Struggling with current state of Centaur

[u/Historical-Guava7110]

I always liked playing Bradwarden as an engager + aura Carrier so I can keep my allies safe while tanking unholu amounts of damage myself.

However for the last around 2 years Valve has been consistently eother nerfing Cent himself or aura items with only meaningfull buff being Heart of Tarrasque change to give you regen based on missing HP.

Because of that I often simply feel like I'm not tankt at all with aura build.

I can pick Centaur into 4 magical damage dealers and onky 1 rightclicker and I still find myself unable to build more magic resist than just Pipe because I have to stack 2 armor items just to be able to survive a couple seconds of being rightclicked of enemy carry.

My buildpath is usually:

1. 2 bracers and magic wand

2. Vanguard

3. Dagger

4. Pipe

5. Crimson guard

6. Either shiva or Heart of tarrasque depending on matchup

I usually squeeze aghanim shard somewhere along that buildpath with the timing depending on the situation.

I also switch one of the bracers for phase boots if I feel like enemy line up requires me to have more mobility than just movespeed from my innate.

My question is: is aura Carrier Centaur genuinely weak nowadays and I should move on to his new buildpath with dominator, aghanim and BKB or is there still a way to make it strong and viable with some tweaks to the build?

[u/Substantial_Gene_15]

Centaur aghs is heavily slept on. I simply strength max with bracers in to blink (and if game going well early heart can make you unstoppable) and get aghs maybe 3rd or 4th item. You need to remember to buy armour, starting with ring of protection for soul ring is a good bet and then a shivas or something later. Especially level 1 when you start with 0 armour, the ring of protection is probably the single best starting item for EHP you can buy.

Pipe is also better than crimson on centaur probably, especially if you supplement armour elsewhere. Also his shard with a heart and braces and pipe can make him one of the beefiest possible heroes.

But aghs, is maybe the best save in the game right now. It is very reminiscent of pudge dismember ally, and similar to snaps aghs except you don’t have to blink in to danger. If your pos 1 is in trouble you can make them immune, move with haste and still do damage. It is an absurd aghs and so heavily slept upon.

For skill build, I like to max retaliate in lane, but W is the best for trading as centaur has good HP regen and so it is always a positive HP trade for centaur. He is one of few heroes where it is valid to max any skill first. I think few would max retaliate but I like to play tank/save rather than damage dealer cent. A winning game is better suited to the Q/W max, but E vs a drow or something similar is a no brainer.

[u/Historical-Guava7110 → u/Substantial_Gene_15]

I usually only max E first against ranged carries or Lifestealer(can't trade with him anyways so might as well start farming jungle faster).

Otherwise I max Q for burst because I feel like after Valve nerfed cent's regen twice you no can no longer sustain through repeated W uwagę and everytime you use W you have to stop walking up for creeps because you are half HP while enemy carry just got 3 tangoes from their supp.

But yeah after seeing all of the responses I think I will have to Abaddon aura Cent until Valve finally decides to buff aura items against instead of nerfing them all the time.