In-depth guide to Flint Beastwood.

[[XNRG]Yaqu]

Lore:

For years, the Beasts told of a twisted man-thing that stalked them through the Rulian marshes,
leaving a trial of corpses in his wake. The humans dubbed him "Flint Beastwood" -- playing on his
flint-lock firearms and his residence in the Beasts' forests. Fast to draw, fast to kill, fast to laugh
about the deed, Flint has now spread his carnage beyond the marshes to wherever he can find the Legion.

Base stats:

Movement Speed: 290
Str per level: 1.7
Agility per level: 2.9
Int per level: 2.6
Armor: 2 (=11% Physycal damage reduction)

Attack type: Ranged
Base damage: 15-21 (=36-42 damage with base agility)
Range: 570(630/690/750/810)
Attacks/Sec. 0.71

Positive aspects:
- High base damage gain
- Good range (which can be boosted to the highest in-game on lvl1!)
- Due to his range superior creep management
- Due to his range superior "White-Hit" harrass
- Fastest attack animation and attack point in-game

Negative aspects:
- Very low base damage (among the lowest in the game)
- Slow attack speed
- Squishy due to low base strength, strength gain and armor
- Slow movement

Problematic aspects:
- Easyly juked
- Easily kiteable early on
- Almost any hero will outhit you
- If they push in, you won't get farm --> Tow
- If you hug too hard, you won't get farm --> wer

Diminishable aspects:
- The lower your attack speed is, the higher it's percentual gain through items that modify
attack speed will be
- Itemwise and abilitywise you can temporarily reduce the amount you can be juked or kited
- Fast agility gain results in fast base damage gain which should result in relatively easy farming
and denying which will make your laning much more easy and can allow for hefty early
domination
- Since abilitywise Flint is all about range you should exploit that in teamfights and attack at a
mediocre range of 700-750. Few to no abilities that are mentionably threatening do reach
further or even to that point. This allows you to stay away from focus fire and to deal as much
damage as possible, get 1-2 more hits in before you'll be outranged and to either slow and
follow up or just nuke them dead. In case you're wondering, this diminishes the fact that
he can only kite enemies to a certain, sometimes useless, degree which often will result in
Death.

Important pre-guide information:

Whatever happens, death is your worst foe. Evade deaths in favor of farm and experience than
trying to get a risky kill. Having 0:0:5 at the 20 minute mark can be decent and acceptable,
depending on what your strategy is and how the game is running in terms of activeness.
An active Flint with decent farm (250-300gpm) is always favorable to a passive Flint with
awesome farm (350-400gpm). In case you are wondering why, the hero ain't got a true
steroid-like boosting ability. A Flint with 200 gpm brings much utility and decent damage to the
table, however a 300 gpm dark lady will probably benefit more to her team than a 400 gpm Flint
will to his. Flints capacity to carry is just not as hard as most melees and some ranged carries.
Flint is a lot like Swiftblade in terms of determining good and bad. Your early game defines how
useful you will be later on and whether or not you'll carry hard and win or were just of use.
I'd say Flint at heart is a very easy hero and i've seen pretty much anyone dominate with him,
but the potential to which this hero can be exploited to be dominating are, at least in my oppinion,
yet to be found. I've got a certain mindset on what he is capable of and what he is not
up until now, I've not seen a single person be it in-game or on replays/VoDs or livecasts. That
showed his full potential to perfection. Soulstealer for example is really bold on what is a perfectly played one.
Flint is not, since there are an immense amount of options he has at any
point in the game. He is versatile, very versatile. The perfect Flint should be a walking calculator
if you know exactly what the maximum amount of hits that you'll need to get a certain hero
low enough to finish him is, you will win over that hero, period. The right positioning and/or
the correct side to approach a hero from depends on knowledge and most important of all:

VISION

The perfect Flint would have the following mindset:

Distance of Target?

Effective Physical AND Magical Hitpoints? --> Hits needed to finish him?

How will i benefit most from my abilities in terms of killing?

Potential threats from target and or teammates of target?

What can my target do to evade his death? Blink? Null stone? Shrunken?

Can I force my target or make my teammates force it to put him/herself in a vulnerable position?
--> Will that give me enough advantage over my target to be able to kill it?

Am I or my teammates capable of keeping my target in position long enough?

What circumstances could stop me from doing so?

Are there possible ways to reveal me before I ambush my target? Enemy Wards?
If yes, where do I in conclusion of earlier events anticipate them? Can i evade that pathing and still reach my
destined target fast enough?

What future events could make my life harder and do I have ways to stop them from happening?
E.g.: (Madman-->Nullfire; Tundra-->Nullstone; Core debuff-->Geometers Bane; etc. etc.)

There are probably another 100 things i could list here, but I do think that those are the most important ones for now.
I will probably add some more in the future though as I happen to drop
into aspects I deem too important to miss out on. As you can see though as a conclusion from all
that Flint is like a lot of heroes, easy to play. Devastatingly hard, maybe impossible, to master.
I'm not saying, that you must consider all this, I just say that the perfect Flint Beastwood player
would. To be honest, all of the above is as true for almost any hero as it is for Flint Beastwood.
Keeping those things in mind will not only make you play a better Flint Beastwood, but especially
a good player overall.

ABANDONED
(explanation: Even though my theorycrafting might be good -> decent, my Flint sucks. You cannot teach which you cannot perform. A lesson i learned...)