Samuro, the last remaining blademaster to wear the banner of the Burning Blade, is on a warrior’s pilgrimage in search of vengeance and redemption for his fallen clan. One of everyones’ favorite heroes from Warcraft III has finally come to the Nexus and he is prepared to make everyone tasteuh-his-blade!

Samuro is an extremely complex hero and has a ton of nuances that make playing him never get boring. He has several builds and as of right now I have found four that are viable.

Build #1 Full Burst

The first build is a full burst build that is my favorite. The build goes like this:

Level 1- Way of the Blade

Level 4- Mirage

Level 7- Crushing Blows

Level 10- Bladestorm

Level 13- Mirrored Steel

Level 16- Harsh Winds

Level 20- Dance of Death

So what makes this build so strong and so fun to play? The sheer burst potential and the surprise factor. This build makes Samuro feel like the Zeratul of old. You stealth in, pop all of your cooldowns and blow someone up before they know what happened.

There is a specific combo when playing this build that requires some practice. The combo is Windwalk (E) towards your selected target, then prime a Critical Strike (W), hit the target with the crit to proc the Harsh Winds effect, then immediately press W again, but instead of hitting them with that crit, pop your Mirror Image so that they all get an instant Critical Strike. After that use Bladestorm, preferably with all of your Mirror Images still alive to get maximum burst from the ability. If you execute this combo and work to master it you will be blowing up heroes in no time.

Build #2 Mirror Image/Sustained DPS

This build is when the enemy team doesn’t have a ton of crowd control and you can basic attack freely. The build goes like this:

Level 1- Way of the Blade

Level 4- Mirage

Level 7- Phantom Pain

Level 10- Illusion Master

Level 13- Mirrored Steel

Level 16- Press the Attack

Level 20- Three Blade Style

The reason I take Way of the Blade at level one instead of Way of Illusion is because I tested it on the training dummy and you only lose about 20 DPS at level 20 and so the time spent questing isn’t worth the small increase in DPS. This build maximizes your damage per second and also gives you great escape and outplay potential, but where it really shines is in split pushing and against neutrals. The build allows you to clear structures and mercenaries quickly without taking much damage and also allows you to solo boss once you hit level 10 if you play it properly. The reason I don’t like this build as much as the first is because it is difficult to have high uptime on basic attacks because of how much CC is in the game right now. It is much easier to deal damage with the first build and the first build is much lower in difficulty once you master the combo.

Build #3 AOE/New Player

The third build is an AOE based build that is also much lower in difficulty. The talent choices look like this:

Level 1- Way of the Blade

Level 4- Mirage

Level 7- Burning Blade

Level 10- Bladestorm

Level 13- Shakuchi

Level 16 Press the Attack

Level 20- Blademaster’s Pursuit

The goal of this build is to maximize the AOE potential by basically just basic attacking and using good Bladestorms. This build is great for pushing, waveclear, and mercenaries because of Burning Blade. I recommend taking this ability until you get more accustomed to the feel of Samuro. All you do is try to have the best uptime possible with your basic attacks, make sure not to waste Bladestorm, and if you get caught in a bad position you can blink into stealth with Shakuchi Windwalk. It is a pretty safe build and it is easy, but effective.

Those are the builds that I found success with so far. I am truly enjoying this hero and cannot wait until he comes to the live servers. If you haven’t gotten the chance yet you should definitely go try him out on the PTR. He is one of those select few heroes that you can play over and over and learn something new and different every game. He also has a different playstyle with each individual talent choice. Samuro has no mandatory talents. Even though I take Way of the Blade and Mirage on every build, they can be swapped out if you want the extra chasing or escape potential from Way of the Wind or if you don’t feel that you need spell block. I just end up using those talents almost every game because Windwalk is a good enough escape untalented and the enemy team always has at least one spellcaster that I need Spell Block for. Those are my builds. If you have discovered any different ones that you like feel free to hit me with them. Thanks for reading, and as always have fun Storming the Nexus

-Caleb “PanDuhChuu” Jones

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