Broodmother/Guide

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Broodmother is a fast-tempo, pushing hero capable of dominating a portion of the map through her ability to produce an everlasting supply of summonable units, along with Spin Web which grants her and her brood: health regeneration, increased movement speed, and unobstructed pathing while on her webs. Spawn Spiderlings is a ranged nuke that will release a number of spiderlings if the enemy is killed shortly after. This allows Broodmother to amass dozens of spiderlings, letting Broodmother fight and farm faster than most heroes. Broodmother's Incapacitating Bite, causes enemies attacked by Broodmother to be slowed and unable to auto-attack reliably. Coupled with her ultimate: Insatiable Hunger, Broodmother is incredibly potent in one-on-one engagements. Broodmother's strength stems from her ability to outpace her enemies making it quintessential that she attempts to finish the game before her opponents have the capabilities to deal with her and her massive army.
Pros	Cons
Great tower pusher. Can dominate her lane. Farms fast and occupies enemy jungle. Great in one-on-one engagements. Excellent mobility.	Very dependent on her webs, limiting her ability to rotate. Struggles at fighting multiple enemies at once. Needs to end the game as soon as possible. Requires some micro-management. Pushing potential can be countered by AoE abilities.

Pusher

Broodmother's early game revolves around quickly farming both lane and jungle through with the help of her spiderlings. She then can translate this advantage into taking down towers with her plethora of expendable summoned units. Ideally, she should look to pressure around the five-minute mark as Broodmother's spiders alongside the catapult wave will tear through towers. Broodmother's potential to push and farm so quickly allows her to come online much faster than most heroes allowing her to continue taking objectives while her enemies are too weak to retaliate without multiple heroes present. This formidable presence must be taken advantage of however; Broodmother should end the game quickly as her strength will diminish if enemy heroes can catch up in farm.

Most often Broodmother's first skill point goes into Spin Web as she is extremely vulnerable outside of her webs and wants to begin placing them as soon as possible to allow her charges to replenish.

The next few levels are somewhat flexible, prioritizing Spawn Spiderlings will improve Broodmother's farm speed and kill potential. While a second point in Spin Web at level 3 may help ensure Broodmother's survival if she's playing solo offlane. Broodmother requires several spiderlings to effectively clear waves and farm jungle camps. Enemies wont be afraid of a single spiderling, however most will struggle against multiple units so Broodmother should use her spiderlings only when they can overwhelm the enemy.

Maxing Spawn Spiderlings and Spin Web will accelerate Broodmother's early game farming and pushing potential. The first level of Insatiable Hunger is relatively weak during the early game as her main source of damage at this point comes from her spiderlings while her auto-attacks are more useful to slow enemies as she levels her passive. As a result, Insatiable Hunger is typically prioritized only after she has maxed Spin Web and Spawn Spiderlings and potentially put a point in her passive.

Ability Builds

Generic Broodmother
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Hero Talents
+35% Silken Bola Slow/Miss Chance	25	-0.3s BAT during Insatiable Hunger
+35 Attack Speed	20	400 AoE Silken Bola
+150 Spiderlings Health	15	-7s Spin Web Restore Time
+3 Spin Web Simultaneous Webs	10	+80 Spawn Spiderlings Damage

Notes:

• The health bonus talent affect both Spiderlings and Spiderites.

Tips & Tactics

General

• Broodmother, by design, 'owns' a part of the map for a good chunk of the game, allowing her to close off part of the map for enemies unless they are ahead of Broodmother in farm or grouped with their allies.
• Broodmother can control part of the map throughout the early to mid game, but she lacks the ability to rotate freely as the game progresses.
• In combination with her Spiderlings and Spiderites, Broodmother can threaten towers early in the game, forcing the enemies to spend time preventing Broodmother from pushing, slowing down their own farm.
  • Make space for allies by pushing and creep cutting as often as possible, drawing the enemies' attention.
• After taking a tier 1 tower, invade the enemy jungle to further restrict their ability to farm.
• Broodmother excels at eliminating single targets, but cannot fight against multiple heroes alone.
• All melee heroes passively have Damage Block, making her spiders generally weaker against melee enemies, so focusing on ranged enemies may prove more effective than on melee ones.
• Although Broodmother is usually pushing lanes alone, team fights sometimes require her attention. She should find the balance between pushing, farming, and fighting.
• Mid Broodmother can extend her webs to the enemy offlane and apply pressure to that tower.
• With her high mobility, Broodmother can penetrate the enemy backline, eliminating squishy heroes right at the start of team fights.
• To have the best control over the spiders, create separate control groups for Spiderlings and Spiderites.
  • Having a separate group for just Spiderites will help keeping them away from enemies with heavy nukes since they have lower HP than Spiderlings.
  • Create a control group for webs to see how many are currently being used.

Abilities

Spawn Spiderlings

• In the early game, Broodmother wants to use Spawn Spiderlings often, which has a high mana cost, to build up an effective swarm. Hence, she should buy Soul Ring, as the regeneration gained from sitting in her Web helps offset the health cost of the item.
• Spawn Spiderlings acts as a ranged nuke, finishing off wounded heroes.
• If the target dies before the projectile lands, no Spiderlings will spawn.
• Avoid using Spawn Spiderlings too early as the debuff might wear off, producing no Spiderlings.
• As a group, Spiderlings deal a surprising amount of damage. In the early game, use them to harass opponents in lane. Later on, use them to push towers when it is unsafe for Broodmother herself.
• Send a few Spiderlings to attack enemies so the paranoid ones will start using AoE abilities early to get rid of the spiders. Then, Broodmother and the rest of her swarm can safely finish up the job.
• In the laning phase, send Spiderlings to harass the enemies as they are going for last hits. They will either take serious damage or miss the creep.
• Spiderlings inflict a debuff with their bite which spawns Spiderites.
  • Spiderites can spawn from denied allied creeps. You do not need to actually land the deny to spawn Spiderites; just applying the debuff before the allied creep dies is enough.
  • The Spawn Spiderlings and Spawn Spiderite debuffs stack, allowing you to get both spawns from the same target.
• Spiderites are weaker than Spiderlings. With 120 health, they die to many AoE abilities that Spiderlings can survive. Therefore, you should create separate control groups for Spiderlings and Spiderites. Try to send in Spiderites after enemies have expended AoE abilities to avoid feeding.
• Spiderlings and Spiderites have zero armor, so watch out for physical area abilities like Wild Axes and Swashbuckle which deal heavy damage and may clear the swarm in one shot.
• Even though Spiderlings give little gold, constantly feeding groups of them will benefit the enemy team.
  • Use Spiderlings and Spiderites primarily for pushing and farming. Spiderlings can survive some AoE abilities, but not Spiderites.
• Send out Spiderlings to scout, block neutral camps, stack camps, and keep an eye on Roshan.

Spin Web

• While on her web, Broodmother receives bonus movement speed, health regeneration, and unobstructed pathing.
  • Broodmother can put off getting boots longer than most heroes because of this bonus movement speed.
  • Broodmother is very slow without her webs and will struggle to keep up with enemies without them.
• The added regeneration and movement speed from Spin Web enables Broodmother to dive enemy towers to kill heroes without risking death.
• Spin Web has a global cast range when Broodmother connects the new webs with old ones.
• Place webs over trees and high ground, allowing Broodmother to escape to areas difficult or impossible for enemies to reach.
  • Because webs offer a means for Broodmother to create her own paths, she can easily farm lane and jungle without wasting much time getting there.
• While Broodmother may want to place webs optimally to cover as much area as possible, do not hesitate to use Spin Web in order to get a kill, as she can always destroy them later.
• Try to connect webs to one another to avoid getting stuck or losing mobility while attempting to escape.
• Broodmother can place webs in enemy territory to increase her own farm while denying farm for her enemies without putting herself in much danger.
• Broodmother can use items such as Medallion of Courage to draw aggro of the lane creeps or neutral creeps to her webs.
• Broodmother can select any web on the map and use the Destroy Spin Web ability to remove them.
• When facing heroes who Broodmother has difficulty killing in lane, such as Bristleback, opting to place webs past the enemy tower to farm creep waves can be done with relative safety and force the enemy to last hit under tower. This practice puts more pressure on the enemy and allows Broodmother a better opportunity to dive them.
  • If the maximum number of webs are already on the map the oldest web will be removed, to prevent this you can select which web to destroy before placing a new one.
• The cooldown reduction talent decreases the charge time of Spin Web, thus increasing her overall mobility.

Incapacitating Bite

• Incapacitating Bite stacks fully with other slows, such as Orb of Venom and Poison Sting from your Spiderlings, hindering enemies' chances to escape on foot.
• The miss chance allows Broodmother to fight almost anyone in the midgame given enough farm, but is effectively countered by True Strike, break, disarm, or spell immunity.
• You can capitalize on the miss chance to build items that grant evasion or applies even more miss chance like Radiance to further increase survivability if enemies rely primarily on physical attacks.
  • Alternatively, buy health, armor, and Black King Bar if enemies have ways to land hits on you like with their own spell immunity or True Strike.
• Incapacitating Bite does not apply if Broodmother misses her attack, e.g. due to enemy evasion.
  • To remedy this problem, consider items that grant accuracy like Bloodthorn or Monkey King Bar. The latter fares better against many enemies with evasion since Bloodthorn only affects one target at a time.
• More tips needed.

Insatiable Hunger

• The relatively short cooldown of Insatiable Hunger allows you to use it often, which is useful to farm ancient camps or take down towers.
• Insatiable Hunger counters an active Blade Mail because Broodmother can lifesteal to heal the reflected damage.
• Use Insatiable Hunger early so that enemies will not take the advantage to take you down with silence before you can use Insatiable Hunger.
• Use Insatiable Hunger with an activated Black King Bar to make sure you can stick to targets.
• Insatiable Hunger's attack damage bonus makes Broodmother a fearsome carry, especially in the late game. You should build items that enhance your attacks like Desolator to mow down enemies.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango provides needed health restoration during the laning phase.
• Healing Salve keeps Broodmother in lane by restoring her health.
• Enchanted Mango provides some passive health regeneration and burst mana until she is able to get soul rings.
• Clarity gives mana to produce Spiderlings.
• Iron Branch provides cheap attributes. Use with Tango for more healing.
• Quelling Blade makes last hitting easier.

Early game:

• Soul Ring allows her to use Spawn Spiderlings more often without fear of running out of mana to harass the enemies, take last hits, and amass Spiderlings.
• Magic Wand gives attributes and restores health and mana in burst, keeping Broodmother healthy to continue making Spiderlings.
• Medallion of Courage increases mana regeneration so Broodmother can continue to spawn spiderlings and it's active helps to hasten farm speed.

Mid game:

• Aghanim's Scepter increases the maximum number of Spin Web charges to 18 and increases the movement speed bonus applied by her webs. This typically removes the need for boots as the movement speed granted by her webs is more than enough.
• Solar Crest bolsters Broodmother defense with armor and attributes. Its active ability helps Broodmother and Spiderlings tear down neutral creeps and enemy heroes by lowering their armor.
• Black King Bar prevents Broodmother from being effected by most stuns allowing her to continue to attack her enemy and benefit from the amplified damage and lifesteal of Insatiable Hunger to keep Broodmother alive in team fights.

Late game:

• Assault Cuirass increases the attack speed and armor of Broodmother and her spiders, while also reducing the armor of nearby towers. A fantastic item to compliment Broodmother's strengths.
• Butterfly works very well with her passive making it even harder for enemies to hit her along with its excellent stats to increase Broodmother's carry potential.
• Nullifier can prove useful against items like Ghost Scepter or to prevent enemies from dispelling Orchid Malevolence's silence.
• Bloodthorn supplies mana and increases Broodmother's damage output. Its active ability silences the target and grants True Strike to any enemy affected.

Situational items:

• Boots of Speed If the enemy has multiple slows combining boots with her webs' move speed bonus will nullify their effectiveness.
• Hand of Midas accelerates Broodmother's leveling allowing her to reach her level 20 and 25 talents sooner.
• Vladmir's Offering useful aura that benefits both Broodmother and her spiders.
• Mask of Madness offers cost-effective attack speed to combine with the bonus damage granted by Insatiable Hunger for a cheap increase in damage output.
• Orchid Malevolence aids Broodmother in killing heroes that have abilities that allow them to escape or disable Broodmother. Also solving most of her mana problems.
• Desolator gives excellent damage and armor reduction increasing Broodmother's pushing and killing speed.
• Diffusal Blade can be picked up early for an additional slow on enemies in addition to its decent stats.
• Pipe of Insight because Broodmother can farm so fast, picking up a pipe for the team can allow her and her spiders to survive heavy magic burst that would usually prove lethal.
• Radiance applies area damage and blind chance during team fights. Because Broodmother is usually in the middle of team fights she can apply the burn to most enemies.
• Abyssal Blade offers a reliable stun and occasional bashes to further lock down enemies.