Batman: Not In Gotham Anymore

Build And Guide Batman: Not In Gotham Anymore

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build

Dark Knight > Batarang > Forearm Strike

Recommended Talents

Punish, Flicker, Disrupt, Execute

Items

Spear of Longinus, Sonic Boots or Hermes' Select, Muramasa, Gaia's Standard, Fenrir's Tooth, Omni Arms

Arcana

Onslaught, Assassinate, Skewer

Introduction
Batman is an assassin. He excels at running around the map, taking out priority targets, and leaving before the enemy can react. With his ability to stun multiple times a gank, invisibility, and leap a distance, not many can escape the Dark Knight. Primarily, I see him as a jungler, due to the insane amount of time he can spend invisible (Hint: It's 30 seconds at all levels). He is also able to lane due to the health he gets back from the Batarang spam, so taking him mid and roaming is extremely viable as well.

Skill Build
Dark Knight, Batarang, Forearm Strike

Max Dark Knight when you're able to, as it's his ultimate ability. Besides that, it gains 170 dmg and reduces its cooldown by 6 seconds each level. Considering that Batman’s stealth lasts 30 seconds, you can easily get around the map freely without the enemy having any real idea where you are. You lose stealth if you attack, reuse the ability, or stand near an enemy by 6 units for 3 seconds. Reusing the ability jumps Batman in the targeted direction and deals 660/830/100 damage to all enemies hit. You also gain 50% attack speed for 5 seconds after coming out of stealth.

Batarang is your next ability to max. It gives 148 health (+21 per point you put into the ability past the first), which on a 9.6 second cooldown (-0.8 per level) is enough for me to want to max this by itself. It can also hit multiple enemies in the line you throw it in, slows their movement speed, deals 24% of lost health after 3 seconds as bonus damage, and stuns enemies if hit by Batman. You add... 24% of burst damage to an enemy you hit from ALL sources of damage, stun, slow, and health gain, on a 5.6 second cooldown at max level. This ability is one of my favorite in the entire game. Just don't miss the skill shot, and you basically ensure the enemy will have to try and run from the fight.

Forearm Strike does an AOE of physical damage-- 215 (+45 per point into the ability past 1). Oh, and one random enemy hit by the ability takes double damage! On a 5 second cooldown, at all levels! This is crazy damage on a short cooldown, and great for using in lane away from minions.

Batman's passive also gives him 20% movement speed when approaching enemy heroes. Just in case being invisible wasn't enough for you to hunt people down.

Recommended Talents
Punish, Flicker, Disrupt, Execute

Punish is your jungle ability of course. Making clearing the games that much better. It also doubles as an additional form of cc on the jungle creep or minion!

Flicker is going to be a good ability regardless of who you are playing. Any ability that causes you to get out of a bad situation instantly for free is good. Just be sure you are good enough at controlling the direction you blink towards and learn its range. It can get you over most walls, but not all of them.

Disrupt delays towers for 5 seconds on a 60 second cooldown. Plenty to let you dive people low and at their tower, or making those who camp the tower in fear of your ganks even more helpless.

Execute deals 16% of lost health at true damage. Batarang > Stun > Execute for 16% missing health > Batarang does 24% of damage dealt in the last 3 seconds. Ouch.

Items
Spear of Longinus, Sonic Boots or Hermes' Select, Muramasa, Gaia's Standard, Fenrir's Tooth, Omni Arms

Start with tier 1 boots and rush Spear of Longinus. The spear’s passive makes even the tankiest characters a target. Its unique passive reduces 50 armor for 5 seconds and stacks up to 5 times. Reducing anyone's armor by 250 is going to let you do some real damage.

Finish boots.

Gaia's Standard is an okay third or fourth item.  Its health regen on hits helps with a lot of the poke characters in this game. Normally that’s half a team. Other options for third buy are Muramasa or Fenrir's Tooth-- but Fenrir’s Tooth costs 1k more than Muramasa. Gaia's standard and Muramasa are close to 2k (1960 and 2070 gold) being 1k less than Fenrir's Tooth makes them better options for the early/mid game.

Arcana
Onslaught, Assassinate, Skewer

Anything that gives you attack damage is preferred, since everything you do is shredding armor and doing physical damage. There isn't a great purple Arcana for Batman. Our only real option is Assassinate, but if you can't afford the Arcana, I'd get this one last as the 9% movement speed seems more overkill then anything in this guide. The Armor pen is the better overkill in my opinion in these Arcana.

Early Game
Whether you're jungling or in lane, your main goal is to rush to level 4. At that point you should be looking to stack kills quickly. You are a carry. If you don't go out of control, the enemy team will simply out-push you. You are basically looking to make yourself and your team as strong as possible off of kill advantage. Take out priority targets, and abuse a single enemy if you have to.

Middle Game
You are going to want to roam to another lane and take them down. Afterwards, help that lane push down the first tower. After that they will either continue to farm that lane or roam to assist the last lane to push down its tower, or yours. Depending on if that tower is still up.

Late Game
You are going to be doing two things, depending on how the enemy plays. You are going to have unparalleled ability to run around the map and take down enemies who dare to farm alone in a lane, or your job will be to appear on top of the enemy carry from a location they weren't even aware existed. Basically, your job is always going to be to instantly take out the character on the enemy team that causes the most trouble.

FAQ/Tips
Batman's Batarang is a skill shot. Make sure to get use to using it and its range. If you manage to hit more than one person you can use Forearm Strike to stun both of them at the same time.

Batman un-stealths if he's within 6 units of an enemy for 3 or more seconds, so if you see an enemy, just back off. Be wary of the brush or areas you can't see. Even if you can't see them, any enemy within range, even over a wall will reveal you after 3 seconds.

Matchups
Aleister, Easy

Aleister seeks to do his damage by applying stacks for his passive. However, as you are a burst assassin he shouldn't be able to get them all on you in time. Unless you are in lane against him. Feel free to camp his lane. He has no real escape to save him.

Arthur, Hard

Both in land and in the jungle role, Arthur simply has too many ways of leaving the fight or fighting back if he needs to. Really you should gank other lanes. His ability to spam a speed boost and his constant aoe will both pop you out of stealth from the damage and be difficult to catch.

Butterfly, Easy/Hard

Butterfly gets both ends of this spectrum for Batman. For one she's extremely easy for Batman to pick off by herself, but she scales much faster than Batman in fights. You should probably be focusing her down unless someone else is doing much better.

Chaugnar, Hard

Chaugnar constantly gains movement speed and removes CC. You won't be able to lock him down, but at the same time you have better targets to lock down. If you need to know anything about this matchup, its that you should be fighting someone else. Farm, roam. Or, if in the jungle, you can gank this lane but I don't recommend risking too much in this lane.

Diaochan, Easy

Diaochan has no ability to escape without a talent. Her ult will however hit you and reveal you. Though by that time it should be too late. As you can still use the leap and attack as normal.

Grakk, Very Hard - Counter

Grakk is one of the only characters in the game that can completely shut down your combo. However, this entirely relies on him paying attention and having some quick reflexes the burst from Batarang and give them plenty of time to run from you. They could even burst you down instead.

Ignis, Easy

Ignis has a few AOE slows, but no stuns or escapes. Similar to Aleister, he is extremely weak to your burst of damage. Feel free to farm off of him and pick him off in fights

Ilumia, Hard

Ilumia has a somewhat unique position amongst the targets Batman would normally go after. However, in Ilumia’s case, we have her ability Banish. A short cooldown knock-back in a decently-sized AOE. Assuming she reacts quickly enough, she can knock you back before you can stun her or even do much damage. At which point she can more than likely burst you from 100-0. This is a target that depends on the player and how well she was allowed to do. If she gets too far ahead she will flatten you.

Krixi, Easy

Krixi is a problem for a lot of people. Great range, great damage and good AOE. However, she can only hit that which she can see. She lacks any real escape besides a movement speed buff from her passive. Kill her quickly, she is very squishy.

Lu Bu, Easy

Depending on how he builds I could see this matchup closer to medium. Since his ability to lifesteal will make it hard for you to stay in lane as long as he's able to.

Mganga, Medium

Mganga has a few things that make him a bit more of a problem to note for you. While he isn't extremely easy or difficult in either way, he does bring a few things to the table to keep in mind. His ult and abilities can heal his allies and the others can make moving around a bit more difficult. Toxic allows him to place a cloud wherever he likes. This can be used to either cut off your entrance or exit. A good Mganga will keep these things in mind to both save his team and help cut you off when he can.

Mina, Very Hard - Counter

Mina has the ability to stop anything and everything you want to do with her extreme amount of crowd control. She also reduces the damage you do to her. Using max health more than armor also means your armor shredding is less effective against her every more. Assume she will be one of the strongest enemies you will have to deal with. Just try to fight away from her so she can't stop you from doing what you need to.

Murad, Hard

Murad is covered in ways to escape, and may even be a better assassin by himself then Batman. For one he's able to jump to a location and within 5 seconds return to that location if he chooses to. Basically making him impossible to be caught by you.

Natalya, Easy

While her shield is up for her ultimate, the big green beam she fires, she cannot be cc'd. Other than that, she has very low health.

Omega, Easy

He has one escape, and one knock up. However, he lacks any way of truly dealing with you are pushing you out of lane.

Peura, Medium

Peura has the ability to increase nearby allies’ armor by 200/250/300 depending level to allies around her, as well as heal. This greatly reduces what Batman seeks to do. Which is shred armor and do extra damage.

Taara,  Very Hard - Counter

Taara's ult regains her health by 8% for 5/7/9 seconds. She gains great movement speed and can slow often. She also gains damage based on health missing. Considering you do a burst out of stealth, that means the moment she starts her hardest hitting abilities on you, they've already gotten a buff from her missing health and passive. She increases in speed with multiple abilities. So, if you fail to kill her, she will chase you down.

Tel'Annas, Easy

I'd say this is one of the characters you counter. She has no real way of finding you, no real way of escaping, and has one of the lowest health pools. Free kills.

Thane, Medium

Thane has a very good combo, possibly one of the best in the game for easy stun luck. He can easily push you away from his team and knock you up. His passive regains 24% of his max health after he drops below 30%. This makes him both hard to gank, and hard to gank around. As he will most likely attempt to charge you off of your target the moment you come out of stealth.

Valhein, Easy

Valhein has no escapes. However, his yellow shuriken does stun you, and his passive every 4 attacks can be yellow as well. Knowing this, try to attack after his passive attacks pick a shuriken. That way you know you have a few hits to take before it can possibly stun or do more damage.

Wukong, Easy

You do basically everything Wukong does, but better.