I originally posted this guide on DotAPortal.com, and there it got some good reviews, and now that it's down, (be it temporarily or permanently, you will be missed DP,) I figured I'd post it here. Huskar is a hero whom I played in my first scrim a few months ago as a surprise pick -cm mode. I did surprisingly well, and ended up carrying the team, (the lineup was all int besides me, ending at 30 something minutes.) Since then I've always had a liking for Huskar, and although he may not be the best hero out there, he is fun, versatile and when played right, can own face. Enjoy!


The Trolls of the Darkspear tribe, long since exiled from their ancestral lands in Stranglethorn Vale, are considered by many to be the most savage race of creatures to ever grace the battlefield. This reputation is well earned by their Sentinel representative Huskar, who's abilities revolve around shortening his own lifespan to spear his foes to burning pieces. Considered a blessed martyr by his people, the Sacred Warrior is not afraid of death, and will even run towards it willingly, sometimes desperately, in order to bring the Undead Scourge to an end.

Stats

Affiliation: Sentinel
Primary Attribute: Strength
Strength: 18 +2.4
Agility: 20 + 2.4
Intelligence: 18 +1.5
Base Damage: 21-30 (39-48)
Base Armor: -1 (1.9)
Movespeed: 300
Base Attack Time: 1.6
Attack Range: 400
Acquisition Range: 800
Missile Speed: 1400
Attack Animation: .4/.5
Casting Animation: .3/.24
Line of Sight: 1800/800

Huskar has some pretty average starting stats, but notice though how he has natural higher agility than strength, this will provide some good natural attack speed and armor come later game. At the same time the mediocre strength growth leaves Huskar relatively less-buff than most other strength heroes. He has little-to-no mana all game, he only has one spell that requires it, but it has a high cost of 170 mana, so do not spam it.

A generic movespeed, nothing special. Most heroes have a BAT of 1.7, notice that Huskar naturally attacks faster than most. His attack range is 400, as is the maximum range to cast all of his skills.

His missle speed is 1400, faster than the generic 900, making last-hitting and denying slightly easier. Notice his attack animation time, the amount of time it takes to release the missle, (.4 seconds,) is shorter than the unnecessary animation that Huskar has, we will take a huge advantage of this in Orb-Walking. When manually casting an orb you will be using Huskar's Cast Animation, and notice that it is even shorter than his attack animation, only .3 seconds are required before the spell is cast, we will take complete advantage of this in an attempt to shave off the other .24 seconds.


Huskar is a unique hero in many ways. Let's look at the pros and cons:

Pros:

• A ranged hero
• Has one of the game's strongest single-target healing abilities
• Can tank/carry and has ganking ability
• Has one of the game's strongest means of lane control in Burning Spears, which also makes him a powerful First Blood candidate.
• Is an excellent bait hero, and actually becomes stronger as you deal more damage to him
• An excellent attack animation in terms of orb-walking
• His missile speed is 1400, excellent for last-hitting denying.
• Has an excellent Base Attack Time of 1.6
• Although he is strength type, he has a high agility growth, granting him natural Attack Speed and armor as the game goes on.

Cons:

• Although he is very powerful early-mid game, his orb becomes far-less potent late, and therefore needs items too supplement.
• If you're not orb-walking, his animation has a lot of un-necessary action.
• For a strength hero, has rather low base-damage.
• For a strength hero, has a rather sad strength growth.
• His single mana-consuming spell costs a lot of mana for one who is lacking in it.

As you can see the pros of Huskar out-weigh his cons. His skills make him an excellent tank/dpser in a small convenient package. Let's check out his skills.




A potent healing skill that will heal based on the first percentage of the target's main attribute, but if the target drops below 40% of their hp, then it will heal by the 2nd numbers percentage. Heroes that have a high base-attribute will gain more regeneration, and remember to cast this on allies in need. We get this skill later on, early game Huskar's mediocre starting Strength and Strength Gain doesn't grant him a lot of heal from this, and his pathetic mana pool can hardly support multiple casts of this. The heal of this skill is dynamic and completely triggered. What I mean by this is if you're below 40% hp you'll get the strong heal, but the moment you hit 41% hp the slow heal kicks in instead, so don't expect an imba heal the entire time past 40% hp heal.




Huskar's signature skill, this grants him killing ability, harassing ability, and lane-control all in one. This should be maxed ASAP, as without it you have just wasted Huskar. Notice that it doesn't cost mana to cast, but hp. You cannot cast if your hp is under 100. The effect of burning spears can stack up to 5 times on a single target. It was recently buffed in 6.64, so now although it deals 2 less damage at level 1, it scales better each level, and ends up with a solid 16 damage, better than ever!




Huskar's steroid spell, and your battle-reverser. As you lose hp, you get increased damage and you attack faster. IAS = Increased Attack Speed. Once you are at 49% of your max hp your spears are coated in a red crystal-like object, the same as BloodSeeker's hands in Bloodrage. You can still stack IAS and damage after that. At a maximum of 2% hp remaining, you attain 112 damage and IAS from Berserker's Blood!




Huskar's ganking spell. Keep in mind that that the damage dealt to you and your target is the percentage of their current hp. Also remember that it deals magical damage to you and your target. Heroes have a natural 25% magical resistance. 500 hp hero is life-breaked, 187 damage is dealt, not 250. The same is applied to Huskar.

The Reasoning

Burning Spears is what makes Huskar, Huskar. Without maxing it asap you are completely wasting his potential. What makes Burning Spears so effective early game compared to other slowing orbs is the amount of damage dealt after you attack, it really adds up. On a single enemy hero the Burning Spears damage from 5 stacked spears alone over 6 seconds is 270 magical damage after reduction, and that's not even mentioning the damage you yourself deal from Huskar's attacks. Later there will be a section extensively covering this skill.

Now here's where the debate beings, Berserker's Blood or Inner Vitality? Honestly there is no argument, Berserker's Blood wins hands down. By spamming Burning Spears on your enemies your own hp drops too, and although some say that you don't have enough hp to utilize it, remember it's percentage based. That means that early game when you have the lowest amount of hp, it activates faster than in any other stage of the game. The huge damage and IAS boost really makes Huskar an early-mid game killer, especially with Life Break's fantastic syngery.

In the item build below I start with 6 tangoes and a salve, that's 1210 hp worth of regeneration. That is far more than Huskar should need in an average lane, and that should cover for him in a harsh lane as well. Inner vitality is simply pathetic early levels. Remember that it is percentage based, because of that the later in the game the more effective it is. Huskar's stats early on aren't that terrific, and he has a shitty strength growth. On top of the fact that it won't heal much, look at it's mana cost! Huskar has a terrible intelligence growth, he can't afford to use spells that cost a whopping 170 mana per cast! Save this till later.

Life Break is a powerful battle-turner and slow, and later on I'll show you how to utilize it to perfection. Half of it's use is to slow and damage the enemy, and the other half is to actually damage yourself. By hurting Huskar you just pumped him full of damage and IAS with Berserker's Blood, making him far stronger. Get this whenever available.

The Starting Items
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2 gauntlets is an affordable boost to your hp and damage, making your harass more effective with extra damage and you have more hp to cast Burning Spears with. The Salve and dual tangoes are pretty crucial, the Tango is for over-time regeneration and the Salve for when you're real low. You'll most likely need to use both due to the opponents harassing you and spamming burning spears, don't expect to head back to the fountain for a long time.

Now notice that I've included a Helm of Iron Will, I obviously don't expect you to buy it at the start, since it's rather high price of 950 means you can't purchase it with starting gold. Get this in either of the side lanes, the armor boost will make you more tanky early on, and the regeneration enables you to harass more. With this your early game is pretty much covered, so from there either save up for your Blink Dagger or build straight up for your Armlet.

Sometimes when doing especially well in a lane, (you farm easily since you and your partner counter your enemy lane nigh completely for example,) you can invest in a second Helm of Iron Will. 2 Helms will grant you some huge regen and +10 armor is pretty big, also both can be upgraded into your future Hood and Armlet.

The Core

Boots will greatly enhance your ability to orb walk, as you need to keep pace with your target to orb walk them, upgrading them is not an immediate concern as you don't gain any huge benefit from an upgrade.

Blink Dagger is a fantastic and powerful item that Huskar can utilize very well. Your ultimate has a short range of 135, putting you in basically melee range of your target. Naturally anyone with a brain will immediately back away when a Huskar comes charging toward them. Blink Dagger fixes this problem, granting the element of surprise and mobility, (there is no faster way to get anywhere than blinking.) Of course, outside of using your ultimate it is also simply great for chasing, juking, escaping and overall mobility.

The path splits, Hood and Armlet are both great items on Huskar, and you should get both. Armlet grants 65 damage, 475 hp, 5 armor, 25% IAS and -62 hp regen while activated, and since you have IV to help with the degen, I'd say the huge dps bonuses make it worth it's unbelievably cheap 2850 gold price. Hood grants a huge 8 hp regen and the ever-useful 30% magical resistance, making it the top-tanking item in today's spell-ruled metagame. On top of that it further-benefits Huskar reducing the self-damage from Life Break by an addditional 30%.

Depending on your enemies lineup, you can decipher for yourself which to get first, Hood against a highly magical damage lineup, and Armlet on a more passive lineup, where you can utilized the huge dps to blink in and dominate your targets as quickly as possible. Now as I play more and more competitively I find Hood a better first choice, as you won't get to utilize the damage from Armlet or Berserker's Blood if you're instantly nuked to death before you can strike.

Generally I go Hood > Blink > Armlet, but factors such as how fast I'm farming, the enemies lineup and my role on the team change these things. While Armlet and Hood come in nice convenient useful parts, with blink you have to save up a solid 2150 gold.

Core Cost: 7550 gold, (not including starting gauntlets and consumables.)

Extension, Optional and Luxury Items

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Phase Boots are a cheap logical extension to your boots, granting IAS and damage, they improve your overall dps ability and mobility, phase enhancing your orb-walking ability.

BoT are also an available choice, I do not recommend getting them unless you are the team's carry, otherwise abusing the 60 second cooldown is unnecessary without stealing the carry's farm. And if you aren't using it nearly every cooldown, then spending 2.2k on it was a wasted investment.


Agahanim's Scepter recently got slightly remade, shifting from less of an int-caster item to more of a general item, and is now available on 33 heroes! Huskar is one of them, and it enables his ultimate to take out 65% of the enemy's hp with Life Break while only having an 8 second cooldown at level 3! Best of all it's not like Spirit Breaker who'll need mana support for continuous ultimate casting, as long as you have hp you can use your 0-mana ultimate whenever you want! It's a good extension for imba-ganking after the core items if you're not going carry, in which case just getting more dps items would be my choice.


Black King Bar is a viable extension item, but not always. Huskar is often assigned to the role of the Tank, therefore he is supposed to soak up disables and nukes. That is a major reasoning behind Hood on Huskar, but if you do become a carry than get BkB for the magic immunity. Not to mention it gives some damage and strength for Inner Vitality.


Linken's Sphere is now a useful item with the Spell Block actually working on many single-target spells. A situational item at best when you are in need of 3 things: to block single target disables, more mana since you go oom from casting IV on yourself and your allies in pushes, and the stats for an overall boost. Consider these factors before purchasing this highly defensive item.


Monkey King Bar is a good item to get if you're going for straight up dps. In a higher-level game you probably can't farm this much, but if you can, feel free to get it. With True Strike this item is even better than before especially against carrys with evasion or butterfly, but be wary that auto-casting Burning Spears with True Strike activated will cause interference.


Buriza-do-Kyanon is a powerful dps item that scales excellently as the game goes on. Unfortunately this item is pretty expensive and Huskar may not have to pure-damage and godly IAS to utilize it's crit to full potential.


Heart of Tarrasaque was changed as of late, and not granting regeneration in combat is far less appealing to Huskar. It's rather justifiable, since the regeneration on a hero like Huskar was completely imbalanced. Still, it grants a massive 965 hp boost, which is the most hp from any single slot possible. Get this if you need some raw hp, also as long as your mana pool isn't depleted, you'll never have to visit the fountain again with the unbelievable 2% hp regen outside of battle.


Assault Cuirass is a possible Luxury item, granting you godly EHP and even better attack speed, I'd recommend this after HoT if you ever manage to farm that much in a game.

>
I concede, I will now advocated lifesteal for late game purposes. Helm of the Dominator does little for you early on, the lifesteal heals barely anything and 20 damage isn't much, plus you have 2 other items to use your Helm of Iron Wills on.

Late game after your core, getting Satanic can be a good choice for a combination of survivability + carrying ability. The strength is good for Inner Vitality as well.


Guinsoo? DTC is noob, banned.
But really, Guinsoo is the item that never goes wrong. Granting some stats and highly unnecessary int on a hero like Huskar, the hex is what takes the cake. 3.5 seconds disable can easily shift the tide of battle, in some leagues having more than 1/2 Guinsoos on a single team is banned due to this items potential. If you aren't the carry and are playing a support/ganking Huskar, get this if you find yourself rich late game, it's simply a fantastic item.



Orb-effects. When manually-casted Burning Spears overrides all orb-effects, and when auto-casted is overridden by orb-effects. Burning Spears is just too powerful of an orb to give up.


Basher is a terrible item to begin with, and is 100% unnecessary on Huskar. Huskar is built to kill and last through it all, not to disable. Huskar has better things to build.


Blademail is pretty terrible, and does nothing for Huskar. Once activated, that's pretty much raising a huge, "run away" sign to the enemy, and if you're not tanking, you're not playing a good Huskar.


Radiance is an amazing item when on the right hero, and especially at the right time. Huskar has neither the speed to stay in immolation range of a fleeing enemy nor the capability to power-farm a relic. His lane-control is just too strong to pass up in power-farming. The majority of gold comes from Huskar's kills and last-hits in lane.


You don't need intelligence items at all, if you become low on mana have an ally with Arcane Ring cast or something, or grab a Clarity.


Dagon. YOU ARE NOT A NUKER. KTHXBAI. But for real, your burst damage comes from your ultimate and your orb, you can't afford to buy it, nor to cast it, your mana pool is pathetic.


Vanguard is an item for heroes that need to tower-dive, and directly attack an enemy hero triggering creep-aggro. Huskar is neither of these, as his goal is to kill quickly and effectively, and his orb-walking does not attract creep-aggro. He doesn't really need the hp with an average strength growth, and if you desperately want hp, grab a Vitality Booster and upgrade it to HoT later. You need regeneration? Get a HoD. Honestly right there I just granted good reasoning not to get Vanguard, so I'll say it again. If you want hp, feel free to buy an early game Vitality Booster to upgrade to a HoT later, and if you want regen, feel free to buy a HoD. A Vanguard only grants 50 more hp than a Vitality alone, and the regeneration from a Vanguard is inferior to a HoD. Also as I stated above, and I'll say it again, Huskar doesn't need the damage block, he neither needs to tower-dive extensively nor does he attract creep-aggro.


Mekansm. What are you a support hero? No, you're a hard-core ganker/carry, your job is to build up your core while dominating your lane, not being your team's healing bitch. You want your hp to drop, it makes you a powerful dpser, if you just heal back all the damage Life Break deals to you, then you kinda just ruined the point. On top of the fact that you don't want to heal your damage like that, Huskar doesn't nearly have the mana-pool to support Mekansm, he can barely support casting his own innate heal; which btw is at least 10x better than Mekansm.

Huskar in DotA

As i mentioned above Huskar has powerful lane control with Burning Spears, yet he shouldn't solo. Why not?
-He doesn't benefit from a solo heroes high level gain as much as more conventional soloes.
-As the most commonplace solo is mid, Huskar doesn't benefit from runes as do conventional soloes, and should never get a Bottle.
-If facing a powerful lane such as Dual Stun, Huskar will have a tough time.
-Huskar isn't really made to be a solo hero, he's the hero that needs an allies help for nukes, extra damage, or even heals.
-The ramp in middle lane really fucks with your Orb-Walking.

My preferred lane is the long lane. With plenty of room and jungle to gank from, orb-walking with Huskar is easily done. First Blood is most easily achieved in the long lanes as well, with plenty of jungle to gank from as I said above. Of course Huskar with an ally can still do fine in a short lane, just some of his killing potential is cut off.


Not to tough, as shown in the Mini-Guides above, standard orb-walking, baiting, and use of Life Break can make for successful ganks. With Blink dagger ganks become phenomenal as you simply blink in, Life Break and throw some Burning Spears. The main problem I have without Blink Dagger is that no one is going to just let you come close, with a charging Huskar incoming they're naturally going to run. With Blink Dagger this is remedied nigh-entirely.


Huskar is pretty good at surviving ganks as long as disables aren't abundant. (A rather contradictory statement, since a good gank is one where disables are abundant from the gankers.) Activate Inner Vitality once your hp drops to red and start running. With Blink Dagger attempt to juke the enemy long enough for it to reactivate, then blink to saftey and use a TP scroll to get to base. Remember when blinking, not to just blink ahead of you, but try to do maneuvers that will greatly hinder the gankers. Blink over cliffs, trees, onto unreachable terrain, be imaginative.

On top of that, Huskar is also an excellent gank-reverser. With Berserker's Blood you get stronger as you take more damage, if you can evade death while your allies are coming to help, you can quickly turn around to slow with Life Break or just orb-walk the enemy to death.


This is where Huskar lacks greatly, he has little to no potential in this area do to his lack of AoE spells. While pushing just attempt to Orb-Walk any defenders, and if the opportunity arises Blink in and ultimate a target if you know you can kill them without being killed yourself.

Defending is probably even worse for Huskar, all you can do is throw cheap shots with your orb and hope for your allies with AoE skills and disables to come back. If you have allies with you and you can begin to attack, just Blink in and attack someone.



Crystal Maiden
Your best friend in a lane, she is Huskar's favorite lane partner. She can disable and slow your enemies, enabling easy early kills. On top of that, she's item independent so all the last hits go your way. Your allies will love her for her aura, and if the enemies lineup is especially tough, you may actually be able to afford to invest in some early levels of IV, simply because her huge mana regen is the only way you can cast it.


Dazzle
Another one of your favorite lane buddies, a Dazzle Huskar lane leads to an under-leveled under-farmed enemy and an overpowered carry Huskar. Spamming of his heal keeps Huskar in check, and Poison Touch lasts so damn long you can orb walk an enemies hp to 0 in it's duration, and it deals damn good damage in itself. Weave will make you hit harder than ever mid-late game, and Shallow Grave lets you pull of some real deal rambo stuff, you can really laugh in the face of death.


Viper
This lane spells death to all who face you. Both of you have powerful lane control, and the only thing Huskar needs to finish off his foes is something to keep them in range. Viper provides just that with his own perma-slowing ability, so get ready for the double-orb beatdown.


OmniKnight
A partner both in lane and in battle, OmniKnight is a great supporter for Huskar. His heal deals some devastating damage, so a great combo is for you to ulti to keep your opponent in range, then a heal brings your hp back up while lowering there's by a massive pure damage amount. Also, if you cast Life Break while Repel is on you, you won't take any of the self-damage, a definite plus. If Omni gets Degen early on, once he gets the enemy in perma-slow range Huskar will have a field day orb walking them down.


Slowers
Any hero that can slow down the enemy works great with Huskar, especially in a lane a single slow grants Huskar plenty of time to Orb-Walk.


Healers
By spamming Burning Spears a lot of HP is really taken out of Huskar, not to mention the harassment that your enemies might throw back in a tougher lane. These guys make the job easier, and can help you get the kill.


Disablers
What hero doesn't like these guys? Just have them hold your target down while you toss some Spears at 'em.



Moar Disablers
While they serve as the greatest ally they're also your worst enemy. When you're disabled, you aren't dealing damage.


Necrolyte
The only hero whom I'd actually consider a good counter to Huskar. Having a skill that actually lowers your hp is what Necrolyte wants, as soon as you go below the threshold he'll just Reaper you, beware.


Axe
You'll have a blast facing him in the lane, since your burning spears will keep him so far from the creep wave he'll never get a chance to spin, but if he manages to farm so gold Hood will negate a lot of your dps from Spears and Life Break, and with a Blink Dagger he'll always be right next to you in a team fight, watch out for the Culling Blade...


Silencer
He's not a total counter, but he will give you a hard time. Last Word completely fucks your ability to orb walk, you can't even combo Life Break and spears with him around. In a lane, if he gets Curse of the Silent, consider yourself screwed. You have no spammable early game ability, even if you invest in a point of Inner Vitality it costs so damn much you'll be oom in 1 cast, and then every consecutive CotS will keep your mana and hp at a nice low level... Watch out late game too, with only a Guinsoo he can already match, and probably out-do your dps potential.


Viper
He might be one of your favorite allies, but he's also a terrifying enemy for Huskar. In a lane, he'll ruin you. He has more range, more damage, (through Nethertoxin,) a perma slow, when you orb walk him he'll slow you and run, when he orbs walk you, there's no where to go. You want your hp to lower for Berserker's? Well then his Nethertoxin kicks in and destroys you. No chance doing any fancy 0-hp Armlet jukes either, try keeping Armlet on while Viper Strike eats away at your hp.

Replays
Goddamn "guide editing tool," erased my fucking edits lawl. Will be added soon, (after I come home from football game.)


So that concludes my very first Hero Guide on Huskar the Sacred Warrior. Wanted more? Wanted to jump off a bridge after reading it? Just comment and tell me what you thought about it. I hope you enjoyed reading my guide and be prepared for more, I don't plan on stopping. Gl and Hf with Huskar!

-DTC