Dota 2: How to play and counter Huskar 7.31

Huskar hero potion is very difficult to balance. Those are heroes that lie in the thin line between: one is too strong, the other is useless. For now, it looks like Huskar is leaning more towards number one. Today’s article will analyze why 7.31 is strong, as well as guide how to play this hero and what you can do to counter Huskar.

CHANGE 7.31

The big change is in the forest. Except for some heroes, jungling is now much slower than before. Eating stacks, especially Ancient stacks, becomes harder, unless you’re a Templar Assassin or Tiny. This change in 7.31 slows down the flash farming of carries by several minutes. Thus, it opens up new opportunities for DPS cores who don’t need farming tools and Huskar is a perfect fit for this role.

Huskar was just buffed and nerfed in 7.31, but the most important thing is that Magic Damage Resistance from Berserker’s Blood is back. Although not much (up to 25%), but that change still affects the game and sometimes makes opponents surprised by Huskar’s ability to withstand attacks.

Finally, Huskar is currently ‘favoring’ the current meta heroes in patch 7.31. Huskar deals decent damage to high armor targets, mostly from magic damage. Hero can disarm high damage hand hit heroes like Templar Assassin and Tiny. Huskar can also reduce some of the problems that Zoo tactics create: with Inner Fire, Hsukar is resistant to push and prolongs the game.

HOW TO PLAY HUSKAR

Unlike most heroes, Huskar is quite rigid when it comes to building items, while skills are somewhat more diverse. Take a look at the guide to playing heroes on Dotabuff, we can easily see many different ways to build skills. Maximize Berserker’s Blood first? Or increase points on Burning Spear? What about a value point for Inner Fire early game?

Those are questions with no clear answers. Inner Fire early game is only effective when encountering damage heroes that hit the opponent’s hand. You need Inner Fire for two reasons. One: it’s a damage reducer. Two, the ability to help you win ranged creeps in lane. Better to increase Innfer Fire by 1 point in certain games, especially when playing in mid.

Prioritizing Burning Spear or Berserker’s Blood is mainly based on how active you play and how much or how little buff you need. If you feel you can overwhelm the lane, increase Blood by two and then max Burning Sear. Build 1-4-2-1 will make Huskar very annoying in lane, but the hero will risk being ganked more easily.

Otherwise, players usually choose 1-2-4-1 or 1-3-3-1. This way, you have slightly better jungle time, if forced into the jungle after the laning phase to get to Armlet and BKB. It should be noted that in both cases, skipping or delaying the ultimate is also an option. However, do not delay too long. Once you have Armlet, this is the best time to start ganking and pressuring your teammates.

Talking about Armlet and Huskar’s way of item building, there really isn’t too much creativity for the hero. Armlet is an undisputed item. Hero can’t function without Armlet and you should still build it even when encountering heroes like Ancient Apparition. You need extra damage and, more importantly, extra armor.

BKB is an almost absolute must-have second item. There are cases where the player prioritizes Heaven’s Halberd over. Halberd is a defensive item but it is only used in certain games. According to the article, you will need BKB to make the second item in over 80% of the game.

In most cases, you will get Aghanim’s Scepter as the third item and then the Assault Cuirass. Blue staff will give you util that penetrates BKB and disables dispel for 3 seconds. With a cooldown of 12 seconds (or 9 seconds), you can use it multiple times in a teamfight, locking down priority targets and preventing them from targeting teammates or escaping. With the recent buffs and tempo changes, Utility Huskar is back in the meta.

Assault Cuirass completes this build and it is the undisputed final item of the hero. Huskar needs as much armor as possible and AC gives a lot of armor. Later on, players can default to Satanic, but most of the time, we will have to adjust based on the opponent: Eye of Skadi, Silver Edge or MKB if needed. In the end, a lot of people experimented with the Overwhelming Blink build and with Aghanim’s Scepter, this build worked just as well.

DISEASE HUSKAR

Unlike most “Hero Countermeasures” tutorials, there really isn’t a clear answer for Huskar. You need to be stronger than this hero, that’s all. In the current patch, this is really difficult, because Huskar is always more profitable economically.

Losing the key is to know when not to fight. Huskar with Armlet and BKB had no rival. Theoretically, there are heroes like Razor that can go up against Huskar, but in the top 10 most popular carry, Huskar dominated the first 16-25 minutes of the game. There’s no reason to fight Huskar at this point unless the opponent is playing casually and going solo. Even then, make sure the team knows where Huskar logistics are so they can respond in time.

Sometimes it is beneficial to switch support networks to waste a Huskar BKB charge. This can be a long term strategy, or buyback back to teamfight. Buyback back to teamfight was extremely important at the time of Roshan. Huskar with two early kills is enough to help this hero sweep the highground.

Huskar’s biggest weakness is not much Agility, ie armor. Armlet overcomes this drawback significantly, but a lot of current meta heroes can go to Desolator early or at least Orb of Corrosion, while supports should consider Solar Crest. Many people think that Spirit Vessel can be a good countering Huskar item, but with 12 (9) seconds dispel and BKB, it is very difficult to promote Spirit Vessel effectively. Teams better go on Shiva’s Guard and Eye of Skadi to handle Huskar’s healing more effectively.

Finally, exploit Huskar’s poor mobility as much as you can. Spread across the map, constantly pushing lane and forcing him to chase you or switch towers when Huskar is at his strongest. Only fight when you have enough tools and don’t feed Huskar. Huskar is one of the slowest farming heroes in the game and of course he will lose gold if he can’t find and kill anyone.

According to dotabuff

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