- Tittle: I laugh in the face of danger!
- Author: Syaska
Pros:
- Good starting STR
- Very cheap spells
- Decent base damage and very good animation
- Slightly above average movement speed paired with excellent chasing skills
- Good solo laner, with rune control and csing tool in one spell
- Superb early/mid solo ganker
- Does well with many AOE spellcasters
- Not very item dependent, but benefits greatly from Aghanim's Scepter upgrade
- Long range (Hookshot) and global range (Rocket Flare) spells
- Great map control
Cons:
- Low stats gain, especially AGI: Clockwerk doesn't scale well into lategame
- Relies on runes to fuel his game: his mana pool is quite bad, even if you consider his cheap spells. He needs the runes to get the mana and score the kills.
- Skills can be a bit tricky to use
- Poor farmer after the laning phase
- No scaling skills
Skills
Battery Assault
Discharges high-powered shrapnel from openings in Rattletrap's clockwork upon a random nearby target dealing minor magical damage and ministun every 0.7 seconds. Lasts 10.5 seconds.
- 1. Mana 75 / Cooldown 32 / Duration 10.5 seconds / Periodically deals 15 damage and ministuns
- 2. Mana 75 / Cooldown 28 / Duration 10.5 seconds / Periodically deals 35 damage and ministuns
- 3. Mana 75 / Cooldown 24 / Duration 10.5 seconds / Periodically deals 55 damage and ministuns
- 4. Mana 75 / Cooldown 20 / Duration 10.5 seconds / Periodically deals 75 damage and ministuns
- Damage type: magical
- Remains active even if Rattletrap is disabled.
- Total damage: 225/525/825/1125.
Your bread and butter skill, your main damage source in ganks. This is the skill that makes clockwerk such a feared chaser, especially early game. It ministuns a random target in a 275 AOE around you every 0.75 seconds, acting like a pseudo slow, dealing high amounts of damage and preventing target from using a Town Portal or channeling spells (and in the case of Earthshaker, any spell). Needless to say, this skill works better when your target is alone: obvious synergy with power cogs
Power Cogs
The Clockwerk Goblin ejects pieces of inner core to form a circular barrier around himself, trapping nearby units with him. These cogs require 3 attacks from an enemy to be destroyed before their expiration time. If an enemy unit with mana goes near an element from the outside it gets shocked for some HP and mana and is knocked back. An element powers down if it shocks a unit.
- 1. Mana 50 / Cooldown 15 / Duration 5 seconds / Drains 80 life and mana
- 2. Mana 60 / Cooldown 15 / Duration 6 seconds / Drains 120 life and mana
- 3. Mana 70 / Cooldown 15 / Duration 7 seconds / Drains 160 life and mana
- 4. Mana 80 / Cooldown 15 / Duration 8 seconds / Drains 200 life and mana
- Damage type: magical
- Cogs can shock invisible units.
"You won't escape from me, but I can escape from you": Power cogs. You will mainly use it to trap your poor targets with you during a loooong time (6 seconds at level 4 seems insanely imbalanced when an angry clockwerk is unleashing his spells and attacks on you). It is also an escape skill: you can block ramps and tight points with it: shocking! Note that even it's much more difficult than it was before the cogs remake, you can still cancel opponent TP with it. Lategame, Power Cogs create chaos in teamfights and can be used to isolate squishy disablers/initiators.
Rocket Flare
Fires a fast moving missile at a target area on the map, revealing the targeted area. Upon impact it damages enemy units at a 575 AoE explosion.
- 1. Mana 50 / Cooldown 20 / 10 seconds / Deals 80 damage. Reveals for 10 seconds.
- 2. Mana 50 / Cooldown 18 / 10 seconds / Deals 120 damage. Reveals for 10 seconds.
- 3. Mana 50 / Cooldown 16 / 10 seconds / Deals 160 damage. Reveals for 10 seconds.
- 4. Mana 50 / Cooldown 14 / 10 seconds / Deals 200 damage. Reveals for 10 seconds.
- Damage type: magical
- Does not kill enemy animal couriers.
A very good multitask nuke (the damage is not impressive, but the vision and the global range are very, very useful to Rattletrap) : It grants you, in one skill, a decent lasthitting/harassing tool early (It allows you to always score some last hits no matter how scary the opponent lane is), rune control (crucial for a ganker like Clock, one of the most rune dependent heroes in the game), anti clarity/salve tool and scouting abilities (before teamfights, before using hookshot, when an opponent is trying to juke you). You can also abuse the global cast range to kill fleeing opponents on the other side of the map, but this is quite tricky to do and you'll need experience (and luck) to be successful.
Hookshot
Fires a grappling, piston-like attachment at a unit or location. It will latch on the first, non-neutral enemy target it encounters, pulling you to it. Any enemies whom you collide with while being reeled toward the target will take damage and will be stunned.
- 1. Mana 150 / Cooldown 70 (12*) / Duration 1 second / 100 damage and stun on collision
- 2. Mana 150 / Cooldown 55 (12*)2500125/175 **1.5 seconds / 200 damage and stun on collision
- 3. Mana 150 / Cooldown 40 (12*)3000125/175 **2 seconds / 300 damage and stun on collision
- Damage type: magical
- Can be improved by Aghanim's Scepter (* shows the improved values).
- Hookshot will latch onto allies. The allied unit will not get disabled or damaged, and enemy units will still get damaged and disabled.
- (**) Latch/stun AoE
- The affected enemy will be paused until the hook retreats.
- Colliding with a neutral creep, or with an allied unit (without Aghanim's Scepter) will stop the hook for no effect.
Your almighty gank initiation tool, later used in teamfights. Even if the numbers are not really impressive, the synergy with Rattletrap skillset is. Your ultimate allows you to surprise opponents, and you are instantly close and personal to unleash your spells: Power cogs and battery assault. When you finally get Aghanim it becomes an escape mechanism with a ridiculous (15 seconds) cooldown.
Some calculations (Courtesy to FunnyWarfare) about the total damage you can deal when ganking lonely hero without hood of defiance/natural magic resitance with your spells (You'll prolly land some physical attacks as well).
- Level 1: 146 damage (Level 1 Battery assault)
- Level 5: 596 damage (Level 3 Battery Assault + Level 1 Rocket Flare)
- Level 7: 866 damage (Level 4 Battery Assault + Level 1 Rocket Flare + Level 1 Hookshot)
- Level 16: 1106 damage (Level 4 Battery Assault + Level 4 Rocket Flare + Level 3 Hookshot)
You can notice that Clock is able to deal obscene amounts of damage early/mid, and considering this and his pseudo slow+long range hookshot stun+cogs, Rattletrap is a mortal threat to many heroes. But he gets weaker late game without items.
Skill builds:
Clockwerk skillbuilds are fairly flexible. You should always consider the specificites of each game: Are you soloing against a trilane? Against another solo? Are you soloing mid, or laning with someone? What kind of Clockwerk (ganker/lane controller) would be the most efficient?
The cookie cutter:
- Level 1: Rocket Flare
- Level 2: Battery Assault
- Level 3: Battery Assault
- Level 4: Power Cogs
- Level 5: Battery Assault
- Level 6: Hookshot
- Level 7: Battery Assault
- Level 8: Rocket Flare
- Level 9: Rocket Flare
- Level 10: Rocket Flare
- Level 11: Hookshot
- Level 12: Power Cogs
- Level 13: Power Cogs
- Level 14: Power Cogs
- Level 15: Stats
- Level 16: Hookshot
Explanation: This is the most common Clockwerk skillbuild, and you can basically use it every game without taking risks. Both Power Cogs and Rocket Flare are good at level 1, and that early level of cogs is going to help you quite a bit during ganks. This is also the best build against dual stun lanes, provided your lane partner have a ranged disable.
The side solo Clockwerk
- Level 1: Rocket Flare
- Level 2: Battery Assault
- Level 3: Rocket Flare
- Level 4: Battery Assault
- Level 5: Rocket Flare
- Level 6: Hookshot
- Level 7: Rocket Flare
- Level 8: Battery Assault
- Level 9: Battery Assault
- Level 10: Power Cogs
- Level 11: Hookshot
- Level 12: Power Cogs
- Level 13: Power Cogs
- Level 14: Power Cogs
- Level 15: Stats
- Level 16: Hookshot
Explanation: This is a very popular in competitive DotA nowadays, taking advantage of the fact that Clock is one of the very few heroes in DotA able to get a fair amount of creep kills without dying against trilanes, on top of being a good Solo versus Solo hero when it comes to sidelanes. This is a fairly static way of playing Clockwerk: you should stay on your lane, taking as much creeps as you can without taking too much risks (especially against trilanes). This playstyle usually evolves into a tanky Clockwerk (VG/Pipe/Blademail) focusing on teamfights rather than on ganks.
The gambler
- Level 1: Rocket Flare
- Level 2: Battery Assault
- Level 3: Rocket Flare
- Level 4: Battery Assault
- Level 5: Battery Assault
- Level 6: Hookshot
- Level 7: Battery Assault
- Level 8: Rocket Flare
- Level 9: Rocket Flare
- Level 10: Power Cogs
- Level 11: Hookshot
- Level 12: Power Cogs
- Level 13: Power Cogs
- Level 14: Power Cogs
- Level 15: Stats
- Level 16: Hookshot
Explanation: This is the build you want against some particular heroes mid: agressive laners without disables, like SF or Tinker. The second level of rocket gives you slighty better harass/farming potential early in the game (at level 3), and you basically bet you won't need cogs to kill them, since they won't stun you. This is risky but it may be highly rewarding.
The trilane/First blood attempt
- Level 1: Battery Assault
- Level 2: Power Cogs
- Level 3: Battery Assault
- Level 4: Rocket Flare
- Level 5: Battery Assault
- Level 6: Hookshot
- Level 7: Battery Assault
- Level 8: Rocket Flare
- Level 9: Rocket Flare
- Level 10: Rocket Flare
- Level 11: Hookshot
- Level 12: Power Cogs
- Level 13: Power Cogs
- Level 14: Power Cogs
- Level 15: Stats
- Level 16: Hookshot
Explanation: With the recent competitives trend of trilanes (Rattletrap is a decent trilaner assuming your partners know what they are doing)/with roamer like VS trying to score a first blood with your help (and the help of your lanemate, obviously), you should consider trying this build: the pseudo slow from battery assault and the decent damage (6.67 Battery buff) are quite effective. Since most trilanes right now have 2 ranges+1 melee, a level of cogs is great for your two lanepartners.
Item builds
Starting item builds (Solo mid/Sidelane)
A very common starting build. Gives you very nice HP for a level 1 hero, decent damage, and plenty of regeneration items. A solid start, and you can get bracers/urn out of gauntlets (or you can just leave them alone, it won't be a drama!)
A variant of the previous build. Less regen, more stats. Decent, but you can't get urn out of the circlets.
Sometimes (Usually in public games), noone will get a chicken (in clanwars/decent level games, your supports buy the chick for you). Clockwerk needs a chicken. Badly. Very badly if he is solo mid, to ferry the precious bottle. You have less stats, less damage and HP, but the chick is really invaluable.
A good start if you expect heavy physical harass on your lane. Stout shield gives you decent damage block: paired with your regeneration items, it should be enough to stand firmly against pesky ranged heroes.
Magic stick as a starting item can be really good against one of the most annoying mid opponents Rattletrap can face: Batrider. Napalm is a very gay spell, but it grants you huge amounts of mana very early in the game (against most other heroes, you can get a stick with your chick a bit later)
This item build goal is to get bottle as soon as possible: you basically only spend 400 gold into starting items, and you only have to farm 400 gold to get the bottle. This can be a really efficient build assuming you know what you are doing.
I still see people playing Clockwerk and going mid (or even worse, to a sidelane) with a naked bottle. This is very, very risky, and will probably fail against a good player: you get no stats to help your vital early last hits and denies, and if you fail to get the first rune, you are basically screwed hard.
Core items
- A cheap core, but an effective one. Bottle is gotten first for obvious reason: it gives clock all the mana regen he needs provided he has decent rune control (Easy task considering you have Rocket Flare), and runes are a huge asset when it comes to ganking with Rattletrap.
- Magic Wand is a cookie cutter item, viable on almost any hero. Clock, with his low INT gain but cheap spells, is a huge fan of it.
- Phase boots are, by far, the best boots available for Clockwerk. The damage is a bit wasted, but less than the AS from Treads, and the burst movespeed/phase ability is invaluable on a hero like clock, who needs to stay up and personal. Sure, the 190 hit points from Treads are not bad, but Clockwerk is not squishy early/mid game even with Phase boots. Boots or travel are just too costly for Rattletrap, and remember that you are not a farmer nor a pusher. Like I said previously, Clock can use his cheap spells on a regular basis with a bottle and decent rune control: you don't need arcane boots, but a support buying them is always welcome.
- Urn is viable, but I'm not really a fan of the item. If you started with gauntlets of strenght, feel free to make it.
Extended Core
Aghanim's Scepter gives everything Clockwerk needs: Hit points and mana (Mana>mana regen, considering your low INT gain and dirt cheap spells), and, icing on the cake, Clockwerk's agha upgrade is one of the best in DotA: Ridiculous cooldown reduction (15 seconds is insanely low for such a good ultimate) and ability to target allies (not to stun them obviously, but usually to escape). And you know what? Aghanim's comes in cheap pieces (Point booster only costs 1200 gold), which is just perfect for you and your low farming abilities.
Viable luxuries
In many games, you won't be able to buy these items. But if you are owning/the game is lasting/you are playing -em, then buy these:
=> 
Hood of Defiance can be very good on Rattletrap, considering he jumps into the heat of battle and is almost always close and personal when it comes to ganks. Getting Hood means you can withstand more damage for your team, and Pipe is definitely a great upgrade when facing AOE spellcasters (Amazing item vs Lich, Tide, QoP, etc...)
A cheap and effective way to get some mana, some armor and a sadistic way to counter burst damage. When you trapped someone inside your cogs, especially if it is a key hero during a teamfight, you'll get focused, and you'll return huge amounts of damage.
A great item on Clockwerk goblin. Gives you plenty of mana, a nifty blast, helps you tremendously against physical damage (Huge armor boost/-AS aura). Don't forget that Clock has low armor (due to his pitiful AGI gain).
Never ending mana and +10 AGI/STR are always handy, but the main point of Guinsoo is the active: Hex is just invaluable and can turn the tides of a game when used against opponent key heroes.
To be honest, you won't get Radiance every game. The item is hard to farm, especially with Clockwerk, and you can only purchase relic after a long streak of kills (and the game is probably decided by then). But still, if noone is building it in your team, Radiance is a very nice item to have: Huge AOE damage that goes very well with your cog+battery combo. Even disabled, you are still a pain.
Heart of Tarasque is another item you won't buy every game, but the raw Hit points it gives, and the nifty regen when out of fights are very good on almost every Strength hero. Works even better with Hood+Blademail.
Very, very nice bonus stats(HP+Mana), summons goes quite well with your skillset (cogs+Battery) if you can micro them properly. Necrobook gives your counterwarding/pushing potential, but you may find it on cd during ganks with your 15 sec cd ultimate, since you can't take the summons with you when using Hookshot.
Getting raped by a horde of physical attackers? This item can help!
Debatable choices
Vanguard is not that bad on Clockwerk even if it was nerfed (some asians players still build it), but it usually delays your Aghanim's (Point Booster gives nice HP and mana, and can be used to make your precious scepter)
If the game turns into a push/backdoor fest, get Boots of Travels. Simple as that: but most games (99% of the time), Phase is more than enough
OR 
Black King Bar: This item allows you to do whatever you want with the victim in your cogs without being interrupted, and the stats it gives are decent. Linken's Sphere gives good stats and regen, and spell block is not bad to have either.
But, when you get these items, it's already late game, and any disable/nuke you eat is a disable your carry won't eat: If some angry Lion impales you and then fingers you after you used your spells, it's almost a victory.
Grants a very nice armor boost, and the auras are nice for the team. But the huge attack speed bonus is wasted on you (You are a ganker/initiator, not a carry), and Shiva's Guard is just better overall.
Rejected items
DPS items. Let your Drow or your Medusa carry them, seriously.
Well... Except when playing a terrible pub (i.e: you want to ks people), don't get this.
You are not in the game to farm.
Guess what? You are not here to support either.
Like I said several times, Clock doesn't need huge amounts of mana: rune control and bottle is enough. Not only soulring is quite useless on Rattletrap, but it also drains your Hit points.
Gameplay walkthrough
Early Game
Solo Mid
- Going to a sidelane is another viable option for Rattletrap. For the love of god, in a cw/decent level game, your lanepartner(s) must be ranged and have some kind of disable.
- Ask yourself: Will I try to score first blood (Ex: You are laning with CM+Veno in a trilane)? If yes, take Battery assault. Otherwise, stick with Rocket Flare.
- Rune control is not as important as it is when laning mid, but keep an eye on the rune spot near your lane.
- If you are dominating the opposing lane, don't hesitate to take an agressive playstyle: your lanepartner stuns, you rush them, activate battery. Even if it doesn't score kills, it prevents the opponents from getting creep kills.
- A common mistake to avoid: Staying in the lane too much, because you feel comfortable/you dominate it. Try to gank the other lanes (and especially the mid lane), get the runes, score kills, keep your carry safe and let him the farm.
Side Lane
- Going to a sidelane is another viable option for Rattletrap. For the love of god, in a cw/decent level game, your lanepartner(s) must be ranged and have some kind of disable.
- Ask yourself: Will I try to score first blood (Ex: You are laning with CM+Veno in a trilane)? If yes, take Battery assault. Otherwise, stick with Rocket Flare.
- Rune control is not as important as it is when laning mid, but keep an eye on the rune spot near your lane.
- If you are dominating the opposing lane, don't hesitate to take an agressive playstyle: your lanepartner stuns, you rush them, activate battery. Even if it doesn't score kills, it prevents the opponents from getting creep kills.
- A common mistake to avoid: Staying in the lane too much, because you feel comfortable/you dominate it. Try to gank the other lanes (and especially the mid lane), get the runes, score kills, keep your carry safe and let him the farm.
Mid game
Your are the king of the battlefield, ganking careless heroes and dominating the scene. Your goal is to use your peak to give your team a decisive advantage. Get runes, spot viable targets, commnicate with your allies, and score kills. Some tips:
Mana management is the key
With his cheap spells but low INT gain, clock mana pool can be a bit short to sustain his needs. Therefore, good rune control and proper spell use (see next tip) is very important
Avoid overkill
Don't use ult or cogs on every gank, especially when you have allies with disables with you: Your ult has a quite long cooldown compared to your other spells, and you can always use it if the target is trying to escape death.
Use runes to max effectiveness
Runes are clock oxygene, they fuel his 24/7 gankfest. You have to know how to use each rune to max effectiveness.
- Illusion: The rune with the less uses, for Clockwerk at least. It sure refills your bottle (3 bottle charges=225 mana=Hookshoot+Battery Assault=A potential gank), but it doesn't add anything to your ganking powers (except if you manage to block people with them). Use them to scout.
- Double damage:This one can prove very good provided you skilled Power Cogs. Without cogs, you'll have a hard time landing physical hits (unless you have a huge ms advantage over the target). With cogs, you can freely whack on the poor victim.
- Invisibility:Very nice ganking tool, especially early game. It allows you to play mindgames (bottle it, start going top lane, use invis once you are fogged and try to kill mid or bottom), you can go next to opponent heroes without having to use your ultimates. Overall, a great rune for Rattletrap.
- Haste Probably the best rune for Clockwerk; it gives you 522 ms (+pseudo slow from Battery on gank targets), and it means sure death for at least one opponent during early/mid game.
Focus on opponent carries
Even if it looks cool to have a 10-1 score killing Ezalor 8 times and Lion twice, it's actually better to kill a Drow or a Medusa three times. Ezalor will not be a problem later, Medusa will.
Use rocket to scout
Even if you have no opponent in sight, Rocket Flare is still a very useful tool: use it to spot opponent team, scout Roshan, etc...
You are not God
Even if you are a mid game powerhouse, it doesn't mean you are invincible or that you can play without map awareness. You may have problems trying to 1v2 WD+Slardar.
Late game
Your are not the almighty and feared ganker you used to be, it's the era of teamfights and carries, but all hope is not lost for you.
You are not a real initiator
It may be sad, but Clock isn't able to really initiate. He can force teambattles with a well placed ultimate on a hero with bad positioning, but he can't jump first in 5v5 battles. Let Tide or Magnus do that for you.
Your role in teambattles is to get rid of a key hero
This is of utmost importance: your role is to hookshot a crucial opponent (avoid fed DPSers since they rape you if you are trapped with them). You aim for two kinds of heroes: disablers (Lion/Rhasta/Bane) and initiators (Earthshaker, Tide)
Use Rocket to scout all the time
This is also one of Rattletrap strenghts late game: He gives map control with constant use of Rocket Flare. This can help your team tremendously.
Abuse your 3000 range 15 seconds cd ultimate
With Aghanim's Scepter, Hookshot is just insanely powerful, especially if you managed to get some mana item (Shiva's Guard/Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse). You can pick off lone heroes, and escape from ganks provided you don't panic.
Edited by basicdotaguide.blogspot.com