Dota 2/Boush the Tinker

Boush the Tinker
Base stats and attributes
Strength		17 + 2
Agility		13 + 1.2
Intelligence		27 + 2.2
Base damage		22-28
Move speed		305
Armor		3.82
Statistics
Level	1	16	25
Hit Points	473	1005	1765
Mana	351	751	1297
Damage	49-55	80-86	122-128
Armor	4	6	11
Sight Range	1800/800
Attack Range	500
Missile Speed	900

Tinker is a ranged intelligence hero who can be played as a ganker, a pusher and a semi-carry. His playstyle puts a high emphasis on getting a Boots of Travel. His Laser is a very strong damage nuke that can render carries useless temporarily. His Heat-Seeking Missile is another high damage nuke that can target two heroes. These two abilities gives Tinker relatively high burst damage from the early to mid game. Tinker also has March of the Machines, which is difficult to avoid and pushes creep waves very effectively. All of these abilities have relatively high cooldowns, which is where Tinker's ultimate, Rearm, comes into play. With it, he can not only reset the cooldowns of his abilities, but also his items. Good use of Rearm can let Tinker throw out constant high damage spells, multiple layers of March of the Machines and lastly, global mobility with a Boots of Travel. Due to this, Tinker is actually quite mana-intensive as repeated uses of Rearm is quite costly, so management of mana is important for a Tinker player. Tinker is also quite item-dependant, needing his core items like Boots of Travel in order to be effective, so good farming skills are needed as well.

Abilities

Laser

• Ability: Target Unit
• Affects: Enemy Heroes
• Damage Type: Pure
• Damage: 80 / 160 / 240 / 320
• Miss Chance: 100%
• Mana Cost: 95 / 120 / 145 / 170
• Cooldown: 14

Laser fires a beam at the target, dealing pure damage and causing the target to miss all attacks for 3 seconds. It is a powerful high damage spell that is very useful for harassment, since you not only do damage but render them unable to last-hit. Due to its high damage it is also useful in ganks. During teamfights, you should target carries with it, since that will make them useless for a few precious seconds while your team takes care of other heroes.

Heat-Seeking Missile

• Ability: No Target
• Damage Type: Magical
• Damage: 100 / 175 / 250 / 325
• Targets: 2
• Mana Cost: 120 / 140 / 160 / 180
• Cooldown: 25

Heat-Seeking Missile fires up to two missiles that can hit up to two enemy heroes, dealing damage. It is a great damage nuke that can be used in conjunction with Laser and Rearm for high burst damage. The fact that it targets two heroes at once can also ward off an enemy's partner while you take care of your target.

March of the Machines

• Ability: Target Point
• Damage Type: Universal
• Damage: 16 / 24 / 32 / 40
• Radius: 900
• Duration: 6
• Mana Cost: 145 / 150 / 165 / 190
• Cooldown: 35

March of the Machines summons an army of tiny robots that wander across the targeted area, detonating whenever it hits an enemy. The robots are packed close together so it is hard to avoid them, and since they cover a large area it makes the ability excellent for pushing. With Rearm, you can cast multiple March of the Machines for more pushing power. It is also effective during teamfights to deal chip damage as you burst enemies down with other spells.

Rearm

• Ability: No Target, Channeled
• Time To Rearm: 3 / 2 / 1
• Mana Cost: 150 / 250 / 350
• Cooldown: 0

Rearm completely refreshes the cooldowns of all your abilities and items after a short channeling time, though it cannot refresh the item cooldowns of Arcane Boots, Black King Bar, Hand of Midas, Helm of the Dominator, Linken's Sphere, Necronomicon or Refresher Orb. Getting interrupted during the channeling time will cancel the ability, wasting all the mana used. With no cooldown itself, Rearm can be used as many times as you want, which can let you extend deadly combos with your abilities.

Skill and Item Builds

Suggested Skill Build

There are a couple of ways to build Tinker depending on whether you need to push early or want to get immense burst damage quickly. Whatever the goal, the first level of Rearm is usually delayed until getting a Boots of Travel, while the remaining levels are only taken once your mana pool is large enough to support repeated uses.

Nuke-heavy build

This skill build will maximize your burst damage, making you a deadly ganker, but forces you to sacrifice pushing power and counter-gank ability during the laning phase. Laser and Heat-Seeking Missile will be your main focus, so you should max them both out by level 8. Only level up March of the Machines after maxing your first two skills. Get Rearm once you get your Boots of Travel max it whenever you wish to do so.

Suggested Item Build

Starting items

Some Iron Branches, Healing Salves and Tangos will be the standard starting build. Some Clarities can be useful if you want to get aggressive very early, while Mantles of Intelligence grant you some extra mana and easier last-hitting.

Early-game items

A Bottle is necessary if you are the solo mid, giving you some quick regeneration on hand as well as letting you take runes. By bottle crowing you can also use your spells very liberally, harassing opponents endlessly with Laser and putting pressure on enemy towers with March of the Machines. A Boots of Speed is generally useful and a component for Boots of Travel. You may also consider upgrading your Mantles of Intelligence into Talismans for a nice mix of stats.

Core items

A Soul Ring is a cheap item for a burst of mana and gets refreshed by Rearm, and the health loss upon activation can be negated with frequent fountain trips once you have the BoT. For your boot upgrade, there is no substitute for a Boots of Travel. Its teleport ability is refreshed by Rearm, letting you get to anywhere on the map with creeps. With it, you can split-push constantly, forcing your enemies to divide and defend their towers, while being able to warp back to the fountain any time you're low on health or mana.

Luxury/Situational items

A Blink Dagger lets you blink away from danger whenever you teleport near enemy heroes, while letting you chase down wounded foes. A Force Staff is similar to a Blink Dagger but trades precision for utility, while giving you extra Intelligence. A Scythe of Vyse is very powerful due to its Hex being refreshed by Rearm, letting you shut down any hero completely if you have the mana. A Shiva's Guard is a more defensive item, but being able to use Rearm on Artic Blast also makes it very useful in teamfights.

A Dagon gives you one more source of burst damage that can be refreshed by Rearm, letting you do over 1000 damage when combined with your own spells. A Manta Style is rarely ever needed, but its Mirror Image can also be refreshed with Rearm, letting you create more and more illusions to cause confusion in teamfights and give you way more pushing power than you will ever need, making it a great luxury item if you're getting that much farm.

Strategy

Gameplay

Laning/Early-game

Try to be the solo mid laner if you can, since Tinker really needs all the experience and gold he can get early on. Laser is a wonderful ability if you're only facing one hero, as the 100% miss chance will cause your lane opponent to lose a lot of last-hits. Bottle-crowing will enable you to spam it more liberally as while as use your other spells. Depending on your skill build, you can follow up with Heat-Seeking Missile for a lot of damage and possibly an early kill if your foe is sufficiently low on health, or use March of the Machines to put pressure on the enemy tower. A nuke-heavy build will turn Tinker into a very effective ganker, while March of the Machines will make it much more dangerous for enemies to gank and tower-dive him.