Hero Discussion: Slark

Hello all! There's a lot of discussion about non-DotA related stuff today, so I thought I should start another discussion.

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Slark is notoriously known to be a pub-stomper, but how viable is he?

I've been testing him out in some bot games and it's going pretty well! (Well, bots think that you can dust Shadow Dance, so maybe that's not a good comparison).

Starting items: Stout Shield, Slippers of Agility, Tango, Healing Salve
Lane: Poor Man's Shield, Boots of Speed, Orb of Venom, Tango
Early: Bottle, Shadow Blade
Mid-game: Black King Bar, Silver Edge, Eye of Skadi
Late: Abyssal Blade, Butterfly/ Monkey King Bar

Skill build: 1-4-1-1 by 7, 4-4-1-2 by 11.

Do you think it's worth it to buy Drums/Aquila before Shadow Blade? It delays the Sb by a lot, but maybe it's worth?

I've played quite a lot of Slark lately, and found that Silver Edge+Skadi is enough to demolish most heroes mid-game.

Some credit here definitely goes to Silver Edge here instead of Slark himself, since the ability to disable passives allows you to basically go 1v1 against scary manfighters like Void, PA, Ursa (potentially even Troll). Combine that with Essence Shift, and you have a potent 1v1 fighter that can snowball mid-teamfight if he gets to land enough hits.

Best part imo is that even if things go awry, all of his active skills can be used as an escape mechanic, along with your potential Shadow Blade/Silver Edge if you can avoid getting dusted (speaking of which, if the enemy pops it prematurely, you can always Dark Pact it off then go invis).

Speaking of Aquila, tbh I'm on the edge about it too. Mostly, in games where I'll be fighting early and need the little extra dmg and mana regen ASAP, I complete my Aquila first. In games where there is some free farm potential, rushing Silver Edge/Skadi works out for me.

^^ No BKB and gets solo-killed by CM :)

But yeah, don't others find him to have slight mana problems? That's why I build a bottle, since you're roaming around killing heroes and can stop to get runes.

His mana is bad early/mid game. I always get Aquila on him just to help with it in laming phase.

Also, I can understand maxing pounce first sometimes, but as a general rule? I almost always max dark pact first, since it's more flexible(ex, you can use dark pact to jungle)

I'm also a big fan of SnY on him. A BIG fan.

I know, I used to love SnY on him. It's just... it delays your SB, Slark already moves fast, and he already has the Sange part in the Silver Edge.

tl;dr: Silver Edge kinda makes SnY not as good.

He's not a good hero in pro-games right now. Or at least not as good as people keep thinking he is.

He's not that strong a laner, and he has this period of downtime that you can't really afford. Like, you usually want to go Midas into Treads RoA -> Blink Dagger/ Shadow Blade and start getting pick-off after pick-off and apply pressure everywhere, duck in and out of fights, and then just start tanking up to you can amase like 30 stacks of Essence Shift stacks and win.

But the problem is... it's so hard to get that nice start now. You get stronger offlanes now that contest the safe lane farm more, you get more early pressure and early fighting, and generally you need to be able to get farm quickly, and fight early. And Slark doesn't want to fight early, he wants to get pick-offs. So he just gets punished for his down period, or can't get pick-offs, and thus never hits his relevent period.

As for item builds;
After what I said above usually it's BKB or Skadi, then into like Basher Abyssal. Everything after that is situational.

Skill Build;
I think maxing Pounce is the best build. Sure, you can't farm quite as fast as if you maxxed Dark Pact, and it's seemingly a great value point, but I think the cooldown reduction is worth more early on than anything you gain from maxing the other skills first.

So... Max Pounce or Dark Pact? We have different opinions here...

Yeah, I realized. The hardest part of Slark is getting to level 6, the second hardest is getting to Shadow Blade. Then things start to get a lot easier.

As an avid slark spammer and with great success I would suggest always maxing Dark Pact over Pounce first as Dark Pact is more damage at a lower cooldown with the Pounce duration doesn't change, Dark Pact also allows you to farm jungle and flash farm. Maxing Pounce for the lower cooldown is almost always not worth it unless you're playing something like solo offlane slark or a roaming slark with Boots of Speed Orb of Venom first items.

Normally I would get Pounce at level 1 and skill Essence Shift at level 2 so that I can harass and trade blows with the enemy offlaner, Essence Shift makes trading against slark very difficult.

I think you should get drums only if you're going blink and not shadowblade.
Also, i think you should get more levels in the dark pact, something like this

2-3-1-1

My opinion on Slark is that, he's better played as a roaming core, rather than a farming carry.. Probably a position 2 or 3, rather than 1. The reason for this is that, much like a Clinkz, Slark's potential to gank during the mid game is super high once he has a Shadow Blade/ Blink Dagger. I usually max Dark Pact and Pounce before a point in Essence Shift.

To me, Slark would be best suited in a dual lane with a strong support like an Undying. Once he grabs his Shadow Blade, run around the map and setup kills all the time. Try to snowball, and late game, you can have a strong presence in teamfights.

This might be a good solution to Slark in the pro scene.