Welcome to Chavez' Hero Guide for Rikimaru

Rikimaru fulfills the role of hard carry in DoTA. As with any hard carry, Rikimaru needs an essential amount of farming time for his core items. Rikimaru's strength is his ability to solo nearly any enemy hero while the permanent invisibility facilitates ganking and farming.

Laning Phase, Skill Build, and Items

Rikimaru ideally should attempt to farm the bottom lane if Radiant (top lane for Dire obviously). Rikimaru's first task in any game is to farm his core items. Sans your starting items, you should farm agility treads then diffusal blade. The skill build for Rikimaru is indisputable. First point in blink strike, second in cloud, complete blink strike and backstab before further points in cloud. The five second cooldown on blink strike is Rikimaru's most dangerous ability.

Stalking Enemy Heroes

If allowed to farm bottom lane properly, Rikimaru should achieve level 7 and agility treads by roughly 10 minutes. With maxed level blink strike, this is a good opportunity to consider ganking. The weakest enemy heroes with the least chance of escape should be your targets.

Diffusal blade is an extraordinarily powerful item for Rikimaru. Combined with cloud, it allows an enemy hero to be disabled for the entire duration of cloud while being destroyed by backstab. There is no other orb affect worth considering. Black King Bar works well against disable/magic damage heavy teams, while Butterfly is still the gold standard for all agility carries. Manta Style can also be powerful with the escape mechanism it provides and the mana burn your images will share from diffusal blade. Further item choices can only be determined by a specific game.

Group Battles

If Rikimaru is successful in ganking the weak enemy heroes, the enemy will certainly buy a gem to counter you. Maintaining awareness of the enemies' use of Sentry Wards, Dust of Appearance, and Gems of Truesight is fundamental to playing Rikimaru. Because of this, Rikimaru will often be forced to play behind his teammates and wait for an initiation. As the hard carry, you have two targets to choose from in every group battle. You can either continue to focus the weak heroes, OR it may be very prudent to focus the enemy carry to assist your team. This decision of course is based entirely on the intricacies of your local game.

Thanks for reading! I'll be happy to answer any specific Rikimaru related questions.


Cheers,
Chavez