DOTA 2 - Spirit Breaker

Introduction

“Attack is the best defense.”

Spirit Breaker is semi-carry/ganker that is popular in public matchmaking thanks to his global presence/mobility and bashing potential that allows him to kill of a single target relatively easily, but who is rarely chosen in competitive Dota 2 because of his lack of teamfight potential.

The hero is often the focus of significant buffs or nerfs to his abilities in major patches, which makes his viability (and success rate) often dependent on his status in the current patch. At times he has been considered an over-powered pub stomp hero, at others a selfish liability to the team he’s on.

You can find Spirit Breaker's complete character profile here.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Amazing ganker
• Global presence
• Great pick-off potential
• Great 1v1 hero
• Good at shutting down single targets

Cons

• Lacks teamfight presence
• Lockdown is for the most part single-target only
• Usefulness is limited once he’s used his abilities
• Fits into that awkward ‘not quite good enough to be a primary carry, not quite useful enough to be a support’ middle ground
• Not as strong as he used to be

Item Build

Starting Items

To start with you want the usual combination of regen and cost-efficient stat items. A Stout Shield is also recommended to reduce the damage taken by any lane harass. A typical starting build on Spirit Breaker is:

A set of Tangos, a Healing Salve, a Stout Shield, 2x Iron Branches.

Early Game Items

You want to get your Boots of Speed up and running as soon as possible. Upgrade them into Power Treads. As a semi-carry strength hero you get a lot out of Power Treads – a nice chunk of strength that increases your damage and health pool, and some attack speed. You’re an innately mobile, fast-moving hero already, so you don’t need the bonus move speed that Phase Boots provide either.

Upgrade any Iron Branches you have into a Magic Wand. Also feel free to grab an early Bracer. You can upgrade this into Drums of Endurance later on, and in the meantime it’s a great cost-effective way of acquiring some additional stats.

Mid Game Core Options

At this stage you need to decide which core item route you’re going to take. There are three options: Armlet, Mask of Madness, and Shadow Blade. I’ll detail each below.

Armlet of Mordiggian – The safe option. It helps you to tank up, while also giving you a little bit of everything you need – damage, armour, and attack speed. The toggle potential of Armlet, although less useful than in the past, is nonetheless still a clutch way to ensure you survive even when your health pool has been brought low.

With Armlet you will also be able to fight most effectively out of all of these builds in teamfights.

Mask of Madness – The YOLO option. Mask of Madness bets everything on your ability to pick off solo targets. It will make your ganks much more deadly as you’ll likely stun-lock the chosen target to death. Unfortunately Mask of Madness also makes your contribution to teamfights even more woeful than it already is because it makes you a lot squishier.

Shadow Blade – Shadow Blade’s stats alone are OK at best – the damage and attack speed bonuses synergise well with Spirit Breaker at any rate. More notably, activating Shadow Blade whilst in mid-Charge towards a target does not break your Charge. Instead, you will hit the enemy whilst invisible, and can then auto-attack to deal Shadow Blade’s bonus damage. This makes your ganks both more surprising and more deadly.

Luxury Items

Whichever option you went with above, your luxury item choices are essentially the same:

Drums of Endurance – If you’ve read any of my other Build Guides you’ll notice that I list Drums as luxury or situational/early item pick-ups for virtually any hero, and that’s because they’re really cost-efficient for the stats they provide. On Spirit Breaker they’re even better than usual because the bonus move speed they provide also increases your Greater Bash damage output, and that’s before you even consider the utility they provide your entire team and the fact that you probably already have a Bracer from the early game anyway. Drums are as good as core on Spirit Breaker.

Black King Bar – A high priority luxury item for every carry/semi-carry, BKB gives you some added damage and health, but most importantly the active Spell Immunity will allow you to stay alive and not get stun-locked or burst down by magic damage during teamfights.

Assault Cuirass - AC is not just the defensive item it looks to be on paper, although it will make you tankier. The minus armour reduction means you'll hit that much harder in the late game, and all three auras benefit your team. Consider it luxury core in the late game if your team doesn’t already have one.

Monkey King Bar - High damage, a small attack speed boost, an extra bash, and it completely counters agility carries that opt for a Butterfly. MKB is a good all-round late game item to up your damage output.

Daedalus - Damage, damage, damage. A solid carry damage item if you feel lacking in punching power heading into the late game.

Heaven’s Halberd - Halberd will make you a lot tankier and will also give you anti-carry potential. 20 strength is a nice boost to your health pool, whilst 25% evasion means you'll mitigate a lot of damage. It also has utility for your team, thanks to the ability to Disarm an enemy physical DPS'er for 3.0-4.5 seconds. A great option to go for if the enemy carry is right clicking your team to death.

Situational Items

Dust of Appearance – Dust is a must if the enemy line-up includes any invis heroes. You can Charge on them when they break cover and, even if they return to invisibility soon after, you will still Charge at them and will know their exact position. However, when you get to them, you will not be able to see them and so can’t follow up on your initiation. Grab a Dust to resolve this issue, and pop it as you come in to stun them.

Urn of Shadows – Urn is a good early game pick-up if you’re ganking a lot. The mana regeneration will do wonders for allowing you to charge more often, and the charges you gain from successful ganks will allow you to regenerate your health without needing to return to the fountain.

Blade Mail - A bit more of a defensive/passive option. Blade Mail is a good item to consider on Spirit Breaker is you’re struggling because, being a strength hero, you’ll have a relatively large health pool. With Blade Mail you can use this to your advantage to take damage whilst returning it to any fragile enemy DPS’ers that are foolish enough to hit you without a BKB.

Blade Mail activation in low matchmaking will be ignored (meaning they die), and in mid-high tier matchmaking will often cause a knee jerk avoidance of attacking you unless you’re really low on health, allowing you to get off your damage combos with impunity for the duration.

Necronomicon - A very powerful item for pushing. Worth getting if you’re in a pushing line-up, or your team is struggling to break the enemy base. The other advantage of Necronomicon is that at level 3 you get True Sight from the Necro Warrior, and so won’t need to rely on Dust/Sentry Wards to counter enemy invisibility.

Skill Build

Skilling Charge of Darkness at level 1 is advised just in case you need an escape mechanism or initiation tool from or for an early engagement. Thereafter you can max it either last or second (depends on personal preference).

Charge doubles up as a disable and, more importantly, a global initiating tool. With it you can gank anyone anywhere on the map, so long as you have vision of them for a couple of seconds.

Empowering Haste isn’t usually skilled until level 4, and will either be maxed second or last. Second if you want to maximise your damage output and move speed, last if you prefer to prioritise the stun duration of Charge of Darkness.

It can, as of Patch 6.82, be cast to improve the Aura by 50% for 6 seconds. The aura is 50% weaker while the ability is on cooldown, however.

Greater Bash is the primary source of your damage and should be maxed first. This passive gives you a 17% chance to trigger a Bash which stuns, knockbacks the enemy, increases your move speed, and deals damage based on your move speed.

Nether Strike is always skilled (levels 6, 11 and 16) and is yet another reason that you need to max Greater Bash by level 7. Nether Strike causes a Greater Bash of the current level to occur when used, which means you will deal the standard 150/250/350 damage from Nether Strike as well as a Greater Bash for up to 52.2/104.4/156.6/208.8 additional damage.

Gameplay Tips

Charge of Darkness will deal a Greater Bash to any units you pass through on the way to your chosen target. Use this to your advantage in teamfights by targeting enemies at the back of the team. Chances are you will pass through some enemy heroes on the way to your target, dealing a Greater Bash which stuns and deals damage.

You can use Charge on invisible enemies when they break cover. Once they go back into invisible form you will still continue to charge them and be shown their location (although you will not be able to attack them when you reach the target unless you bring detection). This is a good way of countering and initiating on invisible heroes.

Don’t over-commit with Charge of Darkness. It can be tempting to follow through on any Charge once activated, but if the enemy hero falls back it can put you (and your team, if they follow your lead) in a disadvantageous position; don’t dive too far unless confident you can quickly kill off the target and retreat.

Note that Charge of Darkness will break a Linken’s Sphere on cast (not on arrival). This means it’s a good way of globally popping a Linken’s Sphere.

Nether Strike can now be interrupted (in previous patches you would be invulnerable once it was cast). This leaves you vulnerable to stuns for 1.2 seconds before the cast animation is complete.

Last Updated - Patch 6.83.