It’s been about a week since the Primal Beast came roaring into Dota 2. After some quick buffs because its win rate was at 40 percent, Primal Beast has established himself as a powerful initiator and supplementary damage dealer.

As with all new heroes, tons of experimentation with his roles, skills, and item builds are to be expected. But one week on, the best Dota 2 players have seemingly settled into an optimal Primal Beast item build that unleashes him to his full potential.

With help from Dota2ProTracker, learn what pro players are building on Primal Beast, and improve your item builds for Dota 2’s newest hero.

The best Primal Beast item build

Primal Beast Dota 2 loading screen — Credit: Valve

Phase Boots/Tranquil Boots/Boots of Bearing
Bracer/s
Soul Ring
A tank item (Hood of Defiance, Vanguard, Sange etc.)
Blink Dagger
Black King Bar
Luxury/Utility

Phase Boots for core players, Tranquil into Boots of Bearing for supports

Pros are trending towards Phase Boots for a core Primal Beast, while supports opt for Tranquil Boots, potentially turning into Boots of Bearing.

For a hero with the highest strength gain in the game, raw HP generally isn’t the problem. The hero also doesn’t right-click often, instead relying on his skills to deal damage. It’s why Treads, while nice for Tread-switching, isn’t a great option with its attributes and attack speed.

Since Trample DPS is tied to how much he moves—which means it drastically decreases when facing movement speed slows—both boot choices make sense here.

Phase Boots’ brief burst of movement speed allows you to quickly run roughshod over your enemies. The new Boots of Bearing’ Endurance provides immunity to slows, so it becomes a great choice if you are being limited by your opponents’ disables.

Bracer

The new Bracers have become one of the most efficient items in the game.

Now doubling its bonuses after minute 25, building one or two in the early game for some early survivability no longer feels bad. It can be kept for a long time, and you’ll probably still have a few come mid-game considering this hero’s farm priority.

Soul Ring

Players running into mana problems can consider Soul Ring. Primal Beast’s innate bulk means that the HP loss is bearable.

It also builds from Ring of Protection, which can be a valuable and efficient starting item against right-click lanes.

A tank item

Amongst the items here, this choice is probably the most optional, and largely depends on the player’s evaluation of the game.

Hood of Defiance and Vanguard are popular choices to counter magic damage and right-clickers respectively, while Sange remains an incredible item for its great stats and unique status resistance effect.

All three items have the potential to be further upgraded. But Sange’s flexibility to go towards Kaya, Yasha, or even Heaven’s Halberd means that it’s a better default option for most players.

Blink Dagger

Though Primal Beast already has an initiation spell in Onslaught, the skill’s slow charge-up time can be a hindrance when you want to get into the fight as quickly as possible. Think of it like how even Puck still goes for a Blink Dagger.

As the primary initiator, this opens up space for you to immediately jump in and grab heroes with your Pulverize. It also presents yourself as a target to the enemy team, letting you build Uproar stacks and giving your team space to maneuver freely.

Black King Bar

Playing an initiator without Black King Bar is like trying to watch a movie with a chatty friend. It might sound like a good idea at first, but you will be interrupted, and you will regret it.

All of your spells can be interrupted by stuns. Trample can even be heavily mitigated with slows. Get BKB. There are few things as satisfying as going spell immune, and pummelling an enemy into the ground with nothing to stop you.

Black King Bar can be considered before any other item, if opposing disables are truly debilitating to your game.

Aghanim’s Shard

As the first ever hero release to come with an Aghanim’s Shard, Rock Throw can be a little underwhelming. While several high-level pubs see Primal Beast purchasing this item, pros seem to be slowly phasing this item out of an optimal build.

You throw a rock, which stuns and damages. Ostensibly, it’s to combo right into an Onslaught. But it’s a rather inflexible skill. Like, you can’t Onslaught and Rock Throw, because there’s a minimum range of 550! And it has a travel time, which can last up to 1.7 seconds. The radius of 225 (equivalent to Split Earth level four) is decent, but there are a lot of things going against it.

Since you want to be in the fight, Rock Throw can feel kind of counter-intuitive. It’s probably better on a support than a core, who will need to prioritize items like Blink and Black King Bar to get off the Beast’s full gamut of skills.

Luxury/Utility

The standard gamut of items applies here. Most players opt to upgrade to Sange and Kaya after completing their core build, still one of the game’s strongest items despite its latest nerf in 7.31.

Utility and tanky items like Lotus Orb and Shiva’s Guard can be game-changing against the right lineups. Overwhelming Blink is also popular, fitting your initiator archetype.

Aether Lens into Octarine Core improves your cast range, can greatly improve your chances at catching somebody with Pulverize, and also allow you to further spam your spells.

Primal Beast item build: What are pros buying?