Top Introduction Ursa is a melee agility hero with strong right click potential who is also tanky enough to survive most enemy bursts if uses his items and skills correctly. Ursa is strong initiator who struggles from lack of strong disable, but can slow and nuke enemies with his kit. Ursa suffers against heroes with slows disables and illusions , but thrives against heroes who's strongest points are nukes and right click damage as he can mitigate most of that damage with his ultimate.

Top When to pick? First, lets understand when is Ursa a good pick.



When to pick Ursa:

[*] When enemy doesn't have many stuns or slows allowing Ursa to reign chaos on enemy heroes.

[*] When You have strong disables on your team which would allow Ursa hit enemies without disruption.

[*] When enemy main carry is hero who doesn't usually buy manta and doesn't have illusions of his own. (heroes like lifestealer ,dragon knight and faceless void)

[*] When enemy heroes are late game oriented and you can finish the game fast.

When enemies are squishy and You can kill most of them with one overpower cast and earth shock cast.







When not to pick Ursa:

[*] When enemies have a lot of strong disables and can kite You. ( especially if those go trough bkb)

[*] When enemy has a lot of summons and illusion, against which Ursa is very bad.

[*] When you are trying to go into late game.



When not to pick Ursa:

Top Understanding Ursa's strengths. Ursa is a hero who heavily relies in hitting enemies to be relevant in fights, so anything that helps him hit , being strong disables, slows and buffs on move speed and attack speed are things that keep him useful, and same things on enemy side with addition of items that give enemies mobility and invisibility hurt him a lot. Ursa has a very unique kit that allows him killing most enemies solo after getting a blink + bkb combo, but he heavily relies on his supports to provide disables and buffs for him. When going to lane consider getting strong supports with disables who also can zone out the offlane and let Ursa freefarm, as he is slow farming hero and needs a head start to be relevant later in the game. Ursa also can solo against most melee offlaners as they are no threat to him because getting too close to creeps can lead to them losing a good chunk of hp or even dying. After getting a blink dagger Ursa can practically gank whole map keeping enemy under constant fear of death and making them try to be together thus making them get less farm from the map. Ursa is extremely good jungler after he gets a morbid mask and can take down roshan solo under a minute. Ursa's abilities compliment aggressive playstyle, as he is tanky enough to be on front lines and strong enough to nuke most of the heroes. Playing Ursa requires being aggressive as failing to do so will let enemy get advantage over Ursa in money situation. As a side note i suggest asking your supports to get arcane boots as Ursa is really mana starved and can be mostly useless in a fight without ability to cast skills.

Top Abilities and their nuances. Earthshock:



Earthshock is strong slow and damage ability with uptime of 1 second ( nearly no abilities have such small uptime). I strongly suggest you getting this ability before lvl 3 as it will allow You to chase and kill enemies with ease.



Overpower:



Overpower gives you 400 attack speed bonus for 3-6 attacks that has a duration of 15 seconds and cooldown of 10 seconds. Activate overpower before going on the enemies as it will allow you to cast it second time during the fight and potentially get a kill or two. Note: You do not lose overpower stack if you miss, so it is a very good skill against evasion and heroes like phantom assasin and brewmaster.



Fury Swipes:



Fury swipes add 15-30 bonus stacking physical damage to each of your attack that have 20 second duration. This is very generic skill but makes Ursa one of the strongest mid game carries. Note: debuff lasts only 6 seconds on roshan.



Enrage:



Gives Ursa 80% damage reduction and fury swipes 1.5-2 damage multiplier for 4 seconds. With overpower+earthshock+enrage combo Ursa can melt enemies in under a second. Can be upgraded with aghanim's scepter ( more in items chapter).

Top Laning and Itemization. Ursa is quite tanky at the start with 5 armor and 660 hp, so most of the time he doesn't require stout shield or armor to be to lane. Getting a set of tangoes, mango and orb of venom allows Ursa to zone out most of the offlaners and not let them farm. After getting a bit of advantage ask your support to leave you and have a tp to come when enemy is trying to gank you. Letting Ursa get solo xp allows him to get online faster and pressure enemies.

First item on Ursa should be phase boots, as he struggles to catch up with enemies and wants the damage boost over the additional stats+attack speed of power treads. Consider getting morbid mask as first item if you want to go jungle or are being pressured on lane so you heal a bit, but if you are having a blast its better to get a blink dagger. Purchasing blink dagger allows ursa to be a nuisance for whole enemy team.

If at this point You are having a very strong start and enemy has few strong disables and slows You can consider getting items like eye of skadi, desolator and sny. Those items are very strong and help you kill, but put away very important items like bkb and basher, which can change the tide of battle. Butterfly and bloodthorn/orchid are on same list, as you rather get abyssal instead of butterfly and let someone else get the silence.

Ursa should start farming jungle and doing ganks as enemy most of the time wont know which thing you are doing allowing Ursa to get both kills and farm. Good vision is required to pull this off as if enemy sees Ursa all the time it can lead to not allowing him to get kills and most likely he will fall off later in game. Roshan is viable option at this point in the game, consider upgrading morbid to mask of madness or vladimirs offering at this point , but dont go solo or use smoke to get there undetected, as if you lose roshan to enemy it is gonna be a big loss for your team.

At this point you should consider basher if enemy doesn't have ways to disable you, but if they do, I suggest getting bkb as it allows you to fight and not be afraid of most of the spells. If enemies have strong bkb piercing disables i suggest getting linkens in par with bkb as those items together help you stay in fight and be useful. Mkb should be considered as counter to heroes with evasion and abyssal is one of them most useful items for Ursa as he has no strong disables of his own. If you are up against heroes with ethereal form or who buy ghost scepters, are too fast to catch most of the time Diffusal is best item for those scenarious, as it gives Ursa good stats, ability to slow enemy and mana burn at the same time. Halberd Can be purchased if enemy has a very strong right clicker who buys bkb (or has ability aka lifestealer ) and can kill your cores or supports on the backlines. Shadow blade is very good initation tool in par with blink dagger, which can also be upgraded to provide good stats and disable passives if needed.

At this point Ursa should dominate the game and try to finish it before it turns to late game, but if that is not the case, Ursa still has some space to grow. Aghanims scepter Allows Ursa to get out of stuns and disables when not silence,but Ursa is most of the time bad pick if you need this item in the first place. Heart allows Ursa stay longer in fight and deal more damage, but its useless without items that allow Ursa to kill, as he will just be a tanky hero who does nothing in the fight. Lastly hes is another strong disable if abyssal blade is not enough, which has a longer duration than abyssal blade, but does not pierce spell immunity.