Introduction
I'm writing this mini-guide for you readers who wish to have a quick and concise guide to refer to. So as not to bog you down with minute details that does little to improve your game, I shall leave those parts out. Feel free to read more about Ursa's skill mechanics at your own free time. At the end of the guide are several replays, Competitive and casual PubGames which you can refer to. My personal replays will reflect exactly what has been preached in this guide, so if you want to judge its effectiveness in a real game setting, zoom to those. Not so recently, Ursa has made quite an appearance in the competitive scene. As far as item build and playstyle goes, he isn't far off than how he is played in a pub game. Expect some similarities between them.

Skills: Ursa Warrior - DotA Hero Details



A step-by-step guide

Step 1: Skill Build
1. Overpower
2. Fury Swipes
3. Fury Swipes
4. Overpower
5. Fury Swipes
6. Enrage
7. Fury Swipes

After which Overpower is maxed first,
followed by Earthshock.
Enrage is taken whenever possible, at 11 and 16.


Fury swipes is needed early to take out Roshan.
Earthshock is delayed as 25% slow at level 1 is too ineffective due to Ursa's slow casting animation. Rely on teammates for disables/slows if you are ganking during early levels.



Step 2a: Laning (As Scourge)
Start off with the following items:
Set 1:

Set 2:


If you are going for Set 2, you will be lacking Hp Regen items. Borrow from lanemate or get a RoR from sideshop asap. 100% block is useful against harassment. If you are unsure of how aggresive your lane might be and its harassment type (Magic vs Physical), go for Set 1.
Note: Do not buy quelling blade. It has no effect for Ursa once he learns Fury Swipe.

• Head off to top lane for easier access to jungle. Stick to lane to farm last hits
• Pull neutrals creeps whenever possible (if ally isn't doing it)
• Get a RoR from sideshop for hp regen once you have 350 gold
• Lvl1 Overpower + Lvl 1 Fury Swipe does decent harass dmg. Works well when paired with an ally with a disable/slow

Step 2b: Jungling (As Scourge)
Somewhere in between 5-7 mins, you will reach level 5-6 or so. With Enrage, it makes jungling easier since Fury swipes does double the bonus damage now. To take off higher level creeps,

• cast Overpower, wait till it has cooldown (10secs)
• unleash all your attacks during the remaining 5secs of Overpower, with Enrage on
• Immediately recast Overpower once the bonus attacks are gone
• Keep in mind this Double Overpower tactic

Step 3: Roshan + getting your Blink Dagger
Usually, within 10-12 minutes all components for a Vladmir's Offering can be bought.
You should be approximately level 7 by now.

• Head off to the Ancient Creeps camp for easy money first. Clear them with Double Overpower tactic
• Again with Double Overpower, take out Roshan. You should be near full health when he is dead.
• Head back to Ancient Creeps to clear them again. They should have respawned by now. By now, you should be around Level 9

Farming for Blink Dagger

• Ancient Creeps are great money source so try to stick to laning the bottom lane for last hits. Alternate between the two. If lane pushed too far, go ancient creeping.
• Alternatively, jungle in Sentinel's forest if you know it is safe and go ancient creeping in between.
• Aside from Dagger, you need some gold for a pair of boots too of course

Step 4: Assasination Time


With these items, and at least a level in Earthshock, the time is ripe to pick off lone targets. Remember the to utilize Double Overpower.

Look out for these heroes for a sure kill:
- No Invis ability (unless you have dust/gem/sentry)
- No Stun (likely to escape)
- No Blink or similar abilities eg Surge, Storm's Ball, Lycan's Wolf form.

Note: Dagger has a max range of 1200. However, if you target a location beyond 1200 range, you will only blink for 960 range. It takes practice and good estimation to achieve the maximum.

Damage Approximation Fury Swipes damage from 6x attacks (Lvl 4 Overpower) ~ 1000dmg Fury Swipes damage from 12x attacks (Double Overpower Tactic) ~ 4000dmg The said damage are appromixate values from Fury Swipes alone, without bonus damage from Enrage and your base attack. Fury Swipes forms the bulk of the dmg done. As a rule of the thumb, ALL casters die from one Overpower. Certain Strength heroes requires about one-and-a-half Overpower to be killed.

Note: Fury swipes deals double damage (50dmg) when Enrage is active

Step 5: Items Dilemma
Problem 1: By now you will realise that HP isn't an issue but Mana seems to always be giving problems. You cannot sustain going on killing heroes one after the other. You have to come back to the fountain often.

A few solutions:

Having CM on your team is a huge asset for Ursa. Not only does it solves your mana issues, she makes a great lane partner as well.

Understandably, not everyone loves to play CM in a pubgame. The other alternative is to go Bloodstone. It is not the best item there is but it gives you infinite mana for Earthshocks, Blinks and Overpower. Note that Bloodstone no longer gives bonus HP regen. Aside from Mana, the extra 450HP helps. Start off by buying a Energy Booster for a quick +250 mana boost.
Note:I must say that Bloodstone is somewhere between a personal preference and a core item. But for my, I place higher priority for Bloodstone over Heart.


Problem 2: You can't seem to be getting killls because there are too many stunners in the opposing team and/or they seem to cluster together. Never a chance to pick off lone targets.

A few solutions:

Have Omniknight to repel you. Again, you hardly see one in a pubgame. If you have a friend, it is worth to try out this combo.

Focus on farming for a BKB. It will help you immensely. Note that BKB will dispel your Overpower (so no Double Overpower). Once you Blink + BKB + Stomp in, you need to cast Overpower. This will cost you 0.5secs of casting time.

Still no BKB yet?
Wait for an ally to initiate. If he can soak in the stun for you, you can blink in without being disabled to finish him off. During major teamfights, do the same by hanging around at the back and wait for opponents to release their stuns. Do not blink in into the main fray however, pick off those casters at the far back first. The key is to eliminate all the soft casters with disables and slows. Engage another target only if you have Overpower + Enrage on. Earthshock is spammable as well, provided you have ample mana. Otherwise wait for your Dagger to cooldown for the next opportunity to kill.



Step 6: Roshan every 10 minutes
Take note of the timing you last killed Roshan. He spawns every 10mins after death. You get Cheese + Aegis from the 3rd kill onwards (30mins+)

Tactical usage of Aegis and Cheese:
- Ursa should get the Aegis, pass the Cheese to your next best Carry.
- Upon having an Aegis, you might want to organize a team push since Aegis (and Cheese) raises the chances of a successful push.
- If you die while holding Aegis and 5 enemy heroes are camping beside you, immediately Blink away when you revive. You shouldn't recklessly die this way in the first place, but it does happen once in a while.
(A crude way is to spam blink hotkey and click on a safe spot)


Step 7: Too much cash

Unfortunately, Ursa isn't the kind of hero which does good with Damage items. He can't use orbs, bashes (conflicts with fury swipe) as well as critical items (conflicts as well). I won't go into details here as to why. The surest way to increase his DPS is by getting Heart to amplify his Enrage.

With all the extra HP he has, fit in a Blademail. Blademail does pure damage. What you deal is what you get. If you lose 1000hp, so does your enemy.
In fact, if you already have Bloodstone, your HP should be sufficiently high (~2000HP) to make use of Blademail. Therefore skip Heart for Blademail first.
Usage: Activate the moment you blink+stomp in. Or when focused, whichever comes first.

Also, get Boots of travels. Alternatively, Phase boots.



Step 8: Watch out for counters
Some Specific Counters against Ursa

• Blademail is great and all, but often it is the item that will be used to counter you. So watch out for those spikes after you Blink + Stomp into the crowd. Don't target them.
• Purge from Diffusal kills your Overpower and slows you to a crawl.
• Disables that passes through BKB. Bane (Atropos) is one hell of a nuisance for Ursa especially during early game. He will sleep you often. And his Ultimate passes through BKB, so watch out.
• Mega-slowers like Viper and Lanaya can be as irritating as disablers/stunners

Conclusion
This step-by-step guide, in my opinion, is the best way to introduce someone who is new to Ursa to get intimate with him. It is pretty much a idiot-proof guide by which you follow it and definitely get at least 10 kills with a positive K-D ratio.

To further improve on playing Ursa however, requires a much deeper understanding of the hero and this is where the player himself have to learn and discover at his/her own pace. That said, this guide is meant to serve as a stepping stone for you to master Ursa.

As far as item argument goes, I'm against listing all the viable/recommended/non-recommended items since it doesn't help in making the guide any clearer since most item choices are situational. What I listed are those which works 90% of the time, bearing in mind such games played are either Pubgames or Casual Inhouses.