Samuro
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Build: Samuro
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20
THIS GUIDE IS OUTDATED, BUT MANY TIPS ARE STILL VALID, EVERYTHING THAT IS OUTDATED IS MARKED LIKE THAT
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Hey, I'm Derenash, I live in Brazil and started playing HotS in july 2015, always played as flex in the teams I participated, winning the last 2 major South America championships. I began streaming at the end of september, I got asked by many players to to make a guide about Samuro, that is my most used hero at the moment. Started to like him when I saw it being used competitively by the EU team Diamond skin (current Granit Gaming), and then I spammed him in Hero Leagues and loved it, at the point that we used him many times in Copa America. In this guide i'll tell you what I learned by playing Sam, how I play Samuro, nothing is absolute truth, feel free to contest anything I say or ask questions in the comments. I'll answer them as soon as I can! |
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Pros
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+ High mobility + Burst damage + Global Pressure + Insane duel potential + Great siege damage + Can solo every merc + Map and vision control + Late game |
Samuro is a great hero to play in Hero League. By using correctly
 Mirror Image,
 Wind Walk and
 Image Transmission you become immune to ganks in the solo lane. Your duel potential is really high, having insane burst and sustain damage, besides having huge resistence from the level 4 talents. He also brings a lot of utility to your team with
 Illusion Master.
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Cons
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- Helps enemies' quests - Weak early Game - Vulnerable against AoE damage - Very hard to play - Weak against repulsions - Unreliable early game damage |
Besides all his strenghts and utility,
 Samuro has his weaknesses. When side by side with other bruisers he has poor Waveclear and is very dependent on level 7 talents. He is also really dependent on his cooldowns once his copies die, but after much practice they won't die that easily.
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In most of the games
Samuro is a Solo Laner (in the bruiser's place), but he also stands out being the second assassin of a team, since he will be free to siege towers whenever he wants to, as well as it enables him to do any merc without losing experience. Besides all that it also allows team to get a second warrior, making life much easier for ranged assassins like
 Fenix,
 Hanzo or
 Raynor giving them a much bigger space in teamfights.Besides Samuro helping oponents to complete their quests, there is also heroes in his team who can benefit from having many heroes in the battlefield, like
 Tyrael with the
 Law and Order, or
 Ana with
 Contact Healing, or even
 Medivh with
 Arcane Explosion and
 Circle of Protection, among many others. So the same way the hero is weak against some he is really strong with others.
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Warriors
When it's about warrior in
Samuro's team you want those that can apply slow in backline and dive any killable targets during it.
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 El'druin's Might, increases a lot of the damage and speed of the orc with
 Swift Retribution and
Law and Order greatly buffs his effectiveness with the copies. Diablo, who can apply slows and stuns very easily with
 Lightning Breath and
 Debilitating Flames without advancing and during dive. Muradin because he can apply slow and advance with you just like others, but can't apply any crowd control without going inside enemy team, limiting your gameplay, since that once inside the enemy team
Samuro can't fallback, or the dwarf will be in trouble. |
Suports
Samuro is really good with supports that can offers assistence to his dives from great distances, with heals, damage or crowd control.
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Stukov has a great sinergy with Samuro, considering that his heals reach him easily and he also has great distance slows and roots provided from weighted postule and
 Virulent Reaction. Tyrande is also good with Sam, since he can get healed from any distance once chosen of elune has been cast, and the ccs provided from
 Lunar Flare,
 Starfall and
 Harsh Moonlight are great ways to increase his damage with
 Merciless Strikes. Deckard is another one that stands out because of his long range CCs.
 Ancient Blessings also helps a lot with his burst and sustain before entering the enemy team's backline. |
Bruisers
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Once again
Tyrael is a spotlight, but now as a bruiser, where he can play really freely, since the
Warrior will be the main peeler for the team. The angel can also go for
 Judgment in here, being able to delete any hero with low health pool, since the enemy team have no
 Cleanse.
Imperius Also helps Samuro a lot not only because he has the slow from solarion's flare but because his
 Melting Touch combined with your burst can easily melt through tanks, doing terrible terrible damage in seconds. Dehaka not being as good as the others in a fight with
Samuro, he can help you with global pressure, and his dive with
 Isolation is enough to kill many targets he hit if you are able to attack the hero during the 3 seconds slow. |
Assassins
Samuro has no preference with assassins, but there are some who are a little better than others, that are those that can deal direct damage to the backline.
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Since
Li-Ming can ocasionally hit combos into the backline, she is excellent with Sam, because he can finish her targets, creating resets to win the fights.
Fenix is also really strong, due to his capacity to deal considerable damage both in the front and backline with arsenal sinergy and
 Purification Salvo, besides having a good slow for
Merciless Strikes with
 Plasma Cutter. Jaina can't fit all this damage easily in the backline, but the slow from
 Frostbite turns
Samuro into a real monster at 16 together with
 Northern Exposure and
Merciless Strikes, dealing enough damage to almost instakill tanks or anything else. water elemental can also slows their backline and pressure then, allowing you to 1shot something like a hanzo. |
Abathur
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Samuro, I honestly dont recall myself losing a game with this duo.
 Symbiote not only intensifies samuro's strenghts as it covers his weakness. The heal granted by
 Carapace allows him to get any trades in the battlefield without any problems. Once you make the oponent retreat after dealing damage to him with hat, the two can just Q -> Right click a tower and burst it down. And also with
 Adrenal Overload you become a monster in teamfights and siege.In maps like  Sky Temple or
 Cursed Hollow you can just ignore an objective and take the farthest keep from it with
 Ultimate Evolution.The 2 are also insane together because of the combo between  Envenomed Spikes and
Merciless Strikes. If you reach any hero with no mobility it is dead in less than 3 seconds, as you can see in this clip.This combo is even better now since abathur's change, because he doesn't have to get  Sustained Carapace at 4 and can go for the 25% attack speed, boosting ALL your damage. |
Good Matchups
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Pulse Bomb
Storm Bow
Sleep Dart
Arcane Orb
Bad Matchups
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Void Slash
Moonfire
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Mirror Image (Q) 18s |
In the moment images are created, you have a less than a second window where you can click the right mouse button (or your default move/attack button) in an enemy, forcing the copies to attack it, unless you lose vision of the target or if they're created just over an enemy, and then they'll focus the unit instead.
Obs: If you press Move and attack command (A) instead of Right mouse clicking it you won't need vision, but the images will stop in any minion in the way and you wont be able to attack anything for some seconds, or they'll follow your target - This is really useful sending them to mercenaries like Siege in Cursed Hollow, to use
Image Transmission and don't lose any soak.
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Empathic Link|
Critical Strike (W) 10s |
Samuro's next Basic Attack within 10 seconds will be a Critical Strike, dealing 50% increased damage. This also applies to Images, and does not break Wind Walk.
Passive: Samuro and his Images deal a Critical Strike on every 4th Basic Attack. 
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Wind Walk (E) 15s |
Samuro is Unrevealable for the first second of Wind Walk.
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Illusion Master (R) 8s |
Passive: Samuro's Basic Attack damage is increased by 10%, and Image Transmission's cooldown is reduced to 8 seconds.
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Image Transmission (D) |
Activate to switch places with a target Mirror Image, removing most negative effects from Samuro and the Mirror Image.
Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes increase Samuro's Movement Speed by 25% for 2 seconds.
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Pyroblast
Consume Souls
Last Rites
Talents changed a lot and the old guide on talents isn't useful, so I'm deleting it all
Early Game
Before the match even starts, during the loading screen, I’d recommend taking a look at the opponent’s draft to see if they have heroes who could finish their quests easily on you, as Zul’jin,
Medivh or Kel’Thuzad. In the case they do have them, you should never go for an early skirmish in the mid lane. If they don’t, you are free to release your copies there to get some early stacks of
Way of Illusion and then go to your lane. If you didn't go with quest, make sure to go straight to your lane to try to get some siege value.To know which is your lane, you must first check your own team composition to see if your team has a bruiser or solo laner like
Dehaka,
Blaze or
Sonya, beside your tank, you should proceed as follows:You already have a bruiser: you are free to do what you want, although your main goal is to mess up the enemies' main rotation (for example between mid and bot on infernal shrines, sky temple...) and do mercenaries as they spawn.
You don’t have a bruiser: your role is to solo lane and be apart from your team soaking, being released to make mercenary camps only if/when someone else goes and covers that lane’s soaking.
In the cases you’ll have Way of Illusion, your early game should be focused on finishing your quest. Otherwise just try to get some siege value when enemies are far or do some mercenaries. Keep in mind that if you finish quest by level 7, it’s a 22% damage incrase.
In case the enemy has 5 heroes in the mid lane or showing up elsewhere far from you, you can safely bring a tower to 30% hp on your lane with the correct use of
Mirror Image and
Image Transmission, as you can see in this clip. Be sure that only one tower is attacking you.If you can’t see their solo laner, you should wait the wave of minions.
Now, when the waves arrive, you are ready to start stacking your quest. To do so, you can hit 3 times a melee minion and retreat a bit. Then your next Auto Attack (and your illusions’ as well) will be a critical one. When charged, you must see the opponent’s position and react as follows:
1- If he is far from his minion wave (behind, next to or in front of), you want to approach him with your E or mounted and then create your images with your cursor on the opposite direction of where he is, making them spawn within AA range of their target. Right after the first AA crit, use your W to secure one more crit for each illusion. If he proceeds to trade damage with your illusions, you can use Image Transmission to heal them and get some more free stacks.
2- If he is in the middle of his minion wave, you can’t use
Mirror Image like described or they will just target minions and provide no stacks. Take a distance from and use Q while you hold your attack key over him so that copies ignore the minion wave and go straight to the enemy hero.3- If he is on max distance just to soak without clearing the wave, you can use your E through the wave to apporach him and then proceed as the first case. If he retreats before you reach him, you should try to zone him out of soaking range.
In this clip you can see the first 2 scenarios applied on Arthas, achieving 18 stacks in 1 minute.
If you didn't go for quest, try to play the lane phase by poking the enemy with double critical and blinking out.
You'll lose many matchups, so if you don't feel like winning, don't try to face the enemy, but freeze the lane by spawning clones when their minions are close to your towers, so he can't clear your wave safely.
Most frequently you won’t want to group up for the first objective as you still lack your level 7 power spike. Also, the first objective is always the weakest one. You’ll have to decide how you’re gonna split push: either going straight to their tower and using copies to tank (when you know they’ll come soon to defend) or clearing the wave to push right after (when you know they’ll be late to defend).
If the map is
Cursed Hollow or
Sky Temple and you’re the one supposed to do mercenary camps, remember to call someone to replace you in the soaking and make them on spawn.Observation: you can solo the bruiser camp without losing HP by making each copy tank 2 merc unities, then use
Image Transmission to heal them when needed.Once level 7, Samuro wins the trade against almost any hero and has his value on team fights. By now you can play more aggressively, doing 40% of many heroes’ HP pool with your Auto Attack crit + W combo. Also, it’s now even better to go straight to towers because you can break them with one rotation.
Mid Game
After level 10 your hero becomes a lot stronger because you not only have a reduced cooldown on
Image Transmission, but also you are a global hero now since you can control your copies.
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You don’t want to stick to your team until a fight comes up. Go to the opposite lane and push it while sending a mounted copy to your team so you have a fast way to reach them in case something happens. Since you’re global, you want to siege every time it’s possible. To do so you should send an image to lanes without enemies and bring down both their towers, or even a fort or keep if unanswered. Remember to abuse your hability to heal your copies as they are necessary to soak structures’ shots. Keep in mind you should only siege if you know no one is coming soon to harass you, as using Q+R to siege leaves you very vulnerable to ganks. |
With level 13 it becomes a bit easier to fight and escape ganks with
Shukuchi and
Mirrored Steel, allowing more aggresion.´
Harsh Winds, try to attack enemies that are split from their team, dueling around the map is also a good idea. Do not hesitate to hit their tank if he’s split scouting as your burst is considerable even for a tank.If you have press the attack it is useful to build stacks on the enemy frontline before swapping to an image on the backline, allowing you to have the 40% attackspeed increase ready to burst them down.
If you chose
Merciless Strikes, focus on playing more with your team and hitting whoever is slowed or on other crowd controls. Pay attention to slows that are easily applied on their back line, like
Fire Stomp with
Debilitating Flames specced, or a Water Elemental, because as mentioned before, you can kill a ranged hero with 3 or 4 attacks.Late Game
Now your main focus is pressuring their keeps and then their core while sending copies to your team to secure yourself an escape route and being avaiable to come to team fights if needed. Basically you want to use your illusions on the structure and move your tanking illusion out. The keep/core will now target the other illusion while you are safely sieging.
In case someone retreats to defend your push, you can blink to the illusion near your team and make it a 5v4 in your advantage or just siege and retreat to safety. If you see an opening to end the game right there, go ahead and keep using Image Transmission whenever enemy heroes are targeting the real samuro so you don’t get damaged.
Defending Stacked Waves
If enemy minion waves stack too much in a lane, you can make copies to tank them as they approach your gate, preventing them from sieging your base. Again, as Image Transmission heals your copies you should abuse it while your towers take down minions.
Example
Breaking Keep’s Towers
If you have Abathur on your team and the enemy has no globals or high mobility heroes, like Tracer and Genji, and if you are not the solo laner on your composition, you use your early game to try and take down a keep’s front wall. Priorize their solo’s lane (the top lane on
Battlefield Of Eternity, for example) so that in case they try to harass you, they’ll have to rotate a long way to do só. If their solo laner try to answer your push himself, he’ll lose soak and not secure your death.If you manage to take their tower, you’ll earn 400 experience for your team and enable a much stronger push in the late game against that front wall, while each death you suffer earns only 300 to 400 experience to the enemy team until level 3(This was much more effective before the experience changes in december 2018, but in some situations it is still a good tactic, since it really draws your enemies' atentions.
Example¹
Example² - with Abathur
Tilting Towers
Towers and forts/keeps always priorize clones or minions other than Samuro, and they take time to focus when acquiring a new target. So, if you move into their range and leave quickly, you can make them not shoot anything while you siege it.
The higher the angle the tower has to cover between old and new target, the more time they take to focus before shooting, making it easier to execute this trick. If you are new to this, try to put the illusion on the opposite side of the keep.
Example
Blinking and Leaving Copies Behind
Three Blade Style or
Mirrored Steel, the duration of your copies will be longer than the cooldown of
Mirror Image, allowing you to make this trick.When queueing commands as Samuro, like moving and then holding shift and clicking Q → R, you’ll switch with the selected copy as soon as the movement finishes and leave 2 copies where you were. Keep in mind that the blink command must be done with your cursor over the copy you wanna switch to, since queueing up commands does not work between two different unities.
This mechanic can be pretty useful when you want to go back to your base to heal after level 20 in case you have a dead illusion and it also messes up with your opponents.
Example
Going Through Gates
The only way to go through a gate as Samuro and an image is by creating copies with your cursor behind the enemy tower while hugging their gate, making Samuro to spawn inside the gate and one copy over their side.
Example
Controlling Images Prior to Level 10
When making copies you can use the A-move comand and they will move in that direction and attack anything in that path. But, if you make this command over a wall, they will never reach that point and, instead, will stand still, providing you vision or even dismounting enemy heroes that pass by.
Example
Protecting Hearthing Image
When you swap with a clone, the one you didn't swap with gets the same stasis iframe and has it's hp refreshed. Since technically the clone you didn't swap with isn't using an ability it will not interupt channelled actions like hearthstone. You can use this to protect your hearthstoning clone if you want to make sure it gets to base safely.
Example
Special Thanks
VoidInsanity: main Samuro who has over 1.500 games with him. He clarified many doubts I had, allowed me to use his collection of Samuro’s gifs in this guide, and even made some additional ones that I asked him. Also he is the one who discovered many of the mechanics I explained through this guide. And besides all that Void helped me a lot with making this guide, editing it and even correcting some spelling mistakes. He's always willing to help anyone who have doubts about this hero. You may reach him by his twitch.
Wind Striders: Discord created by many Samuro players from all around the world to teach and spread knowledge about the hero or just chat, all communication here is made in english and everyone is welcome.
Munky: Grandmaster level 300 with Samuro in Europe, taught me all Samuro’s basics on his stream.
Members of Wind Striders: Helped me not only with samuro stuff but also with english, math and formating of the guide.
betoGG: Helped me discovering what a Samuro must do in the competitive environment (Latin America).
Raphenz: A big friend, translated half of the guide for me and adjusted the other part, since i'm not really good at english. ):
Blackstorm: Another main Samuro from SA, did a sweet guide about Sam as well, worth to check, since it has a part about matchups that could be really good.
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