Introduction
“This is a game that two can play.”
Jakiro is a ranged intelligence support hero. He is famed for his area of effect abilities, including one of the best crowd control disables in the game and two high magic damage AoE nukes. He is also a strong push and anti-push support, and a very good lane support.
You can find Jakiro's complete character profile here.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Good crowd control
- AoE-based abilities are strong in teamfights
- Great at lane pushing and fantastic at base sieging
- Has an AoE disable
- Strong lane support/harasser
- Good at providing set up for combos
Cons
- Entirely magic damage-based, is countered by Spell Immunity
- Squishy
- Slow base movespeed and turn rate
- Ice Path is not a guaranteed stun, it is a skillshot
- Very long cast times on all of his abilities
Item Build
As a support hero it’s your job to ensure that the Courier and/or Observer Wards are bought at the start of the game. Usually these duties will be split between yourself and another hero on your team, but you can’t always guarantee this in public games. If no one else ponies up the gold for one then you should bite the bullet and buy both for your team.
Good starting items are therefore:
Courier and/or Observer Wards, a Set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, 3x Iron Branches.
Early Game
Ensure that the Courier is upgraded into a Flying Courier when it comes off cooldown at the 3 minute mark. Also ensure that Observer Wards are always purchased when they’re off cooldown.
Get your Boots of Speed up and running as quickly as possible, then upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand, and any Bracer components into a Bracer.
Core
Keep ensuring Observer Wards are bought whenever they’re off cooldown, and in the meantime work towards your Arcane Boots. These really are the upgraded boots of choice for such a mana hungry hero as Jakiro, who has no in-built mana regeneration ability like Lich. Two of your three active abilities all have fairly high mana costs and for the mostpart low cooldowns, so you’ll be burning through a lot of mana even before you purchase a Mekanism, which is your next core item.
Mekanism is your priority core pick-up. If there are no more viable Mekanism carriers on your team that will get it up much faster than you (such as a mid Viper, or a jungle Chen), then Mekanism should be your go-to core item. Be sure to check with your team to see if anyone else intends to build one before you get started on it though.
Luxury Items
Aghanim’s Scepter – If the game is progressing well you’ll want to go for an Aghanim’s Scepter as your first luxury item. If it’s not going so well consider some more cost efficient support items like Drums first. Aghanims gives you some good stats - +10 all stats, 200 health, and 150 mana – and a substantial buff to your ultimate.
Almost every aspect of Macropyre is significantly buffed by Aghanims – damage per second is increased from 100/140/180 to 125/175/225, the duration is doubled from 7 seconds to 14 seconds, the cast ranged is more than doubled from 850 units to 1800 units, and the effect distance is doubled from 900 to 1800 units. In short it makes Macropyre almost twice as effective, providing you have good set up to keep enemies within it.
Drums of Endurance – Drums of Endurance are a great option because they give your team bonus attack speed and move speed auras, whilst at the same time giving you plenty of stats and being easy to build into (since the components are so cheap you can buy them up whenever you have the spare unreliable gold, meaning you won’t lose much gold when you die). You probably already have a Bracer from the early game as well, making Drums a natural extension to your inventory.
Force Staff – Force Staff gives you less all-round stat gain than Drums, but it gives you much more mobility and more direct team utility (Drums’ auras are largely a passive, somewhat unnoticeable buff). It’s an amazing escape tool for someone who is naturally very squishy and can be used on allies and enemies, making it a great play-making item for clutch saves or to Force an enemy into bad positioning.
Ghost Scepter – The go-to luxury pick-up if you find the enemy team is able to bring you down quickly with physical damage (typically in the form of right-clicks). Most often this will be the enemy carry taking you out of the fight quickly with a few auto-attacks. Ghost Scepter will buy you a clutch 4 seconds of physical immunity, which gives you time to create distance between yourself and the enemy carry or at the very least buys your team 4 seconds of distraction time.
Heaven’s Halberd – A fantastic anti-carry item, thanks to the ability to disarm an enemy core for 3.0-4.5 seconds, Halberd will also give you a much-welcome chunk of health an evasion, making you a lot less fragile.
Veil of Discord – Veil gives decent all-round stats - +6 all stats, +6 health regeneration, +6 damage, and +6 armour, but the main reason it’s purchased is for its active, Magic Weakness. Magic Weakness increases the magic damage taken by an enemy caught within its 600 unit radius by 25%, which augments your abilities superbly (all 4 of Jakiro’s abilities deal magic damage).
It lasts for a lengthy 25 seconds, making it a great active for teamfights, and won’t just buff your own magic damage output either - it will also increase the potency of any other magic damage spells your teammates cast on affected enemies in that time frame too. If there are other high magic damage heroes on your team definitely consider this item.
Rod of Atos - Good health and intelligence gain (+350 and +25 respectively), and a pseudo-disable/powerful slow. All things Jakiro can make great use of. A solid, if unpopular pick-up.
Eul’s Scepter of Divinity - Eul’s gives fantastic mana regeneration and a huge +40 move speed, which really helps out Jakiro who has naturally poor move speed and feels quite immobile. The active also synergises superbly with your skill set, as it can be used to help ensure you land your stun, which has a lengthy cast delay.
Scythe of Vyse – You're unlikely to be rich enough to ever afford it, and if you are the game is likely already won anyway, but if the game is really stretching out it can potentially be a decisive item to get. 3.5 seconds of lockdown on a key enemy hero is the reason Scythe is considered one of the most powerful items in the game.
Situational Items
Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, Gem of True Sight – all-important detection. You’ll need at least one of these in your inventory if the enemy line-up features an invis hero. Sentry Wards will also allow you to deward rune spots, and Gem will give you superior vision going into the mid and late game.
Smoke of Deceit – If you roam with another support in the early stages of the game a Smoke will allow you to do so more quickly and without being spotted by enemy wards. Smoke will also come in handy in the post-laning phase if your team wants to gank as 5.
Boots of Travel - 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 if you’re about to become 6 slotted.
Pipe of Insight - A very expensive item for a support, and not an ideal pick-up if you bought the team’s Mekanism (having both on one hero is very risky, especially a squishy one like Disruptor), but always a good item to have if the enemy team has any magic damage (which they almost certainly will). Quick rule of thumb: go for it if you didn’t buy the Mekanism earlier.
Vladmir’s Offering – Yes, you’re ranged, so you won’t get the lifesteal bonus from Vlad’s, but you’re not buying it for yourself, you’re buying it for your team. Vladmir’s Offering is great to pick up on a support even if your team doesn’t consist of any melee heroes because of the bonus damage and armour it provides. If your team does have a melee core and no one else has purchased one then it’s an excellent utility item to purchase.
Necronomicon - Great if you’re part of a pushing line-up or your team is struggling to break the base. Also a great item for teamfights and for countering any invis enemy heroes.
Skill Build
There are two common builds for Jakiro at present. The build shown in the image above is the standard/traditional build. The one in the image below is a more recent trend that has taken off following the buffs to Liquid Fire. The former is more teamfight control-oriented, the latter focusses on lane harassment and early pushing.
Dual Breath is an AoE damage over time ability that also slows the attack and move speeds for an enemies it hits. It is nowadays skilled and maxed last, as the slows remain constant at all levels so 1 point is sufficient. Dual Breath deals 16/36/56/76 magic damage per second for 5 seconds and slows by 28/32/36/40%.
Dual Breath used to be skilled and maxed second, after Ice Path, and was used in concert with that ability to deal fairly high nuke damage in a large AoE. Nowadays, buffs to Liquid Fire have made that a much more high priority skill, while Ice Path is always essential for its lockdown, and so Dual Breath tends to remain at level 1 for its utility for most of the game purely as an attack and move speed slow.
Ice Path is an AoE disable that also deals a small amount of magic damage. It is always skilled first and usually maxed first too. It creates a path of ice that appears in a 1100 unit straight line ahead of Jakiro and has a width of 150 units. Any enemy hits by the Ice Path, or who walk into it, are stunned for up to 1/1.4/1.8/2.2 seconds and take 50 magic damage.
It is typically maxed first in order to increase Jakiro’s lockdown capability. Ice Path is generally regarded as one of the strongest disables in the game because of it AoE properties, but if you are focussing on harassment and pushing in the lane then you may wish to max Liquid Fire first.
Liquid Fire is a damage over time ability that affects units in a small AoE of a single target, and which also slows any units’ attack speed. It deals 12/16/20/24 damage per second over 5 seconds and has a cooldown of 20/15/10/4.
Previously, Liquid Fire was often ignored. However, successive buffs have now turned this into a high priority skill. Not only is the damage over time a great harassment tool, it’s also able to be targeted (previously, it would trigger automatically whenever it was off cooldown), effects builds (the attack speed slow is significant during tower pushes), and has a cooldown which reduces enormously with levels. For all of these reasons it is now preferred over Dual Breath every time, and will often even be maxed ahead of Ice Path.
Jakiro’s ultimate, Macropyre, is a high magic damage AoE damage over time ability. It lays down a large wave of flame in front of Jakiro that reaches 950 units ahead of him and has a radius of 225 units. It tends to always be skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16). It deals 100/140/180 damage per second and lasts for 7 seconds.
Macropyre has the capacity to deal incredibly high amounts of damage (up to 700/980/1260 per hero inside it). The problem is that in order to deal this potential damage you will need the ideal set up. Ice Path’s disable lasts for just 2 seconds, for example – a far cry short of the 7 seconds Macropyre lasts – and although Ice Path is often the set-up for a Macropyre you will need to combine this with another hero’s disable or lockdown if you wish to get the most out of it.
Gameplay Tips
Dual Breath has a deceptively long range – it can hit units up to 950 units away. Always use it during teamfights on the enemy cores whenever possible; the 28/32/36/40% move and attack speed slow in particular can have a huge effect.
The cast delay on Jakiro’s abilities can make Ice Path tricky to land at first. Not only do you need to factor in Jakiro’s innate cast length but also the 0.5 creation delay on this particular ability, so you need to practice landing them.
| Note: The stun duration from Ice Path lasts as long as the Ice Path itself. This is the full 1/1.4/1.8/2.2 seconds if it hits the enemy immediately, but if they walk into it after its creation they will only be disabled for as long as is left on the Ice Path itself. |
Liquid Fire can be set to auto-cast but you should only do so once you have it maxed. Before that the cooldown is notable and it is a waste to use it on creeps at that stage (not to mention this will push the creep wave out, which should be avoided unless your team is making a concerted effort to push. Instead, save it, and manually cast it on enemy heroes and/or towers early on.
| Remember: Liquid Fire works on buildings. This makes base sieging and tower pushes significantly easier. The tower will be affected not only by the damage over time (although it only deals half damage to buildings) from Liquid Fire but also the 20/30/40/50% attack speed slow effect. |
Jakiro has decent anti-carry potential. Although all of his abilities are countered by spell immunity, if the enemy cores are not spell immune then he has not only good burst damage and a good AoE disable, he also has double attack and move speed slows at his disposal – 28/32/36/40% of both from Dual Breath and 20/3040/50% attack speed reduction from Liquid Fire.
Although Ice Path is often the set-up for a Macropyre and Dual Breath combo, you will need to combine this with another hero’s disable or lockdown if you wish to get the most out of it.
Last Updated - Patch 6.83.
