LogFAQs > #968211305

So anyway, the Void counts as an alternate plane of reality, right?

66 - Spiritbreaker (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/3/0/AAAACbAADszK.jpg
Basic Abilities: Charge of Darkness, Bulldoze, Greater Bash, Nether Strike
Shard Upgrade: New active ability "Planar Pocket," which self-buffs Spiritbreaker with a 6-second 25% Magic Resistance buff which redirects the next harmful targeted spell on one of his allies his way. Once he's struck by this redirected spell, the buff ends.
Scepter Upgrade: Upgrades Charge of Darkness with a shorter cast point, cooldown, and the ability to pierce magic immunity. The stun from Charge of Darkness itself will not proc on the target, but the guaranteed Greater Bash stun (but not damage) from bowling over a target will apply.
7.31 and onward changes: Now has a base mana regeneration stat of 0.5/s, Aghanim's Shard change, Charge of Darkness manacost increased by 20. Bulldoze movespeed lowered by 0/1/2/3%. Added Status Resistance change from Bulldoze active changed by +1/-1/-3/-5%. Greater Bash movement speed -> damage ratio changed by +1/0/-1/-2%. Level 20 Charge movespeed talent reduced by 25.

The space cow Barathrum himself, Spiritbreaker, is one of the closest things to the original version of him since his inception. He's the archetypal strength-ganker - can be played in most roles, clear weaknesses in his stats made up for by common item purchases, and abilities that are all very straightforward on paper with the only complexity being how they interact with odd stats - or at least that's what I HAD written before 7.32 came along and spiced up his Shard options, since now he can work as a deterrent tank by going full Mr. President with a new ability.

Charge of Darkness is a global-range, enemy targeted ability that halts SB for the cast point before he charges at a fixed speed towards his prey, who is marked for his team with a Taurus symbol. Upon arrival, he stuns the target. While charging, any enemy he collides with (including his charge target, depending on varying movespeeds) will be struck with a Greater Bash. If the primary target of the charge dies, the nearest visible enemy (within a 4000 radius) will be charged instead. Charged targets are visible and revealed until SB collides with them, .

Greater Bash, as said, is an odd duck of an attack modifier. It's a magical damage stun and knockback, yet it affects spell immune targets, but is tied to a physical attack (and will activate *before* the physical attack connects, too, sometimes.) The knockback is minor, but it's significant enough to push someone up or down a cliff if their back is against a wall, leading to some fun terrain traps if the Bash was a result of Barathrum charging cross-map down the river... Oh, and the damage from it scales off movement speed. Seeing a theme with Spiritbreaker? Good!

Next is Bulldoze. A self-buff that increases his status resistance and gives him a percentage based movespeed which - you guessed it - increases the damage of Greater Bash (and the arrival time of Charge of Darkness) further, apart from the very obvious benefits to having better movespeed otherwise.

Last on the menu is Spiritbreaker's ult, Nether Strike. Nether Strike is a long cooldown, full second cast time ability that teleports Spiritbreaker behind his target and forces a Greater Bash proc, plus an added flat damage bonus from Nether Strike itself.

Anyways, I know it's been a long while since I've written one of these up, but I think him being solidly in the middle of the pack is a good place for him. He's got very clear weaknesses - abyssmal attack speed to necessitate the power of a lucky bash streak, poor mana throughout the game, bad sustained damage in a teamfight, and a huge weakness to forced movement - but also some very clear strengths: namely, his ability to completely disrupt an entire teamfight by charging through the backline, some very strong built-in tank abilities bolstered by common item choices, and the ability to cause paranoia of a team with no reliable instant disable. The patch that occured at the end of last month bolsters this too - his whole M.O. is to charge cross-map, activate Bulldoze, activate any items or other abilities that won't break his charge (Shadow Blade, Lotus Orb, Planar Pocket, Blade Mail, Phase Boots, Dust of Appearance if his charge target is capable of invisibility, etc.) and utterly annihilate his target and soak up all the enemy team's CC meanwhile.

Bathroom has some downsides, in that it is *extremely* hard for him to come back from a deficit, even more so than standard starving supports like Crystal Maiden and Warlock (due to having no good and safe flash farm beyond blowing your entire manapool on charging across the map) and he's very poor as a main core (due to having the worst attack-point in the game by design.) Luck-based bashes might be rough to go against when they're 17%'ing all over you but 1%'ing against the enemy team, even with pseudo-random distribution, and his Nether Strike lockdown pales in comparison to other ultimates with higher impact, plus it gets boned by Fog of War - a savvy player can turn and use a 50 gold Iron Branch to buy them a split-second of clemency to reset the cast time of it, and if Bara had already blown his Bulldoze and movespeed, catching back up to the cast range of it might be a difficult sell.

Such is the price of versatility on a strength melee, I suppose. Spiritbreaker's comfortable in the middle of the pack - in ganking-heavy, lategame-carry patches, he's unstoppable, but in teamfight-heavy/deathball patches like right now, he struggles a bit until he gets some items going. Still, you could do much, much worse.

Next hero hint: Much, much worse (in my opinion,) as their playstyle shift from the recent patch shifted their dominant midlane into a more defensive playstyle.