For detailed reasoning on item choices, see my in-game guide. Writing on specific items is pretty fun and I wanted to do it, but it turned out to be too long and impractical for a reddit post. Also, obligatory Dotabuff.

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Intro - I kinda promised myself to share my "secret" Ogre build when I'd reach Immortal w/ it. I already wrote a bit about it under my obligatory screenshot post in the main r/DotA2 sub a few days back, but I wanted to make an actual guide with better formatting on this sub, also as a thank you for all the helpful tips I read here along the way.

Anyway, here it goes, starting with the big one:

1) Maxing Fireblast over Ignite

Usual skill order: W→Q→W→Q→Q→R→Q→Max Bloodlust

This is THE main case I'm trying to make here, and honestly 90% of the reason why I'm even here writing this guide. Maxing W has been the standard for a very long time now, whether looking at D2PT, in-game guides or pros. And I straight up don't know why. Or at least why it's still SO hegemonic even tho the slow was fixed to 25% in 7.39 (just over a year ago).

For reference, here are how both spells scale now:

Fireblast	Ignite
Duration: N/A	Duration: 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
Damage: 70 / 130 / 190 / 250	DPS: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50
Stun: 1.2s	Slow: -25%
CD: 11 / 10 / 9 / 8	CD: 17s

If you ignore everything else about Ogre's kit, maxing Ignite can seem like a decent idea. But guess what? Ogre's got this lil passive thing in his kit called "Multicast". And Fireblast's damage gets straight up doubled by it. Maxing it makes it become a 500 damage near-instant nuke on an 8 second cooldown. That's 80%+ of a lvl 1 Lion Finger. With a 1.8 seconds stun. On an 8s cd**.** ^(About 80% of the time. Which is pretty much always, right?)

In practice, maxing Fireblast gives you:

A decisive tool to secure kills in post-laning skirmishes
A spammable 500 damage nuke to kick any core out of their lane in about 30 seconds

~~Meanwhile, Ignite's scaling with Multicast is really... Bad? You either hit the same target twice and it adds like 1 tick of 50 damage (if you max it),~~ You just spread your damage output to random targets that you didn't even want to hit in the first place.

I just got schooled by u/Zenotha who taught me that Ignite's duration actually gets scaled by Multicast, multiplying it as many times as the number of ignites landing on a single enemy (up to 32s duration, lol). While I feel pretty shameful not knowing that as a lvl 30 Ogre player, I'm still very confident in that I prefer maxing Q anyway, having tried both ways over the years. But I swear I won't call Ignite's scaling with Multicast "Bad" ever again.

MOREOVER, Ignite's 3-business-days cooldown means you will likely only get it off once in a single fight, whereas you could instead send off a second Fireblast - amounting to up to 1000 damage on targets you chose - in a one second shorter timeframe.

Overall, maxing W is flipping the bird at your ultimate ability and biggest powerspike.

2) Soul Ring + Tranquils over Arcane Boots

This is the second hill I'd die on. The thought process is the following:

Mana boots aren't particularly a great item atm (even pretty mediocre if you ask me)
Soul Ring is 2x the mana sustain AND gives you Strength (which in turn gives you mana, mana regen & multicast chance)
Ogre can perfectly afford to get it early on with his high HP pool & regen
2X Gauntlets of Strength are great to start the game with
Brown boots + Soul Ring is 200g cheaper than Arcanes, which helps you hit a better Midas timing when the game allows it.
Building Tranquils instead gives a bunch of flat ms which scales great with Bloodlust

I still rarely get Arcanes when a few conditions align, more info in the in-game guide.

3) Midas?

Only when ALL the following conditions are met:

Your team is already NOT losing
You are not the sole reason your team is winning
You are certain that you'll be able to secure it around the 15-18 min mark
You don't have a super high-tempo lineup

All of that took me a long time to figure out, and this goated video was a great reality-check.

Some tips on Midas:

~~Try to only use it after you DON'T multicast a spell to try and gain the pseudo-randomness' favours (especially as long as your ult is level 1)~~ Apparently I gaslit myself on that? PRD seems to only affect the level 25 Fireblast talent proc chance, out of anything Ogre-related, my bad
Farming unattended waves is a) something you should do anyway as a support and b) a great way to get a better Midas timing
Once you reach something like Gloves of Haste + 1500g it's time to hit some creeps to secure it before dying stupidly and delaying it by another 2 minutes
SELL YOUR MIDAS to hit a better timing on a crucial item (often Hex)

4) Drums & the Need for Speed

I have been refining the way I play Ogre over the past year or so, and understanding the value of Drums (and movement speed in general) was one of the last key elements that got me to Immortal - alongside playing around nighttime vision - all of which I learnt/realized watching this (goated) Quinn coaching Slacks video.

Ogre is normally a slow moving piece of trash. Combine that with his god awful cast points/low range and you end up with very limited "reach". You often struggle to cast your spells because people just walk away. That's why cast range is such a great stat on him. And I really thought I was going to suffer with neutral item's cast range enchant removal (on str heroes).

But, when you think about it (and that's what the Quinn video prompted me to do), movement speed IS another form of reach. It brings you closer and faster to your opponents, leaving them less time to make moves/get out. Your area of influence grows with movement speed, both at the micro level (running up to someone to cast a spell at them, faster than they can run away) AND at the macro level (moving between lanes).

Making all that beautifully come together, Bloodlust gives you up to 12% movespeed with perma uptime. That scales the fuck out of all that flat movement speed you get from Wind Lace and the items built from it, among which Drums particularly stands out:

It's cheaper than the usual Solar/Glimmer 1st item, which makes it really fast to get after Midas to get some quick value out of it for your team, or cheap enough that you can still afford it when you're behind and don't have a Midas
It makes you able to buy ANOTHER casual Windlace after Tranquils, totalling to 431 movespeed with maxed Bloodlust (@lvl 11) WITHOUT accounting for any neutral items (Kobold Cup, Stonefeather Satchel with a movespeed enchant are great) nor Drums' active. Good luck running away from that.
The active is 35 attack speed on top of Bloodlust for your carry (115 total without the talent), which can quickly become a problem for the enemy towers and heroes.
The only stat it now gives is 8 str, which is just the cherry on top for us.

To sum it up: drums is the shit, build it first item unless the enemy lineup begs for you to get Glimmer or Solar. And when the game allows you to follow it up with Solar, you end up with like 480 perma movement speed and the ability to give a Moon Shard to your carry at like minute 25. Good luck to your opponents dealing with that.

5) General Game Plan

Start

Double Gauntlet of Strength, Blood Grenade, 1 or 2 Tangos, 1 Sentry, 1 Obs if there's one in shop when game starts. You're still slow at level 1, so if you want to fight for a mid bounty, try the one that's closer to your lane so you don't miss XP/have to TP in lane. Ignite + your big right clicks makes you pretty dangerous there.

Ship Stick asap unless the enemy lane is some ridiculous combo 0 spells combo like Pudge + Slardar. Feel free to ship more Tangoes/Mangoes, especially if you don't get the Lotus at 3mins.

Laning

Positioning to try & get double ignites is the bread and butter of your laning phase. You either want the enemy heroes standing close to each other, or simply make it so there are no other available targets in range. You can be very very aggressive in lane with your big hp pool & huge auto attacks.

If you're lucky to get against 2 melees that have no dispels at level 1, and not too much punish (careful w/ the Clocks & the Magnuses) you can straight up walk behind their wave as it comes in lane and start giving them back shots. When they inevitably stop hitting creeps and turn to you, hit Ignite and keep bonking the shit out of them. One of them will usually die. The other might too if your carry acts interested in the slightest.

Once the enemy gets level 2 you can start to act a bit more chill and keep your resources waiting for your level 2 Ignite powerspike at lvl 3. Chances are you can easily secure Lotus because them walking up to it gives you an easy double Ignite angle.

If your lane is hard/they have a lot of catch/your carry is very vulnerable, prioritize pulling a bit more over harassing. The other way around if they can't punish you easily. Because I often position aggressively I often pull with the enemy hard camp, that I don't block if my lane is nice. I only block it on lanes I feel like I don't want to interact much with them. Always try and unblock your small camp tho. I think my decision making when it comes to pulling is still a bit off so I'll leave it to other guides.

As soon as the night falls, look for ganking opportunities through the gate/mid. If your lane isn't too terrible it should usually line up well with you getting brown boots. Make sure to check that your carry is in a position where they can be left alone for 30 seconds without getting erased from the map instantly. Communicate.

When you get your level 6 you can start pressing Q on CD on the enemy core of your choice to kick their ass out of lane. After the third 2x Multicast they usually understand. Funniest shit ever.

Midgame

Once the laning is over, it's the usual "play with your strong cores" yada yada, same as other supports. When you get Bloodlust at level 8, try to always keep it up on you & a friendly core, be it to fight better or farm faster.

Talents are all the left side ones, no exceptions.

Drums is your next big powerspike. Try & time a smoke gank with it.

Also, generally, realizing I wasn't a frontliner past like the 12-15min mark helped me a lot. Your spells are "small" spells with low CD, which means you want to be able to cast them multiple times per fight, which means you don't want to die. So if you can afford to, stay in the back!

Lategame

Identify your strongest Bloodlust target, identify the threats you should press your Q on. Think about how teamfights should go for your team to come out on top. Think what items would be the most impactful, and why that would be Hex. Build Hex.

Items-wise, there's plenty of choice so really use downtime to think about what you/your team need. As a rule of thumb, offensive items when you're behind, defensive when you're ahead (thanks BSJ). If it's a Midas game, I will probably look at more expensive stuff. What I really like, especially when I've got Midas and a bit of cash, is to "fill the blanks" regarding my Offlaner's items. Getting the Pipe or Crimson myself so they can jump straight to BKB is the most common example. Also look at what your pos 4 gets to make sure you don't end up with too much/too little of one thing. If no Midas, I'll usually get more of the normal support items.

My typical end-of-game inventory looks like Tranquils/BoB, Solar/Glimmer, Lotus, with Midas sold to buy Hex, and Soul Ring sold aswell to make space for it (Hex fixes your mana in place of SR).

More info about itemization in the in-game guide. I tried and include as many items as possible, with my reasoning to build each one of them.

6) Conclusion

Ogre is a very funny hero when played this way, and you should absolutely try it. The simplicity of the hero allows me to focus more on the macro aspect of the game, and I like that a lot (I am very bad mechanically).

This build was also great with the Learning Curve Facet (RIP), the level 5 powerspike came really early and was pretty insane. But I'm not too mad at the current state of the hero, it still allows for my playstyle to be very effective imo.

Feel free to ask any questions below, I'll do my best to answer them all. Also, as a disclaimer, I'm just a freshly 5620 MMR scrub so I'm surely wrong about a lot of stuff. If anyone strongly disagrees with any of what I've written above, I'd absolutely gladly hear what they have to say.

Hope you enjoyed.

THE END

edits: wrong stun duration math, typos n shit

u/Zioupett

Just realized this goated interview has never been posted here

Not much but it's honest work - my only kb.

My way to play Ogre 5 (that I just got Immortal with).