when you're level 7 or 8 because that's when you'll be at your peak in terms of damage in comparison with everyone else. But before that you should be farm-farm-farming. Also try to get a first kill by Ganking an enemy through charge of darkness around the runes along with your team mates.

You'll have 2 guaranteed greater bashes, first on Charge, and secondly on your ult, and in between you'll probably get another two or three causing 40 extra damage on lvl 4. This can guarantee you a kill on most non-full HP heroes, especially if you've got back up.