Ulfsaar

Ulfsaar The Ursa Warrior

This guide is catered for non-em games.

What is Ursa’s Role?

Ursa only has one job – deal lots of physical damage. His DPS is already good from as early as level 3. His damage potential gets even better as game goes on. Turn on your buffs, go in and kill. It is that simple.

Why Jungle?

Ursa is pretty useless in a lane. His only lane control skill is Earthshock and it is amazingly easy to juke it during early game laning. His only hope to land Earthshock on a lane opponent is if a lane partner disables first. Laning with a disabler for landing Earthshock is viable, but is not discussed in this guide. On the other hand, neutral creeps are incredibly stupid and they tank Fury Swipes. By jungling, your team gets two solo lanes and everyone gets more experience and gold. If everything goes according to plan, Ursa will end up with enough money to rival the best last hitters in lanes just from destroying neutrals. The jungle build can obtain about 4000 to 4500 gold in the first 20 minutes of the game, which is equivalent to a creep score about 55 to 65 (not counting hero kills and tower gold). I have no idea how Ursa can do that well in a lane.

Skills

QUOTE

Earthshock

Slams the ground, dealing damage to and slowing the movement speed of nearby enemy land units.

Level 1 - 70 damage, 25% slow.
Level 2 - 120 damage, 35% slow.
Level 3 - 170 damage, 45% slow.
Level 4 - 220 damage, 55% slow.

Duration: 4 seconds
Cooldown: 7 seconds
Mana Cost: 75
AOE: 250

This is like Panda’s Thunderclap except it does less damage, lasts shorter and does not even slow attack speed. At least the mana cost is much lower. It is pretty spammable even with Ursa’s low intelligence. Since the AOE is small and there is a minor cast time, be careful because people will try to juke it. It is almost impossible to walk up to a target and stomp without much superior movement speed or blink.

There is a minor delay right after you stomp. To cancel this, do animation canceling.

QUOTE

Overpower

Sends Ursa into a rage until he can expend his energy on a target. Lasts 15 seconds or 5 attacks.

Level 1 - 100% increased attack speed.
Level 2 - 200% increased attack speed.
Level 3 - 300% increased attack speed.
Level 4 - 400% increased attack speed.

Cooldown: 10 seconds
Mana Cost: 45/55/65/75

400% IAS is the maximum the game allows. The downside is that it only lasts 5 hits. However, the skills lasts 15 seconds if you don’t attack and the cooldown is 10 seconds. With some careful planning, you can do a 10 hit combo.

There is a minor delay after you cast Overpower. To cancel this, do animation canceling.

QUOTE

Fury Swipes

Each attack opens the wound deeper in the target, causing subsequent attacks to deal increased damage.

Level 1 - 6 bonus damage per attack.
Level 2 - 12 bonus damage per attack.
Level 3 - 18 bonus damage per attack.
Level 4 - 24 bonus damage per attack.

Orb effect – overrides all other orb effects

This skill adds a bonus damage (reduced by armor) to Ursa’s physical attack. Assuming Ursa can get N hits in, level 4 Fury Swipes add (24+24*N)/2*N damage in total. In terms of average bonus damage for level 4 Fury Swipes, the formula is (24+24*N)/2. If Ursa can get 5 hits in, the total damage from level 4 Fury Swipes is 360 and the average bonus damage per hit is 72. Just for comparison, Silencer’s glaives only reach 70+ damage late game. If Ursa can get more than 5 hits in, the damage bonus scales up even more.

This skill does not work on towers or siege weapons. Ursa can leech life off Fury Swipe bonus damage through Vladimir’s Offering. If critical strike or bash procs, it will suppress the Fury Swipe damage on that hit. Fury Swipe damage will not be reset to 6/12/18/24 the next hit, it just continues.

QUOTE

Enrage

When activated, greatly increases Ursa's damage based on his current life.

Level 1 - 4% of Ursa's current life is dealt in damage.
Level 2 - 5% of Ursa's current life is dealt in damage.
Level 3 - 6% of Ursa's current life is dealt in damage.

Duration: 15 seconds
Cooldown: 25 seconds
Mana Cost: None

This is Ursa’s second source of damage after Fury Swipes. Once Ursa attains some decent HP, the Enrage bonus damage gets scary. Keep in mind that the bonus damage is based off current HP. If you get nuked and hit a couple of times, the bonus damage drops. Enrage skill costs no mana and has very low cooldown. Feel free to spam this skill.

The bonus damage is dealt by adding a second melee attack before Ursa’s actual physical attack. The damage is reduced by armor. Ursa can not leech life off the Enrage damage. Critical strike does not amplify Enrage damage. Enrage does not work on towers.

There is a funny exploit/bug with Enrage. You can fool the game engine by thinking Ursa made an attack by pressing ‘S’ for stop next to a target. The Enrage melee attack comes out but Ursa doesn’t make an actual physical attack. Keep pressing ‘S’ and Ursa spams the Enrage bonus damage. The Enrage attack comes out super fast (depending on how fast ‘S’ is pressed). Just stand next to a neutral creep and try it out. However, this does not have any application in real team fights. Ursa is not going to hit anyone when he is stopping himself continuously in the middle of a fight.

Skill Build

1. Fury Swipes
2. Overpower
3. Fury Swipes
4. Earthshock
5. Fury Swipes
6. Enrage
7. Fury Swipes
8. Overpower
9. Overpower
10. Earthshock
11. Earthshock
12. Earthshock
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Enrage
16. Enrage
17 to 24 Stats
25. Overpower

Why max Fury Swipes first?

This is Ursa’s main source of damage. This is how Ursa destroys neutrals so fast early game.

Why only 3 levels of Overpower?

400% IAS is max and IAS has severe diminishing returns. With Ursa’s base agility and some minor stats, no one will notice the difference between something like 340% IAS and 400% IAS. Save a skill point and keep the mana cost lower.

Why level 1 Earthshock at level 4?

The earliest opportunity to come out of the forest is level 4. At level 4, you have two levels of Fury Swipes and one level of Overpower. If you are thinking about ganks, you should be 1) ambushing from behind 2) you got an ally disable 3) you got a haste rune or invisibility rune 4) all the above. 25% slow should be more than enough this early in the game. You are better off putting more skill points into Overpower before coming back to Earthshock.

Why get Enrage at level 6? Why not get it later at level 10/11?

Enrage costs no mana and has very low cooldown. If you wait until level 10/11 to get Enrage, you will use too much mana for Overpower on tough neutral creeps. Ursa doesn’t have very much mana so it is better to abuse Enrage as soon as possible.

Why only one level of Enrage until level 15/16?

One extra level of Enrage at level 11 barely adds any damage. 1% of anything less than 2000 HP is not very noticeable considering that Ursa already has Fury Swipes. Getting level 4 Earthshock sooner and getting some stats are better when Ursa’s HP isn’t so high.

Item Build

Stout Shield -> Ring of Health -> Vitality Booster => Vanguard
Boots of Speed
Blink Dagger

(The order of items is not important and you should adapt. For instance, if your team is going for some early ganking goodness, you can get level 1 Earthshock early and grab boots as soon as possible. On the other hand, if you are just doing passive farming, then aim for Vanguard first.)


Vanguard

This is an amazing item for Ursa. The damage block and HP regeneration are very important for tanking neutrals. The HP boost is not bad either.


Blink Dagger

This item has so many uses that it deserves a mini guide on itself. Offensively, all of Ursa’s skills require him to be in melee range. Everyone already knows the blink + stomp combo. However, perhaps even more importantly, blink allows Ursa to get close to do damage via Fury Swipes and Enrage. Sometimes, even if an ally disables for Ursa, it just sucks too much having to walk around creeps to reach the target and waste valuable time. Defensively, Ursa can juke and blink out of trouble. Since almost everyone gets Dagger now days, there is no excuse not to get it.


Boots and TP Scroll

No explanation required.


Observer Wards and Sentry Wards

Competent opponents will seek and hunt down jungling heroes. The entrances to the forest need to be warded to prevent ganks. If the neutral spots are warded, you need Sentry Wards to destroy them. If you are playing with friends and someone else is buying wards, you can skip this. Ursa shouldn’t really be the main ward bitch but you should pitch in and buy some for your team sometimes. If you are playing a pub, nobody is going to stop you from jungling so don’t bother with wards.

Upgrade to Boots of Speed


BoT or Treads ???

Ursa can already function very well with the core items above. If your style is to gank everything that moves, you are unlikely to farm anything more. However, if you got some extra gold, it’s time to considering upgrading Boots of Speed.

BoT provided superior movement speed, which definitely helps. The map mobility is important if your team is running a teleport-around-the-map strategy.

Treads? Doesn’t Ursa already have Overpower? The 5 hit combo lasts about 2 seconds and the 10 hit combo lasts about 4 seconds. After that, what are you going to do? Stand there and attack slowly? You still have Fury Swipes and Enrage. In order to exploit that, you need IAS. Ursa’s agility is not very good so the IAS from Treads almost doubles his damage output if you do not have Overpower on. True, there are other sources of IAS out there like Hyperstone, but Treads is the cheapest option.

Now, you need to adapt based on game situation and decided between BoT and Treads. I would get BoT if the map mobility is clearly needed. I would get Treads if I find that the 5 hit Overpower combo is not doing enough damage and I do not have the extra cash to fund a Hyperstone.

As of 6.49b, Treads got buffed (again). If you are going to get Treads, you are looking for the IAS so you want the +10 agility version for a total of +40% IAS. However, you may find switching to the +10 strength version useful sometimes. You can switch the stats on Treads at will, adapt wisely.

Extension Items

If you still got money to spend, you can consider the following items. Keep in mind that you should adapt based on how the game is going.


BKB

BKB? Ursa gets owned by disables and nukes really hard. His Enrage works off his current HP. After the first round of AOE nukes (Epi Center, Sonic Wave, Nether Blast, etc…), half of Ursa’s damage is gone. Even worse, disables stop Ursa cold. If Ursa is not hitting, he is not doing damage. A simple cyclone pretty much makes Ursa irrelevant. It is true that BKB stops Ursa from doing the 10 hit Overpower combo because BKB dispels Overpower. (Enrage does not get dispelled.) However, that is a small price to pay for securing Ursa’s DPS. BKB got buffed recently. It longer makes Ursa lose control or costs mana to activate. It’s just too good an item to pass on now. I would consider this item as an automatic core item if you are facing a typical lineup consisting of AOE whores and disablers.


Assault Cuirass

This is a great late game item. The IAS helps Ursa after Overpower is over and the armor piercing ability amplifies his DPS. The recipe parts (mainly Hyperstone) are also very useful. Get the Hyperstone first if you are going for it.


Heart

HP and more Enrage damage are good. However, you should not think of Heart as a damage item. It is more of a survival item that adds some mediocre Enrage damage on the side.


Radiance

Yawn … the ever boring Radiance carry build works on every hero in DotA. Radiance adds kick ass damage. Even if you get stunned, that 35 immolation damage still works. Radiance also helps clearing creep waves so you can farm more items. The only problem with this build is that it requires a lot of farming and Ursa may not be the best Radiance carrier on the team. Go down this route if your team needs a hardcore carry hero.

Other Possible Items


Bottle

My problem is that Ursa does not need mana to go through neutrals that much. Even if you get Bottle, you are still going to get Vanguard one way or another, so the HP regeneration from Bottle is not needed. Runes are cool but you can grab them even if you do not have Bottle (gasp!). Frankly, other heroes like Nevermore or Nerubian Assassin can make use of Bottle and runes better than you. That being said, Bottle is an amazing item for every hero in DotA because of the burst HP refill. If no one else on your team is getting Bottle, feel free to get it.


Bracer

This is not bad. However, Bracers do not offer HP regeneration for owning neutrals. After early game, if you find spare cash and inventory slots, feel free to get one or two of these to fill the slots.

Bad Items


Manta

Ursa’s clones create Fury Swipe debuff icons instead of mana feedback. However, clones will not raise the Swipe counter. If the real Ursa hits a target and raises the Swipe counter, the clones will deal the extra Swipe damage too. Back in the Guinsoo days before Icefrog, Manta used to be a charged item and an army of Ursa clones could take out Roshan (much tougher before 6.42) at level 6. However, this item is simply too pricey to pay today for 2 weak clones. For the cost, I would rather get other items that add much more damage like Radiance.


MKB and Buriza

The proc effects suppress Fury Swipes. So, it is like buying Buriza on heroes with innate critical strike. They just don’t stack fully. Instead of getting less than full value from these items, why not consider other items? In case you are wondering, Buriza does not amplify the damage from Fury Swipes (duh, it suppresses it) or Enrage.


Battlefury

Cleave does not work with Fury Swipes or Enrage. Radiance is superior if AOE is desired.


Lothar’s Edge

Blink Dagger trumps this so much it is not funny.


Vladimir’s Offering

Life leech aura works with Fury Swipe bonus damage but not Enrage damage. Here is the catch 22, if Ursa actually build up the Fury Swipe damage, the target is as good as dead and there is no life left to leech off a dead body. If Ursa switches target, then all the Fury Swipe damage is reset and life leech does nothing. The only target in the game that lets Ursa build up Fury Swipe damage and still tanks is Roshan. Overall, this item is just too much to pay for that puny life leech. You are ultimately better off buying real HP items instead of relying on life leech. There is no need to waste money on an item that is only good for soloing Roshan when Ursa can already do it easily.


Butterfly

Once again, IAS helps Ursa tons for damage outside Overpower hits. The only problem is that it’s really expensive and none of the parts help you do anything until you complete the whole recipe. Assault Cuirass does more or less the same thing and its recipe parts (mainly Hyperstone and Platemail) are much more useful.


Orb Effect Items

Fury Swipes override all other orb effects.

Walk Through

Level 1 to Level 8
Approximately first 15 minutes of the game

Starting Items



Stout Shield and Tangos

Your goal during this period is to destroy neutrals as fast as possible for experience and money. You could try some early game ganking as well if your team is coordinated enough. Buy Stout Shield as your first item since you will be tanking neutrals yourself. Buy Tangos for healing and double creep pulling on the Sentinel side. Your first goal is Ring of Health, which takes care of all your HP regeneration problems.

You can start jungling at level 1 by hitting some weak neutrals. However, I prefer a good double creep pulling for some free experience. Trolls, Gnolls, Kobold are so weak that you can do them at level 1. Once you get to level 2, you can use Overpower to help you. Watch out for blue Satyrs, they can purge off your Overpower. You can use the 10 hit combo to take out a tough creep very quickly so you whack and tank the other weak creeps in the same camp. Sometimes you might underestimate a camp and end up with low HP. Don’t die to neutrals. It’s better to use tangos or return to fountain.

One interesting thing to note is that Fury Swipes destroy corpses. You don’t have to worry about dead bodies preventing neutrals from spawning at the full minute (:00) mark.

If your opponents buy wards to stop neutrals from spawning, consider buying sentry wards to counter them. I recommend reading a general strategy guide on neutrals, jungling and creep pulling (such as this particular guide on creep pulling and other cool stuff). It is especially important to understand the rectangular spawn boxes. Stay away from crazy stuff like stacking multiple spawns in one camp. Ursa can’t deal with 6 angry golems at once like Bristleback.

What is the 10 hit combo?

1. Cast Overpower, don’t hit anything.
2. Wait for about 8 seconds. It doesn’t have to be exact.
3. Cast Enrage if you have it.
4. Hit the target (5 hits).
5. Now Overpower refreshes, cast Overpower again and hit.

Of course, if you didn’t prepare, then just whack as usual and use Overpower and Enrage whenever cooldown is up.

What about ganking?

At level 4, your have 2 levels of Fury Swipes, one level of Overpower and one level of Earthshock. You can wreck some havoc by coming out of the forest to gank. If the situation is favorable and you got an ally to help you, go ahead. These are some favorable conditions:

1. You got a haste rune or invisibility rune.
2. You are coming out of the forest from behind and you got an ally to disable.
3. Your ally got some sort of disable.

Remember, your utmost priority is to land Earthshock and combo with your allies. If you have the time to prepare the 10 hit combo, do it. Otherwise, you have to settle for one cast of Overpower only.

Level 9 to Level 12
Approximately 15 to 25 mins of the game

Your goal now is to farm Dagger and participate in ganks. You should have Vanguard now or at least close to it.

What about empty lanes?

You should be jungling still. However, if a lane is empty and there is no one defending it, feel free to do the usual last hit/deny stuff for a minute or two. Remember, level 4 Fury Swipes adds 24 damage on the first hit and 48 damage on the second hit, making it really easy to last hit.

What about ganks?

You can initiate by landing Earthshock if you are cutting the enemy from behind or if you got haste/invisibility rune. Otherwise, you have to combo Earthshock after ally disable(s). If there is time and space, do the 10 hit combo preparation and pre-cast Enrage. Otherwise, you just have to improvise right in front of your enemy.

TP Scroll

I don’t want to say too much about it because it belongs to general strategies. Don’t hesitate to use it for saving an ally or tower.

More on jungling

At this point of the game, you can take out all regular camps easily with level 4 Fury Swipes alone. Vanguard blocks off almost all damage from neutrals. You can speed things up by using Enrage and/or Overpower. However, you should use Enrage more and only use Overpower if you really need it. Save the mana for Earthshock, which is good for ganks

You can do the ancient camps easily by doing the 10 hit combo with Enrage. Take out the biggest target first. You will probably lose too much HP if you don’t use Overpower. I highly recommend doing the ancient camps extensively because that leaves the other neutral camps for your team. Just move out of the spawn area of an ancient camp before the full minute (:00) mark so you can own one camp worth of ancient creeps every minute.

Roshan

Ursa can easily solo Roshan with Vanguard alone. You should do Roshan every game since it’s easy and it’s a lot of money for you and your team. If no one on the team is tanking for you, I would wait until around level 12 for the first incarnation of Roshan just to be safe. Start off by preparing the 10 hit combo with Enrage. Continuously whack Roshan. Use Overpower and Enrage again whenever cooldown is up. Enjoy building up Fury Swipes damage to ridiculous levels.

You don’t really need all your teammates to do Roshan. One or two allies to tank Roshan so is enough. In fact, it’s better that way enemies don’t get suspicious when all heroes on your team disappear. Watch out for wards and map control skills so you don’t get ganked at Roshan.

Work out who is going to get Aegis. If it’s a public game, then just keep it for yourself. I suggest keeping Aegis at base (either chicken or Circle of Power) and use it for late game.

Mid Game

Now that you got Vanguard and Dagger, it’s prime time for Ursa. You have to find the balance between ganking and farming depending on the game.

Team Fights

Ursa’s burst damage at this stage of the game is so high that it is comparable to the most fearsome nukers in the game. Now that you got dagger, here is the ideal 10 hit combo:

1. Find some place to hide, or at least some distance away from enemy.
2. Cast Overpower
3. Wait approximately 8 seconds.
4. Cast Enrage.
5. Blink in, hit.
6. If target start to move, cast Eathshock. If you are not sure, Earthshock right away after blink.
7. After you hit 5 times, cast Overpower again and whack.

Of course, not every fight is going to be ideal. Most of the time, you have to improvise. Now that you have dagger, you can get in close and do your stuff without an ally to set you up or ambushing from behind.

If you have BKB, you can’t do the 10 hit combo. Enrage lasts longer than BKB and doesn’t get dispelled by it, so feel free to cast it ahead of time. Overpower gets dispelled by BKB so you should cast Overpower after BKB.

At this point of the game, with Vanguard and some minor items, you should be able to do at least 1500 physical damage before armor reduction in 3 seconds. You should communicate with your team on who you are hitting. Nothing sucks more than letting two red HP heroes escape because you and your team didn’t focus fire. However, if you know you can take out a target with yourself alone, then do it and tell your team to hit someone else.

This is probably the time to think about IAS items such as Treads and Hyperstone if you find yourself doing nothing after the Overpower hits. BoT + Hyperstone is the better option but it is more expensive. Treads + TP scrolls is the poor man’s version.

When to farm and when to fight?

This is a difficult question to answer. Generally speaking, you should never miss big team fights involving more than 4 heroes on each side. This is especially true for pushes and counter pushes. That’s why you should have a TP scroll or BoT. If you are carrying your team, you need to farm Radiance and other fancy items so do lots of farming. On the other hand, if you are not, tag along with your teammates, go on hunting trips and gank a lot.

End Game

By now, the game is more or less decided. I would blink in and take out casters (especially disablers) using Ursa’s crazy burst damage. People will have daggers or blink like spells so you need allies to disable your target. If you still have Aegis from killing Roshan(s), this is the time to carry them.


Good Allies

Overall, there is no point to list the top tier heroes commonly used in competitive games. They are just, well, good heroes. I could list Silencer since Global Silence stops all nukes and disables so you don’t have to buy BKB. I could also name Rhasta since Shackle owns. Really, is there a point to that? Do you really want to know that disablers synergize with everyone hero in DotA?

However, one thing to note is that your team needs two solid solo heroes. There are too many good solo heroes to name. Just let your team know so they don’t complain about a 1v2 lane.

Bad Enemies

Again, I don’t want to list all the top tier heroes. Everyone knows that top tier heroes like Beastmaster and Sand King brutally destroy low tier heroes. Here are just a few words.

Disables that go through BKB

Normally, BKB makes you immune to all those annoying disables. However, some of them bypass BKB. For single target ones, just bear it and tank it for your team. For the AOE disables, spread around so they only get 2 or 3 of your team. Check this mechanics guide on what goes through BKB.

Maphackers and Roaming Gankers

You don’t want to get ganked at your forest especially early game. Planting wards will go a long way to ensure your safety. If they are going to start a ward war to stop you from getting your Vanguard/Dagger, you just have to play along. If they really want to waste the time and energy to stop you, then your allies will have better chances in lanes.


thx to 1st post KCL999@dota-allstars.com