Introduction
“Your flesh shall be my armor.”
Clinkz is a ranged agility carry with incredible burst ganking DPS potential. He has both high move speed and attack speed, but he is also a very fragile carry and something of a glass cannon.
You can find Clinkz's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Great ganking carry
- Very high damage output
- High base damage early on thanks to Searing Arrows
- Has an escape mechanism
- Great move speed
- High attack speed
- Deceptively good pusher
Cons
- Very fragile
- Even with items, squishy without using his ultimate
- Mana issues
- Positioning is key
- Really poor attack animation
Item Build
Clinkz has traditionally been played in the offlane, and largely still is in public matchmaking. Nowadays in the competitive scene, whenever he is picked (which is not often), he is usually played in the safe lane because of the importance of an early Orchid to his ganking capabilities.
Starting Items
A good all-round starting build for Clinkz is as follows:
- A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 1x Circlet, 1x Slippers of Agility, and 1x Iron Branch.
This gives him plenty of health regeneration to see him through the early laning stage and any harass he may encounter, and also gives him a nice stat boost, helping him secure last hits at level 1 where he will ordinarily not yet have Searing Arrows.
Early Game
Moving into the early game, upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand, grab some Boots of Speed, and upgrade the Slippers of Agility and Circlet into a Wraith Band. You can further upgrade the Wraith Band into a Ring of Aquila if you want; the extra stats and mana regeneration are great for Clinkz, and the item is even more cost effective than before thanks to the recent damage buff it received.
Towards the post-laning stage you'll want to have upgraded your Boots of Speed into Power Treads and made a start of your first Oblivion Staff, which is a key component of your core item: Orchid Malevolence.
Core
Your core item is Orchid Malevolence. It is absolutely core, no exceptions. One of the great things about Clinkz’s item build is that almost everything can be purchased from the side shop, so you need not leave the lane except to farm the jungle; only the occasional recipe needs to be shipped via Courier, and the Ring of Protection in the Ring of Aquila, if you choose to build one.
The other great thing about his core is that Orchid has cheap components, and those components give you great mana regeneration, which is important so that you can continue to use Searing Arrows to secure last hits and Skeleton Walk if necessary to avoid a gank.
The goal is to get to Orchid as quickly as possible. Hand of Midas is sometimes picked up if Clinkz gets a good start, but only if things are going perfectly, otherwise it significantly delays your Orchid.
Once you have your Orchid you want to go ganking with it. Eat a juicy creep with Death Pact (the stronger the creep the better), Skeleton Walk to scout out an easy target, attack out of Skeleton Walk using Searing Arrows, use the active from Orchid on them, trigger Strafe, and then watch them melt. If all goes to plan they’ll die to your initial volley of Searing Arrows, or at least from the Orchid amplification soon afterwards. This is your bread and butter combo, so rinse and repeat throughout the mid game.
Luxury Items
Black King Bar - The ultimate defensive item for any carry. This will prevent you being locked down in teamfights by stuns or killed off with burst magic damage. The strength bonus increases your health pool a touch and the damage is always handy, but the main reason you buy this is for the Spell Immunity active, so make sure you use it for teamfights.
Daedalus – People often skip BKB and go straight for a Daedalus, which makes Clinkz’s damage output truly incredible. I wouldn’t advise this, but Daedalus is definitely the prime damage item for Clinkz once he has his core. If you’re not being stunned or burst down then you can go straight for Daedalus, otherwise get a BKB first.
Monkey King Bar – The other key damage option is MKB. Less popular than Daedalus because it lacks critical strike, MKB is however the better pick-up if the enemy core(s) have opted for a Butterfly, or there’s a Heaven’s Halberd on the opposing team. MKB is slightly better on Clinkz than a lot of carries because he actually has incredible base sieging capability (Searing Arrows work on buildings), and MKB means you’ll never miss when targeting an enemy building from the low ground.
Butterfly – The ultimate late-game luxury purchase for agility carries, it gives huge chunks of attack speed, damage, and evasion. The only problem with Butterfly is that it’s hard-countered by Monkey King Bar. If the enemy carry is working towards, or already has an MKB, consider purchasing a different luxury item. It’s still a great item to have, but the evasion is countered and it thus becomes a cost inefficient item.
Eye of Skadi – It gives a big boost to your health and mana pools so that you no longer feel extremely squishy and has an orb effect that combines well with your ganking capabilities.
Situational Items
Hand of Midas – A potential early game pick up, if you have a strong start and a good last hit rate. You risk delaying your Orchid by too much though, so be careful.
Ring of Aquila – Great early game pick up for Clinkz – good stats, very cost-efficient, and mana regen for the early laning phase.
Drums of Endurance – Another potential early item pick up. More relevant if you’re struggling to farm up a big ticket luxury item and need the extra stats.
Boots of Travel – When you are at that stage of the game where you’re about to complete your inventory, swap out your Power Treads for Boots of Travel. It frees up a slot you would otherwise have reserved for a TP Scroll and makes you much less susceptible to split-push.
Divine Rapier - Finally, there's always the Divine Rapier option if your back's against the wall and defeat is almost imminent or you feel you're so far ahead you just want to have fun. Clinkz is a risky hero to buy it on, because he’s so squishy, so be sure to warn your teammates of your intentions in advance.
Skill Build
Strafe is a steroid ability which, when used, grants Clinkz an additional 130 attack speed for a short duration. It is always skilled last, but typically maxed second. It is most useful during teamfights and ganking opportunities, usually allowing you to get off a quick series of attacks before the enemy has time to respond.
Additional levels increase the duration of the ability, from 4 seconds initially to 10 seconds at level 4, and also reduce the cooldown, from 45 seconds to 30 seconds.
Searing Arrows is an ability which adds bonus physical damage to your attacks. It is usually skilled as soon as possible (level 2, to be on the safe side) but maxed first. This is great not only for increasing your DPS in engagements but also for securing last hits, as it dramatically increases your starting damage.
Searing Arrows can be auto-cast, but early on you will not be able to afford to do this for very long because of the 10 mana cost of each attack. Use it manually to help secure those early last hits when your base damage is too low to safely ensure them and to harass any lane opponents without attracting creep aggro. Later on, when you have the mana to support it, you can set it to auto-cast.
Skeleton Walk is usually skilled first but maxed last. This grants Clinkz invisibility, as well as increased movement whilst it is active. The reason this is skilled first is that it allows you to safely avoid level one ganks or engagements, or forces the enemy team to invest heavily in true sight from the start. However, it is maxed last because one point is sufficient for the most part.
Additional levels increases the duration of the ability – from 20 seconds to 35 seconds – and the bonus move speed for its duration (from 11% to 44). However, as the duration is the same as the cooldown from the start, 2 points are sufficient to allow you to almost always be invisible, providing you have sufficient mana to support the cost.
Death Pact is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). This ability allows Clinkz to consume an enemy or neutral creep. Once consumed, he acquires bonus health and damage based on a percentage of that unit's total health for 35 seconds.
This helps to mitigate Clinkz's innate squishiness, and also serves to further enhance his DPS potential. Clinkz can gain a maximum of 550/715/880 health and 55/72/88 damage from Death Pact.
Gameplay Tips
Try to keep a good amount of mana in reserve, so that you can use your full combo in an engagement or gank. Without Strafe and Searing Arrows to augment his attack speed and damage, Clinkz’s DPS is fairly benign.
Remember that by manually casting Searing Arrows you will not attract creep aggro. Abuse this to your advantage to bully a lane opponent if possible, denying them last hits and establishing your dominance over the early laning phase.
Searing Arrows deals physical damage and does affect mechanical units. This makes Clinkz a great pusher as he deals its bonus damage to Siege creeps and Towers. It also means Black King Bar is ineffective against Clinkz.
Skeleton Walk has a brief fade time of 0.6 during which enemies will be able to see you, so remember that you will be vulnerable and visible during that fade time – if refreshing its duration for a gank be sure to do so outside of enemy vision.
Use Skeleton Walk to gain superior positioning ahead of a teamfight. Clinkz is a squishy hero and should rarely initiate large scale teamfights (in contrast with ganks, which he can initiate). Instead it is often best to wait for the fight to break out before joining in, lest you get focussed down. In the ensuing confusion of the fight and distraction caused by your teammates try to pick off enemy heroes.
Death Pact grants you increased health and damage based on the max health and damage of the creep you consume, therefore it is best to use it on the tankiest and deadliest creep you can locate. You can target any neutral creeps (including Mud Golems), except for those found at the Ancient camps – if posed with plenty of options always pick the boss of the creep camp (e.g. Satyr Tormenters and Centaur Conquerors).
| Note: Death Pact counts as a creep kill and gives Clinkz gold and experience accordingly |
Your bread and butter combo is: Death Pact a creep > Skeleton Walk > Locate enemy and position yourself > Strafe yourself & Orchid target > Right click using Searing Arrows. This will kill off most enemies so long as you’re not significantly behind in farm. If you are, choose your targets carefully.
Last Updated - Patch 6.82.
