The Anti-Guide to: Drow Ranger

Chapter Title

This is the first of a series of guides I am creating called the Anti-Guides. Unlike other guides, these ones are created specifically to counter the hero it's talking about.

I picked Drow Ranger first mostly because playing against her with noobs on your team is probably on the same level of drowning yourself in the toilet of a truck-stop bathroom. She is the master of right-clicks, queen of ridiculously overpowered orb-attacks, and is matched with an unparalleled ability to screw you and your team with enough levels.

So, without further whatever, here is the Anti Guide to Drow Ranger.

Pros / Cons

The first step to beating any hero is knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Drow is a beast; so much of a beast that she has been taken out of captains mode for fear of her beastliness. Despite this, she is not invincible. Until she gets Daedalus, then you're absolutely screwed and should get used to the sound of GG being typed on the keyboard.

Anyways, here are the pros and cons of Drow Ranger

Pros

• Her skills will allow her to buff all of her team's right-clickers
• Her orb attack, Frost Arrows, has what is widely known as the most OP effect of all time
• She gains 40 agility by level 16, doubled if no-one is close to her

Cons

• Kinda squishy, but not really
• She's easier to kill early game than she is late game, at least a little

Yea, she doesn't really have a lot of Cons. Only Pros.... I hate to imagine how many developers she slept with in order to remain in the game....

Skills

Here is an overview of her skills in detail, including examples of how they will utterly destroy you in so many different ways.

Frost Arrows
Frost Arrows are Drow's main ***-kicking ability, which the gods of Dota 2 (Valve) found so irrevocably broken that they decided to kick her out of Captains mode. Well, among other reasons.

Anyways, Frost Arrows allow Drow to buff her auto-attacks to slow foolish mortals and people she doesn't like by a ridiculous 60% at it's highest level. Good luck running away from that, and enjoy your time looking at the respawn timer.

Silence
All you people playing Mirana, Weaver, Anti-Mage, Dark Seer, and all you other fools who think you can just hit the W key and run off like nothing happened, think again and weep. Drow happens to have the ONE OF THE LONGEST SILENCES IN THE GAME, at it's max level. It's more than enough time for her to right-click the **** out of you.

Trueshot Aura
So you think you're safe on the other side of the map, ganking some guy playing a solo pushing Wisp? WRONG, Drow comes out of nowhere and kicks your *** back to the stone age. True story. If this doesn't happen, which is only about 1% of the time, then Wisp right-clicks you and unleashes the devastation that is 45 BONUS DAMAGE thanks to Drow.

If she is level 16, has Butterfly, and is gaining the max 80 agility from her ult. It's not as rare of a thing as it sounds.

Marksmanship

Remember that ultimate I was talking about last sentence ago? Yea, where I mentioned the +80 bonus agility? Well, it's important to remember that, like a rich guy (or girl, don't think I was gonna fall for that trap), Drow is not happy enough with her Lamborghini and Ferrari and Chevy Volt, no, she needs a gold-plated swimming pool underneath a shark-tank ceiling.

If you don't get the metaphor, what I mean is that Drow isn't just happy to gank, slow, and slaughter you, no, she needs an extra 80 damage from the gold-plated shark-tank swimming pool that is her Ultimate.

Oh, yea, almost forgot to mention, the bonus is cut in half if you get within 400 units of Drow, but if she lets you get that close, you are either lucky, or she is a noob, or you are someone from Purge gaming or something and you should be playing bloody competitively you mad bastard.

Countering: Overview

Drow is an incredibly OP character, make no mistake, but she can be stopped. In order to do so, you will need skill, luck, and players who don't let her get fat to the point of looking like a guy (girl) who has eaten McDonald every day for the past 25 years. Drow's main threat is psychological in the early game. Her auto-attacks are low on damage and her natural ability gain is as slow as a snail riding on a worm who just ate a sleeping pill, if you catch my drift. If you can shut her down early to mid game, you are two things; a BOSS, savior of men and women everywhere, and second, you have taken her out of the game if you do it correctly.

What follows is a list of things you need to do in order to outlane, outsmart, and outmatch the epic overpoweredness of Drow. Good Luck.

Countering Throughout the Phases

Hey just a heads up, by all accounts I'm still a noob. Don't hate if I mess up some of the phases.

Phase One: Laning

Laning against Drow on the opposite team is akin to playing Russian Roulette and you're not really sure if your buddy put only one round in the chamber. In fact, you have a sneaking suspicion that he loaded the gun completely. Either way, it's your turn first and you can't win without putting the gun in your mouth. And by that I mean try to last-hit a creep. Yes, Drow makes laning feel like having your eyelashes plucked one by one and then someone sticks a fork in your eye.

But I digress; to lane against Drow, you need to be more careful than that paranoid guy who lives on the corner of the street and always keeps his shutters closed, peeking out every now and then to last hit a creep or deny one. Stay AWAY from Drow, especially if you are squishy. Don't wander too far from your tower either. It may not look too far, but Drow's slow will make short work of you.

Pick someone who is a strong laner; Dark Seer with his Ion Shell, Bane with his disables, or Windrunner with her nukes all work nicely. If you can outlane Drow, she will be at a serious disadvantage throughout the rest of the game.

Phase Two: Ganking

Ganking is where Drow makes her monay and xp. You won't see her coming and once she silences you, it's pretty much over. If you are with noobs, tell them to gtf back to their towers if they don't have at least two other players with them. Keep wards up at AAAALLLLLL TTTTIIIIMMMMEEEESSSS. If the support whines about it, tell them to make you a samich like a good little support. Or get wards or whatever. The point is, you need to see Drow coming before she gets to you. If you get out-ganked by Drow, the game is over, GG, bedtime.

Just never go alone, even to push. Always have backup, and if you can counter-gank her then go for it, just be careful. With her AOE silence, it's easy enough for her to turn a fight around in her favor.

A note, by now she probably has Shadow Blade, which means that she will start to kick *** in ways that should not be physically possible. Get Wards, dust, gem, necronomicon, whatever, just make sure you can see her when she goes invisible.

Phase Three: Pushing

Pushing with Drow around is generally a painful experience. As stated above, never, never, NEVER go alone. Push lanes as a team, stick together as a group, and right-click the **** out of Drow the second you see her. Depending on how well you did in the previous phases, Drow will be either a total pushover, or a god-stomping force of nature. Drow is NOT a good pusher, and by herself she is incredibly squishy (kinda anyways), so keep this in mind and gank her whenever she tries to solo-push a lane.