Strategy Guide for Gondar the Bounty Hunter by semihalfwit (as of v6.59)

http://planetdota.blogspot.com

Concept

Gondar is designed to be a solo ganker. This means he's made to run around the map killing heroes, and hopefully won't need someone else to make him effective. Gondar relies on a blend of stealth, speed, and firepower to accomplish his goals. Interestingly, he already has every trick he needs to do his job, he only needs raw power. To be effective, Gondar must accomplish two

things: he must be able to overpower the target, and he must be able to seal the kill on the target.

Overview

Stats

Strength – 17 + 1.8Agility – 21 + 3

Intelligence – 16 + 1.4

Range – MeleeMovespeed – 315

Skills

Shuriken Toss

The Bounty Hunter throws a shuriken at a target unit, dealing damage.

Level 1 – 100 damage, 90 mana costLevel 2 – 200 damage, 115 mana cost

Level 3 – 250 damage, 135 mana costLevel 4 – 325 damage, 155 mana cost

Has a 10 second cooldown and a ministun. Your source of ranged, magical, burst damage, a very important and potent skill. It is also commonly your finishing move.

Wind walk

Turns invisible for a period of time. Deals bonus backstab damage. Transition time decreases per level.

Level 1 - 30 backstab damage, lasts 15 seconds. Level 2 - 60 backstab damage, lasts 20 seconds. Level 3 - 90 backstab damage, lasts 25 seconds.

Level 4 - 120 backstab damage, lasts 30 seconds.

Cost 50 mana and has a 15 second cooldown. Useful for ganking, escaping, and many tricks. The bonus damage is physical.

Jinada

Gives a % chance to evade attacks and 15% chance to deal extra damage.

Level 1 - 5% dodge, 1.25 critical multiplier. Level 2 - 10% dodge, 1.5 critical multiplier. Level 3 - 15% dodge, 1.75 critical multiplier.Level 4 - 20% dodge, 2 critical multiplier.

Passive. Very straightforward skill, but quite useful at beating up enemy heroes.

Track

Tracks an enemy hero for 30 seconds or until it dies. You gain 20% movement speed increase. If you kill a hero, you pawn its head for extra money.

Level 1 - Any hero kill is worth 50 bonus gold, reduces target's armor by 1. 10 second cooldown.Level 2 - Any hero kill is worth 100 extra gold, reduces target's armor by 2. 7 second cooldown.Level 3 - Any hero kill is worth 150 extra gold, reduces target's armor by 4. 5 second cooldown.

Costs 100 mana. The bonus gold is passive, and the MS bonus doesn't end if the target dies. Can only be cast on enemy heroes. This skill is your trademark, and its what lets you chase enemy heroes, as well as countering invis. It can also be used to gather information if circumstance

permits.

Skill Build

1. WW2. Shuriken3. Shuriken

4. Stats5. Shuriken

6. Stats7. Shuriken

8. Track9. Stats10. Stats11. Track12. Jinada13. Jinada14. Jinada15. Jinada16. Track

17. - 22. Stats23. - 25. WW

This skill build was picked because it gives what you need when you need, and then buffs you up as fast as possible otherwise. Windwalk is gotten at level 1 just in case its needed early.

Shuriken's power is the only thing that gives you a lane presence, and is necessary for killing later, it's maxed first. Stats are gotten to help buff Gondar up (Duh), and he will need them to

offset his normally low hp. With the right items, Stats also help him reach 510 mana around the exact time he needs it, which is the critical point for two Shurikens, two WWs, and one Track. I delay getting Track to level 8 because it usually isn't needed before then, but it can be gotten at level 6. Jinada is maxed when you and others start becoming more physically powerful and as a

result, it becomes more powerful. I find this skill build gives you everything you need as you

need it.

Item Build

Core Build

The core build is basically what I recommend you to be going for from the start of the game. I'm not particular about the item order, but I recommend you get boots and the wraith bands first, the

speed and stats are very useful. This build was chosen for its strong mix of hp and damage output, while being extremely efficient, and no part is very expensive. These items work to make

you very tough for ganking mid-game, and bottle helps with staying out ganking, runes, and stuff. I labeled this the core build because it fulfills all your needs in an efficient manner.

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The next recommended items are yasha into SnY (no not both). SnY continues to develop your damage output and hp. It will also increase your physical damage ability while chasing as shuriken fades off. Getting yasha first is the aggressive choice and I recommend it, the MS

makes a huge difference in your chasing. After you make Sange, I also recommend turning the Str Treads into Agi Treads. You have enough hp for a bit. Feel free to sell bottle as it nears

completion, its effects really start tapering off by this time.

Later Options

MKB gives a bunch of damage. What a surprise! Its nice in that it doesn't clash with anything very much, and you need raw damage over IAS after SnY, so its a good damage choice. If you

make this right after the SnY, I recommend turning the treads back to Str after you get the demon edge or so.

HoT gives a bunch of hp. Also a surprise! For all people natter about lifesteal, heart has always and hopefully always will be the best source of unrelenting hordes of hp.

An all around useful item. Useful against petty disables, but less so against big time things like black hole.

You can get some other stuff, but usually they are less effective than the above. The main things to be wary of is auras. Auras reveal your presence to the enemy, which is generally a bad thing.

Strategy!

No, I will not hold your hand and walk you to the creep line. Strategy is about your overall game plan and your road map to victory. Without a strategy behind you, your actions become more

random and disorganized, and your effectiveness as a player decreases. Thats why its important to have a good strategy, not some...walkthrough that expects the game to be as predictable as an

RPG.

As a hero, Gondar is a solo ganker with aspects of stealth and speed. Because of this, you want to turn him into an omnipresent and dangerous force. Be everywhere there is battle, but little seen

when there isn't. If there isn't a battle going on, and they are farming, go after their carry and make one. This means not only being around for your allies, but also rarely being seen creeping or such. By doing this, you strike fear into your enemies and limit their options. If your enemy

can see you, they know where you are and that you aren't trying to gank them. The other side of this is being effective at what you do. I'll help you as much as I can there, but being the

omnipresent gnat is worse than being seen farming a bunch. Ultimately, you always want to be the guy that gets to say “Surprise! You're gonna die!” Doing so is easier than you might think,

and we'll discuss that later. The more successful you are at this, the bigger the difference should become in power between your team and the enemies. If all goes perfectly, by late-game your

team will just be able to stomp through the enemy lines and achieve victory.

Gameplay

So now you know the overall plan, this area is more specific to particular parts of the game. Its not situationally in-depth, because every situation is different. I can only give you general things

to do and let you apply them.

Laning

The first stage of the game, and not your strong suit. When laning, Gondar is a reactive force, or an opportunist, however you want to think of it. In other words, you wait for enemy mistakes or

your allies to make opportunities before you can take aggressive action. When you can't take action, you're generally best off staying back and playing it safe. When you can take action, try

to make the most of it by dumping damage on the enemy. You may not get a second chance. Because you typically can't do much on your own, you're generally best off with a strong laning

ally.

Ganking

Some might call this mid-game. For Gondar, that means ganking. You generally can start ganking the moment shuriken is maxed, or even earlier. In truth, the quicker you can get out of that horrible experience called laning and be effective at ganking, the better. Really early on, you'll probably need an ally, but the enemy will also probably be in their lane as well. Just go

there and kill them if at all possible. Be sure to tell your allies that you're coming to gank and to be ready. Later, people will start dispersing, and battles will become more sporadic. Whenever theres a fight, go towards it. Combat can take longer than people think, and you can often get

there to help before its over. Try to avoid being seen as you go to join the fight. If its across the map, TP somewhere near. So long as you don't walk into a meat grinder, you should be able to do something. If theres not a fight, find the enemy and try to kill one. Remember to hunt their

carry above all others. Its extremely important to be very aggressive about your ganking. If you sit back and wait for an enemy to appear on your side of the river alone, you won't get very far.

When you're out ganking, it's also important to often move around in WW if you have the mana, especially if the enemy has heroes such as nerubian weaver or lots of wards. You can also use this to make sure WW is almost cooled down when beginning a gank, so you can use it again

immediately. Being detected going towards a gank can easily ruin it.

Team Fights

Also ugly for you. If you won most of the mid-game fights and abused their carry, hopefully your team will pull through. I could say stuff like “get behind them and kill the vulnerable

casters” but that is unrealistic. After someone initiates it, either run if your team just got their boat sunk, or run in and try to do as much damage as possible. I'll leave the finer judgments up to

you, just don't try to initiate it.

Tactics

Fun time. Tactics are the real-time combat tricks of the trade. They're how you go about succeeding at your strategy, and Gondar has perhaps the greatest arsenal of them of any hero in Dota. These are what most commonly make people consider other players good players. You want to try to make use of them to be instinct. I've listed them as individual tactics rather than

paragraph form to let you adapt them to each situation.

Skills

These are fairly basic moves and maneuvers about how to optimize using your active skills in combat.

- Shuriken

A very straightforward skill, just watch your mana.

Finishing Move – If the enemy is nearly dead but needs a few more hits before toss can end it, save toss for the last action. There are two situations where this applies, and both with their own

reasons. If an enemy stays and fights, using it may convince them to run, and that may make some heroes get away. If they are running, using toss slows your chasing and will only prolong the chase if used before hand. It also means you don't have to end the fight at melee range. The

exception to this is if you need the mini stun to win the fight.

Canceling – Shuriken has a ministun that can be used to cancel any channeling spell or animation. You can even use it to slow down an enemies normal attack. Always try to do so.

Also, after you cast shuriken, attack the enemy again to cancel its remaining animation and to be sure Gondar continues to go after him (assuming a straight fight or chase situation).

Sniping – Shuriken is very long ranged. You can use it to harass targets without getting to close to the action. This is most commonly used when you're only low hp and others are fighting, and

you have mana left. You can still contribute to the fight by staying at a distance and nuking.

- Windwalk

A very complex and awesome skill. Can become a crux if overly relied upon.

WW Timer – At level 1, WW's cooldown is the same as its length, meaning that you can use it to judge when your WW will end at any moment. This means you know when to run for cover.

Believe it or not, this can save your life.

Dodging – WW can be used to dodge stuff. No, don't try it on that storm bolt at 200 range. However, at 50 mana, its often useful to dodge things such tower's attacks. Takes a bit of

experience to do.

Slipping Past – WW has 0 collision size and lets you slip right through creeps and other things, stopping you from getting creep blocked. The other side of this is that if theres no true sight

around, you can avoid being hurt by them as well. Very useful in close chases, where you can use it to gain ground on an enemy, or stop him from turning and fighting at the creep line.

Stalking – A complicated maneuver that involves you using WW and going near an enemy you see but doesn't see you. Stalking is used on targets that you currently cannot kill because of other units near it (creeps, heroes, please don't try this on towers). Basically, you follow its movements until it leaves these units and then you murder it. Use your WW Timer to know when to go up a cliff or behind a tree and reWW if necessary. Stalking is especially useful if they go to go neutral

creep.

Duration Stalling – WW can be used to take yourself out of the fight for a period of time. This can be used to wait out a (preferably short) duration spell that could otherwise break you. Things like Viper Strike and Purge that destroy your combat ability are the best spells to do this against. If you can predict the enemies moves, you can also dodge stun time from moves like Lina's LSA.

Beware that if this is a slow the enemy may just run away during the time, and you need to be able to catch-up or you've lost your mark.

- Track

Four completely different mediocre abilities. Hilariously strong when used properly.

Spying – Pretty simple. Slap Track on an enemy within a group or such and walk away. It'll let you know if they do anything fishy or stupid, and if they see it they may stand around doing

nothing until it wears off.

On the Run - Don't use Track until its bonuses come into play. Using it when engaging the enemy in close combat takes away from time you could be using to beat them with a sword. It

may be best to use once victory is certain, as you lose time chasing if you wait to long. The

exception, of course, is WWers, blinkers, and other such rubbish. And no, no one cares about the negative armor. Really.

Lane Hopping - Slap Track on someone in your lane, WW, and go to a different lane. They'll be suddenly worried about themselves and with your movespeed, you should be able to get to

another lane quickly enough to gank em. Takes quite a bit of mana though, and probably a useful ally in the lane you're ganking.

Running Away – It gives MS. That helps you run away. You might be surprised how many people miss that.

Tricks and Comboes

These are more complex and often more situational moves that combine your skills to maximum effect.

Combat Initiation – Whenever you pop out of WW to attack someone, always start with the normal attack. Nothing wrong with 30 bonus damage. If the enemy is slow, you might make one

more attack. Regardless, once they turn to attack you, use shuriken immediately. Doing this ensures that not only will you scare them with the sudden damage and appearance, but you also

will almost inevitable cancel something. Many players will respond with an escape move or nuke, and you will stop that action, ensuring a very good, easy shuriken.

Pincering – Basically, always try to limit your opponents escape options. If hes creeping, come at him from behind when the creeps are fighting so he has to run around you or through the creeps.

Always make through you the fastest escape option, so that it becomes a riskier one for them.

Retreat and Return – So, you're losing a fight, but its close. If theres time, when shuriken next rolls around, toss it, use track, then WW out of there. Stalk them as of above while shuriken

coolsdown. If you have bottle, you can hide behind a tree and use it. Once its finished, go back and after the target again. You'll add loads of damage to your fight.

Alternate Path – Building on retreating and returning, if your enemy runs but for some reason (another enemy hero is close, a tower is there) you don't want to chase him. Slap track on him and back off. Cut through the woods and start healing with your bottle. You're faster than him

and you can see him, meaning you can always catch him and you can see when the obstacle has been passed. Don't be afraid to wait for an ally if he camps by the obstacle.

Dividing the Enemy – So theres two enemy heroes, and their sticking together. In order to divide them, you can try a few different tactics. First, if one has low hp, you can nuke him and retreat, a few times if necessary. If he has to go to heal, but the other doesn't, they'll probably split up. You

can also try to bait one of them, throwing a shuriken from afar and seeing if only one of them will chase you. If they won't do this, you can attack them and quickly retreat, faking a failure,

and making them feel slightly safe enough to seperate. Finally, you can just stalk them until they do it for their own reasons.

Presence of the Unseen – Basically, letting the enemy know you're there, but being invis. This inevitably makes them falter in any activity, since they know you know where they are and that

your allies could be coming. This lets you tie up several heroes at once, even if your allies on the other side of the map. Its important that the enemy doesn't know that last, though.

(You can also fake this, let them know you're there, track them, and then run away at full hp and go creep some neutrals. Track is important for this as it is an obnoxious reminder that you know

where they are)

Terrain

Knowing the terrain is very important. Knowing how to abuse it is also important.

Escape Route – When ganking, you always want an escape route. Ganking near an uphill cliff is great for this purpose, especially since you have Track, rendering cliffs useless against you.

Trees and forestry lend similar benefits. If you gank someone where you have nowhere to escape to, the gank may be turned around on you by another enemy hero appearing.

Ring around the Rosie – Trees are great for dancing about in combat. There are a lot of paths in dota which you can use to give your enemies fog that you don't have because of Track. Doing so can result in splitting up your enemies as they try to cut you off, or bottlenecking them. You can use them to buy time for shuriken or WW to cooldown too. Remember that track is very helpful

for this.

Disappearing – With WW, you can vanish at any moment. But its all the better if they don't know you are invisible. Go into fog and WW. You can use this to retreat and return, or you can

use this to turn around and stalk them. This also helps establish your pattern of being stealthy and obnoxious.

Effective Aggressive Play and Ganking

This section is the one real dota playing part I'm adding, rather than just about Gondar, as this is the most essential part of playing Gondar. Its a big wall of text, so feel free to skip it if you think

you know how to be aggressive and gank effectively.

Aggressive play is all about taking risky situations and making them work in your favor. To play aggressively properly, you need to be able to make instant decisions and adapt them as you play. Game experience is priceless in regards to this. When you look at an upcoming gank, think about how much time it will take, how many shurikens, and how this compares to your mana and the enemies location. If you believe you have a strong chance of succeeding, try to do the gank. If you believe you have a small chance of succeeding, but a strong chance of surviving it, do it

anyway. Not attempting to attack the enemy is a complete failure. Even failing to kill will send them and you back to the fountain. The only time not to is when you are completely

overwhelmed by a fed hero or if death is highly likely. Remember when playing aggressive to do everything you can to increase your chances. Dodge

the enemy to cooldown shuriken and use bottle, juke around a tree to get a free extra attack when you surprise him. The hardest part of aggressive play is often surviving it when things go wrong. It is essential to be able to do this. If a situation turns hairy, you must make an immediate call to

try to succeed or to get out. If you must get out, spam bottle, juke, ww, tp, anything. NEVER simply click walking away. Being able to play aggressively with Gondar will allow you to net

kills and succeed where other, more conservative players would fail. You must be able to make quick judgment calls.

Ganking is another way of saying to hunt down and kill enemy heroes. It is what Gondar does, and he needs to make an art of doing it, as he is not an otherwise versatile hero. Ganking is all about timing, situation, and firepower. To time a gank properly, you need to be aware of where things are, especially enemy creeps and heroes. You want to do it preferably on a target who is engaged in something else, especially neutral creeping, so as to distract them and to help your

gank. Time your ganks when your skills are ready and to give you plenty of time to kill the enemy when the enemy is at a weakpoint. Situation is probably the most important part of

ganking. If the enemy has low hp, then its great for you. If allies are close, its also good for you. Don't gank enemies that have friends close by, and don't gank people who are half a screen from their tower unless you're certain you can tower dive and win. Firepower is pretty simple, though

its the area Gondar lacks in setting up most. Shuriken is your best source for a long time. Remember to be aggressive and to always set up your ganks before you initiate them.

Countering your Counters

Every player needs to know what to do if a really bad thing happens. They're still really bad, but its important to try to do some damage control.

Nasty Lanes

You know the type. Every time you try to get near the creep line you die or almost die, and your ally is no better off. You're probably best off spamming WW whenever they go after you. Theres

not much you can do by yourself, but at least get your levels.

Sentry Wards

Bah humbug! Wards are very dangerous to you. Most often, they'll place them whenever a fight starts where they can beat you, or immediately after you WW. They won't stick them down

immediately in one conveniently avoidable spot as so many wish was true. The other possibility is they ward up the whole mid. To deal with them, you must change your mindset. Go around them to gank from behind, and use Track to escape nasty situations. Remember that WW can

still be used to give you 0 collision, so use if for that too.

Observer Ward en masse

Lots of observers are naturally bad for gankers. The best counter is to whore WW as much as possible. Don't let up, even if you lose a shuriken during the fight. You cannot allow your

enemies to monitor your movements. Otherwise, try to avoid them. Buying a gem is a very extreme measure, but it might be worth it. Better if you can convince your supporting ally to do so though. If they replace them consistently, kill them when they go to replace them. It might

make them stop.

Mass Stuns

You know, when absolutely every enemy has a stun. Probably not a coincidence. Its really annoying, and very bad for both your ganking and your health. Sadly, the only really good

solutions is to work with your team more, so there are more targets to stun. Also, you may want to begin battles with track in this case, in order to chase them after they stun and run, if they do.

Replay

None yet, sorry. I'm quite self-conscious, so I want the perfect replay before I post anything.

Closing Comments

Remember what Gondar is. Always gank, always surprise the enemy, always hunt their carry. Be bold, and never be afraid to get your hands dirty. Keep a close eye on the map and plan how your

ganks are going to go down. And most all, try to make the enemies say “Oh, Shit!” when they see you. If you gank a veno and the first thing he does is drop his ult and run, then you've

probably done a good job. Good...murdering?

Feel free to use any part of this guide for anything, I honestly don't care if you don't mention my name when you do. Just don't take credit for it yourself.

This has been the third guide I started writing, first I actually finished. I'm not expecting anyone to be gentle with criticisms though. Just know that if you're close minded about your opinions, I can be the same about mine.

I've tried to avoid stating the obvious here, without failing to catering to those who can use every drop of information. There no points in stating wraith bands give you agility. I also tried to leave several decisions to the players, to let you kinda fit your own mold to the hero. If you think bottle is all the regen you need early game, then by all means, have fun with it. I've left several parts of general dota play out of this guide as well. I could tell you to last hit in a lane, but you probably already know that its good for your play if you read these forums. I've tried to be short with words in general, as I dislike overly lengthy guides, but theres just so much information to get across. Theres a few criticisms of what I find to be bad guide writing practices in here. (Please don't tell me stunners are helpful to have around. Thats like saying creeps are worth gold when they die. Tell me that slows are the best combo with bladefury because they allow me to ensure the damage goes through, and the best of them all is, say, CM)

Whys and Why Nots

Why not this and that. I purposely left this out of the guide because it's worthless information to players looking for a quick guide of how to play the hero. However, its here that the real argument for effectiveness of item and skill builds comes into play.

Why ... so many wraiths? Wraith bands, when massed, are the best source of damage output you'll get. Especially when combined with early stats, your early game damage and hp take off very quickly for the early game ganking. Small numbers of wraith bands have much less noticeable effects than large numbers, but large numbers clog your inventory from other items. I settled on three because I find it the maximum number I can get away with.

Why ... SnY? SnY gives you a lot of stuff, yeah, but as an item it is designed to help people chase. For a while, Gondar does not need help chasing because shuriken is so great when chasing. However, shuriken will become less and less effective as time goes on. It is important for Gondar to be able to chase primarily on physical damage. With SnY, your MS goes near 500 and you're extremely rapid attack speed makes maims actually fairly common. Its damage boost is decent as well, made moreso by the fact that its hp boost allows you to change treads to agi treads. It's even made in small packages for rambo Gondar style play.

Why not ... maxing WW? There are many, many fans of maxing WW. They prefer to combo it with shuriken to try and have serious burst damage. First, I don't believe that will win fights with raw burst damage either way. They are not tinker's nukes, 450 unreduced damage is not enough to work with by yourself, and I want to be strong enough to solo gank. Secondly, I believe stats are more powerful, especially as the game progresses, and burst damage, especially physical burst damage, becomes less powerful. Third, even if they weren't, the mana it gives is invaluable early game. You need that mana.

Finally, I don't want to be any more reliant on WW than I have to be. It can become a huge crux skill for mediocre Gondar players.

Why not ... get Desolater? Desolater and treads gives Gondar great damage, and it and his ult make each other more useful. First, I believe Gondar needs chasing help as the game progresses. As shuriken weakens, 20% MS stops being able to cut it. Desolater, again, relies on having someone there to help you beat the enemy down in that regard. Secondly, its harder to build up to. After the first hammer things start rolling, but by that time I would have a yasha. And theres absolutely no comparison between those two.

Why not ... get Jinada early? Jinada is a good passive for making you more powerful. Compared to stats, it would be preference, except for one thing. Mana. Evey point of stats gives 26 mana, so thats a good 100 extra mana from 4 points of early stats. Easily, easily another shuriken or windwalk. Mana is what really makes stats the way to play.

Why not ... get Battlefury? Battlefury is an item that strength comes from its cost efficiency. For Gondar, a perserverance is not a good item, and the damage is not worth the cost. Cleave is nigh useless, merely a small increase in neutral farming. Simply put, battlefury's bonuses are simply not what Gondar is looking for.

If you throw out more possibilities, I'll probably place them in this post as why not.

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