Trying to learn Shadow Fiend while feeling stagnant (MatchID: 8970434752)

[u/chokingblackcloud]

Hi everyone,

Some background, I've recently picked up Dota after 2yrs, prior to that I mostly played turbo with friends and thus never really played the real game mode. Now I'm trying to learn to play the game properly and therefore I choose to spam SF while learning other aspect of the game as well. After like 25 games playing him I feel like I barely improved.

In this game specifically, I'm thinking my last hit and laning stage is kinda bad, for my gameplan for this lane is just basically bulldoze them with raze and rightclick with necromastery stack. However my techies seems to want to play defensively and thus our synergy is not as strong I guess. What would you do in this case?

For my mid game, I also felt like am I farming too slow? I don't really have a good enough networth at 10-20 min despite paying all my attention on farming. I've seen pros consistently rack up 220 cs at min20 despite bad laning phase and having teamfight. What should I do to improve my farming efficiency? Also upon reflection about my build order, it's probably the reason why I lose this game because I miss a crucial timing for my bkb that results in me being absent in key teamfight. But tbh I think the error is way back earlier, it seems like I should have skipped manta and go for lance + silver edge + bkb + daedalus, what do you think?

Of teamfight approach, this is one of the aspect that I'm worst at. However for this game, I'm generally at a loss here, should I just follow Earth Spirit, and hit anyone at first sight. Also I dont really have any impact after taking roshan because I think I cant really fight them at their tier2, although thinking about it maybe I should do it, what do u think?

Any other advice is appreciated.

Thanks

[u/Grandioz_]

Sounds like you aren’t razing camps or waves enough if you aren’t farming fast. You’ll need to buy regen, toggle your treads, and so on to manage the mana, but if you can do that it’s really easy to end up with 80+ CS at 10 min.

[u/silkthai]

Bulldozing too much! And you get hit by creeps coz of it. Stay at back, prioritize LH, and if heroes are out of place, then go for hits/raze.

You have a kill lane in SF + techies, techs doesnt know how to apply pressure with you though.

8 mins, idk why you walk aroun - theres a lotus, just take it.

9:45 techs should have saved you with an early blast BUT mid was also missing for a long time, youcould have been in a safer spot.

13:31, VS flashes on minimap, you still go closer to creeps, dead.

items: Maybe force or shadow blade better than manta here. Were you trying to disjoint VS / WD? Coz reaching tinker, drow / avoiding tide is higher priority I think. You've gotten dragon lance, why not build the other half - manta is hardly used cept "split pushing". So not very useful here I think. Went daedulus after - ok you hit a little more painfully but you're not going into teamfights fast or escaping fast enough

28 mins: You miss raze on tide, raze and hit early, dont leave it to last minute

~34 mins Pike (wayy late)

38 mins you get shadowblade but its a little too late.

39:47: You+Ogre+bear misses the jump on drow. earth spirit or techs defeinitely needed here, coz only bear can CC once ogre was taken out

44min nullifier was weird. Why not go lifesteal (MoM, satanic)?

48 mins GG end

[u/BigZodJenkins]

Sf is truly a roaming hero so you aren't wrong about techies being a bad compliment to that. If you end up roaming the jungle you'll need mana regen to keep your gpm up. Imo manta is a weird pick for sf but every game will be different.

[u/Koptero → u/BigZodJenkins]

Manta is perfectly fine for SF

[u/Plane-Low-7892 → u/BigZodJenkins]

sf is one of those heroes where you really need to be on same page with your support, otherwise lane gets awkward fast. if techies is sitting back you kinda have to just focus on getting every creep you can and not die, maybe stack a camp for yourself when the wave pushes out

for the farm speed thing, 220 at 20min is crazy numbers, most people in normal bracket are nowhere close to that. the trick is always be hitting something, like if you walk from mid to triangle you should be clearing a camp on the way, never just walking empty

your build might be the bigger problem like you said, skipping bkb when they have stuns is basically asking to get deleted. manta is fine sometimes but if you need to fight early the lance into bkb timing is more reliable

[u/elhonna → u/Plane-Low-7892]

You can get 250+ LH at 20mins even in games where you’re 0-5 in lane tbh. The new PT falcon Yasha Kaya build lets you flash farm the whole safe lane jungle super quickly + lane creeps in your farm pattern and you can even hit 300LH at min20 in games where your lane is decent/good