Is Riki carry legit?
Image by Yap KarlHe
”...Riki, the small middle son, seemed born for the art of invisibility. It was an art he cultivated, and one which ultimately saved his life on the night that his people were betrayed and his family slaughtered. Of all the royal line, he alone escaped—small and agile, unassuming, using smoke as cover. He cut his way out of the royal grounds, using the advantage of surprise, quietly slitting the throats of one enemy warrior after another…” - Riki, the Stealth Assassin
Riki is a small, blue, dagger carrying, carry?
The 7.23 patch brought huge changes to many heroes, Riki included. Before the 7.23 patch, Riki was a hero caught in an awkward position. He was a situational support and a situational carry. With the reworks to him, Icefrog and co. seem to have decided that Riki is a core.
He’s in an awkward transition phase but since the changes, we’re seeing Riki picked more in the pro and pub scene. Before Riki was too greedy to be picked as support but now he’s a team fighting core so pros are trying him out with mixed results.
In this article, we’ll analyze Riki’s viability in his new role as a core.
How the 7.23 patch changed Riki
The biggest change was obviously Cloak and Dagger being his ultimate. This forced Riki out of his support position. Before he could roam around as a 4 and help his team around the map or hunt couriers right away.
With this change, he has to play in lane because there’s no point in running around as Riki when you’re not invisible. He’s also not a great lane harasser without invisibility so that forces him to play as a core.
Another huge change was adding charges to Blink Strike. This helps his escape and initiation a ton. Riki is a squishy hero so if you get caught and disabled, chances are you’re going to die. An extra charge allows you to blink in to fight, and if things get messy, you have another charge to blink away. Or you could use two charges to blink longer distances.
Tricks of the Trade is now a basic ability. This turns Riki into an untargetable cloud that attacks units within an area. This is a welcome change because it’s a useful spell that helps Riki escape, initiate, and survive.
Riki in pro games
The most recent premier tournaments were DreamLeague 13 and Tug of War: Mad Moon.
In DreamLeague, Riki went 1-2, and in Tug of War, he went 3-1.
In all these games Riki was played as the safe lane carry.
In Tug of War, all three Riki wins were by 
Gambit Esports played by @cutcutcut and he went a combined 40 kills, 8 deaths, 22 assists in the three games.
In DreamLeague, Riki was played by Entity.Gabbi in one game where he went 6-4-2 in a loss. The other two games were played by
Arteezy who went 3-8-4 in a loss and 6-1-10 in a win.
Riki is still not a meta hero but he seems to be rising in popularity. We almost never saw Riki picked in the pro scene for years. He’s been picked 7 times in the last two tournaments with a new meta and has done better at each one. He’s also only been picked as a carry so that may be his new role.
Riki in pubs
In the Dotabuff meta page when sorted by win rate % of safe lane heroes in Divine/Immortal games, Riki is 11th. When you remove the supports on this list then Riki is 6th. His win rate here is 53.28% with a 7.02% pick rate.
These are some encouraging numbers if you’re a Riki fan. He’s now a common safe lane carry with a top 6 win rate.
Itemization
The most popular item for Riki is still Diffusal Blade. After that it’s common to build a Skull Basher but nowadays players are switching it up. Battlefury, Manta Style, and Sange and Yasha are becoming more common.
On Riki’s item section, the item with the highest win rate that’s been seen in over 50,000 matches is Manta Style with a 67.31% win rate. Another escape and dispel can help Riki survive longer in team fights. This leads to more Smoke Clouds, damage, and time for your teammates to contribute something.
Tips and tricks from a Riki player
Riki is one of my favorite heroes to play. I love playing aggressively and Riki allows this style while still providing protection thanks to invisibility.
In my hero page, Riki is my #1 hero for the “success” stat. I’ve played him as a carry since long before the 7.23 patch with great results. Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way.
If you’re surrounded while in Tricks of the Trade, don’t wait for the full duration to end. Your enemies are trying to time the full duration with their spells so you can simply start it, and end it unexpectedly then the enemies will have to react to that rather than their predicted full duration. You can then walk or Blink Strike away while catching them off guard.
A Blink Dagger isn’t a bad item to build. This allows you to blink away while in Tricks of the Trade like an [missing hero: outworld-devourer] can blink away after his Astral ends. This also allows you to choose the +0.8 Backstab Multiplier talent (which has a 0.5% higher win rate) over the +600 Blink Strike Cast Range without losing mobility and gaining a ton of damage. You can close gaps to supports in the back lines way easier with a Blink Dagger.
Position your Smoke Cloud at the edge of where the enemy is with the majority of it in the direction you want them to go. So if the enemy wants to go south, put the cloud mostly south with the edge of the north side on the enemy. This forces them to walk the maximum distance out of the cloud or go in the direction they don’t want to go.
Always be hunting! Riki snowballs off kills. Try to find some easy support kills all the time. You should get a Diffusal Blade before they can get any survivability items which means you should get some free kills before then.
You don’t “have” to buy Sentries. Simply avoid that part of the map.
Closing thoughts
Riki is now in a position where his role is clearly defined. He’s now a core. The changes he went through make his position as a support really weak so now he’s a core.
We’re seeing carry Riki more often in the pro scene now as well. His pub status as a carry is in the top tier in the current meta. I hope to see more Riki games in the pro scene, watching the same carry heroes is getting old and Riki is a fun hero to play and watch.
What do you guys think of Riki? Anyone else play Riki as a carry?
first!
I was first you just couldn't see me then.
I would have written this "always hunt" part with some indication that as a carry you farm first and then... You keep farming you just need to make sure to choose your farm pattern in a way that allows for quick pick-up, but in other situation you need to be the one who goes behind the ennemy front line in fights.
It looks like they just combined old patch 6.0 with replacement of Backstab with Tricks of the Trade (and also with some ability updates of course). It was not looking so "NEW" to me when i saw Rikis invisibilty as an ultimate.
is this porn ?
me g**
whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
in my oppion, riki is the best carry in this patch.
I feel like Riki would be grabbing the other end of Lina.
No, he's not, he's garbage, a hero completely countered by a 900 gold item. he will lose to a proper hard carry every time
I've been a riki player for years and years. He definitely got nerfed, but he is just...Riki. Even nerfed he can still be a nightmare. He's just too item dependent, if he gets stomped early game and cannot farm it's diffusal he would be a walking ward with no contribution. He's easily counterpicked aswell, but at the same time Riki counters almost every hero. Whenever I get my diffusal+nullifier it's just too lethal, you won't survive. Basher follows the normal build but most of the time nullifier secures the kill and manta is more a situational item for me. I like him more pos 2 than 1 because he gets too harassed during laning phase and it's easier 1v1.
It's true that Riki is pretty item dependent. In games where I have no items I'm pretty useless BUT a well placed and well timed Smoke Cloud is a huge team fight move especially if you're invisible. You don't need any items for that, but they nerfed it by removing the movement slow.
Also I agree that he's better as a pos 2 than a 1. You probably want your other core to scale late better than a Riki and you can run around the map making space while the other core farms and gets big because Riki isn't great at farming creeps.
He gets bullied hard in lane by roughly anything and has no damage output until he hits level 6.
I gotta try position 2 riki)
Only cowards pick Riki. Don't @ me.
what the fuck is that picture
is this hentai
I'm going to assume that Yongelee's comment means position 2 in terms of farm priority, and not in lane role... Because I swear to God if my next ranked match mid player goes Riki, I'm blaming you
Nice picture dotabuff
Рики имба
Been playing riki even before the patch as a pos 2. Been dumstering EVERY OFFLANER on last hits before 7.23. But now he's stronger late game.
I like invi heroes so bad, that I used to spam either Riki or Clinkz before update 6.86 turned Riki a rubbish. With latest patch, I can spam Riki every pubs even though Riki is always a hot (read: easy) target among opponents.