Bounty Hunter – The Off Laner.
Introduction To This Guide.
I would firstly like to stress this guide is made for placing Bounty Hunter in a SOLO lane. I would also like to stress this guide is made for a competitive level of play using Bounty Hunter.
One of the strongest off laners in the game.
Strong Ganker.
Strong Teamfight hero.
A high base movement speed of 315 helps to outrun most heroes.
Can easily roam for enemy junglers with little worry.
Has a strong combo that can easily nuke down squishy supports.
Because of these many reason’s, Bounty Hunter is consistently drafted at both a pub and competitive level.
The Pro’s & Con’s.
High damage output.
Easily counter’s invisible heroes.
High chase potential.
Farm potential.
Safe off – laner.
Decent attack animation.
Explanation Of Item Build ~ Generic Off Lane Ganker & Roamer.
Considering you are going solo on the off-lane, your top priority is to sustain yourself enough to stay in your lane as long as possible. A Stout Shield helps you tank up a lot of harass and even when you get harassed down, you still have the option to pop your consumables.
Grabbing a Healing Salve and a Tango is appropriate regeneration to sustain some harass for a while. If you feel, you are being pressured too much in your lane, you can opt to go into Shadow Walk, wait until it is off cooldown then Jinada your opponent while immediately Shadow Walking again for some repeated harass. Keep in mind, your mana pool cannot sustain this and you need to know when to do it or when it shouldn’t be done.
Grabbing three Iron Branches gives great all round stats which are very necessary. Having a set of Observer Wards pulled to you by a support or even opting out for wards instead of a stout shield is fine if you feel your enemies skill level will most definitely be pulling consistently or up against a tri-lane. You can use one to block the pull spot and the other to put on your rune spot.
As you can see, there are so many options to choose from in the early game and i tried to make it suit as much situations as possible. Generally, Boots of Speed should be your first pick up along with the extra 6 agility gain you are given from Poor Man’s Shield to help you hit harder.
Getting a Bracer would normally be considered if it is being built into a Drum of Endurance and a Bottle would normaly be considered if your mid laner is not gank orientated such as a Shadow Fiend. However, if you were to pick up a Bottle, then generally, other early game items such as magic wand, ring of basilius would be slighly redundant and would not need to be purchased.
Generally, if you’re looking to hit the hardest, Monkey King Bar is the best option. However if you go this route, you will be missing out on some much needed hp / mana regeneration. That’s why it’s typically a good option to go Vladmir’s Offering as a core moving into Monkey King Bar. Vladmir’s Offering synergizes with Bounty Hunter in various ways. First off, the lifesteal allow susstainability of health and mana without returning to base making him a much more effective ganker. Secondly, the armour bonus makes and his team more physically tankier with extra armour, not to mention the extra bonus damage that scales into the late game. It’s a very cheap item and although it delays your damage items a bit, it’s a safe route to go.
Drum of Endurance delays your big damage items but still gives you a lot of damage itself. The aura is quite strong and keeps you tanky against burst damage lineups.
Vanguard is mainly not considered as a good item for bounty but if you’re looking for the best of both worlds (tanking up and safe regeneration), then Vanguard is a good line in between.
Black King Bar lastly is an item you will need to get throughout the game at one point and i’d argue is the best defensive item in the game. If you’re up against a Naga Siren, you best be farming this up fast. If the other team has various abilities going through Black King Bar then maybe it is not worth it.
Lastly, Divine Rapier is the troll of all trolls item that is a last resort or a bit of fun. Purchasing this gives you an extra 675 damage upon a jinada proc and is the only reason why Bounty Hunter is applicable for this item. If you’re buying this item, you could be just holding onto to teamfights but just arent getting there, and your team is slowly losing. A Divine Rapier could help snipe that support that needs to be sniped. But please be aware, this item is obviously very risky.
Explanation Of Build ~ Hard Carry
Although, I give the hard carry build option, I do not recommend it for the main point that Bounty Hunter’s strengths are not in the late game against common late game lineups such as Chaos Knight, Anti-Mage, Faceless Void and more. Bounty Hunter simply gets out-carried late game and thus is the reason why he is played as a ganker / roamer / utility hero. If push comes to shove and late game is where your team composition peaks, then a Battle Fury is what is needed. Keep in mind that going this build makes your mid game strengths significantly weak but your late game strength significantly stronger. If your team lacks a hard carry and already has enough gank and roam potential, then Battle Fury can be considered viable. If you already have a flash farmer such as an Anti-Mage. DO NOT GET IT.
Take this match for example.
This is an example of when not to get a Battle Fury, when a Phantom Assassin(myself) was already a hard carry with a very common Battle Fury core that could farm the jungle very fast. Battle Fury is a farming item, and shouldn’t be picked up when your team has a strong farmer already. Furthermore, after getting a farming item, he proceeded to grab a Sange and Yasha which is known to be a very weak item for its worth. Because of this, he gained very little damage to synergize with Jinada and failed to do enough damage the entire game. Going for the ganker / roamer build, you have a lot more damage output and mid game strength which is hard for teams to deal with.