Dota 2: How to play Bounty Hunter 7.28, extremely powerful and popular hero in pub

Bounty Hunter 7.28 is worth a try right now. The bounty hunter is among the most successful and popular heroes, even at the highest ranks. Initially, many people assumed that the Shard was the reason why Bounty Hunter was popular, but it is not so simple. Perhaps this hero has been strong for a long time. Shard’s presence is just a catalyst to help people pay more attention to BH.

BOUNTY HUNTER DOESN’T RELATE

Since Valve remade Track from patch 7.20 more than two years ago, Bounty Hunter has not clearly defined his role. This hero loses all potential for economic acceleration for the team. Meanwhile, Bounty Hunter does not have a high survivability like Nyx Assassin, and also worse teamfight than Treant Protector. This hero has the ability to scout but has no summoner skills nor effective teamfight presence. In return, BH is significantly increased damage by IceFrog.

There have been many people trying to take advantage of this extra damage. Bounty Hunter offlane greed and sometimes BH position 1 are tried, even in the professional arena. However, it never became the default pick. This way of playing sometimes creates surprises in the draft, but success is rare.

Now, in the presence of Aghanim’s Shard, Bounty Hunter 7.28 has been resurrected to its former glory, giving allies extra movement speed and vision. So is Bounty Hunter more suitable in position 3 or 4?

POPULAR GAME FOR BOUNTY HUNTER PATCH 7.28

While the hero is very versatile, we still see some common playstyles in Bounty Hunter. In high ranked games, Bounty Hunter is often played in the offlane, be it position 3 or 4. This is completely understandable as it allows BH to continuously put economic pressure on the enemy carry.

At level 3, Bounty Hunter usually increases Jinada to level 2. With a 9 second cooldown and 20 gold loot, Jinada can transfer 200 GPM from the opposing team to his own team, as long as you hit the opponent. 5 Jinada hits per minute will give you 100 more gold while the enemy loses 100 gold.

Of course, that’s an ideal situation where you can hit the carry continuously. Even if it only hits a support, it still helps Bounty Hunter. This playstyle can be achieved with Bounty Hunter’s base stats: 600 HP with 7.5 armor, 320 movement speed and 55 average damage. These numbers are a bit unfair for the opposing team.

After level 2 Jinada, most people choose to max Shuriken Toss. This makes sense, especially for Bounty Hunter position 4, the role you don’t directly participate in in combat. 375 magic damage is not a small number: it deals 300 damage (after subtracting magic resistance). At the beginning of the game, this number usually accounts for 25% of the support’s health. Not to mention the ability to jump between tracked objects, Shuriken Toss can be useful in early game teamfight. That’s why players often prioritize it over Jinada.

Finally, if you want to have a successful Bounty Hunter game, players are almost required to choose +20 MS at the level 10 talent. Bounty Hunter in 7.28 is already agile by default, but with the extra MS from Talent, Track and possibly Drum, the hero is almost impossible to chase.

UNPOPULAR GAMEPLAY

Although Bounty Hunter’s skill leveling is quite similar, it is not with items. This is also considered one of the strong points of this hero.

BH can build up almost every item in the game and make good use of them. Thanks to the gold from Track and Jinada, BH can get the necessary items in time.

Of course, the hero can’t hold Pipe as effectively as Underlord, but Bounty Hunter does have the option to build this item. Make smart decisions and solve the problems by selecting the right item. That’s what the hero utility is supposed to achieve.

Do you need to catch an opponent? Rod of Atos is not a bad choice, especially when you need it to assist with setups for teammates. Confronting the healing squad? Go to Spirit Vessel so that the mid player on the team prioritizes other items more effectively. Need to save you? Force Staff is always a great choice. Team need more vision and movement speed? To the Shard, of course.

The two most important points to do are think and Communicating with teammates. First, make sure you build the right items and second, that your teammates don’t build the same items to avoid unnecessary redundancy.

VERY RARE GAMEPLAY

Finally, we will talk about the idea that is considered the worst in high ranked games: DPS Bounty Hunter. It sounds fine in theory and it could get stronger later on thanks to a kit from BH, but overall it’s totally not worth it.

Bounty Hunter in 7.28 has decent stats, but they’re clearly not great, especially in terms of Agility: the hero is about 75% worse than Agility heroes in terms of AGI development. The 200% crit guarantee sounds good in theory, but the first Track can be dispelled by Manta, the second Track is disabled by BKB, while the third Track is neutralized by Minotaur’s Horn. Of course the article is a bit exaggerated, but we can see that Track is an unreliable DPS boost.

Aghanim’s Scepter is also not an auxiliary item. It tries to put Bounty Hunter on the damage party, but it doesn’t solve any problems. Even if BH wins while holding the green stick, maybe in that match, Bounty Hunter doesn’t need that item at all to win that game. Unless the team really lacks DPS, but this case must be said very, very rarely.

EPILOGUE

Bounty Hunter is in the group of support heroes that are very interesting to play because the kit allows the hero to build items on schedule, opening up a lot of different ways to build. Understanding which items you need to choose from is essential for Bounty Hunter to succeed and that means it’s also the best hero to learn Dota.

What do you think about Bounty Hunter? Do you agree with the article that DPS Bounty Hunter is really not worth playing? Please comment below about your thoughts.

According to dotabuff

You can read more Hero tutorials in the following 7.28 update: