Would you like to learn how to win games by playing Hoodwink in Dota 2?
A relatively new addition to Dota 2’s many heroes, Hoodwink is a versatile hero with her base attribute being Agility. With the abilities that provide her with Disables, Damage, Mobility, and insane Nuking potential, she is pretty overpowered. Along with this, her impressive Agility-gain makes learning how to play Hoodwink in Dota 2 vital for all players.
With her scalable abilities that stay relevant late into the game, she can have a massive impact even without items. This makes her suitable for aggressive moves at all points in the game. Furthermore, she has quite extensive ranges for her abilities allowing her to fight from further back. She can also escape easily with her Mobility spell.
Her extreme versatility stems from the fact that she can fit into all roles to various levels of success. However, she does fit extremely well into the Utility Support or Midlaner Role, where her abilities are terrifying. Moreover, even as a Support, her abilities allow her to farm and push lanes impeccably. This is yet another reason to play Hoodwink in Dota 2.
As for allies who can help her reach her full potential, she favors allies that can benefit from her Stuns. These include Sand King, Elder Titan, Mars, and Monkey King, who can use their own Lockdowns to chain Stun enemies. In contrast, enemies that she can easily defeat are Bristleback, Huskar, and Phantom Assasin as she can Break their Passives.
Hoodwink’s Abilities
Acorn Shot is a Target Unit or Target Point ability that uses Hoodwink’s own damage through a projectile. She launches an acorn that attacks enemies while also bouncing between targets and dealing bonus damage. Moreover, she also slows enemies she hits by 100% of their movement speed. It has a relatively minimal Mana cost of 105 Mana.
Her second ability, Bushwack, which players often utilize in combination with Acorn Shot, is a Lockdown spell. With Bushwack, Hoodwink can latch any enemies near a tree by throwing a net trap onto targets. Any heroes within a 265-unit radius of a tree experience a stun for 2.4 seconds. Similar to her previous ability, the ability consumes 120 Mana.
Scurry is Hoodwink’s main mobility and escaping tool as it allows her to boost her Movement Speed by 35%. Apart from this, she also gets 30% passive evasion whenever she is within a 275-unit radius of a tree. The active movement speed boost lasts for four seconds, and the ability has a comparable cooldown of twelve seconds.
Hoodwink’s ultimate ability is Sharpshooter, one of the most potent Nukes in the entire game. She channels a bolt from her crossbow for up to five seconds and can deal a maximum of 1250 damage. This bolt can be lethal as it slows the target it hits by 50%. Lastly, it also Breaks any enemies it hits, allowing her to counter many heroes.
Sharpshooter, with its insanely large amount of damage, is often the key to finishing off enemies who are running away. This is a key factor in why one should learn how to play Hoodwink in Dota 2.
How to Utilize her Abilities
As a Target Point ability, whenever Acorn Shot hits the ground, it plants a tree that lasts for twenty seconds. This tree acts just like a tree from an Iron Branch would act and provides bonus healing for Tangoes. It also works exceptionally when one combines it with Bushwack, as it provides a tree for the spell to target.
Bushwack works as both a Lockdown ability as well as an escape mechanism. This is because any enemies that Bushwack effects lose their vision and experience blindness. On the other hand, the ability provides Hoodwink with the Vision of the target, and thus, is a great scouting tool. It has a relatively low cooldown, making it extremely spammable.
As she gets a passive evasion boost whenever she is near a tree, Scurry benefits her heavily in the Lane. In the Sidelanes, she can always stick to the tree line and can escape effortlessly whenever an enemy approaches. She can also move through trees when she uses Scurry, allowing her to both scouts and set up efficient kills.
Against heroes with insanely useful passive abilities, Sharpshooter is a direct counter and has serious damage. Furthermore, many fail to realize that the ability also acts as an escape due to its knockback effect on Hoodwink. Hoodwink will also release the bolt even if she is under the effect of any enemies’ disables.
Item Build
As soon as her Lane starts, she is a bit weak and thus, requires some Stats and Healing for support. She can get this through Iron Branches, Tangoes, Clarities, and Healing Salves. Moving through the Laning Stage, she aims to build multiple Wraith Bands and a Magic Wand. By the end of the Laning Stage, she starts to pursue her choice of Boots.
Building either the Tranquil or Arcane Boots, she can choose whatever she needs. After this, to boost her Farming speed exponentially, she can choose to go for a Maelstorm. This item allows her to gain an extreme lead over the enemy heroes. After this item completes, she can choose between Damage items or an Aether Lens.
In the Late Game, it depends on whether her team needs Damage items or utility items. For utility, she can choose to build an Aghanim’s Shard or an Aghanim’s Sceptre. As for damage, she can upgrade her Maelstorm into a Glepnir as it provides her with additional Lockdown. She can also choose to make a Desolator as it increases her damage by a lot.
Laning Stage and Gameplay
Because of her exceptional versatility, Hoodwink fits into almost any role that players may want to use her in. However, she fits best into a Sidelane, making her an efficient Offlaner or Utility Support. In the Lane, her abilities are quite strong from the start, making her able of being very aggressive. She can also Farm quite easily with her high damage abilities.
In either of these roles, the main priority Hoodwink has is to maintain the creep equilibrium. To do this, she can either pull the lane into the neutral camp or try her best to deny creeps. This will ensure that she can Lasthit effectively, while also making sure she has enough space. Staying near trees is also a great way to trade optimally with enemies.
After or near the end of the Laning Stage, after she reaches level six, she reaches a massive power spike. At this stage, the best thing she can do is to move to other Lanes to apply aggressive pressure. Getting kills at this stage helps her in both accelerating her Farm and in establishing a lead. This can also lead to her being able to destroy Towers.
Due to her ability to pass through trees with Scurry, Hoodwink is also one of the best pushers. She can choose a Sidelane and stay there while killing creeps to get easy towers and steal map control. Doing this allows her team to focus on bigger objectives as enemies focus on Hoodwink instead of the bigger picture.
Hoodwink is an exceptionally versatile hero that has Lockdowns, Nukes, and Escapes in her toolset. Her arsenal is one of the most well-balanced in the game and grants her the power to make excellent ganks. This combined with the fact that she can farm well is an easy win. It is also why one should focus on learning how to play Hoodwink in Dota 2.
