Just 4 months after the release of its previous Dota 2 hero, Valve has decided to add a new hero to the game, named Primal Beast. This guide provides an introduction to his strengths and weaknesses and gives you an idea of what you can expect from teams that pick the apex predator. In the short term, you won’t need to worry about every detail if you bet on professional Dota 2 tournaments because like all new heroes, Primal Beast will not be available in Dota Pro Circuit matches for at least a few months. But by the time The International 2022 begins, you will certainly encounter this beast in a high percentage of matches.
Primal Beast’s Core Strengths
Primal Beast is a strength-based hero with a massive strength increase per level: 4.3. This translates into 4.3 damage and 86 HP, plus the status resist. By comparison, Dragon Knight has a strength increase of only 3.4 and he’s considered to be the definition of a tank.
Because of how quickly Primal Beast becomes unkillable in the laning phase, a lot of players like to pick him and then harass their opponents as much as they can. With just a few cheap items, this hero turns into an absolute beast. His movement speed is good (305), so you can’t run away from him. His level 1 HP is 785. His armor is 6.9! And the damage is off-the-charts: 88 – 90. If you think about it, by the time you hit the second or third creep wave you already have 1000+ HP and 100+ damage. Add to that a bit of mobility, HP regen, and armor, and almost no hero in the game can 1v1 you.
Primal Beast’s Abilities
Unlike other heroes, whose abilities are not entirely useful, Primal Beast does not have a single weak ability in his toolkit. Everything that he can do is scary and requires a lot of skill to dodge. And if you’re fighting against a farmed PB, the chances of winning are quite slim.
Onslaught
Primal Roar’s Q, Onslaught, allows him to move across long distances (2000 units max) at a speed of 1200, knocking back everything in his path and then damaging and stunning everything around him on impact. The damage is substantial: 110 / 200 / 290 / 380. At level 4, this ability has a 16s cooldown.
The only downside is that you need to channel it for up to 2 seconds, but you can channel it for less and you will travel distance proportional to the channeling time. In effect, you can spend 1-second channeling and then travel for 1000 units really fast. Furthermore, you can cancel the run at any time using the stop command. This ability is almost as good as a Blink Dagger.
Trample
Primal Roar’s W is called Trample and it’s the perfect tool for farming the lane and the jungle. This ability deals 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 AoE damage (230 radius) for 5.5s and receives a 40% damage bonus from your basic attack damage. For every 140 units you travel, everyone around you receives a round of damage.
Imagine your movement speed is 420 and your attack damage is 200. This means you will deal around (65 + 80) * 3 = 435 damage per second. And this lasts for 5.5 seconds. That’s roughly 2400 damage for the entire duration. And now imagine that you’re farming stacks in the jungle with this ability. Overpowered is an understatement here.
Uproar
This ability gives Primal Beast a lot of survivability and turns him into a powerful tank that can actually stand and deal a lot of damage. For every instance of 35+ damage that you receive, you gain one stack. You can gain up to 5 stacks and when you activate the ability, you become extremely powerful for 7 seconds, using your stacks. The base bonus damage of Uproar is 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 damage. But on top of that you gain these buffs:
- Bonus damage per stack: 15 / 25 / 35 / 45
- Slow per stack: 10% (that’s a 50% movement slow for surrounding enemies when you have 5 stacks, and it lasts for 3 seconds!)
- Armor bonus per stack: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4
The stacks last for 20 seconds and it’s enough to receive 35 * 5 = 175 damage to have all of them available. The moment you activate Uproar, you immediately gain 20 armor and practically more than double your effective HP against physical damage. This ability has no cooldown, so you can cast it almost at all times.
Pulverize
This is the hero’s ultimate and what it does is similar to Pudge’s Dismember. When you use it, you are guaranteed to deal around 150 * 3 / 210 * 3 / 270 * 3 damage to a single target over a period of 2.3 seconds, while mini stunning every other enemy target in a 600 AoE radius. And you can do this every 32 / 28 / 24 seconds.
Primal Beast’s Weaknesses
Primal Beast’s main weakness is his low mana and low agility. But you can compensate for these issues by purchasing some all-stat giving items.
