Barathrum the Spiritbreaker

Barathrum is one badass cow, and he is pissed. He can ruthlessly crush an enemy into a twitching pulp within seconds. He's got all the skills to deliver that insane DPS.
The rest is up to you.



Hero Basics:

Barathrum is a one on one DPS hero. He can bash a single hero to his untimely death. He's also a fairly good ganker, but Spiritbreaker is the next thing to useless in a team fight. Although he is a strength hero, he cannot tank much damage. Don't try to make him into a tank. He most certainly isn't a carry or a late-game hero. Barathrum reaches his full potential in early-mid game, and as the game progresses, his power diminishes. There is not much you can do about that, other than a good item build.

I should also mention that he's almost never seen in league matches; but much like Pudge, he's fun to play in public games.



Hero Stats:




Hero Skills:

Charge of Darkness



Barathrum fixes his sight on an enemy and accelerates towards it. As he increases speed, he begins to merge with the shadows around him, becoming difficult to see until he stops the Charge or hits his target. Upon leaving the shadows, Barathrum shocks his opponent into an immobile state for some time. Enemies can only see the buff indicator when he is near his target.


Empowering Haste



Causes the Spiritbreaker to swing his weapon faster with higher movement speed, allowing him to deal extra damage. His presence increases the movement speed of nearby allied units.


Greater Bash



Gives a 17% chance to bash enemies across the ground, doing more initial damage and damage as they skid.


Nether Strike



Moves you next to your target doing extra damage. Performs a greater bash hit. Casting range improves per level.



*See Spiritbreaker Hero Page for more details on all skills.



Skill Build:

1. Charge of Darkness
2. Empowering Haste
3. Empowering Haste
4. Greater Bash
5. Empowering Haste
6. Nether Strike
7. Empowering Haste
8. Charge of Darkness
9. Charge of Darkness/Greater Bash
10. Charge of Darkness/Greater Bash
11. Nether Strike
12. Greater Bash/Charge of Darkness
13. Greater Bash/Charge of Darkness
14. Greater Bash
15. Stats
16. Nether Strike

Then finish up the stats.


Comments:

Charge of Darkness is awesome for chasing, ganking or hunting down single enemies. Getting it at first level enables you to get back to your lane with lightning speed if anything goes wrong. It also gives you a 1 second stun which is quite useful if you're trying to get the first blood.

• If you succesfully land a charge, you will stun your enemies for a short amount of time. 1/1.5/2/2.5 seconds at levels 1/2/3/4.
• Thanks to EH, you also get more attack damage as you're speeding up, and you can get up to +83 damage at Level 7. These buffs last for 4 more seconds after the charge, which means you can inflict great damage within that time.
• Magic Immunity is granted after 12 seconds. But that usually doesn't activate after 3rd level of charge, since you reach your target quicker than that.
• You also get 0 collision size, which means you can run through units, trees, cliffs or anything else. Still, Spiritbreaker sticks to the paths, not running through cliffs. The phase lasts for 4 more seconds after you finish your charge.
• If you cast spells, use items (bottle, MoM, TP etc..) or manually move Spiritbreaker during the charge, the spell is cancelled, leaving you with 4 seconds of increased movespeed and attack damage. This can be useful to escape once you realise that you're being baited into a trap.
• Various spells and debuffs cancel Charge of Darkness in various ways. Learn them, and be wary of the units who have them.
• Blinking cannot stop a charge though. If your opponent is smart enough, he will Blink after you land the charge. Which means you should probably Nether Strike such units right after you land the stun. If you time it right, you will appear right behind him after he blinks, and you will feel an unresistable urge to high-five yourself as you finish him off.

Note: As pipser pointed out, blinking might save you from the stun and the damage; if you manage to blink at exactly the right time. Some guides say that this is possible only a few miliseconds after the charge, and right before the stun. I have never seen it happen, and I can't find a video of it on Youtube. If you manage to pull that off, PM me.


Empowering Haste gives you +62 damage at level 7 (+83 if you reach max speed with charge) if you have the Power Treads, and this is one of the reasons why Spiritbreaker is so powerful mid game. You get a frekkin Sacred Relic for free, and it also comes with extra MS!

• For reasons mentioned above, you should max out Haste first. Get it at levels 2,3,5 and 7.
• Mostly because of the Haste, you will have total map domination between levels 7-15 if you play it right. There is almost no hero that you can't hunt down, no one can tank all your damage at that level. Only a few heroes like Rikimaru and Luna can escape you.
• After everyone reaches level 16, your skills and your extra damage get weaker and weaker. If you have farmed up enough items by this point, you might just survive the late-game battles.
• The extra MS is actually an aura effect that applies to you and your allies, but it doesn't usually make a great big difference in teamplay.

Greater Bash is one of the signature skills of Barathrum.

• Basically, 1/6 of your attacks will result in a Greater bash, which stuns the enemy for 0.95/1.15/1.35/1.55 seconds and deals 25/50/75/100 magical damage for levels 1/2/3/4.
• It is not a perma-bash, since it can only activate every 1.5 seconds.
• I usually max this skill the last, because there is not much difference between .95 and 1.55 stun, and the damage is not that great once you divide it to 6 attacks. However, it SHOULD be learnt at level 4. The 17% chance of stun is awesome when hunting someone.
• As IceFrog reminds us whenever we pick Barathrum, Greater Bash doesn't stack with Cranium Basher.

Nether Strike is a great way to surprise your enemies and then rip them apart. Get it whenever you can, and use it when the enemy thinks he's getting away.

• Nether Strike will teleport you to the opposite side of your enemy 1 second after it is cast, and delivers a lvl4 Greater Bash. It also deals 100/200/300 magic damage on top of that.. Damn!
• If the enemy blinks/windwalks/TP's/swaps away in that 1 second after you use Nether, you will still appear behind him. Here is an example of enemy teleporting to fountain. You get the idea. Wherever he goes, you appear there. Use it to your own benefit.

Item Build:
This is your cost-effective core build right here. Not even 5500 gold. And with just these items, you can get kill streaks of 15 in most games.

Bottle to replenish your mana and HP. But it's mostly for mana, since your skills require a bigger mana pool. A ganker's standard item.

Bracers are for stats. I usually start the game with two circlets and pots, and build my bracers first. Then I move on to PT and Bottle.

Power Treads give you great movespeed and attack speed bonuses. They are the boots of choice for Spiritbreaker. (STR of course)

Mask of Madness is the most important item here. It gives you a 17% lifesteal passive which is awesome enough on its own, but it also gives you the 'Berserk' active. Berserk gives you a great DPS increase, it gives you +100 attack speed +100% attack speed!!! and +20% movespeed for 12 seconds. The downside is, you take 30% more damage during that time. But if you're fighting a single enemy, he'll be too busy skidding backwards, and won't get much chance to hit you. This mask was friggin made for Barathrum.

Some people go with Armlet instead of MoM, but I like Mask better, since I usually turn the Armlet on and just forget about it, and die.

Quelling Blade is a great item for heroes without farming skills. It gives you +32% damage against creeps and NCs. You can deal about 250 damage with each attack, which helps you farm your items faster. It also lets you cut down trees, but I don't know why Barathrum would feel the need to cut down a tree. Why would any other hero need to cut down a tree, for that matter?


After the Core:



Assault Cuirass for extra attack speed and armor bonuses. It's a great item on Barathrum. You hit more, and because of the armor debuff aura, enemy eats more damage. A perfect duo.

Heart of Tarrasque for tanking more damage. Duh.




BKB is optional. I usually don't ever get it. If you're going to need magic immunity while hunting, you'll probably die after it wears off. The enemy can usually wait 5 seconds to hit you with a nuke. Learn to pick your battles.




After these items, get anything you want. I strongly suggest Buriza; since you already have great attack speed, you can bash and crit your way into your enemy's Ancient quite easily.

The game will usually end long before you can get these last items.



Strategy:

This may sound silly, but I usually play Barathrum on Scourge. The reason is the gap in the trees behind your fountain.


Early game:

Go to top or bottom lane, farm as best as you can. Harass the enemy if you can with Charge, and if you have another stunner with you, try to get first blood. Build your items. You can get a chicken if you want, but I usually TP to base, regenerate, buy stuff, and charge back to my lane. When you get level 7, get to ganking, or hunting on your own.


Mid game:

This is when you hunt down your enemies. Try to focus on their carry heroes. What you have to do is basically wait for someone to show up on the minimap all alone, make sure at least 3 more enemies are visible. Charge your prey right away. When you land the charge, activate MoM immediately. Hit him as much as you can. If he tries to run or pull off a combo that could kill you, Nether Strike him. Even if you don't have MoM yet, you can still kill him with this combo. And better yet, if you charge him from the fountain (or more spesifically, the gap in the trees behind the fountain on Scourge), you will have full mana and a little cooldown left on your Charge when you hit him. You can charge him a second time, or you can charge off in some other direction if you have already killed him.

If you're ganking, initiate the gank with a Charge or a Nether. You can also use those to keep the prey from escaping. Ganking is usually not necessary since you can kill almost anyone by yourself.

When you've got nobody to kill, farm the NCs non-stop. Quelling Blade and MoM give you great Jungling potential, you should put that to good use. But remember, your primary targets are the enemy carries. Be ready to leave the jungle when you see a vulnerable enemy.

Remember that YOU MUST KILL during this phase of the game. This is when you are deadliest, and if you waste all your time at NC's or stuff like that, you will be completely useless in the late game. You should be feared by the entire enemy team. You have to shut them off during that time. That's your main role in the game.


Late game:

Your skills will start to get obsolete in late game. Bash won't hurt all that much, and Empowering Haste becomes less and less effective. Nether Strike won't damage your enemies enough either. Enemies will get more armor and more HP, which also nullifies your DPS. Try to survive.

As I mentioned before, Barathrum sucks in team battles. Using any skill will get you stuck in middle of creeps and tanks. Ranged enemies and nukers won't show any mercy. Using MoM only makes things worse.

Your only way to contribute to a team battle is by hitting your enemies in melee, and you can be easily disabled when you're doing that. What you can do is, you can wait until most of the battle is over, and then you can charge/nether the heroes who are trying to escape. Your job is to mop up the survivors.





Conclusion:
Don't piss him off.





Thanks and Stuff:

Many thanks to Nori- (Ironfisto?), since I started playing Barathrum after reading his guide, and most of the ideas here are identical to his. Still, I feel that I have added a lot of stuff of my own.

Thanks to my pals who have gotten me into DotA, and I would also like to neuter them for the same reason.

Hi mom, I'm on playdota.com!

Floodturka