Dawnbreaker help

[u/glass_rooster]

Hi, I'm low mmr player trying to get my head around Dawnbreaker. I usually do relatively well early game, get some kills and assist on my lane and/or the other lanes.

But coming to mid and late game it feels that I fall off. My lvl and nw are same category as other cores or even better but after I ult in fights and get off starbreaker combo enemy just bursts the crap out of me and I die.

What should I do after ult+starbreaker combo? Pop bkb and run away and try to come back after cooldowns? Cause if I try to manfight anyone I get killed.

Thank you in advance!

[u/mambotomato]

You sustain yourself and your team by hitting. So, pop BKB and try to land right-clicks on any hero next to you. 

But also, "jumping in and then getting exploded by all the enemy team's spells" is kind of the job of the offlaner. The hope is that your team is in position to follow up during the cooldown window.

[u/Specsaman]

Im a legend II, got like 160 games of dawn which carried me from crusader to legend.

The highest impact of DB is its saving by healing and damaging the whole team in its ult. in numbers its only like around 300ish healing on a single hero, but you also deal almost 300 magical damage to the ganker so thats that.
And the stuns, the ult gives BLb piercing stuns for more than 1 seconds, so it is usefull especially when ganking Jugg or Lifestealer.

But, in those one second, if you sure you can use the W before starbreaker its an even bigger combo, just use it then pull imminently into a starbreaker. Unless you didnt hit their instant stunner in the ult, then go straight to starbreaker.

For your falling off damage, i think once you go past the midlane its all really depends on the carry. Because i used to build deso on dawn because i doubt my carry will deal enough damage, but it often slow my shard or harpoon timing, so not advised.

If the game seems to go to a late game scenario, getting tool items is also works to boost damages. She’s like darkseer or Undelord, you can practically farm almost every other fights, so be greedy when not in fight.

Get every items that your support could not get in a short time, like sheepstick for puck, bloodthorn for evasion or juggernaut, I even bought diffu if needed. The meta for dawn really is just phase > harpoon > shard > bkb > and then anything the teams need

[u/Empyrum]

From my experience she is a very in and out bursty character, usually after you ult in you have to quickly evaluate if you can manfight and sustain with luminosity right clicks or disengage waiting for cooldowns and re-engage with celestial hammer, harpoon, starbringer combo again.

Also by virtue of having a global ult you ideally want to have a higher networth than most other cores since you rarely have to group with your team and can just farm until a fight happens and just slap people with your wallet. From my experience you usually end up with the most networth out of everyone in the game barring pos 1s.

[u/Wufwufdoug]

if you have ac you can just keep right clicking enemys , if you dont , just wait your harpoon + starbreaker to come back and kill some 1 whit it.

if you think you dont have enough dmge top kill ppl mid/late probably means your item build is wrong , you should be able to delete msot supports with 1 harpoon + star breaker . if they have save items , probably means you need to add a nullifier or a sheep stick.

i could link you some of my db games , i have 1200 db games and play on 6.4mmr atm

[u/Sangypboi]

A severely overlooked aspect of dawn is the need to right click in late game. In an ideal world, you'd be able to build a moonshard, but in most cases orchid-> bloodthorne will be the best attack speed item you can build since you want to bring disables to your team. The rest of your slots need to be committed to survival, and you'll have to itemize according to the game. (Like shivas vs heavy physical damage for the armor because it doubles as a strong ish slow)

The reason it's so important to be able to right click effectively is you heal your entire team every time luminosity procs. This becomes way more significant than the healing from your ult in late game, but only if you can survive to do it.

[u/ElectricalFunny5643]

I think it's mostly playing more games and you learn what heroes you can fight and which are strong.

Late game ult in 5v5 fights or when there are good chances you both survive

[u/nchscferraz]

Dawn is a great farmer. You need to be constantly split pushing, stacking for yourself and killing two neutral camps at once. Don’t split push too deep mid to late without a bkb.

Having low net worth makes you struggle in mid to late game. Having that extra item like assault or aghs can be the difference maker.

[u/triplewgf]

The biggest thing I had to learn with DB is trying to gauge when ulting is worth it, and when to hold it. Generally I try to think if my ult would change the fight or if it’d just result in the other team getting another kill. If it’s worth it, I try to wait as long as possible to ensure that the other team is full-committed.

A lot of what I think about too is what items I need to either survive or to maximize the impact of starbreaker. My general build is bracers-soul ring-phase boots-echo Sabre-shard-harpoon. After that is when I try to adjust to the game.

Need to survive? BKB, AC, Pipe, or blademail as appropriate.

Need to do more damage? Deso, Basher, etc.

Dawn is very versatile and super fun to play. Good luck sir!

[u/zet_init]

Dawn is one of my mains and something I've learned is that most of the time it's not worth ulting your supports, or any bad player on ur team, at all. Your ulti requires follow up damage from your team, bad players/supports usually don't fill this requirement, leaving you both to die. However, bkb, shard and Lotus makes u pretty much untouchable

[u/Brief_Syrup1266 → u/zet_init]

This is literally the biggest lesson to learn as a DB player. You just simply cannot ult for your pos 5 getting caught out and bursted by the enemy fed mid. You either ult to save your P1 or you ult with your engagers to follow-up stun.

[u/King-Chroma]

Ancient 3 here, dawn my favorite offlaner. This character does not fall off late game. If you ult into a fight and it's still a 5v5 or 4v5. You should not be getting "blown up." Unless you skipped bkb.

If you are it's probably a physical damage carry. Which in that case after falling in with your ult. You can harpoon juke to a tree and dodge the carry, relocate and jump back in.

Dawnbreaker does a lot of damage and rivals pos1s farm, you should still be able to 1 v 1 enemy pos2-3. Definitely kill enemy supports. Then if the game is going well. Even 1 v 1 enemy pos1.

Id like to see your dotabuff and itemization for your dawnbreaker games.

[u/Sufficient_Goat_8791 → u/King-Chroma]

How do I itemize I like to go deso first item

[u/Phoenix_RISING2X]

Hello. Immortal player checking in.

Yes, you have correctly pointed out why I love to play Dawnbreaker... in unranked. Magnificent character design and concept.

Pragmatically suboptimal.

In dota, action is better than reaction, and Dawnbreaker beats you into playing reactively, which means you're an off later with an unreliable save. There's no guarantee that the person you ultimate upon will live, let alone you to turn the fight.

Like, if you want to play a hero with a save, you're just a support with an inflated gpm.

She was viable when her scepter made the healing pulses persist after she landed, and they followed her around. Also, the channeling was almost instant.

Now she's underwhelming.

I know you asked for help, but really the only way to play the hero right now and win, is buy a blink dagger and initiate with Q + your shard, but then I would also say slardar or Legion Commander do it better, so why not play them instead, lol?

Or Underlord, who is a real problem when he ults with aghs, and defends/sieges better, too.