How to play against/"counter" Spirit Breaker aka Space Cow (with 6.79)

Through the last few weeks I have noticed an increased trend in Dota2 matchmaking games: picking Barathrum will lead into very angry comments. Since Barathrum seems to be the new Phantom Lancer in the art being a huge sh*tbrick, I thought some of you might like to know a few simple gameplay tips to make him less lethal.
Includes relevant changes made in 6.79. Please inform if some portions of the guide are badly outdated.

1. Is Barathrum OP?

Before the latest buffs Spirit Breaker was considered quite a poor hero not giving much to his team excluding some early ganks and possibility to bash the fu*k out of of isolated targets. Now you see Bara with the second highest winrate and the second highest number of games played (according to Dotabuff[dotabuff.com]). People complaining about SB being owerpowered and in need of a nerf is something you see after every game of Dota which Bara participates. According to Dotabuff stats Bara is clearly overpowered with such a high winrate and playrate, but i dare to say he's not. Lets have a look at some basic facts about our favourite hero, although some of them might seem to be quite obvious. I will presume you know the basics.

Pros
+Durable as fu*k
-has the highest basic strength of all strength heroes
-has high base armor
-when needed, can charge away from harms way
+Easy to gank with
+Can smash the living s*it out of any single target with a few bash and ultimate
-meaning has a lot of burst
+Versatile movement speed aura

Cons
-Low mana pool early on
-Low attack speed without items
-Quite easily kited with slows or stuns without BKB
-Bashes are random
-scales badly into late game

2. Where should I be standing?

Most common way to get ganked by Bara is to stand by yourself on lane or in enemy vision range. Countless times I have seen a support getting some much needed farm and xp on lane, not suspecting a thing and BAM! There he is, ripping your nuts off and feeding them to you. What follows is some blaming for team not ever being with you and telling Bara some features of his mother. After a few times he eats his mouse.

The most important thing I'm telling in this guide comes next: Bara is one of the most dominant 1vs1 heroes until mid game! If you're not going to remember anything else from this guide, remember this section. Bara players will always be on a constant lookout for any single heroes on map and will immediately charge when they see one. If you get charged alone it's YOUR fault, not your team's. When Bara gets his level six or if he shows early aggression, you should never show your face on lane alone. Always make sure you know where he is or that you have enough backup to stay alive. When he is not seen on minimap, always assume he is charging somewhere. A certain way to get your as* kicked is to wander to the enemy side of the map, as Bara will be there even faster and you will have no place to hide. This is the case playing against any heroes of course, but it's a good reminder.

Some players will not take risks on the lane, but will forget one thing: WARDS. A wise enemy will surely place some aggressive wards in your jungle, secret shop etc. And a good player will anticipate this by avoiding the most common places for wards. Even better players will buy some sentries and get rid of these wards. (But that's not going to happen since we are speaking of pubs. And nobody picks support in pubs. And you don't pick it because you "don't play support". Sigh.) Since this is not a warding guide, you will have to learn those spots from somewhere else. Instead I'll show some good spots to see incoming charges. But still, learn the ward spots. Please?

3. (Un)useful skills, heroes and itemses

When talking about Bara counters, most of you might think about Rubick. That is quite sensible, since Rubick can cancel Bara's charge with his instantly stunning Levitate and quite easily steal his ultimate for nefarious uses. This is because Bara nearly always charges first and the uses his ultimate. This leaves him with no spells to avoid Rubick stealing Nether Strike. You might now think that any stun will easily cancel the charge, but this is not the case. Most stuns have quite a long casting animation or slow projectile that will give Bara enough time to finish his charge. But don't get me wrong, stuns are very efficient agaist Bara since he needs to get close and land a number of bashes to deal enough damage. Other instant spells to cancel the charge are, for example, Ogre Magi's Fire Blast, Bane's Fiend's Grip and Crystal Maiden's Frostbite to mention a few. Taking care of an ongoing charge can very efficient, since negating the surprise element of the gank will make it way less efficient.

As you might guess, picking heroes that have spells to cancel one of Bara's skills is not enough to stop this little bi*ch. A special notion goes to Shadow Demon for dealing with Bara. With Disruption you can hide the target of the charge, negating the stunning effect. The two illusions will often give enough time for the poor target to escape, since choosing the right target can take precious seconds and make casting Nether Strike more difficult. Shadow Demon's Demonic Purge will make kiting Bara easier than taking candy from Sniper and goes through BKB. (Remember that SD works perfectly against almost any physical melee carries, like Ursa, Skeleton King, Lifestealer etc.) Also consider other lifesaving spells, like OD's Astral Imprisonment, Dazzle's Shallow Grave or Pugnas Decrepify.

As mentioned earlier, slows work perfectly to kite Bara around. Venomancer, Viper, Dazzle and other good slowing heroes will do miracles. Not only it will be harder for Bara to catch his target, his damage also gets lower (Greater Bash deals more damage with more movement speed). Even if it's too late to save yourself from Bara's rage, slowing him with your dying breath might decide the fate of your teammate(s).


Good item's to build against Bara are mostly the same as against any other physical damage dealers:

+Ghost Scepter, Ethereal Blade
-activate after Nether Strike or right after charge to force him to change targets
-will make charge and Nether Strike (and other spells) to deal more damage, so be careful when activating
-Scepter especially useful for supports

+Eul's Scepter
-will save you from charge or Nether Strike and force Bara to change targets
-can also be used against Bara to get away from him
-remember: can't target allies

+Scythe of Vyse
-instant stun that easily cancels charge
-stuns are always good, hit him when he's a cute sheep!

+Blade Mail
-as Bara is a single target hero, forcing him to not attack you or taking huge damage will make his game a pain in the as*
-casting animation of Nether Strike is easy to notice, activate to deal the whole damage back!

+Heaven's Halberd
-evasion
-disarm will render Bara useless for whole three seconds

+For carries to control Bara: Basher, Abyssal, Diffusal, Skadi

There are also some items that can be debated about.

+Force Staff
-will move Bara's target further away, but not necessarily useful because charge and Nether Strike
-still useful if you want to get the target in the midst of your team or if Bara already used his abilities

+Rod of Atos
-yeah, it's a slow but it's quite an expensive one

+Shadow Blade
-have you ever seen how much dust cows possess?
-any decent Bara player will have dust with him, so this will not save you
-you never see dust in pub games (exception is bara)

4. What does 6.79 bring?

The 6.79 patch brought some nerfs to Spirit Breaker that will make dealing with him easier. You can read the whole patch here[www.dotacinema.com].

Spirit Breaker
- Base attack time nerfed from 1.7 to 1.9
- Greater Bash no longer works while doomed
- Nether Strike now uses 1.2 Cast Time instead of a 1 sec magic immune delay (can be interrupted as a result)

Lowering the base attack time makes Bara a worse auto-attacker (0.2 secs might seem very little, but it is quite a lot). His animation is slower, which means harder last hitting and worse attack speed. That leads into something you're all been waiting for: Less Bashes (and less dps). It also makes Bara even worse as a carry with his attack speed not scaling well into late game.

Bara can't now bash when Doomed by Doom. During this duration he is mostly useless.

The greatest nerf is the last one (in my opinion), as you can now cancel the Bara ultimate. Previously with the 1 sec magic immunity Bara would always get his full combo off unless you canceled the charge (or bashed during the cast time); now you can cancel the ulti as it has a 1.2 second cast animation. Any stun, bash, minibash or whatever will do and you have ample time to react providing you were not alone when charged. The initial bash from charge will still stun you, giving Bara more than enough time to cast his ultimate. So you must rely for someone else to stun him for you. In this aspect Bara is still the same he always was: a single target ganking monster.

There also a few other things that got changed, affecting some aspects of Barathrum. Firstly, most boots got nerfed. This is good news for supports, as brown boots will give you same movement speed as Baras favorites: Treads. This should make it easier for you to kite him (and it also lowers the bash damage a bit), although the movement speed aura will still outrun you. Secondly, you won't see pulling done by Bara much (in pubs at least, unless you find some tryharders). The small creeps will give a way less experience, making Bara hitting level six delayed. Especially if you try to ruin his ganks, which is the point of this guide.

There might be some other changes I didn't think of, tell if so.

5. About Greater Bash

Greater Bash is bash that bashes you to hell. To say it simply. It's the second longest bash that has the potential of dealing more damage than any other bash (lvl 1 with basic Bara move speed: 29 dmg, lvl4 with haste speed: 208.8 dmg) and max duration loses only to Troll Warlord's bash (1.6s vs 2.0s). Some basic mechanics about Greater Bash:

-stun will go through magic immunity (BKB), but the bonus damage won't
-will deal more damage with more basic movement speed (meaning he won't get extra damage from charge)
-does not stack with Skull Basher or Abyssal Blade
-the damage is magical, so it wont give lifesteal (someone correct me if wrong)
-Greater Bash is not pseudo-random

And the most less known mechanic about Greater Bash: it grants Bara a 15% movement speed bonus for 3 seconds whenever he bashes. This is not cumulative, so each time a bash occurs the buff timer is reset. This is good to know as both Charge of Darkness and Nether Strike automatically apply a Greater Bash, thus granting the movement speed bonus. This might sound minor, but try to stop Bara from attacking after Nether Strike for three seconds. During this time he can more easily catch you and any further bashes will benefit from the movement speed buff (and refresh it). This of course won't lower the chances of any future bashes, but might save you from one or more auto-attacks or from a buffed bash. If Bara doesn't get another bash soon after his Nether Strike/Charge, he wil have much harder time trying to catch anyone.

6. Playing against Spirit Breaker with Furion/Tinker

Hint: if you want the enemy to pick Bara for sure, pick Furion early. The dry dic*ks will be almost certain to pick Bara to counter Prophet's split pushing potential. When playing Furion it's almost impossible to split push normally, since Bara will be waiting somewhere for you. If you want to be sure to not get immediately charged (no, Shadow blade wont help), the only choice is to wait for Bara to charge someone else or to wait for a teamfight to happen. You can either push during the fight, but only if you are sure you can make something happen. Otherwise participate in the teamfight to ensure your team wins it. Afterwards proceed with pushing with your team or teleport to other lanes. But the most important thing is this: you can't push unless Bara is distracted or dead. He picked Bara to completely counter your hero's most useful aspect. Sadly, your teammates will propably go apesh*t and complain for you doing nothing, but it's better than doing nothing and feeding.

The same litany goes with Tinker. Adapt the text above. Using a blink dagger to cast march from the forest will not give vision to Bara.

7. Ward spots

Note: Each section expects the SB player to charge behind their tower which is the most common place. If the lane is pushed, he might charge from a bit further. Putting a ward behind the Tier 1 tower is always a good idea, as it will in almost any case result you see seeing the charge early.
This section is focused on the early stages of the game. Preventing succesful charges in the early game will make dealing with Bara much easier later on.

The first pic shows some good ward spots for mid/bottom lane. It's common for pro-gamers to use Bara to pull lane creeps into jungle to get his XP/farm. This results the opposing team to never see him on the map. Same goes for Dire top. In these cases it's important to block the pull and put some wards to spot the charges early enough.

Dire wards:

Bara is bot: Putting a ward on yellow or red spot is my favourite here. They will show you any charge heading towards mid and will give rune vision. The yellow is a little more preferable, as it will more easily spot charges initiated deeper from the forest or from pull camp. It also warns about mid movement earlier. Both are common ward places, so they are easily dewarded. Green ward will see any charge going towards top lane, but it will not show those cast near T1 tower heading towards mid. Orange ward will show some charges and block the big creep camp. Blue and pink ward show too little and too late to be efficient.

Bara is mid: Same wards apply here. If you want to see the charge as early as possible, consider green spot.

Radiant wards:

Bara is bot: Warding for Radiant is a little trickier as it is much harder to spot a charge towards top (cast behind tower). If you're expecting a charge towards top, putting a ward behind T1 tower would be useful. Blue ward will show you charges made near T1 or in front of it. Pink is the best here as it can spot any charge going towards mid and some of those going top. Both will also grant rune vision. Green, red and yellow are not useful to watch Bara movement.
Bara is mid: The pink ward will show the charges as early as possible and will also show your mid player if Bara checks the rune. Blue and red will also show any charge towards mid. All three will grant rune vision.

The second pic shows the top/mid lane situation. Bara might pull for Dire here, so keep your eyes open!

Dire wards:

Bara is top: As with Dire Bara on long lane, this is a little hard to ward. A ward behind tower or the yellow ward will show most charges very early. If you want the rune vision, place the ward on red spot. It will not spot charges made far behind T1 tower. Black ward will also give you rune vision and help your mid player, but it warns mid about charges quite late. Other wards are rather bad to spot charges.

Bara is mid: Black ward will spot any charge heading towards top that is made behind the tower and will give your mid a nice advantage. Blue ward shows charges a little later than the black, but it will also show you charges from the rune spot more easily. Red ward will give you vision of any charge early enough and will be very useful if you're trying to push the lane. Other wards won't help you much here.

Radiant wards:

Bara is top: If you want to block the pulling camp, use the green ward. It blocks the camp and also gives vision of charges heading towards mid. You can also use the pink ward for early vision of charge, especially if you think top is getting charged from the forest. The blue spot is the most useful, as it gives vision of the rune and will spot any charge towards mid and most towards bot. Red ward gives mostly the same vision, but I prefer the blue. Orange ward will help your mid and give rune vision, but shows charges too late. Other wards are not good in this case.

Bara is mid: Blue ward is the most useful ward here. It shows you the rune and most charges towards top. If you expect you need to hug your tower, the red one might be better here. The orange ward will see almost any charges coming and helps your mid quite a lot. Using the green (blocks the camp) or pink ward might help you to deal with heroes on top lane, but offer a little against incoming charges from mid.

8. Finish

I hope you'll have an easier time with Spirit Breaker after reading this guide. Will add more information to this guide if requested. I'm not a native English speaker, so there will mistakes. I would also like to thank myself, 'cause I made this guide. If anybody was offended by this thing, fu*k you.

If you found this guide to useful leave a like and favourite. That will help others to find this piece of junk. You can also check my other guides guides if in need of self torment.

[cykaboy]

@Admiral Burning No problemo

[Mon-Quay]

good advice ty

[cykaboy]

@Lea`s Bütyi™ Thanks, appreciate it!

[Blinks menacingly]

Weel detailed guide, i like it