Batrider/Guide

Hero

Strategy

Equipment

Gear

Gameplay[]

Playstyle
Batrider is an intelligence hero mostly played in the offlane role, although sometimes played by professional players as a mid hero. Batrider is most focused on disrupting the enemy team's positioning and isolating enemies. Flaming Lasso singles out certain heroes, along with Sticky Napalm which increases the damage Batrider deals to targets, helping him end his enemies with Firefly which also allows him to move over impassable terrain, opening up numerous possibilities.
Pros	Cons
Deadly disable that goes through spell immunity. Good ganker. Strong early game presence. Good AoE capabilities.	Low attack range and damage output. Low movement and attack speed. Needs team coordination. Most of his abilities can be dispelled.

Initiator[]

Batrider is traditionally played as an initiator, dragging enemies back to his team with Flaming Lasso. The ability remains the number one reason he is played competitively. However, considering how strong Lasso is in the right hands, it often gets nerfed a little, and Icefrog compensates by giving Batrider more magical damage, or a bit of attributes.

You will usually want to head to the offlane. If you are not facing a mean-looking triple lane, you can probably start with a point in Sticky Napalm, that will help you secure last hits, harass the enemy carry, and trade hits with his support. Not only does it increase your right-click damage and applies a small slow, it drastically reduces their turn-rate. Once the support is done harassing you (perhaps a new creep wave is coming along), you can assuredly land two or three extra attacks while they ever-so-slowly turns around. Of course, you should cross that if they can dispel your Sticky Napalm ( Fortune's End, Aphotic Shield...). If you cannot get near enough anything to attack it, you could be better off with a starting point in Firefly as the unobstructed movement can help you run away to safety, or perhaps to hide in the trees to leech experience without getting noticed.

In your average game, the offlane should become unsafe soon enough and you'll want to head to the jungle to catch-up on gold and experience. Batrider is a terrible jungler at level 1, he can barely manage at level 2, and he's just fine at level 3 with two points in Napalm and one in Firefly. Stack the neutrals, stack your Napalm, and farm up your core Blink Dagger, then gank somebody with Smoke of Deceit.

As for items, you'll usually start off with Wind Lace that will upgrade into Tranquil Boots. Get Tango, perhaps an Iron Branch or two that you can either plant for extra regeneration from Tango, or turn into Magic Wand. Once you have farmed a Blink Dagger, your next core item is Force Staff.

From there, every other item is luxury. Get a Black King Bar to guarantee your initiation. But, maybe the enemies' abilities go through spell immunity so a Linken's Sphere is a better choice. Eul's Scepter of Divinity is nice to have for the extra movement speed to drag your enemies further, as is Boots of Travel. Thanks to the unobstructed movement and extra vision you get from Firefly, you're also a good Gem of True Sight carrier. If you're getting starved for item slots, consider upgrading your Force Staff into a Hurricane Pike for extra attributes and lower cooldown.

Damage-oriented[]

Now that Flaming Lasso has such a bad cast range, and that Flamebreak deals so much damage combined with Napalm, we have seen pro-players skip entirely the Lasso in the early game. It is a good choice to make if you can spam the enemies with Napalm (no mobility or dispel on their side), and instead go for extra points in Flamebreak and wait until you have farmed a Blink Dagger to take some points in Lasso.

The build order we give is only an example. If you've already read the tips we give on Napalm, you may think it is best to max it out first since it is eventually the skill that will dish out the most damage. However, in practice, it is sometimes difficult to get enough stacks of Napalm to justify leveling it over your other skills, mainly Firefly which is much more reliable and has a much larger AoE once you've circled around for a couple of seconds.

In an actual team fight, you'll have to consider all the enemies instead of a single one, and you certainly won't be able to stack Napalm on all of them. These enemies will disrupt you as you're chasing a target covered in Napalm, and that enemy will try his hardest to stay away from your Firefly. That's where Flamebreak comes in. If you can't keep up with your target, Flamebreak can either bring him back in your Firefly, or the DoT can be enough to finish him off, especially if he's covered in Napalm. If you only took a value point in Firefly since the damage scales poorly, any target that hasn't got a stack of Napalm on him can ignore it entirely, whereas it's at least a little significant with more points in Firefly and no stack of Napalm. Overall, you'll have to adapt your build every game and see what's working best for you.

For items, Tranquil Boots should still be your boots of choice, although Arcane Boots can be a good alternative. The Energy Booster it comes with can be recycled later for an Aether Lens or a Lotus Orb. You can take an Enchanted Mango or two to further boost up your regeneration and cast an extra Flamebreak when low on mana, and get an early Wind Lace as well, to increase your chasing power. This Wind Lace can be upgraded into Drum of Endurance, a great cost-effective item that suits Batrider quite nicely. If things are going very nicely on your lane and you do not see the need for Lasso/Blink Dagger yet, you can get even more cheap attributes: one Crown will upgrade later into a Veil of Discord that will do wonders for your damage output.

The game should eventually settle down and you should return to your traditional initiating role and go back to your standard Blink Dagger and Force Staff.

Ability Builds[]

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

Damage-oriented Batrider
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents[]

Hero Talents
Flamebreak applies 2 Sticky Napalm Stacks	25	+10 Sticky Napalm Damage
2 Flamebreak Charges	20	+4.5s Firefly Duration
-7s Flaming Lasso Cooldown	15	+20 Movement Speed
+50 Flamebreak Knockback Distance	10	+50 Sticky Napalm Radius

Tips & Tactics[]

General[]

Batrider can effectively jungle early with a few points put into Firefly and Sticky Napalm. Make sure to stack the camps to maximize income!
Make sure you have a Blink Dagger and a Smoke of Deceit when you gank with Flaming Lasso. Most enemies will not know what hit them.
Batrider has only 1200 day vision while most other heroes have 1800, keep this in mind when ganking as enemies may detect Batrider before he can see them.
- Therefore, to ensure good ganks, Batrider should go with allies, plant Observer Wards beforehand, or hide in the trees.
During the mid-game, remember to go for ganks with Smoke, often times you can secure kills with just one ally.
Batrider dominates in fights at the Roshan Pit. That is, Sticky Napalm and Firefly gain him vision and pathing inside the pit, while Flamebreak can hit and disrupt enemies clumping inside, scattering them to be picked off.

Abilities[]

Sticky Napalm[]

Batrider can dominate the middle lane thanks to Sticky Napalm, and even be able to go for kills with Firefly and a few stacks of Napalm on the enemy midlaner.
Always keep in mind that Sticky Napalm provides vision for 2 seconds on its location. Combined with the free-pathing from Firefly, enemies cannot juke you easily.
Sticky Napalm provides flying vision so Batrider can see over trees, cliffs, and Roshan Pit.
Firefly's damage is dealt twice per second, so the bonus damage from Sticky Napalm actually applies twice a second. Therefore, one single stack of Napalm will increase Firefly's DPS on heroes by 20/30/40/50.
Against heroes, an extra point in Napalm will be as valuable as an extra point in Firefly once you've reached two stacks of Napalm on that hero. If you're having troubles getting more than one or two on an opponent, you're better off with extra points in Firefly since it will also increase the damage of everything that's not covered in Napalm. However, if you can isolate a target, the DPS increase from Napalm will be better than the on from Firefly once you reach three stacks.
Sticky Napalm slows turn rate as well, so affected enemies cannot easily turn to attack or aim abilities against you.
Use Sticky Napalm outside of enemy vision so they will not gain Magic Stick charges.
If enemies gain Magic Stick charges still, they have vision over the location.

Flamebreak[]

With an insane 1500 cast range, if you have managed to get away from a team fight with a sliver of health, you can still probably turn around and throw your molotov from a safe distance before going back to fountain.
Be wary however that the knock-back from Flamebreak can push an opponent away from your ally, just as easily as it can shove them back into your ally's grip.
Flamebreak does not cancel any channeled abilities, so the previous point becomes especially important when someone is trying to cancel a Town Portal Scroll for example.
Does 4/5/6/7 ( 6/7/8/9) instances of damage.
As a purely hypothetical scenario, with 10 stacks of level 4 Napalm, it could deal up to 4/5/6/7*(25/30/35/40 + 10*25) = 1,100/1,400/1,710/2,030 ( 1,650/1,960/2,280/2,610) magic damage before any reduction or amplification.

Firefly[]

Batrider is a strong solo offlaner thanks to flying movement Firefly gives, allowing for a somewhat reliable escape from bad situations.
Use Firefly to approach enemies from angles they would not expect you, or to hide in the trees and wait for an opportunity to arise.
Use Firefly over trees near enemy towers, Batrider may spot and initiate on enemy defenders from there.
As a result, Batrider's team should choose to siege enemy high ground from the side lanes over the midlane to abuse the trees there.
Use Firefly to burn creeps when pushing. Batrider can walk the lane creeps toward jungle camps and farm them all at the same time.
When defending, lay down Firefly beforehand so enemy creeps have to walk over them. Enemies will have trouble pushing when Batrider has killed or burned the creeps enough to be finished with Flamebreak.
Does a total of 37 ( 53) ticks of damage. As a purely hypothetical scenario, with 10 stacks of level 4 Napalm, it could deal up to 37*(35 + 10*25) = 10,545 ( 15,105) magic damage before any reduction or amplification.
When jungling, extra points in Sticky Napalm are more valuable than extra points in Firefly. Even with its damage reduced against creeps, Napalm scales better once you've reached 4-5 stacks.
As an example, let's assume you are level 3. You can either have 2 points in Firefly in which case you can deal 37*(15 + 10*2.5) = 1480 damage; or two points in Napalm in which case you can deal 37*(5 + 10*5) = 2035 damage. Overall, that extra point in Napalm is as valuable as the extra point in Firefly once you've reached 4 stacks (since 4*2.5 = 10 which equals Firelfy's DPS increase), and it becomes more valuable once you have 5 stacks. This is true at all levels of Firefly and Napalm since they both scale linearly.

Flaming Lasso[]

Batrider should focus on acquiring movement speed and positioning items to get the most out of Flaming Lasso.
You can turn around and apply Flame Break right before Flaming Lasso ends to further push target unit in a more disadvantaged position.
Watch for Linken's Sphere from the enemies, which ruin initiation with Flaming Lasso.
Common items to pop Linken's Sphere include Force Staff and Eul's Scepter of Divinity due to their low costs, easy buildups, and bonus mobility.
Aghanim's Scepter allows Batrider to initiate on two clumped up targets, so Batrider can pull them both out of position, devastating the enemy team in the late game.
The secondary lasso ignores Linken's Sphere. Catch Linken's holders off-guard by targeting a nearby vulnerable hero or even a creep.

Items[]

Starting items:

Tango gives needed health regeneration during the laning phase.
Healing Salve restores health to Batrider to keep him in lane.
Iron Branch gives cheap health, mana, and damage and builds Magic Wand.
Clarity sustains mana in lane to keep using abilities.
Wind Lace increases movement speed to make plays in the offlane, and it can upgrade to Tranquil Boots.
Boots of Speed increases movement speed to keep Firefly on targets.
Magic Stick helps with sustainability through burst health and mana restoration.

Early game:

Magic Wand provides attributes and more burst health and mana than Magic Stick.
Witch Blade is a very important item for Batrider that can help him increase his attack speed, attack damage, projectile speed and make his attacks have true strike every 9 seconds.
Force Staff can be used while Lassoing a target, allowing you to drag them even further.

Mid game:

Tranquil Boots provides a source of health regeneration and huge movement speed bonus to allow Batrider to remain in lane.
Drum of Endurance gives attributes and mana regeneration; but more importantly, the movement speed allows Batrider to quickly grab target with Flaming Lasso to his team.
Blink Dagger offers exceptional mobility for Batrider to easily go for Flaming Lasso, the most important item for him.
Orchid Malevolence provides attack speed, attack damage and gives Batrider the ability to silence an enemy he is planning to use Flaming Lasso on.
Dagon will give Batrider nice attributes, spell lifesteal and much needed magical damage burst, and will also allow him to put Linken's Sphere on cooldown before engaging with Flaming Lasso.

Late game:

Black King Bar protects Batrider from disables, meaning he can drag the target further out of position without dying as quickly himself.
Shiva's Guard has an active slow that may prevent enemies from reacting to your initiation; the damage it deals can put their Blink Dagger on cooldown. Also, it gives armor and intelligence for sustainability.
Ethereal Blade provides extra attributes and allows Batrider to defend himself from physical attacks, or to increase damage output and to apply a disarm on a targeted enemy.
Revenant's Brooch, an upgrade for Witch Blade will give a great amount of attack speed, armor, intelligence, and will also allow Batrider to attack ethereal units.
Bloodthorn, an upgrade for Orchid Malevolence will give Batrider great attack speed, attack damage, health regeneration, mana regeneration, intelligence and magic resistance, and will allow Batrider to make his attacks have true strike and weaken spell damage on the silenced target.
Hurricane Pike, an upgrade for Force Staff will give Batrider extra mobility, health, intelligence, agility, strength and will also provide him with increased attack range.
Aghanim's Scepter will allow Batrider's Flaming Lasso to grab nearest enemy hero that sticks too close to the target he intends to use it and tether them to each other, which will allow him to grab two enemy heroes at once. If combined with Refresher Orb, it will allow Batrider to catch up to 4 enemy heroes with Flaming Lasso, which can seriously boost his impact in teamfights.
Aghanim's Shard will allow Batrider to freely attack enemy heroes disabled by Flaming Lasso and will passively give his attacks a chance to apply Sticky Napalm on them.

Situational items:

Infused Raindrops gives early mana regeneration and absorbs some magical damage.
Eul's Scepter of Divinity gives movement speed to improve Flaming Lasso's drag distance, mana regeneration to help spam your abilities, and also another disable to aid in teamfights or to disjoint projectiles.
Gem of True Sight, along with the additional vision of Firefly and flying vision of Sticky Napalm, enables Batrider to initiate safely from the covers of trees with True Sight.
Ghost Scepter provides some attributes and makes Batrider invulnerable to physical attacks, a great item to escape or complete your initiation without dying too quickly against carries. It can be also upgraded into Ethereal Blade, which Batrider can freely use, due to his damage output consisting only from magical damage.
Boots of Travel gives unmatched global presence and the extra movement speed allows Batrider to drag enemies further.
Linken's Sphere grants regeneration, attributes, and a Spellblock to protect Batrider during an execution of Flaming Lasso.
Scythe of Vyse gives attributes, mana regeneration, and a hex to further disable a single target, which proves deadly in the late game.
Black King Bar will give Batrider bonus strength, attack damage and debuff immunity to perform his initiations with Flaming Lasso with little problems.
Octarine Core supplies health and mana. The Cooldown Reduction allows Batrider to keep using abilities, which is especially threatening to enemies with an increased frequency of Flaming Lasso.
Rod of Atos will give Batrider bonus health and intellgence along with a root that will allow him to keep his enemies in range for his abilities.
Gleipnir, an upgrade for Rod of Atos will allow Batrider to passively have his attacks release a chain lightning that can bounce between enemies and damage them while also giving Batrider the ability to root multiple enemy heroes in an area.
Wind Waker, an upgrade for Eul's Scepter of Divinity will boost Batrider's mobility and mana regeneration, and will allow him to save his allies from ganks.
Overwhelming Blink will allow Batrider to slow down movement and attack speed of the enemies he blinks onto, which will allow him to keep them in range for his abilities.