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Stout Shield
Tango
Healing Salve
Iron BranchIron Branch
Boots of Speed
Ring of Health
Power Treads
Blink Dagger
Magic Wand
Vanguard
Black King Bar
Assault Cuirass
Desolator
Heaven's Halberd
Heart of Tarrasque
Boots of Travel
Monkey King Bar
Daedalus
Eye of Skadi
Mjollnir
Satanic
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Hello im Tim, and this is my second guide on dotafire.
This time i will be making a guide on a hero i feel very comfortable on, 
Slardar.
The guides i make are very focussed on the very best way to build a certain hero in the vast majority of the situations, as well as the role they function the best in. Sure you can play them in a different way or role and succeed, and i do this myself too. But most of the time there is still a hero in the pool who would be much better at performing that specific role.
That is why in a guide i like to direct you to the most effective way to play heroes. Since after all, guides are there to learn from.
Slardar is a very agressive strength initiator and midgame or 'semi-carry'.
His main job is to initiate, bring a lot of mid- and decent lategame carry potential, as well as killing tanky targets faster by lowering their armor.
He doesnt AFK farm or deal as much consistent damage like conventional agility carries, instead he does a large amounts of phisical burst damage very early in the game thanks to his ultimate, relying on his AOE stun to catch enemies out and help your team kill them faster.
He scales decent into lategame and has pretty good agility growth. But his ultimate still gives a static amount of minus armor, and he doesnt have or build into attack speed to really take advantage of his bash.
Apart from raw damage he doest provide as much as lategame carries.
sprint
This skill will (surprise surprise) make you move faster, allowing you to chase enemies and get your stun off.
Be very careful when using this offensively though, as you will take 15% extra damage.
Note that it doesn't cost any mana to use this spell, but don't just use it in lane because any strong quick nuke like 
Void can bring you pretty low.
Slithereen Crush is a strong AOE stun with 2.5 seconds of stun at level 4. And a short 8 second cooldown at all levels.
This spell requires good positioning to catch multiple heroes with it, but if you do the effects can be devastating.
It also has good synergy with your ultimate, as it does physical damage. And as a result it gets stronger the more minus armor you apply to your opponents.
bash gives you a chance to bash your opponent for 1 second, but the most important factor is perhaps the bonus physical damage, as in combination with minus armor makes short work of any enemy with low HP or base armor.
amplify damage is your ultimate, and although it isnt a huge AOE spell, or even a big nuke or crit, the results can be really devastating.
Applying -10 armor is devastating early in the game, and with a short 10 second cooldown you can severely cripple your opponent's ability to jump in and fight. Add an ally who can output a lot of physical damage to the mix and you can win a lot of early fights simply by rightclicking an opponent a few times.
O yea, it also gives complete vision of an opponent! I'm onto you Riki!
Take Slithereen Crush at level 1 and max it as soon as possible, since it is your stun and the duration and damage increases.
At level 2 get sprint, so you can get next to your opponent to get your stun off.
Bash is not needed early, since it has a low chace to proc, and is very underwhelming with your low attack speed.
I usually get it at level 8, after i maxed crush and have 2 points in sprint.
Whether you max sprint or bash depends on the game, decide for yourself if you need more movespeed or not.
amplify damage is gotten whenever possible.
Start with a basic melee carry Stout Shield starting build.
You dont need 
Clarity's as a support with a ring of basillius will solve your mana issues, as Slithereen Crush costs little mana at lower levels.
If you are being conststed in lane or any harass like 
Ion Shell comes your way get a Ring of Health. Its regen will allow you to stay in lane exept against extreme amounts of harass.
Power Treads are the boots of choice, strength, attack speed, and extra mana if you treadswitch.
A Vanguard is not considered absolute core in my book, although it is a good item on slardar. Only finish the it by getting the 
Vitality Booster if you are being very agressive really early, for example diving towers.
My biggest problem is that it doesnt help you while you are farming towards your blink, and after getting blink i would rather get an 
Ogre Club to work towards my Black King Bar.
Magic Wand is an overall great item. Always consider it on slardar as it gives you more mana to spam your stun, as well as the burst heal.
Ahh Blink Dagger, the best item in the game. (Come at me.)
This is where most guides classify it as a situational item, which makes me sad. ;_;
I will always get this item, as it complements slardar's role and skillset. It also allows you to snowball much harder and as a result it will pay itself off if you are playing well and finding kills.
Just picture these situations.
A 
Rubick for example is checking the rune spot and you just got your Blink Dagger. You jump him, stun, and thanks to amplify damage he falls apart like wet paper.
Now picture the same situation without a blink, sees you spriting in and will lift you and run back to the mid tower.
An ally near you is being initiated upon, for example a 
Pudge. You can stop his 
Dismember or whatever he is doing instantly by using your Blink Dagger and Slithereen Crush, without the need to activate sprint causing you to take a lot of extra damage.
That is another one of the benefits of Blink Dagger you dont have to take all that extra damage from sprint when initiating.
Black King Bar is another great item that you sometimes really need to get. As a balls to the wall initiator you often need this item to get some followup damage in without getting disabled, or to just not melt to high amounts of magic damage.
Assault Cuirass is an amazing item and often seen on strengh carries. If you need to manfight an enemy hero this item is a great choice as it also makes you tankier, and gives you more minus armor. So it complements your hero great.
Desolator. Or you are kicking ***, you dont need much more tankyness and you just want to destroy all of the enemy's armor and 3 shot them? Then get desolator.
It is a bit of a snowball item though and will hurt you if the game drags out too long, as it will lose a lot of its effectiveness and will not allow you to lifesteal normally with an eventual satanic.
Heaven's Halberd is a great item that is sometimes overlooked. It gives you a lot of tankiness especially against rightclick becouse of the evasion, and the active allows you to lower the enemy's effectiveness even more.
Heart of Tarrasque has one main purpose, surviving massive damage in fights.
Only get it if you need to though, as it does very little apart from making you survive, and its effectiveness is often limited if you dont have a lot of armor.
Boots of Travel What, you cant carry a 
Town Portal Scroll anymore? Then get these boots you fool! YOU NEED TO TP.
Its also great at scaring splitpushers away or just killing them. You can run furion but you cant hide.
Monkey King Bar They are trying to evade your hard hits? What about nope? Great against evasion but also against blind. Kill that 
Riki under his own
Eye of Skadi Though this item is more of a Heart of Tarrasque replacement for non illusion based agility heroes the item still has a place on Slardar. Coupled with amplify damage it allows you to cripple an enemy carry even more by slowing is attack and move speed. Ofcourse it also helps your team catching up to fleeing enemies that only you can catch up to.
And its orb effect doesnt stop lifesteal like Desolator does.
Mjollnir After a few buffs this item is amazing. It improves your attack speed by a large amount so you will get a lot more bash proc's. But the best thing about it IMO is the static charge ability, which gives a change to hit four enemies with 200 magic damage. When you put this on a tanky hero it will do massive amounts of damage, it can easily do over 2000 damage if they try to kill you, and it hits so many people in such a large area.
It is vastly superior over blademail on a lot of heroes.
Daedalus You still dont have enough damage after that MKB? If you can afford it and are tanky enough, sure.
Satanic An item that will pretty much give you a second lifebar. Pop it when you are in danger and look at your massive health pool regenerate. It is a great item in general becouse the strength it gives and the normal lifesteal is also pretty damn high.
If you have both Satanic and Mjollnir the enemy supports HAVE to get the hell out of there, and even their carries have to watch out for that amount of overwhelming magic damage.
Whew, done, i think.
Making this guide took way too long, i even started this one before my blink guide.
I wasn't always satisfied with this guide but i finally finished and uploaded it!
Once again i hoped you liked and learned from this guide! Now onto the next one. =D
Timminatorr out!
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