Riki guide to being godly rat

Guide to being the little rat everyone loves to hate.

This is my first guide and hopefully give people a little insight on how to be the best they can with Riki.

Introduction

Hello and thank you for checking out my Riki guide. Riki is a very good hero if you play him right hence the hero that everyone loves to hate. Sort of the same love you will give Techies when they are released.

Now my guide will not be perfect cause not one guide can be as the situations change and you need different items to ebb and flow with the current game. But however the following guide is what I do when I play Riki and find it to be the most effective way.

I have played Riki ALOT! he is my most played hero from DotA and DotA 2, I have racked up over 1100 hours in DotA 2 alone and lost count of DotA 1 so hope I qualify for this guide to be taken seriously.

This is a really in depth guide to Riki so it will be a long one. I will edit it as I go along to make it more appealing to the eyes and not just walls of text.

So let's get started.

Moves

Smokebomb
Smokebomb is an amazing spell to have in any team fight, A six second AoE silence that slows and makes people miss? fantastic!

Leveling Smokebomb will increase the radius of the cloud and increase the miss rate of enemies inside the smoke but also increases mana cost.


Blink Strike
it is a teleport that can be used to escape by targeting an ally unit or damaging an enemy unit. This skill combined with Riki's ult is what makes him so hard to kill.

Leveling Blink Strike will increase damage and lower the cooldown of the spell. Remember that when you Blink Strike you get a guaranteed Backstab hit!


Backstab
Backstab is where the majority of Riki's damage comes from. Standing behind an enemy will take a percentage of your agility and deal it as bonus damage. This is the reason why Riki stacks agility and not damage. If you cannot get behind an enemy to get backstab you should not be playing Riki, simple as that.

Leveling Backstab increases the amount of agility % that is used as bonus damage.


Permanent Invisibility
You will be invisible to all enemies unless you are attacking them, they have a gem, you are in the vicinity of a tower or silenced. This ult takes time to let Riki fade into stealth again.

Leveling this move will lower the fade time required of invisibility.

Skill Build

This is the build I mostly use, I never really change the way I build Riki and usually always do quite well with him. This is the skill build:



You start off by skilling one point in Backstab simply it makes it a crap load easier to last hit. That is it, plain and simple.

I next prio Blink Strike as it deals quite a nice amount of damage early game and then scales with items as you increase Backstab and gain more agility.

I don't prio Smokebomb too much at all as it is always a 6 second silence and that is all you will be using it for really. The other benefits we already covered are great added extras but that is all they are is added extras, the point of Smokebomb is the silence.

Take your ult whenever you can for obvious reasons. You can scout, set up ganks, harass. Generally just be a pain in everyone's ass.

The other variation of this build is only the first point. If someone calls they are going for first blood then I usually skill Smokebomb first instead of backstab. You will want to be part of first blood for the level advantage and XP.

Items

The items you want to take at the beginning are the following:

• Tango
  
• Healing Salve
  
• Stout Shield
  
• Slippers of Agility

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*edit* new items updated:

Tango

Stout Shield

Slippers of Agility

Ironwood Branch

Now head to your lane and set up camp as you will be here for a little while.

Next items you should be aiming for are the following in order of top to bottom:

• Slippers of Agility
  
• Boots of Speed
  
• Gloves of Haste
  
• Band of Elvenskin

This will complete your Poor Man's Shield and Power Treads. You can buy the Belt of Strength and change your boots to agility too, I just prefer doing it this way.

Now you have your agility increasing already this should again increase the rate at which you can farm, last hit etc etc.

Now this is where people I see playing Riki go wrong. After they have the items they think is good starting items they then go for damage instead of agility. PLEASE I cannot stress this enough, DO NOT do this. Always take agility and stats over damage on Riki. ALWAYS. Agility grants him attack speed (more backstabs), Armour (take more damage) and gives him bonus damage through backstab. What is not to love about that stat on this hero?

Anyway rant over and back on track.

Next item you want to make is a Diffusal Blade, This is the main core item for Riki and I will explain its synergy and why in a little second. You make Diffusal Blade with the following items:

• Blade of Alacrity
  
• Blade of Alacrity
  
• Robe of the Magi
  
• Recipe

Now that you have these three items and possibly still some healing items, you can now go gank happy and leave the lane. This is where you start to become that "RAT" everyone hates. if the other lanes have done there job and no one is overly fed you can now go and assist them allowing someone to switch to your now empty lane and farm while you do the business.

Usually at this point I will head to the enemy jungle and see if anyone is farming (usually a carry will be) and basically make them have a very bad day or at least force an early gem and make them waste 700 gold.

To basically make people have a bad day do the following:

• Walk up to them (remember your ult makes you invisible).
  
• Throw Smokebomb where they will make their retreat.
  
• Use your Diffusal Blade on them (it slows them in the silence).
  
• Backstab till they come out of the smoke.
  
• Bliink Strike to finish if needed.

This is what makes Riki have such a bad reputation because the enemy hero cannot do much against this. If they stand and fight you they are missing because of Smokebomb and can't use any spells because of the silence, they run they get Backstabbed. So it is really a pin in the butt to be on the receiving end of this.

You will want to basically farm heroes at this point using your Diffusal Charges. When you can start to make a Yasha. You should be able to farm this using about 6 of the 8 charges in Diffusal.

Use the remaining charges in Diffusal and buy another Diffusal Blade Recipe This will give another eight charges and increase the stats gained from Diffusal Blade. do the exact same process as above only this time you want to farm a Sange. By this point you might not need to Diffusal some heroes in the smoke to kill them.

Use the remaining Diffusal charges to earn a little bit of gold.

Now that you have Sange and Yasha You will passively slow people in your Smokebomb and get increased movement and attack speed so people can't get away.

Sell the Diffusal Blade that is empty, yes you read right SELL it.

Now start to go to work on either a Basher or an Eye of Skadi.

Remember that you just sold a good chunk of your agility (damage, attack speed and armour) so you will want to make this up by either a bash in your smoke or another slow in your smoke.

Another item you can go for at this point would be a Desolator as you just got rid of your orb effect.

Given the choice of:

• Eye of Skadi
  
• Basher
  
• Desolator

I would choose Eye of Skadi it just gives way to much to Riki to be ignored.

After EoS I would move onto a Butterfly as this item is just overkill on this little beast!

Basically the game should be over by now and this is in a perfect world that this will happen. But you still have one Item slot left. This is where the situational stuff comes in. It is personal choice what you get in here normally I take a Basher but I have also seen me taking a Black King Bar too.

Probably the most useful item you can put in here is Linkin's Sphere though as it blocks a spell cast and also gives a great amount of agility.

Friends and Enemies

Friends:


Crystal Maiden:

Can freeze enemies in place for you to SB on top of or she can slow in the smoke saving a valuable Diffusal charge, she will also keep your mana pools topped off which is a plus for any hero.


Venomancer

This guy is quite the unsung hero I find. Not played by many but is one of the biggest supports a lane can have. His early gank potential is incredible, his harassing ability is crazy strong and he will bag Riki a few early kills.


Vengeful Spirit

Again another hero that I don't see in many games. The stun and armor reduction plus damage boost means a good few early kills for any hero laning with her.






Enemies:


The Bounty Hunter

This hero has the ability to Track which means he can put a debuff on you that allows the enemy team to see you and increases movement speed of those around the target.


Slardar

Has a similar ult to The Bounty Hunter Where enemies can see you while debuffed, this debuff will also reduce your armour by alot.

He also contains a passive bash, Stun and can sprint after targets.


Silencer

For the Global Silence and Last Word, this hero poses a great threat to Riki since when silenced Riki comes out of stealth and cannot re enter it for the duration.

There are many more enemies and friends to Riki but these are some that cause me great annoyance when playing.

Tips and Tricks

Basics to be a good Riki:

Doing it from behind:
Always attempt to Backstab and get behind your target unless they will die in two to three hits.

When to Blink Strike:
Keep in mind when you Blink Strike it will take you out of stealth, Has a small cast time and Delays your Smokebomb.

For these reason I prefer Smokebomb as an opener and Blink Strike to escape or finish off the target.

Smokebomb use:
How to use Smokebomb is one of the challenges to Riki. Some think just throwing it down and right click is how to win. No way. You want to maximise the time a person will spend in the bomb to keep them silenced. This is why you aim your bomb where the target will run to. Kind of like hooking blind with Pudge.

(Target) -->--(Bomb) -->-->

That simple little plan is the basics of Smokebomb. Target needing to run through the whole thing for the full duration.

Diffusal Blade use:

• Walk up to them (remember your ult makes you invisible).
  
• Throw Smokebomb where they will make their retreat.
  
• Use your Diffusal Blade on them (it slows them in the silence).
  
• Backstab till they come out of the smoke.
  
• Bliink Strike to finish if needed.

Also remember that Diffusal Blade will purge enemies of buffs. When facing Abbadon you can actually Diffusal his ult off to stop him healing. Dark Seer shield giving you hassle, not any more with Diffusal. Living Armour stopping your damage .... you get the idea.

I'm sure there are more tips for Riki but this is all I can think of mastering just now for basics. I will begin to add tips as I go.

*Update*
Another use for Diffusal - If you have diffusal and someone uses dust to see you. Use the Diffusal Blade on yourself to remove dust (REMOVES DUST ONLY! not BH or Slardar ult).

Side note:

Vladimir's Offering ... Please do not get this item on Riki. He stacks armour through agility and with his stat gain through items he doesn't need the lifesteal, He doesn't need the pitiful damage boost. Waste of money. Please avoid it.

Ending

Well thank you all for reading my guide. Hope you rate it up and enjoy playing Riki and have learned a few things from it.

I will add to it and make it more illustrated rather than walls of text over time.

Thank you again and enjoy your games!

[nonnull]

here join the movement - https://www.facebook.com/hashtagnoriki/timeline

[QuicK]

Good job! I already know a few who should read this too!

[Gaz]

Thanks, took me a little while to write it :)

[CannotTrace]

awsome guide