General DiscussionZenoth on Shadowblade

Nice read. To add something onto the SB value topic:
SB is amazing on Magnus/Doom after you get refresher vs heroes like Storm/Lion etc.

edit: this part looks a little weird because you didn't include link/hyperlink/copypaste of Juice's thoughts:
"For more, here is a 7k player's thoughts on SB on slark"

i think he posted that on reddit. i know ive read it somewhere before. And i agree completely, sb is an initiation tool! i usually go sb followed by gem :B

that was a link to swiftending/juice's rant on shadowblade, which can be seen [url="http://www.playdota.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9574787&postcount=9"]here[/url]

while abit over-the-top and exaggerating he covered alot of important points of why shadow blade is so strong on slark in particular.

I knock shadow blade because players always get it on drow, sniper and nature's and use it to escape. You can use it on np and drow especially to gank but rarely does anyone do that (sniper doesn't make a great ganker either way). In that sense it's easily countered by dust.

But when you get it on a hero like a slark, legion or dragon knight and use it offensively it's really good. I actually saw a wraith king build it a game ago and holy shit we were not expecting it and he crushed us.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1141383686

yeah hate it when people flame me for buying it on void

lmao, you guys are getting worked up over NOTHING. Its just a huge misunderstanding by different people. Items like mom, sny and shadow blade are all considered garbage items when they are picked up in the wrong situations. Oh look, the 1-10 bara just bought MOM. Or the sniper who buys shadow blade against a storm when he already has 2 invisi allies, great!

The other issue is building it as a CORE item on all but a few heroes. This is the kind of item that generally excels as a post-core item, where you aren't relying on it to get shit done. A magnus with just shadow blade is awful, but if its picked up after a few items, then it can be really effective.

edit: as for riki, he is just underrated. Even before his change he was a solid hero in pubs, but is heaps better now. When he is safelane and farming, people are scared of him, and pre-emptively have sentries up. I played him just once since his change and while I gave up FB because I'm a noob, by being solo offlane with low CS, I think I wasn't seen as a threat. This meant they weren't picking up as many sentries/gems/dusts as they probably should have (they bought HEAPS of them later) and allowed me to get back into the game along, by which time the game is probably over, despite ember having free farm.

I noticed that blink dagger is far better for Legion Commander, as the early/mid stages are prominents and sb cost too much mana for her, and since you need to buff in the early levels to assure a duel, I've seem myself troubled trying to match this item with my way of playing and building legion commander, thought I know they can be useful for escaping in some tight situations, still...

In Swiftendings post he does raise some massively important reasons why SB over blink if at all, I have seen far to many slark players with brown boots and blink from the safe lane try and roam around and accomplish nothing.

Well I got 55% winrate with Lotars for a reason. 62% with Riki aswell.

Ofc, I might be 3k scrub but at least I'm not wrong.

Using Lotars for escape and for chasing down/initiating is the whole another world.

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1139864534
lanaya shadow blyat stronk

another idiotthread from Havoc.

Clap Clap.

Blunt/Havoc the new Wave/Relentless?

No offense to anyone though :)

On topic, this is all very useful information, though I don't expect too many people to follow it. Have you guys tried to post it in some other dota forum/message board?

@havoc;

Slark don't need blink nor does he need shadowblade.
But worst in it, blink first suck ball, while shadowblade first stay decent.

However blink is supérior to sb on slark. You can use it to catch splitpusher much more efficiently than shadowblade (the main reason i used to buy it (as 5th or 6th slot item))
And !
(that's actually the thing that make it more effectiv) you can use it to poke steal stats; blink hit one or twice, pounce out. It works against most lineup, (thx to dark pact), even if they are 5 (as long as they cann't follow you (high ground / fear to engage team fight in some special position etc...)

Thus you can get some great essence shift stack even before the teamfight; having 5-6 stack for free is really game changing

Edit y thanks ^^

"However blink is supérior to sb on slark. You can use it to catch splitpusher much more efficiently than dagger"
You meant Shadow Blade with dagger there right?

I guess blink would be better vs like lycan who split pushes with necro book, but if it prophet that dsnt get it you can go shadow blade and with extra dmg and attack speed can kill him before he tp out. and even if he spreads treants u can get to him without him seeing you. Its always changes and sometimes you dont need ether of this 2 items.

imo shadow blade is much stronger at catching split pushers than blink, especially because split pushers usually have no space for detection, and often rely on items like Blink to get out and TP out safely. As a frequent split pusher i tend to get fucked by invis more than blink (e.g. qw invoker, sb slark, riki etc) compared to blink heroes

in the end when catching split pushers, as long as you can close the gap SB provides more benefits than blink because it give some form of functional stats

Shadowblade vs Blink depends on the game. I've watched a lot of pro's stream Slark and both are amazingly strong in the right hands.

The 200 dmg from shadowblade is extremely strong early game, and you cannot outrun Slark if he has blink, pretty damn hard to miss pounce after blink.... But i'm pretty good at missing it :P

I've also seen Blink slark deward the whole map, while farming it, pretty damn cool to watch, the enemy has zero vision, pretty game changing.

@Zenoth, they have no space for detection, but if you know how to use a blink, they will not see you aswell, and the advantage of sb over blink for direct fight is not that huge, considering that almost no hero (and even less in splitpush) are match for slark 1v1, and that those who do will win through bashing and thus don't care of those item since they don't provide any tank power.

@YNIT ЛУЧШИЙ ИГРОК, the exact reason why blink suck as first item; you'd want your core, and once you have basher, how can they tp ?

Against furion, that didn't build necrom, i would argue that sb and dagger are even. being able to follow that furion in tree after he blinked is somthing really valuable, but on the other hand, if furion cann't see invis, he is also fucked by sb.

In addition, in the long run, sb will be totally outshadowed by dagger for this, when furion people will start buying a second flying chicken and spread sentry where they split, to see that shadow menace (it's not like 600 gold starting investment for furion was somthing high)

Anyway once again, those item are definitly not core on slark, and even if shadow blade is stronger in certain case for now, the utility that dagger provide is sooooooo much bigger that it totally outshadow sb. The real difference here is shadowblade can be made as first item, while dagger suck ball as first

I don't even fucking remember the last time I built a shadow blade seriously.

It is fun on spirit breaker thought ^_^

^ u made me look through 10 pages XD http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1096015661

@Zenoth
"imo shadow blade is much stronger at catching split pushers than blink,"
maybe on other heroes, but with Slark you know if they see your approaching or not because of your ulti

Slark can't really do anything without at least treads and a drums or yasha. It's like rushing blink on TA as well with zero items.

@mokujin

and by the time they see you they are gone. imagine you walk past a treant on the way to prophet, or pass an observer ward. yes, now you know he can see you, but he's gonna get away as well.

now you do that with a shadowblade and short of sentry+obs coverage they are not going to have any idea you are approaching

@Zenoth:
So basicially, havoc is the walltext idiot with low mmr who thinks he writes smart shit and i'm the arrogant asshole 6k player flaming him?

Tbh, after giving it a bit of thought, you may have a point there.

Here is a little explanation why havoc is an idiot for making this thread:
What havoc is trying to say is, that Lothars is a better/at least or closely as good as an initiation item than blink, which is the biggest shit i've read in a long ass time. And then he actually dares to missrepresent swiftening.

To represent swiftening correcly: His point was that he hates idiots who build PT + blink and go roam around as slark, slark is a hardcarry that needs his items, he needs suvivability, which lothars does offer but blink doesn't. Lothars offers damage and the ability to move fast and with HP regen as slark, this is extremely helpful in teamfights, since you can go out and in again with massive HP. He even states, at the very top of his text, that if you want to play a proper initiation then you should pick tide, cent etc. an go blink.

He NEVER stated, that blink is better than lothars as an initiation item, he stated, that lothars is better on SLARK BECAUSE it provides slark with a lot more mobility and dynamic gameplay, he even made an example how slark players would bait stuns etc since slark KNOWS when he is detected, other heroes don't.

What havoc doesn't understand in his little brain is, that lothars is extremely situational and is NOT a proper initiation item like Blink or forcestaff. His last statement that lothars is better than blink in lategame is the biggest shit i've ever seen. If you are playing as slark and you didn't win by snowballing out of control, good players sell the lothars to replace it with something better.

To the whole 'map control' thing, that only works in low tier pubs. Usually people with invisibility get caught off quite fast and are losing games exacly because of that fact. If you want to gain map control you normally go around and put down wards with a gem/sentry, the good part about this is, that even if the support should die, it doesn't matter that much compared to when your core runs around with lothars and gets picked off.

Someones mind is shrinking I think.

I was gazing across the endless sea of garbage that is dotabuff and reddit looking for something of interest, because not many visit reddit I thought it would be helpful to some to read what zenoth and swiftending had to say on the matter and it remains relevant both due to the nature of the item and the fact that a good 60% of people main slark.

It was a decent read and well detailed and I thought I would share it, I am sorry you feel I misrepresented swiftending and I sure he would be more then please to have you as his vocal emissary "representing" him adequately.

I seem to remember my closing statement being something close to exactly "and though I don't hate the item I find it extremely situational." Thought it was a good read, sorry to have upset your far superior knowledge on the subject.

I agree, your mind is indeed shrinking.

^grab popcorn^

why am I not surprised to see blunt trashtalking in one of the few quality threads around

I had already read Zenoth's thread on reddit and had even posted there, and juice's text is really good (I love pretty much everything that guy writes about Dota, I usually tend to realize he said everything I felt but didn't manage to put together in my mind)

i get it for 150 bonus damage it's like dagon for carries
that and making enemies waste their money on dust and sentries of course

I use it cause +140 dmg and much more speed.

Badger try out a few games of Shadow Blade Axe, and let me know what's up, ok?
I think it has more use than an initiation tool on Slark because Darkpact purges off dust.

axe already has mana problems y would u pay more money to buy shadowblade and not get blink also after first invis call enemy will always get u before u come to them, not a smart idea.

its funny cuz nobody talks about getting both

My two cents

Both items offer great possibility of initiation, but SB falls off once the enemies start moving as four or five, cause then they will have some form of detection while they push. You can't start a team fight with SB, but then again if you are supposed to be an initiator you will get Dagger, right?
However, as an initiation tool for solo kills it is as amazing as Blink. So if you get it go search for pickoffs.

As escape tool blink is way better, cause if enemies want to gank a guy with WW they will bring detection.

A late SB can be game changing, allowing great initiation for one fight.

funny, i was under the impression nobody said anything about shadow blade being better than blink except at a specific task (pick offs)

nobody in this thread is dissing blink (which is the superior item for overall utility) but rather explaining why shadowblade is underutilized/underrated

look at that item build http://www.dotabuff.com/players/78410961/matches?date=&faction=&hero=drow-ranger&lobby_type=&game_mode=&region=&duration=
sb is solely for initiation (not literally but mostly)
it works -> http://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/drow-ranger/players

I think it depends on a hero.

As SF, I tend toget SB early (9 to 10 mins).

When I get naked SB/bottle/brown boots I go for pushing strat or fighting SF strat wheere I start to roam around the map and press their lanes, so we push again.

If I fall off quickly because of detection or my bad play, I tend to farm and push lanes with SB.

As SF, I can't initiate with SB most of the time for the reason "GG" already said.

They always got some kind of detection when they push together, and I can't position myself as SF that fast even if I have Tidehunter in my team.

So yeah, for example, for SF I think dagger is best option when it comes to positioning or team-fight pressense.

However, Slark just lovz SB in my opinion. And I think he uses it rly different from what SF does with SB.

There's much more creativity with SB-Slark, I think. And his invis can come in handy if you need to regen your HP fast, or if you just want to speed up and chase someone, or you hit someone with SB, pounce, dark pact, a little auto-attacks and if you don't kill him, you can escape anyway if needed with your ult..

Problem is, in my bracket, Slark players tend to trow all spells at one person, so it ends up useless.

^i thought i was fast doing it in 12 min :C

buh brow boots no aquila

12 mins is still fast enough if you ask me.

As SF you can have 70+ CS in 10 min easy.

And if you pick some kills here and there, outlane their midder and take tower..

You can have SB even earlier then 9 min.

Exmaple: (3.5k mmr match, high skill, scrub tier, I know)

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1133410271

I had like SB/PT/Aquila/Bottle in 12 min.