A guide on Jakiro in Dota 7.00
I’ve been having a lot of fun as well as some success playing Jakiro in this patch. I think his kit has been boosted by the new talent system, and in pubs he’s able to farm some items even as a 5. Macropyre is also pretty nice against Monkey King, which is always a plus. So I wanted to share my thoughts on how to play him.
Skills
Dual Breath: 28%/32%/36%/40% MS Slow, 28/32/36/40 AS Slow, 20/40/60/80 DPS for 5 seconds. Hits units up to 1000 range away.
This spell is super underrated early. The slow is good enough early to set up a kill in a defensive trilane, and if not, it’s solid harass. It scales decently with spell amp since it’s on a low cooldown. Also, the Slows aren’t purged by BKB if you apply the debuff before they use it, which is super nice. (Same deal with Liquid Fire, so if you’re quick you can get a 100 AS slow on a big BKB carry!)
Ice Path: 1/1.5/2/2.5 sec Stun over 1200 range that deals 50 damage. Level 25 talent can get it up to 3.75 seconds.
I love Ice Path with Jakiro’s new talents. Aether Lens + The level 15 cast range talent gets the distance up to right around 1700, which is absurd and gives you so much room to position yourself. The short cooldown (9 seconds at level 4) means you’re going to get it off multiple times per teamfight. It’s even pretty solid at starting ganks from long range, or being used in conjunction with setup skills like Astral and Disruption. Anyone who walks into the path will get stunned for the remainder too, so you can always get fancy with force staff if you miss, or throw the path behind someone like a Dark Seer Wall to force them to take the disable or walk a different path. It also gives flying vision over the path itself, which is a super big deal against heroes like Monkey King.
Liquid Fire: UAM giving a 30/40/50/60 AS Slow with 12/16/20/24 DPS over 5 seconds. 20/15/10/4 sec CD
Liquid Fire is Jakiro’s tool to melt down towers and mess with physical damage carries. The AS slow is very nice for sieging towers, as it buys much more time for your creep waves to stay alive. The DPS, which is 120 at max level, fully affects towers as well. Dual Breath and Liquid Fire is 520 damage on a single target before reductions over the 5 seconds when maxed. Since it’s an orb effect, you can use it to harass out the offlaner in lane without messing with creep aggro too much. If you opt for a Hurricane Pike and/or the +400 attack range talent later on in the game, you can siege towers from super far away.
Macropyre: 100/140/180 (125/175/225) DPS over 1640 units(2040) with a 10 (30) second duration (Aghs in parentheses) 60 sec CD
Macropyre destroys trees in it’s radius when placed. Combine that with Ice path, and you have yourself a pretty reliable tool to deal with Monkey King out of the 5 position role. That was my first reason for looking into Jakiro, but it’s an awesome spell for it’s damage in it’s own right. Sticking with the cast range talents, you can get close to 2000 units without Aghs, and 2400 with, which is absolutely huge. That puts you far enough to Macropyre the entire Rosh pit from the Dire Shrine or Radiant Ancients. It’s such a nice spell at counter initiating combined with Ice Path, as you can usually catch 2 or 3 heroes in it. Items like Veil and Aether Lens further boost the damage, as does the 8% spell amp talent available at level 10. Don’t be afraid to use it to push out big waves too, as it’s got a pretty short cooldown. Aghs is a luxury item for the hero, but the 30 second Macropyre renders makes it near impossible to engage.
Skill Build
Maxing Liquid Fire at 7 is pretty nice for sieging, and you’ll be getting your 7 later as a support. If you do get a fast Level 7, then you could grab an extra point in Ice Path. I’ll switch the level 1 spell based on the offlaner and our team’s kill potential (do we need a stun, or would a slow work better?) So something usually like 1–1–4 at 7, then I will max out Ice Path at 11 and finish DB at 16. I think his skill build is pretty open though, I’ve seen Jakiros go different directions with max DB (great with Veil+Aether) and just a couple points in LF, and stuff like 2–2–4 at 11 can work too. His talents are super good, so I wouldn’t skill at level 10 and 15 unless it’s to secure a kill in the middle of a fight.
Talent Tree
Level 10: 8% Spell Amp or 15% XP Gain
Level 15: +250 Health or +125 Cast Range
Level 20: +150 Gold/Min or +400 Attack Range
Level 25: +1.25s Ice Path Duration or -50s respawn time reduction
Probably some room for debate here. I like Spell Amp at 10 as it ramps up your damage and ensures you don’t fall behind, but if you’re really behind on farm the XP gain could be okay. The cast range boost gives you so much more room to work, and the extra +125 is super nice on Ice Path. But 250 Health could potentially make some sense against heavy damage or heavy gap closing lineups. I go for the +400 Attack Range at 20 over Gold, since you should be able to farm camps with LF/Dual Breath anyways, but gold is never a bad thing. The Ice Path bonus gives you great uptime but -50s is pretty huge, so it could be more useful in late game base defenses. FWIW, here’s the Dotabuff stats on his Talents, which seem to support the ones that give him more range/kiting ability. https://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/jakiro/builds
Items
To start, I’ll go with courier, Tangos, then 2 Obs and Wind Lace to make up for his slow speed early game, or skip the wind lace for a set of Sentries if the situation calls for it/I’m solo supporting. Boots are your first priority after that. From there, it depends on your team comp. If you’re 4 position, you can probably find enough farm to get quick Tranquils then rush a Veil. As 5 though, you will probably be hurting, especially if the tower snowball doesn’t get going. It’s okay to just stock up on wards, and I like to work towards a Force Staff or Aether Lens, but like any 5 position support, judge what you need based on the game. An enemy PA/Ursa/Lycan Tricore will probably require a Ghost Scepter.
Mek into Guardian Greaves is an option too, but I like it more on 4 position Jakiro if you can help it. Sometimes you’re the most optimal Mek carrier though, so it’s not a bad option to help with base pushes. I really do love Aether Lens though (and FWIW, it’s got a 62% WR right now), +445 cast range on your spells with the talent is massive, and it should be affordable by the time you’re level 15. Barring some exceptions (NS Aghs, Batrider, Kotl at Day, Beastmaster, etc.), a lot of times enemies just won’t see your Ice Path/Macropyre until it’s too late, and it’ll buy more than enough time for your tema to burst down a target pre-BKB or for them to make an escape from a fight gone wrong. In general you probably want a defensive and offensive item in either order depending on your game, though the specific item will change based on the game. For reference, I’d consider Mek/GG/Force/Ghost Defensive and Aether/Veil Offensive, Euls could go either way.
If you are getting rich from kills and/or towers, and have your one defensive item and offensive item, you can either upgrade your defensive item (Mek to GG, Force to Pike) or go for a second item from that category. Aether+Veil is pretty disgusting, as is the survivablity of Ghost+Force. If you are really rolling in gold, or took the +150 gold talent at level 20, Aghs is an awesome item to buff your Macropyre, and items like Shivas add to the AOE Magic. There’s also things like Linkens and Lotus to help your cores out, so judge the game as needed.
Playstyle/Draft
As a 4 or 5 position, you’re basically going to lane as normal until the push is ready, then start liquid firing towers. Jakiro has some pretty solid TP reactions (Ice Path out of TP is really nice to stop aggression) so make sure you keep your eyes open in the laning stage. Jakiro is also a strong candidate to run an aggressive offlane (dual or tri) with as Liquid Fire will really mess up the enemy carry’s last hitting. Just be careful, especially pre-boots, as Jakiro is super slow and his cast times are so long they’ll put you in danger especially when learning the hero.
In Fights I either use Ice Path to initiate or counter, but either way, follow it up with DB or Macropyre in most cases. You should never be in the center of the fight, as your shortest range pre range boosting things is still 600, and LF isn’t vital to getting kills. So play as far back as you possible can. Over a 20 second fight, you get three Ice Paths and three Dual Breaths if you stay alive, which is enough for 7.5 seconds of AOE stun and 1500 magical DPS, and that isn’t including Macropyre damage. If you do get bursted or disabled, just try and get Macropyre off before dying so you can contribute from the grave.
As I said, Ice Path is also really nice for ganking with it’s long range. Aggressive warding is Jakiro’s friend, as are heroes like NS, BH, and Riki who you can set up kills with (Ice Path’s range is longer than most heroes’ Night Vision!). When you aren’t ganking or fighting, just group with your team and force towers.
Jakiro is pretty decent at dealing with some of the annoying pub heroes. Monkey King is the clear one, with Macropyre and Ice Path able to lock him down for up to 7 seconds if you catch him in the trees. You can also drop that combo in his ult from long range to discourage his team from joining in. Ice Path’s long range stun is also nice against Pudge, and with Aether+Talent, you’d be surprised how often you’re able to catch a Sniper out who thinks his 1000 range is enough. Of course, all of these heroes that Jakiro is strong against can burst him pretty easily, so it’s not a one sided advantage.
BKB’d heroes, including Lifestealer and Juggernaut, are basically impossible for you to deal with, so try and get away until it starts to wear off. If you’re quick you can even prep an Ice Path for the BKB expiring. But sometimes as a support you just have to take a BKB’d Sven jumping you and move on. When BKB’s start running out, you are really a nuisance, so just think of the bright side!
Besides the vision providing allies, Jakiro loves big setup heroes (Disruptor, Void, Dark Seer, etc.) and Pushing heroes (Anyone from Lycan to DK to Shadow Shaman). I wouldn’t say there’s too many heroes that don’t pair well with him in terms of synergy, though. You will want to make sure your team has some direct/instant stuns to maximize Macropyre and to make sure you can catch slippery heroes like AM/Ember/Storm/Weaver with ally stun+Ice Path.
Final Thoughts
Jakiro is a pretty easy hero to pick up, so if you’re newer I’d recommend giving him a look. He does have slow cast times and it can take some practice to time Ice Path/Macro Pyre. Knowing your Dual Breath range is pretty important too. Once you get the positioning down on him though, you can really do some cool stuff and constantly frustrate your enemies with Ice Paths that seem to appear from the other side of the map. I was hoping to find a professional replay to show you but so far I haven’t seen any for the patch. Anyways, I’m sure I forgot some things so let me know if you have any thoughts or questions, and thanks for reading!
