Strygwyr, the Bloodseeker
Step-by-Step Guide

Introducion

Some time ago I read this “step-by-step” guide for Ursa (written by Zan) and I really like it. It gave me simple and easy-to-understand instructions how to play him, there wasn’t much to read and any noob can understand it.
So I decided to make a guide like this for Bloodseeker, because the item- and skill build can be explained easily this way.
I guess the most people will critize this:
- No skill discriptions
- No detailed hero stats
- Fairly short
But many times it's that: You click on the guide, scroll over the detailed stats and skill discriptions to the skill/item builds. You study them (flame them in the comments) but then you don't want to read the huge wall of text aka the strategy part.
Be honest: You can read the details in the hero part of this page and you like short explanations what do do more than the extremely detailed version.
So I hope that you won't give a bad rating because of things that nearly no one needs

Skills
You can find the skills here, I just want to explain shortly how to use them:
Bloodrage: In early- and midgame this skill should always be casted on enemy heroes, because the silence will prevent you from strong nukes that will kill you easily and you can kill guys that would usually flee with some kind of blink or windwalk. The damage you give them isn’t that high. Also it's a fairly ok harass skill against low hp heroes.
In lategame you should mention to cast it on yourself or another dps carry that can do much more damage with it. Alternatively you can silence enemy heroes with dangerous skills like Enigma’s Black Hole.
Here you can see the range:

The bonus damage just works for stats, not for raw damage (Stygian Desolator etc)
Bloodbath: This skill will let you farm properly against extreme harassment or it will keep you alive after you hunt an enemy hero though lots of tower till you kill him.
Strygwyr’s Thirst: Very obviously. Hunting

. Notice that you can still attack invisible heroes with low hp, even when you just can see them on the minimap.
Rupture: A good finishing / gank-initiating skill and one of the most hated skills in the game, I think. Run and die or stay and die. (Or use a town portal or simply kill Strygwyr. Yes, you can counter it pretty easy but some people don't understand that). Use Bloodrage first if you don't want your target to flee.
Here you can see the range:

Skill Build

I usually wanted to split the skill build into the different steps. But some people didn’t like it and surely you all don’t want to read so many skill build variations. Strygwyr’s skill build is pretty flexible. So here are some rules how to skill him:
- Skill one level of Bloodrage and Blood Bath at the first 2 levels.
At least 1 level of Blood Bath will make you farm easily against low-normal harass and Bloodrage gives you an important life and kill saving silence.
- Skill Blood Bath whenever you feel that harass stops your farming
Unlike other carries you can resist superb harass with this skill. But you should just skill it as much as needed.
- Skill Strygwyr’s Thirst whenever you feel that you can farm without any health problems
When you can handle the harass you should improve your hunting abilities with this skill because it's hard to own in midgame without it.
- Skilling out Bloodrage has a higher priority than Blood Bath for ganking in midgame because you recast it before it ends on higher levels
- Skilling out Blood Bath has a higher priority than Bloodrage for late game fights where you have to keep yourself alive by killing low hp heroes
-Skill Rupture whenever it’s possible
I think with these rules you can make a skill build for any situation you are facing.

Step 1: The hunt begins…

1.1 Starting items

Quelling Blade is the most important item in early game. It makes it easy to lasthit so that you can stay a long time on the lane because Blood Bath heals you. A Salve will heal you after someone had the idea to kill you, Tangos are not needed because of Blood Bath. A Stout Shield will help you against the normal harass that melee heroes are normally suffering at.

1.2 Chose your lane

You can chose any lane but follow this rules:
- Never go with another carry or someone who needs farm
- Try not to play against a lane with high burst damage (Lina+Sven e.g.)
- If you don’t want to go alone, go with some aggressive support like Vengeful Spirit or Demon Witch. They will grant you some early game kills and don’t need any lasthits.
- Don’t go to the middle lane when no one shared a courier with you. You need the Goblin Shops.

Step 2: Laning before level 6

2.1 You went to a solo lane

Lasthit as many creeps as you can. Sometimes it’s even possible to ignore you lane opponent by this. But don’t be ignorant some heroes like Tinker are always dangerous. Also look out for missing heroes. You have no skill to flee so you usually don't survive a gank. Against low hp heroes like Windrunner it's useful to use Bloodrage to harass them. But keep your mana for at least 1 Bloodrage for incoming ganking allies.

2.2 You went to a dual lane

Hopefully with some mate that doesn’t need lasthits. Add a few hero kills to the lasthits. But be careful, you shouldn’t chase into towers on low levels.
Killing someone just requires a proper use of your silence: Guys with Blink, Invisibility (when they are the target) or Healers (even when they aren’t the target) should be silenced.

2.4 Didn’t you left out the item build?

Yes, for a special reason: It dependents on the harass of the lane opponents.

If anything is alright:

Boots should be gotten anyway and in combination with the skill which name I write too often you can chase low hp heroes fairly effective.

Against superb harass:

Buy 2 Slippers at the Goblin Shop to build a Poor Man’s Shield. It makes you very manly so that that you can farm even when the harass is hard. Magic Stick can be bought at the Goblin Shop, too, and helps you against skill spammers like Bristeback, Zeus, Gnoll or Batrider who want to make your life pretty hard. If you have a mate or a courier try to get tangos. I think even a player that ordered Viper to attack you and started smoking then will give up now because he loses too much farm. After this, boots are never wrong

Step 3: Level 6, Let the killing begin…

3.1 Item Build

Our first big item. Let me explain why it is so good on Strygwyr.
- Rapture + Bloodrage+ Radiance = Superb dps without attacking anybody. That makes chasing easier.
- Some enemies that you casted Bloodrage and Rupture on will stay and fight till it’s over. And probably some of them will start hitting you to death. So it’s better to have raw damage to win this fights.
- You get many lasthits without being forced to attack creeps what heals you in chases and fights.
- It helps you farming. You need money to be strong in late game
All in all the synergy is amazing.
Tip: Turning it off is useful if you want to gank someone and you don't want the whole world to notice you. Especially lane creeps will chase you forever once you got their attention.

Optional

This new cheap slow that totally owned SnY is in fact not a bad item, but not core. It's this: It doesn't help ganking with Rupture at all. Your target runs and gets damage, which would be decreased, or stays, what means slow doesn't matter. When not using Rupture, it's pretty effecient though. My opinion: You can actually live without it, but it's useful. When you need other items more (Bkb for example), rather buy these, if not, why shouldn't you buy it?

3.2 Gank whenever your ultimate is ready

How to gank:
1. Cast Bloodrage on the target. You don’t want him to flee.
2. Cast Rupture. Now your enemy will run away or stay.
3. He stays? Attack him. He runs? Chase him.
4. Drink his blood

5. After that you should go back to your lane and lasthit some creeps to restore your life.

Gank means gang kill, so I don't think that that will fit in the "How to gank" part. But when you want to kill someone that has a town portal without mates, don't cast Rupture straight after Bloodrage. Instead you should start autoattacking him and finish him with Rupture. That will give you a higher chance for a kill because he will use the portal when you cast Rupture on him. When you attack him first he hopefully won't use tp. But that is just theory, when he uses town portal you can't stop it.

This is the theory against one hero. But think logical: If there is some stunning ally and you would get one hero anyway you should use Rupture on another fleeing hero or simply don't waste it.
Here an example where you shouldn't cast Rupture and Bloodrage on the next hero you see.

Tip: Always Cancel your animations. Your casting- and attack animation have a huge backswing.

3.3 Someone ganks me

Being the hunted one is not that funny. Here are a few steps to survive:
1. Who ganks you?
Example: Let's guess Vengeful Spirit, Centaure and Terrorblade.
2. Is there any tactic they will use?
Example: Vengeful will stun first because of the high range. Centaure will stun after and you are dead.
3. Use your silence smartly. And cancel the animation. You don't have any time.
Example: Silence Vengeful and run away. Centaure won't get you.
4. Use your Rupture smartly. Preferable on low hp heroes that have to chase you by walking. If he is really that manly and chases you his hp will drop and you will be buffed by Strygwy's Thirst so that you can flee.
Example: Use it on Terrorblade that if faster than you without Strygwyr's Thirst.
5. Run for your life. If Bloodrage ends you should recast it in some situations.
Example: You recast Bloodrage on Vengeful, you run and you are saved.
Tip: Use the fog if you can. You can juke fairly good, you could use your Quelling Blade for that.

By the way: This is just an example. I didn't mention what would happen if Vs would use her ultimate or you wouldn't see them because of fog and her stun would hit you. You never know what will happen. Be flexible. Abuse the fog. Try to predict what they will do. I can't teach you that in a guide, you need experiance for that.

3.4 Farm whenever your ultimate is on cooldown

When you push too far and fear that your enemies will gank you, go to wood.
A few tips for jungeling:
- Use Bloodrage on yourself
- Use your Quelling Blade to stack creepspots. That is more effective than normal pulling because you don't get gold by pulling the creeps over a long distance to get them out of their spawn area.
- Order Bloodseeker to attack all creeps at the creepspot by using shift and look at the other heroes on the map. Maybe missing heroes will gank you. If there is a fleeing hero that you could hunt with a realistic chance to kill him do that. But just if it's not too risky. You just go to wood because you want to farm a bit gold without dying.

Step 4: Extend your Inventory

4.1 Item build

Black King Bar: The time of teamfights come slowly. You need this item there. You can't do anything when you are stunned and disabled, what will happen without Bkb in a teamfight More to teamfights later.
or
Linken's Sphere: When there are not that many disablers this item is a very good choice. The mana regneration will manage our mana pool perfectly, the stats are good and it doesn't trigger Bloodrage while Bkb would remove the buff.
Boots of Travel: This item makes you to a global hunter and you are everywhere you are needed to fight or farm big creep mobs. At this time Boots of Travel are more useful than Power Treats or Phase Boots anyway.
or
Power Treats: The cheaper alternative to BoT. The stats and the attack speed is very useful, but in late game you should switch to BoT.
or
Phase Boots And Phase Boots are also possible if creeps like blocking you too much. In general you can chase good enough without walking through creeps, but it makes it easier. Switch to BoT later.

After you bought one of the boots and one of the anti disables, your core inventory is finished.

4.2 Gameplay
Do what you did before. Gank whenever Rupture is ready and farm.
But focus on getting the 2 items. Without them you are useless in lategame.

Step 5: How to create a bloodbath

5.1 Any other Items you can buy

Chose your Orb

5.2 Teamfights

1. Cast Bloodrage on a dangerous low-mid hp hero like Enigma or Earthshaker
2. Activate Bkb (Manta Style)
3. Kill the hero
4. When Bkb ends, cast Bloodrage on yourself, the most dangerous skill should be used now OR cast Bloodrage on another dangerous hero OR cast it on one of your team’s carries (Activate Satanic)
5. Kill the heroes that are easy to kill. That keeps you alive because of Blood Bath
6. Cast Rupture on heroes that want to kite or flee.
Tip: Get all lasthits. Even when it is the most audacious steal ever so that a Terrorblade wouldn't get the kill. This is the best way to survive the teamfight.

Here a few pictures that show a 4vs5 teamfight:

Step 6: Learning by watching

6.1 Replays

Sentinel:

PokerIdol`AK

HOWDOUGETSLICED

PokerIdol`mOoOO

1one

PokerIdol`Miky

Scourge:

[B]DeMoN!SGATE

Abby

sond^-^

mL|KiDDo

EG.Azen

Version: 6.65, 1.24c

Winner

Download

The Bloodseeker here had a fairly hard game because he wasn't able to do anything when Strom initiates ganks on him.
But in the end he had a positive stat (15/13/16).
His item build is nearly same as in the guide with the difference that he bought Power Treats before Radiance. But that was very reasonable. He died too often because of burst damage (Storm and Balanar were able to kill him very fast). So Treats made him farming Radiance easier.

6.2 Videos

Here is a fairly entertaining Bloodseeker tribute made by synapris. Look at the names of the players, maybe you notice that I'm in the video, too (around 3:30 after the item builds)

Skill- and Itembuild Conclusion

Because some people don't like the splitted skill/itembuild that much you can see it here again:
All in all there are 3 possible skillbuilds

Normal

Easy laning

Against harass

Item build

That was my step-by-step guide. I hope it is helpful to you. Please rate and comment it. Especially comment because I just can improve it when you give me constructive feedback.
So write “I like it/I don’t like it because…” Instead of “Omg noob guide 1/10”.
Credits to Zan because of the idea of a step-by-step guide and the people who helped me with their comments: Lycan, iKrivetko, Piejonk, Blackrain, manaseater and pipser.
Special thanks to Hass who tried the skill and item build so enthusiastic. If I remember right we lost the game

Strygwyr the Bloodseeker
Author: FunnyWarfare
Map Vers.: 6.68

So thirsty...

A Step-by-Step Guide to Bloodseeker

Date Posted: 01/04/10
Last Comment:03/05/2013
Total Votes: 343
Current Rating: 8.65
Views: 527947