HOW TO COUNTER RIKI

[Jehenoch]

First, I'm not someone new, so don't bother explaining to me how does gem works.
Second, I'm not a pro either, I have a problem that I find so hard to handle, it's about Riki, and I'm expecting a thorough answer. Trolls are welcomed but probably gonna be ignored.

Okay, so blink strike as his ultimate allows him a better mobility than his previous version. I noticed, in teamfights, he often gets away from sentry's range of vision. Probably, the player is experienced enough to know where sentry is placed OR is experienced enough to kill one person before running away, whether or not he's seen.

Dust. I find this item works better for me. But if I'm caught by a riki who has basher, i have very low chance to survive. And I'm not gonna expect nor blame a support for not saving me, anybody can't always get to me to help on time. A smarter Riki would buy a diffusal to purge the dust. P.S. I'm on 2,5k MMR and everybody seems to NOT be a fan of buying dusts, whether or not there's riki, lol.

Slardar. Good counter, but as a carry (or carry-ish) hero, he needs farm. I've seen some games where a riki who manages to get a quick basher can kill him. Plus, who is Slardar gonna ulti if the riki has a good team? Riki won't show up in front up slardar directly, the riki would probably have a good initiator like Axe, bb, or etc. This is a theory that I call "One counter hero may ensure another hero's death, but does not necessarily mean it can ensure a win game"

Gem. Best, but droppable, and it doesn't take 30 minutes to come up with a way to kill the gem holder. I usually buy early gem, so in case I die, I can buy another. If this is stupid, please tell me why, I will gladly accept your criticism.
You : why do you buy early gem? why not let your support buy it?
Me : well sir, in my MMR, it's rare for ANYBODY to buy an early gem, so if I don't do it, who else?


Addition.
I love the update for riki, because he's now good for competitive games I think, but I also hate it, because if I have a team full of ignorant people, 70% chance I will lose.


PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING, if you don't, I won't be mad.
I need PROFESSIONAL OPINIONS, but I will also respond to decent ones and another question.


Look, again, I'm not a noob, not new to dota, NOT ASKING RIKI TO BE NERFED either, that's just not my thing.

I'm just asking.

If you meet Riki.
What would you do/plan/buy? (this question tends to ask the teamfight mechanism)
You may also include your hero of choice.

Thank you and if I'm not responding, sorry, because I need to take a leave soon to somewhere.

Godspeed! :)



ADDITION NOTE :
Thank you for all the answers, you all have certainly given me some new ideas about how to counte riki teamfight-wise. :)
I recommend other readers to read these as well.

[DeepFriedBalls]

NUKES + early sentrys

[Jehenoch]

Originally posted by Arisbor the sammich:

NUKES + early sentrys

nukes can hold him down quite nicely, but sadly it doesn't hold him down much long.
any nuker you'd suggest?

[Half-Life 3 Unborn confirmed]

Force Staff. His smoke is his most annoying ability. You are trying to run away from the smoke, while riki hits you from behind with bonus damage. If someone in your team has Force Staff to push you out of the smoke, then Riki won't be such a pain.

[corbet]

hard fighters, riki can NOT fight people like lone druid, ursa, warlord. so you can just kill riki any time he appears via hard fighting the riki. now if you pick viper or sniper or drow, or zues, you just counter picked yourself and make riki have an easy game. you do have to bear in mind, to not stand inside riki's purple cloud, which is easy to understand. so yeah riki will stand in it, and you won't and he won't be able to fight you if you pick good fighting melee heros. riki not a fighter, he is good at picking off squishies who are alone, such as zeus, most intelligence heros, and the ranged agility heros like sniper, viperr, drow. once again riki sneaking up on an ursa won't work, or lone druid, they will beat the hell out of riki and riki runs away. i also suggest bristleback. bristleback has a mechanic that reduces damage from behind, and triggers one of his abilities for free, and riki likes to hit you from behind.

the other thing that really counters riki is silences. you can buy orchid of malevolence if enemy team has riki, and that is enough usually to kill him with nukes and prevent him from escaping, because the silences prevent him from doing invisible. i silencer is good pick against riki aswell. this is assuming you are good at your intelligence hero to not get caught alone.

dust of appearance is best way as far as those types of items, gem can be dropped and costs alot, not worth it to buy gem. and sentry wards won't give large enough area to kill riki, as he most the time will leave the vision area before riki dies. so dust is best way regarding these items.

[sadge]

Abaddon and bristleback will ruin his day for good. Legion commander also forces Riki to completely forego his backstab bonus. Zeus has 2 nukes that give true sight, and mobility shouldn't be a problem as most Zeus players build force staff to get out of Riki's dust or other tricky situations. PA is alright because of her early game evasion advantage and the fact that she can also build basher to stunlock Riki. Faceless Void's chronosphere reveals Riki for a precious 4/4.5/5 seconds which should be enough to take him down. Riki is also revealed when he's silenced, so I suspect silencer would be a good pick against him as well.

Riki almost never builds battlefury. Therefore, I suspect illusion heroes like Naga (whose nets reveal Riki for the duration), Terrorblade, and Phantom Lancer can trade blows with him fairly easily, even if they don't counter him directly.

[corbet]

one other thing about riki is that even though his agility is very over the top high. his basic attack has like 4 damage, when most people have something like 25-40. a poor mans shield will go a longer ways against a riki than most people. lone druid equipping himself with that and riki shows up and lone druid is in bear form, no way riki comes close to hurting lone druid before riki gets decimated.

[Jehenoch]

Originally posted by Violet:

Force Staff. His smoke is his most annoying ability. You are trying to run away from the smoke, while riki hits you from behind with bonus damage. If someone in your team has Force Staff to push you out of the smoke, then Riki won't be such a pain.

Roger.
If combined with a good hero to force out of his smoke, what hero do you think is best to kill him after forcing out of his smoke? Serious question.
I have a few heroes in my mind, but not I'm just not that good at nuker heroes, so having a hard time deciding.

[sadge]

I also don't know why I didn't think of this, but Bloodseeker is the counter to almost every invis hero there is. One Rupture + Blood Rite cast right after Bloodrage should be enough to bring an early/mid game Riki down enough so that you can get in a few autoattacks to finish him off.

[Jehenoch]

Originally posted by wtf does this hero do:

Abaddon and bristleback will ruin his day for good. Legion commander also forces Riki to completely forego his backstab bonus. Zeus has 2 nukes that give true sight, and mobility shouldn't be a problem as most Zeus players build force staff to get out of Riki's dust or other tricky situations. PA is alright because of her early game evasion advantage and the fact that she can also build basher to stunlock Riki. Faceless Void's chronosphere reveals Riki for a precious 4/4.5/5 seconds which should be enough to take him down. Riki is also revealed when he's silenced, so I suspect silencer would be a good pick against him as well.

Riki almost never builds battlefury. Therefore, I suspect illusion heroes like Naga (whose nets reveal Riki for the duration), Terrorblade, and Phantom Lancer can trade blows with him fairly easily, even if they don't counter him directly.

Originally posted by wtf does this hero do:

Abaddon and bristleback will ruin his day for good. Legion commander also forces Riki to completely forego his backstab bonus. Zeus has 2 nukes that give true sight, and mobility shouldn't be a problem as most Zeus players build force staff to get out of Riki's dust or other tricky situations. PA is alright because of her early game evasion advantage and the fact that she can also build basher to stunlock Riki. Faceless Void's chronosphere reveals Riki for a precious 4/4.5/5 seconds which should be enough to take him down. Riki is also revealed when he's silenced, so I suspect silencer would be a good pick against him as well.

Riki almost never builds battlefury. Therefore, I suspect illusion heroes like Naga (whose nets reveal Riki for the duration), Terrorblade, and Phantom Lancer can trade blows with him fairly easily, even if they don't counter him directly.

thanks you two, appreciate it

[Nolo Contendere]

First and foremost, THANK YOU! it's nice to see a thread asking for counters rather than crying for a nerf.

That said, on to counters:

Riki, like quite a few carries actually, is pretty much a one trick pony. If you negate his invisibility, you kill his biggest advantage. I know i'm pretty much beating a dead horse when i say this, but frequently purchasing dust/sentries will make life hell for him. As others have said, silences also reveal riki for the duration. Therefore; Drow, Silencer, Doom, and orchid users will make life rough for him provided that they can catch him, easier said than done I'll admit. Also, building off of the mention of Slardar, Bounty hunter's track also reveals riki (and it's a LOT more subtle than amplify damage).

Next, let's talk about his backstab. This is where riki will get the majority of his damage, so people who force him to fight up front (or bristleback, who mitigates damage from behind) will help keep him under control in fights (the chaos of which a good riki will thrive in). Axe, Legion Commander, and Bristleback are sure to be tough nuts for riki to crack.

Last, but not least, I'm going to talk about smokescreen. This is a particularly nasty trick as it slows, silences, and imposes a miss chance to units within it. Magic immunity iirc should get rid of the silence (not sure about the miss chance) and a MKB on a right clicker negates the miss chance.

As for his blink.....I honestly dont have much experience with that. You'll have to find someone who knows more than I do (which shouldn't be hard)

[Lahel]

Doom is pretty good against him.
Also remember to stick together and not push without a sentry ward nearby.

[Phil]

Zues, I find is the best counter to Riki there is. His static gives vision and can also be used to de-ward allowing heros who buy wards to save some cash and also eliminating some of Rikis comfort zone.

[Roo]

Originally posted by Acsvf:

Doom is pretty good against him.
Also remember to stick together and not push without a sentry ward nearby.

Sidenote, Doom counters literally every hero in the game. If you're ever having problems with any hero, whether it be Riki, Faceless Void, Phantom Assassin, Phantom Lancer, or ANYONE else, Doom is the answer.

[Phil]

Originally posted by Ripper Jew:

Originally posted by Acsvf:

Doom is pretty good against him.
Also remember to stick together and not push without a sentry ward nearby.

Sidenote, Doom counters literally every hero in the game. If you're ever having problems with any hero, whether it be Riki, Faceless Void, Phantom Assassin, Phantom Lancer, or ANYONE else, Doom is the answer.

Except for WK

[S L [A] Y E R]

Puck+dagon.