Huskar
Emerging from the throes of the sacred Nothl Realm, Huskar opened his eyes to see the prodigal shadow priest Dazzle working a deep incantation over him. Against the ancient rites of the Dezun Order, Huskar's spirit had been saved from eternity, but like all who encounter the Nothl he found himself irrevocably changed. No longer at the mercy of a mortal body, his very lifeblood became a source of incredible power; every drop spilled was returned tenfold with a fierce, burning energy. However this newfound gift infuriated Huskar, for in his rescue from the Nothl, Dazzle had denied him a place among the gods. He had been denied his own holy sacrifice. <br><br>In time the elders of the order sought to expand their influence and Huskar, they agreed, would be a formidable tool in their campaign. Yet becoming a mere weapon for the order that denied him his birthright only upset him further. As the first embers of war appeared on the horizon, he fled his ancestral home to find new allies, all the while seeking a cause worthy of unleashing the power his total sacrifice could bring.
Base STR
23 +3.3
Base AGI
10 +1.5
Base INT
18 +0
Move Speed
290
Attack Range
400
Base Armor
1
Attack DMG
21–26
Projectile
1400
Innate Abilities
Blood Magic
Huskar does not have mana. Mana costs of items are converted into health costs.
Huskar's Health Costs are Magical Damage and can be reduced by Magic Resist.
Abilities
Inner Fire
Cooldown
17 / 15 / 13 / 11s
In a fiery rage, knocks all nearby enemies away from you to a fixed distance, dealing damage and silencing them.
HEALTH COST:
75 / 100 / 125 / 150
DAMAGE:
110 / 180 / 250 / 320
RADIUS:
500
DURATION:
1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3
KNOCKBACK TO:
400
Not even Huskar's own flesh can contain the unending expansion of his life force.
Burning Spear
Huskar sets his spears aflame, dealing damage over time with his regular attack. Multiple attacks will stack additional damage. Each attack drains some of Huskar's health.
MAX HEALTH COST:
2%
BURN DAMAGE:
5 / 10 / 15 / 20
MAX HEALTH BURN:
0.5%
DURATION:
9
- Burning Spear stacks additively when used multiple times on one target. There is no cap.
- Huskar cannot kill himself with this skill.
- Incendiary does not deal extra Max Health Burn Damage to Roshan.
The Sacred Warrior ignites his weaponry after marking it with his own blood - causing far greater pain than he himself feels.
Berserker's Blood
Huskar's injuries feed his power, giving increased attack speed, magic resistance and health regen based on missing health. Health regen is a percentage of your strength.
MAX ATTACK SPEED:
170 / 220 / 270 / 320
MAX STR REGEN:
25 / 40 / 55 / 70%
MAX MAGIC RESIST:
15 / 20 / 25 / 30%
HP FOR MAX BONUS:
10%
CURRENT HP COST:
0%
COOLDOWN:
0
CAUTERIZE DELAY:
0
MAX HP HEAL PER DEBUFF:
0%
- Bonuses are provided linearly, no bonus at Full HP and full bonus at strictly less than hp_threshold_max HP.
After losing his birthright, Huskar gained a lethality in physical combat that is only heightened as his own blood is spilled.
Life Break
Cooldown
16 / 14 / 12s
Huskar draws upon his health to break an enemy's life, leaping at a target to shatter a percentage of that hero's current health and slow both their movement and attack speed. While leaping, Huskar is Debuff Immune with 60% magic resistance. DISPEL TYPE: Basic Dispel
DAMAGE DEALT:
32 / 38 / 44%
DAMAGE TAKEN:
32 / 38 / 44%
MOVEMENT SLOW:
-60%
ATTACK SPEED SLOW:
60 / 100 / 140
SLOW DURATION:
3 / 4 / 5
TAUNT DURATION:
0
CAST RANGE BONUS:
0
- If Huskar is disabled during the charge or the target moves more than 1400 units in 0.015 seconds, the charge stops.
- Slow works on Spell Immune units.
- Life Break cannot be disjointed.
No matter the danger, Huskar thrusts himself into melees that only he can survive.
Talents
Aghanim's Scepter
Life Break
Forces the enemy target to attack Huskar and increases cast range.
Aghanim's Shard
Berserker's Blood
Huskar can activate Berserker's Blood for a health cost to cauterize himself. Dispels Huskar, then after a delay, heals for the amount of health consumed plus an additional bonus per debuff dispelled.
DISPEL TYPE: Basic Dispel
Hero Performance
Median across all public matches · OpenDotaForm
49%
Win rate in recent matches
Performance
100%
KDA ratio (kills + assists / deaths)
Laning
37%
Last hits per minute over full game
Farm
59%
Average gold per minute
Fighting
40%
Average kills + assists per match
Experience
73%
Average XP per minute
Strategy
When to Pick Huskar?
You know what I love about Huskar? He is the hero that makes enemy supports genuinely question their life choices every single time they queue up for a ranked game. Right now in patch 7.41a he is surpassing even Ember Spirit in mid lane win rate and sitting comfortably in the S-tier of midlaners—and honestly? I am not surprised at all. This patch is a LANING patch.
Heroes that dominate their lane and bully their way into the mid game are winning, and nobody — I mean NOBODY — dominates a mid lane like Huskar does when the enemy doesn't have a hard counter ready in the draft. The guy literally gets stronger the lower his HP goes. How do you even fight that? You hit him, he gets faster and deals more damage.
You try to trade; he just stands there throwing spears at you while his Berserker's Blood kicks in, and suddenly he is a runaway train that you cannot stop without dying.
He is disgusting in lineups that have strong follow-up when he dives—because Huskar diving a hero at low HP with Life Break is basically a guaranteed kill if someone else is there to finish—and he pairs beautifully with heroes that can lock down his targets after he leaps on them and remove any chance of escape.
The Armlet of Mordiggian on Huskar is one of the most broken item spikes in the entire game right now—the moment he finishes it, he is borderline unkillable if he manages his own HP correctly, and the Armlet toggling mechanic in his hands is a whole skill expression that rewards the players who master it with something that feels genuinely unfair to play against.
He thrives in the current laning meta specifically because 7.41a rewards heroes that create pressure fast before the enemy's late-game carries come online—and Huskar does exactly that better than almost any mid in the pool.
He pairs beautifully with Ancient Apparition above all else—Ice Blast completely removes the healing and regeneration that would otherwise save the enemy hero from Life Break, turning what would be a borderline kill into a guaranteed death that the enemy team has absolutely no answer for.
Avoid picking him into Viper—that hero is the single most miserable matchup for Huskar, and if you see Viper mid after picking Huskar, you already know what the next twenty minutes of your life are going to look like. Necrophos is another nightmare—Reaper's Scythe combined with Death Pulse healing reduction completely removes Huskar's ability to sustain himself through his own low HP game plan and turns his greatest strength into his biggest liability.
And if the enemy drafts a lot of magic bursts that can nuke him down before Berserker's Blood even has time to kick in? Be very careful—because a Huskar that dies before he reaches the low HP threshold where he becomes dangerous is just a strength hero with a slow that wasted everyone's time.
Tips & common mistakes
- Armlet toggling is THE skill expression on Huskar, and most people are terrible at it. Quickly toggling Armlet off and on right before the HP drain kills you keeps you in the low-HP range where Berserker's Blood is active and terrifying — without actually dying. If you are not practicing this in every single game, you are playing Huskar at half his actual potential and leaving the most important mechanical tool on the hero completely untouched.
- Life Break targets a hero based on THEIR current HP—the lower their HP, the less damage it deals to Huskar himself. This means always use Life Break on the most wounded target in the fight, not the closest one or the one you happen to be standing next to. One wrong life break on a full HP hero can bring you dangerously close to death for absolutely no reason.
- Burning Spears is your main harassment tool in the lane, and people are shockingly bad at using it consistently. The DoT stacks—every spear you land adds another layer of damage over time, and against heroes with low base HP the cumulative damage adds up so fast that they are forced to buy regeneration items or simply give up the lane entirely before the five-minute mark.
- Stop buying Armlet and then immediately toggling it off and sitting at full HP like you are afraid of your own kit. The whole point of Huskar is playing at dangerously low HP, where Berserker's Blood makes you fast and strong. If you are at 80% HP playing passively, you are just a strength hero with mediocre base damage doing nothing. Get low. Stay low. Make the enemy team terrified of the number on your HP bar.
- BKB is not optional in most games — it is what separates a Huskar that gets instantly disabled and killed the moment he jumps into five heroes from a Huskar that actually completes his Life Break, deals his damage, and then survives long enough for the play to matter. Buy it before you start diving deep, not after you have already died three times to a Bane Fiend's Grip canceling your entire game plan.
- Ancient Apparition's Ice Blast and Huskar are the most iconic duo combo in the game for a very good reason—communicate with your supports before you Life Break, make sure AA is ready with Ice Blast on the target, and watch the enemy hero die with zero chance of regenerating their way out of it. This combo is almost impossible to survive without Linken's or BKB, and it should be your team's primary kill pattern every single time.
- Watch your magic resistance. Berserker's Blood grants magic resistance that scales with how low your HP is — at very low HP you become nearly immune to magic damage, which is why heroes that deal physical damage or pure damage are significantly more dangerous to you than most magic nukers. Know which damage type the enemy is using and play your HP management accordingly.
Summary
Huskar mid in patch 7.41a is genuinely one of the most annoying and oppressive heroes you can queue into right now—and I mean that as the highest possible compliment.
He wins the lane against almost everyone; he creates pressure the moment he hits Armlet; he dives carries at dangerous HP values and survives through sheer Berserker's Blood magic resistance; and with an Ancient Apparition on his team, he converts every Life Break into a death sentence that the target cannot regen or item their way out of.
The patch is literally designed for heroes like him right now—laning dominance into mid-game aggression into objectives before the enemy scales—and he hits every single one of those checkboxes more aggressively than almost any other mid. Master the Armlet toggling, learn your Life Break HP math, and make the enemy mid laner feel like they are not playing a video game but are personally being bullied by a man on fire who gets angrier and faster the more you hit him.
Just—for the love of everything—do NOT pick him into Viper. I don't want to hear about it afterward.
Strong Against
Popular Items
Starting Items
Early Game
Core
Late Game
Popular Neutral Items
Pro Players Known For This Hero
