Tidehunter is a rare guest in present-day ranked games. Professional teams usually take him off and on, especially on the eve of the International or Major. Customarily, Dota “privates” usually start their cyber career playing Tide since everyone can press the R+Q buttons. Even though Tide’s abilities seem primitive, it still takes a lot of game experience to bring game impact correctly. So, Cyber-sport.io will analyze the pros and cons of Tide below.
Tidehunter is well-matched and like-minded with almost each Dota hero. Tide fits into any lineup of heroes, no matter what draft you or your opponent has. Tide has a substantial mass fight potential. Due to his powerful Ultimate, his team always has excellent chances to wipe out enemies, even if they are trapped, or vice versa, during a counter-attack. Moreover, Tide farms the jungle very well. Due to his Kraken shell, he can easily farm any creep camps: Satyrs, Trolls, and Ancients.
He has a very long Ultimate cooldown. That’s why it is impossible to play aggressively, as the team is forced to wait for your Ravage rearm. Tide is an extremely low-mobility char. He has a super low base movement speed, in addition to insufficiency of any portability birth spells. The only way to fix the situation is to buy the necessary Blink Dagger. The problem of Tide’s low mana pool is solved the same way.
Usually, we play offlane position. So, play self-aggressive because it is pretty difficult to kill us. Deny and last hit all creeps, both allied and enemy, if necessary, you can farm jungle units or even stack lane and neutral units and fart them together. Max Anchor Smach ability, 1x Gush and 2x Kraken Shell. This skill deals bonus damage to nearby enemies and reduces attack damage, so it’s difficult to last-hit creeps under this effect. Spend your first 600 gold on Soul Ring and Magic Stick, which compensate for our problems with mana. In addition to the soul Ring, we can purchase 2x Bracer, Phase Boots, and Hood of Defense to reduce magic damage.
As soon as you max Ravage, start imposing mass fights. For example, you can call mates to push the lane, chase your opponent's ancient spot to catch carry, or set Observer Wards. Try to initiate a battle to absorb as much damage as possible while the ally team covers you. If the enemy has better mass fight potential, we farm creeps to get to Blink Dagger, Aghanim’s Scepter, or Shiva’s Guard and split push side lanes.
Initially, we max 2/3 abilities, and then we start pumping Gush. Blink Dagger is a mandatory artifact, and then the choice of players falls on Shard or Mekasm, which provides additional health to the ally team. After that, the best solution would be to stash Aghanim's Scepter, which grants additional magic damage and huge area armor reduction. Keep in mind that you can decrease 6*5=30 armor points simultaneously!
There may already be some problems with survivability, but Tide’s mission is to be tanky and cast Ravage before enemies press Black King Bar. If there is an opportunity to press your Ultimate well, then you should not miss it, but you need to do it deliberately since the cooldown time of this ability is 150 seconds!
At this stage, you must purchase only one item, which is considered the core one for Tide – Refresher Orb. It has almost the same recharge time as Ravage, so double Ravage grants your team 6*5 (heroes) = 30-sec stun if you cast it in time. In addition to this artifact, you can buy Overwhelming Blink, Pipe of Insight, and Shiva's Guard. Finally, choose neutral items that increase armor or your health points.
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