Introduction
“Unleash the beasts of war.”
Beastmaster is a melee strength initiator. He is a versatile hero, capable of being played more as a utility/semi support or a tank/semi-carry. It is perhaps because he doesn’t fit fully into either role that he is a fairly rare pick both competitively and in public matchmaking.
Nonetheless, his abilities grant him access to a fantastic stun, a strong team aura, good early burst damage, and incredible map vision.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Versatile solo laner – can solo pretty much any lane
- Flexible item build – can build support/utility items, push items, or semi-carry items
- His Hawk gives him incredible map vision
- Has a strong teamfight aura
- Has one of the best stuns in the game
- Pretty tanky and has good base move speed
- Good attack animation
Cons
- Somewhat a jack of all trades, master of none
- Requires micro skills
- His nuke can be tricky to land
- Requires team to follow up on his initiation
- Needs a timely level 6 and some farm
- Mana issues
Item Build
Starting Items
Good starting items for Beastmaster are similar to those for most heroes, combining a mix of plenty of regen (especially important for melee solo heroes) and some good early stats from items that will be upgraded later on. A typical starting build for Beastmaster would be something like this:
- A set of Tangos, Healing Salve, Gauntlets of Strength, 2x Iron Branch, Clarity.
Early Game
Early on grab some basic Boots of Speed, upgrade your Iron Branches into a Magic Wand, and upgrade your Gauntlets of Strength it a cost efficient Bracer.
A great early game pick-up for Beastmaster is a Soul Ring. The mana and health regeneration it provides is great for allowing you to constantly call upon your Hawk and Boar whenever required, and the burst mana you can acquire from its active will grant you spammable access to your Wild Axes nuke from very early on, which will come in handy for securing last hits and also for taking out the ancients (Wild Axes is extremely effective at taking out ancient stacks).
Core Items
Upgraded boots are your first port of call. They will typically be Power Treads for the stats, although some players prefer the damage and superior mobility granted from Phase Boots. Even Arcane Boots are an option on Beastmaster – typically purchased by a support-centric Beastmaster that is intending to purchase the team’s Mekanism.
Aghanim’s Scepter is fantastic on Beastmaster and not to be under-estimated. The +10 all stats, +150 mana and +200 health are all great to have on a hero whose role will often be that of an initiator and tank, but the key reason for purchasing Aghanim’s on Beastmaster is for its buff to his ultimate: the range of Primal Roar is increased from 600 units to a huge 950 units, allowing for much longer range initiation, and the cooldown is almost halved, from 80/75/70 seconds to just 45 seconds, meaning you’ll always have access to it in teamfights and ganks.
Luxury Items
Drums of Endurance – One of my absolute favourite items for Beastmaster. I'm a big fan of Drums of Endurance on almost any hero, but they arguably synergise better with Beastmaster than any other hero in the game. They're cost efficient, easy to build into, give you a large chunk of stats, and provide utility for your entire team with the move speed and attack speed auras – auras which stack with your own passive aura of 15/25/35/45 attack speed and perfectly suit an aura build.
If you bought an early Bracer then the Drums upgrade is a no-brainer. If someone else on your team already has them then they’re not as cost-effective but still a possible luxury pick-up.
Assault Cuirass – AC is the ultimate utility item. +35 attack speed, +10 armor for Beastmaster, and +20 attack speed and +5 armor for allies, and -5 armor on enemies in a 900 unit AoE around Beastmaster.
Don't go for an AC though if someone else on your team already has one or is working towards one. The auras won't stack and so the item becomes really cost inefficient at that point - you're better off using the gold on one of these other luxury items. If no one else is going for it, however, then it synergises superbly with your Inner Beast’s passive attack speed aura ability.
Vladmir’s Offering – Another aura item. Beastmaster is one of the most popular heroes to go aura build on; you not only make yourself tankier, you also already provide your team with highly beneficial Inner Beast aura, so additional auras are a perfect complement, and as Beastmaster tends not to have a particularly defined role in the game it makes sense to build him out as a utility hero.
Vlad's is especially good if one of the other cores on your team is a melee hero, as they will benefit from all four of Vladmir’s Offering’s auras – lifesteal, bonus damage, armor, and mana regeneration.
Necronomicon – The summon-centric build. Necronomicon is great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. It’s also a strong teamfight item (the Necro units deal notable damage), good for countering any invis enemy heroes, and gives some solid stat gain.
Blink Dagger – The initiator-centric build. Blink is very popular on Beastmaster in competitive Dota, where movement and mobility is key. It’s less popular in public matchmaking, where cores tend to build out as semi-carries and go for stats/damage over mobility, but if your main role in the game is to initiate then Blink will allow you to do so from extremely long range. This should also allow you to line up your Primal Roars so that they affect multiple enemy heroes.
Heaven’s Halberd – A good defensive utility item that is often overlooked. Halberd will prevent an enemy core from attacking anyone on your team for a lengthy 3-4.5 seconds. On top of that you gain a nice chunk of strength, damage, and survivability.
Post-Luxury/Situational
Boots of Travel – Boots of Travel are great for the late game, when you need to free up a slot which would otherwise be taken up by a TP Scroll. With this, you combine your Boots and TP Scroll slot into one, allowing you to put a slot to better use.
Note, also, that you (and your teammates) can use Boots of Travel on your Hawk and your Boar, which make for great mobile teleportation sites for heroes that opt for BoTs.
Pipe of Insight – Early on Beastmaster has some mana problems, which is why Mekanism is still a fairly niche pick-up on him outside of competitive Dota, but in the late game when he has the spare mana to expend on items a Pipe pick-up is great for your team. It’s a strong mid-to-late game utility item that can play a huge role in teamfights and when trying to break the enemy base.
Shiva’s Guard – Another team aura item, although arguably the one with the least amount of synergy with Beastmaster (and it is for this reason I’ve listed it in the post-luxury section). +15 armour will help tank you up even more, and the 40% enemy attack speed slow is yet another strong aura to bring to teamfights. The Arctic Blast nuke can also prove useful in teamfights and for following up on your initiation with.
The +30 intelligence isn’t amazingly useful on Beastmaster, although extra mana is not something to sniff at. Generally you’re better served by an Assault Cuirass or Vladmir’s Offering if your team doesn’t have those yet.
Skull Basher – Skull Basher is for transitioning into more of a semi-carry DPS role. The 25% chance to stun for 1.4 seconds gives you additional lockdown on top of your ultimate and the strength and damage from the item are nice to have on Beastmaster. If you went Power Treads>Aghs>Drums>Vlads >Assault Cuirass >Skull Basher then you’ll actually deal decent auto-attack damage in your own right.
Heart of Tarrasque – Heart is all about tanking up - +40 strength and +300 health will make you’re a true tank, able to soak up a lot of damage in teamfights. The regen also gives you great staying power and allows you to rotate quickly back into a fight if need be after retreating briefly.
Generally, though, I’d recommend a defensive item with more utility for your team if you want to tank up, such as an Assault Cuirass or Heaven’s Halberd.
Skill Build
Wild Axes is a physical damage nuke. It tends to be skilled and maxed first. Wild Axes is a target point ability which sends out two flying axes to a target spot up to 1300 units away which then return to Beastmaster once they’ve reached the spot. They deal 70/100/130/160 physical damage to any enemy units they hit on their journey and each axe can hit an enemy once.
Call of the Wild is a summon ability. It is usually skilled and maxed second. Call of the Wild actually grants you access to two separate units – a Hawk (gained from level 1 onwards), which provides vision, and a Boar (also now gained from level 1 onwards), which can be used to attack and slow enemy units and heroes.
The units have their own keybinds and can be summoned independently of one another – the Hawk being bound to W and the Boar being bound to E.
Additional levels increase the Hawk’s: health, move speed, sight range, gold and experience bounty, and from level 3 onwards grants him invisibility. Meanwhile, extra levels increase the Boar’s: health, damage, and move speed slow effects on enemies.
Inner Beast is Beastmaster’s only passive ability. It is almost always skilled and maxed last. The exceptions are: 1) Players who can’t/don’t want to micro-manage summons (in which case don’t pick Beastmaster!) and 2) Early push-centric line-ups that need early access to maxed Inner Beast.
Inner Beast grants a bonus 15/25/35/45 attack speed to Beastmaster and allied units that are within 900 units of Beastmaster, including summons and illusions.
Primal Roar is Beastmaster’s ultimate and it is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). A powerful, long range stun, Primal Roar allows you to stun a target for 3/3.5/4 seconds from up to 600 units away, dealing 200/250/300 magic damage to the chosen enemy.
Additionally, any enemy units along Primal Roar’s line of travel (in a 300 unit radius) take 200/250/300 magic damage and are slowed by 50% for 0.6 seconds.
Gameplay Tips
Wild Axes deal physical damage, which means they can be used to effectively clear jungle camps and ancient stacks. This has made him, at times, a popular offlaner pick on the Dire side in competitive Dota (traditionally the harder of the two offlanes to lane in), as he is able to stack the ancients and clear them fairly easily, and thereby farm even if the offlane is being well guarded and the creep equilibrium balanced by the enemy team.
The lengthy range of 1300 units also allows you to secure last hits with Wild Axes in difficult offlane scenarios – another reason he is a viable offlaner.
Once you skill Call of the Wild you acquire access to a Boar as well as a Hawk. The Boar deals moderate damage and, most notably, has access to the Poison ability, which reduces an enemy units move speed and attack speeds by 10/20/30/40% for 3 seconds.
Remember that you can now summon the Hawk and Boar separately as of patch 6.79. This allows you to save on mana, only summoning each as and when required.
| Tip: You can actually have two Boars and two Hawks on the field at once, as their durations are 60 seconds whilst their cooldowns are 40 seconds, giving you a small window in which to have 4 summons in total, since summoning a new one won’t kill the old one. |
The main uses of the Boar include: remotely securing last hits if it would prove too dangerous to attempt to do so with Beastmaster, harassing enemy heroes, slowing retreating or pursuing enemy heroes, placing the attack speed debuff on enemy cores in teamfights, and scouting areas in fog of war if you can’t use your Hawk to do so for whatever reason.
Don’t underestimate the movespeed slow from the Greater Boar’s Poison ability – 10-40% move speed slow is significant and will often allow you to escape from an enemy who is chasing you or allow your team to catch up with an enemy who is retreating.
Early on, the Scout Hawk is great at providing vision of rune spots. Its sight range increases dramatically with levels 700/1000/1300/1600, which allows you to place it strategically inside treelines to provide your team with a huge range of vision over a key area of the map without risking it dying.
Once Call of the Wild is skilled to level 3, the Scout Hawk becomes a Greater Hawk and gains the Invisibility skill – a passive ability which turns the Hawk invisible if it’s motionless for 4 seconds.
Remember: Both summons have decent gold and experience bounties, so do your best to avoid allowing enemy heroes to kill them off.
Inner Beast is a great teamfight and pushing aura. It affects not only Beastmaster and nearby allied heroes, but also all summons and illusions.
If your team is determined to attempt Roshan at level 1, or is set to attempt a cheesy early push strat (such as a five man mid attempt or an offensive quad lane, which has been attempted in competitive Dota a couple of times) then early points in Inner Beast can be very beneficial, so be willing to be flexible with your skill build in such situations.
Primal Roar is a fantastic teamfight ability. Attempt to use it so that multiple enemy heroes will be hit by the so-called ‘side damage’, which deals 200/250/300 magic damage and 50% move and attack speed slows for 0.6 seconds. Your best chances of hitting multiple enemies occur if you target an enemy hero who is hanging slightly back behind his team.
Don’t be afraid to use Primal Roar to try and net an early kill on an enemy – the 80 second cooldown isn’t actually all that lengthy.
| Note: Primal Roar stuns through spell immunity. If your team is struggling to deal with an enemy core who activates Black King Bar and them goes to town on your team save Primal Roar for them. Once they trigger spell immunity stun them to waste a lengthy portion of their spell immune duration. |
Because it stuns through spell immunity, Primal Roar can be a clutch counter-initiation ability against certain line-ups. For example, if the enemy team has a hero with a powerful channelled ultimate (e.g. Enigma’s Black Hole or Witch Doctor’s Death Ward) and is casting it under the cover of spell immunity in order to avoid it being cancelled by lesser stuns then you may need to hold back and save Primal Roar purely for countering their ultimates.
| Tip: You can actually use Primal Roar on enemy couriers. It will not damage them, but it will stun them for the full 3/3.5/4 second duration, allowing you to easily walk up to it and kill it off in most cases. This can be well worth it, especially if you have an Aghanim’s Scepter (because the ability’s duration is a low 45 seconds at that point), granting each member of your team 150-175 gold and preventing the enemy team from using it for a lengthy 140 seconds. |
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
