Jinnar: The True Orb Walker

Build and Guide Jinnar: The True  Orb Walker

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build       

Nirvana > Battering Beads > Sutra of Pain

Recommended Talents       

Flicker

Items       

Rhea's Blessing, Enchanted Kicks, Berith's Agony, Boomstick, Staff of Nuul, Holy of Holies

Arcana       

Violate, Devour, Hex

Introduction
Jinnar is a magic damage based caster that specializes in constantly harassing the enemy heroes with quick short cooldown abilities to bring them down. His skill set sets him apart from most other casters, as most of his abilities include a short ranged area of effect abilities. These abilities when used efficiently, reward running straight into the enemy team, and hitting as many people at once as possible.

Skill Build
Nirvana > Battering Beads > Sutra of Pain

Jinnar invokes the power of his spirit orbs to hit nearby enemies 10 times over the next 5 seconds. When using this ability Jinnar deals 170/210/250 damage per hit and gains 15% damage reduction plus 5% for each nearby enemy hero for 5 seconds, and a 70% movement speed bonus for 1.5 seconds. This ability makes us tankier and deals great damage to the enemies you manage to get within your area of effect. Mostly though, the damage reduction is our main reason to use this. Use it before you get into range to use the movement speed to catch the enemy off guard. After that spam your abilities constantly.

Battering Beads causes Jinnar to summon 2 orbs to attack 2 nearby enemies. These orbs will then bounce off of enemies up to 2 times in a row. If an enemy has already been hit once, the damage only deals 30% of its damage. Still, a great amount of damage and can bounce off of everyone in team fights.

Sutra of Pain is a small area of effect around Jinnar that deals quite a bit of damage and also slows the enemy's movement speed by a huge amount depending on a number of levels put into it. Late game this ability is great when combined with our ultimate to ensure that no one can escape the orbs fury. Early game I don't find myself using it too much, as its rather small, putting us into a bad situation if we can't handle the enemy hero.

Recommended Talents
Flicker - 120-second Cooldown: Teleports your hero a short distance     

Flicker is always a great Talent to use. It’s a free short ranged teleport ability that can get you over terrain or towards a position you want to be in instantly. I recommend using this ability and getting good with it, regardless of the hero used, unless you are the jungler.  Since you have no real escapes to think of, besides maybe your ultimate if you have to. I'd rather have blink to ensure that we survive. Late game deaths take a ton of time, not to mention the slow walk back. Early game if they take your tower you lose the health point behind your first tower. Dying is huge in this game. Try to reduce how many times you die.

Items
Rhea's Blessing, Enchanted Kicks, Berith's Agony, Boomstick, Staff of Nuul, Holy of Holies

Start with level 1 boots, as all parts of Rhea's Blessing are expensive to start with, or if you don't need the mobility rush Ancient Scriptures into Vlad's Impaler.

A good chunk of ability power and some cooldown reduction are great base stats for Jinnar. We want as much power as we can, and we want to be able to cast as quickly as we can. The unique passives grant a massive shield every time our health drops below 40%. This shield has a good base amount of a few hundred plus 40% of our overall ability power. Allowing us to survive damage we really shouldn't as a caster. Lastly, it adds 25% magic life steal, in case somehow we do need a bit more health. A lot of people seem to ignore this item, but it's perfect on Jinnar with our massive damage and damage reduction.

Enchanted Kicks gives us magic pierce for more damage early. 

Berith's Agony gives us some very needed armor, a good amount of ability power and our abilities do 4% of an enemy's max health with a 1.2-second cooldown. This matches perfectly with our short cooldown abilities. 

Boomstick gives us a massive buff to our ability power at a bonus of 240. The unique passive now makes our abilities do a small area of effect for 50% of our ability power on a 5-second cooldown. So, every couple seconds we are doing bonus 4% of an enemy's max health, tons of damage with our abilities, and now a small area of effect to hurt them and anyone they are close to. It's important to learn what you can survive and what you can do with Jinnar. As you will have plenty of chances with this damage heavy build to get an extra kill or two.

Staff of Nuul comes at about the time the entire enemy team can afford to get some magic defense to stop the onslaught orbs that they have undoubtedly noticed is wrecking their entire team. Fortunately for us, Staff of Nuul removes almost half of that magic defense they have equipped. Oh, and some bonus ability power, because we needed more of that.

Holy of Holies grants a massive 400 ability power and 1400 health to Jinnar. This entire build revolves around us abusing magic life steal and shields with our damage reduction to constantly stay alive in situations we shouldn't survive. Holy of Holies will grant us a bit of extra health to survive burst.

Arcana
Violate, Devour, Hex

Violate for the early game damage from more power and pierce. Red Arcana have a few options but none really push our early game power to such an extent, and I am a big fan of early game lane control. The enemy should be nothing more than a minion that pays me more gold in an ideal lane.

Devour gives us a tad more damage at 2.4 ability power per Arcana, and 1% magic life steal per. Our ability to spam our abilities really lets the magic life steal shine all throughout the game. So, we get this for that reason. That and purple Arcana have basically no other choices for mages.

Hex for more damage and cooldown speed.  There aren't really many Arcana that could replace this one, and honestly its great and almost every caster.

Early Game
Gauge the range and damage of the enemy hero. If you are even or ahead of them for range, you can abuse your passive for some extra range on normal attacks. Try to farm and push minions with your normal attack, and focus the buffed attack from your passive at the enemy hero. The range and width of this ability make it easy to harass the enemy hero from a safe range.

Mid Game
Your ultimate has a 30-second cooldown. Plan on using this basically every time its off cooldown on the enemy hero. It does a surprising amount of damage to an enemy. Most people don’t expect you to rush at them so often, and the damage reduction should help you win any exchange. Assuming the enemy mid isn't far ahead.

Late Game
You have been biding your time, by being super aggressive. Which may sound odd to basically everyone. Doesn't that mean we were stronger early? Nope, we built to do more and more damage as we go on to the end of them. Your ultimate in the enemy team grants you up to 40% damage reduction and does massive damage. Spam your abilities and use your ultimate when your team is caught or engages on the enemy. Many people will try to focus you down or at least stun you, seeing as your now a big glowing caster surrounded by damaging orbs. You are very hard to ignore, and if you're lucky you will tank some of the harder long cooldown abilities and reduce them by 40% of their damage. 

FAQ/Tips
Abuse your passive to hit enemies further away. Proc the ability on a minion and watch as the increased range of the passive buffed orb hits your enemy for a large amount of damage.

Battering Beads is the only ability you can really use early. Just be aware that if you use it near enemy minions and you want to hit the enemy hero. They don't always prioritize the enemy hero.

Matchups
Veera, Easy

Veera is an easy matchup as long as you keep the pressure on her. She does more damage if you compare her abilities to ours. However, our cooldowns are much shorter allowing us to do more damage to her then she can do to us. Don't forget your passives range to poke with as well. Her normal attack range isn't very long.

Diao Chan, Easy

Diao Chan has many abilities that do great damage but require a short time to activate. Basically, if you see one of her little circles on the ground where she is casting an ability, use Battering Beads to dodge the ability, and dive straight on to her casting abilities as fast as you can, while using normal attacks to beat her down. Now if she casts her ultimate in retaliation, you will want to use your own ultimate to reduce the damage and continue casting. Your ultimate will do high damage like hers does, but unlike yours, she can't cast anything else while channeling her ultimate.

Joker, Easy

Joker has the ability to slow and deal great damage at a range. However, many of his abilities deal with reducing speed, ignoring physical damage, and dealing high damage in long cooldown burst. The best way to deal with Joker is to save your ultimate for his. Joker will jump from his location to yours and place a canister on you that blows up for a huge amount of damage. If he jumps onto you, cast your ultimate and run to the location he was at before the jump. This will cause him to land right where you want him with no way out.

Mina, Hard

Mina loves when people get nice and close. Her ultimate is effectively a big area of effect taunt that also reduces the damage she takes. Now, normally we'd love being near people due to our damage all being close range as the game goes on. Stuns and crowd control keeps us from doing that, and Mina is covered in crowd control.

Ignis, Hard

Jinnar does great damage, Jinnar has damage reduction that helps him in most matchups. Ignis is not one of those matchups. While we do have way more mobility. Ignis has much harder hitting abilities, and his ultimate is a larger area of effect that does true damage. Our damage reduction ability does not reduce true damage. Ignis can one shot us if he's not horribly behind. It's best to wait for him to cast his ultimate and use Battering Beads or even Flicker if it's hard hitting enough. Then, once the ability is on cooldown, only then do we stand a chance.

Tel'Annas, Hard

Tel'Annas scales extremely well into the late game. With her ability to quickly move around and push heroes away if they get close. We have to rely on either catching her when her abilities are on cooldown or simply helping she chooses to focus someone else in fights.