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Many hands make light work.
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Bad against...[]
- Tinker is fragile and vulnerable against carries like Anti-Mage.
- Mana Break burns away his mana pool and deals bonus physical damage.
- Tinker's massive mana pool makes Mana Void deal large amount of damage, and can be used to cancel a Keen Conveyance teleport.
- Blink gives Anti-Mage many options, like disjointing Heat Seeking Missiles. He can use Blink to wait out of sight for a split pushing Tinker or chase a blinking Tinker into trees.
- Tinker doesn't want any of his spells reflected back at him through Counterspell.
- Clockwerk can easily catch a split pushing Tinker with his Hookshot and prevent him from escaping with Power Cogs and Battery Assault. Clockwerk can also find a Tinker hiding in trees with his Rocket Flare.
- Clockwerk usually buys a Blade Mail, which does lots of damage to Tinker if he gets hit by his abilities (especially March of the Machines).
- Shadow Wave provides good sustain against Tinker's spammable abilities.
- Shallow Grave can stop Tinker from bursting down a target.
- Tinker is heavily reliant on casting his spells and Doom can disable all of his abilities and items. An Aghanim's Scepter only makes it harder for Tinker to survive.
- Press the Attack can dispel Laser's blind while providing great attack speed and health regeneration.
- Once caught in a Duel, Tinker, who completely relies on his spells to be effective, has little chances of survival with his low health pool and armor.
- Rage will dispel Laser's blind and turns him spell immune for the duration so Tinker cannot damage him.
- Feast will quickly bring down Tinker due to being so fragile.
- Even though Luna has a hard time laning against Tinker because of Heat-Seeking Missile and Laser, she can win against him in late game once she buys Black King Bar, as none of Tinker's spells can bypass spell immunity.
- Lucent Beam and 0.25 Eclipse Lucent Mini-stun talent for Eclipse can be used to cancel Rearm and prevent Tinker's escape attempts with Boots of Travel. Luna can also use Lucent Beam and Eclipse if she is blinded with Laser.
- An ill-timed and ill-positioned Blink Dagger will make Tinker a very easy target for Luna's Eclipse that can quickly tear him to shreds. This can get even better if Luna buys Aghanim's Scepter and combines it with 0.25 Eclipse Lucent Mini-stun talent for Eclipse.
- However, Luna needs to approach Tinker carefully, as Tinker is a natural Scythe of Vyse wielder, and if he gets a jump on Luna first, he will be able to use it to disable and burst down Luna before she can use Black King Bar, Lucent Beam or Eclipse.
- Night Stalker can easily find Tinker in the trees during Dark Ascension.
- Void's mini-stun will stop Rearm and Keen Conveyance
- Crippling Fear's silence will prevent Tinker from fighting back, as Tinker relies on his spells.
- Nyx Assassin's whole skillset is good against Tinker:
- Impale prevents Tinker from blinding Nyx Assassin or fighting back, while giving Nyx' allies time to catch up to Tinker's position.
- Mind Flare generally deals more damage to intelligence based heroes like Tinker.
- Spiked Carapace can stun Tinker at a moment of Nyx Assassin's choosing if March of the Machines has been cast. It is also quite easy to time Spiked Carapace against Heat Seeking Missiles.
- Vendetta allows Nyx to approach Tinker in the trees or wait for him in common hiding spots and deal heavy damage to his low armor.
- Pudge can Meat Hook a Tinker hiding in the trees and follow it up with Dismember and Rot for an easy solo kill, as Tinker doesn't tend to buy survivability items.
- Many stacks of Flesh Heap combined with items that give Pudge high strength and health will make it hard for Tinker to deal serious damage to Pudge.
- As Tinker relies heavily on his spells to be effective, Last Word and Global Silence will render him largely useless.
- Arcane Curse effectively prevents Tinker from casting spells during its duration, as he will otherwise suffer heavy damage.
- Glaives of Wisdom deal pure damage, which make quick work of fragile heroes like Tinker.
- Silencer's intelligence steal permanently weakens Tinker since he's a hero who requires lots of mana to be effective.
- Skywrath Mage stands perfectly on the center line against Tinker, thanks to his nuke and silence. Also, thanks to his abilities, he can quickly kill a victim, and Tinker is one of the most subtle heroes in the game
- Pounce prevents Tinker from blinking away.
- Slark frequently builds Shadow Blade, which allows him to approach Tinker unnoticed. Since Tinker's farming usually covers a significant amount of area on the map, Sentry Wards may not be cost effective.
- Shadow Dance allows Slark to detect both common and unusual wards. Eliminating common ward causes Tinker trouble farming many lanes if he does not know who may be waiting to jump on him. Slark is also uniquely able to identify some of the less common wards used by Tinker, such as those placed on the cliffs at map edges which Tinker uses to give him vision over the trees he uses to hide in.
- Slark's extremely high move speed from Shadow Dance, potentially stacked with Shadow Blade, allows him to easily follow Tinker between lanes, especially if Tinker has pushed the lanes out.
- Dark Pact dispels Laser's blind.
- He can easily catch Tinker in the trees with Ball Lightning and kill him with Orchid Malevolence and his abilities, which deal both physical and magical damage, making them difficult for Tinker to itemize against.
- Wave of Terror can reveal a Tinker attempting to hide in the trees and then Nether Swap and Magic Missile will both serve to interrupt/lock him down, should he attempt to town portal or reload.
- Zeus can easily reveal Tinker's location in the trees with Thundergod's Wrath.
- When Zeus has an Aghanim's Scepter, he can use his Nimbus, together with Lightning Bolt to interrupt Tinker's Keen Conveyance channelling and cancel Tinker's Blink Dagger.
- Nether Ward discourages Tinker from using abilities and items due to its high damage against heavy mana usage.
- X Marks the Spot can be used to prevent Tinker from escape with Blink Dagger or Keen Conveyance, discourage him from snapping farm and snapping gank. However, in later game, it'll be much more difficult because Tinker can buy Black King Bar or Linken's Sphere to prevent Kunkka from placing X on him, or Eul's Scepter of Divinity to prevent the recall.
Others[]
- Getting caught in a Chronosphere is a death sentence for Tinker.
- Illusion heroes, such as Naga Siren, Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight, Terrorblade will become strong against Tinker in the late game. Without Aghanim's Scepter Tinker is forced to defensively disarm heroes with Laser, leaving illusions free to deal physical damage which Tinker's low armor makes highly effective. In addition, Mjollnir or Battle Fury, two common pickups against illusion heroes, don't work well on Tinker at all.
- Heroes that can gain vision over trees to catch Tinker: Invoker, Shadow Demon, Batrider.
- Heroes with global spells that can reach Tinker anywhere on the map: Spectre
Items[]
- Blade Mail can reflect a lot of damage back to Tinker.
- Linken's Sphere prevents Tinker from using Laser and his targeted items.
- Black King Bar makes all of Tinker's spells and items useless, because they are all magical and don't penetrate spell immunity.
- Lotus Orb reflects all of Tinker's spells and items back onto himself.
- Monkey King Bar grants 80% chance to hit attacks.
Good against...[]
- Laser can be very effective against Bloodrage as the damage will be amplified while the blind prevents Bloodseeker from landing hits.
- Keen Conveyance guarantees him escape from Rupture.
- With Aghanim's Scepter, Tinker's Laser completely stops Chaos Knight's damage, forcing him to buy either a Black King Bar for his own survivability while leaving his illusions still vulnerable, or a Monkey King Bar leaving him still vulnerable to Tinker's nukes, though improving his damage.
- Tinker rarely finds himself in the middle of a fight, which is where Chaos Knight typically thrives, and even in the rare cases of being so, at level 3 Tinker's constant rearm and blink away can kite and dodge Chaos Knight's spells reliably, so Chaos Knight has very little catch against Tinker's mobility. This gives Tinker impunity to create more chaos in a teamfight than Chaos Knight can control, laying down the field with March of the Machines and constantly being hit by rockets and lasers.
- All of Tinker's damage is magic/pure and completely ignores Enchantress's Untouchable. And Tinker's nukes can quickly decimate her small HP pool, sometimes even preventing Enchantress from even responding.
- As Enchantress relies solely on her primary attacks to deal damage, and rarely builds something to dispel it, Laser's Blind is particularly effective.
- However, Enchantress will probably build a Linken's Sphere against Tinker's Laser, so getting an additional disable is highly recommended.
- If Tinker can stay outside of Chronosphere, Laser can cause Faceless Void to miss all his attacks.
- Faceless Void has low health and strongly relies on Time Walk's healing factor to remain alive. Getting caught by Tinker with Scythe of Vyse will almost always spell a quick end for Void.
- Rearm ignores Time Dilation completely.
- Tinker can use Laser to save an ally or himself from Phantom Assassin's initiate Phantom Strike due to the blind, forcing her to use a Black King Bar to effectively initiate, Tinker can also use Warp Flare one he buys Aghanim's Shard to reverse Phantom Strike's blinking with Phantom Strike.
- Tinker almost never uses his physical attack, relying on his spell-spamming to deal damage which ignores Blur's Evasion
- Defense Matrix prevents Coup de Grace from triggering.
- Laser prevents Juxtapose from triggering, as it only triggers on successful attacks
- Laser does high splash, and upgrading it with Aghanim's Scepter makes it deal twice as much damage due to the bounce. Combined with Rearm, Tinker can rapidly deplete Phantom Lancer's illusion army
- However, if Phantom Lancer ambushes Tinker, Tinker will not survive versus Phantom Lancer.
- During the laning stage Laser will reduce Shadow Fiend's last hits, preventing him from getting Necromastery souls.
- Shadow Fiend has low health and is vulnerable to Tinker's high magic burst.
- Tinker is one of the few characters in Dota 2 who is able to defeat a Sniper on the center line – Tinker. On the center line, he gains an advantage over his opponent, and later acquires additional control. It is these abilities that the enemy should have in the game against the Sniper.
- Tinker can single-handedly stop Terrorblade's early-push and quickly clear his illusions with Laser (especially with Aghanim's Scepter).
- Tinker has perfect tools to reveal Terrorblade from his illusions as well as to burst him down if he is low-health before he will be able Sunder.
- All Tinker's damage is magic/pure and completely ignores Timbersaw's Reactive Armor.
- Timbersaw very rarely builds Black King Bar, making him very vulnerable if Tinker builds Scythe of Vyse.
- Laser can be cast on a initiating Ursa, normally causing him to waste multiple Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Overpower". attacks, forcing him to either Black King's Bar, or Lua error in Module:Ability_ID at line 61: Could not find Cargo data for "Enrage". to protect himself.
- Ursa will probably carry a Linken's Sphere to counter Tinker's Laser. Popping it with Scythe of Vyse is actually preferable, due to Laser's high Pure damage.
- While Ursa is a common Blink Dagger carrier, but he otherwise has no way to close the gap, Baiting him into using his Blink, then blinking away, allows Tinker to easily kite Ursa.
- Enrage is generally how Ursa disengages, Due to Tinker's high maneuverability, he can follow him until it runs out. then burst him down with high magic damage.
- Viper is kind of a mixed package. Tinker is very good against him. but stands a better chance against him than most heroes.
- Viper has a high innate magic resistance, but relies on his primary attacks to really deal damage. making Laser an effective way to save allies from him, and deal damage. Keep in mind that his Corrosive Skin will prevent Tinker from blinking.
- Viper's Viper Strike and Poison Attack will also have a hard time damaging allies through Tinker's constant casting of Defense Matrix.
- Viper has no solutions to cancel Rearm nor any of Tinker's escape attempts with Boots of Travel
- However, if Viper gets a jump on Tinker first. Tinker will unlikely survive versus Viper.
Others[]
- Any hero with a low HP pool is easy for Tinker to nuke down: Crystal Maiden, Enchantress, Gyrocopter, Lion, Riki, Techies, Terrorblade, Necrophos, Invoker.
- Heroes who rely on basic attacks will suffer from Laser: Phantom Assassin, Wraith King, Huskar.
Works well with...[]
- Thirst can help Tinker finish off foes after his Dagon, Heat-Seeking Missile, Laser, Rearm combo by providing vision when enemies are at low health.
- Bloodrage significantly increases Tinker's already massive damage output.
- Track gives True Sight of the target, allowing Tinker to chase it with repeated casts of Heat-Seeking Missile.
- Faceless Void's Chronosphere provides a great setup for Tinker's spells.
- Chakra Magic reduces Tinker's mana usage so he won't have to return to the fountain as often.
- X Marks the Spot allows Tinker to teleport out of base and get recalled as soon as he's in danger.
- Tinker and Nature's Prophet are both very good at pushing lanes, and their combined global presence means they can easily show up to help each other.
- Astral Imprisonment allows Tinker to escape if an enemy hero breaks his Blink Dagger, due to it lasting 4 seconds.
- Astral Imprisonment also can be used on enemy heroes to give Tinker time to Re-arm
- As Outworld Destroyer is generally the character that the enemies want to focus (Due to his high pure damage and poor survivability), Tinker will normally be ignored, allowing him to spam his spells in peace.
- Disruption often allows Tinker to escape if an enemy hero breaks his Blink Dagger, due to it lasting 2.75 seconds.
- Disruption also can be used on enemy heroes to give Tinker time to Re-arm
- Demonic Cleanse keeps Tinker alive, allowing him to use his Soul Ring more often. It also protects him from most disables
- Corrosive Haze gives True Sight of the target, allowing Tinker to chase it with repeated casts of Heat-Seeking Missile.
- Tinker can teleport onto Spirit Breaker during Charge of Darkness with Boots of Travel 2 and gank heroes.
- Charge of Darkness provides vision of the target, allowing Tinker to chase it with repeated casts of Heat-Seeking Missile.
Others[]
Items[]
- Scythe of Vyse combined with Re-arm, allows you to literally hex an opponent permanently.
