Everything Can Work - Position 4 Clinkz Edition
Image by Virginie Simard
History of support Clinkz
Once again, this odd support hero started with 
Nigma Galaxy and their captain, KuroKy. I’m sure some pub player might claim they were the first to play Clinkz as a support but KuroKy is the one that made it known on the big stage, and won with it.
During the WeSave! Charity Play EU & CIS tournament, Team Nigma picked support Clinkz five times during the playoffs, going 3-2 with him.
In the semi-finals against 
Team Liquid, KuroKy picked Clinkz every game during their four game series even after losing game one.
In the grand-finals against 
9Pandas, KuroKy picked Clinkz once in a game he lost.
The results speak for themselves, Team Nigma had a positive record with a support Clinkz in a major tournament against the region’s best. In most of those games, Team Nigma played Clinkz as a support in an aggressive tri lane.
With the changes to the lane creep set up in recent patches, Dota may be seeing a break from the standard 2 1 2 lane towards a more flexible set up like in the olden days of Dota. Or maybe KuroKy is bored after playing professional Dota for 10+ years and he misses playing carry heroes.
Pub game stats
In the Dotabuff meta page, Clinkz has a 52.99% win rate in the Divine/Immortal tier with a 1.34% pick rate in the off lane. In the Ancient tier, Clinkz has a 51.23% win rate with a 1.07% pick rate.
That places him at the 16th best win rate in the Divine/Immortal tier as an offlaner and 38th in the Ancient tier.
These aren’t bad numbers when considering Clinkz has almost no functionality in Dota other than his right-clicking.
Game play as a support Clinkz
Support Clinkz shines during the early game. In the lane phase, you have the freedom to harass the safe lane carry with your Searing Arrows ability because this allows you to right-click the enemy without aggroing the creeps.
If the enemy carry or support wants to harass you, then they’ll likely aggro the creeps unless they also have a right-click modifier. If you stay close to your creeps then in a right-click battle, you’re at an advantage because you’ll be able to right click without aggroing creeps and Searing Arrows provides you with a great damage bonus.
If the enemies don’t fight back against your harass, then your off lane partner has free reign to do whatever they want to, whether it’s harassing the enemies or denying and last hitting the creeps.
Clinkz is also a hero that can roam around the map early better than most heroes. He has Skeleton Walk which increases his movement speed and makes him invisible so you’ll be able to move across the map quickly and without detection. You can then pop on over to the mid lane and harass the enemy mid with right-clicks after appearing out of nowhere.
One weakness Clinkz has is his durability. He’s one of the squishiest heroes in the game but thanks to Death Pact, which is now a basic ability, you can get a great health gain and also an easy farming ability. This helps offset his low health and low farming priority as a support.
After the early game, Clinkz’s effectiveness starts to decline. He doesn’t have disabilities of other supports like 
Lion or 
Shadow Shaman and he doesn’t have any saving abilities like 
Oracle or 
Dazzle. He contributes almost exclusively damage so if you aren’t able to deal large amounts of physical damage in a short period of time, you’re almost like a ranged creep.
This needs to be offset with some items like a Diffusal Blade or Orchid’s Malevolence, but if you’re unable to find farm, which isn’t uncommon as a support, then this can be an issue.
Final thoughts
Support Clinkz is another hero that isn’t a traditional support but has surprising results. He has a positive win rate in high tier Dota and that’s without a stun, slow, heal, or save, just right-clicks.
My experience with him wasn’t great. The lane phase was great, I was able to harass the enemy carry easily and they weren’t able to last hit without eating a ton of Searing Arrows.
The mid and late game was another story. He’s able to farm the jungle quite well but in team fights, I didn’t feel very effective. If I wasn’t dishing out huge amounts of damage then I wasn’t contributing much.
I did see a lot of potential as a support Clinkz though. If I got used to the game play and strategy as a support Clinkz, I can see him being a very effective hero on the map, regardless of position. He’s able to move across the map very well, he can help initiate by providing vision, he can deal out large amounts of damage, and he can farm the jungle well.
Clinkz isn’t great at things he’s not great at though. He doesn’t have any natural disables and if you aren’t doing damage, scouting, farming, or split pushing, he feels pretty useless.
Has anyone tried out support Clinkz? Or won with him as your teammate?
Oook again ssir
Благодаря таким вот гайдам у меня на аккаунте 3к порядка и около -200 слитого рейта
I have won about 200 mmr by playing clinkz support. It worked before 7.26a,b, because of clink's ability to push very fast. Now games last much longer, but clinkz still shows himself good. What you should consider is that clinkz should buy save items and team items, not medallion etc. And better to play in party, because many players insta give up after seeing clinkz 4th
Please stop
You Moron's have a duty of care for my matches. When you post articles like this the spastics who read them do not realise that they are not the top 100 teir one player that can pull this off. So, instead they pick pos 4 clinkz and the team invariably has 0 stuns. Can you please take this down, or you will be hearing from my lawyer shortly.
What is hard to pull off about clinkz?
As you can see, both Clinkz and Sniper got nerfed today. So stop crying and let people play what they want, because the chance might be - they know more than you. At least they don't play the same way for years and dumb the game down.
You don't even mention neutral items. Imp claw. Life is sorted.
This is farming patch and not brawl patch, I can't see support clink this patch
Kawaiisocks wrote about support DP was nice, but you ruined it with your support clinkz. What support skills does clinkz have? No disable, no nukes, only damage. Please report this trash article.
We discuss the topics together) And I actually think that support Clinkz can be a thing in some specific drafts. His -armor effects are pretty strong in the early game, his snowball potential through Death Pact is pretty high and if he can kill the enemy four before they get a chance to cast any of their spells in a temfight, Clinkz's contribution is kind of adequate. +he can push really, really well and has some flexibility in his builds. It's not a "first pick in Solo Q" type of hero and more of a "playing with buddies and having tons of control, but lacking in damage by the third pick" type of hero. Again, super-specific, but not actually bad by any means.
its especific - cause you need farm to deal dmg in mid game and late game - and support farming means your core will suffer - so No its not ideal - no stun - only provide vision but if you behind he can not provide vision and he will feed - no slow - no burst dmg-
its very very nich you need 2 cores that fights with cheap items then you can farm with clinz also
i
It really can work, and the roaming capabilities are amazing with it. Let me refer to the current rank 1 in ladder player Cr1t https://www.twitch.tv/videos/608953718?t=01h20m20s He effectively suggested his team to take off/cores with slows and disables so all his ganks worked. Tusk, Beastmaster, Sven, PA all work great with pos 4 Clinkz. On every kill your damage goes up, and its not long until it starts snowballing out of control.
Of course if you have no clue how to roam/gank/know who you can kill then its useless. You farming isnt really the point with this hero. If you have good cores with it you can just gank. I think Cr1t had like 40LHs at the end. He plays the hero as pos 4 quite frequently.
why dont u stop writing craps like this? just had a clinkz 4 and he ruined the game. went for medallion deso and farmed whole the jungle without having any impact on the game. just go fuck urself please.
In high level pubs, there is a very great emphasis on the laning stage, this is where any strong early gamer, even a viper can work as pos4. For lower ranked pubs in legend and below, the clinkz is better off as a carry with tusk as a support. Why dont ask him to play pos4 clinkz in legend rank and below?
KawaiiSocks, thank you for your articles! I really enjoy reading this series and your insights are appreciated. Ignore the trolling / flaming in the comments please :) none of our MMRs even matter anyway IDK why they're being so salty about other people being open-minded and experimenting in a fun game
>Why dont ask him to play pos4 clinkz in legend rank and below?
You really think the highest rated player on the EU server would have a problem winning games in legend and below?
Please just stop commenting, it's embarrasing.
Actually did very well with it until the searing arrow nerf.
i played him a fair bit supp. and it's realy fun. but you need to be ahead. if you fall behind you will be useless. try to aim for cheap fighting item such as medaillon, difu, to offset your lack of farm. what's realy important is to build skeleton walk>dark pact>searing arrow
To put it simply for simple minds:
-He deals tons more damage than other Pos 4 supports.
-His ultimate is great for teamfights and zones weak/squishy enemy supports if well placed
-Death Pact is a great early ability in the hands of good players. Damage stacking is superb if used well
-Searing arrows, low mana LOT of early game damage
-Fast movement, sniping couriers, easily rotating without wasting TPs for ganks
-Forces enemies to waste gold on detection (but you are just a support so yaay)
Drawbacks:
-Squishy
-No reliable disables
-Noobs can't play support Clinkz and will feed
-Need to play right in the laning stage w/o feeding to be effective
With all these advantages, Clinkz is a very unique and CHEESE pick in the right situation. Why do you think Kuroky, one of the BEST Dota players started experimenting with it?