Playing Riki: how to counter a Spirit Breaker with dust?

Playing Riki: how to counter a Spirit Breaker with dust? - People Standing in Front of Store during Night Time

Last game I played Riki for the first time (yeah, I know! :D). The opposing team had a smart Spirit Breaker who knew how to counter me: charge with dust in his pocket. Due to his superior movement speed and bashes he'd win mano a mano.

During my deaths as well as after the game I reflected on how to counter this, but came up dry. Some things I considered:

  • Stop ganking, and either start jungling or try to get my team to go into 5 man dota. This seems silly for a Riki though (to stop ganking).
  • Buy a blink dagger. Obviously that doesn't work as I'm getting hit all the time.
  • Buy boots of travel and TP out whenever I feel unsafe and/or after ganks. Seems a waste of money (I already had ability-boots) though.
  • Use diffusal blade on myself when being charged, hoping this would remove the "charge" debuff. Don't think this was/is working though? Besides: you don't know when you're being ganked. It worked only once to my advantage, to clear the dust debuff, but it seemed tough to pull off.
  • BKB to withstand the bashes (does that work?) and just go head to head with him.

Is there any reliable solution to this situation? Can you counter a Spirit Breaker with dust as a Riki?

Note that this was a pub (so rigid team coordination to evade the Spirit Breaker is not really an option, I'm really looking at what I individually can do), at a skill level of 3.2K'ish MMR.

dota-2


Best Answer

  • Jungling is the easiest and cheapest way not to get picked off by Spirit breaker,but it will reduce all your potential,slow down your farm or he will ward your jungle and put you back on the ground zero.

  • Blink dagger doesn't look promising since you need to be fast to blink away before 1st hit,and even if you manage that I'm pretty sure you will still be charged.

  • Boots or travel or scrolls of town portal will work if you have good map control(wards) but they will add up on the gold loss.

  • Diffusal blade is the standard item for Riki with a bonus that it helps remove the dust debuff(as you mentioned you can't remove charge).Problem is you need to time it right and have enough hp to survive first few attacks. But this also falls in the water since Spirit breaker can just buy sentry wards instead.

  • BKB,blademail and other combat items won't help.First of all you can still get knocked back(bashed) through BKB...Other is that in fair combat(without backstab) you will usually lose against most heroes that can survive fog,without some advantage on your side.

  • Another items you didn't mention could be Eul or Hex,they are useless for your build but you can tornado or hex bara while he is charging you to give yourself head start or time for TP,blink invi...

Unfortunately none of which are without issues.

If you manage to put some sense in your teammates to follow you with smoke or to hide in trees you can easily turn Spirit breakers senseless harassment to your profit.

Otherwise as the last resort you will be forced to hide in shadow and follow some of your teammates until they engage in a teamfight or in a gank attempt,hoping to steal some kills.



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How do you counter spirit breaker?

Treant Protector
  • Living Armor can mitigate a large portion of Spirit Breaker's damage since his attacks are slow.
  • Treant Protector can also counter initiate Spirit Breaker with Leech Seed and his bash from. Nature's Guise before he manages to escape.


    • Who works well with Spirit Breaker?

    Spirit BreakerCountersHeroAdv.Hero Win RateBroodmother2.15%56.23%Chen1.96%48.45%Lifestealer1.95%50.75%Batrider1.64%55.63%1 more row

    How do you play spirit breaker?

    Spirit Breaker fixes his sight on an enemy unit and starts charging through all objects. All enemy units passed through and the targeted unit will be hit by a Greater Bash. If the targeted unit dies, Spirit Breaker will change his target to the nearest enemy unit to that location.


    dota 2 -spirit breaker how to kill idiot riki



    More answers regarding playing Riki: how to counter a Spirit Breaker with dust?

    Answer 2

    Linken's Sphere can block Spirit Breaker's charge and ulti. So if your only problem is being ganked by SpaceCowboy, Linken's Sphere is your best friend.

    Note that if the charge already began, impact is not blocked.

    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: cottonbro, Elina Fairytale, Arina Krasnikova, RODNAE Productions

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