[Drow Ranger] Most Concise Drow Ranger Alt-Tab Guide

[Melderv]

Most Concise Drow Ranger Alt-Tab Guide

The fourth of the longest alt-tab guides in existence.
by Melderv

Strategy Forums Version | Published Guides Version

Latest Changes:

• April 22, 2012 - Updated to 6.74c.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Foreword
2. Introduction
3. Playstyle
4. Drow Ranger's Skills
5. Skill Build
6. Item Builds
7. General Strategy
8. Counters
9. Miscellaneous
10. Conclusion
11. Replays
12. Credits
13. Changelog

I. FOREWORD

This guide was written by an 18-year old Filipino whose native language is not English. Comments? Debates? Suggestions? Share you Drow Ranger knowledge in the comments section on the right!

Traxex, the Drow Ranger is my first DotA Hero ever, and she is not a hard Hero at all. Most of you will probably look this guide up as a reference, as there are few advanced skills required to play Drow Ranger.

Since my first version was 6.49b, I was totally confused as to why her Ultimate was changed, and even got the impression DotA Heroes changed that fast (but was wrong).

Now, why make a guide about this simplistic Hero? I mean, no complexities are even involved, and she completely goes off-track compared to your recent guides. The answer is: I just like Drow Ranger in general, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you about her.

Enjoy reading this guide to Drow Ranger! This is aimed at both beginning and experienced players!

History: This is Traxex's history in a table starting from 6.70.

6.70-6.71b	No changes.
6.72	Restored Drow Ranger's night vision from 800 to 1800.
6.72b-6.72f	No changes.
6.73	Base Agility increased by 4.
6.73b-6.73c	No changes.
6.74	Silence AoE increased from 275 to 300.
6.74b-74c	No changes.

▲Top

II. INTRODUCTION

Here we explain my perspective about Drow Ranger.

I play Drow Ranger rather sparingly nowadays, because I find it hard to farm effectively with her and to participate in clashes compared to other carries. However, it doesn't require a very skilled player to make her strong, and so we this guide is for teaching others how to make the most of that strength, how to add a little more, and to clear up a few things about her.

Here are Drow Ranger's major points:

Map Awareness: Drow Ranger is a hard carry. Hard carries function best at late game, and to keep them at bay, they are often the target of early ganks because of being fragile and weak. Good map awareness is required to keep an eye on every important thing happening all around the map, because Drow Ranger is susceptible to a large amount of death threats.

Attributes: Drow Ranger's gains are average, but she makes up for it with Marksmanship. Like I said earlier, Marksmanship gives her a significant boost each time she levels it up, so getting it is key to overpowering your enemies even with little items. Her attack range is one of the farthest (625) and movement speed is average. Her Armor is average as well as her base damage. She also have full night vision, compared to other Heroes (1800 instead of 800).

Keep in mind, I'm not trying to be redundant with the word average, it just is the word I use to gauge strength. Others are: poor, below average, above average, excellent.

Items: Drow Ranger is item dependent. She is not overly item dependent, but she cannot survive without items. She is an average item dependent carry. Unlike Soul Keeper, who cannot live without items, she manages to retain part of her power using Marksmanship, a quality unique to this Hero.

Gold and EXP: Drow Ranger does not farm easily. She has no AoE spell to clear creeps, nor does she have any burst damage skill (like Dwarven Sniper's Assassinate) or a map control skill (like Spectre's Haunt). Take note that I can only compare her to other hard carries. She relies solely on your last hitting skills and attack damage to hastily kill creeps/waves.

Skills: Her Frost Arrows is considered one of the best slows. She also has one of the longest silences, as well as being AoE. She has a mediocre aura, and a "steroid" Ultimate. All lead to her being a carry that can usually gank (with her slow and night vision) and counter spellcasters (with her Silence).

Here are a few reasons why to pick Drow Ranger for your games:

• Farming Skill: You can keep on farming for a set period without going off-track. This is very important. The key words are "set period" and "off-track", the two weaknesses of most players who carry. Some players tend to overfarm, so to speak. All that they do is farm the entire game without contributing much to the team. That's bad. The other thing is not farming enough. They are easily distracted by the urge to kill or gank, and do not have the proper mindset to farm.
  
• Raw Power: You like Heroes that boast great strength. Drow Ranger will often be on the limelight for being exceptionally strong. They know you can be that strong, but still, she will hurt a lot and her presence will make a difference.
  
• Gamebreaking: You like Heroes that make a difference. One of her abilities that do that is Silence. A 6-second silence for the team is, simply, gamebreaking. This is one of the skills that matter.

▲Top

III. PLAYSTYLE

Hard Carry: A hard carry needs to farm for, again, a set period of time without going off-track. Set an amount of time and dedicate that time to farming. Looking for open lanes, killing neutrals as you move, avoiding ganks, and participating in won battles are key to giving you the farm you need. But do not overfarm. Once you reach your core, stop being dedicated to farming and participate in team fights.

NOTE: Do not choose Drow Ranger if you have two (or even just one) allied Heroes competing for your farming. All of you will fail.

Ganker: Part of Drow Ranger's presence can be devoted to ganking. Why let an amazing slow go to waste? Why not use her Silence? These are questions I ask newer players, and they can only answer with "damage". Well, not everything must be about damage, my friends.

▲Top

IV. DROW RANGER'S SKILLS

• Hero Summary
• Skill Pictures

Traxex
Drow Ranger

Background Story: Traxex was a skilled archer in her oppressive underground homeland, the Underdark, until she grew sick of her kin's evil ways and fled to the surface world. As a part of her resolution, she joined the Sentinel, bringing her excellent marksmanship to the fray. Some of her abilities include stripping magical beings of their voices, and enchanting her arrows with an icy cold. While such powers are valuable, her true origin will never cease to linger around in the judging eyes of others.

Custom Story: You feel nothing when you are hit. A cold so chilling embraces each arrow of the Drow Ranger, numbing your senses to a sheer halt. Magic is frozen as the voice from your throat dwindles to nothing. Help is but a scream away, but none will hear you. You are merely a target of this ranger's unparalleled marksmanship; each arrow shoots true and as bitter as the freezing cold. You feel nothing when you die.

Just wanted to sneak it in. /ninja

Strength - 17 + [1.9]
Agility - 26 + [1.9]
Intelligence - 15 + [1.4]

Affiliation:	Sentinel
Damage:	40-51
Armor:	2.1
Movespeed:	300
Attack Range:	625

Frost Arrows - (Active, Unit, Enemies)

____________________

Induces a freezing effect to the Hero's attacks. Each attack slows the enemy's movement and attack rates. Does not affect magic immune units.

__	____.	________.	_______.	___.	_______.	__________________________.
	Mana	Cooldown	C. Range	AoE	Duration	Effects
1	12	0	625	N/A	1.5/7	Slows attack speed by 5% and movement speed by 10%.
2	12	0	625	N/A	1.5/7	Slows attack speed by 10% and movement speed by 20%.
3	12	0	625	N/A	1.5/7	Slows attack speed by 15% and movement speed by 30%.
4	12	0	625	N/A	1.5/7	Slows attack speed by 20% and movement speed by 40%.

Notes:

• This skill does not stack, but is prolonged on successive casts.
• The first duration is on Heroes, and the second is on creeps.
• This skill is an Orb Effect as well as a Buff Placer.
• This skill does not work on magic immune units.

Silence - (Active, Area, Enemies)

____________________

Stops all enemies in a target area from casting spells. Casting range of 900, AoE of 275, and cooldown of 15 seconds.

__	____.	________.	_______.	___.	_______.	__________________________.
	Mana	Cooldown	C. Range	AoE	Duration	Effects
1	90	15	900	300	3	Enemies affected cannot cast spells.
2	90	15	900	300	4	Enemies affected cannot cast spells.
3	90	15	900	300	5	Enemies affected cannot cast spells.
4	90	15	900	300	6	Enemies affected cannot cast spells.

Notes:

• This skill does not include items and their active abilities.
• This skill disables Permanent Invisibility.
• The skill does not work on magic immune units.

Trueshot Aura - (Passive, Allied Ranged Units)

____________________

An aura that gives friendly nearby units bonus damage to their ranged attacks. Increases base ranged damage by a percentage. Does not stack with auras of the same base.

__	____.	________.	_______.	___.	_______.	__________________________.
	Mana	Cooldown	C. Range	AoE	Duration	Effects
1	N/A	N/A	N/A	900	N/A	Increases base ranged damage by 7%.
2	N/A	N/A	N/A	900	N/A	Increases base ranged damage by 14%.
3	N/A	N/A	N/A	900	N/A	Increases base ranged damage by 21%.
4	N/A	N/A	N/A	900	N/A	Increases base ranged damage by 28%.

Notes:

• Aura bonuses consider only unit base damage + primary attribute increases (not raw damage items).
• This skill does not stack with Lunar Blessing, but does stack with Command Aura.

Marksmanship - (Passive, Self)

____________________

The Drow Ranger's accuracy has increased. The skill adds 15 Agility directly to the Drow Ranger per level.

__	____.	________.	_______.	___.	_______.	__________________________.
	Mana	Cooldown	C. Range	AoE	Duration	Effects
1	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Adds 15 Agility.
2	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Adds 30 Agility.
3	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Adds 45 Agility.

Notes:

• One of the coolest looking icons in my opinion.

Skill Pictures

Coming soon!

▲Top

V. SKILL BUILD

• Standard
• Aura Drow
• HotD Build

1. Silence
2. Frost Arrows
3. Frost Arrows
4. Stats
5. Frost Arrows
6. Marksmanship
7. Frost Arrows
8. Silence
9. Silence
10. Silence
11. Marksmanship
12. Trueshot Aura
13. Trueshot Aura
14. Trueshot Aura
15. Trueshot Aura
16. Marksmanship

1. Silence
2. Frost Arrows
3. Frost Arrows
4. Trueshot Aura
5. Frost Arrows
6. Marksmanship
7. Frost Arrows
8. Trueshot Aura
9. Trueshot Aura
10. Trueshot Aura
11. Marksmanship
12. Silence
13. Silence
14. Silence
15. Stats
16. Marksmanship

1. Silence
2. Trueshot Aura
3. Trueshot Aura
4. Frost Arrows
5. Trueshot Aura
6. Marksmanship
7. Trueshot Aura
8. Silence
9. Silence
10. Silence
11. Marksmanship
12. Frost Arrows/Stats
13. Frost Arrows/Stats
14. Frost Arrows/Stats
15. Stats/Frost Arrows
16. Marksmanship

Justification (Standard): Silence is the skill that will keep drow rapists at bay during those annoyingly expected tri-lane first blood attempts. I always take it as my first skill, but only because a 10% movement speed slow for one person is not going to make any difference. It's like Venomancer's Poison Attack. Ahh, so now you remember how shitbrix the slow is by itself.

What happens next is we completely forget about it until we reach Level 8, where we can prolong the duration of the silence during those vital team fights. Nifty.

Frost Arrows is taken second but maxed out first. This is one helluva slow considering not all people feel the need to buy a Boots of Speed when everybody's Level 7 but you do, and well, a 40% movement slow (not implying that we are ignoring the 20% attack speed slow) and chasing becomes much more efficient. Not only are you going to force them to at least consider buying BoS when they can't escape from you and your supposed lane partner, but... okay, that's pretty much all you're doing.

I'll discuss Orb Walking with this skill later on in General Strategy. Just remember that Frost Arrows overrides every other orb you give Drow Ranger. Which means that you do not slow when you add Lifesteal. I'll be talking about this also on General Strategy.

Trueshot Aura is taken at Level 12 when you can actually feel the difference between an aura-infused drow-arrow and an arrow. This is because you just leveled Marksmanship twice and it bordering on late game now, where percentage-based damage buffers begin to make their presence known.

Marksmanship gives you the biggest boost in AGI in the game from just one skill. It makes no sense not to take it. You'll particularly feel it the most during Level 6, when you have piss-poor AGI at the beginning.

Keep in mind, 1 point of AGI gives Drow Ranger: +1 attack speed, +1 damage, and 0.14 Armor. 7 points of AGI gives her a full 1 point of Armor.

Stats is taken at Level 4. OMGWTFBBQ? Let's see, you might underestimate the power of a level of Stats. Consider which skills you might want to take at the time. Level 2 Silence, for four seconds? The basic core of Silence is working at Level 1, no thanks. Level 1 Trueshot Aura? Nope, this skill's going to be leveled too far off. Level 3 Frost Arrows? You can't level this skill at Level 4! Stats it is!

Justification (Aura Drow Build): The main difference is the presence of Trueshot Aura early over Silence, to the point that we substitute Stats for it at Level 4.

You will only follow this build, and its variations, when there is not much threat coming from spellcasters, and you are the only carry they are relying on. This is highly unlikely in an organized game. Why? The enemy will always prioritize early gamers over late carries. Also, the skill build relies on your farming skills so bad, that you must have some tier item by the end of Level 11 just to make use of this build.

Take it at your own risk and pleasure.

Justification (HotD Build): Trueshot Aura is taken after one safety level of Silence. It is your main damage source early on. The idea is to forget much of Frost Arrows and focus on a much more damage-oriented Drow Ranger. This gives up most of your chasing capabilities in favor for more damage. This is the Ultimate carry build.

Frost Arrows is taken at Level 4 to orb-walk. That's pretty much it. If necessary, you can take it again to max it at Level 12 and beyond, but as you can see, it is easily replaced by Stats instead.

Silence is taken at Level 1, as stated before, and maxed out by Level 10 to ensure clash functionality and no retaliation from spellcasters when you need it.

Stats may be taken starting from Level 12 as a single point or as continuous points throughout the later levels. If you took it as a single point at 12, you will max out Frost Arrows at Level 15.

▲Top

VI. ITEM BUILDS

• Standard
• Build Progression #1
• Which Boots?
• HotD Build
• Build Progression #2
• Extensions
• Utility Items
• Luxury Items

Standard

Justification: Power Treads is the main item for Drow Ranger over all the Boots (more on this later). The biggest reason is the additional STR and the attack speed early on. She can also switch to AGI when farming, and if lacking a little mana, to INT to cast that vital Silence. No other Boots would provide this benefits in one go. As usual, other Boots are discussed in the "Which Boots?" tab. Don't keep it on AGI all the time.

Lothar's Edge is your main escape mechanism and ganking mechanism. Yes, it is easily countered by True Sight, which I assume organized games would have. However, you have no innate escape mechanisms in you and there are no other items that would give what she wants in one buying: additional damage and escape mechanism. Yes, the raw damage from this item is not manipulated by Trueshot Aura, but the item still holds as one of her core items.

Wraith Bands gives Drow Ranger an early boost on AGI and damage. The most you should get in one game is two. Never go beyond that amount. Why? It would delay your build, and you would not have enough space in your inventory for a life-saving Scroll of Town Portal.

Magic Wand, although sometimes it would delay, should be your survival item throughout the game. You even build it first (see Build Progression). While you'll be unlikely to be participating in many team clashes, you're not likely to use the charges either because of your low manacost spells (12 for Frost Arrows; 90 for Silence). The idea is to store the charges until you reach the maximum and keep them with you in the event that you're ganked to save your life if necessary.

Scroll of Town Portal should be with you at all times. Remember to visit the side shops when you can if you didn't have enough money to buy it from your base.

Build Progression #1




(Magic Wand recipe, not a Scroll of Town Portal)

TO





TO




TO





TO

Which Boots?



VS

Here we see how I justify Power Treads over the other types.

Boots of Travel is only gotten on very long games (60 minutes upwards). You don't have a wave-clearing skill to make use of this to farm efficiently (unlike other Heroes such as Tinker, Morphling, Shadow Fiend, etc.). You only get it on long game to get around the map once your attack speed is high enough and the only thing you need then is map control.

Phase Boots is not meant for Drow Ranger. Why? She has Frost Arrows, which would disable Phase if manually-casted. It would be perfect if she had a disabling skill that could be activated before using Phase (if I had to cite just examples, Battery Assault, Rot, or other slow skills). She doesn't; she has Frost Arrows. Keep in mind, though, that auto-casting Frost Arrows does not cancel Phase.

Arcane Boots would solve Drow Ranger's non-existent mana issues. Okay, so you would run out of mana every now and then by using Silence too much, but that doesn't justify forking over 1000 gold to buy an Energy Booster for this item. First, you can't use it for other items when you disassemble it. Second, well, Drow Ranger isn't that big on mana anyway.

HotD Build

Now that we're done with the break from the Boots section, let's move on. This build is generally harder to farm than the first one, because it involves one of the Extensions as a core instead.

Justification: Power Treads is gotten for the same reasons in the previous tabs. Again, don't keep it on AGI all the time. Make full use of it.

Helm of the Dominator is the controversial item here. To sum all our discussions up, the reason why you would get this item is for:

• EHP (Effective Hit Points) and DPS for mid game.
• Neutral creeping longevity.
• Ability to Dominate creeps for 20 minutes.
• Scalable late game through upgrading to Satanic.
• Skirmish longevity.

Orb-walking with this item requires extra steps. You have to have Frost Arrows on Autocast to be able to use it. If not, orb-walking happens but you fire Lifesteal shots and use 12 mana. You can effectively switch between chasing and farming/fighting with a right-click.

For more info, just read Kenshiro's well-structured posts on #6 and #9. Other members provided their thoughts as well.

Manta Style is your main damage item. It gives you Mirror Image, a handy ability that can sometimes dodge spells if timed right, too. It increases your overall DPS, and though recently nerfed, it serves a lot in terms of attributes, movement speed, and survival.

Build Options: You should generally go Yasha first. It gives a significant boost for AGI for mid game that Ultimate Orb cannot truly give. Ultimate Orb is harder to farm effectively, and Yasha at least gives additional movement speed for any purpose, such as neutral creeping and chasing. However, if you already have 2100 gold, then you can opt for Ultimate Orb so that things go downhill from there.

Wraith Band, Magic Wand and Scroll of Town Portal, same as ever.

Build Progression #2




(Magic Wand recipe, not a Scroll of Town Portal)

TO





TO




TO




(that's right, get Helm of Iron Will first)

TO




(proceed to farm Manta Style however you like)

Extensions

Justification: Black King Bar eventually meets any hard carry. More stuns will be focused on you, more burst damage nukes will be aimed at you. This removes some of them. Another reason is that Drow Ranger needs to attack to be functional, and believe me, her attacks hurt. This item is pretty much self-explanatory, though.

[/center]

Justification: Sange and Yasha's slow stacks fully with yours. It's a little short on AGI compared to Manta, but it makes up for it with a little bit of STR. Long story short, while this may not save you from an extra nuke, this might just help you net a kill you otherwise wouldn't get. Do consider it if you're playing cheap and easy.

Justification: Manta Style, while suffering a recent nerf to ranged Heroes, still increases your DPS by a significant amount. If you're not worried about being focused too much, or you have a great initiator, you can opt for this item instead. It gives your increased movement speed to chase, and more stats for survivability, not to mention Mirror Image.

This is an extension for the Standard Build only.

The Utility Items

Justification: Drow Ranger cannot buy the Gem of True Sight, and she can only ask someone to hold it for her when killing invisible units. She's just too fragile, and carrying a "Kill me" item won't make it any better.

Justification: Observer Wards and Sentry Wards should be handled by support Heroes instead of Drow Ranger. However, a quick buy should you need one will always favor your team.

The Luxury Items

Justification: The Butterfly. What should I say? Just don't get two of them.

Justification: Monkey King Bar is preferred over The Butterfly if you're facing tanks like Pandaren Brewmaster (Drunken Haze, Drunken Brawler), and carries like Tinker (Laser) and Phantom Assassin (Blur), or other Butterfly holders. True Strike will make it easier for you to fight them. Don't opt for this item unless you're doing the HotD build since it doesn't stack with Frost Arrows.

Justification: Buriza-Do Kyanon is the item to get if your team has kept the opponent carry at bay and True Strike is not needed. The Critical Strike, even from just Crystalys, should be very beneficial considering your high attack damage. Not only that, these items were recently buffed to have an even higher Critical Strike chance (6.72).

Justification: Assault Cuirass is another item to get if you like your attack speed. However, it adds nothing to your damage, but just amplifies it. Since you're not allowed to get Stygian Desolator, this item might be of good use. Note its expensive components, though.

Justification: While I might not think of Drow Ranger as a good Heart of Tarrasque holder, since The Butterfly is much better, she can get if she has already bought The Butterfly. What kind of pubstomp is this?

▲Top

VII. GENERAL STRATEGY

• Side Lane
• Clashes
• Using Frost Arrows
• Using Silence
• About Trueshot Aura
• About Marksmanship

Side Lane

Starting Items: You hardly need mana consumables at this time, nor ever, so you'll be getting a Healing Salve to prolong your stay in the lane instead. A quick tip when going to the side lanes is to avoid buying things that you can buy at the goblin shops. Also, this build leaves you with enough money to buy a Magic Wand recipe (not the Scroll of Town Portal) should you want to build it first. It would need only 200 gold more to finish it up.

Goals: Get Power Treads, stay alive. Unless you have a competent lane partner, just focus on last hitting. Make it your priority. Your attack animation should be quite slow for now. What you should ask for in the very beginning is a baby-sitter (a healer, supporter) that would not compete for last hitting and keep you alive during your laning phase.

Farming: Last hitting should be your top priority. Not only is it hard enough to make up for lost time due to dying or doing something else, you don't even have any skill to help you with that problem.

Pulling: If you're taking the pull lanes, pull if you're both ranged, and make it fast. Otherwise, stay to defend if your friend is melee.

Sent-Top/Scourge-Bottom: This one's harder since you cannot pull back your wave nearer to the tower, and they will likely pull them back towards theirs. Never stray too deep into the enemy territory. You won't survive an organized gank if you do. Just stay back and last hit.

Harassing: Orb-walking is possible with Frost Arrows. With a competent lane partner, you can gain a kill by slowing your enemies' movement speed and combining it with a stun or a burst slow is quite powerful. Remember to make harassing a low priority, and never forget your last hitting. Harass the melee Heroes to make them think twice about venturing into your range and to dominate the lane.

Wrap Up: Get your core items and start moving on to bigger creeps if you can. Farm open lanes and try to avoid ganks that involve too little allies. You risk yourself valuable time if you fail and die.

Clashes

Your main job is to kite. You cannot take dedicated 1v1 Heroes of equal strength such as Troll Warlord, Phantom Assassin, Slithereen Guard, and Murloc Nightcrawler. Unless you're significantly stronger, you will not win. Your job is to attack enemies from a distance and keep the enemy's attention off you.

Of course, this isn't going to happen in most cases. What you need to do to gain this benefit is to enter the battle fashionably late in order to determine the best positioning and to avoid deadly stuns. If the enemy has kept all their stun reserved for you, then they have already lost to your teammates.

Positioning: Drow Ranger should be placed on the farthest side of the clash. Why? You cannot place Drow in the middle, nor too near one end of the clash. She needs to distance herself from the enemy, remain unnoticed until too late. If you cannot help this, prioritize your targets.

Targets: Your targets are the most threatening targets. Doesn't matter whether he's a support or a carry, just focus your every attack on him, slowing him down and preventing him from being very motile. If BKB is an issue, just attack the unit. This is actually the same as in my Geomancer guide.

Breakdown: First, use Lothar's Edge at the dawn of the fight. Once your allies initiate, move to the farthest edge and attack the threatening targets.

If your allies are unable to initiate, stay back and keep your distance, but not too far. The key for this situation is to wait for the disables to come in. If the enemy has ventured too deeply without using their stuns, by all means, let your teammates in.

Second, break invisibility on the target. Shoot him down until he drops, and focus on your next threatening target. Kite them, that's your job.

Finally, catch any remaining survivors if you won the clash, or slow any chasers if you lost and try to stay alive.

Using Frost Arrows

Orb-walking: Orb-walking is the ability to attack your enemies and cancel your animation without drawing any form of aggro. Aggro is drawn in the moment the creeps/towers attack you because of attacking a Hero. This orb-walking ability is made available through the use of Frost Arrows, as manually casting Frost Arrows is the same as casting a spell, which in itself does not draw any aggro.

Another point is to be to able to move and attack while canceling your attack animation backswing, which I'll be discussing next. Essentially, orb-walking is canceling your backswing.

Auto-attacking: When is auto-attacking much more efficient than orb-walking? The answer is this: it depends on the human factor, and not the technical/mechanical factor.

Drow Ranger's frontswing (the amount of time required to actually attack) is 0.7 seconds. More attack speed lowers this time, allowing more attacks to be made. However, her backswing is 0.3 seconds. This is purely for cosmetics and does not involve your attacks at all. This is the time you can cancel. However, for example, getting, let's say, 100 more attack speed reduces this time to 0.15 seconds.

If you, as a human, could time it just right that you could cancel that animation still, then you can keep orb-walking. However, making many mistakes will actually result in less attacks being made, and auto-attacking is the safer option. As I said, it depends on the human factor.

Orb Stacking: Orb effects do not stack. Buff placers do not stack. That's it.

Magic Immune: Frost Arrows does not affect magic immune units.

Creep-slowing: Frost Arrows lasts 7 seconds on creeps. A way to make use of this is by manually casting Frost Arrows on a Meat Wagon/Glaive Thrower attacking your tower. They will attack significantly slower, dealing less damage overall to your structures.

Another minor use is to slow down the first creep of the enemy wave, delaying the others by a short time. But still, it's a use.

Using Silence

Notable Skills Prevented: Silence notably stops Permanent Invisibility and Last Word from working.

Base Skill: AoE silences (like this) are based on the actual Silence, whereas targeted silences are based on Soul Burn.

About Trueshot Aura

Aura Flicker: The Command Aura and the Trueshot Aura have a special case where their effects will appear to flicker, that is, the effect is temporarily removed and then added again.

Whenever a unit is created for your player and you have a Command/Trueshot Aura it will be temporarily removed and then reapplied, created units include all units created from summoning units to dummy units created by triggers. This means that when the aura has been removed there is a very small time frame until it is readded again where you can land an attack without gaining the benefits from the Command/Trueshot Aura.

Source: Robzor's Guide to Auras

Stacking: Trueshot Aura does not stack with Moon Rider's Lunar Blessing. I would like to state that this also came from that source above, but it is also common knowledge to me. (needs confirmation due to recent code changes)

About Marksmanship

Statistics: Drow Ranger's average final stats is 223.8 with Marksmanship Level 3 and just 178.8 without it. Compare to Treant Protector's 231.8 and Murloc Nightcrawler's 168.4.

Check out this thread for more info: Advanced Statistics

▲Top

VIII. COUNTERS

Honestly, I've already mentioned Drow Ranger's greatest enemies on the "Rival Build" tab, and on the "Clashes" tab. Instead of posting disablers and the like, let me focus on other hard carries that she cannot take. We are talking of equal strength and skill here. However, let's still include the obvious counters, and begin with them.

Justification: Burst nukes will shred you. Examples shown are Laser, Light Strike Array, and Brain Sap. With your little HP, this is an obvious counter to you.

Justification: Ultimate disables that go through BKB are your biggest threats. Examples shown are Fiend's Grip, Dismember, and Netherswap. Exercise much more caution when facing these Heroes.

Justification: Lane controllers hamper your early game. I'll cite three specific examples. Gyrocopter with his Flak Cannon and Homing Missile, Ancient Apparition with Cold Feet and Ice Vortex, and Keeper of the Light with his Illuminate and Mana Leak. These won't allow you to farm at all. Switch lanes.

Justification: Troll Warlord, ranged or not, is one of your biggest threats. He will likely also take Lothar's Edge for ganking and escaping, so you two are equal rivals. What he can do is take you on 1v1. Lifesteal is his major orb and he will outlast you if he manages to stop you from attacking with his Bash. Battle Trance will readily tip the strength to his favor, so watch out.

Justification: Faceless Void loves 1v1, to the point that he pauses both his allies and his enemies in time. He has Backtrack, a triggered heal that stacks fully with Evasion. He also has Time Lock, which is just a fancy way of saying Bash. I already mentioned Chronosphere, but it can be stopped by a good Silence. Unless you're able to kite him, there's not much you can actually do.

Justification: Murloc Nightcrawler loves stats and you have a lot of AGI. Watch as he takes them away from you using Essence Shift if you fight 1v1. Not only that, you can do anything but watch as he uses Shadow Dance, and you can't keep your distance because of Pounce. Dark Pact doubles as a buff remover, so careful not to Silence him too early.

Justification: Phantom Assasin has refined her Hero-killing skills to a high degree. This is the description of the skill that will kill you faster than you think. Not only that, you can't use Silence against it. Finally, she has Blur to evade part of your attacks, and slow you down to a crawl with Stifling Dagger. Think twice about fighting this Hero alone.

Justification: A Slithereen Guard will first mark you with Amplify Damage, and there's not much you can do about it. You're gonna get that buff on you with or without Silence. Without that buff, you have a higher chance of winning, but he also has Bash and Slithereen Crush to, umm, crush you if you choose to fight. If you don't, he has Sprint to chase you down, obviously, and that Lothar's Edge won't work, because now you're tracked by Amplify Damage.

▲Top

IX. MISCELLANEOUS

• Middle Lane

Middle Lane

It's easy to get to Level 6 at middle lane, but here are his problems: No lane control and no base damage to last hit. Even Mortred has better laning prowess than Drow Ranger (at least she has Stifling Dagger). So middle lane is certainly a no-no if your enemies are rather skilled.

Just the same argument from my other guide.

▲Top

X. CONCLUSION

Again, I hope you learned a new Hero. Drow Ranger, as I said, is my very first Hero. Watching others play, and improving from how I play, led me to write this guide on her to share my insights. Have fun using her to her best!

There are many ways to play Drow Ranger, but there are better ways of using her potential to its maximum!

Final Words: My Alt-Tab series of strategy guides are meant to display as much helpful information as possible without the unnecessary portions. They are not meant for Spotlight guides, with their fancy pictures and video tutorials. That is, in my opinion, extremely time-consuming. It deviates from my purpose, which is to have fun while writing this guide to communicate with others in the DotA community. I like to maintain clean and simple updated works which are just as rich in content as most good guides are.

▲Top

XI. REPLAYS

Coming soon!

▲Top

XII. CREDITS

None, really. The usual goes to whoever deserves them. I gave due credit on specific parts, anyway. Thanks to you, though, for reading my guide from start to finish.

▲Top

XIII. CHANGELOG

• December 18, 2010 - Started the guide.
• December 19, 2010 - Finished the guide.
• December 21, 2010 - HotD Build is under construction to the guide.
• December 23, 2010 - Finalized HotD builds.
• December 25, 2010 - Updated to 6.70, Merry Christmas!
• January 23, 2011 - Updated to 6.71.
• April 8, 2011 - Made a few corrections.
• April 15, 2011 - Added new information about MKB.
• May 1, 2011 - Updated fully to 6.72.
• May 5, 2011 - Updated fully to 6.72b.
• June 14, 2011 - Updated fully to 6.72c.
• April 22, 2012 - Updated to 6.74c.

▲Top

[FunnyWarfare]

Heyho, I would like to say something about the "Rival" HotD build. I was about to write a Traxex guide, too, but then I lost interest in it.
But my guide was actually about this "rival" build. So I may quote something I think (I wrote it in a way even a 5 year old kid can understand it, and the structure of my argumentation is very unfinished don't wonder. But I think you get the key points)

Why Helm of the Dominator?

Point 1: Drow Ranger's skills give her an insane amount of attack damage.

That means:

A hero that relies on simple physical damage and deals it in high amounts like this is naturally a very good carrier for this item.

What’s not true in Traxex's case:

"A rushed HotD is usually useless"
That's right. Usually. But NO hero has a permanent damage boost like this. At level 7 HotD is already more useful to her than to many other heroes at levels above 11.


Point 2: Frost Arrow can be still used by right-clicking it.

That means:

You don't lose it. You can still use it in situation when you need it

What is not true because of this:

"Traxex has an orb effect already, she doesn't need another one"

That's wrong.
What is Frost Arrow useful for? Usually killing fleeing targets.
What is lifesteal useful for? Staying in fights as long as possible for dealing even more damage.
As you may have noticed, these situations don't happen the same time! Use what you need!

Example 1: You fight against another carry. First you use lifesteal, then he has to flee and you finish him with Frost Arrows.
Example 2: You want to kill a Lina in late game. You know that she's dangerous because of her nukes since Traxex has naturally not the most hp. So you Silence her, she flees, you use Frost Arrows. You are in a typical chasing situation.
Now Silence ends, she uses her nukes and you have pretty low hp so that she could kill you.
You switch to lifesteal and finish her because your enormous damage gives you more life than she takes (Assuming that she doesn't burst you instantly. Lifesteal doesn't mean surviveablitiy). That's a typical fighting situtation.

"But I still can't use both"

You can. Frost lasts 1.5 seconds, you can manually use a Frost Arrow every second, even though it's a lot of clicking and much more work than playing Chen when you don't use Warkeys to bind the autocast on an hotkey.

Conclusion

As you may have noticed, Traxex can use HotD without regrets. I hope you got that and I don't need to discuss with you anymore ;).

The only thing left from your argumentation is the thing about squishiness and dealing dmg from distance. The problem is usually that you can't hold your perfect position in the most fights since ur opponents are thinking beings, too. They will always try to reach you and rape your shit. And suddenly you find yourself at a point where you actually not want to be and are so incredibly happy just to turn BKB on (not just lifesteal doesn't work, it's the whole hero if you are stunned) and go god-mode for some seconds that should win teamfights.

Oh btw HotD allows you to stack the ancients, scout and jungle.

[Melderv]

Originally Posted by FunnyWarfare

The only thing left from your argumentation is the thing about squishiness and dealing dmg from distance. The problem is usually that you can't hold your perfect position in the most fights since ur opponents are thinking beings, too. They will always try to reach you and rape your shit. And suddenly you find yourself at a point where you actually not want to be and are so incredibly happy just to turn BKB on (not just lifesteal doesn't work, it's the whole hero if you are stunned) and go god-mode for some seconds that should win teamfights.

Oh btw HotD allows you to stack the ancients, scout and jungle.

Hello! Let me start directly with my comments. This is going to be long, but I'm glad you brought this up.

What you did do right is try to voice out your opinion and point out my flaws. What you didn't do right is attack the wrong points.

You focused your arguments mainly on the alleged fact that I completely forbid getting HotD on her, which is not true. I said it was inefficient and not beneficial. Where exactly? Both at the beginning and at the "Competitive" nugget.

So much of your time was wasted on proving WHY HotD is beneficial to her but not attacking my points on WHY NOT. So as you can see, my argument still stands unfazed, separated into short nuggets anyone can understand.

Orb Effects. Yes, different situations call for different orb effects. And that's why for Heroes without them, there are many choices. PotM for instance, I've seen Chain Lightning, Corruption, and Feedback on her. They all work. Same with Morphling, same with Stealth Assassin, and in some rare cases, Troll Warlord (no, not really). Those are points I concede.

But for Heroes with them, why burden yourself to make a choice all the time? Let's look at Bone Fletcher. He has Searing Arrows. It's his damage source, and it's great for harassing, and ultimately, killing. While he might have Death Pact to sustain his HP needs, nobody gets lifesteal on him. Not even if he has damage without his orb. Why? Because his orb is still better in most situations given to him.

Consider Anti-Mage and Broodmother. They are Melee, and can get Vladimir's Offering. Not only that, Broodmother has Insatiable Hunger. Yes, it is a lifesteal, but unlike all the others, it's extremely high. It's excluded because of the fact that it's not a "healing-over-time" concept like 10%, 15%, 16%, 17% lifesteal. It's compared to burst heals.

But for Anti-Mage, it's a different story since he can have the best of both worlds. Consider that he cannot. Consider that Feedback is the only orb he can use, or replace it with lifesteal. It's more burdened by the fact that Mana Break is Passive. A build actually exists for this, the MoM build.

Comparably, Drow Ranger is not far from Anti-Mage when you talk about fragility. Why is Feedback a better choice? Because it's going to be useful in most of his situations. What you are implying is that, get lifesteal if the target has no mana. If the target has mana, use Feedback. How often does this occur? Well, quite often, actually. But how justified would it be? Not at all.

Your situation presented is the same. Frost Arrows when chasing, lifesteal when not. But the point is, it's not going to be used for chasing all the time. It's also going to be used in head-to-head battles. How useful would lifesteal be then?

Granted, that Troll Warlord would probably outlast you 1v1. Why? That's his job. That's Mortred's job. That's Slark's job. Getting any available amount of lifesteal through existing items isn't going to change that. Why? Because your job is to kite your enemies like Dwarven Sniper would. Your job is to attack from a distance, not pretend you're some 1v1 Hero that can take on anyone you like. Because with equal items and equal skill, you're not going to win against these Heroes, much like Shadow Fiend, Sniper, and Moon Rider never would, simply because it's not their job.

My point is, why delay your build, especially your escape mechanism (of which Magina conveniently has one, but Drow does not) by buying HotD for "back-up" situations? It's impractical, unless you're going to, as I said, diss Frost Arrows in its entirety. Second, it's unfeasible, because it's not your role to fulfill.

TL;DR, read the two last paragraphs.

[Knovanangel]

Mon edit the geomancer parts

[Melderv]

Originally Posted by imnotsonoob

Mon edit the geomancer parts

I forgot the tab names, and that's pretty much it. 100% Drow now.

[Kenshiro]

Hi all !

I think there's something false in the guide ; Trueshot Aura stacks with Lunar Blessing. I tried it in single player with -noherolimit, and unless there's a bug with the display, both Luna and Drow had the bonus damage through both auras. And if you read carefully Robzor's guide, he said that there's no possible stacking if the auras' IDs were the same, which isn't the case for these 2 auras, unless Robzor forgot to mention it.

And about HotD, some arguments aren't valid ; I'll list them :

STR: Next, some of those Heroes are usually less fragile compared to Drow Ranger, notably Troll Warlord (higher STR gain at 2.2; same starting STR though), Broodmother (significantly higher STR gain at 2.5; still same starting STR) and Morphling (higher STR gain at 2.0 and starting STR at 19; plus the ability Morph). They can make use of Lifesteal because of their bulkier HP, and they last longer with it.

Comparing Strength growth isn't a very good way to make comparisons, because in the examples you mentioned, 2 of them are melee and need that Strength to actually get in range to land a hit unless you already have a Kelen's Dagger. And because of Drow's incredible Agility, you've got a high armor, and lifesteal is useful in combat generally when it's a slugfest (i.e. trading autoattacks) ; in that case, the 2 values relevant to the discussion are EHP and DPS, and Drow often has the advantage in both because of the Agility.

Moon Rider: Moon Rider gets Lifesteal because she doesn't have orbs, and she cannot get other orbs. She also needs it earlier because she attacks faster and deals more damage (combined with items) than Drow Ranger during those times, because of a higher AGI gain at 2.8.

That argument is false, because Marksmanship gives you 15 points of Agility every 5 levels, meaning that your average Agility growth is 4.9 from level 1 to 16 (without bonus Stats). If one averages Marksmanship on all the levels, the average Agility growth is 3.775.

If you get HotD fast (I even saw once Silvercross get it before boots !), it brings you the following advantages :

- Lifestealing or Frost Arrows orbwalking available ; that kind of versatility means you can farm and dominate the lane without any real problem against your lane opponent(s) unless a good unseen gank comes (Your team ought to ward...). This is especially true when combined with a skill build that maxes out Trueshot Aura at level 7 ; although the chances that your opponents die to your shots are small, it forces him to stay out of range for super easy farming and later for tower pushing. Note that Silvercross used the lifestealing orbwalking against Nerubian Weaver (Check his mana on every shot...).

- 20 damage and 5 armor for a very fair price

- Permafarm in the jungle when you have to disappear from your lane

- Dominated creeps

- Upgrades to Satanic later which gives you an edge in survivability when compared to Heart of Tarrasque ; I made an example there that shows what I've often seen myself and in competitive games. You litterally regenerate a full life with Satanic and 5 seconds of free firing.

About the farming problems, it stems from 3 problems ; lack of lane dominance, Drow's horrible last hit (early game) and possible ganks.

The first problem is solved through orbwalking in order to keep your opponent(s)' HP rather low ; the question is then whether we should maximize Frost Arrows, meaning we can shoot more often on the enemy on a given distance while he's retreating, or if we should maximize Trueshot Aura so each shot is really painful, even early game. From my experience (and because I also tried a lot of skill/item builds with Drow...), the second option is better, because if you shoot every once in a while a Frost Arrow at your enemy, you force him to stay back or use a lot of Tangoes/Salve, while you don't take the risk to get near his tower because you've shot only 1 arrow and therefore you're staying near your creeps all the time. Maximizing Frost Arrows early should only be done if you have a very good chance to get kills AND if your team needs the slow. Note the synergy of the 2nd technique coupled with HotD ; your HP will be near 100% all the time. If the opponent is long ranged and makes everything he can to stay out of orbwalking range, it doesn't matter which skill build you make ; what will give you an advantage is whether you farm/deny more than him, which leads to the second point.

The second problem has its roots in Drow's 0.7s attack point. But if you could (hypothetical case) for example kill a ranged full-HP creep in 1 shot, that attack point is barely a bother. In a real case, against an evenly trained opponent with a decent last-hitting hero, the whole question of who last hits or denies is a question of reaction time available ; let's say you're observing a creep whose health is steadily dropping. The reaction time can be defined as the time needed to kill/deny when you issue the order to attack, assuming your opponent does the same thing and isn't a lousy last-hitter that often needs a 2nd, or even 3rd, hit to kill/deny the creep. So when the creep is at a low enough HP, the reaction time is a function of your attack animation, missile speed, your proximity to the creeps thanks to some level of lane dominance AND minimum damage per attack. If you maximize Trueshot Aura ASAP, you can very often shoot on a creep before the opponent even has the opportunity to make a last hit/deny, whether he shot at the creep or not. It's a bit like Shadow Fiend who gets the last hit/deny advantage through Necromastery, though not at the same scale. But it becomes even more wicked if you have a very coordinated babysitting ranged team mate with a decent damage ; you can attack the same creep in order to last hit/deny, and with a very good coordination, your team mate should hit first, and immediately after, your arrow should finish the creep so you get the last hit. That technique even allows you to kill a ranged creep without any possible deny in some cases, because the ranged creep's HP will drop from over HP/2 (undeniable then) to zero too quickly to be denied.

The third problem can only be solved through wards/map awareness and a good babysitter ; you can't realistically have a Lothar's Edge soon enough so you can farm and disappear when needed, because it costs 3300 gold ! Later in the game, why use an escape mechanism when you have a fairly good chance to kill them before they kill you IF you went Manta Style/BKB/HotD. Drow has the advantage on a lot of carries late game, but her biggest advantage is to have the ability to kill much earlier thanks to Marksmanship and Trueshot Aura, so why should we waste that potential by fleeing ? It should also be noted that Lothar's Edge isn't a true escaping mechanism nor a true ganking item because against a competent team, Sentry Wards and Dusts of Appearance will be there in no time.

And for the starting items, you have enough money to get Tango/Salve/3x Ironwood/Circlet.

See you

[Melderv]

I find it tedious to have to reply specifically to your arguments, except the ones that point out flaws in my guide, which are OK.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

I think there's something false in the guide ; Trueshot Aura stacks with Lunar Blessing. I tried it in single player with -noherolimit, and unless there's a bug with the display, both Luna and Drow had the bonus damage through both auras. And if you read carefully Robzor's guide, he said that there's no possible stacking if the auras' IDs were the same, which isn't the case for these 2 auras, unless Robzor forgot to mention it.

If the code was rewritten, which it was recently, and included that they stack, I can change it. Right now Trueshot Aura (the base) can be adjusted to raw damage and percentage values. Lunar Blessing now gives raw values.

Why not provide evidence to this to make it conclusive if you had already tested it out?

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

Comparing Strength growth isn't a very good way to make comparisons, because in the examples you mentioned, 2 of them are melee and need that Strength to actually get in range to land a hit unless you already have a Kelen's Dagger. And because of Drow's incredible Agility, you've got a high armor, and lifesteal is useful in combat generally when it's a slugfest (i.e. trading autoattacks) ; in that case, the 2 values relevant to the discussion are EHP and DPS, and Drow often has the advantage in both because of the Agility.

I carefully set the parameters as to how Drow Ranger would perform in clashes, which you do not even mention. She kites enemies instead of going 1v1 against them in a "slugfest". Comparing STR in general, it's just that they have the same values sometimes, is one way to gauge whether or not lifesteal would be beneficial.

Because people opt for buying HotD early game, don't think that EHP has that big of an impact, especially when we're talking about AGI and not raw Armor. Lich's Frost Armor could've been a viable argument, but not Drow Ranger's AGI. Not early game. Your argument is invalid. This is why I talked about STR instead. I'm not pulling things from the air here.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

That argument is false, because Marksmanship gives you 15 points of Agility every 5 levels, meaning that your average Agility growth is 4.9 from level 1 to 16 (without bonus Stats). If one averages Marksmanship on all the levels, the average Agility growth is 3.775.

Who ever said I was talking about any specific level range? Where did you get those numbers (the levels)?

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

- Lifestealing or Frost Arrows orbwalking available ; that kind of versatility means you can farm and dominate the lane without any real problem against your lane opponent(s) unless a good unseen gank comes (Your team ought to ward...). This is especially true when combined with a skill build that maxes out Trueshot Aura at level 7 ; although the chances that your opponents die to your shots are small, it forces him to stay out of range for super easy farming and later for tower pushing. Note that Silvercross used the lifestealing orbwalking against Nerubian Weaver (Check his mana on every shot...).

Drow Ranger can't orb-walk with HotD. That's it. She cannot manually cast Frost Arrows. If I have to reword this, you cannot manually cast Frost Arrows freely. There is a certain burden involved in getting the "best of both worlds", and particularly a detriment I would like to avoid. If you want me to elaborate, I will.

AC Frost Arrows allows you to MC it as well. It means you have just sacrificed the benefit of 24/7 availability by adding lifesteal. If I may add, DotA is about the spur-of-the-moment actions that will make or break your game. Adding extra unneeded steps just poses a detriment to her playstyle in general.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

- 20 damage and 5 armor for a very fair price

- Permafarm in the jungle when you have to disappear from your lane

I discourage overfarming blatantly, don't use it against me. Provide a damage-cost ratio, or else I could just tell you with the same weak stands that I already have more damage with Claymore.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

- Dominated creeps

You can't use this in an argument to benefit Drow, because it benefits everyone. I never put into place the benefit of being able to Dominate creeps because apparently Crystal Maiden can get this item just to dominate creeps. And what then? What have you proven then?

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

- Upgrades to Satanic later which gives you an edge in survivability when compared to Heart of Tarrasque ; I made an example there that shows what I've often seen myself and in competitive games. You litterally regenerate a full life with Satanic and 5 seconds of free firing.

Don't think that when you have Satanic on that you can still attack. Your enemies won't be that gullible, especially with a very good visual effect to it. Otherwise, it's just a beefed-up lifesteal. Even then, I looked badly at Heart of Tarrasque as a luxury. Please read.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

The first problem is solved through orbwalking in order to keep your opponent(s)' HP rather low ; the question is then whether we should maximize Frost Arrows, meaning we can shoot more often on the enemy on a given distance while he's retreating, or if we should maximize Trueshot Aura so each shot is really painful, even early game. From my experience (and because I also tried a lot of skill/item builds with Drow...), the second option is better, because if you shoot every once in a while a Frost Arrow at your enemy, you force him to stay back or use a lot of Tangoes/Salve, while you don't take the risk to get near his tower because you've shot only 1 arrow and therefore you're staying near your creeps all the time. Maximizing Frost Arrows early should only be done if you have a very good chance to get kills AND if your team needs the slow. Note the synergy of the 2nd technique coupled with HotD ; your HP will be near 100% all the time. If the opponent is long ranged and makes everything he can to stay out of orbwalking range, it doesn't matter which skill build you make ; what will give you an advantage is whether you farm/deny more than him, which leads to the second point.

As I said, you can't orb-walk with HotD. This makes your entire wall of text invalid.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

The second problem has its roots in Drow's 0.7s attack point. But if you could (hypothetical case) for example kill a ranged full-HP creep in 1 shot, that attack point is barely a bother. In a real case, against an evenly trained opponent with a decent last-hitting hero, the whole question of who last hits or denies is a question of reaction time available ; let's say you're observing a creep whose health is steadily dropping. The reaction time can be defined as the time needed to kill/deny when you issue the order to attack, assuming your opponent does the same thing and isn't a lousy last-hitter that often needs a 2nd, or even 3rd, hit to kill/deny the creep. So when the creep is at a low enough HP, the reaction time is a function of your attack animation, missile speed, your proximity to the creeps thanks to some level of lane dominance AND minimum damage per attack. If you maximize Trueshot Aura ASAP, you can very often shoot on a creep before the opponent even has the opportunity to make a last hit/deny, whether he shot at the creep or not. It's a bit like Shadow Fiend who gets the last hit/deny advantage through Necromastery, though not at the same scale. But it becomes even more wicked if you have a very coordinated babysitting ranged team mate with a decent damage ; you can attack the same creep in order to last hit/deny, and with a very good coordination, your team mate should hit first, and immediately after, your arrow should finish the creep so you get the last hit. That technique even allows you to kill a ranged creep without any possible deny in some cases, because the ranged creep's HP will drop from over HP/2 (undeniable then) to zero too quickly to be denied.

Your point on maxing Trueshot Aura is ill-fated. I stated that this would likely be part of the "rival build". But how would you fit HotD within the context of MY build, since you limit Drow's capabilities?

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

The third problem can only be solved through wards/map awareness and a good babysitter ; you can't realistically have a Lothar's Edge soon enough so you can farm and disappear when needed, because it costs 3300 gold ! Later in the game, why use an escape mechanism when you have a fairly good chance to kill them before they kill you IF you went Manta Style/BKB/HotD. Drow has the advantage on a lot of carries late game, but her biggest advantage is to have the ability to kill much earlier thanks to Marksmanship and Trueshot Aura, so why should we waste that potential by fleeing ? It should also be noted that Lothar's Edge isn't a true escaping mechanism nor a true ganking item because against a competent team, Sentry Wards and Dusts of Appearance will be there in no time.

You also cannot realistically think that every fight in DotA is a "slugfest", as you stated. Her role is to kite, and that's in my point of view is the most efficient role I can give her. Arguing with competence isn't plausible, because your HotD build has more detriments than mine. If Truesight is to Lothar's Edge, then focus fire is to your HotD. And then, your percentages, your 100% health most of the time concept would be fully shut down, because you are blatantly saying that you don't have anything to ensure your survival, except your precious lifesteal.

Originally Posted by Kenshiro

And for the starting items, you have enough money to get Tango/Salve/3x Ironwood/Circlet.

I would rather opt for going with the Wand recipe instead. Maybe I should put that in.

[FunnyWarfare]

Hello! Let me start directly with my comments. This is going to be long, but I'm glad you brought this up.

What you did do right is try to voice out your opinion and point out my flaws. What you didn't do right is attack the wrong points.

You focused your arguments mainly on the alleged fact that I completely forbid getting HotD on her, which is not true. I said it was inefficient and not beneficial. Where exactly? Both at the beginning and at the "Competitive" nugget.

So much of your time was wasted on proving WHY HotD is beneficial to her but not attacking my points on WHY NOT. So as you can see, my argument still stands unfazed, separated into short nuggets anyone can understand.

I actually just said that it's
1. Useable without losing any benefits of FA
2. fitting Traxex very well.

Orb Effects. Yes, different situations call for different orb effects. And that's why for Heroes without them, there are many choices. PotM for instance, I've seen Chain Lightning, Corruption, and Feedback on her. They all work. Same with Morphling, same with Stealth Assassin, and in some rare cases, Troll Warlord (no, not really). Those are points I concede.

U don't actually say much about Drow Ranger, but unlike these heroes, she can chose her orb. Just want to say

But for Heroes with them, why burden yourself to make a choice all the time? Let's look at Bone Fletcher. He has Searing Arrows. It's his damage source, and it's great for harassing, and ultimately, killing. While he might have Death Pact to sustain his HP needs, nobody gets lifesteal on him. Not even if he has damage without his orb. Why? Because his orb is still better in most situations given to him.

Yup, but I don't see that's the case with Traxex. You may complain about me just listing pro arguments, but serioulsy: There aren't many heroes (but Ursa) who are dealing physical dmg in these sick amounts even at low level. This MAKES lifesteal useful, unlike Clinkz who actually doesn't deal that much dmg without his orb.
Unlike Clinkz, lifesteal IS useful to her in terms of farming, staying in lane, yea I don't even thing it's inferior in 1n1 fights.

Consider Anti-Mage and Broodmother. They are Melee, and can get Vladimir's Offering. Not only that, Broodmother has Insatiable Hunger. Yes, it is a lifesteal, but unlike all the others, it's extremely high. It's excluded because of the fact that it's not a "healing-over-time" concept like 10%, 15%, 16%, 17% lifesteal. It's compared to burst heals.

Same for Traxex, guess why it's effective. I may give you a tip: Her dmg.

But for Anti-Mage, it's a different story since he can have the best of both worlds. Consider that he cannot. Consider that Feedback is the only orb he can use, or replace it with lifesteal. It's more burdened by the fact that Mana Break is Passive. A build actually exists for this, the MoM build.

This is pretty much out of argumentation. If a whole hero is based on that concept and his ultimate doesn't even work without his orb, it's OF COURSE pointless to go for lifesteal. Traxex is not burdened by taking life steal. She can use both (ow rightclicking an ability is so hard), she doesn't need to let an ablitity go.

Comparably, Drow Ranger is not far from Anti-Mage when you talk about fragility. Why is Feedback a better choice? Because it's going to be useful in most of his situations. What you are implying is that, get lifesteal if the target has no mana. If the target has mana, use Feedback. How often does this occur? Well, quite often, actually. But how justified would it be? Not at all.

I don't know why but I kinda feel that I need lifesteal the whole game long. That justifys it for me. Partly to outwight dmg, why not?
It's more like this: You are Ursa, and you could go for Vladimirs (if ur support doesn't buy it). Why shouldn't you?

Your situation presented is the same. Frost Arrows when chasing, lifesteal when not. But the point is, it's not going to be used for chasing all the time. It's also going to be used in head-to-head battles. How useful would lifesteal be then?

Assuming you are a right-clicking pro you don't even have to care about that. Lifesteal already nearly allows you to face some of the brutal guys face to face, even allows you to win that battles if you are better farmed. Thus I can answer your question: Pretty useful. But you can still use both, FA and lifesteal. Why not?

Granted, that Troll Warlord would probably outlast you 1v1. Why? That's his job. That's Mortred's job. That's Slark's job. Getting any available amount of lifesteal through existing items isn't going to change that. Why? Because your job is to kite your enemies like Dwarven Sniper would. Your job is to attack from a distance, not pretend you're some 1v1 Hero that can take on anyone you like. Because with equal items and equal skill, you're not going to win against these Heroes, much like Shadow Fiend, Sniper, and Moon Rider never would, simply because it's not their job.

We are not talking about 1v1, are we? We are talking about 5v5 I hope. And we are talking about that around 2k gold, are we? You sound like you will still run around with HotD only in minute 80.
Assume you are seeing a teamfight infront of you. What are you doing
1. No lifesteal: keeping a perfect distance every time and try to hit the ones in range since they will kill you when you go in (not talking about stuns here, you are lost without Bkb, anyway)
2. With lifesteal: Turn Bkb on, go in and deal dmg to the most important guys (with frost, again you can have both) while not going down. You are still ranged, you aren't standing infront of a troll, but you are still save enough.

More rambo-like, but more realistic.

My point is, why delay your build, especially your escape mechanism (of which Magina conveniently has one, but Drow does not) by buying HotD for "back-up" situations? It's impractical, unless you're going to, as I said, diss Frost Arrows in its entirety. Second, it's unfeasible, because it's not your role to fulfill.

Backuping? Does Brood have her ultimate for "backuping"? Does Ursa buy Vladis for "backuping"? No, they just can use it extremely well. Oh and because 3 is an awesome number: You can use both if you have fun (even though one of it is enough in nearly any situation).

TL;DR, read the two last paragraphs.

Your last sentence is pretty smart, the last 2 paragraphs were a bit better than the rest




Edit: Oh btw, casting FA manually doesn't proc frost, rightclicking it does. Just make sure

[Kenshiro]

Hi !

If the code was rewritten, which it was recently, and included that they stack, I can change it. Right now Trueshot Aura (the base) can be adjusted to raw damage and percentage values. Lunar Blessing now gives raw values.

Why not provide evidence to this to make it conclusive if you had already tested it out?

Here's a replay showing it in the attached files.

I carefully set the parameters as to how Drow Ranger would perform in clashes, which you do not even mention. She kites enemies instead of going 1v1 against them in a "slugfest". Comparing STR in general, it's just that they have the same values sometimes, is one way to gauge whether or not lifesteal would be beneficial.

Because people opt for buying HotD early game, don't think that EHP has that big of an impact, especially when we're talking about AGI and not raw Armor. Lich's Frost Armor could've been a viable argument, but not Drow Ranger's AGI. Not early game. Your argument is invalid. This is why I talked about STR instead. I'm not pulling things from the air here.

Sorry, but you don't understand it really well ; having 625 of range sure is an advantage in order to kite, but that's not always possible. Disables have a casting range of 500-600 most of the time, and if you can't Silence all the enemy team (or your team can't disable all the enemy team), which will happen in a decently organized game, you just won't be able to kite. The same thing can be said about some other carry that has a slightly lower range, like 550-600. Why can't you kite in these cases ? It's because while you're making your attack animation, the enemy can get in range to start his attack or spell, and if you don't move back extremely fast, which is near to impossible because of the rotation speed, you'll get hit by the spell or attack. In case of the ranged attack, you'll get hit because of the motion buffer range ; by the time you reach your attack point, the enemy hero will get in range to start his attack animation, and because you have a non-infinite rotation speed and movespeed, you'll still be in the range of his attack range plus motion buffer range.

Another problem with kiting is that you can't take advantage of the time during which your vulnerability to spells is reduced thanks to Silence/BKB/Manta Style's illusions, because you take a longer time to kill an enemy if you have to keep moving all the time.

I carefully set the parameters as to how Drow Ranger would perform in clashes, which you do not even mention. She kites enemies instead of going 1v1 against them in a "slugfest". Comparing STR in general, it's just that they have the same values sometimes, is one way to gauge whether or not lifesteal would be beneficial.

Because people opt for buying HotD early game, don't think that EHP has that big of an impact, especially when we're talking about AGI and not raw Armor. Lich's Frost Armor could've been a viable argument, but not Drow Ranger's AGI. Not early game. Your argument is invalid. This is why I talked about STR instead. I'm not pulling things from the air here.

Like I said before, you can't kite indefinitely, that's why lifesteal gets useful to win a slugfest. STR is a variable in the problem of determining if lifesteal is useful ; what is important is how fast your HP and your enemy's HP drop to zero. For example, let's say hero A has HPmax_A, DPS_A and Armor_A, hero B has the same variables, and let's say that A and B start attacking each other at the same time and they both have HotD for the lifesteal (There are no evasion nor damage block in the problem, though it's easy to add that.). If you want to do know how fast heroes' HP drop to zero, you have to write the following basic differential equations :

dHP_A/dt = -(1/1+0.06*Armor_A)*DPS_B + (1/1+0.06*Armor_B)*DPS_A*0.15
dHP_B/dt = -(1/1+0.06*Armor_B)*DPS_A + (1/1+0.06*Armor_A)*DPS_B*0.15

I'll solve the problem for hero A :

HP_A(t) = HPmax_A - (1/1+0.06*Armor_A)*DPS_B*t + (1/1+0.06*Armor_B)*DPS_A*0.15*t

Therefore, tf_A is the time at which HP_A(tf_A) = 0, i.e. hero A is dead, which is easy to calculate :

tf_A = HPmax_A / [ (1/1+0.06*Armor_A)*DPS_B - (1/1+0.06*Armor_B)*DPS_A*0.15 ]

If you manipulate a bit this result, you can make appear the term HPmax_A*(1+0.06*Armor_A), which is obviously the EHP of hero A !

And Drow's armor is more than non-negligible early-mid game ; if at level 11 you have for example PT AGI (can be set on STR if needed), Magic Wand, 2x Wraith Band, HotD and Yasha, you have then a total of Agility of 110 ! If you add the +5 armor of HotD, and obviously remove the base armor of 2.1, you already have 18.3 points of armor. And without HotD, 13.3 points of armor is nothing to be laughed at...

Try to make the same calculations for other AGI carries, and you'll see that not many have such an armor.

Who ever said I was talking about any specific level range? Where did you get those numbers (the levels)?

You need to watch carefully what is Drow's Agility in function of the level, because that shows you her DPS advantage over other AGI carries at mid-game. The AGI growth is easily computed ; you agree with me that Marksmanship gives you 45 points of Agility at level 16. Therefore, it's like a bonus AGI growth of 45/15 = 3 points of Agility per level. Add the 1.9 natural AGI growth, and you get 4.9. The 3.775 value is computed in the same way, but it's compared with end result (level 25), therefore replace 45/15 by 45/24.

Drow Ranger can't orb-walk with HotD. That's it. She cannot manually cast Frost Arrows. If I have to reword this, you cannot manually cast Frost Arrows freely. There is a certain burden involved in getting the "best of both worlds", and particularly a detriment I would like to avoid. If you want me to elaborate, I will.

AC Frost Arrows allows you to MC it as well. It means you have just sacrificed the benefit of 24/7 availability by adding lifesteal. If I may add, DotA is about the spur-of-the-moment actions that will make or break your game. Adding extra unneeded steps just poses a detriment to her playstyle in general.

Read the link I gave you AND test it ; you CAN orbwalk with HotD. It's just it's a bit trickier than the normal orbwalking, which means you'll have to make ONE additional right-click on autocast if you want the Frost Arrows orbwalking. Even if DotA is fast paced, one click is hardly a problem for a proficient DotA player. I even included a small replay to show you this ; the first arrow I shot was a normal lifestealing arrow, and you could see that I triggered the ranged creep's aggro. Then I made a string of lifestealing arrows WITHOUT triggering the aggro ; if you check my manapool, you see that I lose 12 points of mana on each shot, because I was making some lifestealing orbwalking. And at the end of the replay, I put the Frost Arrows on Autocast AND did some orbwalking, resulting in the usual Frost Arrows orbwalking.

You can't use this in an argument to benefit Drow, because it benefits everyone. I never put into place the benefit of being able to Dominate creeps because apparently Crystal Maiden can get this item just to dominate creeps. And what then? What have you proven then?

DotA is a zero-sum game, so the team has to make the best out of the limited amount of gold it gets, so HotD on Crystal Maiden is a joke. HotD is gotten on carry heroes, therefore you may argue that another carry in your game can get it, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get it for yourself ! You can only dominate one creep every 5 minutes, so it can be an advantage to get 2 HotDs in the team. The other advantage is that it's a mid game item that boosts your EHP and DPS for a fair price, and that upgrades to Satanic which is obviously (If it ain't obvious for you, check that link I already gave you.) better than Heart of Tarrasque late game.

You also cannot realistically think that every fight in DotA is a "slugfest", as you stated. Her role is to kite, and that's in my point of view is the most efficient role I can give her. Arguing with competence isn't plausible, because your HotD build has more detriments than mine. If Truesight is to Lothar's Edge, then focus fire is to your HotD. And then, your percentages, your 100% health most of the time concept would be fully shut down, because you are blatantly saying that you don't have anything to ensure your survival, except your precious lifesteal.

Like I said earlier, you can't play most fights as if you could kite. The survival with Drow isn't in fleeing, but in killing faster than the enemy can kill you, and obviously using a TP scroll when a gank that you're sure you can't win is coming at you. Going Lothar's Edge is just delaying your Manta Style and other items, which means that unless you're very successful in your ganking part of the game with Lothar's Edge, you're sacrificing your DPS potential for a good part of the game and some farming that would have given you a further DPS advantage.

P.S. : You need DotA 6.69c for the first replay, and DotA 6.67b Rev2d AI for the second.

See you

[Kenshiro]

Don't know why, I couldn't include the first replay in the previous post ; here it is : MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

[Melderv]

Wow these take quite a lot of time to reply to. But rest assured I read all of your points and they strong ones. So in order to save my time and yours, I will concede some of my points, and retain mine with this conclusion: no build is ever wrong or right. This is why I put Rival Builds and not Rejected Builds in the first place.

Finally, I want to thank both of you for making the effort to complete my guide with points for both normal Drow and HotD Drow.

[HonorGuard]

Just i point i want to make here, i've said it before i'm sure.

A HotD drow works best with a slightly different skill build thats aimed towards survivability and some damage, that is the Stats and Aura build. The build goes something like this:

1. Stats/Silence/Aura/Frost (basically anything can be taken here)
2. Stats/Aura
3. Aura
4. Stats/Silence/Aura/Frost
5. Aura
6. Marksmanship
7. Aura
8. Anything you want after this, including more stats.

If you take Frost on the 1st lvl, you don't take it at lvl 4, same with silence.

The point of this build is the ability to stay in lane and farm faster.

Pros:
1. Raises damage, raw hp/mana (tho mana is not needed)
2. Helps you farm.
3. Helps you stay in lane
4. Works better with lifesteal.
5. You're more useful in early teamfights with the damage you deal. Also more useful if more of your allies are ranged (Aura)

Cons:
1. You only have 1 lvl of silence and/or FA, which means you cannot effectively participate in ganks.
2. Requires the HotD to be at full effectiveness.
3. Less useful in teamfights in the silencing aspect.
4. No chasing power.

Basically, i would take this build when there are many nukers / glass cannons on the other team. Not to say that your 2 builds are wrong, but since the other two above have been talking about HotD being the dominant orb on DR, i thought i'd bring this build up.

[FunnyWarfare]

Hey Melderv, an angry mob is waiting infront of your house, better please them

Btw, HonorGuard mentioned what I forgot to say: You leave FA (orbwalking not to get creep aggro is useful, even though you actually spill out lifesteal shots) and Silence at level 1 for a pretty long time, Aura is maxed asap if you are doing well, if not a few stats are useful. Skill some stats after that, and when you're slowly going into lategame max Silence.
I just have to disagree with him in one point:

3. Less useful in teamfights in the silencing aspect.

I think since you can start maxing silence when you feel that the teamfight phase is about to begin this isn't really true.
I actually think totally different: Teamfights are the situations when HotD-Bkb-Uber-Carry-at-least-as-long-as-bkb-lasts-Drow shines more than the coward-need-to-be-careful-and-kite-5-heroes-oh-wait-thats-impossible-Drow.


Maybe make the advantages of HotD a bit clearer and add the skill build for it and we let you go instead of burning you

[Melderv]

Some good insights. I'll make sure to add them and make the necessary adjustments. It's not the first time an argument has gotten to me, so I approve.

It should be done before the guide itself is published, but editing can be done anytime. For now, additional inputs may be nice and a good organization of thoughts for that build should be very much helpful.

[FunnyWarfare]

December 21, 2010 - HotD Builds under construction to the guide.

Just a little step for menhood, but...
^^

Please mention "Disablers" and "Burst Damages" at the counters, thats the first place people will look for them.
Atro, Pudge and Venge are especially annoying because their ultimates will rape you through Bkb

[Melderv]

Originally Posted by FunnyWarfare

Just a little step for menhood, but...
^^

Please mention "Disablers" and "Burst Damages" at the counters, thats the first place people will look for them.
Atro, Pudge and Venge are especially annoying because their ultimates will rape you through Bkb

I used to have no Counters section at all. Because if I did have one, I wanted it to be a little debatable. Obvious counters, I don't post. I simply address them in the first part and move on.

Those are obvious counters, and I feel I don't want to explain self-explanatory things. Next, I don't want to spoon-feed newcomers, but rather just give them insights.

To lessen questions, however, I'll edit it to put them up in general.

[HonorGuard]

Originally Posted by FunnyWarfare

Hey Melderv, an angry mob is waiting infront of your house, better please them

Btw, HonorGuard mentioned what I forgot to say: You leave FA (orbwalking not to get creep aggro is useful, even though you actually spill out lifesteal shots) and Silence at level 1 for a pretty long time, Aura is maxed asap if you are doing well, if not a few stats are useful. Skill some stats after that, and when you're slowly going into lategame max Silence.
I just have to disagree with him in one point:


I think since you can start maxing silence when you feel that the teamfight phase is about to begin this isn't really true.
I actually think totally different: Teamfights are the situations when HotD-Bkb-Uber-Carry-at-least-as-long-as-bkb-lasts-Drow shines more than the coward-need-to-be-careful-and-kite-5-heroes-oh-wait-thats-impossible-Drow.

Yeah you could, but i just wanted to point out that you were a bit disadvantaged without having silence. However, you do gain ZOMG damage and some hp so i guess it levels out. I just wanted to show how DR is weaker in some aspects but stronger in others by using different builds

[FunnyWarfare]

Originally Posted by HonorGuard

Yeah you could, but i just wanted to point out that you were a bit disadvantaged without having silence. However, you do gain ZOMG damage and some hp so i guess it levels out. I just wanted to show how DR is weaker in some aspects but stronger in others by using different builds

Hey, you don't run around without Silence at all :O You skill it one time in early game an max it in mid/late game, don't you?

About the counters:
Good decision, srsly: Where does a reader look for counters? In the counter section. So they really should be there

[fei196]

LOL this ALT-TAB Guide is longer than the normal guides.. XD

[Kenshiro]

Hi !

There's a small error in the HotD build tab in the item builds ; HotD allows you to dominate a creep for 20 minutes. The 5 minutes are HotD's cooldown.

See you