Bristleback (Rigwarl)

(Rigwarl)
Strength 22 + 2.2        Agility 17 + 1.8           Intelligence14 + 2.8

Viscous Nasal Goo

Covers a target in snot, causing it to have reduced armor and movement speed. Casts on the same target are cumulative

Quill Spray

Sprays enemy units with quills dealing damage in a 625 AoE. Deals 30 extra damage for every time the unit was struck by a quill in the last 10 seconds.

Bristleback

Rigwarl covers his back in spines, causing him to take reduced damage. Automatically releases a quill spray whenever his rear receives 250 damage.

Warpath

Everytime Rigwarl casts a spell, he works himself into a fury. Movement speed and damage increase on repeated spell casts.

Skill Build

1 - Quill Spray/Bristleback

2 - Bristleback/Quill Spray

3 - Quill Spray

4 - Bristleback

5 - Quill Spray

6 - Warpath

7 - Quill Spray

8 - Bristleback
9 - Bristleback

10 - Viscous Nasal Goo

11 - Warpath

12 - Viscous Nasal Goo
13 - Viscous Nasal Goo
14 - Viscous Nasal Goo

15 - Stats

16 - Warpath

17-25 - Stats

Bristleback's skill build is pretty simple and straight forward. As a carry, it is generally more advisable to give up the early game in favor of attaining dominance a little further down the road, but if you're playing with a team you know well, feel free to take a level of Viscous Nasal Goo early to see if you can snag yourself some early kills. Otherwise, the name of the game is to stay alive and use Quill Spray to last hit as many creeps as possible while keeping you as safe as a melee hero can be.

Item Build

Without question, immediately buy yourself:

As a melee hero who doesn't pack the highest HP, two sets of Tangoes are an absolute must. Spend the rest of your gold on some combination of the following:

If you have absolutely no idea what you're doing, buy yourself two Circlets and turn them into Bracers. Buying Gauntlets to work toward an Urn is also an option, but the best overall starting build is definitely three Branches and a Quelling Blade. The Branches give good early stats and set you on the path toward a Magic Wand, and the Quelling Blade helps ensure that you get as many last hits as humanly possible. Rigwarl absolutely needs a Radiance to be relevant, and the Quelling Blade helps make sure you get there.

Core Build

Rigwarl's core is pretty simple, with only very slight alterations:

Simply put, Magic Wand is too good. It does everything you want it to do without getting girls pregnant. A couple charges keeps you in lane longer and guarantees you'll be able to cast the spell you need.

Obviously, you'll need Boots, but Rigwarl is fairly unique in that any of the three main choices of footwear are viable on him. Treads is generally the preferred choice as it's cheap to build, provides much-needed HP and is the only one that allows your damage to scale. That having been said, Phase Boots are fairly cheap as well and give the highest boost to speed when you activate them. However, casting your spells removes the buff, making this less-than-optimal. Boots of Travel, on the other hand, give a huge movement speed bonus and allows you to Town Portal to your heart's content. That having been said, they're by far the most expensive option and you absolutely need to get Radiance ASAP. Unless you're farming unusually well, I recommend sticking with Treads.

You may have noticed I didn't mention Arcane Boots in the above paragraph. Sure, Arcane Boots seem cool, but in reality they're like the kid who used to always steal my crayons when he thought I wasn't looking. He turned out to be gay.

Rigwarl is also a great candidate for an Urn. The Strength bonus, of course, is always welcome. More than that, the mana regeneration is especially good on Rigwarl. As he levels up, Rigwarl gets a fairly large mana pool thanks to his high Intelligence growth, and the higher your mana pool, the better percentage-based regeneration gets. Also never underestimate the power of its charges. Having your own portable Healing Salve machine can be incredibly powerful, enabling you to quickly recover from ganks. Remember, you're carrying: you need to farm your ass off.

Radiance comes straight out of the "no shit" files for Rigwarl. It not only turns a decent farmer into an excellent one, but enables you to deal large amounts of damage and piss people off just by being there. It's effective against images, invisibility, backtalk, you name it. Spam your spells, boost your speed, and light shit on fire.

The big surprise, however, is the Orb of Venom. At a measly 450 gold, it transforms Rigwarl from a good chaser to a retardedly awesome chaser. What's better than a stackable slow? A big slow that disables Dagger! As long as you can manage a single melee attack every four seconds, you can pretty much make sure that an enemy hero can never escape unless you let him.

Remember, though, you're almost always going to be the carry. Your job is to get into a position to carry. Therefore, depending on the lineup - or whether or not you have a teammate who can do it better - you may require a detour:

Hood is solid and keeps you from having to retreat quite so often. Nonetheless, your job is to build yourself up and spam your spells, and this is a diversion from that.

Bracers are also always a consideration. If you YOUR TEAM BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS YOUR TEAM'S FAULT, LOLOLOLOLOL HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I SUCK COCKSis doing poorly, stacking one or two Bracers to enhance your survivability is always a welcome addition.

Remember, you need Radiance...unless your life depends on it, in which case you might need a Hood or a Bracer

Then What?

For the most part, Rigwarl can whup enough ass with just the above items without even needing an actual Orb effect. Nonetheless, if you're trying to pull your best Leoric impression (by balling out of control), the following may be up to your speed:

Assault Cuirass is a pretty logical followup. More attack speed is good, more armor is great, and less armor for your enemies is even better. Depending on how much anti-Armor you have on your team, however, the other items may be much better for you.

At first, seeing Heart as an extension might seem like a curious pick. After all, I laid out why Rigwarl isn't really a tank. However, there's more to it than meets the eye. Huge amounts of HP and damage are obviously very good. However, Heart also has great synergy with Bristleback. Remember, Bristleback is there to help you chase people down and live to tell about it. Once you use your superior speed to get away, Heart is there to get you back to fighting shape in no time. Less than a minute later, it's like you never even felt it. After farming your core, this is almost always the first luxury you should get.

As for a Skadi, well, why the fuck not? You're already getting an Orb of Venom. Skadi has great stats all over the place. And I assure you: if you play Rigwarl to his potential, it's entirely possible to have your entire core and any two of these three items. If you can't win at this point...well, at least you know you're a tasty meal.

Really? No Other Items?

Well, yeah. Unfortunately, most items - even the luxuries I've listed - don't really work as well with Rigwarl as they do with most other heroes. Let's go over some of them:

What Do These Items Have in Common?

The short answer: both items suck in general. But really, the longer answer follows:

What Do These Have in Common?

All of the above items require the hero to physically attack a target early and often. Rigwarl doesn't do that. Sure, you do need to put some hits in here and there, but none of these orbs do much for a hero who only attacks once every second or two. This is why Skadi is the only logical pick: true, it doesn't pair perfectly, but it's the only orb that really provides a benefit to heroes who don't physically attack all the time.

Well Then, What About These?

What the hell are you going to do with any of those? Again, all these items need heroes who physically attack the ever-living shit out of everything. You don't. Even the pubstomping Lothar's Edge doesn't work well with Rigwarl. You deal your damage over a prolonged fight. Being able to sneak in - because you turned off your Radiance, LOLOLOL - isn't going to help you kill anyone any faster. Again, there's just nothing that really provides a meaningful benefit.

Okay, Smartass, Look at These!

Sure, BKB is useful on any hero. But with your speed and range, you should be fighting on the outskirts of any teamfight for as long as possible. You're not playing the short game: you don't Blink in and launch some devastating combo or unload a massive amount of near-burst DPS. Disables are much less effective at range, anyway. Linken's is even less useful.

What does a Shiva's get you? An armor boost and an AoE slow, at the bargain cost of 4700 gold! You absolutely don't need the Intelligence boost, for starters. This is one of those items that one of your other teammates - an Intelligence hero or a Strength hero who behaves like an Intelligence hero, perhaps? - should buy, especially if you're carrying (and you probably will be).

Well, what about a Guinsoo? I'm a big fan of the item in general. The first thing you'll notice is that the (significant) Intelligence boost and the (significant) mana regeneration boost are near-useless on you. Sure, percentage regeneration works well, but that's overkill. But we all know the real reason anyone buys it is for the disable: a damn good one, at that. Sure, it's nice, but you're still fighting at range. Remember: most of your damage comes from you just being there, burning things and shitting out quills. Again, this is another item that one of your teammates should be buying.

That brings us to Vanguard. Ah, yes, Vanguard. Let me put it to you this way: if you buy a Vanguard, you pretty much fail. Even if you were going to tank, there's no way any team that isn't functionally retarded is going to focus you unless you have a Radiance. By the time you have that Radiance, what the hell is 40 damage block going to do for you? HAY GUYZ LOOK AT ME MORT ONLY CRIT ME FOR 760 INSTEAD OF 800 LOLOLOLOLOL. You're also not going to be tanking creep waves unless you're a fucking moron. Hood scales; Vanguard doesn't. Congratulations: you're a moron.

Farm Your Ass Off

Always remember: odds are, you're carrying. As such, 100% of your efforts should be dedicated to getting into a position to take over the game as quickly as possible. Farm, farm, farm. Let your teammates babysit, ward and gank. Unless there's a damn compelling reason (such as your teammates setting up a gank for you), farm that rice! If you really want to go hog wild, why not set yourself up to make it possible?

The Piggy Dance

Rigwarl's combination of high speed and lowering the speed of his opponents allows for some extremely cheap (and funny) possibilities.

While I can't make a video for you (since I forget to save replays and I have the artistic talent of a blind schizophrenic), the concepts are easy enough to follow and hey, practice makes perfect, right?

As I said before, your job is to isolate and eliminate. To further that end, or to simply run interference, all one needs to do is spam your spells. While doing so, you go faster and faster while they go slower and slower. Simply dance out of their range and let your Radiance and Quill Spray damage do the trick. With such simple tactics, you can easily frustrate most melee heroes (and hard carries, even) to no end, rendering them largely ineffective! Ursa's DPS doesn't mean a damn thing if he can't close on you. Even carries with a fairly short attack range (such as Harbinger) can be stymied in this way. While this doesn't work with all heroes (Nightstalker at night, anybody?) it's effective enough that it creates a lose-lose situation: either way, you win.

Allies

Some heroes are worthy of sharing in the goodness of bacon.

Initiators

You can't; they can. Sounds good to me.

Babysitters

Their whole purpose is to make sure people like you are in a position to dominate. Make it happen and try your best to make sure you're laned with one!

Armor Eaters Heroes Who in Some Way, Shape or Form Make it So Damage that Rigwarl Deals is Increased by at Least a Fairly Significant Amount Since Various People Have to Take Things Literally Instead of Allowing Ursa to Fit into a Group of Heroes Who Give Rigwarl the Same Advantages Even Though Ursa Does the Exact Same Thing But in a Different Way

Stygian carriers fit here, too. You pair well with them; they pair well with you. Bring the DPS!

Enemies

While Rigwarl has few enemies as the game develops, some heroes still want nothing more than to keep that tasty bacon for themselves!

Strong Laners

etc...

Unfortunately, this also includes a fairly large number of Intelligence heroes. Basically, all these guys can make last hitting hell, a fact that your presence only compounds...

Gankers

etc...

This also includes a fair number of the above heroes. Remember: at low levels, you're a low-HP hero with no escape. You need to be babysat!

Bloodseeker

Why does Bloodseeker deserve a special mention, you ask? Simple: Rupture. So much of Rigwarl's game relies on mobility, and Bloodseeker completely snuffs it out. He pulls your tricks on you: die to AoE, or bleed to death? Avoid.

Razor

Snot? Purge. Snot? Purge. Snot? Purge. Plasma Field. Static Link. Eye of the Storm. Razor is kind of a dick. Leave him alone.

Magic Stick

Yup. Guess what's good against a spell spammer? A Magic Stick. Guess what's even better against a spell spammer who spams very low damage spells? Sigh. Magic Stick. Especially if a strong laner gets it, you can be in serious trouble. Basically for every Quill Spray you use, you're giving an Orbwalker another cast of their orb. And that sucks. A lot.