Yurnero the Juggernaut is a very versatile hero – he is a strong laner, a fast farmer, good at fights in the midgame and scales very well with resources into the late game. Moreover, he gives his team good utility in the form of AoE healing. This means that Jugger could contribute to various strategies and even be played in different positions.

Juggernaut has very high lane flexibility and in different situations, he could go to all possible lanes. Most often he is a supported farmer in safe or offensive dual or trilanes, but he is not a bad solo hero thanks to his survivability (could go even solo mid). Wherever he is laned, he is played as an active carry hero that doesn’t shy away from fights.

Yurnero could actually be played as a support hero as well thanks to the early game power of Blade Fury and the utility he gives to the team with Healing Ward, even though this is a very unconventional approach.

Juggernaut is very versatile laning and strategy-wise and because of this, he is rarely a bad hero to pick-up. If the enemy team is trying to counter your Yurnero pick, however, it might be worth it to use him as an additional semi-carry 2^nd position and to invest in another 1^st position hero.

Thanks to his strategic versatility and lane flexibility Juggernaut could efficiently be utilized in different ways with different lineups. As a carry, Juggernaut’s major strength is that he is good during all stages of the game – he is able to fight from early on very efficiently and in the same time he scales very well into the late game. Even without farm, however, Jugg could give good utility to his team and be useful in fights.

The most conventional way to use the hero is to give him access to farm and to maximize his physical damage output and farming speed. This will allow him to be aggressive from early on but at the same time to serve as the main carry and physical damage dealer in your lineup.

It is also possible to focus your drafting around Jugg’s ability to sustain 5-man pushes with Healing ward and claim objectives. Jugg could be the main carry in such a lineup, but since the important aspect here is the utility he provides to the team it is possible to put him in 2^nd position.

If you want to ensure access to farm and a good start to your Juggernaut the best option is to support him in your safe lane. When he gets some resources he becomes very good at harassing and zoning out the enemy offlaner on his own, which gives freedom to your supports.

Juggernaut has very good kill potential and survivability early on. This means that with supports that have enough kill potential of their own Jugg could be part of a very dangerous offensive lane. This way you could not only secure farm for him but also pressure and deny farm to the enemy team. Of course, running Jugg in an offensive lane is riskier and because of this, it is a good idea to have another carry (or semi-carry) mid or in the safe lane.

In certain 1v1 matchups, Jugg could be a decent solo laner (e.g. against Ember). He could use Blade Fury to pressure his opponent or to push out the wave and control the runes. His Blade Fury could also serve as a defensive mechanism that makes him a very hard target to gank. Even though it is unlikely that he will get as much farm as in the safe lane or that he will pressure his opponents as much as in an offensive dual or trilane, putting Jugg mid is an option that gives you lane flexibility – e.g. you could put another carry that needs more protection in the safe lane and Jugg mid when the enemy team has good roaming supports.

Strong Against:

Weak Against:

Interestingly, most of Jugg’s skills (with the exception of his ultimate) don’t scale particularly well with more levels invested into them. Blade Fury gives you the whole defensive utility on lvl1 and the damage doesn’t even double. Healing Ward scales well only when your total HP becomes higher and Blade Dance gives you 20% proc chance on lvl1 and 5% for each additional level (lvl2, 3 and 4 combined don’t give as much as lvl1).

You prioritize Blade Fury early on because it is the skill that gives you the most kill potential. The only choice available is whether to max your Crit or to max Healing Ward.

Starting with tangoes, Salve and Stout Shield will help you deal with harassing or tanking the creeps, Quelling blade is always good for helping you to last hit and you need it anyways later for your Battle Fury.

Both Treads and Phase Boots are viable. Phase Boots are better for kill attempts with Blade Fury (and possibly Omni Slash - they help you reach your target). Treads are more well-rounded because of the stats - make you tankier, the damage is great for last-hitting and harassing with your crit, and you can switch to INT when casting spells to manage your mana better.

Getting a fast Battle Fury could increase your farming speed a great deal thanks to your crit. Moreover, the HP and Mana regen are very helpful early on.

Getting a Blink afterward will help you use your ultimate in the most efficient way possible (e.g. you can jump on a back-line squishy target and finish it off just with the ult). It also increases your farming speed further, by allowing you to jump from camp to camp. Delaying it in favor of more stat-heavy items is possible if you feel this is what you need.

After the BF and Blink you go for your usual stat/AS heavy items, to increase your physical DPS and the effectiveness of your ultimate: Manta, Butterfly, Skadi, Mjollnir.

With a fighting Jugger you want to skip your Battle Fury and instead you want to take some cost-efficient early-game items like Yasha/Drums – it is a great choice to sustain your mana. Phase Boots is a must since you want to chase and fight (Yasha does the same but also increases your farm capability).

Late game Basher/Abyssal + Blink is great for picking-off targets (and gives you good survivability), Butterfly increases your DPS a great deal.

Jugger has a very fast attack animation and an average attack damage, which makes last-hitting relatively easy. The only exception is if you are facing a very dominant 1v1 laner, in which case you usually need some help from a support to provide you with space to farm. If you are facing a lane opponent who has very high damage it is a good practice to pull the creep wave away from your opponent to last hit without allowing the enemy hero to deny (a useful trick for most melee heroes).

If you have trouble last hitting with attacks you could theoretically use Blade Fury. The problem is that this is very mana intensive and that by using Blade Fury you are pushing out the wave, which is unfavorable in certain situations (e.g. you don’t want to give farm to the enemy offlaner). Consequently, more often than not you need to rely mainly on your attacks for last hits.

If you have a level in Blade Dance you need to make sure a crit proc wouldn’t mess up your attack. When the creep gets close to LH range but is still out of it don’t attack because a critical strike could leave it on very low HP in which case your ally creeps could steal the last hit.

Even though he is a melee hero and he needs to get in melee range to harass, Jugg’s skills and importantly – item choices allow him to easily harass in the laning stage.

Critical strike is a powerful harassing tool especially once Jugg gets his Phase Boots. Not only do they give him damage that helps to win in a hit exchange, but they help him stick to his target for 2-3 hits especially in the side lanes where there is more room to chase. The MS of MoM (usually acquired before the end of the laning stage) is also very valuable for sticking to your target with physical attacks.

Blade Fury deals significant damage early on. Even if you wouldn’t be able to get a kill with it, during the laning stage it is not a bad idea to use the spell for harass if you have mana to spare. Sticking to your opponent for a few seconds will force him to use up his regen consumables, which will make the laning stage easier for you. As with your physical attacks, harassing with Blade Fury is easier if you have more MS than your opponent. Because of this Phase Boots is useful for early game harass. If you are not leveling your Blade Fury up, harassing with physical attacks becomes more efficient as the laning stage progresses compared to harassing with Blade Fury – it doesn’t cost mana but even more importantly, it could deal more damage for a shorter duration.

Healing Ward doesn’t do damage but it is very useful for harassing in the sense that it helps you with HP sustain. If you exchange a lot of hits with your lane opponent and you are both on low HP he would have to use his regen consumables while you would have the choice to use Healing Ward to regen HP for the cost of mana rather than consumables.

All things considered, Jugg gives you the opportunity to deal damage and to keep your HP up at the same time, which means that exchanging harass during the laning stage might allow you to dominate your lane opponent in the long run.

Your main survivability tool is Blade Fury – it gives you magic immunity for 5 seconds, which is usually enough to get to the safety of your tower. Because of this, it is important to keep in mind the CD (on lvl1 – 42 sec) and mana cost of Blade Fury. If you suspect you will get ganked or you might need it to survive for whatever reason it is a good idea to conserve the CD and your mana in order to have your survivability mechanism.

Getting MS items (Phase Boots and Yasha most notably in the early game) is a huge boost to your survivability simply because it allows you to run a further distance for the 5 seconds of spell immunity.

Healing Ward is also a valuable survivability tool if you are sustaining continuous rather than nuke damage. Just remember to micro your Ward out of harm’s way. More often than not Blade Fury is your most important survivability mechanism and you would need to use Healing Ward only for sustain after the fight.

Blade Fury:

Most of your kill potential in the early laning stage comes from Blade Fury – the ability deals very high amounts of magical damage if you are able to stick to your target and has the added benefit of making you spell immune. This means enemies wouldn’t be able to disable you in order to run away. Since you usually need to chase, the more space you have the better. E.g. chasing in the mid lane is harder than in the safe lane because the enemy heroes mid are generally closer to their tower.

Importance falls on MS once again – if you cannot keep up with your opponents you cannot deal damage with the spell for long enough

Against enemies with mobility spells you only have kill potential if your allies have long enough disables (you cannot chase with Fury if your opponent has e.g., Blink).

Attack damage:

Thanks to Blade Dance you deal significant right-click damage from early on if you get good resources in the very early game and you manage to build the cheap DPS items fast (Phase, Aquila). Whit a fast Yasha/Diffusal/Battlefury your DPS whit right clicks will increase significantly.

Omnislash:

Omnislash gives you a tremendous amount of solo kill potential, but in order to utilize it, you need to isolate your target from any other units. Lvl 1 Omnislash has only three jumps and wasting even one on a creep will decrease the damage of the spell a great amount.

Rotating for kills:

Your most important timing by far is getting Omnislash. Once you acquire the skill you should use the kill potential it provides you. If you are a farming Jugg it is important that you don’t waste time – you want to farm continuously. Consequently, rotating simply to search for a kill with Omnislash is usually not a good idea. Instead, try to find a kill in your lane (call for a gank if you cannot do it alone). If this is not possible, buy a TP scroll and wait for an opportunity to counter-gank or join a fight.

Rotating for pushes:

If your team has good early game pushing potential (DK, Chen, Enchantress, etc.) it is a good idea to join your teammates and support the push with Ward.

Rotating to farm the jungle:

Last but not least, if you are struggling in the lane or if your allies need the farm there, you always have the option to rotate to the jungle. After getting a Battle Fury you can farm jungle camps and get comparable GPM to farming the lane.

Your play style in the safe lane usually combines two things. First, as every hard carry, you need to try to get as many last hits as possible. It is your job to out-farm the enemy carries and provide your team with a resource advantage. Second, you need to use your laning presence to pressure your lane opponent(s).

Initially, your teammates would usually help you in the lane – a babysitter could zone out the enemy offlaner while you get some basic items. If the babysitter has good control you can even attempt kills with Blade Fury. Afterward, once you get your Phase Boots and some other cost efficient item (e.g. Aquila) you are typically in a good enough position to deal with the offlaner by yourself. Phase Boots and Blade Dance make your physical attacks very dangerous and if you harass the enemy offlaner often, he/she will struggle in the lane. This gives your supports the freedom to farm in the jungle or help out the other lanes.

When you get lvl6 you should try to get a kill on the enemy offlaner if he is still in the lane. As you don’t have such an opportunity get a TP in case you can quickly join a fight in another lane.

Ramzes knows that this is going to be a duo offlane so he gets as much regen as he can (Tangoes, Salve and Clarity and Mango can potentially be used for Healing Ward).

In the laning stage he knows that it is very important to get your Boots as quick as you can (ideally before the offlaners). In some games it is possible for you to skip your point in Healing Ward, but when you play against offensive lanes and more importantly a ranged hero that is going to zone you all the time you need your Healing Ward early.

At lvl7 Juggs kill potential is at his maximum so you should always have a TP on you and be ready to TP and help your team in a fight.

Your play style in the mid lane is quite simple. Your first goal is to find enough last hits to get a fast Bottle. The mana an HP sustain is very important for using your Blade Fury often, and Blade Fury is your main lane control mechanism. Getting fast Boots is also vital – allows you to chase with BF as usual, but also allows you to run the distance to the runes faster and more efficiently.

First, if you have the opportunity to do so, you should use the kill potential of BF. This usually means your supports ganking your lane – it is hard getting a solo kill only with BF against an equally farmed opponent mid, where you don’t have a lot of space to chase. Harassing with BF is not a bad idea if your opponent lacks HP sustain.

Second, when you get your mana sustain you should use BF to kill-off the creep wave quicker. This will force your opponent to last-hit under the tower and will give you valuable free time to either control the rune or stack a nearby creep camp that you could later on farm with Blade Fury. Good rune control and efficient flash farming is the most important thing to make your time in the mid lane worth it.

Last but not least, you should carefully manage your BF CD and mana cost. If you suspect you might get ganked you need to have the spell available to escape the gank attempt.

Jugg scales very well with items but is not particularly item dependent. This means that even if you have a bad start in the game your play style wouldn’t change a lot.

When your ultimate is available you should (with the help of your allies) try to pressure your opponents and get some kills. This will give you map control and when your ult is on CD you would be able to use this space on the map to farm.

After a very good laning stage, your play style would be the same but the fact that you are leading at resources would mean you can afford to be more aggressive. E.g. you can start farming in the enemy jungle (make sure you are not seen entering it); once you bump into an enemy core that wants to farm it as well, you can kill it with Omnislash and afterward TP home with Blade Fury.

Omnislash:

The first thing you need to think about in fights is Omnislash. First of all, it has a short casting range. This means that while you are running towards your target you could get disabled and focused down. To avoid this try to observe when enemies use their disables. Don’t be the first one to run into the fight (without a BKB) – better wait for an ally to initiate and follow up with your Omnislash.

Positioning of the enemy team is very important – you could have an opportunity to run towards a target and use your ultimate without being in range of other dangerous enemies with disables. If the enemy team is separated by some distance you can even cast Omni on some important isolated hero and kill it off quickly. In that sense flanking the enemy team could give you a valuable positioning advantage and win you the fight.

With Blink Dagger getting in position for the perfect Omnislash becomes much easier.

While Omni-slashing try to observe how the fight develops – after the ultimate ends you would have to choose your next action. If the enemy team has wasted most of their lockdown abilities the right thing to do would be to use auto attacks. If they are in position to fight back, however, it might be safer to disengage with Blade Fury.

Last but not least, if enemies initiate on you and you survive the disables you can use Omnislash to buy your team time to react.

Attacks:

Generally speaking, you rarely want to commit hard in a fight and man-fight targets unless you have a BKB. If you over-commit you risk getting disabled and focused down, especially when under the effect of MoM. Typically you want to go in, attack and when you see dangerous targets with disables in range you want to use Blade Fury to disengage. Once at a safe distance you can re-engage again. Your tendency to go for MS items makes this go-in-go-out fighting style possible.

Healing Ward:

Using Healing Ward to sustain your team is a good idea, but you need to micro it to keep it outside of the attack range of your enemies.

Example:

Miracle moves very well in this fight:

• First, he uses his spin to gain magic immunity and to break the Cogs without being pushed-back.
  
• The fight doesn’t go in their favor, so they start retreating. Miracle, however, uses his ult not only to deal damage but to buy himself some time – he needs his spin to come off CD to be able to fight or retreat.
  
• Once his spin is available, he uses his Healing Ward and spin and goes back into the fight with his allies.
  

5-man pushing:

As Jugg, you are a frontline hero during 5-man pushes. In the early-mid game, you usually want to use your Healing Ward to mitigate any damage from the tower and any anti-push spells. Later on, however, it might be a better decision to save the ward for a potential fight and/or sustain after the push.

The most important skill you need to think about while pushing is your Blade Fury. It is what makes you a hard target to initiate on – you need to have quick reactions and activate it before your opponents are able to lock you down and kill you.

Remember that you can damage buildings with attacks while spinning. This means that when the tower is at low HP it is a good idea to use Blade Fury while finishing it off. This will make it very hard for the enemy team to engage in the last moment for a defense.

Split-Pushing:

Split-pushing with Jugg is more often than not related to your item choices. If you have items that allow you to push-out waves quickly (Mjollnir, Battle Fury) and MS items that allow you to move around the map fast, then split-pushing is definitely a possibility. Your greatest split-pushing tool is the safety that Blade Fury gives you – even if your enemies manage to catch you, you always have the option to use the spell immunity and TP to safety.

One thing to consider when split-pushing is that your major strength as Jugger is your fighting potential rather than your split-pushing potential. Because of this you always need to carry a TP and make sure you join fights in time.

Ganking with Juggernaut is quite straightforward. Your main killing tool is Omnislash and because of this, you need to worry about two things – getting close enough to your target and using Omnislash when there aren’t other units around. Mobility items help in this regard a great deal, most notably Blink Dagger (possibly SB).

If you have mobile initiators with a reliable disable you could even gank without using Omnislash – you deal very high damage just with attacks. Nevertheless, even in a situation where you don’t need to use your ultimate, it is important to have it available - in case of a counter-gank, it could help you win the fight.

Bear in mind that in the late game you do more damage simply with right clicks rather than with Omnislash (the jumps slow down your physical attacks, which are the main DPS source). In that sense, the more valuable part of your ultimate becomes the invulnerability, not the damage. Because of this in the late game, you usually want to stave Omnislash for fights and use only attacks for ganks. 

As Jugg, you are the kind of hero that uses space well (farms fast) but at the same time could create space (good at ganks and fights). This predetermines your play style a great deal – rather than passively farming, you usually want to gank or force fights and afterward use the newly acquired map control to farm up, especially while your ultimate is on CD.

Farming with Juggernaut is mechanically simple:

If you have high levels of Blade Fury you could stack a camp once or twice and farm it afterward. In the mid and late game, however, you would usually farm much faster simply with auto attacks. If you have an item that deals AoE damage (Battle Fury, Maelstrom) stacking is an option again, but more often than not you would simply rotate from camp to camp.