Why Bounty Hunter is a highly contested hero

At the community level, Bounty Hunter has a pick rate of around 12.6% and a win rate of 50.6%. In professional matches, where you would not expect him to be picked that often, he’s actually highly contested.

At ESL One Berlin Major, BH has been picked or banned 54 times. And his win rate is close to 60%. So what exactly makes Bounty Hunter a highly contested hero in Dota 2?

Bounty Hunter’s strengths

Bounty Hunter is an excellent choice for teams that want to play an aggressive style of Dota. If you’re planning to group up early and get a lot of kills, this hero can significantly increase the amount of gold that you’ll get for those kills.

He will also increase the movement speed of his allies around marked targets by 8%-12% thanks to his level 15 talent. If you also purchase Drum of Endurance, this hero will make it very difficult for enemy targets to escape the fight. If a few heroes get caught, it’s likely that the entire team will get caught.

Individually, Bounty Hunter can be extremely annoying. Every 3 seconds, he steals 36 gold from any enemy hero he hits with his Jinada. And the stolen amount is significant even at lower levels. For example, assuming that you put two points in this ability early on, you can hit a target nearly 9 times per minute and steal 20 gold each time.

Laning against Bounty Hunter tends to be extremely difficult because of this. If a Dragon Knight goes mid and Bounty also goes mid, that DK will suffer huge losses over the course of the laning phase.

One way to greatly amplify BH’s strength is to pair him with a hero like Bloodseeker, who depends upon a reliable stun to keep the target in place. Bounty Hunter provides the perfect stun by hitting a target while being in Shadow Walk and then slowing it down with Shuriken Toss.

The initial hit will stun the target for at least 1 second, while the Shuriken Toss will slow it down for another 0.35s. Combined, these abilities guarantee that the target will also get hit by whatever abilities are thrown by other heroes. Whether it’s a Pudge Hook or a Mirana Arrow, the combination works really well and it has the element of surprise.

That’s because BH is invisible when he initiates the combo.

Header: ESL