Strategy
Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Broodmother is a pushing hero that applies pressure early on through her abundance of summoned units that easily overwhelm enemies and threaten towers in the earliest stages of the game. These summons come from her ability: Spawn Spiderlings, which allows Broodmother to quickly create a large group of units to help her farm, kill, and push with ease. Combined with Spin Web, Broodmother's mobility and farm speed is virtually unmatched in the early game, allowing her to quickly get ahead in levels and farm. Because of this, Broodmother's presence can be felt anywhere her webs are placed as her mobility and Incapacitating Bite make short work of any enemies found on their own. This can also translate to team fights as her ultimate, Insatiable Hunger, grants Broodmother bonus damage and lifesteal, making her an even more difficult hero to exterminate without a plethora of nukes or disables. While an intimidating hero to fight alone, Broodmother struggles to fight multiple enemies at once and as a result generally loses potency in the later stages of the game. To counteract this Broodmother looks to end the game quickly, before the enemy team can effectively fight back. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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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 summoned units. This can be as early as 5 minutes 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 as her enemies are usually too weak to retaliate without multiple heroes present. This formidable stature must be taken advantage of however; Broodmother should end the game quickly as her momentum will diminish if enemy heroes can catch up in farm.
It's likely that Broodmother's first skill point go into Spin Web as Broodmother is extremely vulnerable outside of webs and wants to begin placing them as soon as possible.
The next few levels are somewhat flexible, prioritizing Spawn Spiderlings will improve Broodmother's farm speed and kill potential. While a 2nd 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. While enemies aren't scared of a single spiderling, most will struggle against multiple units, Broodmother's spiderlings create fear through overwhelming an enemy.
Maxing Spawn Spiderlings and Spin Web will accelerates Broodmother's 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 targets, as a result it is typically prioritized only after she has maxed Spin Web and Spawn Spiderlings.
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 tier 1 tower, invade the enemy jungle to further restrict their ability to farm.
- Broodmother excels at eliminating single target, but cannot fight against multiple heroes alone.
- Most heroes, even ranged, will choose to purchase Stout Shield to resist Spiderlings' attacks, so Broodmother should focus on those without it in the early game to deal more damage.
- 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 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 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, 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 hesistate 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 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 speed 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 attributes. 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 give attack damage 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.
