Riki’s Rise in Pub

Riki has long since disappeared from the meta. Over a year ago, this hero was completely surpassed by other roaming heroes and no one wanted to test riki as a core anymore. Until patch 7.12, this is when Riki was remade and started appearing.

The initial reaction from the community to the Tricks of the Trade move was mostly negative. Many players assume this is a nerf and shouldn’t happen. But actually, it was the way of life for Riki to rise.

Current stats

Riki is quite effective at low ranks, as always. Stealth is quite a challenge that new players are not familiar with: either they forget to build stealth detectors, or they spend too many resources on this, which slows down the build. That makes Riki players quite happy, with a 55% win rate in games under 4K.

This hero lags behind at high ranks, but still plays well. Even in 5k+ games, Riki still has a win rate of over 50%, making the hero a solid pick. Riki causes supports to consume more resources, no matter how effectively the supports use stealth detectors. More specifically, Riki can gank single weak enemies, no matter what position he plays.

Countermeasure Meta

Currently, position 4 supports are getting more greedy now. Heroes like Slardar and Sand King are always picked, especially when Strength heroes get buffs from patch 7.13.

One thing we often see with greedy supports is that they are often alone in the early game, while the team creates space: with heroes like Gyrocopter and Lifestealer always rotating early, even though the turret gold has been reduced. Participating in the tower will create a great advantage for the team, helping to control the map to play more actively.

This is why Riki is favored: the hero has a very good ability to gank single targets when he reaches level 6, although Riki can have a hard time trying to kill aggressive targets like Sand King or Slardar, this hero is still Can slow down the enemy’s farm speed. Additionally, while doing that, Riki can generate the necessary vision and information for the team, allowing them to guess what the opponent is doing in order to react in time.

Greedy supports need space and Riki’s presence in the game always makes the other team unable to farm safely. Even if it’s just mental, it shouldn’t be overlooked: sometimes you won’t be able to farm the creeps in front of you, because Riki might be invisible right in front of you.

Present in Teamfight

There are other heroes in the game that still do well with Riki’s duties. For example, Bounty Hunter is still a superior roaming support in high ranked games. While Bounty Hunter deals less direct damage and buffs than Riki, the ability to get information as well as increase the economy of the team is very strong: something that high ranked players always take full advantage of.

But what Riki does better is the ability to help teamfight. Bounty Hunter does not deal much damage and BH’s skill set can only slow down and destroy the enemy’s TP. On the other hand, Riki has silence and slow AoE, which, combined with Utilmate, deals damage with a low cooldown.

Thanks to his better teamfight ability, Riki can transform into the late game. Even in the support position, the hero still has no difficulty in chasing or killing the other support. That makes for a pretty cool Riki playstyle: the hero slows the enemy to build in the early game and in the late game becomes a good DPS core, giving your team the edge.

The best way to build Riki today

One thing that most people agree on is that Riki should max out Cloak and Dagger first. Not only does it increase damage, but it also makes it harder for Riki to get caught in lane and during rotations.

Interestingly enough, while the build is generally accepted by everyone in the support and offlane positions, it is not the most successful build: maxing out Blink Strike increases the probability of success more, thanks to a much lower cooldown, has Can play offensively and defensively. Cloak and Dagger rely on Agility and have a large DPS potential that can only happen later in the game, while Blink Strike gives Riki an early advantage, allowing the hero to easily hunt and hide. exit.

Regardless of position, unless it’s pure poisition 1 Riki, everyone raises at least one point for Smoke Screen before reaching level 6: this slows and silences, with an advantage over the other moves though though not maxed out.

Speaking of builds, there’s one thing that almost every Riki player agrees on: Phase Boots then Diffusal Blade, with the option to add Ring of Aquila being one of the most successful stable builds. Phase Boots seems a bit backwards, as Riki usually benefits from Power Treads’ Agility more, but Riki’s main damage comes from his Ultimate, so attack speed doesn’t matter. Making the most of the damage in each attack is the best direction for Riki. In addition, Riki is one of the slowest heroes in the game, with a starting speed of 275 (not counting the bonus from Agility) and Phase Boots will help the hero overcome this obstacle.

The Diffusal Blade is an unsurprising item. This is one of the items with the highest damage compared to its cost, while helping Riki slow down enemies further, ensuring no one can escape the Smoke Screen.

Finally, the talent bar. With each talent bar, we can easily make a decision. Critical Strike at level 15 early game shouldn’t theoretically increase this hero’s damage by much, but it can make a difference in killing the target or letting them escape, especially when the amount of damage is Riki’s is quite tall.

More interestingly, the +900 Blink Strike cast range is much better than the 0.2 Backstab Multiplayer talent at lvle 20. However, after a closer look, the Backstab Multiplayer increases Riki’s damage by only about 10%, while +900 Blink Strike increases range by more than 2x to help Riki initiate combat from a great distance.

Finally, at level 25 there is a talent +400 Tricks of the Trade AoE that makes a lot of people quite angry when the utilmate is remade. Many people felt that this talent was a bit backwards and would nerf the hero more heavily, but that didn’t happen. The wider AoE makes Riki no longer worry about Force Staff or enemy repositioning items and continues to deal damage. This talent almost doubles the range of Riki’s ultimate and in addition to good damage, it can quell intentions of returning to combat: Tricks of the Trade can damage even dead enemies. vision, disabling their Blink Dagger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZLcmFQtEjk

Epilogue

Riki is the exact opposite of Bounty Hunter, despite having the same different gameplay. However, Bounty Hunter increases the speed of team items and often does not want to bring the game into the late game, when the gold advantage no longer has a big impact. As a result, Riki becomes a more beneficial support and offlane hero in the late game.

The community currently says that Riki is one of the most annoying heroes and is misunderstood as one of the strongest heroes in the current meta. There are many heroes in Dota history that are considered ‘overpowered’, and the stats disagree with the above opinion and indicate that Riki is not ‘overpowered’. When we lose to Riki, we often feel unfair and make the player feel useless, but this is not the case.

Make sure to ward early, stay in lane. Try to apply the pressure you have and gain control of the map. Follow the group early game and start pushing the tower, then Riki is no longer a big concern. Riki is a greedy support, doesn’t have many offlane masteries and isn’t a threat until late game. Move fast and play smart, coordinate with teammates if necessary and dominate the game. That way, you will no longer feel hopeless against Riki and will have a better chance of winning.

Source: Dotabuff