Clockwerk is one of the most powerful initiators and gankers in Dota. He is able to jump on targets from as much as 3000 range away and can easily get solo kills early in the game.

Clock is not only a naturally tanky STR hero but has a variety of tools which help him to control enemies and if needed – to escape engagements. This allows the hero to be played very aggressively, creating space for your team and taking it away from your opponents.

Clock is usually played as a pos. 4 support or a pos. 3 offlaner.

Clock is a fairly versatile hero and could fit different lineups, but the smartest way to use him is to exploit his initiation and ganking potential.

Clockwerk provides a lot of benefits to the team without requiring anything in particular invested in him:

• First of all, he is a relatively strong laner and can usually get the resources he needs even in the offlane by controlling the creep waves.
  
• When he gets some levels, he can start ganking and pressuring the enemies, which gives map control. Because of this, more often than not, he has a significant impact in the early-mid stages of the game.
  
• Lastly, he is a very good fight initiator that can control engagements.
  

Picking Clockwerk to counter passive farmers or split pushers is also a great idea because of his amazing ability to find his targets with the vision of Flare and to initiate on them and lock them in place with the rest of his skills. Sometimes this is enough for a solo kill, other times this might be enough to buy his cores time to join him and secure the pick-off.

The major reason why Clock usually gets resources out of the hard-to-stay-in offlane is because of his ability to manage the creep equilibrium. By blocking allied creeps with his Cogs, he is able to force the equilibrium towards his tower.

Once the creeps are near his tower, he might not get all last hits, but he could get close to solo XP, which is a great help in rotating to gank from earlier.

Because of this unique ability, it is actually quite hard to zone out Clock and deny experience to him even with dominant laners in the offlane. As all good offlaners, Clock is quite hard to kill. He can use Cogs to block the path of opponents trying to initiate on him, or to push them backward, creating not only distance between himself and the aggressors, but also an obstacle that they have to walk around.

He also has decent kill potential in the lane. If he manages to catch a support by himself/herself, with the help of Battery Assault and Cogs, he could get a solo kill. When combined with heroes with decent ranged damage in the offlane, he can be extremely dangerous.

Generally speaking, you can easily pick Clock early in the game and decide later how to play him (as pos. 3 or 4).

Clock as pos. 4 can be very good for a couple of reasons. First, he has very good solo kill potential even early on. After getting lvl3 and 2 points in Battery Assault, if you manage to get closer to squishier heroes you can easily secure a kill. Second, Clock is very good at helping lanes with cogs to disrupt the creep equilibrium. Finally, Clock  is very good for rune control. He can always push out enemies with Cogs if they try to contest the rune and they are not in time. Moreover, a 1v1 engagement with Clock near the rune spot is very dangerous for other heroes because Clock can run them down with Battery Assault.

Clockwerk works best with heroes which benefit from his aggressive play style.

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

The choice is usually between maxing Battery Assault and Rocket Flare:

• Maxing Battery Assault will give you the maximum possible solo kill potential.
  
• Maxing Rocket Flare will give you the most scouting, harassing and farming from a safe distance. It can also be useful if your teammates don’t have enough anti-push.
  

You usually start with one level in Cogs as the spell gives the most utility at lvl one - a very long disable for kill attempts, the possibility to disengage and save yourself if you need to and most importantly – the ability to control the creep equilibrium by locking in creeps.

The build focuses on getting your core items as fast as possible.

After boots you go for Bottle since after the laning stage you will roam the map a lot with good access to runes and you will need something to sustain your mana and HP.

The fast Blade Mail is ideal versus heroes that deal a lot of AOE damage in fights (Gyro, Leshrac, Luna, etc.) or heroes that want to fight you inside the Cogs (usually melee carries). Agh’s right afterward will provide a huge CD boost to your Hookshot, allowing you to use it multiple times in a fight.

BKB is common in case enemies are controlling you and nuking you down after your initiation. You already have a high HP pool and magic damage defense from BKB, so Shiva’s is the best way to increase your EHP against physical damage (and makes your Hook initiation stronger because of the Ice Blast). Lastly, Octarine will make you tankier, decrease your spells CD and will allow you to use Hookshots even more often.

In this example you get only Stout and one set of Tangoes as starting items – the idea is to save some gold and buy Boots as soon as possible after the runes.

You get Force Staff instead of Blade Mail – it allows you to disengage after trapping someone inside your Cogs and it allows you to chase after enemies (especially if they have Force Staff themselves to get away from your Cogs). Force Staff is a core item in case you are under-leveled and under-farmed (which happens often for a pos. 4 Clock) because without it locking yourself in your Cogs with an enemy core could easily cause your death. If you have a good game and you are playing against a lot of AoE damage, however, you can still go for Blade Mail first.

Spirit Vessel is an ideal item for Clock – the HP sustain is amazing not only for him but for his allies as well, and the stats fit him perfectly. The negative Urn charge increases his kill potential against tanky opponents.

In the late game, you go for Lotus Orb – this way you can make yourself an unfavorable target to focus down after you initiate. Alternatively, if you don’t want to enter fights right-away you can use it on your front line tank.

Creep Equilibrium:

Clock’s biggest tool for securing farm for himself (or his lane partner) is his ability to repeatedly block the creep wave with his Cogs.

You can block the creeps a bit with the hero and when they are around you (as close to you as possible), you use Power Cogs. It is possible to get all creeps inside, which will prevent them from moving for 5 seconds.

In case your opponents aren’t blocking very well, this might make the waves meet under the tower, which is not ideal as your wave will gain momentum and push forward. If you want to be safe, you could choose to let one creep through and catch the other 3 in the cogs. The creep which is furthest behind (the ranged creep) is the best target since it will have to walk around the Cogs and will lose a second or two. This way the creep waves will meet close to their default equilibrium, but the creep you let through will die much faster and will give momentum to the enemy wave, bringing the equilibrium closer to your tower and allowing you to get last hits easily.

You can do this not only on the first wave but every time the equilibrium is not in your favor. This is why it is very hard for your lane opponents to control the lane, and zone you out of XP and farm range.

Power Cogs:

 Cogs are also useful for farming - not so much for getting the actual last hits, but for preventing your opponent from contesting the hits. If you hit the Power Cogs so that they push the enemy hero away and create a physical barrier between the creep waves and your opponent, it will be hard for him/her to get back to the wave in time to get the creeps. This will give you time to last hit and deny uncontested for a few seconds, which is great for getting the ranged creeps. Because of this, the timing of using power Cogs is actually important - it is best to use it when creeps are on low HP.

This technique is most useful against melee heroes as it is much easier hitting them with the Cogs before they try to last hit. Positioning yourself between the creep waves and a ranged opponent when you use Power Cogs could have a similar effect, but be careful not to take too much harass.

Rocket Flare:

 The long-range nuke can help you snatch last hits which you are not in range of getting. This is very useful if you are getting zoned out. You need to be careful, though, as the AoE damage from the Rocket Flare can push out your wave, which is sometimes undesirable.

As Clock you have trouble passively harassing like most melee heroes; however, to compensate, you have two ways to harass actively.

Rocket Flare is spammable and could be used to take last hits and harass at the same time. The problem with the spell is that on low level it deals very low damage, so if you are not going for a Rocket Flare build it’s better to preserve your mana for your other spells.

Power Cogs are your second source of active harass and your most common one since you don’t need a high level of the spell to use it for harassing effectively. The pushback from the Cogs burns the mana of enemy heroes and damages them slightly.

Your main source of kill potential is Battery Assault. Provided you manage to catch a hero relatively far from the creep wave with a high-level Battery Assault, you could, in theory, get a solo kill from full HP. The spell deals very serious damage, and if you combo it with Power Cogs, it is very hard to get away from it. The problem with getting kills with Battery Assault is that it is very easy for your opponent to stick close to the creep wave, and if there are enemy creeps close to your target, Battery Assault will be relatively useless. For this reason, the most important thing to think about is positioning. You can try to catch your opponent when he/she is away from the creep wave for some reason, deal some Battery Assault damage, and when he/she is coming close to the wave, you can use Cogs to isolate the target. Remember that even if the creeps are around the Cogs if only the target is inside, all the Battery Assault damage will go to your target and the Cogs will give you time to auto attack as well.

Before Hookshot, allies with good slows and disables can increase your kill potential in the lane a great deal because they will make it much easier for you to reach your target and use your spells. CM, SD, Bane, etc. are all great in this regard.

Of course, you become most dangerous at lvl6, when you get the Hook Shot as now you have your whole Combo. Hook into Battery Assault and Cogs could actually outright kill squishier targets, and if your lane opponent doesn’t fit this description, it is best to try and search for kills somewhere else.

If you don’t have a high level in Battery Assault, however, you will not be able to get solo kills as easily, and you need to think about where your allies will be able to help you finish a target off. The Hook initiation is still a formidable tool, and if you have an ally at your side that does good damage, getting kills is still definitely an option. After Hookshot, reaching the target is no longer a problem, but dealing enough damage might be when enemies become tankier. Heroes with good follow-up damage like Invoker, Sky, Lina, etc. shine in this regard.

1. Clock is absolutely great at controlling the runes. Cogs allow you to push back enemies and secure the rune, but more importantly, the rune spots are far away from the lanes. This means that if you catch a slow and squishy hero there you can easily chase him/her down and secure a kill with Battery Assault. It will be very difficult for enemies to contest the runes, so make sure to abuse this as much as possible (moreover, a haste rune gives you huge kill potential).
   
2. Lvl3 with two levels in Battery Assault and one level in Cogs in addition to Boots is a big timing for Clock. You have the speed, damage and control to threaten kills. You usually want to do this in your own lane, but rotation to another lane to gank is also not a bad choice if you know there are vulnerable heroes there.
   
3. Lvl6 is an obvious rotation timing – use your Ult to set up an important kill for your allies.
   

Your top priority, much more important than anything else, is to get enough experience. Getting lvl6 as quickly as possible is your number one goal because it allows you to turn into q playmaker for your team.

After you succeed in doing this, you can try to get more out of the lane - e.g. cause problems for the enemy supports, harass, attempt kills, etc.

When the enemy supports are trying to zone you out, you generally want to fight back. You have decent armor and high HP, and if you manage to exchange hits, you might get the better end of the trade.

Clockwerk’s strength, however, doesn’t come from his attacks, but rather from his spells. If you see that the enemy support is overextending, this is when you can try to punish this mistake and get a solo kill. Try to get close to it, and activate Battery Assault. Start chasing, stick to your target, and when he runs towards his allies, activate Power Cogs and trap the target inside. This might prevent your other lane opponents from helping their ally, and allow you to get a solo kill. If you have Boots of Speed your chasing potential with Battery Assault makes you quite dangerous, and slow and squishy supports might not be able to harass you without help as they will put their lives at danger.

Initially, until you get your spells, you want to play more defensively. Prioritize blocking the camp and controlling the equilibrium, and if possible, try getting farm under your tower, but don’t go too far forward as you might die. Afterward, when you get more levels, you will become more dangerous, and trading harass, or even going for kill attempts is possible.

If you have a lane ally, of course, you can afford to play aggressively from earlier.

The strength of Clock in controlling the creep equilibrium means that unlike most offlane heroes, you rarely need to go in risky positions, yet you’ll still get resources.

He secures the rune with and afterward he immediately goes to his creep wave to block it. He manages to get the whole wave inside Cogs twice, which ensures an amazing creep equilibrium for him and gives him access to farm.

Once he has lvl3 and Boots, he dives Gyro with his creep wave under the tower and manages to secure a kill. Notice how he uses Cogs only when he's right next to him to ensure he doesn't accidentally push him away.

At minute 04:45 (game time) Venge stuns Bane and allows Clock to finish him off (Venge dies from this exchange). Importantly, however, Nongrata manages to take both 5-min bounties after the exchange - it would be too dangerous for Gyro to challenge him and even if he does he'll lose a lot of farm on the lane.

At minute 08:00 Nongrata gets jumped by Bane and Gyro. He demonstrates the strength of Cogs - he isolates Bane inside the Cogs with himself (and kills him with Battery Assault) while keeping Gyro out, disallowing him from dealing damage with Rocket Barrage.

You want to spend the first few minutes in the lane – this is important because, in order to reach your kill potential, you need lvl2 or ideally lvl3 and Boots. Once you have this, you can start rotating and attempting kills with Cogs and Battery Assault. Try to evaluate which lanes are most vulnerable to your pressure – slow, squishy heroes are your easiest targets. These are usually either the supports in the safe lane or a ranged farming cores.

The first thing MSS does is to let his SF deny his Cogs in base to get bonus Necromastery damage - this makes SF much stronger in the first few minutes of the laning stage. Moreover, notice how MSS uses Cogs to control the creep equilibrium in the offlane despite not being the offlaner of his team. By doing these Cog tricks he secures a good start for his offlane and mid lane even before the creeps meet.

On the 00:30 minute game time he TPs to the mid lane to help his SF who is getting ganked. He manages to catch Rubick in his Cogs just on the edge of the tower range, which secures him a solo kill. He decides to stay mid to help his SF, who would otherwise have huge trouble laning against Huskar and Rubick. Simply staying there to deny creeps and tank Spear harass would make things much easier for the SF. Moreover, this way he soaks some XP from the mid lane and reaches a fast lvl2.

Once he gets his Boots (03:00), he immediately decides to rotate bottom where Axe is getting a lot of farm undisturbed. MSS finds him in the jungle and with the help of Mirana's Arrow (which is much easier to land when Axe is in the Cogs), they secure the kill.

On minute 03:40 (game time) he kills the enemy Naga. Notice how he waits for her on the high ground where she cannot see him. If he tried to make the move earlier, she might have simply run away. He hides outside vision for the Visage kill as well - he waits besides the secret shop because he knows Visage will try to take the 5-minute bounty rune. Notice how after Visage breaks the Cog, MSS blocks him with his illusion so that his hero can keep up with Battery Assault.

On minute 07:15 he knows that someone from Dire will teleport to defend the top tower. Because of this, he decides to enter the trees behind the tower to search for a target. Once he sees the Naga illusions, he understands he was right and manages to find and chase down the Naga.

If you get a lot out of the lane, probably you will be in a position to get solo kills. This will allow you to take more risky plays and be more aggressive. A bad laning outcome, on the other hand, will force you to gank only with help or to stick to your team. Be that as it may, your goal will be the same. You want to find pickoffs and initiate fights in order to win map control and create space for your team.

Before the fight starts, try to use Rocket Flare smartly. If there are initiators, think about where they might be hiding, and try to reveal them. Provided you manage to hit a Blink Dagger initiator with Rocket while it is away from the rest of the team, this will disable blinking, and will give you a valuable timing window to jump in.

In case you see all enemy heroes, and scouting is not required, the Rocket Damage is still not to be underestimated, especially on supports - you should use it as often as possible on enemy heroes. This will help you kill them off faster, once the actual fight starts.

Initiation:

The first important aspect of team fights for you is the initiation. The ideal start of a team fight is if you manage to get multiple heroes in your Cogs as this will allow your team to follow up with AoE abilities. The actual Hookshot stun is also important - when you stun multiple enemies at once, you give your team time to get in position and deal damage. Getting one target inside, however, is still a good start as you will be able to focus it down with Battery Assault.

Try to think if it is sensible to initiate from a big distance - will your allies have enough time to come and help you? If you manage to make a great initiation, but your allies are too far away, you might just feed.

You need to consider which target to try to get:

• Your highest priority targets are black-line damage dealers like e.g. Tinker or Sniper. You have a huge initiation range and it relatively easy for you to get to them if you initiate from a good angle. Preventing them to freely deal damage to your teammates can easily win you the fight.
  
• Hitting melee carries is also good if you have Blade Mail to man-fight of Force Staff to disengage  - while they are inside the Cogs, they will not be able to hit your allies, and your team will have time to bring them down. It is also possible to push them back with the Cogs towards your allies while separating them from their teammates. When doing this you will put yourself in danger, so try to disengage with Force.
  
• Getting a support is also not bad since you will be able to kill the hero off quite quickly before it has had the time to have an impact on the fight.
  
• Sticking close to targets with slow cast animations wit Battery Assault is also a smart move because it will make it almost impossible for them to cast their spells and contribute to the fight.
  

Video Example:

Nongrata initiates on the enemy Gyro as soon as he sees him in order to prevent him from entering the pit to contest Roshan. He activates Blade Mail and BKB and man-fights him inside the Cogs. Once the Gyro is dead he sees that his teammates don't need further help inside the pit (thanks to Agh's his Hookshot is up and he could jump in if needed) and chases down the enemy Mirana, finishing her off with Hookshot and the upgraded Battery Assault.

Split-Pushing:

Clock is a terrible split-pusher – he kills creep waves slowly and kills towers even slower. If you want to push-out a wave instead of going there yourself, you can use Rocket Flare to hit the enemy waves and give your own waves some momentum.

You can, however, easily punish enemy split-pushers by ganking them. You have a huge initiation range (one of the biggest in the game), so you can get in position for a gank quite easily. Moreover, you can even find them with Rocket Flare if they try to hide in the trees.

5-man Pushing:

While 5-man pushing you need to be positioned a bit away from your team (so that you don’t get caught before you initiate), ideally at an angle from which you will have a clear Hookshot. You want to counter initiate as your opponents are going for the defense. Initiating with a Hookshot behind the tower is also possible if you see an opportunity to jump on an ideal target, but be sure that your allies are in a position to follow up.

Mechanically, ganking for Clock is pretty straightforward: you use Rocket to scout or find the target if you need to, and then, you jump in with Hookshot. You activate your Battery Assault and catch the target in Power Cogs. While the target is blocked, you use the opportunity to auto attack (and cast Rocket if off CD) to deal additional damage. When the Cogs are over (or the target breaks them), you try to follow with Battery Assault to finish the kill.

Ideally, you will find initiation on heroes which are far away from their allies. If the target is tanky, you would want to jump in only if you have an ally able to follow up on your initiation. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to finish the kill fast enough. Remember that you are a great initiator, but you don’t deal too much damage. Battery Assault is quite considerable in the early and mid-game; however, the later the game goes, the harder it will be for you to finish off targets. Provided you are unable to kill a hero quickly enough, you risk being counter-initiated and dying. You are durable and hard to kill, but if you have used your Hookshot and Cogs for the gank, you will not have your defensive escape mechanisms off CD.

The most important thing to consider when jumping in is the positioning of other enemies. Whenever you see a lone hero, but you don’t see any of his/her teammates, you risk jumping into multiple enemies at once and throwing away your life for nothing. This is why vision is also central to the success of your ganks (you can use Rocket to scout if there are enemies behind your target).

Clock gives map control in two ways. The first one is through vision, because of Rocket Flare. It is generally a good idea to use the spell very often to get the most vision out of it. Scout areas of interest (like the Rosh pit or Ancients), but also throw Rockets over the enemy jungle or lanes as often as possible - this way you will get the most information about the positioning of your opponents.

Since vision is vital for your ability to gank, Observer wards are crucial. You are not that item dependent - the success of a gank is more important to you than getting an item a bit quicker. You gain more from buying them than you lose. In addition, sometimes your squishy supports are not in position to go as deep into the enemy territory as you are and the most useful wards for ganking are exactly in such positions (Offensive wards).

The second way you provide map control is by forcing your opponents to position themselves more defensively because of your ganking potential. If they are constantly afraid of getting initiated upon, they will stick together.  Staying out of vision even when you are not ganking is helpful since it will make your enemies think that you are in position to attack. For instance, you can farm up jungle camps instead of a lane if another hero can take the creeps in the lane. This will give your team more space on the map, and your carries will be able to flash farm and split push more effectively.

Farming with Clock is very straightforward. You use your Rocket Flare for some AoE damage, and you finish creeps off with auto attacks. You can use Battery Assault to kill off tanky jungle creeps faster. Spamming Rocket Flare on the lane creeps (while you are not there) is not likely to get you a lot of last hits. It is a good idea to do this only when you intentionally want to push out the lane. Otherwise, it is smarter to use the Flare for scouting.

In general, you shouldn’t farm passively. You always have something more productive to do and you don’t scale that well with items. The only time when farming is a good idea is when you are relatively close to finishing an important item (e.g. Aghanim’s Scepter), and you don’t want to take risks before you have it. In such situations, it is best to head into the jungle, finish the item and go back to ganking or sticking with your team.

If your opponents are walking together, you could farm as you will not be able to find ganking opportunities anyway. Nevertheless, if your opponents are walking as five, they are likely to try to push, or take Roshan. Whenever this is the case, you need to be with your team to initiate fights, so even if your enemy team is gathered, you might not get the chance to farm for long.