TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Basic guide to Ursa
2. Skill Build
3. Items
4. How to play Ursa, step-by-step
5. Misc
6. Bonus: How to Roshan at lvl 1
1. The lean, mean, one-on-one ganking machine.
Ursa is, in my opinion, one of the easiest heroes for a noob to pick up and enjoy. This guide is therefore specifically written for DotA beginners, and is specifically catered to make Ursa as easy and effective as possible to use, in casual pub games or against AI. This is NOT a competitive guide.
You've likely seen Ursa being picked in pub games and be absolutely devastating. You may have also tried playing Ursa yourself and inexplicably went 0-15. This guide may be for you.
Ursa's Pros:
-Very simple and powerful ganking.
-Toe-to-toe against most any other hero, Ursa will massacre them (it's not even fair)
-Skills work very well together
-Easily THE best Roshan'er in the game
-Nothing too complicated or tricky about him
-If he can get a head start in the teen levels and farm up, he'll become nigh unstoppable in late-game.
Cons:
-No ranged attacks or abilities
-Easily countered by stuns/disables/certain items
-Powerless against multiple heroes
-In team fights, everyone targets you first
These cons are pretty big, and exclude Ursa from being a competitive pick. But in a casual game, if we keep his strengths and weaknesses in mind, we can make a pretty powerful play.
When to pick Ursa:
-Your team has no melee carries
-Your team has a few good slowers/stunners (slowers better)
-The enemy has not chosen Viper, Drow, or Storm Spirit (these guys make your life very difficult)
-The enemy's carries don't have great escape mechanisms (eg. blinkers)
-You want to have fun and be terrifying
A basic intro to Ursa's skills and play-style:
Ursa is a close-range fighter who can dole out massive amounts of melee damage in mere seconds. He NEEDS to be close to do anything. Buying Vladimir's Offering also means that as long as he's attacking, he's probably at full health.
His Fury Swipes skill (passive) means that you do increasingly large amounts of damage the more times you've already hit an enemy in the past 6 seconds.
His Overpower skill makes him string 3-6 hits in rapid succession. As you can see, this works VERY well with Fury Swipes. The cooldown is low (10 seconds), and it should be spammed as much as possible.
His Enrage ultimate adds a hefty amount of damage to each of your attacks, based on your current HP. (It should make sense, then, that Ursa benefits from items that increase his strength/HP.) There is NO mana cost for this, and the cooldown is a reasonable 25 seconds, so don't be stingy using it!
Earthshock is the closest thing you have to a disable. When cast, you make all enemies who are near you slow down for a few seconds. This is vital for escaping (though doesn't help much against ranged heroes), and more importantly, for chasing heroes to finish them off.
These skills combined mean that Ursa can dish out an insanely high amount of melee damage in mere seconds.
In a battle, Ursa should pretty much always be spamming R and V.
Remember that you are POWERLESS from a distance. If you can't get close to an enemy, you can't do anything (except die, but as a rule we're gonna try to limit that).
Overpower lasts 15 seconds (you need to hit someone before then or lose it), but has a cooldown of only 10 seconds. This means if you hit V, then wait 10 seconds before hitting someone, you can re-use V immediately after you've gotten your hits in. This doesn't just double your damage, it more than triples it (thanks to Fury Swipes). With enrage on, we're talking over 2500 raw damage within two seconds. You should use this tactic as often as possible against big enemies - ideally timing it so that you start hitting your enemy exactly 9 seconds after first activating V.
Most experienced players recommend getting Earthquake at level 1. This is mostly because most experienced players know to keep their guard against early ganks. However, for a noob (particularly one following my Phase 1 Rules below) playing a casual game, I think this is a waste at level 1, and I myself have never needed it in pubs. Getting Overpower immediately has one enormous advantage: it makes it a whole lot easier to last-hit creeps, and for a beginner, that's a big fat help. Getting fury swipes next makes it even easier. I then recommend earthquake because you DO want to have some sort of defense mechanism in case you get caught behind enemy lines and for potential ganks, but ideally neither of these should be happening yet (you also ideally should be winning every game, but life's hard to predict that way).
The rest of the build is pretty straightforward. Keeping overpower one level higher than fury swipes is the mathematically best way to maximize damage, with the one exception being maxing out Fury Swipes first so that you can take on Roshan (stay tuned...).
Since this guide is catered towards beginners and it takes experience to adapt and improvise items, I advise sticking to the above build. But, since there is no such thing as a 100%-perfect-in-every-situation item build in dota, I'll cover some situational items below.
First of all, Ursa does not really need items that boost his damage - his skills are more than sufficient to do that by themselves. What he craves more than anything is HP, because HP=survivability+damage, and that's a math equation everybody can get behind.
He also wants to stay far far away from items with orb effects, because they conflict with Fury Swipes, and we don't want that.
BKB is normally a must-have for Ursa, but it takes experience to use, since it can be overwhelming to have too many active abilities to think about during a big fight. Avatar is crucial to addressing Ursa's biggest weakness (ie, getting gangbanged like a bad porn). Get this if you feel you can handle another active ability during the flurry of a teamfight, otherwise you can get a lot more useful items for your money.
Cranium Basher is a well-loved item for good reason: bash is frickin awesome. You have an 85% chance to bash at least once during a single overpower, which helps for ganking and makes you marginally more useful in team fights. However, I would much rather go for the more affordable Sange, because its +strength adds up to almost the same amount of +dmg, but with a tasty extra 190HP, and maim lasts much longer than bash, helping ensure heroes don't slip away. I would also take HH over AB for similar reasons.
Cranium Basher may be the better choice when you are facing heroes with channeling spells (but most of them are squishy and should die/run quickly, anyway).
I've recently become a fan of this item on Ursa. It's very useful for ensuring that you can kill a hero with a single overpower. This is important when your team has too few stun/slowers and you need to secure kills quickly.
Linken's Sphere is for those who don't want to have to worry about using BKB during a fight, but who still want some protection against spellcasters. Not much use in a big teamfight (except against massive disablers like Bane or Doom), but gives you an edge 1v1 against disablers who may otherwise beat you. Mana regen means you can spam Earthshock, too. Expensive, and bonuses not as beneficial as HoT, so rarely a priority item.
Guinsoo is not an item you'll be getting most games, but hex is probably the best disable (from an item) in the game. There are not many heroes (at any level) who can survive a double-overpower while they're hexed. More mana regen than you could possibly want. Expensive, though, and you're already pretty damn good at ganking without it.
Medallion of Courage is a nifty and cheap little item that will help towards your ganking if you're having money problems while building your core. -6 armor against a hero can translate to a surprisingly large amount of extra furry swipe damage over 12 attacks, especially in early game. (I like this item most games unless things are going great, either before or after finishing Phase Boots.) However, it does mean one more active-ability item to think about during ganks, and you got enough shit on your mind already.
Janggo is another decent item when your midgame isn't being kind to you money-wise and it has a nice, slow buildup. Personally, though, I'd rather spend my limited money on a MoC, unless the enemy team is doing a real good job of traveling in packs.
Late game? Not lasting long enough in melee fights? Want to be more useful in team fights? Get an Assault Cuirass.
Items explanation:
We start with Ring of Basilius because we want to be able to spam Overpower, and because it builds towards Vlad's. If you follow the Three Laws of Phase I, you should be okay with just a tango for health recovery until you can afford a Stout Shield and Ring of Regen (both conveniently purchasable in lane shops).
The Stout Shield is to help out with jungling, and in case you want to build Vanguard.
After that, it's a straight path towards Vlad's, which is unarguably THE core item for Ursa and your #1 priority bar none. Being able to recover health from your massive damage means you can take a lot more abuse during fights, and also makes it possible for you to solo Roshan at level 8 or so.
Phase Boots are my boots of choice. Power Treads (strength) are also a viable choice, but Ursa REALLY benefits from the extra chasing/fleeing power that PB can give. I can't count how many ganks would have gotten away from me if I didn't have PB.
Lothar's Edge or Blink Dagger. It's essential to have one of them because you need to get close to your gank targets. I recommend Lothar's to noobs because it's easier to use. (see below, Phase IV, for more)
Heart of Tarrasque is the other unarguable item of choice for Ursa, and should be a priority post-core. Huge boosts to HP help him survive AND deal more damage - simply can't be beat. You could feasibly have 5 HoT and one Vlad's, and that would be just dandy. (But don't, because that's kinda weird.)
Sange is a good item all-around. Strength=win, and the 4-second maim means you can save your earthshock for emergencies. Get this first, then HoT, then upgrade into Sange and Yasha or Heaven's Halberd. Between the two, SnY is more noob-friendly and quite suitable for Ursa, but late-game HH will be more useful (especially against melee carries).
4. A guide to successfully playing Ursa: Note: If you choose Ursa and you're not confident in your abilities, it's considered polite to tell your teammates immediately during hero selection that you're a noob. The reason is that Ursa is a carry, and your teammates might choose a support character on the assumption that you are skilled enough to carry the team. If you warn them, another player will know to also pick a carry so that the team isn't relying solely on you.
Phase I: Levels 1-6 (Opening Moves)
Summary: Concentrate on last-hitting creeps while avoiding taking damage.
Skills:
1. OVerpower
2. Fury SWipes
3. Earthshock
4. V
5. W
6. EnRage
NEVER start in the middle lane. That lane is reserved for solo heroes, and you are most certainly not that.
As a noob, and as a hero who wants to avoid damage (unlike all the other heroes who just LOVE IT), you'll want to go to your advantaged lane: bottom if you're sentinel, top if you're scourge. These are the lanes where the fighting starts closer to your own tower. Plus, they're the lanes closer to your jungle, and you may be grateful for that later.
The most important thing is to pick a good lane partner. You really want someone who has a strong slow, or at least a stun. Venomancer, drow, skeleton king, dark seer; these are all great partners who will make it very possible to get some early ganks.
It's easy to forget as a noob that in the first few levels, you are WEAK AND SQUISHY. You can easily be killed if you slip up, and therefore it's imperative to be disciplined. My Three must-never-be-broken-if-you-dont-want-to-suck Laws of Phase 1 are:
Stay alive. For the love of god, try not to die. Dying loses precious time and money, and these are two things you CANNOT spare in the early game. At this point in the game, there is NOTHING worth getting yourself killed over - hell, there's nothing worth RISKING dying over. Don't be a hero. Use your tangos whenever you lose more than 150HP. If you run out of tangos and find yourself low on health, it sucks to run back to the fountain, but it's a hell of a lot better than dying and feeding the enemy.
Remember your battle position, and stay within it. Your battle position is BEHIND your troops, but not too far behind. You gain experience when you're within 1200 range of any enemy unit's death, so you never want to be further away than that (basically a screen's distance). Remember that this rule is preceded by #1 - if leaving the battlefield means staying alive, then stay alive.
Do absolutely no fighting except to last-hit creeps. This feels counter-intuitive to most beginners - why shouldn't you join the fight and help give your side the advantage? However, there is a delicate give-and-take in the early stage of the game. The faster you kill the enemy creeps, the more your troops push forward and the closer you get to your enemy's tower. Towers hurt like a feral bitch early game, and aside from giving the enemy a big advantage, are the biggest contributor to early death (second only to Heroic "I can totally finish off that guy running away" Syndrome). So the less damage you do, the closer you stay in the safe towerless zone.
The only thing you want to do is last-hit creeps. Regardless of who damaged it, it's the person who delivers to killing blow to a creep that collects gold for it, and getting your bling bling on is pretty much your biggest goal right now. This is the only acceptable reason for moving in front of your troops.
This is how I recommend you should do it:
1. Stay behind your melee troops as they keep all enemies' attention (yes it's worth repeating).
2. Press H (hold position) or keep your guy pacing back and forth so that you don't start auto-attacking.
3. When you see an enemy creep getting close to low health, turn overpower on (V) and go smack him.
4. Run back to your battle position, regardless of whether or not you successfully killed him (if you didn't, you probably won't get it now anyway).
5. Repeat. (Use tango if you took enough damage.)
Last-hitting is a VERY important and difficult-to-master part of the game, so don't worry if it takes you a while to get the hang of the timing. Lucky for you, your Overpower and Fury Swipes combine to make it a whole lot easier for you to last-hit successfully.
So those are my Three Laws of Phase 1. Follow them religiously, and I guarantee you a much better early-game.
Q: But what about enemy heroes? What if one of them is just begging for it?
First of all, let me make this very clear: in Phase 1, you should NEVER go chasing after enemies behind their lines like a facepainted Scotsman in Braveheart. (At least not until you're much more experienced.)
Now, I don't recommend going for ganks early on. Be patient, your time will come. It is, however, a good idea to harass enemies (hit V and smack 'em a few times to force them to go back and tend to their wounds), but ONLY if they move in front of their lines. If they're behind their line, don't run after them. (Also, don't try to hit enemies when you're right next to their creeps. Targeting enemy heroes draws aggro, and you'll end up taking more damage than you dole.)
Sometimes, however, a reckless enemy hero will stray far behind your lines (usually chasing another hero, because he didn't listen to my Three Laws). In these cases, it is fully acceptable to punish him for his foolishness. If he's chasing you, lure him back to your tower then turn around and Earthshock him as soon as he's within tower range. If he's chasing your ally, start hitting him right away if it looks like your ally might die, or just follow him for a bit if not (hit V while you're following him, you have a generous 15 seconds to get your hits in). If he stays to fight you, spam V and thank him kindly for the First Blood. If he starts to run away, Earthshock and continue punishing him.
HOWEVER, as SOON as he's gotten back behind his troops and close to his ally, leave him alone. This goes triple if he makes it back to his tower. I don't care if he has 1hp left, unless he's still eartshocked or your ally has a way to stun him, you won't catch him, and you'll probably die instead (also known as: "god fucking DAMNIT WHORE SHIT TITS ON A BADGER"). Just go back to your battle position and enjoy the small victory - it is no bad thing to make an enemy run back to his fountain.
In summary: keep aware of where your lane opponents are and what they're doing, swing a few punches at whoever happens to be in convenient range, but don't chase past the enemy line of creeps.
Q: I suck at this and I keep having to go back to the fountain.
Are you sure you're following the Three Laws? TLDR? Oh... fine... The important jist of it is stay behind your troops and run back a bit as soon as anyone starts hitting you.
(If it's an enemy hero that keeps harassing you with spells, then there's unfortunately not much you can do except stay further back from the fight when you're not last-hitting. If the hero comes too close (ie, behind your creeps, or tower range) in order to harass you, run up to him and say hello with V. Then run back to position.)
As a noob, it's perfectly normal to be running back to your fountain. You may want to invest in another set of tangos if you run out early so you can stay longer next time (or alternatively you could just, you know, play better).
If you're at the fountain and you're at least level 4, you can move ahead to Phase II early if you want, but it's frowned upon to abandon a lane before level 6 (unless your lane-partner is okay with it).
If you made it to level 6 while in your lane, congrats! The hardest part of your game is over. Pat yourself heartily on the back and proceed to Phase II.
Phase II: Lvl 4-10 (The Jungle)
Summary: Farm inside the jungle until you can afford Vlad's. Use your new ultimate, R, as often as possible.
Skills:
5. W
6. EnRage
7. V
8. W
9. W
The point of this phase is to make money to build Vlad's as quickly as possible. This is probably the easiest phase of the game. Which isn't to say you can't die, because you certainly can if you're not careful.... but there's a lot less micromanaging involved.
The jungle is the forest where neutral creeps spawn (green circles on your mini-map). Jungling is an art unto itself, but the jist of it is: know which camps are small (easy), which are medium, which are large, and kill as many guys in as little time as possible. I recommend going through playdota's jungling guide, at the very least for the map.
When you start Phase II, if you're in your lane and have a healthy amount of HP (and maybe a tango or two left), then just go straight in to your jungle and start making cash. Otherwise, go back to fountain and make sure you have as many of these items as you can afford, in order of importance: .
Having a chicken is a big help because it means you don't have to run home every time you want to buy another item, but could feasibly be skipped because you may end up going back to the fountain once or twice anyway.
From here on in, your job is to kill guys quickly until you can afford everything from the previous list of items.
Remember to keep spamming V and use R pretty much as often as allowed (remember: it costs no mana and has a pretty low cooldown).
When you've gotten Vlad's and at least level 3 of fury swipes (~lvl8, but you can skill fury swipes at 7 if cash is flowing and you can already get Vlad's), it's time to move to Phase III.
Roshan is the enormous, lumbering pile of rocks marked by a big red dot in the middle of the map. He will have some 9k HP (at this point) and can usually only be killed by a team of high-level heroes. You're about to solo him at level 8. No biggie.
First off, you'll definitely want full health and mana, and it's worth going back to the fountain for.
The next place you should head to is the Ancients (green dot) just to the right of Roshan. These are bigger-than-usual jungle creeps, but you can make quick work of them now. (Optional: on your way there, check for a rune.)
Now it's time to face Roshan.
Hit V to activate overpower. Now wait 5-10 seconds.
Go up to Roshan, start hitting him, then immediately activate R.
As soon as you can, hit V again.
Keep spamming V and R until he's dead.
If you're unlucky, Roshan will keep stunning you at inconvenient times and you'll find yourself running out of health. If that's the case, run away and beat up some neutral creeps to regain health (try to conserve mana though), or have your chicken bring you a health potion (or if you're lucky, there will be a regeneration rune near you). Then go back and try Roshan again.
When you kill Roshan, you will get beautiful spoils:
a) One or two levels (which you'll need, because chances are you've fallen a bit behind on levels)
b) Aegis of Immortality. This is the whole reason for Roshan. If you die when you're carrying the Aegies, you will come back to life a few seconds later with full health and mana. This can be HUGE.
You lose Aegis if: a) you die and use it, or b) you don't use it within 10 minutes, after which time Roshan re-appears and it's his again. There is no maximum number of times you can kill Roshan.
It's now time to move on to Phase III. The real fun begins...
Phase IV: Ganking
Summary: Sneak up behind unsuspecting lone enemies and kill them.
You should now be about level 10 and have the following items:
If you don't have phase boots, you can make them now by combining your with 2x
Here is where it gets fun. Look around the map for enemy heroes who are alone (no other enemy heroes around them). Squishy or not doesn't particularly matter (because you're fucking Ursa), but heroes who can't stun/disable you will be a hell of a lot easier. You want heroes who are alone and easy to sneak up on from the fog (and ideally level 10 and under, but that's not essential). If you don't see any, just go back to the jungle or a lane and keep farming until you can buy either (3300 gold) or (2150), after which you will be able to gank much easier.
Lothar's Edge vs. Blink Dagger:
You absolutely need one of these two items in order to gank effectively, because they allow you to get within close range of a victim before he knows you're ganking him. (Remember one of Ursa's flaws is he can do nothing from a distance, and if you get disabled before you reach your target, you're out of luck.)
Blink Dagger is the superior choice (and cheaper), but is much harder to use.
Therefore, I recommend that unless you're already skilled with Blink Dagger, you should go for Lothar's Edge. Windwalk is very straightforward (click it, go invisible, go attack), and Lothar's Edge's other bonuses don't hurt none, either.
Now it's your moment to shine!
How to gank (lone enemy heroes):
1. Position yourself behind the hero, in the fog of the forest where you can't be seen. Wait a little to assess the situation.
2. When the time is right (a wave of enemy creeps has just passed, the hero is behind them but not too close to his tower, or your ally has already been beating him up), hit V. Now wait ~5 seconds after hitting V, because a well-timed double-overpower (see basic intro section above) will pretty much guarantee you the kill.
3. Activate Lothar's Edge or Dagger and get right next to your target.
(3a. Do you have MoC? This is probably a good time to use it.)
4. Attack. If he starts running away the moment he sees you, hit E (earthshock) to slow him so that you can get your hits in.
5. Spam R and V non-stop.
6. At this point, he's either dead (if you timed your double-overpower properly) or running away. If you didn't just use it, Eartshock, AND activate your phase boots. This will give you a much higher chance of finishing him off.
7. If he's low on health, keep chasing him (phase boots has a low CD, spam it) until he's either dead or he gets ally/tower support, in which case let him get away; it's not worth dying for. (You can either activate your Lothar's/Dagger to escape into the forest, or turn your attention to the new enemy hero if he's alone.)
8. Collect $$$ for your gank.
9. Look for your next target.
Don't forget, you have Aegis of Immortality!! If you get killed, don't groan and go on your bathroom break. You will re-appear in a few seconds with full health and mana (and chances are the enemy won't be expecting it). So, while you're dead, assess the situation: will you be able to get a gank in now, or will you just get killed again? Choose fight or flight accordingly.
Phase V: Team Fights
Summary: Never fight alone.
Around this time, one team will usually start an aggressive team push, and usually down the middle.
As I've said, Ursa loses a lot of his power when facing multiple enemies. That goes double when he's facing a team push during mid-game, where someone on the opposing team probably has a disable that will ensure you get killed before you get close to hurting anybody.
For this reason, you should always stick with your team. Before all team fights, make sure you identify with your team who the primary target is. (Usually the enemy carry, or the support that keeps their carry alive and/or disables your team.) Next, get in position (either hiding in the trees ready to blink in, or invisible and sitting next to the target) and prepare your overpower. Be ready at a moment's notice for your initiator the start the fight. As soon as he does, start unleashing hell on your first target, then move on to the next.
It's okay to chase fleeing heroes you've almost killed, but only if you are confident you'll catch up to them quickly. Otherwise, it's probably better for you to change to a closer target and hope that someone else on your team can handle the fleeing target.
Remember that in team fights, you are terrifying and therefore a primary target. This is why you should never initiate. But you can also abuse this to play psychological games. You can protect your support from would-be harassers, for example, just by running up to the hero trying to attack them. Illusion runes are also fun for wasting some enemy mana. (Send one illusion to attack an enemy hero.)
If you are not confident in your ability to gank a team (or you just don't like the prospect of dying), you should contribute to your team by pushing another lane. At this point you are a pretty strong pusher (still spamming V and R, right?) AND you can take on any single heroes that you come across (still using Lothar/Dagger), so within a few minutes you will be bringing a big scary army to the enemy's front door that they will be forced to respond to. This can sometimes be an effective way to stop an enemy's push.
However, this is only an option when you know where most of the enemy team is. If you can't say for sure where they are, then there's the possibility that they're all in the woods next door waiting to gank you. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is never be alone past the river.
5. What's next?
How the rest of the game goes depends a lot on how much you've ganked/died up to this point. If you have a good ratio, you're probably going to keep dominating. If you don't, it's going to be tough as the enemy carries take the spotlight.
A few tips for surviving as Ursa:
-Stun/slowers are your friends. They make your ganking significantly easier. Lane with them when possible.
-Enemy stun/slowers are not your friends. They can effectively shut you down before you even get a hit in. Make sure you can identify all of the disablers on the enemy team so that you know when to approach with caution.
-Don't tower dive. (That's when you try to attack an enemy hero while in their tower range.) This is a good way to feed the enemy team, and it's generally not worth it until late game. It is more important for you to stay alive than it is to get a kill.
-Don't get kited. (That's when an enemy hero with faster movespeed than you has you chasing him wildly while he or his teammates pummel you.) If you can't catch up to a target, either change targets or retreat to safety.
-Jungle and farm when nothing's happening. Ancients especially.
-If an ally pings a location (they're being ganked, for example), you should try to get there as fast as possible, even if you don't think you can make it "in time." You'd be surprised how often you can make a difference just by running over. This applies to pretty much all heroes, not just Ursa.
-Every time Roshan dies, make a note of the time on the clock. Roshan will be back in exactly 10 minutes (without warning) and you should be ready for him then. Aegis is clutch, your teammates appreciate the 200 gold, and after the 3rd time you kill Roshan, he will start to drop Cheese: a consumable item that refills some 2500hp and 1000 mana (and can be shared with allies).
-Ursa is at his most vulnerable when he's Roshing. If the enemy has warded or sees you running in to Rosh, they will fall upon you like flies. You may therefore want to rosh with teammates (especially an aoe-disabler), or use your own wards so that you can see them coming ahead of time, or use smoke of deceit to get past their wards undetected (it's worth the money).
Hopefully now, you should be able to have a great game, gank a lot, and have fun doing it within your first few tries. If you found this guide helpful, please rate/comment .
6.
You may have heard that Ursa is capable of doing roshan at level 1. This is true, as long as he has Skeleton King by his side. If you can pull it off, it gives you a HUGE early game advantage. Here is what you'll need:
-Pick Ursa and Skeleton King quickly, you need to be on your way to Roshan as soon as the countdown clock starts
-Ursa should buy a shield, quelling blade, and a salve
-SK should buy two salves and a shield or ring of protection
-Ursa MUST level up Fury Swipes
-Skeleton King MUST level up Vampiric Aura
-Tell your teammates that you and SK are going to rosh and then bot together
Buy your items immediately and run straight to Roshan. Unlike jungle creeps, Roshan spawns with the map. You only need to be the two of you, but it's helpful for your teammates to come along, because a lot of people know about this trick and will check roshan if they see Ursa+SK on the opposite team. Lich is a great addition for you, with Frost Armor.
To beat Roshan with just the two of you, you need to understand Roshan's aggro AI. Roshan's targeting priorities go like this:
1. Whoever has red HP and is within range
2. Whoever I'm currently attacking
3. Whoever is closest
3. Whoever is attacking me
This is very important to understand, because the key to beating rosh with only two players is aggro management.
If you want Roshan to attack you, you need to use MOVE (M) and get right on top of him. THEN attack him. Just auto-attacking him will not guarantee that you will be his priority.
SK should be the first in to draw aggro. Ursa should be right behind him, starting to build up his Fury Swipes count. As soon as SK has lost 400hp, he backs off and eats a salve while Ursa continues to hit Roshan. Pretty soon, Ursa's own life will be down to very little (especially if you're unlucky with chain stuns). This is the trickiest part.
Ursa needs to back off and eat a salve. Skeleton King needs to immediately use Move to get on top of Roshan and force aggro. This way, Ursa can come back as soon as he has at least a third of his life back and continue to hit Roshan without worrying about losing his salve. The reason you have to do this is because Ursa needs to get at least one hit in every 6 seconds or he will lose all of his Fury Swipes count, and if this happens you should just give up and try Roshan again another day.
When Ursa is back to full health, SK may need to back off and eat another salve.
But if you manage to get to this point, you should be able to finish off Roshan before long.
Your reward is quite awesome.
If it was just the two of you, you will now both be level 3 and everyone on your team will be a little richer. Ursa should take the Aegis.
If you started Roshan immediately, you can finish him off right around the time the Game Start Horn blows.... which means you are starting the game 2 levels ahead of your laning opponents.
You and SK should stick together, probably bottom lane. SK should put two levels into his stun, and you should put one more level each into Overpower and Fury Swipes. From Roshan, unless you need to heal, both of you should come up on bottom lane from behind for a very easy first blood (SK stuns, you kill, then run to safety and spend some money).
The rest of the game is going to go pretty smoothly, assuming the opposing team doesn't ragequit after a few minutes.
The only real problem with this is if the enemy team knows about this Ursa+SK trick (and it's fairly well known), they will check roshan. If it's just the two of you, you will get counter-ganked pretty hard and the rest of the game is going to go quite differently. This is why it's generally recommended to do this with all 5 teammates. You will each be level 2 by the end of Roshan (instead of you and SK being 3 and everyone else 1), which is good for everyone on your team, and plus it will make Roshan a hell of a lot easier to finish off.
Ulfsaar the Ursa Warrior Author: wefrucar Map Vers.: 6.74
Noob's guide to owning with Ursa
Ursa for noobs
Date Posted: 11/29/11 Last Comment:19/01/2013 Total Votes: 38 Current Rating: 7.41 Views: 93644
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His Fury Swipes skill (passive) means that you do increasingly large amounts of damage the more times you've already hit an enemy in the past 6 seconds.
His Overpower skill makes him string 3-6 hits in rapid succession. As you can see, this works VERY well with Fury Swipes. The cooldown is low (10 seconds), and it should be spammed as much as possible.
His Enrage ultimate adds a hefty amount of damage to each of your attacks, based on your current HP. (It should make sense, then, that Ursa benefits from items that increase his strength/HP.) There is NO mana cost for this, and the cooldown is a reasonable 25 seconds, so don't be stingy using it!
Earthshock is the closest thing you have to a disable. When cast, you make all enemies who are near you slow down for a few seconds. This is vital for escaping (though doesn't help much against ranged heroes), and more importantly, for chasing heroes to finish them off. 
BKB is normally a must-have for Ursa, but it takes experience to use, since it can be overwhelming to have too many active abilities to think about during a big fight. Avatar is crucial to addressing Ursa's biggest weakness (ie, getting gangbanged like a bad porn). Get this if you feel you can handle another active ability during the flurry of a teamfight, otherwise you can get a lot more useful items for your money. 
Cranium Basher is a well-loved item for good reason: bash is frickin awesome. You have an 85% chance to bash at least once during a single overpower, which helps for ganking and makes you marginally more useful in team fights. However, I would much rather go for the more affordable Sange, because its +strength adds up to almost the same amount of +dmg, but with a tasty extra 190HP, and maim lasts much longer than bash, helping ensure heroes don't slip away. I would also take HH over AB for similar reasons. 
I've recently become a fan of this item on Ursa. It's very useful for ensuring that you can kill a hero with a single overpower. This is important when your team has too few stun/slowers and you need to secure kills quickly. 
Linken's Sphere is for those who don't want to have to worry about using BKB during a fight, but who still want some protection against spellcasters. Not much use in a big teamfight (except against massive disablers like Bane or Doom), but gives you an edge 1v1 against disablers who may otherwise beat you. Mana regen means you can spam Earthshock, too. Expensive, and bonuses not as beneficial as HoT, so rarely a priority item. 
Guinsoo is not an item you'll be getting most games, but hex is probably the best disable (from an item) in the game. There are not many heroes (at any level) who can survive a double-overpower while they're hexed. More mana regen than you could possibly want. Expensive, though, and you're already pretty damn good at ganking without it. 
Medallion of Courage is a nifty and cheap little item that will help towards your ganking if you're having money problems while building your core. -6 armor against a hero can translate to a surprisingly large amount of extra furry swipe damage over 12 attacks, especially in early game. (I like this item most games unless things are going great, either before or after finishing Phase Boots.) However, it does mean one more active-ability item to think about during ganks, and you got enough shit on your mind already. 
Janggo is another decent item when your midgame isn't being kind to you money-wise and it has a nice, slow buildup. Personally, though, I'd rather spend my limited money on a MoC, unless the enemy team is doing a real good job of traveling in packs. 
Late game? Not lasting long enough in melee fights? Want to be more useful in team fights? Get an Assault Cuirass. 
Aegis of Immortality. This is the whole reason for Roshan. If you die when you're carrying the Aegies, you will come back to life a few seconds later with full health and mana. This can be HUGE. 
Ulfsaar the Ursa Warrior
