Supports to try out—Silencer
Image by Gamersbook
Silencer went under the radar of most players, despite a series of buffs starting in 7.13b. This hero suffers from the lack of identity, with community divided on whether he should be played as a support or as a core. While we do not have the statistics for exact distribution of support or core Silencer, we know that he is least successful when played mid and most successful when played in the offlane, probably as a position four support.
Once again, the shift to dual lanes made the hero better in the current meta. Much like 
Crystal Maiden becomes more efficient if multiple targets are hit with 
Crystal Nova, so is 
Silencer is at his best when applying Arcane Curse to two or more enemies.
Understanding the current laning stage
Laning stage in Dota is currently less about killing and more about being efficient, denying as much XP from the enemy as possible, while getting as much gold as you can. Dual lanes became the norm once the deny XP got changed from 70% to 25%: in 7.07 it became possible to starve out the enemy offlaner so much, that he would end up at level two or three, five minutes into the game.
This necessity for efficiency introduced several new heroes to the meta: heroes like Warlock and Skywrath Mage both could freely use their spells to harass, without worrying too much about their mana pool. You want to zone out the enemy or sustain your core teammate, therefore constant harassment is preferable in lane to hard disables on a longer cooldown, which are better suited for killing. It is unsurprising that both aforementioned heroes received manacost nerfs on their spammable abilities, once players figured out ways to abuse their lane prowess.
Silencer remained unnoticed until after the nerfs occured, but supports already got used to the idea of constant harassment and they needed to find new ways to support this playstyle. Much like Crystal Maiden and Dazzle, Silencer can be a very efficient harasser and scales reasonably well as a support.
Arcane Curse
This is the ability that made Silencer so good in the current meta, allowing him to become the 3rd most successful support in the 5k+ bracket. It deals 96 damage +80 damage per penalty, if the enemy uses spells. It is also a reasonable slow at later levels and should generally be be maxed out first.
96 damage for a level one nuke is already on a decent side, but the fact that it also discourages enemies from using their spells makes laning against Silencer very uncomfortable. The hero is using his spells to harass, while you can’t or don’t want to. Even mobility spells, which are usually the saving grace in these situations, come with a hefty punishment—a single use of an ability turns Arcane Curse in a 176 magical damage DoT and it is easily one of the most punishing harassing tools in the game.
But there is also the sustain aspect, and Arcane Curse is amazing in this regard as well: With a 75 manacost on a hero with a 450 manapool at the start of the game, it can be used 6 times, without any issues. Taking into account mana regen and any mana-restoring items, this can easily turn into 10+ uses in the first 5 minutes, amounting to at least 960 magical damage on each target. For comparison, CM and Warlock can use their Crystal Nova and Shadow Word only three times, without taking into account mana regeneration.
Glaives of Wisdom
This ability was nerfed quite heavily 7.07, only to be somewhat restored in 7.13b. At level one it currently deals 25% of Silencer’s intelligence, so if it is taken at level 2, it will add 7 pure damage to your hits. The reason to consider it at level 2 is not necessarily the damage, however. It is the ability to harass the enemy without drawing the creep aggro, maintaining the lane equilibrium.
When used as a spell, Glaives of Wisdom won’t be registered as an auto-attack, hence won’t force the enemy creeps to attack Silencer. This provides a massive advantage in the laning stage, since it prevents or punishes the enemy for retaliating. Under the effects of Arcane Curse, the enemy is discouraged from using his spells. When Silencer is using Glaives of Wisdom to harass the enemy, standing inside the creep wave, it discourages the enemy from auto-attacking back, as they will get aggroed and push the lane. It is a lose-lose situation for the enemy and as long as you don’t get overconfident, you should be able to win most laning matchups as Silencer.
Our stats show that most players ignore the level 2 Glaives of Wisdom in favor of 
Last Word and it is a mistake. Looking at the guides section, you can see that most professional and high-level pub players tend to take Glaives at level 2 or even level 1.
Last Word
150 damage for 115 mana with a three second Silence at level 1—this ability would be truly amazing, if there wasn’t so much counterplay to it. With a massive 28 second cooldown and delayed effect, this ability only truly shines in teamfights and early game skirmishes, while not adding much to the laning stage.
Most of the time this ability is maxed out second, since there is really no reason for extra points in Glaives on a support Silencer. It is obviously best used on caster heroes without access to dispels and is notable for its massive cast range of 900—something that can allow for delayed counter-initiations.
It also synergises quite well with Silencer’s ultimate, since by placing the curse on top of an already silenced enemy will extend the silence duration, without allowing the enemy to react.
What is also worth mentioning, is that Arcane Curse gets paused, while the target is Silenced. While it stops dealing damage, it doesn’t stop slowing the enemy and a 18% slow that can last for 15+ seconds can be very annoying. Be vary, though, that silencing a fleeing enemy under the effect of Arcane Curse can allow them to use Blink Dagger, if there is no extra damage.
Global Silence
Finally, there is ultimate. Like all global spells, it really can’t be overestimated—it can allow for great turnarounds, follow-ups and counter-initiation preventions. Obviously, there are many tools in the game that can allow the enemy to ignore the effects of Global Silence, hence it should be used in a timely manner.
Silence can be dispelled and that is a problem. But the sheer fact that presence of the Silencer in the game already forces the enemy to account for it in their itemization is already an advantage. Queen of Pain is scarier with an Orchid, rather than with an Eul’s, but she definitely wants the latter in the game against Silencer. Naturally, enemy Tidehunter can build Greaves to ensure he has a way of counter-initiating, if he gets Silenced, but it also means he doesn’t have a Shiva’s as early. There is counterplay to Global Silence, but it has an opportunity cost. Just make sure you don’t overcommit dispellable resources on a single target that is already forced to use its defensive tools.
This ability, much like Dazzle’s Shallow Grave, also makes Silencer a priority target for the enemy team. Stay in the trees and out of vision, have sentries to deward highground vision from the enemy and don’t step out to use your measly +10 pure damage auto-attacks to “deal damage”. It is not worth it. All Silencer’s spells have a massive range—900 on Last Word and 1000+AoE on Arcane Curse. Use it to your advantage, stay safe and only consider stepping out of the shadows if you have already used your spells or need to save a teammate with Force Staff.
Almost 54% winrate and almost 10% popularity in the most competitive bracket tells us that this hero is definitely worth playing and exploring. Give us your own tips for playing Silencer in the comment section below and good luck climbing the MMR ladder.
Hello..
Silencer + wk =imba
Nice jebait with the trove chest picture
yes, tell that to mr
PKotatoPlease do not encourage silencer support pickers
я профессиональный салансер
Silencer is not a support
tribo :D seee!!!
Silencer is not a support everything i say is true Kappa
Hey, you're totally forgetting about the intelligence steal. The fact that it's permanent throughout the entire game is how Silencer can be played a core. He snowballs kind of like Legion Commander in this way, just not nearly as fast. And if enemies is dying near him too much, then they're definitely gonna notice the lack of mana, especially ones with lower intelligence gains, and then they'll need to build items to help make it back up.
silencer is my most played hero in dota
@Nemesis 041
The hero should still be played as a support though, with the option to transition into a core later in the game. Fortunately the items that make him better as a core are the items that make him good as a support. You're buying int items as a support (force staff, euls, etc) that boost glaives, but you're just not going to be doing as much damage as a true carry with comparable farm at any point in the game.
Every once in a while I see someone try to mid (or heaven forbid carry) with silencer and the problem with starting out as a core is the fact that you need to be getting kills to boost that int steal. In the early game Silencer + support don't do enough damage to easily net a kill like you can with, say, drow or ursa. If you can't get the kills, you aren't snowballing on the int. Whereas having him as the support you have greater chance of getting the kills and netting the int, riding into a semicore. Knowing this, it's not surprising that Alliance used to run Spec and Silencer together, as you go from good harass and better farm for spec in early game into heavy core and semicore in the late game.
@KawaiiSocks
This is easily one of the best articles written in a long while. It's acutely detailed and gives a fantastic description as to what the goals of the hero are. I'd love to see these articles also include what kinds of lineups and endgame strategies benefit from the highlighted hero, but the inclusion of details like Silencer doing well against mobile heroes (personally hate going up against silencer when I play weaver), glaives not drawing aggro, and the distinction between a paused spell and a sustained spell are the things that will open minds wide.
Да, именно на 4ке он лучше всего, герой класс!
+1 @Lowlander for everything said. Really great breakdown of abilities in a way that’s helpful for people who never play silencer and people who do.
I’d love to see an article in the future discussing an in-depth look at countering a character style, much like how you talk about silencer being good against heros that dislike building dispel items. Potentially something about countering high movespeed team comps, pure damage, sustain, lane dominaters, etc.
Thanks for all the awesome work guys, dotabuff is an incredible resource and makes dota even doper than it already is
I won silencer supp 14 winstreak last week. Better not core role to this hero. GLHF 😎
@MM.Airsick Lowlander @KawaiiSocks
is there any other spell that can be paused?
I never knew about it before reading this article.
where can I learn more about this?
@GL, HF
Best resource is the Dota2 Wiki from Gamepedia in my opinion.
As far as I know there is no other spell that pauses damage. It's not an officially recognized or labeled mechanic, but there are other spells that can 'pause'. Most notable are Geomagnetic Grip which will reset (I think) if the target is near a stone remnant, and Doom ulti which will pause the duration timer for 1 second if Doom is near. Neither of these examples 'pause' anything other than the duration timer, so they are not hampered in any way.
@KawaiiSocks might know of others but I can't think of any others off the top of my head. It's kind of extremely strong to be able to extend the duration of a spell so that's my guess why it isn't very common.
who else is a silencer spammer?
Silencer can be played all positions. B.c he has a versatile skillset, he have a curse spell, a damage dealing etc.
why are there supports in the game? in 1k league nobody pick them! when i pick sup, i have a herald 3 carry which is dead 18 times in 10 min.
only rage and blaime. only noobs and trolls. you stuck in your rank. you are not able to come out of the trash! and i tried for a while.
that makes me sad a bit. but valve give a shit.
good bye Dota2
gg wp
- pick Enigma
- countered by Silencer
- you build BKB
- activate BKB then cast blackhole
- Silencer press Global Silence
- Enigma left the game
Best hero ever.
САЛО - ОДИН ИЗ САМЫХ ЛЮТЫХ КОРОВ... НИКАКОЙ ОН НЕ САППОРТ
Well written and interesting article, thank you.
One small technically regarding your research:
"Glaive of Wisdom
This ability was nerfed quite heavily 7.07, only to be somewhat restored in 7.13b."
The "restoration" wasn't in 7.13b but 7.14.
Have nice day :)
try Silencer and axe in offlane
На миду сало чувствует себя очень хорошо. а как саппорт он ходячий корм.
non core (put any hero here) role in below 3k maybe just doesnt work lols let's not argue with that, but please, we are talking about what "should" be the hero roles, not some situational condition, asshole scrubs
even in my bracket, core silencer is already a no go, as you see here in this match, he is the most farmed hero of the match but his game impact (KDA) is not that impressive, just no longer viable from here on dude.
https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/4097854946