Strategy
Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Broodmother is a hero who can pressure lanes early and scale well into the late game. She can Spawn Spiderlings to help her farm, find kills, and push. After Spin Web, she gains free movement, health regeneration, and movement speed. With Incapacitating Bite which slows and applies miss chance, as well as her Insatiable Hunger which grants bonus damage and lifesteal, Broodmother quickly tears down hapless enemy heroes. | |
| Pros | Cons |
|
|
Pusher
Broodmother's early game revolves around gaining experience from the safety of her webs, and building up a swarm of Spiderlings that can tear down towers and enemy heroes. Due to insane pushing and farming potential, Broodmother comes online relatively faster than almost all other carries. With a few towers and kills under her belt, Broodmother should look to finish the game as soon as possible.
Always put the first point in Spin Web, as Broodmother is extremely vulnerable outside of webs and requires her to begin setting up webs as soon as possible.
The next few levels are slightly flexible, prioritizing Spawn Spiderlings to improve her killing potential, while leveling Spin Web increases her mobility so she can cover the lane and jungle. Broodmother requires several living Spiderlings to clear waves and farm jungle camps. While enemies can easily kill a single level 1 Spiderling, most will struggle against multiple units. If you can build your brood early without much trouble, you can begin to put Spin Web at level 3 to control more territory.
Maxing Spawn Spiderlings and Spin web without taking value points in her other abilities accelerates her early game farming and pushing potential. The first level of Insatiable Hunger is relatively weak during the early game without her passive to help lock down target.
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 usually dominates the offlane or mid lane, as the free movement and regeneration from her webs allow her to face off against multiple enemies.
- Broodmother can apply pressure and threaten to push into tier 1 tower early in the game.
- An aggressive Broodmother can often take down a tier 2 tower while other players are still farming or pushing tier 1s. Thus, she demands attention of enemy heroes, creating space for her team to farm, push other lanes, or kill Roshan.
- Broodmother preys on solitary targets, but suffers against multiple enemies as her lifesteal can generally only replenish the damage taken from a solitary foe.
- Although Broodmother is usually pushing lanes alone, team fights sometimes require her attention. She should find the balance between pushing, farming, and team fighting.
- As Broodmother exerts great pressure in her lane, she can expand to control and farm parts of the enemy jungle.
- If you build your webs around the mid lane, you can theoretically farm all four ancient camps, giving gold for items and experience for talents.
- With high mobility, Broodmother can penetrate the enemy backline, eliminating squishy heroes right at the start of team fights.
- Set up control groups for Spiderlings and Spiderites by going to demo mode and killing enemy units to build a big swarm.
- You should also set up control group for Spin Webs so that you can check how many webs Broodmother has spun.
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 apply 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 {{#show:Spiderite|?health#}} 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
- Use Spin Web over trees and high ground to give Broodmother escape paths as she receives bonus movement speed and free movement.
- Use Spin Web on top of an enemy tower before diving in on weak heroes. The regeneration and movement speed bonus combined with Incapacitating Bite's slow enable Broodmother to dive on heroes with no reliable escape or stun.
- Line webs up to build an effective road between valuable locations, such as across the enemy jungle, allowing access to multiple neutral camps and towers.
- Keep this main highway intact by building a secure line of 5-6 webs, then spinning temporary webs to reach a lane or chase an enemy, then manually destroying them afterwards.
- Spin Web has global cast range when you connect the new webs with old ones.
- When facing heroes who Broodmother has difficulty killing in lane, such as Bristleback, she can choose to cut the enemy creep waves by putting webs behind their towers. This practice forces the enemies to tank the creeps themselves or they will have to last hit under their own tower.
- Use Spin Web liberally. Do not wait or worry about "optimal" placement, since hesitation often leads to a missed kill or failed escape.
- Broodmother can use items like Medallion of Courage to draw aggro of the lane creeps or neutral creeps to her webs.
- Broodmother may select any web and use Destroy Spin Web ability to get rid of them from anywhere on the map.
- 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 chance 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, useful to farm ancient camps or take down towers.
- Insatiable Hunger counters active Blade Mail because Broodmother can lifesteal to heal damage reflected.
- Use Insatiable Hunger early since it has long duration, so that enemies will not take advantage to take you down with silence before usage of Insatiable Hunger.
- Use Insatiable Hunger with activated Black King Bar to make sure you can stick to targets, lest wasting duration.
- 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, enough to finish off an enemy with Spawn Spiderlings.
- Clarity gives mana to produce Spiderlings.
- Iron Branch provides cheap attributes. Use with Tango for more healing.
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 make more babies. Also, the active ability decreases armor of target unit so she can farm faster.
Mid game:
- Power Treads provides attack damage and agility, as well as more survivability by switching to strength, or more mana by switching to intelligence.
- Orchid Malevolence's silence aids Broodmother in killing heroes with escape or disable abilities. The mana regeneration helps in making Spiderlings and webs; it can upgrade to Bloodthorn later on.
- Solar Crest bolsters Broodmother defense with armor and evasion. Its active ability helps Broodmother and Spiderlings tear down neutral creeps and enemy heroes by lowering their armor.
Late game:
- Black King Bar's spell immunity synergizes with the huge lifesteal from Insatiable Hunger to let Broodmother survives in team fights.
- Nullifier applies mute to disable enemy items, coupling with Orchid Malevolence's silence to turn the target into a helpless prey.
- Bloodthorn supplies mana and boosts Broodmother's damage output. Its active ability, Soul Rend, silences the target, as well as giving True Strike and crit to ensure a kill.
Situational items:
- Quelling Blade makes last hitting easier.
- Hand of Midas, along with bonus experience talent, increases Broodmother's experience gain greatly, allowing her to gain an advantage with early powerful talents.
- Phase Boots gives even more attack and movement speed, allowing Broodmother to stick to targets.
- Vladmir's Offering provides a useful lifesteal effect on both Broodmother and nearby Spiderlings, fully stacking with the effects of Insatiable Hunger. The bonus armor and attack damage also help Broodmother and her spiders to push lanes and towers.
- Mask of Madness grants cost-effective attack speed to combine with attack damage bonus of Insatiable Hunger for a cheap overall increase in damage output.
- Echo Sabre provides intelligence and mana regeneration for Broodmother to Spawn Spiderlings. The attack speed, damage, and slow gives her an easier time to hunt down heroes.
- Desolator gives excellent damage and an armor reduction debuff on hit, increasing Broodmother's pushing and killing speed. Use with Insatiable Hunger for more damage and lifesteal.
- Diffusal Blade grants useful slow on enemies so they cannot easily escape. Manabreak also burns mana to deal extra physical damage, coupling with bonus agility to make a great item for carry Broodmother.
- Radiance applies area damage and miss chance during team fights. With high mobility in webs, Broodmother can reach the enemy backline to cancel Blink initiation.
- Assault Cuirass boosts the attack speed and armor of Broodmother and spiders, while also reducing the armor of nearby towers, allowing her to push faster.
- Butterfly offers agility, bonus attack speed, and bonus attack damage, increasing Broodmother's carry potential. The evasion, coupling with Incapacitating Bite's miss chance, will give enemies a hard time to bring her down with physical attacks.
- Abyssal Blade grants reliable stun and occasional bashes to further lock down enemies, as well as block chance to protect Broodmother against physical attacks.
- Necronomicon 3 strengthens your pushes with summons and their bonus attack speed aura.
