





Introduction: (Fuzzy Wuzzy!)



Spoiler: show



As a note on where this advice is coming from; I'm currently a 4300 rated solo ranked player that's been enjoying Dota for a little over a year now. At the time of writing I have 2,125 recorded games on DotaBuff though that doesn't count lobby or practices matches which I definitely have over 500 of. Out of those recorded, 555 of them have been



I started playing Ursa about six months into my love of Dota when my favorite character was Phantom Lancer. Two things happen that turned me onto him in particular. One I had been growing tired of the weak early game on PL. Always farming for the late game while alot of the time never having a chance to really come online before the match was over. Secondly I'd been coming across Ursa players who just wrecked the whole match themselves in true pubstomp fashion. The impact a proper Ursa has on a match was just mind blowing to me, it was far worse then an out of control Riki which at the time was a huge statement to make. This called to me as something I needed to learn how to do. I actually remember the day I first played Ursa because I was running into the Radiant side shop being fairly farmed only to have an Ursa blink ontop of me, instantly stun me via a basher proc, then murder me before I even regained control of my character. That was the last straw, my new found character of choice was born right there.



Hearing you guys talk about playing Ursa puts a smile across my face. I view Ursa as one of the easiest characters in Dota to play given he's primarily a right clicker. Where I think alot of people go wrong is managing an aggressive play style on him & staying in melee range given he's so easy to kite. He also has huge mana pool issues for most of the game specifically when he's most effective. (the early to mid sections of a match) Given my long term obsession with Ursa, I tend to forget what it's like for people to start out playing him. Gauging situations is much easier for me given I've seen most of them hundreds of times over and over, generally learning from misplays along the way. As you guys have asked me questions over the last year I've always thought about putting together a collection of the random bits of advice I've given here or there. Well today I present you all with the first version of it! In order to simplify this post & try to make it as helpful as possible I'm going to discuss some different builds, concepts, & points of interest placed into independent sections. (or chapters if it gets to long) Hopefully that will make this easier to write while I'm in painkiller land as well. For maximum education though I highly recommend reading the entire post. Sorry for taking so long to get back to everybody, had a few crazy days of oral surgery going on over here. I'll save you guys from some gruesome pics of the home work I did in between visits to the professionals though. (mmmm jaw bone) Anyways I'm coasting on some painkillers at the moment and will try to keep my thoughts structured. If this reads a bit odd well then, atleast you know why.As a note on where this advice is coming from; I'm currently a 4300 rated solo ranked player that's been enjoying Dota for a little over a year now. At the time of writing I have 2,125 recorded games on DotaBuff though that doesn't count lobby or practices matches which I definitely have over 500 of. Out of those recorded, 555 of them have been Ulfsaar the Ursa Warrior matches with 374 wins & 181 losses. That's a win rate of 67.39% averaging 12.46 kills per match. It's not amazing or anything but at the same time it's not terrible. I've played primarily Ursa from an original solo placement MMR of 3000ish to where I stand today or a positive gain of 1300 MMR. While a slightly dated screenshot from earlier this year, here's some of the results from my obsession with Ursa. I play Ursa in all lanes including the jungle from time to time & am extremely aggressive on him. Beyond what most players consider a comfortable playing style. What I mean by this is I'll make long range dives beyond towers, brazenly engage multiple targets solo, & try my best to invoke fear or a sense of dread in the opposing team. (rage quit to good)I started playing Ursa about six months into my love of Dota when my favorite character was Phantom Lancer. Two things happen that turned me onto him in particular. One I had been growing tired of the weak early game on PL. Always farming for the late game while alot of the time never having a chance to really come online before the match was over. Secondly I'd been coming across Ursa players who just wrecked the whole match themselves in true pubstomp fashion. The impact a proper Ursa has on a match was just mind blowing to me, it was far worse then an out of control Riki which at the time was a huge statement to make. This called to me as something I needed to learn how to do. I actually remember the day I first played Ursa because I was running into the Radiant side shop being fairly farmed only to have an Ursa blink ontop of me, instantly stun me via a basher proc, then murder me before I even regained control of my character. That was the last straw, my new found character of choice was born right there.Hearing you guys talk about playing Ursa puts a smile across my face. I view Ursa as one of the easiest characters in Dota to play given he's primarily a right clicker. Where I think alot of people go wrong is managing an aggressive play style on him & staying in melee range given he's so easy to kite. He also has huge mana pool issues for most of the game specifically when he's most effective. (the early to mid sections of a match) Given my long term obsession with Ursa, I tend to forget what it's like for people to start out playing him. Gauging situations is much easier for me given I've seen most of them hundreds of times over and over, generally learning from misplays along the way. As you guys have asked me questions over the last year I've always thought about putting together a collection of the random bits of advice I've given here or there. Well today I present you all with the first version of it! In order to simplify this post & try to make it as helpful as possible I'm going to discuss some different builds, concepts, & points of interest placed into independent sections. (or chapters if it gets to long) Hopefully that will make this easier to write while I'm in painkiller land as well. For maximum education though I highly recommend reading the entire post.





Roshan the Immortal : (The spirit of the first bear burns immortal in me!)



Spoiler: show



Ursa only requires basic lifesteal in order to solo Roshan thanks to the way his Fury Swipes skill works causing consecutive attacks to the same enemy to deal more damage. Thanks to the most recent patch allowing Ursa to utilize Unique Attack Modifiers you can literally get away with just a 900 gold Morbid Mask & a couple levels in Fury Swipes. Though the reason people generally don't kill him this early on is because Roshan can bash you leaving you stunned long enough that you'll die before you can get enough additional damage stacked on him allowing for you to life steal your way past these occasional bashes. Previously before this change to UAM's players had to complete a 2050 gold Vladmir's Offering to obtain the needed lifesteal in order to drop Roshan. By the time you had built one of these you were high enough level to effortlessly fight Roshan anyways so what level you were walking in wasn't really a problem that crossed your mind. Now a days I suggest people comfortably complete their item set to enter the Roaming / Ganking phase before Roshing which generally leaves them around Lv.6 or 7.



Doing Roshan is part of what playing Ursa is about, it's a core to his character design. Killing him earns 1789 experience which can give you two or even three levels at this early phase of the game. This gives you a nice jump on everybody else in the match allowing for the start of a snowball. Just having the additional points to invest in your skills makes a huge difference let alone the additional stats. He also gives 150-400 gold for the last hit that kills him then an additional 200 gold for every player on your team. This helps give a boost to farming your next item meanwhile helping everybody else in their lanes. This can be a game changer if they're having a rough time & is a god send to your supports. You literally just bought wards & dewards for your entire team by doing this. Think about it like this, not only is it free vision but you've just eliminated your enemies vision at the same time which makes the ganking phase you're now transitioning into even easier. (assuming your supports are smart enough to deward)



Then of course there's the Aegis, a free second life. This goes hand in hand with aggressive melee play as you can commit to fights normally impossible to pull off. Where anyone else in the game would be boned you can shine and with that catch most players completely off guard with your absurd aggression. It takes time and many many fights to learn just how far you can push this but don't feel bad about using it. It's there to allow for you to pull off epic feats that crush your enemies early to mid game. It's there for you to acceptably take an entire load of nukes as a team fight breaks out. Whatever they waste on your first life means it's not getting used on your team or your second coming. Better yet, it's free, it didn't cost you a damn thing but maybe a smoke. Killing Roshan is a fundamental key of Ursa play and it's the reason the opposing team will try so hard to stop you from doing it. Here's some basic tips for successful Roshing.



ALWAYS SMOKE INTO ROSHAN. You should purchase a



Always use Overpower when you're about half way to the pit. It won't break your Smoke but allows for the skill to cooldown while still keeping the active up. The effect lasts for 15 seconds while the skill takes 10 seconds to cooldown, this means you can run into the pit & attack Roshan at maximum attack speed, then immediately cast Overpower a second time for an additional burst at max attack speed. This allows for you to get a really nice stack of Fury Swipes on him right away meaning you're doing considerably more damage & stealing alot more life then if you'd just walked in and started right clicking him. This can literally save your life if you happen to get back to back bashes proc'd on you, it's truly not to be underrated in terms of effectiveness. As soon as you kill Roshan use the chat wheel function for displaying the current time (option 57) & get the hell out of the pit asap. An even better option would be to use my



It's important you use the chat wheel function or my timer script because this will allow for you to know when Roshan has respawned & you can go get your second Aegis as soon as possible. Roshan has a variable timer he comes back to life on. At minimum it can take eight minutes for him to come back while at max he can take up to eleven minutes. So look at your time that popped up in the chat window if you ever forget when you killed him and make sure you've smoked back into the pit on or before the eleven minute mark. The best situation is generally that you're just running in as he's spawned but that's considerably more difficult to do now that it's not on a static timer. Just make sure you don't let him sit there for the enemy to scout or even do themselves. Most people will not remember the time even if they mark it down so by staying ontop of it you can secure the 2nd & 3rd Roshan much easier.



Characters that are going to cause you alot of trouble include: Venomancer, Templar Assassin, Nature's Prophet, Broodmother, Lycan, Bloodseeker, Nyx Assassin, Riki, Bounty Hunter, Chen, Visage, & Beastmaster. Why? Depending on their skill with the characters; Veno will constantly spam his wards in the pit alerting them the second you run in & slowing you on the way out. Nature's Prophet will keep a Treant inside the pit. Broodmother will keep a Spiderling in there. Lycan not only keeps a Wolf in there that's invisible but also can solo Roshan so will contest you for the Aegis himself. Nyx, Riki, & BH are invisible & can be standing right next to you to steal the Aegis the second Rosh dies plus obviously telling their team to get in position to gank you the whole time you're fighting. Chen can also keep a jungle creep in the pit while Visage & Beastmaster can both keep a flying summonable creature right on the upper ridge of the pit. These both alert the enemy team and hell Visage can even stun you with one Familiar while denying the Aegis with the second if they time it well. Bloodseeker can see you if Rosh gets some lucky bashes in & drops your health to low before you get a decent Fury Swipe stack going. Templar Assassin one of the biggest Ursa killers during Roshan fights is because she's commonly mid so pretty close by & she has an invisible ward she can cast INSIDE THE ROSHAN PIT. Most players totally forget that just because they smoked undetected into the pit a TA is still staring at you during the whole fight.



It's because of these interactions that pulling off your Roshan kill can be more then a bit tricky. If you're facing these characters then it's best to ask your team to create space for you via starting a skirmish away from the pit. They don't even really need to dedicate themselves to an actual team fight, just showing up as three or four and looking like you're going for a group push will often draw the enemies attention away from you. Even if they just kill a creep wave or two then back off, if they can force TP reactions or even just cameras to move for a little bit then chances are you've got the time window you needed to accomplish the Roshan kill. This is yet another reason why we smoke at our T2 towers instead of in base. While we can actually run from the base to the pit smoked we need that extra amount of time in case it's questionable to go in or not. Sitting outside or even across the river while smoked for a few seconds while you check the minimap can be the difference between victory and failure.



As for Lv.1 Roshans these can be done very easily with Skeleton King (Wraith King) & Wisp (IO). Ursa will buy a Stout Shield (250g), two Healing Salves (230g), and a Smoke of Deceit (100g). SK will buy a Stout Shield (250g) or Wisp with buy a Ring of Protection (175), then both SK & Wisp will purchase three Healing Salves (345g). It's important to note that you can use many different item combinations to pull this off, these are just an easier way to achieve it. Anyways, as soon as you load in you both buy these items & start running towards the Roshan pit. At your T2 pop the Smoke on both of you & rush into the Pit. There's a good chance they're going to check on this happening so if you come across anyone bail immediately. Ursa will always put his level 1 skill into Fury Swipes. If you went Skeleton King then they'll get Vampiric Aura, if you went Wisp then they'll get Tether. They key here is trading Roshan aggression and you should practice this before attempting it. First have Ursa start the fight, when he gets to half health swap the aggression to the other character while Ursa Salves back to full health. When Wisp or SK is half health swap it back to Ursa but do not wait for more then six seconds or you'll lose your Fury Swipe stacks. If you have SK then you'll just keep doing this until Ursa has so many swipes stacked that the life steal is enough to sustain the entire fight alone. This should take about three swaps of aggression back and forth. If you went with Wisp then as you swap the aggression back to Ursa once again you wait a hit or two then cast tether & salve both of you back to full health. Make sure to cross the Tether beam through Rosh with each cast as it slows him greatly. Wait for half health to hit on Ursa one more time then swap back to Wisp. Repeat this situation one more time and he'll die with ease.



Here we have a lv.1 before the creeps even hit the lane Roshan completed. You'll both be Lv.3, almost lv.4, & have enough gold to grab boots after the first wave. The 200g boost to your teammates is like everybody randomed their characters allowing for an early game advantage and the whole situation overall is like a swift kick in the dick to the other team. Nothing is as demoralizing like a Lv.1 Roshan that gets smoothly pulled off. Have fun laning against two Lv.4's when you're half way through lv.1. Most the time people know Ursa for being able to solo Roshan rather early on in the game. Back when I first started playing him a six minute Roshan kill was considered a great play. Then as the game has changed over the last year you can comfortably consider a ten minute Roshan to be pretty decent. There are plenty of ways of doing it before the match even official starts or rushing it at 3-4 mins in though as far as game impact goes there's nothing to be ashamed about downing him around ten minutes. The vast majority of my Rosh Kills are around nine to eleven minutes into the match. Don't listen to your team if they give you any crap about your Roshan timing! There's many factors that go into when it's a good time to pull off & most of them are lost on people who don't play him. While we want to get him done before the roaming / ganking phase begins you also don't want to die attempting it or even worse almost get him down only to have the enemy team swoop in not only killing you but stealing the Rosh & the Aegis.Ursa only requires basic lifesteal in order to solo Roshan thanks to the way his Fury Swipes skill works causing consecutive attacks to the same enemy to deal more damage. Thanks to the most recent patch allowing Ursa to utilize Unique Attack Modifiers you can literally get away with just a 900 gold Morbid Mask & a couple levels in Fury Swipes. Though the reason people generally don't kill him this early on is because Roshan can bash you leaving you stunned long enough that you'll die before you can get enough additional damage stacked on him allowing for you to life steal your way past these occasional bashes. Previously before this change to UAM's players had to complete a 2050 gold Vladmir's Offering to obtain the needed lifesteal in order to drop Roshan. By the time you had built one of these you were high enough level to effortlessly fight Roshan anyways so what level you were walking in wasn't really a problem that crossed your mind. Now a days I suggest people comfortably complete their item set to enter the Roaming / Ganking phase before Roshing which generally leaves them around Lv.6 or 7.Doing Roshan is part of what playing Ursa is about, it's a core to his character design. Killing him earns 1789 experience which can give you two or even three levels at this early phase of the game. This gives you a nice jump on everybody else in the match allowing for the start of a snowball. Just having the additional points to invest in your skills makes a huge difference let alone the additional stats. He also gives 150-400 gold for the last hit that kills him then an additional 200 gold for every player on your team. This helps give a boost to farming your next item meanwhile helping everybody else in their lanes. This can be a game changer if they're having a rough time & is a god send to your supports. You literally just bought wards & dewards for your entire team by doing this. Think about it like this, not only is it free vision but you've just eliminated your enemies vision at the same time which makes the ganking phase you're now transitioning into even easier. (assuming your supports are smart enough to deward)Then of course there's the Aegis, a free second life. This goes hand in hand with aggressive melee play as you can commit to fights normally impossible to pull off. Where anyone else in the game would be boned you can shine and with that catch most players completely off guard with your absurd aggression. It takes time and many many fights to learn just how far you can push this but don't feel bad about using it. It's there to allow for you to pull off epic feats that crush your enemies early to mid game. It's there for you to acceptably take an entire load of nukes as a team fight breaks out. Whatever they waste on your first life means it's not getting used on your team or your second coming. Better yet, it's free, it didn't cost you a damn thing but maybe a smoke. Killing Roshan is a fundamental key of Ursa play and it's the reason the opposing team will try so hard to stop you from doing it. Here's some basic tips for successful Roshing.ALWAYS SMOKE INTO ROSHAN. You should purchase a Smoke of Deceit & use it around your T2 towers before going into the Roshan Pit. They cost 100 gold & not only grant you invisibility but also give you a bonus to movement speed. Your minimap icon will be hidden & you'll stay invisible for 35 seconds or until moving within 1025 range of an enemy hero/tower. (or obviously attacking Roshan) This does a couple of things, one it lets you avoid wards & detection as even True Sight does not reveal units under the effect of Smoke of Deceit. Two it lets you know if you've been spotted while making your run to the pit. Did you character suddenly reveal & start moving slower? TURN AROUND AND DO NOT GO INTO THE ROSH PIT. The very last thing you want is the enemy team knowing you're inside the pit attempting to kill for lack of a better term a boss by yourself.Always use Overpower when you're about half way to the pit. It won't break your Smoke but allows for the skill to cooldown while still keeping the active up. The effect lasts for 15 seconds while the skill takes 10 seconds to cooldown, this means you can run into the pit & attack Roshan at maximum attack speed, then immediately cast Overpower a second time for an additional burst at max attack speed. This allows for you to get a really nice stack of Fury Swipes on him right away meaning you're doing considerably more damage & stealing alot more life then if you'd just walked in and started right clicking him. This can literally save your life if you happen to get back to back bashes proc'd on you, it's truly not to be underrated in terms of effectiveness. As soon as you kill Roshan use the chat wheel function for displaying the current time (option 57) & get the hell out of the pit asap. An even better option would be to use my custom Roshan & Aegis timer script to help remind you later on that your Aegis is about to expire, when Roshan can spawn, & when he's definitely spawned. Regardless after getting a time stamp on the kill juke through your jungle instead of lingering around because chances are the enemy team is coming to try & catch you on your way out.It's important you use the chat wheel function or my timer script because this will allow for you to know when Roshan has respawned & you can go get your second Aegis as soon as possible. Roshan has a variable timer he comes back to life on. At minimum it can take eight minutes for him to come back while at max he can take up to eleven minutes. So look at your time that popped up in the chat window if you ever forget when you killed him and make sure you've smoked back into the pit on or before the eleven minute mark. The best situation is generally that you're just running in as he's spawned but that's considerably more difficult to do now that it's not on a static timer. Just make sure you don't let him sit there for the enemy to scout or even do themselves. Most people will not remember the time even if they mark it down so by staying ontop of it you can secure the 2nd & 3rd Roshan much easier.Characters that are going to cause you alot of trouble include: Venomancer, Templar Assassin, Nature's Prophet, Broodmother, Lycan, Bloodseeker, Nyx Assassin, Riki, Bounty Hunter, Chen, Visage, & Beastmaster. Why? Depending on their skill with the characters; Veno will constantly spam his wards in the pit alerting them the second you run in & slowing you on the way out. Nature's Prophet will keep a Treant inside the pit. Broodmother will keep a Spiderling in there. Lycan not only keeps a Wolf in there that's invisible but also can solo Roshan so will contest you for the Aegis himself. Nyx, Riki, & BH are invisible & can be standing right next to you to steal the Aegis the second Rosh dies plus obviously telling their team to get in position to gank you the whole time you're fighting. Chen can also keep a jungle creep in the pit while Visage & Beastmaster can both keep a flying summonable creature right on the upper ridge of the pit. These both alert the enemy team and hell Visage can even stun you with one Familiar while denying the Aegis with the second if they time it well. Bloodseeker can see you if Rosh gets some lucky bashes in & drops your health to low before you get a decent Fury Swipe stack going. Templar Assassin one of the biggest Ursa killers during Roshan fights is because she's commonly mid so pretty close by & she has an invisible ward she can cast INSIDE THE ROSHAN PIT. Most players totally forget that just because they smoked undetected into the pit a TA is still staring at you during the whole fight.It's because of these interactions that pulling off your Roshan kill can be more then a bit tricky. If you're facing these characters then it's best to ask your team to create space for you via starting a skirmish away from the pit. They don't even really need to dedicate themselves to an actual team fight, just showing up as three or four and looking like you're going for a group push will often draw the enemies attention away from you. Even if they just kill a creep wave or two then back off, if they can force TP reactions or even just cameras to move for a little bit then chances are you've got the time window you needed to accomplish the Roshan kill. This is yet another reason why we smoke at our T2 towers instead of in base. While we can actually run from the base to the pit smoked we need that extra amount of time in case it's questionable to go in or not. Sitting outside or even across the river while smoked for a few seconds while you check the minimap can be the difference between victory and failure.As for Lv.1 Roshans these can be done very easily with Skeleton King (Wraith King) & Wisp (IO). Ursa will buy a Stout Shield (250g), two Healing Salves (230g), and a Smoke of Deceit (100g). SK will buy a Stout Shield (250g) or Wisp with buy a Ring of Protection (175), then both SK & Wisp will purchase three Healing Salves (345g). It's important to note that you can use many different item combinations to pull this off, these are just an easier way to achieve it. Anyways, as soon as you load in you both buy these items & start running towards the Roshan pit. At your T2 pop the Smoke on both of you & rush into the Pit. There's a good chance they're going to check on this happening so if you come across anyone bail immediately. Ursa will always put his level 1 skill into Fury Swipes. If you went Skeleton King then they'll get Vampiric Aura, if you went Wisp then they'll get Tether. They key here is trading Roshan aggression and you should practice this before attempting it. First have Ursa start the fight, when he gets to half health swap the aggression to the other character while Ursa Salves back to full health. When Wisp or SK is half health swap it back to Ursa but do not wait for more then six seconds or you'll lose your Fury Swipe stacks. If you have SK then you'll just keep doing this until Ursa has so many swipes stacked that the life steal is enough to sustain the entire fight alone. This should take about three swaps of aggression back and forth. If you went with Wisp then as you swap the aggression back to Ursa once again you wait a hit or two then cast tether & salve both of you back to full health. Make sure to cross the Tether beam through Rosh with each cast as it slows him greatly. Wait for half health to hit on Ursa one more time then swap back to Wisp. Repeat this situation one more time and he'll die with ease.Here we have a lv.1 before the creeps even hit the lane Roshan completed. You'll both be Lv.3, almost lv.4, & have enough gold to grab boots after the first wave. The 200g boost to your teammates is like everybody randomed their characters allowing for an early game advantage and the whole situation overall is like a swift kick in the dick to the other team. Nothing is as demoralizing like a Lv.1 Roshan that gets smoothly pulled off. Have fun laning against two Lv.4's when you're half way through lv.1.





Understanding Lane Ursa : (Hah-hah! My claws are red with the gore of first blood!)



Spoiler: show



The skill build I recommend using in lane is 2-0-3-1. Start with your first level in Fury Swipes unless you plan on going for a level one gank at which you'll level Earthshock instead. You can actually not put any points into a skill until the critical moment this needs to be decided which is generally a wise idea to practice. At level 2 you'll grab a point in Earthshock, then back to Fury Swipes (@lvl3), back to Earthshock (@lvl4), once again to Fury Swipes (@lvl5), then at six drop one into your ultimate Enrage. So if you're using the default keys that's: E, Q, E, Q, E, R. Why do we go with this build? Because you are a terror to deal with in lane pretty much the entire time! If anyone even steps close to you boom drop the Earthshock & right click them. If you've got a lane partner with a stun it's a kill unless they have a counter stun. Earthshock's four second slow is to much to deal with at the start of the game, if you can body block them at the same time it's often a kill regardless of a follow up stun. Just chase them down & keep getting Fury Swipe stacks on them. If they get away it's atleast a Healing Salve for them to get close to you again, if they don't have one it's Tangos and sitting really far back away from the wave. Most smart players will not get close to you after a single occurrence of this allowing for you to free farm. Anyone else if they're not burning all their cash / mana on regen just rinse and repeat for easy early game kills. This works great in mid as well!



Ranged characters make this more difficult to pull off but basically as soon as they go for a last hit just run in and Earthshock them. You do not have the mana pool to spam this so make sure you're applying alot of pressure when you do cast it. Ursa starts with 208 mana & only gains 19.5 mana per level afterwards. His lv.1 base regen is a terrible 0.64 so with that in mind you only really get three Earthshock drops before you're completely dry. If you count the early levels then you could possibly say four casts. This should be more then enough to land one or two if not three kills at which you can more then afford to fly out some Clarity (50g) potions. Or better yet, your lane support will have a couple waiting on hand for you. (ah quality supports, a rare feat in most mmr brackets) Once you hit level six grab your ult and make sure you cast it immediately after your lane partner stuns or you drop an Earthshock. Enrage has no mana cost & a 25 second cool down, with continually use it can literally scare your opponent off the wave by itself. If they're playing passively & not getting close to you feel free to use it for last hitting. This gets even better if they get use to you burning it so much that they become foolish forgetting how much it actually hurts in the early game. As soon as they step within Earthshock range (385 radius) while you already have it cast they're pretty much dead. This really is Dota at it's simplest; Press Q & Right Click. TA'DA kills!



Item progression wise I'd recommend after the opening purchases in your fountain to buy basic Boots Of Speed (450g) first. The extra +50 movement speed really helps with the whole Earthshock into Right Click combo not to mention getting out of trouble. After brown boots is a pretty cheap pickup that most people unfortunately skip even though it really makes a considerable difference in the amount of pressure you can apply. Grab an Orb of Venom (275g) from the side shop for it's 12% movement speed reduction on hit. Don't worry yes



Now here's where some differences come into place after building Phase Boots. If you've absolutely crushed your lane getting uncontested free farm or a handful of kills most people will rush a Blink Dagger. This is because Blink Ursa is a down right nightmare & almost impossible to deal with. The earlier in the game you achieve this the harder it is for them to deal with. Simply Enrage then Blink BEHIND the enemy, Right Click them, drop Earthshock, Right Click them, use your Phase Boots, and continue right clicking them. So that would be something like; Enrage (R), Blink (2), Right click, Earthshock (Q), Right Click, Phase (1), Right Click. After this it's probably going to be free farm while avoiding 2-3 man ganks because you will be getting some attention by now for sure. At this point just go ahead and get yourself a Morbid Mask (900g) and finish up whatever you like for your completed life steal item.



If you didn't absolutely crush your lane & the other side had some brains or mid made it their sole objective to screw with you then start building your life steal item instead of rushing a Blink Dagger. It doesn't really matter what your choice is & it honestly largely depends on your playing style. Start with a Morbid Mask & then build; Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, or a Mask of Madness. In either situation once you've finished up your life steal item it's time to head to Roshan. This should generally be around ten minutes in depending on your success in lane & depending on how you're going to get away from the lane without them noticing. This actually takes some timing because as soon as you leave lane they'll know something is up. It's important to setup a situation for when you can safely disappear into the jungle. The best would be killing them while pushing the wave into the tower though equally as good is harassing them out of regen and sending them back to their base. Another handy situation is having team mates rotate into your lane so they're all sorts of out of comfort by there being more then just you to focus on. Occasionally if I dodge a gank or attempt a pickoff myself & look injured then I'll TP out or run away even if I have regen on hand. This gives them some reason for thinking you left the lane other then going to Roshan. Another great situation is if they TP out of your lane to help another lane, that's a fantastic time to capitalize on their attention being focused elsewhere. Get yourself a smoke flown out via the courier or if you're low on mana return to base & grab one while you're there.



After that just follow my section above on Roshan for success. Now I already know what you're going to say! "But Gobby, earlier in the Rosh section you said to double Overpower Roshan and here we don't even have a single point in it!!" I understand your concerns but the skill build I gave you earlier for laning only went up to Level 6 which you're going to get ridiculously fast if you pulled this off correctly. After level six you'll need to drop a final point in Level 4 Fury Swipes, then the next three levels (8, 9, & 10) you'll put points into Overpower. Pickup your Lv.2 Ultimate at Level 11 then finish off Overpower at Level 12. From here on out just put points into Earth Shock at Lv's 13 & 14, Stats at 15, Max Level Ult at 16, & Stats from there on out. If you crushed your lane or even did decent you're going to be well beyond lv.6 by the time you're heading out to Rosh so follow the double Overpower as recommended before. As soon as you come out of Roshan your laning phase is over & you're now in full Roam / Gank mode. The only reason you're going to dip back into your lane is to gank them or take a tower if you didn't already.



Finally here's a couple tips for last hitting with Ursa in lane. Put a single stack of Fury Swipes on all the creeps in the wave. This helps soooo much for securing the last hit & really gives you alot of wiggle room if they're trying to deny you. If you're managing the wave's health & waiting for them to get low enough to secure the last hit then you can always double your Fury Swipe stack across the wave. By slowly distributing stacks you'll far exceed the additional range a Quelling Blade would have given you & make it extremely hard for the opposing side to deny you given the increasing damage you do. Keep in mind that a Fury Swipe stack lasts for 15 seconds on everything but Roshan. That's plenty of time to slowly & carefully manage a wave. I also like playing on the back side of a wave which is very aggressive. By standing slightly behind it you ensure that anyone coming to last hit faces the possibility of getting Earthshocked or even harassed with friendly right clicks. 15 seconds is a long time for most people to wait when they're watching farm disappear, sometimes you'll literally be able to stack 2-3-4 different Fury Swipes on people who are to impatient to wait for it to dissipate. This is kinda like using Bat Rider's Sticky Napalm, once somebody has foolishly let you get a couple stacks built up it's time to go for the kill. You can also use Earthshock to clear an entire wave if you've slowly worked them down via distributing your Fury Swipes but I can't recommend wasting your precious early game mana on this unless your lane support has ample Clarity Potions, Arcane Boots, or your team happens to have a Crystal Maiden with maxed Arcane Aura. Laning with the bear is pretty straight forward and can be a nightmare for the enemy to deal with. Lane Ursa is much more profitable then Jungle Ursa as long as you don't get paired against say double ranged, double stuns, or a trilane. The downside is they'll obviously know when you've left to go do Roshan so it's harder to get away with. Though the gold difference can very well make a delayed Roshan absolutely worth it. To start I recommend buying a Stout Shield (250g), a stack of Tangos (125g), and two Healing Salves (230g). This allows you to be very aggressive in lane and continually heal up after taking harassment, surviving a gank attempt, or even after making a dedicated dive of your own. Not coming to lane with this much regen is a costly mistake because Lane Ursa is all about dominance. You will hit harder then anyone else after your first stack of Fury Swipes is applied so there's no reason not to take advantage of it. You don't need double Stout Shields here because the Salves are much more important for staying active and in lane after shit hits the fan. The Tangos & Stout Shield are for common regen & damage reduction from general harassment or trading right clicks (which nobody should be foolish enough to do).The skill build I recommend using in lane is 2-0-3-1. Start with your first level in Fury Swipes unless you plan on going for a level one gank at which you'll level Earthshock instead. You can actually not put any points into a skill until the critical moment this needs to be decided which is generally a wise idea to practice. At level 2 you'll grab a point in Earthshock, then back to Fury Swipes (@lvl3), back to Earthshock (@lvl4), once again to Fury Swipes (@lvl5), then at six drop one into your ultimate Enrage. So if you're using the default keys that's: E, Q, E, Q, E, R. Why do we go with this build? Because you are a terror to deal with in lane pretty much the entire time! If anyone even steps close to you boom drop the Earthshock & right click them. If you've got a lane partner with a stun it's a kill unless they have a counter stun. Earthshock's four second slow is to much to deal with at the start of the game, if you can body block them at the same time it's often a kill regardless of a follow up stun. Just chase them down & keep getting Fury Swipe stacks on them. If they get away it's atleast a Healing Salve for them to get close to you again, if they don't have one it's Tangos and sitting really far back away from the wave. Most smart players will not get close to you after a single occurrence of this allowing for you to free farm. Anyone else if they're not burning all their cash / mana on regen just rinse and repeat for easy early game kills. This works great in mid as well!Ranged characters make this more difficult to pull off but basically as soon as they go for a last hit just run in and Earthshock them. You do not have the mana pool to spam this so make sure you're applying alot of pressure when you do cast it. Ursa starts with 208 mana & only gains 19.5 mana per level afterwards. His lv.1 base regen is a terrible 0.64 so with that in mind you only really get three Earthshock drops before you're completely dry. If you count the early levels then you could possibly say four casts. This should be more then enough to land one or two if not three kills at which you can more then afford to fly out some Clarity (50g) potions. Or better yet, your lane support will have a couple waiting on hand for you. (ah quality supports, a rare feat in most mmr brackets) Once you hit level six grab your ult and make sure you cast it immediately after your lane partner stuns or you drop an Earthshock. Enrage has no mana cost & a 25 second cool down, with continually use it can literally scare your opponent off the wave by itself. If they're playing passively & not getting close to you feel free to use it for last hitting. This gets even better if they get use to you burning it so much that they become foolish forgetting how much it actually hurts in the early game. As soon as they step within Earthshock range (385 radius) while you already have it cast they're pretty much dead. This really is Dota at it's simplest; Press Q & Right Click. TA'DA kills!Item progression wise I'd recommend after the opening purchases in your fountain to buy basic Boots Of Speed (450g) first. The extra +50 movement speed really helps with the whole Earthshock into Right Click combo not to mention getting out of trouble. After brown boots is a pretty cheap pickup that most people unfortunately skip even though it really makes a considerable difference in the amount of pressure you can apply. Grab an Orb of Venom (275g) from the side shop for it's 12% movement speed reduction on hit. Don't worry yes it stacks with Unique Lifesteal Attack Modifiers . After hitting them with this you'll move fast enough you can generally body block without to much difficulty. Even if you're new to the game and find proper positioning difficult just run at them hitting them & you'll probably find success in your bracket as people freak out from the insane damage they're taking. After your Orb of Venom it's important you move directly into Phase Boots. This pretty much puts the icing on the cake for lane kills & there for lane dominance. The active on phased boots gives you 16% increased movement speed and lets you move through units. Though the Phase is cancelled upon using another item or ability so it's important to Earthshock THEN Phase. This means you won't get stuck in the creep wave when chasing them & no matter if they bought boots or not you're going to be faster then them. So now your combo is Earthshock (Q), Enrage (R)(if lv.6), Right Click, Phase (1), Right Click. (or whatever button you assigned your phase boots use to) Stupid simple, ridiculously effective.Now here's where some differences come into place after building Phase Boots. If you've absolutely crushed your lane getting uncontested free farm or a handful of kills most people will rush a Blink Dagger. This is because Blink Ursa is a down right nightmare & almost impossible to deal with. The earlier in the game you achieve this the harder it is for them to deal with. Simply Enrage then Blink BEHIND the enemy, Right Click them, drop Earthshock, Right Click them, use your Phase Boots, and continue right clicking them. So that would be something like; Enrage (R), Blink (2), Right click, Earthshock (Q), Right Click, Phase (1), Right Click. After this it's probably going to be free farm while avoiding 2-3 man ganks because you will be getting some attention by now for sure. At this point just go ahead and get yourself a Morbid Mask (900g) and finish up whatever you like for your completed life steal item.If you didn't absolutely crush your lane & the other side had some brains or mid made it their sole objective to screw with you then start building your life steal item instead of rushing a Blink Dagger. It doesn't really matter what your choice is & it honestly largely depends on your playing style. Start with a Morbid Mask & then build; Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, or a Mask of Madness. In either situation once you've finished up your life steal item it's time to head to Roshan. This should generally be around ten minutes in depending on your success in lane & depending on how you're going to get away from the lane without them noticing. This actually takes some timing because as soon as you leave lane they'll know something is up. It's important to setup a situation for when you can safely disappear into the jungle. The best would be killing them while pushing the wave into the tower though equally as good is harassing them out of regen and sending them back to their base. Another handy situation is having team mates rotate into your lane so they're all sorts of out of comfort by there being more then just you to focus on. Occasionally if I dodge a gank or attempt a pickoff myself & look injured then I'll TP out or run away even if I have regen on hand. This gives them some reason for thinking you left the lane other then going to Roshan. Another great situation is if they TP out of your lane to help another lane, that's a fantastic time to capitalize on their attention being focused elsewhere. Get yourself a smoke flown out via the courier or if you're low on mana return to base & grab one while you're there.After that just follow my section above on Roshan for success. Now I already know what you're going to say!I understand your concerns but the skill build I gave you earlier for laning only went up to Level 6 which you're going to get ridiculously fast if you pulled this off correctly. After level six you'll need to drop a final point in Level 4 Fury Swipes, then the next three levels (8, 9, & 10) you'll put points into Overpower. Pickup your Lv.2 Ultimate at Level 11 then finish off Overpower at Level 12. From here on out just put points into Earth Shock at Lv's 13 & 14, Stats at 15, Max Level Ult at 16, & Stats from there on out. If you crushed your lane or even did decent you're going to be well beyond lv.6 by the time you're heading out to Rosh so follow the double Overpower as recommended before. As soon as you come out of Roshan your laning phase is over & you're now in full Roam / Gank mode. The only reason you're going to dip back into your lane is to gank them or take a tower if you didn't already.Finally here's a couple tips for last hitting with Ursa in lane. Put a single stack of Fury Swipes on all the creeps in the wave. This helps soooo much for securing the last hit & really gives you alot of wiggle room if they're trying to deny you. If you're managing the wave's health & waiting for them to get low enough to secure the last hit then you can always double your Fury Swipe stack across the wave. By slowly distributing stacks you'll far exceed the additional range a Quelling Blade would have given you & make it extremely hard for the opposing side to deny you given the increasing damage you do. Keep in mind that a Fury Swipe stack lasts for 15 seconds on everything but Roshan. That's plenty of time to slowly & carefully manage a wave. I also like playing on the back side of a wave which is very aggressive. By standing slightly behind it you ensure that anyone coming to last hit faces the possibility of getting Earthshocked or even harassed with friendly right clicks. 15 seconds is a long time for most people to wait when they're watching farm disappear, sometimes you'll literally be able to stack 2-3-4 different Fury Swipes on people who are to impatient to wait for it to dissipate. This is kinda like using Bat Rider's Sticky Napalm, once somebody has foolishly let you get a couple stacks built up it's time to go for the kill. You can also use Earthshock to clear an entire wave if you've slowly worked them down via distributing your Fury Swipes but I can't recommend wasting your precious early game mana on this unless your lane support has ample Clarity Potions, Arcane Boots, or your team happens to have a Crystal Maiden with maxed Arcane Aura.





Understanding Mid Ursa : (I go now to the river, to wash your blood from my claws)



Spoiler: show



Getting to Roshan takes a back seat over just wrecking the other lanes as it's incredibly hard to sneak away from mid to Rosh in the first ten minutes. It's much easier to gank lanes and wait until their mid has left to counter gank or has already died, that's when you want to smoke into Roshan. The difference is not just the solo experience you're earning mid but the responsibility a mid player has to gank his other lanes. When you're in the jungle, top, or bot lane that means your team already has a mid who is creating havoc. If you're mid that falls on your shoulders & you can't really force a typical Rosh timing. It's going to be a very organic situation that will appear & you'll know when the timing is right. Most the time it's something like "go gank bot lane, their mid goes to gank top lane, you murder bot lane so smoke into Rosh on the way back because you can see their mid is still top" this generally works out because their bot lane will have to return to save their tower from getting knocked over instead of checking on you in the Rosh pit. Hell they're just glad you're gone at that point. Given everybody's hands are tied up this leaves you in the clear.



There's a few situations when you're going to want a Magic Wand (500g) as well. Mainly if you find yourself fighting a Bristleback or say something like a Bat Rider. In these rare cases go ahead and grab it after your Orb Of Venom if you're having issues. Chances are you're going to have a more legitimate mid then Ursa but for the times when you do end up going mid it's a load of fun. Specifically say against a Bloodseeker or somebody who thinks they can bully the lane constantly. Bloodseeker verse Ursa mid is a roflstomp of a good time, he's basically screwed from the start as there's no way he's out bullying Ulfsaar. I like to throw this play into the works when we have an Invoker on our team who gets counter picked by a Pubseeker, he thinks it's an easy game then wham gets wrecked. Basically to play Ursa mid follow the Lane Ursa section above with just a couple differences. First off, I don't even buy a stack of Tangos just Stout Shield (250g) & two Healings Salves (230g). I save the 125g from the Tangos to get a Bottle (650g) slightly quicker. You defiantly want a Bottle on Ursa mid not just for Rune Control but for all the mana you're going to be burning through from Earthshocks. Ursa is A FANTASTIC MID when it comes to ganking the lanes. Double Damage, Invisibility, or Haste Runes are all pretty much guaranteed kills. Another change in item progression is to always go Start Items -> Bottle -> Brown Boots -> Orb Of Venom -> Phase -> Blink -> Lifesteal. I know I said "only if you're crushing your lane" in the laning section above for this item build but you're in mid now & that early Blink Dagger is mandatory.Getting to Roshan takes a back seat over just wrecking the other lanes as it's incredibly hard to sneak away from mid to Rosh in the first ten minutes. It's much easier to gank lanes and wait until their mid has left to counter gank or has already died, that's when you want to smoke into Roshan. The difference is not just the solo experience you're earning mid but the responsibility a mid player has to gank his other lanes. When you're in the jungle, top, or bot lane that means your team already has a mid who is creating havoc. If you're mid that falls on your shoulders & you can't really force a typical Rosh timing. It's going to be a very organic situation that will appear & you'll know when the timing is right. Most the time it's something like "go gank bot lane, their mid goes to gank top lane, you murder bot lane so smoke into Rosh on the way back because you can see their mid is still top" this generally works out because their bot lane will have to return to save their tower from getting knocked over instead of checking on you in the Rosh pit. Hell they're just glad you're gone at that point. Given everybody's hands are tied up this leaves you in the clear.There's a few situations when you're going to want a Magic Wand (500g) as well. Mainly if you find yourself fighting a Bristleback or say something like a Bat Rider. In these rare cases go ahead and grab it after your Orb Of Venom if you're having issues. Chances are you're going to have a more legitimate mid then Ursa but for the times when you do end up going mid it's a load of fun. Specifically say against a Bloodseeker or somebody who thinks they can bully the lane constantly. Bloodseeker verse Ursa mid is a roflstomp of a good time, he's basically screwed from the start as there's no way he's out bullying Ulfsaar. I like to throw this play into the works when we have an Invoker on our team who gets counter picked by a Pubseeker, he thinks it's an easy game then wham gets wrecked.





Understanding Jungle Ursa : (Come not near the darkwoods where my kindred sleep)



Spoiler: show



Previously I'd written alot about how I'd spent roughly eight hours in unfair practice matches playing just the first ten (till roshan) over and over with every possible variable I could come up with. I left the bots on for the occasional time they ran through the forest trying to gank me as the jungler. (they do that once in a blue moon) I also left it on random team selection until I isolated something that I felt was of value. Then I'd try it 2-3x on both side so see if it was just a fluke or something that actually saved time. Given it takes a minute to load in & lets just say another minute of dicking around inbetween runs that's; 8x60=480minutes/12= 40 trial runs.



From six GGbranches to Bottle to mass Regen to stacking armor, basically I spent that 625 starting gold in every possible manner. Even those I didn't think would help at all, I tried them. (like three slippers of agility & three branches) There was quite a few odd builds that would get me to rosh a couple minutes earlier, say eight instead of ten. Which is an amazing 20% increase in speed but after an exhausting amount of testing I find that the random variable in the



The fastest, most secure, repeatable method to early game ganking (both surviving & doing) plus a proper well prepared ten minute Roshan is; double Stout Shields (500g) & a stack of Tangos (125g) at the start leaving you with zero in unspent gold. Now one might ask, why is this better then say a Stout Shield, Quelling Blade, & Tango combo? Simply put the additional damage gained by the Quelling Blade is made up for in a single hit by Ursa given the nature of his Fury Swipes. There is no amount of damage it's going to add that makes it worth the 225 gold when compared per second to camps cleared. Example? The very first camp will be cleared two-three seconds earlier with it, but you still have to run out of block range & wait for it to respawn. So does sitting behind a tree for an extra three seconds earn you anything more? No it doesn't, furthermore the camps after the first three is more about a smooth paced continually farming. Speed dropping them often means you're left running off to some farther distanced camp for more to kill while sacrificing your long(er) term survivability, not to mention missing the other camps when they're respawning on your run back.



Now as for explaining the double stouts. A stout shield offers 60% chance to block 20 damage, that's not a percentage of damage, that's a direct 20. Now since most small and medium camp creeps barely do 20 damage as it is that means you're basically taking next to none or straight up no damage when it procs. Here's where we get into that math though. (oh boi, here we go) Dota uses



Given a stout shield costs 250 gold then doubled to 500 means you could go through 16 individual tangos for the same price, or 1840 damage. This roughly works out to 118 attacks you can take before you've saved more health then tangos would have provided. Now depending on camp for sure & I'm not doing the math on all the camps, I get hit roughly 20-25 times per camp, per clearing, at early levels. This means it only takes five'ish camps or say two-three minutes of jungling to become profitable. Why not rush say a Ring Of Protection in the beginning? Well with the additional two armor you gain you're only reducing physical damage by 10.7%. Which is why a stout shield goes so much farther then armor stacking at the beginning, as 10% of 20 damage means you only saved a whopping two health.



I know it's been argued plenty of times that you don't really need the double stout anymore with the change to the Unique Attack Modifiers being accessible by Ursa now. Though the reason I've still been getting it is because when you add in your first item after the horn (a Morbid Mask) it allows you to stay completely topped off on health instead of having a variable amount around half depending on your camp spawns. Being at 100% health all the time allows you to deal with four situations 1.) stacked camps 2.) rough camp rotations 3.) ancients & 4.) ganks. The problem with the single stout + morbid mask is you just can't handle any of those problems. If your supports stack the hard camp then the lower block percentage wears you down to quickly to stay safe, same with ancients. Or say they come into your jungle looking for a gank on you or even if your team asks you to gank the lane then you're normally not in a place to man fight health wise. The double stout means you're at 100% all the time & it also guarantees 100% uptime on farming.



The single stout + tango start means if they warded your pull + medium camps you had to return to base once, twice, possibly even three times before getting your Morbid Mask. Hell if your team is decent & wants to pull through constantly (taking both your easy & a medium/hard camp) then you were in the same situation again as if they warded. The double stout start insures you're not leaving the jungle unless they bring a gank party your way. That stacked block chance is just to good in the early game. Anyways you should be able to easily grab a Morbid Mask by 3-4 minutes in depending on camps. I know this is slower then it could be because you have to farm up an additional 250 gold but if you're not rushing a lv.3-4 roshan with your team then it's totally worth it. You should be able to finish a completed lifesteal item (Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, or a Mask of Madness) by 6-7 minutes in which in return gives you a plethora of different benefits. The ability to stack camps with HoD, Regen + Damage Aura with Valds, or twice a minute on demand haste runes with MoM. (as discussed in my



This allows for you to get a good jump level wise since you're now clearing Ancients + Stacked Hard Camps extremely quickly. Doing this generally means you've got Brown Boots + a Smoke around 7-8 minutes in & are high enough level to pwn Roshan down without worry of his bashes. Though what I've been doing is waiting two more minutes to allow for enough farm to come in for finishing Phase Boots. Why? Well having the Aegis as early as possible is nice because of the experience + gold boost it gives but not doing anything with your Aegis is basically pissing away a huge opportunity. Waiting the additional two minutes allows for you to Rosh around 9-10 mins in & have phases ready for when you come out of the pit to start ganking without any further jungling. The gold earned from killing Roshan allows for you to simply pickup a Orb Of Venom (275g) right there in the pit & a Town Portal Scroll (135g) when you come out. From here on in you've now entered full blown Roam / Gank mode.



For a better understanding of creep camps & jungling though you should start by first clearing the small camp back to back by hitting it as it spawns on the 30, then if you can't finish it quickly enough pulling it for a stack on the 60. Then moving onto a a medium camp directly afterwards. Your team might ask you to leave the easy camp so they can pull it, they might even ask you to leave an additional camp for them to pull through with as discussed above. That's okay after the first time clearing through these three spawns as they're vital for your early levels to come in. If you're on the Radiant side & your team isn't using it then feel free to rotate back onto the easy (small) camp as it comes up. Though you'll probably find yourself working over the three north camps that spawn somewhat in a line while occasionally grabbing the southern hard camp inbetween ancient spawns when you get a bit beefer.



Though if you're on the Dire Side you can use



Skill build wise what we're looking at here is a 0-2-3-1 build to level six starting with Fury Swipes at level one. Then going Overpower (@lvl2), Fury Swipes (@lvl3), Overpower (@lvl4), Fury Swipes (@lvl5), then Enrage (@lvl6). Go ahead & burn Enrage constantly as soon as you just start attacking a camp since it doesn't have a mana cost & use Overpower on the hardest creeps if you happen to run into a difficult stack or say the Ancients. Follow this build post level six by finishing off Fury Swipes (lvl7) & Overpower (lvl8-9). You generally won't finish Overpower by the time you're set to go & kill Roshan. When you pop out of Rosh you'll have a couple levels to skill with & can choose how to spend those points according to what lifesteal item you happen to have built. If you went MoM for my



Anyways, quite a different start then lane Ursa & if you don't play alot of jungle characters then this can feel incredibly weird for you to just be off doing your own thing for the first ten minutes of a match. I know fngurrier expressed concern that he felt like he wasn't doing much or letting the team down during this phase. Remember if your team isn't setup for a solo offlane you should probably lane him. He's an excellent laner, the jungle priority for him is more when your team has a proper lineup. It's really good because it allows one person to get solo exp / gold while you jungle. Learning to stack camps for yourself without slowing down the jungle rotation, camping runes, & looking for early ganks are all things you can do to keep the mind / fingers busy. Though remember in the big picture you're going to be coming out of the gates at ten minutes as a monster to deal with so it's important for you stay on target. Taking Ursa to the Jungle is actually one of my favorite ways to play. Commonly the enemy team just loses track of you completely or has to devote a large amount of energy into trying to slow you down. Even with warded camps you can pretty easily navigate medium to hard difficulty creep spawns at low level. This also greatly smooths the transition into hitting a nicely timed Roshan window because nobody is going to notice you're gone when you leave the jungle to go do it. It also allows for the surprise ganks on the safe lane if your team happens to have a decent stun line up. The absolute worse thing that can really happen is they devote a Bounty Hunter to completely dicking with you & nothing else. (this will occasionally happen) When playing Ursa in the Jungle we're going to go quite a different build then the ones I pointed out above. Though lets keep in mind the entire reason behind the jungle over lane is it's stability. In lane you might get put up against double ranged, double stuns, a tri, or hell have a partner that is jacking your last hits all the time. We know there's more gold in lane but having a solid start every time allows you to remove variables that can greatly effect your launch into mid game. (or well for Ursa, lets just say, launch into roshan)Previously I'd written alot about how I'd spent roughly eight hours in unfair practice matches playing just the first ten (till roshan) over and over with every possible variable I could come up with. I left the bots on for the occasional time they ran through the forest trying to gank me as the jungler. (they do that once in a blue moon) I also left it on random team selection until I isolated something that I felt was of value. Then I'd try it 2-3x on both side so see if it was just a fluke or something that actually saved time. Given it takes a minute to load in & lets just say another minute of dicking around inbetween runs that's; 8x60=480minutes/12= 40 trial runs.From six GGbranches to Bottle to mass Regen to stacking armor, basically I spent that 625 starting gold in every possible manner. Even those I didn't think would help at all, I tried them. (like three slippers of agility & three branches) There was quite a few odd builds that would get me to rosh a couple minutes earlier, say eight instead of ten. Which is an amazing 20% increase in speed but after an exhausting amount of testing I find that the random variable in the camp spawns has a lot to do with that 20%. Coming across Ghosts in your small camps, Centaurs in your medium camps, or Hellbears in your Large camps will slow your runs. Though a thorough knowledge of your camp priorities helps for sure. What was the results of all this jungle ursa goodness?The fastest, most secure, repeatable method to early game ganking (both surviving & doing) plus a proper well prepared ten minute Roshan is; double Stout Shields (500g) & a stack of Tangos (125g) at the start leaving you with zero in unspent gold. Now one might ask, why is this better then say a Stout Shield, Quelling Blade, & Tango combo? Simply put the additional damage gained by the Quelling Blade is made up for in a single hit by Ursa given the nature of his Fury Swipes. There is no amount of damage it's going to add that makes it worth the 225 gold when compared per second to camps cleared. Example? The very first camp will be cleared two-three seconds earlier with it, but you still have to run out of block range & wait for it to respawn. So does sitting behind a tree for an extra three seconds earn you anything more? No it doesn't, furthermore the camps after the first three is more about a smooth paced continually farming. Speed dropping them often means you're left running off to some farther distanced camp for more to kill while sacrificing your long(er) term survivability, not to mention missing the other camps when they're respawning on your run back.Now as for explaining the double stouts. A stout shield offers 60% chance to block 20 damage, that's not a percentage of damage, that's a direct 20. Now since most small and medium camp creeps barely do 20 damage as it is that means you're basically taking next to none or straight up no damage when it procs. Here's where we get into that math though. (oh boi, here we go) Dota uses pseudo-random distribution which actually makes a Stout Shield proc 53% of the time, not the 60 it lists. 53% chance to block 20 damage, means it blocks an average of about 10.6 damage per physical damage instance. Thanks to the stacking behavior of shields, two stout shields gives about a 77.9% chance to block 20 damage, which means it blocks an average of about 15.6 damage. Why don't we just stack additional regen like in lane? Well lets look at what a Tango does, it restores 115 health over 16 seconds or has an effective heal rate of 7.2 HP/sec. Given you get 4 of them per 125 gold that means there's a total of 460 damage it can cover. At this rate it only takes roughly 29.5 hits before your shields have saved more health then you would've gotten back from obsessively eating additional packs of tangos.Given a stout shield costs 250 gold then doubled to 500 means you could go through 16 individual tangos for the same price, or 1840 damage. This roughly works out to 118 attacks you can take before you've saved more health then tangos would have provided. Now depending on camp for sure & I'm not doing the math on all the camps, I get hit roughly 20-25 times per camp, per clearing, at early levels. This means it only takes five'ish camps or say two-three minutes of jungling to become profitable. Why not rush say a Ring Of Protection in the beginning? Well with the additional two armor you gain you're only reducing physical damage by 10.7%. Which is why a stout shield goes so much farther then armor stacking at the beginning, as 10% of 20 damage means you only saved a whopping two health.I know it's been argued plenty of times that you don't really need the double stout anymore with the change to the Unique Attack Modifiers being accessible by Ursa now. Though the reason I've still been getting it is because when you add in your first item after the horn (a Morbid Mask) it allows you to stay completely topped off on health instead of having a variable amount around half depending on your camp spawns. Being at 100% health all the time allows you to deal with four situations 1.) stacked camps 2.) rough camp rotations 3.) ancients & 4.) ganks. The problem with the single stout + morbid mask is you just can't handle any of those problems. If your supports stack the hard camp then the lower block percentage wears you down to quickly to stay safe, same with ancients. Or say they come into your jungle looking for a gank on you or even if your team asks you to gank the lane then you're normally not in a place to man fight health wise. The double stout means you're at 100% all the time & it also guarantees 100% uptime on farming.The single stout + tango start means if they warded your pull + medium camps you had to return to base once, twice, possibly even three times before getting your Morbid Mask. Hell if your team is decent & wants to pull through constantly (taking both your easy & a medium/hard camp) then you were in the same situation again as if they warded. The double stout start insures you're not leaving the jungle unless they bring a gank party your way. That stacked block chance is just to good in the early game. Anyways you should be able to easily grab a Morbid Mask by 3-4 minutes in depending on camps. I know this is slower then it could be because you have to farm up an additional 250 gold but if you're not rushing a lv.3-4 roshan with your team then it's totally worth it. You should be able to finish a completed lifesteal item (Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, or a Mask of Madness) by 6-7 minutes in which in return gives you a plethora of different benefits. The ability to stack camps with HoD, Regen + Damage Aura with Valds, or twice a minute on demand haste runes with MoM. (as discussed in my 522 Ursa guide)This allows for you to get a good jump level wise since you're now clearing Ancients + Stacked Hard Camps extremely quickly. Doing this generally means you've got Brown Boots + a Smoke around 7-8 minutes in & are high enough level to pwn Roshan down without worry of his bashes. Though what I've been doing is waiting two more minutes to allow for enough farm to come in for finishing Phase Boots. Why? Well having the Aegis as early as possible is nice because of the experience + gold boost it gives but not doing anything with your Aegis is basically pissing away a huge opportunity. Waiting the additional two minutes allows for you to Rosh around 9-10 mins in & have phases ready for when you come out of the pit to start ganking without any further jungling. The gold earned from killing Roshan allows for you to simply pickup a Orb Of Venom (275g) right there in the pit & a Town Portal Scroll (135g) when you come out. From here on in you've now entered full blown Roam / Gank mode.For a better understanding of creep camps & jungling though you should start by first clearing the small camp back to back by hitting it as it spawns on the 30, then if you can't finish it quickly enough pulling it for a stack on the 60. Then moving onto a a medium camp directly afterwards. Your team might ask you to leave the easy camp so they can pull it, they might even ask you to leave an additional camp for them to pull through with as discussed above. That's okay after the first time clearing through these three spawns as they're vital for your early levels to come in. If you're on the Radiant side & your team isn't using it then feel free to rotate back onto the easy (small) camp as it comes up. Though you'll probably find yourself working over the three north camps that spawn somewhat in a line while occasionally grabbing the southern hard camp inbetween ancient spawns when you get a bit beefer.Though if you're on the Dire Side you can use choke point jungling to easily clear the center medium camp over and over via fighting them one at a time. You'll use one tango to eat the tree & that camp will become your primary source of income afterwards. It's an awesome spot because not only do you get a considerable amount of money from the medium creeps that can spawn there it's also super easy to stack through the choke point as the spawn box is right on the other side of the trees. This spot will continually save you from ganks because people rarely know to look in the back of the camp & will often run right by you. Another cool factor about this location is the creeps will run around the trees in a big circle so gankers think you've already left when they see the movement & it allows for you to stack Fury Swipes on the hardest mob in the camp as it passes by you each time. As long as you focus on always clearing this camp or stacking it if you get there late you'll have a smooth time in the jungle. As you get stronger I'll grab the hard camp right behind it & even rotate to the other medium camp below it. You can easily clear all three camps per minute by the time you get your Morbid Mask.Skill build wise what we're looking at here is a 0-2-3-1 build to level six starting with Fury Swipes at level one. Then going Overpower (@lvl2), Fury Swipes (@lvl3), Overpower (@lvl4), Fury Swipes (@lvl5), then Enrage (@lvl6). Go ahead & burn Enrage constantly as soon as you just start attacking a camp since it doesn't have a mana cost & use Overpower on the hardest creeps if you happen to run into a difficult stack or say the Ancients. Follow this build post level six by finishing off Fury Swipes (lvl7) & Overpower (lvl8-9). You generally won't finish Overpower by the time you're set to go & kill Roshan. When you pop out of Rosh you'll have a couple levels to skill with & can choose how to spend those points according to what lifesteal item you happen to have built. If you went MoM for my 522 Ursa build then grab the last levels in Overpower. If you're still learning Ursa ganking & positioning though it doesn't hurt to drop some in Earthshock.Anyways, quite a different start then lane Ursa & if you don't play alot of jungle characters then this can feel incredibly weird for you to just be off doing your own thing for the first ten minutes of a match. I know fngurrier expressed concern that he felt like he wasn't doing much or letting the team down during this phase. Remember if your team isn't setup for a solo offlane you should probably lane him. He's an excellent laner, the jungle priority for him is more when your team has a proper lineup. It's really good because it allows one person to get solo exp / gold while you jungle. Learning to stack camps for yourself without slowing down the jungle rotation, camping runes, & looking for early ganks are all things you can do to keep the mind / fingers busy. Though remember in the big picture you're going to be coming out of the gates at ten minutes as a monster to deal with so it's important for you stay on target.





Ganking & Roaming : (We must meet this threat head-on!) :



Spoiler: show This is by far the most important skill an Ursa player can have. You can butch your laning phase, you can get ganked in your own jungle, and over all have a terrible start. But if you know how to properly roam & gank with Ursa then you can still turn a game around single handedly. This is all about knowing your limitations, your strengths, your weaknesses, and just how far you can push a situation. Honestly and somewhat sadly, no matter how much advice I give you I feel most of this will be picked up overtime through experience. It's not an easy task and believe me when I say I've made some really derp plays & still continue to do so even after 550+ matches on him. The biggest problem people have with playing melee gankers is getting kited. You really need a form of lockdown or at least overwhelming speed then an element of surprise goes a long way. A perfect storm would be a little bit of all three. Thankfully if you're following my advice you'll always at bare minimum have a Blink Dagger for initiation then Phase Boots for chasing them down afterwards. You'll also have an Orb Of Venom for slowing their movement speed down by 12% which makes a huge mana free difference.



I think one of the best ways I might able to explain in an introductory fashion how aggressive you can play on Ursa is by laying out some numbers about his amazing output. With Overpower maxed you get six attacks at the maximum increased attack speed, which is actually capped to approximately 0.3 seconds in Dota. So that's 6x0.3=1.8 seconds for six attacks to pop off. If you included Fury Swipes at max level then you're getting 30 consecutive bonus damage per attack so that's another 30+60+90+120+150+180=630 damage ontop of your normal damage coming out in that same 1.8 seconds. (it's physical so it even works through magic immunity) By the time you're in roaming phase after dropping Roshan for the first time you'll generally be hitting for at least 150 damage with Enrage popped. So with six attacks + Fury Swipes + Enrage that's 1530 damage dropped in 1.8 seconds. From there on out if they didn't die from that alone (say thanks to a mek charge & a lucky stun) you're going to be hitting for 360 damage a swing & growing! Given the fact that it's hard for most players to react right away (in 1.8 seconds) let alone if you blink behind them & the time it takes to turn around, most people just get blown up in the opening combo.



Even if they do decide to try and fight you or hit you with a spell, the lowest life steal percentage you could have at this point would be 15% which is a positive return of 229.5 health from the opening combo & 54 + 4.5 for each hit afterwards. Around the ten minute mark when you're first starting your roam & what these numbers are based off of there's plenty of characters that won't even hit you for that after reduction. It's literally impossible for them to do damage to you outside of whatever spells they have on hand. Keeping this in mind you're pretty much unstoppable in the early to mid game without accidentally jumping into multiple people. Then even if you do there's always the Aegis for turning the tides. I try to position myself right outside of Blink range, hit Overpower & Enrage, then immediately move in to where I can Blink behind them. Kind of a side point but it's good to note if Ursa uses Overpower then Enrage, then there is no cast time on Enrage. Anyways the behind part is really important because they'll have to turn around to hit you which is easily a couple of hits via Overpower. From here I'll pop my Phases the moment they attempt to run which is generally most players reaction instead of trying to fight back.



To try and greater express the ability of Ursa to follow through on a gank I grabbed all the movement speeds across the game with boots & found the average to be 351. When you reduce that by 12% thanks to the Orb of Venom that results in somebody running (on average) at 308. A Phased Ursa moves at 423 or 37.4% faster. Once you've tagged somebody with a right click there is nothing they're going to do outside of a stun or a buddy coming to their rescue that will save their ass. Even if they do land a stun you're only a few seconds away from having both your Blink & your Phases off cooldown again. The biggest problem after a stun isn't actually continuing to finish the kill it's dealing with their incoming allies. Though to be honest what generally happens with a brazen Ursa gank is they have team mates close by who will try and help, though as soon as they watch their teammate get just destroyed by you in a couple seconds turn & try to run. It's extremely demoralizing to see people die in less then two seconds, it really forces people to question their own ability to fight you.



Keep in mind that's just some numbers based off your damage when you start the entire roaming gank festival phase. You're only going to get stronger from there on out. Your damage will continue to grow at an absurd pace if you keep the snowball rolling. I really like to blink into trees and wait for somebody who's pushing the lane to come walking by. I also look for little fights to break out just so I can jump in once the first punch has been thrown. One of the biggest things I can suggest you learn to do is constantly farm any where you're going. Did you walk by a camp? Clear it! Ancients close by? Blink to them! Make sure if the clock is anywhere close to the end of a minute you grab the closest camp there is, stack it, & then clear it as well. Your job is to kill people not farm but there's no reason to lay in wait for more then a couple seconds. You have an unlimited ability to farm every creep in the game thanks to your Fury Swipes & it's interaction with Life Steal. This is not only good for bringing additional experience and gold in but will keep you topped off health wise. Most the time if I've taken damage in a gank or two I won't actually return to the base unless I'm completely out of mana. You can just make a quick jungle rotation and be at full health again in no time.



I always try to maintain a 50 CS per ten minute average or better. It'll be a bit harder to do that at the beginning of the match but as you're roaming around looking for ganks it's a good way to gauge if you're wasting to much time waiting around. 50 CS per ten minutes is not fantastic at all, it's a very light number to shoot for so it's literally just a method of keeping myself active & not slacking. Between looking for constant ganks, stacking camps, keeping cs coming in, participating in team fights, & having an ever watchful eye on your last Roshan timer you should never stop moving. Lets say that one more time, you should never stop moving!





Equipment Choices : (It is my spirit that keeps me safe, and not mere armor)



Spoiler: show DO NOT BUY A MIDAS. REPEAT, DO NOT BUY A MIDAS. A midas



With a minor Midas rant out of the way we can talk about items to build & when to build them. If you've read the guide so far then you understand what you should be purchasing up to around the 15 minute mark. Now I just want to say I've played Ursa with just about every combination of items you can imagine with alot of extended testing done now that he can use Unique Attack Modifiers. Really as long as you've mastered roaming & ganking from the shadows then any items past the Core setup are just icing on the cake. There's alot of situational needs as well depending on who you're fighting against. A good player won't just stick to a certain set of items every match. Sure there's a few you'll always pickup, in this case what I've been calling the Core. Though adjusting your item build after what's required for the play style is really how you take your game to the next level.



The two biggest most game changing items you should generally be looking at building post Core though are a



As for the BKB I've argued endlessly about how this item isn't as Core as people make it out to be. Though to be honest, I'm an extremely stubborn person & have thrown many a match from not building this on time. The biggest reason I argue about it because I play Ursa in an extreme ganker role & feel that's the best way to play him. If you're surprise ganking people & not team fighting it's a waste to build a BKB. Though there are alot of times where it becomes mandatory to have one. Mainly when you come across smart players they absolutely won't wonder around alone. Anyone squishy will instantly build a



If their line up has a couple of stuns and just wants to constantly team fight, you're probably going to need a BKB. The only time you can reliably ignore one in the face of heavy team fights is if you're just crushing them & have built into an



As for the Heart of Tarrasque I'm really not a big fan. I know most guides say it's a must have item but I stopped building it almost immediately after I started playing Ursa. Sure it's a slight amount of wiggle room if you get caught out of position but it's not really a massive damage increase for Ursa like people make it out to be. A heart gives an increase of 40x19=760+300=1060 hit points, Ursa's max level Enrage converts 7% of that to additional damage for a 74.2 gain. That's a pretty decent gain off one item but it doesn't synergize well with Blink Ursa specifically not now that he can utilize Unique Attack Modifiers. You should be destroying people before they can even really fight you. Nobody is going to trade right clicks with you & any damage you come across can quickly be healed up via farming some creeps which in return gives you more money and experience. The only time the heart healing effect is handy on Ursa is when you want to tank a tower. For 5500 gold you could have bought an Eye of Skadi given you already have the Orb of Venom. It'll give you far more then just some additional health. Try: 725HP, 575 mana, 25 damage, 25 attack speed, 1 mana regen/second, .75 HP regen/second, and 3.5 armor ontop of a five second 35% movement speed slow & 35 attack speed slow on attack which just makes you a beast to deal with. Plus icing on the cake it stacks with your lifesteal allowing you to have two unique attack modifiers up.



I'd honestly rather build an Eye of Skadi over a Heart of Tarrasque any day. If I'm having a good match I'll literally follow the Core item lineup depending on where I'm starting (lane or jungle) then immediately build a Skull Basher into Eye of Skadi. You can have; Phase Boots, Blink Dagger, Lifesteal, Skull Basher, & an Eye Of Skadi by 30 minutes. This just leaves you one space open in your inventory which should be filled via the Aegis. If you've been doing extremely well you can even have that Skull Basher upgraded into a



Other items worth considering & that I've spent alot of time playing with are things like a



Another item worth considering as crazy as it sounds is a



The real key as when to be buying a Battle Fury? Illusion based enemies. Are you fighting a Phantom Lancer, a Terrorblade, a Naga Siren, or say a Chaos Knight? This item will wreck them. I honestly pretty much never build a Battlefury unless I'm fighting one of these four characters & they've had a chance to get some farm. If your roaming ganking Ursa game plan worked as it should then these carries aren't going to have any farm by the time the game is over. But if the fight is still alive & they're getting some farm then you should definitely pickup a Battlefury. We're not Anti-Mage, we're never going to build this item to increase jungle farming efficiency because after ten minutes we're out of there. We're building this item to destroy illusions & turn Ursa into an effective AOE source of damage. This is much like the reason professional players love building



You might be asking yourself, then why aren't we building Mjollnirs all the time? The answer is because we're not building a team fight centric Ursa nor are we playing in perfect five man stacks. The Mjollnir builds are designed for you to hop into the middle of an entire team & truly exploit those AOE casts. There's much more reliable items for a roaming gank centered Ursa to be building & they'll honestly do you far better when solo queuing or playing with a couple of your friends. With that said another item that you can see used fairly effectively in higher MMR matches even though I don't personally build it is a



Next a highly debated one, a



That pretty much leaves us with a



After that there's not much left to discuss as really useful items. Alot of low level pubbies are going



More passive players often pickup a



As you can probably tell the theme of items for a roaming gank festival Ursa is offensive capability & mobility. The only defensive item even suggested is a BKB and that's just because once the heavy team fights start you need a way to actually participate in the action. Linken's Sphere, Hood of Defiance, Blade Mail, Shiva's Guard, Assault Cuirass, Vanguard, Bloodstone, or any other item for that matter doesn't really fit the role we're fulfilling here. It's not even that people don't build them it's that they're extremely poor choices over so many other great opportunities. This truly is an example of the best defense being an overwhelming offense. A fundamental basic to decent Ursa play in my book is to have what I like to consider the Core items of; Phase Boots, Blink Dagger, & a completed life steal item (Vladmir's Offering, Helm of the Dominator, or a Mask of Madness) by 15 mins in. If you're crushing a lane you can easily have this by 10 minutes.A midas takes 20-25 minutes to pay itself off & you already get max attack speed via Overpower. (note: that video was even made before they increased the cost of Midas) You are not a late game carry & you should not be letting games get to the late stage. A Midas pickup is literally shooting yourself in the foot by delaying your snowball. That's a Blink Dagger, that's a life steal item, that's your Phase Boots + Orb Of Venom. It's painful to see Ursa players pickup a Midas. If you roamed appropriately you will damn near be six slotted by 30-35 mins in without it. I mean the match should be OVER by then there's absolutely no situation in which a Midas is acceptable on Ursa.With a minor Midas rant out of the way we can talk about items to build & when to build them. If you've read the guide so far then you understand what you should be purchasing up to around the 15 minute mark. Now I just want to say I've played Ursa with just about every combination of items you can imagine with alot of extended testing done now that he can use Unique Attack Modifiers. Really as long as you've mastered roaming & ganking from the shadows then any items past the Core setup are just icing on the cake. There's alot of situational needs as well depending on who you're fighting against. A good player won't just stick to a certain set of items every match. Sure there's a few you'll always pickup, in this case what I've been calling the Core. Though adjusting your item build after what's required for the play style is really how you take your game to the next level.The two biggest most game changing items you should generally be looking at building post Core though are a Skull Basher (2950g) & a Black King Bar (BKB) (3975g). I almost always go Skull Basher first directly after Blink Dagger if I'm not going for additional mobility. The +40dam, +6str, & +25% chance to stun on it is just too good to pass up for it's cheap price tag. You can easily have this finished by the 20 minute mark of a match. It's passive ability Bash has a 25% chance to proc, meaning that somewhere within that 1.8 seconds when you Blink ontop of somebody & you're ripping them apart with Overpower you're going to land a 1.4 second stun. It's important to note that Skull Basher does not use Pseudo-random distribution, it has exactly 25% chance to proc per attack. This means pretty much everytime you Blink rush somebody you're going to be landing a stun on them leaving them cluster fucked, pressing keys, trying to run, & in general freaking out. Sometimes people will literally just stand there even after the stun wears off because they know it's useless fighting you at that point. You want to add to the demoralization train? Try dealing with Ursa when he locks you up completely. This also saves your mana from no longer needing Earthshocks! They're not going anywhere & even if they're still alive after the stun wears off the Orb Of Venom + Phaseboots means they're gone.As for the BKB I've argued endlessly about how this item isn't as Core as people make it out to be. Though to be honest, I'm an extremely stubborn person & have thrown many a match from not building this on time. The biggest reason I argue about it because I play Ursa in an extreme ganker role & feel that's the best way to play him. If you're surprise ganking people & not team fighting it's a waste to build a BKB. Though there are alot of times where it becomes mandatory to have one. Mainly when you come across smart players they absolutely won't wonder around alone. Anyone squishy will instantly build a Ghost Scepter (1600g) to nullify you completely & then they'll just start five manning so you can't pick any of them off. Don't get me wrong it's fantastic to force 1600 gold items on people just to deal with you but the moment you start blinking into five man team fights as Ursa you're going to be the primary target. If they're decent at all you'll be stun locked or otherwise rendered completely useless the entire fight. If you cannot gank or you're part of a heavy team fight centered lineup then you need a BKB even before the Basher. You can get away with not having one via the Aegis, letting them blow you up once as a fight starts wasting all their spells on you as your team rolls in. Then you come back with your second life & clean the fight up. This is legitimate but it's dirty & it only works once every ten minutes which is not reliable.If their line up has a couple of stuns and just wants to constantly team fight, you're probably going to need a BKB. The only time you can reliably ignore one in the face of heavy team fights is if you're just crushing them & have built into an Eye of Skadi (5675g) or a Heart of Tarrasque (5500g) before 30 minutes. That's because these items make Ursa so tanky by that point in the game you can actually survive most of a team focus firing you. It's almost more of a troll bait then anything else, given they'll see you don't have a BKB they'll use all their best skills to blow you up. Literally they'll not touch the other four people on your team just to focus on the scariest thing in the match... Ursa! I don't know the amount of times I've died or limped away with a couple hundred HP to watch my team steam roll & five man wipe them because they didn't do anything to anyone else but me. It's a hard choice if you've ever fought an Ursa, you have to respond to him yet there's an entire team behind him. If you find yourself having a rough match with lots of team fights & you can't seem to acquire a BKB let alone a high HP item like Skadi or Heart then the best option is wait until a fight has already broken out. Wait until the spells start flying then Blink in. It's one of the only times you won't be the most aggressive front runner in a match.As for the Heart of Tarrasque I'm really not a big fan. I know most guides say it's a must have item but I stopped building it almost immediately after I started playing Ursa. Sure it's a slight amount of wiggle room if you get caught out of position but it's not really a massive damage increase for Ursa like people make it out to be. A heart gives an increase of 40x19=760+300=1060 hit points, Ursa's max level Enrage converts 7% of that to additional damage for a 74.2 gain. That's a pretty decent gain off one item but it doesn't synergize well with Blink Ursa specifically not now that he can utilize Unique Attack Modifiers. You should be destroying people before they can even really fight you. Nobody is going to trade right clicks with you & any damage you come across can quickly be healed up via farming some creeps which in return gives you more money and experience. The only time the heart healing effect is handy on Ursa is when you want to tank a tower. For 5500 gold you could have bought an Eye of Skadi given you already have the Orb of Venom. It'll give you far more then just some additional health. Try: 725HP, 575 mana, 25 damage, 25 attack speed, 1 mana regen/second, .75 HP regen/second, and 3.5 armor ontop of a five second 35% movement speed slow & 35 attack speed slow on attack which just makes you a beast to deal with. Plus icing on the cake it stacks with your lifesteal allowing you to have two unique attack modifiers up.I'd honestly rather build an Eye of Skadi over a Heart of Tarrasque any day. If I'm having a good match I'll literally follow the Core item lineup depending on where I'm starting (lane or jungle) then immediately build a Skull Basher into Eye of Skadi. You can have; Phase Boots, Blink Dagger, Lifesteal, Skull Basher, & an Eye Of Skadi by 30 minutes. This just leaves you one space open in your inventory which should be filled via the Aegis. If you've been doing extremely well you can even have that Skull Basher upgraded into a Abyssal Blade by that time, adding in an on demand 2 second stun that goes through Magic Immunity. That's a freaking scary as hell bear that's basically six slotted at 30-35 minutes. It's impossible to trade blows with him, you have to have somebody close by that can stun him off you or you're just going to get Blink Overpower Stun locked & killed immediately. Even if you do slip away for a second, the 35% movement speed reduction off the Skadi means you're not going anywhere. It also leads to hilarious moments when people like Legion Commander try to Duel you with her ult or say Axe tries to force a fight with you via Berserker's Call. In the event the game starts going past 30 minutes say into the 40+ zone then your last slot can be filled with a BKB if needed. Since nobody can trade right clicks with you & you're immune to magic with a fresh 10 second BKB that late in the game there's no need to carry the Aegis. You can simply give the third/forth/fifth Aegis & the cheese to your team. Everything will be alright, your team has to be throwing pretty hard to lose a match at this point.Other items worth considering & that I've spent alot of time playing with are things like a Daedalus (5550g). Sure the crit does not apply to the additional damage via Fury Swipes but it does proc 25% of the time meaning when you first Blink in you're pretty much guaranteed another 2.4 attacks worth of damage atleast once. That means your 1.8 second opener is now landing 8.4 attacks and it's pretty frightening to lay that type of damage down. Heaven forbid it procs twice you'll literally drop full blown geared carries before they can respond. To show how effective this is, by the time you've got the Core up & say a Basher then a Daedalus as well you'll be hitting for around 300 when you Enrage. If you include the Fury Swipes in that's 2430 damage dropped in 1.8 seconds, without crits. In the same manner as I utilized averages to better explain stout shield performance, a Daedalus equates to an overall average 