General DiscussionHow to sustain as Shadow Fiend?

it all went downhill when u said tranquil boots

oh dear

It was a question, not an opinion, and much less a recommendation.

the hero and the items you build are not the problem

its you

if you constantly run out of health its prob cuz u have bad positioning (aggroing creeps accidentally then tanking them, taking very unfavorable early fights, tanking neuts, etc)

mana is much more understandable for a beginning sf player but eith proper rune control and tread switching that shouldnt be a problem really...

^ pretty much that

hey i don't doubt that at all. Of course it is me as a problem, I was wondering if there was a way to help me get out of this bind. Thank you for the reply.

You go mask of madness because SF absolutely needs it to farm jungle and sustain. I prefer bloodstone for the mana regen which lets u use raze infinitely and spam it to push out lanes. It also makes you tank you because SF is really squishy and needs to stay alive in fights with raze spam. Euls is good for movement speed and u don't need to be tank u.

problem with low mmr players is that most of you (sometimes even me) tend to think that when faced with a problem you think that an item can fix it for you without thinking of the hero-item relationship

when i was 2k i see a lot of blademail drows/pa thinking that since theyre being targetted and starting to feed, a blademail can turn fights in their favor without thinking that their heroes barely have health to maximize the value, not to mention blademail gives crappy stats on a pa/drow. they didnt even think once that they couldve just fixed their positioning or know which fights to take. both option costs zero gold

take example, tranquil boots on sf. while on paper it will solve YOUR problem of having low health, what else does it give you? sf is a hero that constantly right clicks so the regen is already a non-factor, not to mention that u dont need the ms increase as well because u alr have great base ms

buy bloodstone, pipe and satanic.
you are welcome.

Blade mail is kinda good on SF. Ppl get scared when u blade mail ult and they won't dare to hit u.

For the longest time I used to skip bottle and go direct aquilla instead and never did I have problems with mana, you just raze when you have to, in fights and just 1 raze on neutrals only as to manage the mana effectively. In this meta you need lifesteal on sf. Try the aquilla dominator build for sustainability. If you don't go the shadow blade build and don't like the eul's build like me (i refuse to play that shit), then yasha is a core item. My old days build consisted on yasha into bkb (remember treads). Depending on the game, you go skady, crits, cuirrass or dagger blabla afterwards

@jacked
bloodstone is good on sf because its a snowball item and sf needs to snowball amirite? :))))

Benao feeding again. Poor 4ks

Benao would you recommend getting mom on SF? I feel like it's a core item pros often miss

build i did against 3/4ks and worked wonders was bottle - aquila - sb - dl - bot - hurricane - manta (coz enemy had silence or some sht)
u dont need lifesteal on sf tbh

thank you for all the insightful comments, and thank you for the nonsensical ones as well, because clearly asking for help here invites some degree of condescension. Well I suppose that cannot be helped since the average age of the community is rather on the lower end and well, they did not have the need to maintain a formal interaction with anyone due to them still being in school and such.

If it pleases you, please keep your arguments coming. It's a learning process and SF is for me a strange hero to learn since I have only focused on playing Invoker ever since I started playing dota. He has regen, disables and escapes. Something which I've taken for granted, but this, as you might have guessed by now, makes my SF nearly unplayable because he is sorely lacking in all of these departments.

idk but i think i can stack with domi on sf besides the sustain it gives

If you're going all in late-game a HoTD is worth the price
For mana bottle and tread switching is enough
If you're playing some kind of a deathball/ end fast strat, bottle, aquila, and dlance is fine, but make sure you position yourself well, mekansm is also okay if you're running this strat too

Buy bloodstone for the memes and mana regen

@Y
Stacking is not worth the mana imo
Your camp clearing ability costs shit ton of mana and you won't be stacking ancients since you're not sven or luna, not to mention the stacking magic resistance on stacked camps which lowers your efficiency

Madness is shit on sf since the nerf on it by buffing blademail. It was pretty core for me prior to that

GIT GUD

1-use bottle for early laning stage.. stay away from creeps agro (sf is squishy)..
2-aquila and dominator (with treads or travel boots)
3-u NEVER go a head, let another hero take hits for u
4-when go jungle, attack creep from max distance
5-NEVER TRY EULS OR MOM until u master sf, otherwise, u will barely feed

Buy raindrop+aquila+bottle and bottle crow/grab runes as necessary and you should have plenty of mana and hp sustain. Dominator sounds good but for 2k you really want an item with more impact.

Madness is shit on sf since the nerf on it by buffing blademail. It was pretty core for me prior to that

need he say more?