Pro dota: Guide To Slark, The Murloc Nightcrawler

This was the 9th draft guide for Slark, and is the first to be published.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Story
3. Strengths And Weaknesses
4. The Stats
5. Epic Skills
6. Skill Build
7. Items
8. Play Style
9. The Friends And The Foes And The Counters
10. Replay
11. Final Words
12. Updates

-Introduction-

A glass cannon in the most basic terms, Slark is capable of dealing high amounts of damage, yet he can't take much damage either. Although his skills may seem overpowered, they are only so if they aren't countered properly. Not exactly an overpowered hero, but certainly is top tier compared to the other 96 heroes.

-Story-

In the deepest, blackest pits of the ocean a fearsome and terrifying creature lurks. Bending the shadows to his will, few have seen his true form and none have lived to speak of it. For the shadows are his sanctuary, a place of empowerment and revitalisation. Bathed in this inpenetrable darkness he strikes unseen, every attack making him swifter and more powerful whilst weakening his enemy. A unbreakable leash awaits all who try to escape, leaving them at mercy of this horrifying phantom. By sacrificing a fraction of his soul, his pact with darkness allows him break even the most powerful bonds and curses. With echoes of the Great War reaching every corner of the earth, this creature, known only as Slark, has emerged from the depths to search for an ancient relic...

-Strengths And Weaknesses-

Strengths

-Epic at taking on heroes 1v1
-Self purge
-Free fountain
-Mana isn't really that much of a problem
-Cool movespeed
-Decent escape properties
-Slight above average movespeed
-Your sight range is epic, even at night
-Has a suicide ability

Weaknesses

-Pathetic (worst) stat gain which means low health
-His invis is the easiest one to counter in the whole game (maybe besides Meld)
-Killing potential drops by alot without invis
-Needs a second slow or a teammate to help kill in most cases (starts with low damage cause of crap stat gain so how do you expect to leech enough damage to kill in that 3.5 seconds of disable)

-The Stats-

The Normal Stats

Strength: 21 + 1.0
Agility: 21 + 2.0
Intelligence: 16 + 1.6

The Advanced Stats

Affiliation: Neutral
Damage: 48-56
Armour: 1.94
Movespeed: 305
Attack range: 128
Attack animation: 0.5 / 0.3
Casting animation: 0.001 / 0.51
Base attack time: 1.7
Missile speed: Instant
Sight range: 1800 / 1800

-Epic Skills-

Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Instant
Ability hotkey: C
AOE: 350

Slark calls upon deities of the swamps to seal a dark pact. Sacrificing some of his lifeblood, Slark is redeemed of all negative effects. After 2 seconds, a dark wave of destruction emits from the Nightcrawler, dealing damage to all nearby enemies.

Your basic nuke. Mostly this skill won't be used much until you get your ultimate to counter its life draining effects, but once you get your ulti start spamming this to farm, kill, anything. Purge off irritating skills like Track and Amplify Damage cause they screw your ulti up. Do NOT purge off useful buffs like haste, DD, Bloodlust, Empower, good buffs.

Apparently you can suicide with it as well, you just need to turn ethereal.

Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Instant
Ability hotkey: E
AOE: 110

Surges directly forward and latches on to the first enemy he hits, binding it with chains of darkness. The enemy is unable to move more than 325 distance away from the point of impact for 3.5 seconds.

Your first choice for keeping enemies in places that they should not be at while you chip away at their stats. Think of this skill like Pudge's hook and PotM's leap. You leap a set distance to a target location. If you meet any foe along the way, you stop and the disable comes into place. Doubles up as a escape tool as well.

Ability type: Passive
Targeting type: N/A
Ability hotkey: N

Reciting ancient Nightcrawler incantations, Slark enchants his blade to steal the power and courage from his enemies. Every time Slark hits an enemy hero, he steals 1 point from all attributes and 1 additional from the main attribute of that enemy hero while Slark gains 4 points of Agility.

One of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, passives in the game. This skill would be overpowered if it weren't for the fact that Slark has an abnormally low stat gain, but there you go. An epic skill to balance his retarded stat growth. With this skill you take away opponent's damage, their health, mana and in return you get more damage and attack speed to hasten their deaths.

Ability type: Active
Targeting type: Instant
Ability hotkey: D

Covers himself with a dark smoke, he becomes invisible and does not reveal himself while attacking or casting spells for 5.5 seconds. Passively increases Nightcrawler's movement speed and regeneration when he is out of sight of hostile units. Has a 0.7 delay when activated or deactivated.

2 sides to this skill, the passive and the active. The passive grants fountain regen and extremely high movespeed while out of sight, while the active grants permanent invis for 5.5 seconds, though a small cloud could be seen hovering over the location you are at. This skill helps killing greatly, especially if your opponents do not have wards, dust or a gem. They can't hit you back (unless they use AOE spells) while you keep on stealing their stats. Extremely good skill for killing NCs too, as the regen will help you permanently stay in the jungle.

-Skill Build-

1. Pounce
2. Dark Pact
3. Dark Pact
4. Essence Shift
5. Dark Pact
6. Shadow Dance
7. Dark Pact
8-10. Pounce
11. Shadow Dance
12-14. Essence Shift
15. Stats
16. Shadow Dance
17-25. Stats

Dark Pact: Max nukes first, no matter what, because they lose effectiveness over time.

Pounce: 1 level of Pounce is taken early to avoid getting owned by dual stuns looking for first blood. Also could be used for netting a first blood with a friendly disabler. Since the disabling duration does not scale with more levels, 1 level is enough early game.

Essence Shift: 1 level of it is enough earlier on for the stat stealing ability, as more levels merely increases its duration, and it isn't time when there are 30 second team fights that require you to keep the stats that you stole. Keeping it for 15 seconds is enough early game.

Shadow Dance: Add it whenever you can. After all, gives more regen and movespeed, so what's not good about that?

-Items-

Items to Go For

Important for all late game carries in order to help farming and killing.

Need some cheap survivability? Get this.

The boots

Treads definitely. Helps your low health and gives more attack speed to steal more stats. Later on when attack speed and survivability aren't so much of an issue, get Travels.

The orbs

My personal favourite. Diffusal provides a second reliable slow after Pounce has finished. Gives a lot more damage as well, rapes target's mana (feedback and INT stats stolen), and to some extent solves mana issues. Keep in mind though if you get Diffy be prepared to play very carefully with what little vitality you have.

I suppose it is viable to increase your movespeed to 522, though the slow would not be as reliable as Diffusal. Solves health problems as well.

I would recommend getting MoM only in pubs where they don't bother buying wards and dust, because you are completely relying on your invis to protect yourself. One dust on you and with your low health and extra damage taken, good luck. Nevertheless, helps you steal stats extremely fast, and the movespeed bonus helps chasing while you are visible after your invis runs out.

Takes care of all your retarded stat problems and provides a nice slow. Expensive as hell though, so unless you are farming really well you might as well get the other orbs.

Other items

Generic for all DPS AGI carries.

Being a torchlight while you are under your cloud works too.

In case you are about to die the health bonus helps, and burst damage while you whack away at them. 4% health regen more than counters for the negative effects.

Could work as a third disable if you still haven't killed your target.

Important when facing lots of disables. You don't want to get raped in 3 seconds.

For more stat stealing and as a fourth disable, hex helps nicely. After this one disable of yours should have CD already and you can continue hitting. Only for the extremely hardcore killers.

Much more needed now than in 6.65 for a good reason. Your targets can TP out of Pounce, and you have nothing to stop TP, unless you have a Basher, or this. True Strike comes in handy as well against evasion heroes.

You can suicide while ethereal and you are at a very low health, so buying this may be a good investment to deny others from getting gold and experience.

Rejected items

At the top of the list comes Bfury once again. Slark is specifically meant to go 1v1 head on, not to AOE kill.

Not good on Slark, because you start out with dumb stats, and if you use Manta after the battle when everyone is dead, it is about useless already because, everyone is dead. Unless you intend to go pushing after team clearing, don't get Manta.

-Play Style-

Choosing your lane

Go with a babysitter because like all other late game carries Slark has virtually no way of controlling the lane, until he reaches level 6. Unless you are feeling really confident that you are going to be up against some other late gamer with lane control capabilities more retarded than your own, don't solo.

Pick the long lane for tower protection, and to pull in case you push too far.

Early Game (1-11)

Last hit as much as you can early game. Let your lane partner deny all the other creeps. If possible, you can also get kills if your partner has a disable. If
you are pushing too far, pull the creeps.

To kill:

1) Press C (Dark Pact activated).
2) Ask teammate to stun (may be step 1 also).
3) Walks towards victim.
4) Whack once or twice, depending on how long the stun is.
5) Press E (Pounce), and don't miss.
6) Continue whacking.
7) If you aren't too far from opponent's tower, and you are confident that Dark Pact will CD in time, walk alongside your victim and Dark Pact to finish him off.
8) Still haven't killed him? Run back and continue farming.

Mid Game (11-16)

At mid game, hopefully you got a good farm and decent items. Now it's time to start going killing. If no target is present, continue farming. Don't waste 20 minutes running around the map looking for stuff to kill only to find out late game has arrived and you are seriously underleveled.

Assuming you bought Diffusal like my clever self...

To kill (for noobs):

1) Press D (Shadow Dance activated).
2) Right click target.
3) Press C (Dark Pact activated)
4) Purge target and whack.
5) Purge running out? Pounce. Continue whacking.
6) If you still haven't killed him yet, you can try waiting for one of your disables to finish CD and continue killing.

To kill (for pros):

Same thing actually, except that you use Pounce first instead of purge. Sometimes your victim will juke your Pounce, so unless you are sure that your Pounce will land, purge first, because after purge following up with Pounce is effortless. But, if you manage to kill within the 3.5 seconds, you save a charge on purge.

Another role in the team that you may be able to do would be to anti-scout for your team. With your ulti, you know perfectly well when you can be seen. Hence, things like Eyes in the Forest, Urna Swarm, Observer Wards or an opponent invis hero stalking you would all be revealed to you. Destroy these scouts.

Late Game (16-25)

Hopefully you racked up lots of kills. Now your carry potential starts to shine, as long as you have enough health to stay on the field to dish out the damage. Always be the last to enter the field after all the disables are used, so you don't get raped so fast.

-The Friends And The Foes And The Counters-

Friends

Mainly, disablers would be your friend, so as to set up your own disable (Pounce).

Heroes that have a stun that confirm hit would be better over other heroes that do not possess them.

Don't rely on him too much if you want to suicide with Dark Pact, but there are times when you might be running from somebody and you need to suicide.

Foes

Anyone that keeps perma sight on you just screws your ulti up.

And with your low health, the same chain nukers will rape over and over again.

Doom now cancels out Shadow Dance passive, which could be used to run away and HP regen saves you last time. Avoid this guy if he has Doom.

Blinking out of Pounce. Luckily Pounce does damage so it disables Dagger before the Dagger users can blink away.

Your invis is the only thing that keeps you alive. Lose it, and your chances of killing and survivability drop drastically.

Counters

In theory, TA would be very easily countered by Slark. Dark Pact takes away Meld debuff and all the charges of Refraction that is protecting TA. Traps as scouting tools can be easily found by your ulti. Though your low HP makes you easy prey for TA, this fight is definitely in your favour.