LogFAQs > #962110138

Friendly reminder before I spit a bunch of vitriol that this is an objective ranking and not solely based on how good they actually are in the game, and while I attempted to rank some of the "best" heroes up higher than this...

111 - Tinker (ranged Intelligence)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/5/4/AAAACbAAC2p6.jpg
Base Abilities: Laser, Heat-Seeking Missile, Defense Matrix, Keen Conveyance, Rearm
Shard Ability: "new" ability "March of the Machines," a ground-targeted spell that summons a swarm of robots to march in the direction from behind Tinker to the targeted point.
Scepter Ability: upgrades Laser to Shrink Ray, and give it more cast range, bounce to the farthest target within 700 units (prioritizes heroes,) shrinks their model size, and debuffs the victims with max health reduction.

This guy.

This fucking guy.

Before I rant at length about it, let me post another screencap:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/5/5/AAAACbAAC2p7.jpg

This bastard single-handedly has dictated the strength of some items, spells, midlane matchups, and is almost universally reviled except by people who play him, and even those asshats aren't always on the level (he is absolutely amongst the autocast-scripter roster.) Why? Rearm exists, and works for most items, too. Let's go through some of Tinker's faults that exist.

1.) His manacosts and cooldowns are both obscene. Common item builds remedy this, but it should be noted as soon as he hits six, if he's paying attention to his mana bar and has a Bottle (and as a midlaner, he should,) he won't ever need to, because Keen Conveyance exists - an ability that levels with Rearm, and allows teleporting to and from base (and eventually to allied creeps, and eventually to allied heroes.)
2.) Anything that can stun or silence him in the backline will waste his time, since initially, Rearm has a long windup to activate, and it consumes the mana before finishing the cast.
3.) His autoattack has a slow projectile and lower-than-usual range. "Wow."
4.) He can be smoke-ganked easily if he's carelessly pushing a sidelane.

Have we addressed those? Good. Now let's talk how utterly bullshit Tinker is. Note the above picture is banlist at the *highest* level of play, and yet he's still a top ban in almost every other bracket but the bottom of the barrel, where he's still sitting above 50% win rate. Rearm is *that* powerful

Playing as Tinker
If you're doing this legitimately, it will physically hurt you. You'll need to farm up a Blink Dagger and Bottle (easy with Laser's pure damage and an occasionally teleport-snipe,) then learn to calculate mental math on the fly to make sure how much mana you have, teleport to someplace, laser the creep wave, blink into the trees, fire a missile off if there's an enemy hero in sight, drop March if you bought a shard, chug your bottle, Rearm, chug your bottle, fire another missile or laser if you're in sight, blink away again, use your Shiva's, chug your bottle, delete the enemy position 5 support, notice you've got only about a third of your mana bar left, rearm, chug bottle, blink into trees, teleport back to base, chug bottle while it refills, rearm, chug bottle, teleport somewhere else and oh no I've gone cross-eyed and I haven't even dwelled upon using any active items other than bottle and Blink Dagger.

Playing with an allied Tinker
They will always, always be backseat-gaming you, while also trying to fire Missiles at creep camps (free report there for a script, since shooting missiles with no enemy heroes in sight does naught but waste mana.) "Buy this 4k gold item to counter Zeus," they say, as the teleport on top of the creepwave made of scraps of gold you could get by on and does the above combo flawlessly, clearing the wave, before teleporting away as the enemy team ravenously descends upon you. To sleep, to dream, no more; alas, poor Boush, I curse thee with my fading breath. Report mid ez game.

Playing against an enemy Tinker
If you aren't constantly sitting on his head, you're almost guaranteed a lost game. Simple as that.

Laser disallows carries to do anything before BKBs come online.
Missile disallows squishy backline supports to do anything but feed Tinker gold.
Defense Matrix is... there to interrupt muscle memory but also blocks a bit over 300 damage worth of damage and halves duration of debuffs.
And then you get hit by Dagon. Or Sheepstick. Or Shiva's Guard. Or an upgraded Strength Blink Dagger. Or Ethereal Blade.

See a theme here? Boush's abilities are all on items, and he can farm them stupidly well despite only having one single-target thing because he's a global threat all. Fucking. Game. He's annoying sack of shit if played even moderately well, and oppressive when played beyond that. Also, he's cheater bait. Fuck Boush, fuck playing Boush, and fuck Laser and its fucking Pure damage.

OH RIGHT, Laser. Thanks to the max HP strip from Scepter, laser can kill anything not Linkens'd within a few shots, and usually a nearby support dies from it too. Or you can skip that and play with a Grimstroke support. Level 8 Tinker by the way :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJsiyF0a4hU

Next hero hint: trigger warning.