brad warden the centaur warchief
TRANSCRIPT
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Strategy Guide for Bradwarden, the Centaur
Warchief
by m1LkmaN (as of v6.59)
http://planetdota.blogspot.com
Contents
1. Introduction2. Spells3. Skill Build4. Item Build5. Playstyle6. Cheesy Tricks7. Allies and Enemies8. Conclusion
1. Introduction
Centaur is one of those heroes that has always been decent. Until 6.56 was released, I had not
ever seen Centaur played in a way that made me want to draft him and play him. From there, my
clan and I have been experimenting with this hero that is often overshadowed by Tidehunter and
Earthshaker. He is seen as a tank with a small AoE stun, and is therefore seen as a weak hero.
This guide is all about the strongest way to play Centaur.
Note: I will not be discussing jungling as I think it is a waste of a good hero, and only viable to
jungle Chen, Enchantress and Lycan in 6.57b. (and Dirge if Irecu is playing)
Primary Attribute: Strength
Strength: 23+2.6
Agility: 15+2
Intelligence: 15+1.6
Base Movespeed: 300
Attack Animation: 0.3, 0.3
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2. Spells
Hoof Stomp
Slams the ground, stunning and damaging nearby enemy land units.
Level 1 - 100 damage, 1.25 second stun.
Level 2 - 150 damage, 1.75 second stun.
Level 3 - 200 damage, 2.25 second stun.
Level 4 - 250 damage, 2.75 second stun.
Cooldown: 15 seconds.Level 1: 85 mana, 15 sec cooldown.
Level 2: 100 mana, 15 sec cooldown.
Level 3: 115 mana, 15 sec cooldown.
Level 4: 130 mana, 15 sec cooldown.
This is your bread and butter skill. It generally relies on a stun/slow/blink dagger to be landed
safely, but not always. With a relatively low mana cost and cooldown, it can often be used twice
in a fight, and hit multiple targets. If you press s in the 0.5 seconds after hoof stomp is pressed,
the animation will start but the spell will not go off.
Double Edge
The Centaur summons a tremendous amount of inner strength and releases a very powerful
attack. It can only be done at melee range, and it damages both the Warchief and the enemy unit.
Level 1 - Deals 175 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 250 damage.Level 3 - Deals 325 damage.
Level 4 - Deals 400 damage.
Cooldown: 25 seconds.
Level 1: 75 mana, 25 sec cooldown.
Level 2: 90 mana, 25 sec cooldown.
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Level 3: 105 mana, 25 sec cooldown.
Level 4: 120 mana, 25 sec cooldown.
This is one of the most powerful early game nukes, and the reason you are a monster in the lane
from lvl 2 onwards. It has 150 range, and the damage dealt to both you and the opponent is
magical damage, so it is reduced by spell resistance. It can also be used to suicide but requires good timing and better opponents will stun or kite you when you try to suicide.
Return
The Centaur Warchief immediately counters every attack against him with a swift strike.
Level 1 - Returns 12.5 damage.
Level 2 - Returns 25 damage.
Level 3 - Returns 37.5 damage.
Level 4 - Returns 50 damage.
Passive
This skill should only ever be taken before lvl 16 when jungling. This is a farming skill, and not
taken if in a lane since the other skills are much more important.
Great Fortitude
The Centaur Warchief's mammoth body is capable of absorbing great amounts of punishment.
Level 1 - Adds +12 Strength.
Level 2 - Adds +24 Strength.
Level 3 - Adds +36 Strength.
Passive
A very nice skill, makes him a lot beefier and gives some damage to boot.
3. Skill Build
1. Hoof Stomp
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2. Double Edge
3. Hoof Stomp
4. Double Edge
5. Hoof Stomp/ Double Edge
6. Great Fortitude
7. Hoof Stomp/ Double Edge8. Double Edge/ Hoof Stomp
9. Double Edge/ Hoof Stomp
10. Stats
11. Great Fortitude
12. Stats
13. Stats
14. Stats
15. Stats
16. Great Fortitude
17. Stats18. Stats
19. Stats
20. Stats
21. Stats
22. Return
23. Return
24. Return
25. Return
Explanation
Hoof stomp and double edge together make centaur strong in the lane and able to get kills early
on. Hoof stomp is usually taken first because the stun duration increases which is extremely
valuable, however against a carry hero that you absolutely have to kill, or an invisible hero, then
double edge can be taken at 5 and 7. Great Fortitude is one of the best passives in the game, and
should be taken whenever possible. Return is somewhat of a dirge move, since Centaur is a tank
anyway and would rarely be focused by attacks in team battles. I would usually take return from
22-25, but if you get radiance up quick or the opponents are focusing you, then I would advise
taking it earlier.
4. Item Build
Starting Items
2x Tangos
2x Gauntlets
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2x GG Branch
The tangos are needed to keep your health up from harassing, the gauntlets and branches just
give you a bit of survivability and help with lane control and last hitting.
Early Game Items
Boots of Speed
2x Bracers
Scrolls of Town PortalClarities/Healing Salves if needed
Needs little justification, your health can never be high enough and attempting to kill people with
stomp edge takes a significant chunk of your health and mana. Always, always carry a scroll.
Always.
GG Items (Core)
Blink Dagger – The item of GG
Radiance – The recipe of GG
These items will be discussed later. Get both of them or you are bad at DotA.
“Items should the enemy require further bludgeoning ”
Assault Cuirass
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Boots of Travel
-and then-
Hood of Defiance
ButterflyShiva
Satanic
AC and Shivas are both very nice items as they not only increase your survivability and damage
output, but help your team and disadvantage the enemy team. BoT are necessary since +ms is
always nice and the slot that scroll is wasting is looking tastier every minute.
Finally, get HoD when against heavy nukers, a Butterfly when against a heavy DPS carry such as
PA, otherwise Satanic is an all round great item.
Rejected Items
This is a horrible item. You do no extra damage, and it turns you into a defensive,
useless tank.
You already have enough mana to use blink, stun and stomp, and you can always buy a
couple clarities.
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Again, clarities are enough mana regen and AR just delays your core items.
Its all about getting blink and level 9 as quick as possible, HoM just delays this.
If the enemy is retarded enough to pick 5 melee heroes, you should have won already.
There is no real need for SnY, the boosts it gives are all minor and he has no problem
farming up big items.
Again, his attack speed is low and his farming ability is already very good.
You want the enemy to focus you, if you get BKB before damage items they will just
ignore you in battle.
This is by no means a bad item for Centaur, just utterly overrated and there are always
better end game items.
5. Playstyle
Now this is where it gets fun. Sure, the skill and item builds look pretty sound, but this is what
you need to know. Centaur is an aggressive hero. His main role is not to be a tank and soak up
damage, but to do damage. DotA is not in any real way similar to WoW, so do not treat it like it
is. DotA is all about burst damage, and stopping the other team from doing enough damage to
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you as that you die. Due to this reason, Centaur is all about farming items to keep ahead of the
rest of the players, and then using this advantage to kill the enemy, stay ahead in levels and
items, as well as pushing towers.
Early Game
This is all about farming up those precious items, not dying, and hopefully landing an early kill.
Any lane is fine, but make sure you are with a ranged initiator, preferably lion or lich. If your
lane partner does not have a targeted stun, then get the defensive lane, since it’ll take a bit of
space to run up and land your combo. If your lane partner is kind enough to babysit you then take
all the last hits, but otherwise just contest for last hits and denies. Since you are melee you won’t
really be able to harass without the help of spells, so be content watching the minimap for
potential ganks and taking last hits. From level 2, whenever you have mana for both spells and a
creep advantage (more nearby creeps than the enemy) ask your lanemate to stun/slow and then
just hit them. Run up, stun and attack once. Land your double edge and proceed to hit them while
running forwards, and hopefully you will kill them. If they don’t look like dying, then just retreatand remember to keep an eye on your health bar. Hopefully you will finish early game with a fair
bit of gold and experience.
Mid Game
Stay in your lane and farm your dagger unless there is a guaranteed kill nearby. Keep lane
control by using the strategies similar to early game (double nuke, manipulating creeps etc) and
GET THAT DAGGER UP NOW. Once you have Kelen’s Dagger of Pwn, it’s time to start
ganking. Make sure you have enough mana (stun+nuke+blink) and head to a lane where a hero is
farming, preferably not strength and hopefully their carry. Ask one or two allies to come gank,and once they are almost in range, just blink, stun, nuke and attack them. Whenever you see an
opportunity to do this, do it, since you can do over 600 damage with an attack or two. Keep an
eye on the minimap, look for ganks or pushes, but also remember to keep farming.
Late Game
This is the time for killing. If there is a team battle, you must be in it, and you must initiate. This
means you look for an opportunity to blink in, stun a couple of there heroes, and hopefully kill
there carry with some help before he even gets out of stun. Don't worry if you die but your team
wins the battle, since by taking the huge amount of punishment required to kill you, you've takenfire off the more fragile heroes in your team. That said, don't purposely suicide, and choose when
you want to rambo into a group of heroes carefully. When not in team battles or looking to gank
a hero, you should be farming. Lane creeps, neutrals, ancients or even Roshan, it doesn't matter.
Just make sure the items keep coming in during downtime between fights. Always keep an eye
on the minimap since you don't get picked off, and when you think you're in danger always keep
a finger on blink. If you win a team battle or pick off a hero, then look to push into their base,
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either killing more heroes or demolishing their precious buildings.
6. Cheesy Tricks
Animation Cancelling
As you can see here, Centaur does his damage after 0.3 seconds, when his axe is midway in the
air. To reduce the damage you take from harassing, as well as increasing the time running during
a chase, click away just after you deal the damage.
Suiciding
If you are certainly going to die, you can use Double Edge to suicide. Wait to you are on low
enough HP to die from it and cast the spell, but remember the damage you take is reduced by
magic (-25%). Often enemies will expect this, especially if you have suicided already in the
game, so they may stun you as you get to 200 hp or so, not letting you suicide.
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“Oh noez I’m gonna die”
Fake Stomp
If that pesky little puck keeps phase shifting your stun or that annoying QoP keeps blinking away
during your cast time, just hit s while your axe is in the air. This causes the animation and spell to
stop, but you have to press s in the 0.3 seconds after you press Hoof Stomp or else it is
“uncancelable.” (Yes, I made that word up)
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“I’m gonna stun man, I’m gonna do it”
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Notice how I saw my stun was going to be dodged so I cancelled, but don’t cancel it if it’s gonna
hit ^^
Juke and Blink
This is in no way applies only to Centaur, but it is necessary to play him well. Any hero with a
blink dagger, and especially those with high health, can use this trick. When running away from
the opponents, simply run up a hill and double back, or run around in the trees for a bit. Once
you haven’t taken any hero based damage for three seconds, blink away and then run or teleport.
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Blink Dodge
This is a pretty simple trick that relies on reflexes to dodge stuns. Ranged projectiles such as
storm bolt can be dodged by blinking as they are about to hit you. Make sure you practice this, as
it takes a bit of time to get used to when to blink. Also note that many spells are instant, such as
sand king’s impale, and cannot be dodged with blink.
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7. Allies and Enemies
Good Allies
Single Target Stunners
Single Target Slowers
Support
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Gankers
Bad Enemies
Blink Disablers
Radiance Carriers
Naix
Food
Squishy Carries
Blinkers
8. Conclusion
Here's a replay of me playing Centaur. It’s 6.56 but pretty much illustrates everything I describe
in my guide, so have fun watching. It's a Gotgames ladder game against Firm, who are one of the
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top 3 Aus/NZ teams, and they beat us 90% of the time. XD
To all the people who whined for me to upload the replay to DA here it is: http://www.dota-
allstars.com/replay/72783/index.html
I hope you all enjoyed reading my guide and can become better Centaur players, and better DotA players in general, because of it. Comments and criticisms are welcome, but remember to keep
them constructive and with valid reasoning. “nurr troll is good u liek farm 88k then wtf pwn lol i
luv azn draft” is only considered a valid argument when replying to trolls (or to people who
believe troll is a good hero). Thanks for reading ^^
-m1LkmaN
Visit http://planetdota.blogspot.com for your Dota
needs!