General Discussion

General DiscussionMovement speed Bristle

Movement speed Bristle in General Discussion
MightyPion

    Hi there,

    I am currently in mid tier (a bit below 3K) and am starting to experiment with somewhat unsual items on Bristleback.

    Basically, as I arrived in this tier (up from my former scrub tier of below 2K) people were doing mean things like picking Ursa/Monkey, buying silver edges and generally showing me why this hero isnt picked that frequently.

    Initially, I tried to match the increased damage output with becoming tankier but well, its kind of a losing proposition imho.

    However, getting movement speed actually helps a lot as Bristle with surivability. There is a surprising number of items that gives movement speed, and surprisingly many of these actually arent terrible on Bristleback.

    1: Urn/Spirit vesell.

    Urn is honestly pretty great. It comes in individually useful parts, it provides some stats and mana regen that are fairly useful, and it is immensly useful against people with lifesteal (who will prepresent a considerable propotion of people who try to kill you). The only downside is that it is more of a pos 4/pos5 item.
    When to pick it? Vs certain jerks who can fuck you and need their lifesteal/regen (Timbersaw, Alche).
    When to not buy it: When your support-sans already have it.

    2: Drums
    Basically, drums has a pretty nice buildup, is fairly useful in either running into or out of combat and can be sold later without many issues. The main problem is that it delays your real items by quite a bit. Also, it may get you moderatly flamed in your pubs.

    3: Sange and Yasha
    Well, nice buildup, actually slot efficient, very nice stats, gives considerable attack speed and movement speed (enabling Bristle to actually make use of his quite potent mid game rightlicks) and allows you to kite nearly everyone. Sange and Yasha, a casual value windlace and power threads are enough to get you to max movement speed with just 5 warpath stacks.
    Drawback: It kind of means that you forgo your heavens halberd. Moderate flame risk in your pubs.

    4: Euls
    Dont laugh, it can be fucking great in the right situation.
    What does Euls give? Well, +30 movement speed from the item itself is a nice start. Secondly, if you get this after vanguard, you can reasonably forgo the mana regen increase (since regen from Euls can cover this) and get the movement speed increase talent. This thus adds up to +50 movement speed, which is like another pair of boots. It also gives Bristle a way to interrupt channeling spells (all those jerks who just tp out when you go on them? Not gonna happen) and it gives you an alterantive way of surviving break. Yeap, Euls yourself, more then half the break duration by doing so. Alternatively, you Euls the jugg/Ursa who just broke you, walk away a bit and then goo/quill spray him to death while casually kiting him since you are much much much faster then he is.
    The big drawback is the expense, and the near certainity of being flamed in your pubs if you dont stomp.

    5: Phase Boots.
    Instant turn speed is pretty good on Bristle. He also likes having a speed boost. It is very situation dependent, threats have a big advantadge in being non courier dependent, and bristle can get some value out of thread switching, but it can seriously pay off.

    MuLLi

      Sounds too good! Pls nerf BB :D

      Suck my tiny curry dick

        3k mid tier lol

        Autumnus

          What? U build tank items for bb, halberd is better than any of the items you mentioned above, there are lots of better items(blademail, shivas, cuirass, radiance, abyssal)

          Marko Bulat

            ^ Archons have their own meta, i had privilege to play with them when i calibrated this account, played only 10 games and they gave me aids, mid pudge, mid invoker rushing midas, every pos5 rushing midas Lina with kaya. Its like they have timemachine and its still 2010 in that bracket.

            Totentanz to The King: M ...

              you dont need movespeed. you already slow the other heroes and do most of your damage with quills. drums, urn, s&y are fine but if you are buying spirit vessel because "20 ms lel" just dont do it.

              MightyPion

                What is wrong with characterizing 2-3K as mid tier?

                Median MMR is iirc actually a bit under 2K.

                Maybe you misunderstand me here, I am not saying that you build all of these items, I am saying that one of them, and in some cases phase boots instead of threads/arcanes can be quite value.
                They very obviously arent core items, they are situational in case of f.e. multiple break sources, heavy life leach on an enemy or a need to be capable of interrupting spells.

                And movement speed is a form of tankiness on its own, if it is a situation when the speed makes you not being hit despite the enemy trying to hit you, it is a form of tanking. It also allows you to be far more active and aggresiive in teamfights.

                Archon meta also features things such as being a solo bristle against Ursa + Shadow Shaman, because there is a pos 4 riki last pick that camps mid. You better get creative in such situations.

                For the record, I have a 62-63% winrate with Bristleback over some 300+ matches, this isnt great, and I am by no means good (Dunning Krüger Effect hello), but I do now generally speaking, what this hero is supposed to be doing. Gosu AI says I am better then 94% of Bristlebacks, I dont think thats actually true.

                Last but not least, this is archon/early legend stuff. You may well have a team with no initation whatsorever (Especially if Bristle is picked by you as pos 3) and having serious movement speed advandtage over the enemy team becomes a form of initiating.

                Also, S+Y isnt my idea, purge does it too.
                An interesting thing is that S+Y seems to roughly double the amount of rightlick damage to heroes I do in games.
                Normally, Quill spray damage is 2-3 times of what you do with right clicks, with an S+Y it can be almost even, without doing less (well, a bit less since the Octarines happens later) with quill sprays. This is mostly because the movement speed allows me to run at supports and beat them up, while their cores hit my back, as opposed to running from their cores hoping that they are stupid enough to hit me instead of whom they should actually be hitting.

                It does have a 63% item winrate on him, but is only bought in 20Kish games.

                Honestly, if you think that these items are outlandish, well some far higher skilled players then me:
                https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/4108643559?guide=4e1088
                Meme Hammer Deso Bristle.

                It worked.

                Vertoxity

                  Nothing wrong, 3k is a mid-tier.

                  Androgynous

                    that game ended at 31 mins and the bristleback bought desolator at 30 mins. clearly it was the only reason radiant won.

                    meteor hammer in that game seems okay because that specific lineup doesnt have cores that are great at pushing rather than it being item that is good on bristle. though looking at the item progression they probably would have won if the bristle built normal items anyway

                    Androgynous

                      also item winrate stats don't mean shit because people buy weird items when they're about to win for the intention of messing up dotabuff stats, and people who are losing probably still have their early game items. that doesn't mean skipping early game items is the better choice though.

                      e.g. ring of aquila on pretty much any agi core probably has a sub 50 winrate but that doesn't mean it's a crap item, in fact it's one of the strongest items right now. but if you're winning you've probably already sold it off while if you're losing you're not going to be 6 slotted.

                      or if I have shivas recipe in my inventory just before a game ends so my winrate with the item is 100%, does that mean holding a shivas recipe in my inventory for the entire match guarantees me a win?

                      Feachairu

                        yes i buy meteor hammer on brood when i push t4 and i snowball alot already,i also buy desolator if have money at enemy shop

                        bearcat0611

                          of those drums and sny are perfectly fine items for bristle urn and euls are very situational and there's pretty much no reason to go phase though it's not awful.

                          Hatrið mun sigra

                            Imo forget about urn/vessel, s&y only if you're going full carry in some situations, drums meh, phase boots won't give you the sustain tranquil boots provide early game, eul yasss fuck those cowards who insta tp when you charge at them like a guy on cocaine.

                            The hero lacks lockdowns and stuns, not movespeed and ability to chase heroes down. Plus don't forget his role is to tank as much dmg as possible while providing aura items most of the times, and not win the 100 m sprint at the Olympics. Leave that to Bolt and Luna.

                            Rocket

                              Increased turn speed could be nice I guess.

                              kuci

                                this is so bad honestly, why spent 2700 at euls when you can buy something more useful like pipe or something, cancel tp? hell you're bb not blood seeker leave that to stunner or save 300 more to buy basher

                                spacewarp

                                  You are a tank. Why would you need to run? Your job is to tank most of the damage they are dealing haha.

                                  Metsis

                                    If you are looking for a cheap tanky item you need to look at Solar Crest. It gives you 10 armor, great for BB, a dodge so you take even less damage in the long run and chases that are going to be coming and there's even splash of mana regen in there to keep the quills flying... It is really good against physical carry heroes like PA etc. Pipe/Vanguard should pretty much be the first "big item" you build on BB depending on what is the primary damage source the enemy has. But if you have a rough lane Solar Crest has quite a nice build up for BB and it will add to your real hp pool by quite a lot.

                                    Movement speed is nice, but you really don't want to be that ultra fast. You want to be just fast enough so that the enemy does chase you and you use the damage reduction and quills to make them sorry that they chased you. As BB you really don't want to face the enemy and you want to mitigate as much damage as you can to build up those quill stacks. I am also quite a fan of Aghs on BB too. Those max Warpath stacks certainly help you hit the buildings and finish off the enemy heroes that were dumb enough to chase you. Max warpath stacks also gives you a lot of movement speed. The ultra tanky BB that hits for 300+ damage on his right click is quite nasty.

                                    MILNOR

                                      anything can work down here in the dumpest