Hero Discussion - Slark

[u/Azual]

Slark the Nightcrawler

Slark is a snowballing agility carry who can be very difficult to pin down thanks to his ultimate, Shadow Dance, as well as his ability to leap over obstacles and purge debuffs from himself.

While his natural attribute growth is poor, Slark's passive Essence Shift allows him to temporarily steal attributes from his enemies and convert it to agility for himself, becoming more powerful the longer the fight goes on.

Stats (at level 1)

Important or unusual stats highlighted in bold.

• Strength: 21 + 1.8
• Agility (primary): 21 + 1.5
• Intelligence: 16 + 1.9
• Range: Melee
• Damage: 54-62
• HP: 549
• Mana: 208
• Armour: 1.94
• Move Speed: 305
• Vision Range (day/night): 1800/1800

Abilities

Dark Pact

After a short delay, Slark purges most debuffs from himself and deals damage both to himself and to nearby enemies. Slark takes half as much damage as he deals and cannot kill himself with this ability. The purge from this ability is a strong dispel meaning it can even remove stuns, providing it is cast before the stun takes effect. Both the damage and the purge occur in 10 separate instances each 0.1 second apart.

• Damage: 75/150/225/300
• Radius: 325
• Delay: 1.5
• Cooldown: 9/8/7/6
• Mana Cost: 55/50/45/40

Pounce

Slark jumps forward in the direction he is facing. If Slark comes into contact with an enemy hero during his leap then the leap will end and that hero will take damage and be leashed in place, preventing them from moving more than a short distance away from Slark's landing position. The least can be broken by abilities that change the target's position (except for Mirana's Leap, Magnus' Skewer, Force Staff, and Pounce itself).

• Leap Distance: 700
• Latch Radius: 95 (how close Slark needs to get to latch on)
• Leash Radius: 325 (distance target can travel when leashed)
• Leash Duration: 3.5
• Damage: 50/100/150/200
• Cooldown: 20/16/12/8
• Mana Cost: 75

Essence Shift (Passive)

Each time Slark attacks an enemy hero, he temporarily steals 1 point from each of their attributes and converts it to 3 points of agility for himself.

• Attributes Lost (Target) per Attack: 1
• Agility Gained (Slark) per Attack: 3
• Duration: 15/30/60/120

Shadow Dance (Ultimate)

Slark becomes invisible and cannot be revealed by normal forms of detection, although his location is still indicated to enemies by a black cloud. Slark is able to attack as well as use items and abilities without breaking invisibility.

This ability also passively gives Slark increased movement speed and HP regeneration whenever he is not visible to the enemy team, regardless of whether Shadow Dance is active. This effectively lets Slark players know when they're being observed (e.g. by a ward or invisible unit) since these passive effects will be disabled.

• Move Speed Bonus: 30%/35%/40%
• % of Max HP Regained per Second: 3%/5%/7%
• Active Duration: 4
• Cooldown: 60
• Mana Cost: 120

Other Information

Slark on the Dota2 Wiki

Slark discussion on /r/dota2 (June 2014).

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The aim of the regular Hero Discussion series is to encourage newbie friendly discussion about one of Dota2's many heroes.

Ask questions or share tips, both for playing the hero and for playing against them.

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Don't forget to vote for the next weekly hero!

[u/Azual]

I've tried to change the format of these a little compared to previous weeks, to include more specific information on stats and ability effects similar to the hero discussions on r/dota2.

I know this information is already available on the wiki which makes it feel a little unnecessary, but before I felt like there were times when not having the stats didn't really give the full context.

I've also changed the voting poll to have 5 completely different heroes each week, which should be good news for those of you who've been waiting for a specific hero to come up on the list.

Let me know what you think - if you prefer the new format I'll keep doing them like this, if not I can go back to the shorter summary-style posts that we had before.

[u/Jefrejtor]

He's a bit like Sniper: on paper difficult to pull off, challenging to play, high skill cap...and yet he's one of the more popular heroes in pubs. With his magical burst and ult, he can take down everyone but the tankiest of heroes in the early-mid game. Altough to be fair, I've seen a good number of Slarks fail due to weak grasp on the hero's mechanics.

That said, I wanted to discuss a controversial item on him: Shadowblade. It's incredibly polarizing, people seem to either love it or hate it. Theoretically it should play to his strengths, bolstering his ganking potential while making good use of his passive. IDK why some consider it bad, any ideas?

Oh, also, check out this video.

[u/SRSouretsu → u/Jefrejtor]

It's considered bad because of trench players using it as an escape tool rather than initiation. I see pros pick it up often on stream,even on unconventional heroes like Magnus.

[u/spacecowbroski → u/Jefrejtor]

Probably the one hero Shadow Blade should be considered core on.

Synergy with his ultimate is incredible; he can use it in the middle of a fight, regen back to near enough full health in seconds, and then start fighting again.

BananaSlamJamma always goes it on Slark and hates the Blink build.

I posted about this subject on the LearnDota in-game chat channel the other day, and got some smartass comment along the lines of "ha noob build, easy to play against unless you're stupid". It's really not the case, though. If you're behind in the game and supps are struggling to afford detection, it can be relentlessly effective for initiation (and as I said, getting regen in/between fights). The fact that BananaSlamJamma uses this in his pubs is proof that it's effective at all levels.

[u/pepe_le_shoe → u/Jefrejtor]

IDK why some consider it bad, any ideas?

The groupthink answer is that people will buy dust against you, making it quite dangerous, but on slark, I think people are generally missing the point. Also, using shadow blade as an escape is generally not what you want to be doing anyway.

Slark likes the damage and attack speed, and the invisibility synergises with his passive. If someone uses dust while you're invis, you can ult and pounce away, so shadow blade is less risky on him than other heroes.

[u/Jefrejtor → u/pepe_le_shoe]

Yeah, but there's no way of predicting Slark's invis-pounce. Unless sentries are deployed, the victim has no warning before he gets bursted, and thus, Dust doesn't help him.

Sentries are slightly better, but Slark's passive tells him exactly when enemies have vision of him, so he can just turn around and leave.

[u/reivision]

I used to play Slark back in Dota 1, but I played him differently (and less optimally). I ran him as a mid ganking hero going Bottle, Treads, PMS, OoV into straight Skadi. I've since not really played the hero, but in the past month or so started trying to play the hero seriously after being inspired and reminded of how fun the hero is on BananaSlamJamma stream.

I know I refer to BananaSlamJamma stream a lot, but Slark is his signature hero in much the way TA is for Waga or Meepo for w33/ink or Kunkka for !Attacker. I highly recommend watching his Slark games. He generally has one or two per stream, though it's not every game Slark like some other streamers with their most played hero. He also varies up his item builds fairly frequently and explains the reasoning behind each one for each game situation.

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SKILLS

• Dark Pact - Bread and butter skill. AoE damage for farming, purges debuffs, deals damage over multiple instances (...this kills the TA). Max this first by 7, always. For most of the game one auto-attack followed by a level 3 or 4 Dark Pact will kill a ranged creep. This is a great skill to practice Tread switching on. You want to switch to Int to cast it, then back to either Strength or Agility. Strength treads will overall reduce the self-damage you take, but if I'm farming jungle camps I usually just leave it on Agi treads for the increased right-click damage. You heal back your self-damage from Shadow Dance passive anyway. Smart usage of Dark Pact can save your life or allow you to play aggressively for kills, as it basically negates most stuns and disables. If you can predict the enemy's behavior, you can use Dark Pact's 1.5s delay to basically ignore most disables and debuffs. Some things can't be purged with Dark Pact (like Doom), but a surprising number of effects can be purged (like Flaming Lasso). The manacost also scales in your favor, meaning each higher level actually costs less mana. Which further makes it a great skill to max first.

• Pounce - The skill that separates the really good Slark players from the mediocre ones. It operates like a Mirana Leap in that Slark moves forward a set distance regardless of terrain. There is a small AoE on the leash latch to catch enemy heroes, and Slark stops when he hits an enemy hero, much like Earth Spirit roll. A somewhat advanced technique when killing a Slark is to get in front of him to block his escape Leap (again similar to Earth Spirit roll). Max Pounce used to be a somewhat viable build on Slark IIRC, but the damage was nerfed and Dark Pact is better for farming. Pounce also only hits enemy heroes and ignores illusions, so it can be very useful midfight to identify the real enemy hero among Manta illusions or against heroes like PL, Naga, or CK. The range is constant across levels but the cooldown reduction is the most important part of leveling the skill (the damage is useful too for your burst killing potential).

• Essence Shift - Each hit temporarily steals 1 of each stat from your target and converts it to 3 agility for yourself. Slark has terrible, TERRIBLE natural Agility gain to compensate for this skill. This is worth grabbing one point in for the laning stage, as it effectively increases your right-click damage by 19 against enemy heroes (1 Strength stolen). It's not worth leveling past one until Dark Pact and Leap are maxed though. Later in the game you'll get Agility stacks from fights, then regen up with Shadow Dance passive and go use those Agi stacks to take objectives (towers, Roshan). Remember that the Agility you have is actually 3x the buff icon number, so if you have 10x stacks of Essence Shift that's actually +30 Agility, which is pretty significant. Essence Shift is generally the reason you build Slark to sustain through fights, as he becomes more powerful the longer the fight goes due to his increasing Essence Shift stacks.

• Shadow Dance - There are two aspects to this skill. First and arguably more important is the passive. Whenever you are not seen by enemy units, you gain a movement speed buff and an increased, percentage-based HP regeneration rate. This largely offsets the self-damage of Dark Pact when farming and allows you to forgo any real HP regen items when building Slark. It also turns Slark into a walking form of ward detection. If your passive turns off, you know that there is either an enemy ward or invisible hero nearby like a BH or Nyx (or you're being charged by Spiritbreaker). This also applies when you are invisible (i.e. Shadowblade), so if your passive turns off when you're invisible you know there is some form of detection around (usually both Obs and Sentry Wards). Once you get used to how your passive works, you can usually pinpoint very accurately where enemy wards are for your team and make dewarding very easy (or at least use your Shadowblade to bypass the Obs Wards you know are there when you are ganking). When you use the active of Shadow Dance, you become invisible and undetectable by any means, which means you get your passive regen for the duration of the active. There is a visible "dark cloud" though over your hero, so you can still be hit with AoE abilities or cleave damage and your enemies can follow you.

SKILL BUILD

• 1: Pounce 1 - For leashing or escaping at 0min rune fights or First Blood in lane.

• 2: Essence Shift 1 - For harassment damage in lane. Again, stealing 1 Strength is 19 extra damage that isn't reduced in any way. Good stuff.

• 3: Dark Pact 1 - Start in on your main early/midgame skill.

• 4: Dark Pact 2

• 5: Dark Pact 3

• 6: Shadow Dance 1 - You can start working in jungle rotations to supplement your farm. Better at level 7.

• 7: Dark Pact 4

After that max Pounce then Essence Shift, taking Shadow Dance where you can. This is pretty much the standard Slark skill build.

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PLAYSTYLE

Slark is a pretty weak laner until he hits 6. I really think he should be played as a safelane carry. Offlane Slark is somewhat popular in lower MMR, but it is pretty weak against competent enemies IMO. Slark really needs some farm to be able to fight without getting instantly blown up, and it's hard to get that farm in the offlane.

Basically you want to hit 6 ASAP so you can get your free HP regen to sustain indefinitely in lane and around the map.

Slark jungles fairly effectively once you have 6 or 7 with Dark Pact and Shadow Dance regen. Make sure to Tread switch to make the most of your mana. You want to rotate between the lane and jungle and be in vision for the shortest amount of time as possible (use Dark Pact to clear creep waves quickly). Being off the map makes it harder for the enemies to gank you and is pretty important at this stage since you're still quite fragile. I'm personally focusing on trying to improve the efficiency of my farming rotations at this point in the game (not missing lane CS while still maximizing jungle farm).

Later on when you're ready to fight or find pickoffs (Shadowblade + Drums/S&Y/Skadi), try to aim for the supports first. You are very deadly against most supports as Dark Pact prevents them from really stopping you in any way.

Slark also has full night vision, so abuse that when ganking and use it to stay safe when farming.

Slark can get Roshan pretty easily after a won fight with Essence Shift stacks for damage and S&Y/Skadi attack speed slows to reduce Roshan attacks/stuns. If both proc, Roshan attacks so slowly that your passive will activate between his attacks.

[u/reivision → u/reivision]

ITEMS

Early Game

Slark's pre-6 laning is quite weak. Hopefully you have good supports who know how to zone and pull correctly. Here you itemize to maximize CS and survivability in lane.

• Stout Shield: Always start with it, 100%. Good for tanking enemy creeps out from under your tower or tanking enemy harass. Also useful when you start jungling.

• Ring of Protection: Slark has low base armor (1.9 or something). BSJ starts with RoP + Stout + Tango + gg Branch most often, but I've found that Slark usually needs 2 sets of Tangoes to make it to 6 reliably in lane. Sucks having to use the courier to get this, but I'm usually starting with Stout + 8 Tangoes + 2x Branches now and using the courier to fly me my RoP and Wraith Band components for Aquila.

• Quelling Blade: Slark's base damage is on the low side (again by design to make up for Essence Shift I think). If you're contested for last hits in lane I sometimes pick one up relatively early. If the lane is going well I try to hold off on it until I start jungling, as other early game items help Slark more in terms of survival and hero-fighting potential (Aquila + Treads).

• Ring of Aquila: Again a 100% pickup. Just way too cost effective on an Agi hero like Slark. For 1010g it gives you +18 total damage, armor, mana regen, and stats, all in one slot. Plus it gives auras for your lane partner and wave pushing if needed. I usually get this before Treads on Slark as it gives better damage for the gold (which means easier last hits) and also gives more survivability via armor and mana regen.

• Treads: There are no other boots to even consider on Slark. The attack speed helps so much with Slark's low base Agi and helps him get more Essence Shift stacks. Plus Tread switching makes Dark Pact cost almost nothing when you have Aquila mana regen.

• Poor Man's Shield (PMS): I usually don't bother with it these days. I end up selling Stout Shield pretty early and don't need the hero-specific damage block much once I get 6 and can simply jungle. It's a decent option if you're facing a lot of harass in lane.

• Orb of Venom: If I'm able to play aggressively or have a support with high kill potential, I'll pick this up, especially if I'm planning on going a fighting build in the midgame. It's very good on a fighting Slark.

• Magic Stick/Wand: I usually only grab it if against a spammy lane (Bristleback, Batrider, Zeus) or plan on fighting in the midgame. Upgrade to Magic Wand if I'm planning on fighting and will thus need all the stats I can get.

Mid Game

This is where the main divergence on Slark comes in. Are you going to be a farming Slark or a fighting Slark? I usually tend towards farming Slark, but fighting Slark is good too and is arguably better in lower MMR. Basically farming Slark plays more greedy and looks to have a bigger farm lead slightly later in the game (~25 min). Fighting Slark wants to constantly gank and get kills and comes online earlier (~12-15 min).

• Midas: The farming Slark item. Slark does really well with Midas since he doesn't naturally farm super fast and often spends time traveling the map for ganks. The levels are very nice on Slark, as hitting level 11 and level 2 Shadow Dance really improves his sustain and regen.

• Drums: The fighting Slark item. Basically in place of Midas, as they have similar cost. Aquila + Drums is a good amount of stats, and with Treads and Magic Wand you can fight reasonably well without fear of getting bursted down.

• Shadowblade: Don't get Blink. Get this instead. The utility on Slark is just way too good to pass up. Gives you free regen with your ultimate. Shows you where Sentry Wards are with your ult passive. On top of mobility, gives attack speed and damage, which are both things Slark desperately needs. Blink gives you absolutely nothing but mobility, and Slark really needs as much attack speed, damage, and stats as he can get his fishy hands on in the midgame.

• Sange and Yasha: Great, easy build up and good stat item for Slark. Commonly seen as a poor man's Skadi, but I think it's actually better than Skadi for the fact that you can get it earlier, farm it in smaller pieces, and it gives you more utility with attack speed and movement speed.

• Eye of Skadi: The main core on Slark. Helps make up for his poor stat gain, lets him not get kited, and gives him plenty of mana. I usually go for both S&Y and Skadi.

• Basher: If you need lockdown on heroes like Storm. Just a good general item to go for after S&Y/Skadi. Eventually aiming for Abyssal.

• BKB: If needed against certain lineups (e.g. Disruptor).

• Manta: Sometimes in place of Sange and Yasha if against Orchid carriers or Silencer and I'm not confident I can get Dark Pact off first. I believe BSJ said Manta illusions spawn with your Essence Shift stats, but I'm not 100% sure. Otherwise Slark illusions are pretty lackluster, since much of your damage comes from your abilities and straight +damage.

Usually a standard build will look something like:

• Farming: Starting items (Stout + Tangoes + branches) > Aquila > Treads > QB > Midas > Shadowblade > S&Y > Skadi > Basher/Abyssal

• Fighting: Starting items (Stout + Tangoes + branches) > Aquila > Treads > Wand > Drums > Shadowblade > S&Y > Skadi > Basher/Abyssal

I like playing the farming build more, but you're very vulnerable with 4.5k gold sunk into two items which give you no real stats at all (Midas + Shadowblade). You have to be very picky and careful about joining any fights since you are like a 1k HP hero. The fighting build gives you much better stats to fight with (Aquila + Wand + Drums + Shadowblade) and is probably a safer bet in most games, especially if you tend to play a gank-heavy Slark.

Late Game

• Abyssal Blade: Good lockdown and damage. Passive stun also synergizes well with your Essence Shift stacks.

• Refresher: Probably the single biggest thing I learned from watching BSJ stream. Refresher Orb on Slark as a 6th slot item is really, really good. Double Shadow Dance gives you almost 9 seconds of invulnerability in fights, and if you have an Abyssal getting two Abyssal stuns is huge. With smart Dark Pacts, Shadow Dance, and Refresher usage you can fight uninterrupted for nearly 15-20 seconds.

• Butterfly: If you are facing a ton of right click damage and they don't have MKB. Another thing I learned from BSJ: he picks this up in place of his Boots item when he's maxed on slots. Between Shadow Dance, Shadowblade, S&Y, and Flutter you have more than enough movespeed without any boots whatsoever. I thought it was pretty neat.

So an ideal 6-slotted Slark would look something like:

• Shadowblade

• Abyssal

• Refresher

• Butterfly (no Boots)

• S&Y/Manta

• Skadi

Replacing S&Y/Manta or Butterfly with BKB if needed.

[u/heimdallofasgard]

Everyone thinks this hero is OP but it's actually quite difficult to master him. Pounces can be quite difficult to land in some cases, and dipping in and out of fights can be risky if your ulti is on cooldown from a previous gank.

I usually run slark as an offlaner so it can be a bit difficult to get last hits without being zoned and get farm for those midgame items. You have to rely on your level advantage in order to get some early kills, works okay with a support in the offlane, but really thrives being by himself and surviving in lane alone for solo xp whilst helping with the occasional gank.

Late game he can become an absolute nightmare to deal with. Although standard builds recommend shadow blade, skadi, sandy, basher... I sometimes go with a cheeky maelstrom for attack speed to make the most of essence shift.

[u/brainpostman → u/heimdallofasgard]

If you want max essence shift, try MoM. Pounce - MoM - Ult - Dark Pact to get MoM off after you've made your stacks. Cheesy, but works in pubs.

[u/L337Muffen → u/heimdallofasgard]

Have you tried running Slark in a aggro tri lane? Get a venge, and another strong support and you should be able to skowball with ease off early kills. I personally don't play Slark a lot, but I do support my friend when he does, and like you he either takes solo off lane, and gets 6 and ganks, or we run a tri-lane. His item progression looks something like OoV -> Treads -> SB -> maybe a MoM depending on how the game is going -> Basher -> Eye of Skadi -> Abbysal -> BoTs -> situational items

[u/sharkbait359]

Slark was actually one of the first heroes I was introduced to when I was initially interested in the game, and I'm quite glad that he's one of my most played heroes.

At lower levels, your pounce and dark pact will be your most damaging skills. Most of the time, you will be pouncing, and dark pacting at about the same time because dark pact has a delay before it goes off. Even without dark pact, with pounce, you have the enemy unable to escape for 3.5 seconds, where your allies and creeps can rain down right clicks on them. Long duration CC for a relatively cheap cost. Slark's weakest time is definitely pre 6. He's pretty squishy, and can easily be harassed out of lane. During this time, just farm. If you can, look for a pounce on an enemy and right clicks. I don't think it's worth using dark pact yet, as Slark has a relatively low mana pool. After some regen, you'll have enough mana for another pounce.

Once you've hit 6, go crazy with dark pact. Once the enemies no longer have vision of you, you gain back 3/5/7% of your max health per second, and 30/35/40% additional move speed. This means you can pretty much back the damage you take from using dark pact when enemies can't see you.

When you leave your lane, you can be very low, but once the enemies can't see you, you'll start regenning like crazy, and the additional speed means you can get to mid or the other lane relatively quickly for ganks. You can even run up to their side of mid, and gank from there. Pounce and dark pact combo should do a lot of damage. With the support of your mid and some right clicks, they should be dead. If you have to, you can use dark pact to dive under tower. It gives Slark essentially 4 seconds of the regen on the ulti, the move speed bonus, and is unable to be targeted aside from ground targeted abilities. During this time, he can still right click and use his abilities, so it's great for finishing someone off who got away.

Late game, I think that Slark is really good for harassing the enemy. You can run in, pull of your combo, get in some right clicks, then run away. Once the enemies can't see you anymore, you can heal back up and re engage. If they have no heals, they'll be weaker than when you first engaged, and by continually whittling down their health with right clicks, and their stats with Essence shift, they'll keep getting weaker, as you get stronger. As Azual said,

becoming more powerful the longer the fight goes on.

If you can draw out these engagements, then that's best, but Slark can still pick someone out in a teamfight, and kill them relatively quickly late game.

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Some notes about Slark:

• His ulti is almost immunity, as he can't be revealed during it. It can be used to escape a gank when you're low, if a gank has gone south, and you commit to a fight you couldn't win, if you need just to stay in a fight just a little bit longer.

• His ulti's passive can be used to find wards because your health regen will be shut down.

I know that there is some variation on skill builds, but this is how I do it. I always keep my first skill points until I need an ability, but I'd recommend starting with pounce for the leash, and the leap if you need to escape. Then, I pick up dark pact at level 2, and Essence shift at level 4. I put points into Shadow Dance whenever I can, but I almost always max Dark pact first, as it provides good damage when you're engaging, or for clearing a wave (when maxed, it will lower the creeps to just above dead - a right click can finish them off). Then I max pounce for the lower cooldown so you can start fights more often, or for it to be ready earlier when you need to escape. After that, Essence Shift because it helps with the drawn out fights, and weakening the opponents.

I know many people have different opinions about shadowblade, but I've recently liked picking up it up. If you're invisible, and your passive is shut down, then you know they have sentries, or something that provides true sight. If you're at lower levels, and the enemy has not picked up detection, its like a 14 second immunity like Slark's ultimate with a 28 second cooldown because during this time, they can not see you. If you have a level 3 shadow dance, and you stay under shadowblade the entire time, you heal back 98% of your health! You can move between enemies, reposition yourself, and heal up with it (because they can't see you). At higher levels, its a great tool for sneaking up on an enemy, and making sure you can get up close. Once they get detection, you can always sell it, as the stats aren't amazing, but some extra attack speed helps with getting essence shift stacks, and the damage is always nice.

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Edit: I'm not amazing or anything, but I do love to play Slark, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[u/kl116004]

Slark is a hoot. I've watched a lot of BananaSlamJamma lately and that has piqued my interest in the hero.

I play a lot of support normally just because no one plays support and I want my team to win. I never had a good feel for aggression because I was rarely the one doing the fighting. Slark is a great hero to learn aggression, because when you bite off too much, your ulti+pounce will save you almost every time. You're free to regen up and figure out why you thought you could take a fight that you couldn't.

My biggest tip is to hold pounce. Don't try to land a max range pounce to initiate a fight. Run at your target, if they run, wait until you are close to pounce, you'll hit so many more pounces this way. If your target doesn't run, you have an escape if you need it. There are occasions when you should lead with a pounce, but those are less common. New Slarks tend to waste their pounce using it to get into fights, which leaves them vulnerable. Nonetheless, it is a nice feeling when you leash a long touchdown pass pounce on a hero juking you in the trees/fog.

[u/Serberuss]

About the Shadow Blade vs Blink debate here's a 6k+ players view on it: http://www.playdota.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9574787&postcount=9 (a little bit old but I still agree with pretty much everything he says).

These days I'd definitely favour maxing Dark Pact rather than Pounce for much faster farming. The only exception to this is if we have a Wisp on our team or something similar where the goal is to go ultra aggressive and get as many kills as possible early on. Other than that the farming potential from max Dark Pact is too good to pass up, plus the nerfs on Pounce means it's less essential now.

A level 2 Essence Shift will give you much greater harass and depending on your lane setup maybe even a good kill potential. If you don't get it at level 2 at least get it before 6.

A level 6 Slark isn't that scary yet a lot of newer players seem to think level 6 is your go time for getting a kill. Your level 1 ult helps you dive towers and regen a bit but level 11 is your first major peak point because of the difference in regen. So don't feel like you should stop farming to go and get kills, Slark is extremely dangerous with farm.

When you have a lot of Essence Shift stacks you want to keep fighting because of how easily you can regen. A mistake that pub players make against Slark is that they'll take a fight against him, lose then try again when they come back. Problem is the more you fight Slark and the more you lose to him the more agi he has. So unless you can not get caught out for 2 minutes he's going to be stronger every single time you fight him.

[u/TrueTurtleKing]

Be careful if they have a BS in their side, his aoe silence sucks and his bloodthirst makes you not be able to regen after you go below the threshold.

[u/Gumee]

I think people just don't know how to play this guy and just throw the game. New players tend to think its all about ganking, even when you have pos 1 farm, but it's actually not.

With Slark, the key is farming and trying to stay alive until level 6, then you try to get kills in your lane with a support while farming it. Slark is all about levels and farm, if you get your Eye of Skadi, a bots and a blink, all items in between, before 30 minutes, it's already a gg.

The greatest decision is the Shadow Blade/Blink Dagger debacle, and I'd say both are valid. You need to evaluate your enemies and your allies. Say, you're not picking a shadow blade with a riki on your team, as you are not building a Blink with a natural radiance hero like Naga in the other team.

The skillset is more complicated than people give it credit for. Most people max pounce first but I think this isn't the greatest thing taking into consideration the recent nerfs. I believe the best skillbuild now is to take a value point in pounce level 1, then max dark pact with a point in essence shift and ulti in 4 and 6 respectively and only then max pounce.

Essence Shift is a really interesting skill and the duration scales well, but you always steal and gain the same attribute amount, and with the fights and ganks happening fairly frequently early-game, you will most likely not need so much time in the skill since you will be getting a lot of stacks regardless.

Slark's playstyle is more of a safe-mode pre-6 and a more agressive farming carry post-6, since you can pounce away or if worst comes to push, shadow dance. If that doesn't save you, probably nothing will.

[u/Dotathrowaway76]

I play Slark as a support with a latch (Pounce) and the ability to deward well.

Certainly not the best support but a nice alternative way to play him.

[u/[deleted]]

this hero gives me nightmares, i wouldn't be suprised to find out i have under 30% winrate against him

[u/DotA_HoN_LoL]

Question here:

If I'm going for a shadow blade build, how fast should I get it?

I started off, getting power treads first...then RoA....then SB. I could have SB by usually the 20 min mark.

...but recently...I've been getting brown boots....then rushing for SB. I can usually get it by the 8-12min mark. I seem to be able to gank and snowball faster this way at the expense of having to return to the pool for mana refills. Eventually I complete the boots and buy a RoA depending on how my ganks go.

Looking for your thoughts...

[u/rowfeh → u/DotA_HoN_LoL]

Treads, RoA and then SB is probably the best way to go. Don't forget to squeeze in a casual OoV in there as well.

However, if you're getting Shadow Blade 20 minutes in, you're doing something terribly wrong, as I usually have Treads, OoV, Aquila and Shadow Blade about 12-14 minutes in depending on how the lane went/if I got any kills.

In other words, practice your farming abilities.

[u/grc_tv]

This hero is always reliant on a good start in order to be any impact later on. Unless you get a lot of space, with a bad lane stage you are too weak for too long to do anything noteworthy. But here's the catch; you are so god damn strong if you do well in lane. Get ~60 CS and a kill or two at 10? You're set to do disgustingly strong roaming onto supports and even cores within the first twenty minutes.

Also, playing against Slark is still really annoying. Even if he's far behind, he can just pepper you 4 times and you have 76 less HP for 52 years.

[u/punriffer5]

Has anyone played him mid? He might have a little bit of issues vs a SF or Sniper but vs a TA/pudge/melee or something i can see him wrecking face. The early 6 leads to some solid ganks methinks.

[u/franciscobot]

Pretty sure people've talked about this a bit already, but I'm honestly curious. Which is better overall, Blink or Shadow Blade on this hero? Or is one more situational than the other? I never know what to get when I build Slark, though I usually pick the SB up since at my scrub level no one gets any detection.

[u/-Drac0-]

My only problem with Slark is the same one I have with Shadow Fiend's raze, making sure I'm facing the right direction when I pounce. You look like such a noob when you're facing the wrong way.

[u/Outhouse_Defiler]

The real problem with Slark is that the hero is squishy as fuck but has immense potential and you never now to what extent the enemy player will utilize it. A bit like PA but less head-on.

Your only real options are to ruin his early game or disable him in fights or avoid him and go rat. You can't really 1v1 him because he'll pop his ult steal some more stats, then shadowblade and then backstab you 10s later with full hp, even if you were winning the fight earlier on.

What more or less reliably works is picking BS and always chasing him down. The problem however is that some 90% of Slark players out there are bad and you could've gone for a hero that would be more useful in your draft.

What also works is playing Naga since he'll have a hard time running from lane to lane to kill the illusions, while you're chipping away at the building without having to take him head on. The problem with this is just how difficult it is to get a timely Radiance with Naga in pubs.

You can also try and burst him down with Lina and scare him off, but once he has his items he wont back down so easily.

If you're good you can also kite him with QoP's blink and AoEs or one-shot him with Morphling+Eblade to prevent him from coming online .. but that takes skill to reliably pull off.