K.I.S.S. – Keep it simple, stupid. Great advice hurts my feelings every time. I love playing in the offlane, it is my preferred position and Centaur Warrunner is one of my favourite heroes to play. He’s effective, suits the position greatly and has just been buffed heavily in the latest patch.
This guide is aimed at keeping things simple with Centaur Warrunner, and will give you a clear game plan on what you’re trying to achieve both ability and item wise. Then, once you’ve learned how to keep things simple, you can adapt that game plan to counter your opponents and help your team crush.
Preface.
The Keep It Simple Stupid guide will help you lay the ground work for what your builds will look like, and give you the platform you need to play Centaur Warrunner and get your experience up.
However, with that said, the following item and skill build suggestions are in-order, but the more you play Centaur Warrunner (and Dota in general) and the more experience you get, you’ll come to know that no one builds is going to solve your problems every game.
No two Dota games are alike, and therefore no two builds you work towards in-game should be alike. But for now, keep it simple, and you’ll get there.
Starting Items.
Tango.
As you’ve probably heard and seen me say on many of the other guides, taking damage early is almost always unavoidable. You’re contesting runes, you might accidental aggro the creep wave, you’re getting harassed. So, we grab the tango to offset this.
Quelling Blade.
Anything that we can do to make your life easier with the KISS guide, we’re going to do. Quelling will assist you in getting your last hits in, in a big way. As we’re melee, we get the full benefit of the blade, we can clear waves quickly and easily, to build our GPM (Gold per minute).
Ring of Protection.
Simply put, your armor sucks. You want to be beefy playing in the offlane, and taking damage as Centaur is the crux of your playstyle. So, in order to control where our HP sits more effectively and not allow enemies to reduce us too far with their rightclicks, we grab the ring.
Gauntlets of Strength.
We’re grabbing our main start in the starting items for a few reasons. The first is that having more of your main stat is literally never a bad thing. We get more bulk to survive the offlane. We get damage to get off last hits easier. And it will build into bracer shortly.
Iron Branch.
We’re grabbing branch with the leftover gold. Can be used to eat with the tango for more healing, or later build into the magic wand if you’re playing against a particularly ability spammy safe-lane + support combo.
Early Game Items.
Bracer.
Once we’ve secured some last hits and begun trading blows with the opposite laner, we want to invest more in bulk. That is the aim with Centaur Warrunner, build bulk, get our utility off, and support the team as much as possible. So, we turn Gauntlets into Bracer.
Ring of Health.
Ring of health is good for Centaur Warrunner for many of the same reasons that our main-stat item bracer is. But, with the added benefit of building into items that we’ll keep throughout the remainder of the game. We get more bulk here, we’re in the lane longer, more XP, more gold, more annoyance of the enemy team.
Phase Boots.
With the recent nerf to Tranquils, I find myself gravitating toward Phase boots. Being on top of the enemy is everything when playing as Centaur Warrunner, and these will aid you a long way into doing that. You need a mobility item, and your armour sucks, so we’re picking up phase boots.
We do miss our on the health regen from Tranquil Boots, but we’ve grabbed a ring of health and will have plenty in build items anyway.
Build Items.
Vanguard or Hood of Defiance.
We’re taking the ring of health we built earlier, and have been enjoying laughing in the face of attacks with it equipped, and turning it into either item (or both if you’re flushed for cash).
The choice is pretty obvious here: If you’re concerned about physical attacks take the shield, if you’re concerned about magical attacks take the cloak. Simple.
Blink Dagger.
Can be prioritized earlier if you need the utility sooner. Do not hesitate to move boots, or bulk, lower on the list of priorities if you need to have the blink + stun combo immediately. Blink is one of if not the most important items on Centaur Warrunner.
It enables you to blink in, get your abilities off, get the utility in so that your team mates can follow up with your initiation. You should be the initiator, and this will enable that more than any mobility boot.
Blade Mail.
Okay, I’ve blinked in, got my abilities off and have begun wailing on foes with rightclicks, but now I’m getting deleted myself, even with all the bulk. This is where Blade Mail comes in, turn the enemy teams damage potential back against them and keep the teamfight always in your favour.
End Game Items.
Heart of Tarrasque
The heart is the ultimate bulk item in Dota. And guess what, it also provides your main stat. Giving yourself the most bulk possible, whilst also gaining in damage is the nice cherry on top. We’d be getting the heart if it only provided the bulk, but it gives us a huge damage potential with both right clicks and our abilities.
Overwhelming Blink.
OB is great on Centaur Warrunner for many of the same reasons that heart is. It provides a huge chunk of meaty bulk, and accentuates our right click and ability damage potential with the additional strength. It also means that blink isn’t taking up space without providing stats. AND AND, we get the active. Simply brilliant.
Crimson Guard or Pipe of Insight.
Your choice of item here entirely depends on what you’ve taken earlier. If you’ve turned your ring of health into Vanguard, grab Crimson Guard. If you decided to turn your ring into Hood of Defiance, then grab the Pipe.
This will turn the utility that you would be getting and providing your team with those items, and turns that potential up to 11.
Skills.
Hoof Stomp.
This is the follow up to your blink, jump in, get the stun off on as many enemies as possible – or key targets that you have communicated with the team, then once the initiation is done you can follow up with your abilities and the abilities of your team mates.
Double Edge.
Remember earlier when I said that having a huge strength stat would not only affect the damage of your rightclicks, but your abilities as well? Well, this is what I meant. Building the main stat means that you’re getting in a huge AoE nuke with Double Edge. Clear waves quickly, clear camps quickly, and destroy huge chunks of health bars once you’ve blink + stunned in.
Retaliate.
For those unfamiliar with Dota, or haven’t played in a very long time, the term passive means that this is an ability that you do not have to activate. Whilst veterans will be familiar with the term, this is the keep it simple guide, designed for new or returning players.
Retaliate will return the damage dealt to Centaur Warrunner, as a base percentage of his strength. So, with more strength, the more damage you’re returning. Double Edge isn’t the only ability we enhance with our main stat. Works excellently when paired with Blade Mail. They’ll want to hurt you, but want wont to hurt you. Brilliant.
Stampede.
Stampede is as useful and nuts as it seems. Yes. It can be used for chase, escape and damage. You or allies struggling to make an escape, you desperately want to survive? Stampede. You want to initiate and deal huge damage to foes when your allies and you trample? Stampede. Want to stop an enemy dead in their tracks? Stampede.
Again, foes that are trampled by you or your allies take damage based on your main stat, so pump those rookie numbers up kid.
Talents.
Level 10: +6 Health Regen
I’ve preached the entire guide about necessary that bulk is to offlaners and particularly Centaur Warrunner, and in the talents I wont deviate from this advice. We’ve got plenty of move speed between phase, blink and stampede. So, we grab the bulk.
Level 15: +40% Double Edge Strength Damage
We grab this and grab a nuke. We’re getting armour from phase, and we have overall bulk, these difference between taking more bulk here is that we’re not offered move speed, we’re offered 40%. That’s enormous, and with our main stat going to be so high by the end of our end-game items, we’re actively help our team’s damage output, not just being a beefy offlaner.
Level 20: +50 Retaliate Damage
The first truly tough choice here. You cannot go wrong with either option. Stampede is a ridiculous ability and using that more often is never going to be a bad thing. With that said, I find myself enjoying the blade mail plus retaliate damage combo more often than the stampede talent, so I’ve recommended it here.
Level 25: Retaliate Aura
Now our return damage, that we’ve just specced for, is also affecting allies. We’ve specced Retaliate earlier, so we will again here. If you haven’t, and decided to go with Stampede, then you can consider the extra stun duration, but even if you haven’t enhanced Retaliate earlier, the aura is still really damaging.
Credits.
| Program | Founding Writers |
| Author | Luke Cowling |
| YouTuber | Dota 2 High School |
| Publisher | MGN |
| Game | Dota 2 |