Riki

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Riki

#48

18 + 2

30 + 2.4

14 + 1.3

Grants the following bonuses per level:
	+44HP and +0.2HP regeneration
	+0.4 armor and 2.4 attack speed +2.4 Main Attack Damage
	+15.6MP and +0.065MP regeneration +0.1% base magic resistance

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516 +4.3

243 +0.7

5 Armor (670.8 EHP)

26.4% Magic Resist (701.09 EHP)

52 ‒ 56 ▶️ Damage (54 Avg)

Instant Projectile Speed Melee units have their projectile speed set to 900, if they should ever need it.

150 Attack Range (600)

90 (120) Attack Speed (1.7 BAT) Attacks per Second is defined as ΣAS / BAT / 100

0.3 + 0.3 Animation

315 ▶️ Move Speed

0.6 Turn Rate This unit takes 0.175s to turn 180°.

27 Collision Size

24 Bound Radius

1800 / 800 Vision Range

Default Gib Type

npc_dota_hero_riki

2011-10-13 Released

2004-02-03 (0.60)

Competitive Span 2011-10-13 — 2015-12-16 2016-04-25 — Present

Version Control This article has been updated to the latest version (7.41d) and is mostly accurate.

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Remains permanently invisible until the moment to strike.
Leaving his past life behind, Riki escaped the royal grounds using his own Cloak-and-Dagger methods. Stealthy and fond of killing from behind, Riki throws down a dense Smoke Screen, blinding and choking foes as he takes them by surprise with Blink Strike. Intruders who enter his turf is greeted with twin daggers, flashes of steel that slash simultaneously at every turned back while the master himself remains unseen. How this feat is accomplished remains a mystery, for the Stealth Assassin is not one to divulge his Tricks of the Trade.
Roles:	Carry Escape Disabler
Adjectives	Bearded, Blue, Horns, Nose Legs ( 2 )

Bio

There are none so stabbed as those who will not see.

▶️  Riki, the Stealth Assassin

Aliases:

SA, Stealth Assassin

Lore:

Riki was born middle child to the great dynasty of Tahlin. With an older brother groomed for the throne, and a younger brother coddled and kept, Riki, the small middle son, seemed born for the art of invisibility. It was an art he cultivated, and one which ultimately saved his life on the night that his people were betrayed and his family slaughtered. Of all the royal line, he alone escaped—small and agile, unassuming, using smoke as cover. He cut his way out of the royal grounds, using the advantage of surprise, quietly slitting the throats of one enemy warrior after another. Now free of his royal responsibilities, Riki uses his talents in service to a new trade: Stealth Assassin. He silences his enemies, sharpening his skills, hoping to one day take revenge on those who killed his family and robbed him of his birthright.

Voice:

Tom Chantler (Responses)

Upgrades

Aghanim's

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

Enables casting Tricks of the Trade on allied units, Riki hides within and moves along with the unit-targeted allied unit with movement speed bonus upon cast.

Casting on an allied unit increases the max attack targets, the number of instant attacks, and its max duration.

Increases cast range.

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade:

Causes enemy units to be untargetable by their allies, while reducing armor of all enemy units caught within the Smoke Screen.

Talents

+500 Blink Strike Cast Range	25	-4s Tricks of the Trade Cooldown
-1s Blink Strike Cooldown	20	+0.3 Backstab Agility Factor
-3s Smoke Screen Cooldown	15	x0.15 Tricks of the Trade Instant Attack Damage Bonus Factor
+10% Cloak and Dagger Move Speed	10	+50 Smoke Screen Radius
▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ +2 All / / Attributes

Innate

Backstab

Backstab

Ability

Passive

Affects

Self

Damage

Physical / Spell

Successful attacks apply an agility-based spell damage bonus to enemy units from behind.

Back Angle: 105°

Agi to Spell Damage: 0.55 ( 0.85)

Backstab is functional but less effective on allied units.

Allied Unit Factor: 0.3

Innate Properties
The higher Riki's level, the greater the agility to spell damage increase.

Agi to Spell Damage Increase: 0.05

This ability levels up with Riki.

• Details
• Interactions
• Status Effects
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• The ability effects are applied as follows:
  1. 
     • Checks the affected enemy unit's facing angle
     • The red circular segment represents the valid Backstab angle, with point being the affected enemy unit.
  2. The physical spell damage is defined as:
     • EXPR
       DmgBonus = Agi × (0.55 + 0.3 + 0.05 × SelfLvl)
     • 
       • Although the ability's sound effect plays at the start of the attack, the spell damage bonus component is applied upon the attack hit.
  3. Riki's attack instance.

Interactions: Self-Illusions

Non-functional.

However, the ability sound effects are played for camouflaging purposes.

modifier_riki_backstab

Hidden Modifier

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PREATTACK_BONUS_DAMAGE_PROC
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ATTACK_LANDED
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_DEATH
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_TRANSLATE_ACTIVITY_MODIFIERS
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ATTACK_FINISHED

Hero Model

Hero Model

Ability

Passive / Channeling

Affects

Self

Riki's hero model has the following hidden innate abilities.

He may only perform or utilize the ability's functions upon a successful channeling.

Details

Hidden Innate Abilities

Tap on the innate abilities for more details.

Abilities

Smoke Screen

Q

C

Smoke Screen

▶️

Ability

Area

Affects

Enemy Units / Self

Throws down a smoke bomb that blinds and silences enemy units.

Cast Animation: 0.2 + 0

Cast Range:  550

Effect Radius: 425 ( 475)

Miss Chance: 40%/50%/60%/70%

Silence Duration: 6

Aura Linger Duration: 0.05

Armor Reduction: ( 5)

Innate Properties
Smoke Screen has an instant cast time while channeling Tricks of the Trade.

Cast Animation: 0 + 0

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade
Causes enemy units to be untargetable by their allies, while reducing armor of all enemy units caught within the Smoke Screen.

15/14/13/12 ( 12/11/10/9)

75

Since his escape during the night of his betrayal, Riki has valued the use of a simple smoke screen to confuse his opponents.

• Details
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• 
  • Can affect enemy units at max 975 ( 1025)-distance away with the cast range and effect radius.

• riki_smoke_screen
  • Creates a non-lingering negative aura at centerpoint that applies the following ability effects within the radius upon cast:
    • Recasting the ability do not update the current ability values on already affected enemy units, but refreshes its duration.
    • Silence
    • keeper_of_the_light_blinding_light
      • Stacks additively with other blind sources and multiplicatively with evasion sources.
      • The debuff-affected attacking unit's miss chance uses pseudo-random distribution ( MAX: +57.14% and P(2) = 100%).
  • 
    • Smoke Screen of different sources works independently of each other.
    • Multiple overlapping Smoke Screen radius do not stack.
  • Does not affect the following units:
    • Hidden units.
    • Invulnerable units.
  • SHARD NOTES
    Enemy units within the Smoke Screen radius are now untargetable by their allies.
    • Any attack or unit-targeting abilities of their allies that are already in its attack or cast animation is canceled.
    • Does not affect the following properties of the enemy units within the radius:
      • Selection box.
      • Does not prevent Spell Reflection sources.
      • Does not disjoint incoming projectiles for enemy units.
      • Certain abilities can bypass unselectability conditionally, while almost every other ability cast by their ally treats the affected enemy targets as if they were invisible.

• 
  • While channeling Tricks of the Trade, Smoke Screen has the following ability effects as long as the area-targeted location is within the cast range:
    • Has an instant cast time.
    • Does not require facing the area-targeted location to cast.
    • Except with ▣ Channeled Abilities Require Hold/Stop disabled, Riki cannot cast Smoke Screen while channeling Tricks of the Trade.

Interactions: Debuff Immunity

Only the enemy's allied units being untargetable component affects debuff immune enemy units.

modifier_riki_smoke_screen_thinker

On Hidden Entity

modifier_riki_smoke_screen

Smoke Screen: Silenced. Vision Reduced. Missing x% of attacks. Move Speed slowed.

MODIFIER_STATE_SILENCED
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MISS_PERCENTAGE
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PHYSICAL_ARMOR_BONUS
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_DODGE_PROJECTILE
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_HERO_KILLED

Blink Strike

W

B

Blink Strike

▶️

Ability

Unit

Affects

Self / Enemy Units

Damage

Spell / Physical / Instant Attack

Teleports behind the target unit, momentarily slowing and striking them with attack damage bonus if it is an enemy.

Cast Animation: 0.3 + 0

Cast Range:  600/700/800/900 ( 1100/1200/1300/1400)

Move Speed Slow: 100%

Slow Duration: 0.75

Innate Properties
Instant attacks and applies Backstab of the corresponding level on the unit-targeted enemy, regardless of the enemy's facing angle.

Instant Attack Factor: 1

Attack Damage Bonus: 25/35/45/55

Buff Duration: 0.1

Innate Properties
Does not break the Cloak and Dagger invisibility component upon cast in certain conditions, but not other invisibility sources.

13/10/7/4 ( 12/9/6/3)

50/55/60/65

The Stealth Assassin's agile movement makes him impossible to escape.

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• Status Effects
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• This ability explicitly does not proc Counterspell-based abilities' Spell Reflection component.

• 
  • Does not break Cloak and Dagger's invisibility upon cast, but not other invisibility sources.

• The ability effects are applied as follows:
  1. 
     • Teleports Riki a random angle behind the unit-targeted enemy.
     • Cannot be cast on the following units:
       • Buildings
       • Couriers of all factions.
       • Hidden units.
       • Invulnerable units.
       • Ward-type units
       • Does not disjoint incoming projectiles.
       • 
         • However, Blink Strike's ability effects are still visible to everyone.
  2. Applies the movement speed slow.
  3. Applies Backstab of its corresponding level.
  4. riki_blinkstrike
     • Grants self a 0.1-second buff that applies the following ability effects:
       • Applies Backstab of its corresponding level, regardless of the affected enemy unit's facing angle.
       • 
         • Breaks Cloak and Dagger's invisibility upon applying the instant attack component.
         • The instant attack with a flat 25/35/45/55 physical attack damage as one damage instance within the combat log.
           • Does not procs attack modifiers.
           • Does not have True Strike.
           • Not affected by disarm sources.
           • Has the following interactions with Riki's base attack time:
             • Does not apply the instant attack component if Riki casts Blink Strike between attacks.

Interactions: Spell Reflection

Upon the Spell Reflection source proc, Riki first teleports next to the unit-targeted enemy, then the target teleports next to Riki.

Interactions: Spell Redirection

Applies the instant attack component on the secondary target when unit-targeted on the primary target.

Other ability effects are applied to both the primary and the secondary target.

Riki then appears behind the primary target.

Interactions: Ability Draft

Requires drafting Riki's hero model for Backstab's corresponding component to work.

modifier_riki_blinkstrike

Hidden Modifier

modifier_riki_blinkstrike_slow

Blink Strike: Movement speed reduced by x%.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_BONUS_PERCENTAGE

• 
  • The Spell Reflection mechanic is based on Spell Block, and it resolves before the ability procing does.
    • For abilities like Blink Strike, a lotus_orb_delay was added to Spell Reflection sources on the first server tick to remove itself.
    • This effectively allows Blink Strike to resolve first, to prevent the Spell Reflection source from teleporting to Riki.

Tricks of the Trade

E

T

Tricks of the Trade

▶️

Ability

Area / Channeled / Unit

Affects

Self / Enemy Units

Damage

Instant Attack / Physical

Phases out of the world while striking random enemy units from behind in an area around him.

Cast Animation: 0.3 + 0

Cast Range:  400 ( 900)

Effect Radius: 425

Max Attack Targets: 2

Max Channel Time: 2

Max Instant Attacks: 4

Set Attack Damage: 25/50/75/100

Instant Attack Damage Factor: ( 0.15)

Innate Properties
Applies an ensured Backstab bonus attack damage, regardless of the enemy's facing angle.

Innate Properties
Does not break the Cloak and Dagger invisibility component upon cast, but not other invisibility sources.

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade
Enables casting Tricks of the Trade on allied units, Riki hides within and moves along with the unit-targeted allied unit with movement speed bonus upon cast.

Casting on an allied unit increases the max attack targets, the number of instant attacks, and its max duration.

Increases cast range.

Ally Max Channel Time: ( 3)

Max Instant Attacks: ( 6)

Ally Move Speed Bonus: ( 15%)

21/18/15/12 ( 17/14/11/8)

65

The Stealth Assassin is not afraid to fight dirty, and specializes in attacking his opponents from behind.

• Details
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• Has the following targeting functionalities:
  • Doubletap automatically casts the ability at the point-targeted location.
  • 
    • 
      • Can affect enemy units at max 825 ( 1325)-distance away with the cast range and effect radius.
      • Doubletap automatically casts the ability at the point-targeted location.
  • 
    • SCEPTER NOTES
      Enables Tricks of the Trade casting on allied units.
      • When unit-targeted, all ability effects are now centered on the unit-targeted ally, follows it as it moves, and continues at its death location upon death.
        • Other ability effects affecting Riki still apply.
        • Considers clones, illusions, and the Spirit Bear as heroes; ally Couriers and other creep-heroes as creeps.

• The ability cast and channeling component applies the following ability effects as follows:
  1. 
     • Grants a 2-second 450-radius flying vision centered around the targeted location.
  2. Disjoint incoming projectiles.
  3. 
     • Has the following properties while channeling:
       • Hidden
       • Invulnerability
       • Phase movement.
       • Untargetable
       • Smoke Screen has the following ability effects as long as the area-targeted location is within the cast range:
         • Has an instant cast time.
         • Does not require facing the area-targeted location to cast.
         • Continues with all ability effects even when the channeling is interrupted.
           • However, newly shift-queue orders now interrupt and cancel Tricks of the Trade.
     • 
       • The following item abilities specifically always interrupts the channeling component:
         • Shadow Walk
         • Arctic Blast
       • Reappears at the center of the radius after when the channeling is interrupted in any way.
  4. Applies Backstab of its corresponding level, regardless of the affected enemy unit's facing angle.
  5. 
     • Sets Riki's attack damage to 25/50/75/100.
     • Instant attacks in 0.667 ( 0.6)-second intervals on enemy targets within the radius, starting immediately upon cast, over its duration.
       • The instant attack damage is defined as:
         • EXPR
           InstantAtk = 25/50/75/100 + ((BaseAtk + ΣAgi + BonusAtk) × 0 OR 0.15)
         • TALENT NOTES
           Learning the base attack damage as instant attack damage bonus talent does not update the current active instance.
           • Considers the following attack damage sources:
             • Base attack damage.
             • Bonus attack damage.
       • Proc any attack modifiers and on-cast effects as per normal.
       • Do not have True Strike.
       • Not affected by disarm sources.
       • Specifically do not break the following invisibility sources:
         • Disguise-based abilities.
         • Cloak and Dagger, regardless of the visual cooldown on the HUD.
     • Affects the following units:
       • Couriers
       • Fogged units.
     • Does not affect the following units:
       • Invisible units.

---

• 
  • SCEPTER NOTES
    The increased instant attack instances and increased duration only applied to an allied unit cast.

Interactions: Root Sources

Root sources prevents the ability cast.

Interactions: Leash Sources

Leash sources prevents the ability cast.

Interactions: Ability Draft

Requires drafting Riki's hero model for Backstab's corresponding component to work.

modifier_riki_tricks_of_the_trade_phase

Hidden Modifier

MODIFIER_STATE_ATTACK_IMMUNE
MODIFIER_STATE_OUT_OF_GAME
MODIFIER_STATE_INVULNERABLE
MODIFIER_STATE_UNSELECTABLE
MODIFIER_STATE_NO_UNIT_COLLISION
MODIFIER_STATE_NO_HEALTH_BAR
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_INVISIBLITY_LEVEL
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_DISABLE_AUTOATTACK
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ORDER
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_DEATH
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_HERO_KILLED s

modifier_riki_tricks_of_the_trade

Hidden Modifier

MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_DEATH

modifier_riki_tricks_of_the_trade_speed

Tricks of the Trade: Riki is hiding in your pocket! Movement speed is increased.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_BONUS_PERCENTAGE

• 
  • The ability visual effects indicating the instant attack radius are visible to everyone.
  • However, a part of the radius indicating visual effects on the ground does not follow Riki and stays at the cast location.

• 
  • If Riki turns while casting the ability, Riki changes his direction each time he attacks the affected enemy unit within the radius.
  • After each attack, Riki turns back to the original direction until the next attack.

Cloak and Dagger

R

E

Cloak and Dagger

▶️

Ability

Passive

Affects

Self

Riki fades into the shadows, becoming invisible. When Riki attacks, he becomes visible again.

Fade Delay: 4/3/2

Move Speed Bonus: ( 10%)

Enemy hero kills and assists grants Riki additional experience.

Kill XP Bonus: 130/260/390

Assist XP Bonus: 100

Riki comes for you.

• Details
• Interactions
• Status Effects
• Misc.
• Show All

• This ability has two main components:
  • 
    • Riki will keep turning invisible as long as he is not affected by break sources.
      • Immediately turns Riki invisible in the following conditions:
        • Upon reincarnation sources proc.
        • When Riki respawns.
    • During the fade delay, the affected unit can still attack and cast abilities.
    • Grants bonus movement speed while fully invisible.
    • Does not grant phase movement.
    • Sources with fade delays utilize the invisible buff.
      • Buff sources of the same modifier do not stack, the longer duration buff takes precedence when the same modifier is applied.
      • Riki can pick up, drop items, or toggle itmes / without breaking invisibility.
      • The Cloak and Dagger invisibility breaks upon attack point, including triggering Instant Attack. Casting any abilities do not break invisibility.
  • 
    • This ability component is an on-death effect, and does not grant Riki the bonus experience when the dying enemy hero has reincarnation sources.
    • Considers Meepo Clones as heroes; other clones, illusions and creep-heroes as creeps.

Interactions: Self-Illusions

Only the invisibility component is fully functional.

modifier_invisible

Invisible

MODIFIER_STATE_INVISIBLE
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_INVISIBILITY_LEVEL
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ATTACK
MODIFIER_EVENT_ABILITY_EXECUTED
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_BREAK_INVISIBILITY

• 
  • The fade delay is shown visually as the ability's cooldown whenever the invisibility is broken, it is neither affected by cooldown reduction nor cooldown reset sources.
  • The following sources affect the cooldown visually, however, it does not interact with the fade delay in any way:
    • Time Dilation
    • Chakra Magic

Recent Matches

Main Article: Riki/Matches

Date	Tier		Tournament	Picks		Score			vs. Picks	Patch
June 2, 2026 - 20:10 PET	Qualifier		EWC 2026 SA CQ				0 : 1			7.41	Details
May 20, 2026 - 13:00 MSK	Showmatch		BB Streamers Battle 13 - May 20				0 : 1				+ Details
May 20, 2026 - 00:50 MSK	Showmatch		BB Streamers Battle 13 - May 19				0 : 1				+ Details
April 23, 2026 - 14:15 CEST	Tier 3		DreamLeague D2 S4 - April 23				0 : 1			7.41b	+ Details
April 19, 2026 - 17:55 CEST	Tier 3		DreamLeague D2 S4 - April 19				0 : 1			7.41b	+ Details

Recent Changes

Main Articles: Changelogs, Old Abilities and Hero Lore

Version

Description

7.41d
(2026-06-04)

• Increased Backstab allied unit factor from 0.2 to 0.3.
• Rescaled Smoke Screen cooldown from 17/15/13/11 to 15/14/13/12.
• Rescaled Blink Strike attack damage bonus from 15/30/45/60 to 25/35/45/55.

7.41
(2026-03-24)

• Smoke Screen
  • Rescaled miss chance from 30%/45%/60%/75% to 40%/50%/60%/70%.
  • Rescaled mana cost from 65/70/75/80 to 75 on each level.
• Increased Blink Strike slow duration from 0.5 to 0.75.
• Aghanim's Scepter upgrade:
  • Increased Tricks of the Trade cast range bonus from 300 to 500.

• Talents:  

  LVL 25   U  -1.25s Cloak and Dagger fade delay ➜  -4s Tricks of the Trade cooldown.

7.40b
(2025-12-23)

• Rescaled Tricks of the Trade set attack damage from 30/50/70/90 to 25/50/75/100.

Dota Plus Progress

Main Article: Hero Challenges

Relics track a hero's actions and statistics, and display in-game notifications when a milestone is reached. They are only available to Dota Plus subscribers.

Riki's Relics	Voice Lines
Three Hero Smoke Screens Blink Strike Leading To Kills Backstab Kills Tricks of the Trade 3x Successive Hits Heroes Killed Inside Smoke Screen Gem of True Sight Carriers Killed Enemy Hero Mana Burned Courier Kills Spells Disjointed Bashed Enemies Triple Kills Mega Kill Streaks Kill Assists Kills	Bronze	▶️ Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. ▶️ Contract complete.
	Silver	▶️ Heh-ho, you didn't see that coming. ▶️ Why prolong the inevitable?
	Gold	▶️ Peek-aboo. ▶️ If you can see me, you're already dead.
	Platinum	▶️ I've been here the whole time.
	Master	▶️ Oh you're dead. What a surprise.
	Grandmaster	▶️ Sneaky, aren't I?

Trivia

• ▶️ "Good assassins never die… they just fade away.", is a reference to a quote by General Douglas MacArthur, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away."
• ▶️ "There are none so stabbed as those who will not see." is a reference to a proverb: "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
• ▶️ "I speak softly, but carry a sharp knife." is a reference to the West African Proverb "Speak softly and carry a big stick.", popularized by U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.
• Riki's model is based on the Satyr, a goat-like humanoid creature from greek mythology.

• Warcraft 3 similarities:
  • Riki uses the model of the Satyr Trickster, a small neutral creep.
  • Smoke Screen is inspired by and based on the Dragonhawk Rider's Cloud.
  • Backstab's original iteration was a basic Critical Strike, identical to the Blademaster's Critical Strike.
  • Blink Strike's original iteration was a basic Blink, identical to the Warden's Blink.
  • Permanent Invisibility's original iteration was a identical to the Shadow Wolves' Permanent Invisibility.
  • In DotA, Riki's name is "Rikimaru" (力丸), a reference to one of the main characters in the Tenchu video game series.
    • On the Perfect World client, Riki still is named Rikimaru.
  • Riki has a 1/10 chance to spawn in with the name "Riki Martin", which is a reference to the Latino pop singer Ricky Martin.

Gallery

• 

  Splash artwork
• 

  Trading card art
• 

  Old model and icon
• 

  Ability icon progress
• 

  Hero icon progress
• 

  Bone Harvest sprite - alive
• 

  Bone Harvest sprite - dead
• 

  Monster Hunter Hero Atlas Illustration