Riki/Guide

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Riki's permanent invisibility is both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness. On one hand, it makes him able to surprise enemies and farm with very little concern. On the other hand, without invisibility he has no real defense. He still has to watch out for revealing items such as Dust of Appearance and Gem of True Sight, as well as abilities that prevent him from going invisible. If he stays alive and picks off lone enemies, he can quickly get out of control.
Pros	Cons
Permanent invisibility. Can use items without breaking invisibility. Relatively mobile. Very high physical damage output at all points in the game. Smoke Screen is extremely useful against all opponents.	Low health points. Low health regeneration Low mana. Low base damage Easily countered by wards and true sight.

Ability Builds

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

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

Talents

Hero Talents
Tricks of the Trade Applies a Basic Dispel	25	-3 Tricks of the Trade Cooldown
-4s Blink Strike Replenish Time	20	+0.3 Backstab Multiplier
-3s Smoke Screen Cooldown	15	+30% Tricks of the Trade Agility Increase
+8% Cloak and Dagger Movement Speed	10	+50 Smoke Screen Radius

Tips & Tactics

General

• Riki's Cloak and Dagger allows him to scout and place wards without revealing himself, making him a viable roamer or support hero.
• Riki is exceptional at ganking lone heroes and picking them off one by one. He can snowball easily through just getting lots of kills even without farm. Try to get kills before the enemy starts grouping up, so they cannot punish you with detection items.
• Riki is an attribute-based carry, thanks to Cloak and Dagger's backstab damage. This means that it continues to get stronger and stronger as the game goes on, as long as you continue to farm, gank, and purchase the right items.
  • Because of this, Diffusal Blade should be your first core item completed, it gives everything Riki needs: the agility scales well with and the active slow helps keep enemies within Smoke Screen, which is your main ganking combo.
• Do not walk straight up to enemies and deep into enemy territory and expect never to die. If they have any kind of detection (e.g. Sentry Ward), then Riki dies very quickly.
  • As a result of this, make a habit of constantly checking the enemy's inventory for revealing items.
• Be wary around more durable enemy heroes. Spell immunity allows enemies to ignore Smoke Screen and fight Riki, ignoring his backstab damage.
• Riki is a key hero to catch slippery foes and heroes that are heavily reliant on their own active skills since he can approach without detection and use smoke to prevent them from using escape spells, so it is wise to pick him as a counter pick to many heroes like Slark, Juggernaut, Anti-Mage, Weaver or Storm Spirit. However, be careful of enemies carrying escape items, like Force Staff, Glimmer Cape, Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade/ Silver Edge.
• Scout the enemy jungle once in a while, you may encounter some enemy farming alone for an easy kill, also help high mobility heroes like Spirit Breaker or Nature's Prophet to set up a gank.
• Do not be afraid of enemies carrying Gem of True Sight, track down their movement and wait, sooner or later they are going to end up alone and when this happens do not hesitate, use the fog of war and approach them from the sides, go for the kill and recover the Gem.
• Riki requires a lot of map knowledge as some supports or players place sentry wards in obvious position. Knowing heroes who carry dust, knowing the range of the sentry detection and knowing hot spots for sentry placement can increase your overall survivability in the game.

Abilities

Smoke Screen

• Smoke Screen provides silence and gives enemies a high miss chance, as well as slowing them down.
• Try to throw Smoke Screen in the enemy's path, rather than where they are presently.
• Use Smoke Screen's blind to defend buildings as enemies will be missing their attacks.

Blink Strike

• Blink Strike can target allies and enemies. Riki can use it on allies to escape.
• Blink Strike helps catch up with fleeing enemies, jump into fights quickly, and escape from situations by targeting allies.
• Blink Strike pairs well with the backstab damage from Cloak and Dagger, as it teleports Riki behind the enemy.
• Use Blink Strike to secure last hits without breaking Cloak and Dagger's invisibility.

Cloak and Dagger

• Riki can use any abilities and items without breaking Cloak and Dagger's invisibility.
• If Riki's enemies do not have any form of detection, the invisibility will let Riki escape with ease and roam freely.
  • If they do, Riki has to rely on his cunning and speed in order to get the drop on enemies, and get out alive.
• Take Cloak and Dagger at level 1 to take Bounty Rune on the enemy side.
  • When enemies are standing on top of the bounty rune, spam right click and stop command to take the rune.
• Cloak and Dagger also enables him to deal incredible damage from behind based on a multiplier of his agility.
• Since good supports always stay behind, you can flank the enemy team coming around from there and catching the supports as soon as a teamfight begins and the enemy team is so busy fighting yours that they do not realize that their supports are already dead. This strategy also applies to enemy initiators with game-changing ultimates like Enigma or Magnus, as a good interruption can set victory in critical situations.
• A well-organized team will often buy Sentry Ward to keep vision of Riki. You may want to take it upon yourself to de-ward your lane if needs be; if you are without a support, or so that your support can concentrate on other items.
• Attempt to draw creep aggro to check if enemies have vision over Cloak and Dagger's invisibility.

Tricks of the Trade

• Tricks of the Trade pairs well with large AoE disables such as Ravage, Reverse Polarity, and Black Hole.
• Tricks of the Trade prioritizes attacking heroes over illusions, so allies can pick out real heroes.
• Later in the game, you can use Tricks of the Trade after Blink Strike to initiate, then safely Blink Strike again to escape enemies waiting for you.
• Tricks of the Trade may be combined with cleave from Battle Fury or Empower to devastate grouped enemies.
• Tricks of the Trade turns Riki invulnerable and hidden for a maximum of 6 seconds. Do not be afraid to use the skill to avoid dying from spells such as Assassinate.
• When trying to escape, use Tricks of the Trade and watch as enemies try to run away. After they have left the area, Riki should stop channeling and run to the opposite direction; the enemies will then have to turn around if they want to chase.

Items

Starting items:

• Tango regenerates health so Riki can stay longer in lane and reach level 6 sooner.
• Healing Salve restores health as well.
• Iron Branch gives cheap attributes and builds into Magic Wand; or, Riki can use it with Tango to get more heal.
• Slippers of Agility increases agility for Riki to last hit; it builds into Wraith Band later on.

Early game:

• Magic Stick replaces your consumables with an alternative source of recovery, particularly if the enemy team includes heroes that rely on abilities.
• Boots of Speed provide movement speed, allowing Riki to keep pace with fleeing heroes while Blink Strike is on cooldown.
• Orb of Venom helps secure kills with its movement slow and helps compensate for Riki's own horrible movement speed.

Mid game:

• Power Treads give Riki increased attack speed as well as a further bonus to attributes, which help increasing Cloak and Dagger's damage output.
• Magic Wand, upgraded from Magic Stick, gives better attribute bonuses and healing ability.
• Diffusal Blade provides a way to slow fleeing heroes, keeping them in Smoke Screen, as well as burning mana from casters for extra damage. It also boosts agility which will increase Cloak and Dagger's backstab damage.
• File:Basher icon.png Basher provides increased damage and strength,following an attack combo:Blink,Smoke,Diffusal and then Tricks of the Trade will almost guarantee a kill with Passive Bash keeping the opponent inside for a few extra seconds.

Late game:

• Butterfly provides a huge increase in both survivability and damage, as well as attack speed. It also boosts your agility which scales well with Cloak and Dagger's backstab damage.
• Abyssal Blade allows Riki to cancel TPs with stun and bash, as well as continuing to lock-down opponents once they have acquired Black King Bar.
• Nullifier's movement speed slow keeps enemies inside Trick of the Trade. Furthermore, the mute and dispel complements Smoke Screen's silence to better disable enemies, countering and preventing them from using defensive abilities and items like Ghost Scepter.

Situational items:

• Drum of Endurance is a good early to mid game pickup, makes everyone faster and gives you stats, coupled with Orb of Venom for a better chasing power.
• Black King Bar allows Riki to effectively fight in team-fights and get kills against opponents that have strong disables.
• Sange and Yasha give great attribute bonuses, as well as attack damage.
• Eye of Skadi gives attributes across the board as well as a flat health and mana pool bonus, allowing Riki to take more hits, deal more damage and use more abilities. It also gives a powerful, spell immunity piercing slow that will prevent your target from escaping.
• Blink Dagger allows Riki to initiate using Blink Strike and Tricks of the Trade, then safely blinking away just before Tricks of the Trade finishes.
• Manta Style can be used to dispel debuffs, including Dust of Appearance. Riki can use the illusions to scout, and as targets for Blink Strike when escaping.
• Mjollnir can proc with Tricks of the Trade, but only up to once per strike due to the item's internal cooldown of 0.2 seconds.
• Aghanim's Scepter allows Riki to use longer duration Tricks of the Trade inside an ally, boosting survivability and damage output.