Brad Warden the Centaur Warchief

8/14/2019 Brad Warden the Centaur Warchief

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Strategy Guide for Bradwarden, the Centaur

Warchief

by m1LkmaN (as of v6.59)

http://planetdota.blogspot.com

Contents

1. Introduction2. Spells3. Skill Build4. Item Build5. Playstyle6. Cheesy Tricks7. Allies and Enemies8. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Centaur is one of those heroes that has always been decent. Until 6.56 was released, I had not

ever seen Centaur played in a way that made me want to draft him and play him. From there, my

clan and I have been experimenting with this hero that is often overshadowed by Tidehunter and

Earthshaker. He is seen as a tank with a small AoE stun, and is therefore seen as a weak hero.

This guide is all about the strongest way to play Centaur.

Note: I will not be discussing jungling as I think it is a waste of a good hero, and only viable to

jungle Chen, Enchantress and Lycan in 6.57b. (and Dirge if Irecu is playing)

Primary Attribute: Strength

Strength: 23+2.6

Agility: 15+2

Intelligence: 15+1.6

Base Movespeed: 300

Attack Animation: 0.3, 0.3

http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showuser=979941

http://www.dota-allstars.com/wiki/Centaur_Warchief






2. Spells

Hoof Stomp

Slams the ground, stunning and damaging nearby enemy land units.

Level 1 - 100 damage, 1.25 second stun.




Cooldown: 15 seconds.Level 1: 85 mana, 15 sec cooldown.

Level 2: 100 mana, 15 sec cooldown.



This is your bread and butter skill. It generally relies on a stun/slow/blink dagger to be landed

safely, but not always. With a relatively low mana cost and cooldown, it can often be used twice

in a fight, and hit multiple targets. If you press s in the 0.5 seconds after hoof stomp is pressed,

the animation will start but the spell will not go off.

Double Edge

The Centaur summons a tremendous amount of inner strength and releases a very powerful

attack. It can only be done at melee range, and it damages both the Warchief and the enemy unit.

Level 1 - Deals 175 damage.

Level 2 - Deals 250 damage.Level 3 - Deals 325 damage.

Level 4 - Deals 400 damage.

Cooldown: 25 seconds.







This is one of the most powerful early game nukes, and the reason you are a monster in the lane

from lvl 2 onwards. It has 150 range, and the damage dealt to both you and the opponent is

magical damage, so it is reduced by spell resistance. It can also be used to suicide but requires good timing and better opponents will stun or kite you when you try to suicide.

Return

The Centaur Warchief immediately counters every attack against him with a swift strike.

Level 1 - Returns 12.5 damage.

Level 2 - Returns 25 damage.

Level 3 - Returns 37.5 damage.

Level 4 - Returns 50 damage.

Passive

This skill should only ever be taken before lvl 16 when jungling. This is a farming skill, and not

taken if in a lane since the other skills are much more important.

Great Fortitude

The Centaur Warchief's mammoth body is capable of absorbing great amounts of punishment.

Level 1 - Adds +12 Strength.



Passive

A very nice skill, makes him a lot beefier and gives some damage to boot.

3. Skill Build

1. Hoof Stomp



2. Double Edge

3. Hoof Stomp

4. Double Edge

5. Hoof Stomp/ Double Edge

6. Great Fortitude

7. Hoof Stomp/ Double Edge8. Double Edge/ Hoof Stomp

9. Double Edge/ Hoof Stomp

10. Stats

11. Great Fortitude

12. Stats

13. Stats

14. Stats

15. Stats

16. Great Fortitude

17. Stats18. Stats

19. Stats

20. Stats

21. Stats

22. Return

23. Return

24. Return

25. Return

Explanation

Hoof stomp and double edge together make centaur strong in the lane and able to get kills early

on. Hoof stomp is usually taken first because the stun duration increases which is extremely

valuable, however against a carry hero that you absolutely have to kill, or an invisible hero, then

double edge can be taken at 5 and 7. Great Fortitude is one of the best passives in the game, and

should be taken whenever possible. Return is somewhat of a dirge move, since Centaur is a tank

anyway and would rarely be focused by attacks in team battles. I would usually take return from

22-25, but if you get radiance up quick or the opponents are focusing you, then I would advise

taking it earlier.

4. Item Build

Starting Items

2x Tangos

2x Gauntlets



2x GG Branch

The tangos are needed to keep your health up from harassing, the gauntlets and branches just

give you a bit of survivability and help with lane control and last hitting.

Early Game Items

Boots of Speed

2x Bracers

Scrolls of Town PortalClarities/Healing Salves if needed

Needs little justification, your health can never be high enough and attempting to kill people with

stomp edge takes a significant chunk of your health and mana. Always, always carry a scroll.

Always.

GG Items (Core)

Blink Dagger – The item of GG

Radiance – The recipe of GG

These items will be discussed later. Get both of them or you are bad at DotA.

“Items should the enemy require further bludgeoning ”

Assault Cuirass



Boots of Travel

-and then-

Hood of Defiance

ButterflyShiva

Satanic

AC and Shivas are both very nice items as they not only increase your survivability and damage

output, but help your team and disadvantage the enemy team. BoT are necessary since +ms is

always nice and the slot that scroll is wasting is looking tastier every minute.

Finally, get HoD when against heavy nukers, a Butterfly when against a heavy DPS carry such as

PA, otherwise Satanic is an all round great item.

Rejected Items

This is a horrible item. You do no extra damage, and it turns you into a defensive,

useless tank.

You already have enough mana to use blink, stun and stomp, and you can always buy a

couple clarities.



Again, clarities are enough mana regen and AR just delays your core items.

Its all about getting blink and level 9 as quick as possible, HoM just delays this.

If the enemy is retarded enough to pick 5 melee heroes, you should have won already.

There is no real need for SnY, the boosts it gives are all minor and he has no problem

farming up big items.

Again, his attack speed is low and his farming ability is already very good.

You want the enemy to focus you, if you get BKB before damage items they will just

ignore you in battle.

This is by no means a bad item for Centaur, just utterly overrated and there are always

better end game items.

5. Playstyle

Now this is where it gets fun. Sure, the skill and item builds look pretty sound, but this is what

you need to know. Centaur is an aggressive hero. His main role is not to be a tank and soak up

damage, but to do damage. DotA is not in any real way similar to WoW, so do not treat it like it

is. DotA is all about burst damage, and stopping the other team from doing enough damage to



you as that you die. Due to this reason, Centaur is all about farming items to keep ahead of the

rest of the players, and then using this advantage to kill the enemy, stay ahead in levels and

items, as well as pushing towers.

Early Game

This is all about farming up those precious items, not dying, and hopefully landing an early kill.

Any lane is fine, but make sure you are with a ranged initiator, preferably lion or lich. If your

lane partner does not have a targeted stun, then get the defensive lane, since it’ll take a bit of

space to run up and land your combo. If your lane partner is kind enough to babysit you then take

all the last hits, but otherwise just contest for last hits and denies. Since you are melee you won’t

really be able to harass without the help of spells, so be content watching the minimap for

potential ganks and taking last hits. From level 2, whenever you have mana for both spells and a

creep advantage (more nearby creeps than the enemy) ask your lanemate to stun/slow and then

just hit them. Run up, stun and attack once. Land your double edge and proceed to hit them while

running forwards, and hopefully you will kill them. If they don’t look like dying, then just retreatand remember to keep an eye on your health bar. Hopefully you will finish early game with a fair

bit of gold and experience.

Mid Game

Stay in your lane and farm your dagger unless there is a guaranteed kill nearby. Keep lane

control by using the strategies similar to early game (double nuke, manipulating creeps etc) and

GET THAT DAGGER UP NOW. Once you have Kelen’s Dagger of Pwn, it’s time to start

ganking. Make sure you have enough mana (stun+nuke+blink) and head to a lane where a hero is

farming, preferably not strength and hopefully their carry. Ask one or two allies to come gank,and once they are almost in range, just blink, stun, nuke and attack them. Whenever you see an

opportunity to do this, do it, since you can do over 600 damage with an attack or two. Keep an

eye on the minimap, look for ganks or pushes, but also remember to keep farming.

Late Game

This is the time for killing. If there is a team battle, you must be in it, and you must initiate. This

means you look for an opportunity to blink in, stun a couple of there heroes, and hopefully kill

there carry with some help before he even gets out of stun. Don't worry if you die but your team

wins the battle, since by taking the huge amount of punishment required to kill you, you've takenfire off the more fragile heroes in your team. That said, don't purposely suicide, and choose when

you want to rambo into a group of heroes carefully. When not in team battles or looking to gank

a hero, you should be farming. Lane creeps, neutrals, ancients or even Roshan, it doesn't matter.

Just make sure the items keep coming in during downtime between fights. Always keep an eye

on the minimap since you don't get picked off, and when you think you're in danger always keep

a finger on blink. If you win a team battle or pick off a hero, then look to push into their base,



either killing more heroes or demolishing their precious buildings.

6. Cheesy Tricks

Animation Cancelling

As you can see here, Centaur does his damage after 0.3 seconds, when his axe is midway in the

air. To reduce the damage you take from harassing, as well as increasing the time running during

a chase, click away just after you deal the damage.

Suiciding

If you are certainly going to die, you can use Double Edge to suicide. Wait to you are on low

enough HP to die from it and cast the spell, but remember the damage you take is reduced by

magic (-25%). Often enemies will expect this, especially if you have suicided already in the

game, so they may stun you as you get to 200 hp or so, not letting you suicide.



“Oh noez I’m gonna die”

Fake Stomp

If that pesky little puck keeps phase shifting your stun or that annoying QoP keeps blinking away

during your cast time, just hit s while your axe is in the air. This causes the animation and spell to

stop, but you have to press s in the 0.3 seconds after you press Hoof Stomp or else it is

“uncancelable.” (Yes, I made that word up)



“I’m gonna stun man, I’m gonna do it”



Notice how I saw my stun was going to be dodged so I cancelled, but don’t cancel it if it’s gonna

hit ^^

Juke and Blink

This is in no way applies only to Centaur, but it is necessary to play him well. Any hero with a

blink dagger, and especially those with high health, can use this trick. When running away from

the opponents, simply run up a hill and double back, or run around in the trees for a bit. Once

you haven’t taken any hero based damage for three seconds, blink away and then run or teleport.



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Blink Dodge

This is a pretty simple trick that relies on reflexes to dodge stuns. Ranged projectiles such as

storm bolt can be dodged by blinking as they are about to hit you. Make sure you practice this, as

it takes a bit of time to get used to when to blink. Also note that many spells are instant, such as

sand king’s impale, and cannot be dodged with blink.



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7. Allies and Enemies

Good Allies

Single Target Stunners

Single Target Slowers

Support



Gankers

Bad Enemies

Blink Disablers

Radiance Carriers

Naix

Food

Squishy Carries

Blinkers

8. Conclusion

Here's a replay of me playing Centaur. It’s 6.56 but pretty much illustrates everything I describe

in my guide, so have fun watching. It's a Gotgames ladder game against Firm, who are one of the

http://files.filefront.com/Gotgames+BVD+vs+Firmw3g/;12277036;/fileinfo.html






top 3 Aus/NZ teams, and they beat us 90% of the time. XD

To all the people who whined for me to upload the replay to DA here it is: http://www.dota-

allstars.com/replay/72783/index.html

I hope you all enjoyed reading my guide and can become better Centaur players, and better DotA players in general, because of it. Comments and criticisms are welcome, but remember to keep

them constructive and with valid reasoning. “nurr troll is good u liek farm 88k then wtf pwn lol i

luv azn draft” is only considered a valid argument when replying to trolls (or to people who

believe troll is a good hero). Thanks for reading ^^

-m1LkmaN

Visit http://planetdota.blogspot.com for your Dota

needs!

http://www.dota-allstars.com/replay/72783/index.html








Brad Warden the Centaur Warchief

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