We see Slardar here and there on the competitive scene most often to hard-counter heroes that rely on invisibility, as Slar offers his ulti to keep them constantly revealed as well as offering good disable between his AoE Stun and Bash. Slardar is also, however, a decent teamfighter, keeping key enemy heroes paper-thin with the armor reduction on his ulti, as well as a great chasing ganker, as he can quickly keep up with heroes with his Sprint as well as AoE Stun.

Slar can be made to be quite beefy with the right items, fulfilling a tank/carry role on a team which doesn't have a clear tank or carry.

He can also assist another carry in farming, ganking a lot early and taking a more supporting role.

I will attempt to outline his traditional build as well as two extreme variations on his build that give a general idea of how to fill his many roles.

Pros:
+ Hard counter to invisible heroes
+ Hybrid role means can be used in many lineups
+ Strong Ganker and Chaser
+ Able to Semi-tank and Semi-Carry
+ Has AoE stun and bash for great disabling
+ Ulti scales well to the late-game to increase team's Physical DPS

Cons:
- Fragile when chasing
- Low initial mana and int gain means mana-dependant early, must use spells sparingly
- Hybrid role means no true dominance
- Lowest of low melee ranges
- Mediocre to poor early laner

Note: Lists of heroes provided are not exhaustive, just there to provide examples to those having trouble recognizing the roles.

Physical DPSers:


These heroes deal lots of physical damage with their attacks, and benefit the most from Slardar's ultimate, Amplify Damage. Thus they are great to have on your roster as Slar

Disabling Gank Initiators:


Gank initiators are great for any team, however they are especially great allies for Slar as they allow Slar to help chain disable rather than rely on him to do the initiating, which Slar can do but isn't the best at.

Summon/Image Pushers:


Note that these heroes don't really naturally synergize (other than adding units to deal physical damage), but for our pushing build (below) they can be very helpful.

Note: Lists of heroes provided are not exhaustive, just there to provide examples to those having trouble recognizing the roles.

Invis Heroes:


This is pretty straight-forward: as will be mentioned in the skills section below, Slar's ulti, Amplify Damage, will keep an invisible opponent revealed as long as it is active upon them. This fact makes Slar a "hard" counter to all of these invisible units.

Squishy and Slow Heroes with little disable or escape:


Slar does ganking best, so heroes that are easy to gank (slow, squishy, and without good, reliable disables or escapes) are easy enemies for Slardar to take out in the Mid game.

Note: Lists of heroes provided are not exhaustive, just there to provide examples to those having trouble recognizing the roles.

Lots of Gankers and Counter-gankers:


If the other team is heavy on ganking power or is very able to stop your ganking, you may want to avoid picking Slar, as these heroes will severly shut down your poor melee self's efforts to put on ganks.

Nasty Ranged Harassers:


One can't exactly avoid picking Slar against these heroes, nor should they, as they don't shut Slar down simply by being on the opposing side. They do, however, make Slar's (and most any melee hero's) early game a nightmare. Thus, you should avoid Laning against these heroes at all costs, as you will have extreme difficulty levelling and farming your core if they are around.

You might notice some of these heroes are also the ones I mention to prey upon, and that's because they're easy heroes to gank. So you should definitely go gank them! (Just don't start out laning with them ^^)

(Main Attribute)
STRENGTH: 21 + 2.8 per level


Agility: 17 + 1.9 per level


Intelligence: 15 + 1.5 per level

Sprint


Straightforward chasing ability: Slar takes 10% extra damage from all damage types when Sprint is active.

Level 1 - Increases movement speed by 10%
Level 2 - Increases movement speed by 20%
Level 3 - Increases movement speed by 30%
Level 4 - Increases movement speed by 40%

Mana Cost - 50 (all levels)
Cooldown - 45 seconds (all levels)
Duration - 25 seconds (all levels)


Mathcrafting this a bit:

	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------
l	v.Sprint.v	l	Power Treads	l	Boots of Travel	l	Phase (w/ Active)	l
l	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------	l
l	Lvl 1	l	402	l	429	l	407 (448)	l
l	Lvl 2	l	438	l	468	l	444 (488)	l
l	Lvl 3	l	474	l	507	l	481 (522)	l
l	Lvl 4	l	511	l	522	l	518 (522)	l
	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------

With Yasha:

	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------
l	v.Sprint.v	l	Power Treads	l	Boots of Travel	l	Phase (w/ Active)	l
l	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------	l
l	Lvl 1	l	442	l	471	l	448 (492)	l
l	Lvl 2	l	481	l	514	l	488 (522)	l
l	Lvl 3	l	522	l	522	l	522 (522)	l
	-----------	-	----------------	-	------------------	-	-----------------------

The take-away points from these two tables is that we already go really fast with Sprint, much faster than any of the other heroes, and it is only necessary to take level 4 of Sprint in very extreme cases, and only when using Power Treads or Boots of Travel (which is not highly recommended).

Slithereen Crush


Main stunning spell, for chaining other people's stuns or to begin chasing someone off. Slows units by 20% for 2 seconds after the effects of the stun (or just for 2 seconds, if they are narrowly out of range of the stun).

Level 1 - Deals 50 damage, stun lasts for 1.0 seconds.
Level 2 - Deals 100 damage, stun lasts for 1.5 seconds.
Level 3 - Deals 150 damage, stun lasts for 2.0 seconds.
Level 4 - Deals 200 damage, stun lasts for 2.5 seconds.

Mana Cost - 80/95/105/115
Cooldown - 8 seconds (all levels)

Note to self: get screenshot of max stun range (350AoE), max slow range(360AoE), how to cut people off to ensure stunnage.

Bash


Gives chance a physical attack will deal (note: I believe it's 50 bonus damage but I'm unsure) bonus damage and stun the enemy (one second for hero units, 2 seconds for creeps)

Level 1 - 10% Pseudo-Random Chance(see below) to Bash
Level 2 - 15% Pseudo-Random Chance(see below) to Bash
Level 3 - 20% Pseudo-Random Chance(see below) to Bash
Level 4 - 25% Pseudo-Random Chance(see below) to Bash


Notes on Pseudo-Random Bash chance:

Warcraft 3's pseudo-random distribution of "random chance" attack modifiers use a chance that builds upon itself linearly. You start with a chance much smaller than that listed on your original attack, and as you continually try and fail to get the chance to occur, your chance increases until you are guaranteed a proc of that ability, at which point your chance resets to that small initial chance.

For example, your 25% chance to Bash with Lvl 4 of this ability means that:

• On your initial attack, your chance to Bash is only ~8.5%
• For every consecutive attack, you add 8.5% to your chance. Thus, your second consecutive non-bashing attack has a 17% chance to bash, 3rd has a 25.5% chance, 4th has a 34% chance, etc.
• Thus, on your 12th consecutive non-bashing attack, your chance to bash is ~102%, a GUARANTEED bash
• Once one of your attacks succeeds in bashing, your next attack has a 8.5% chance to bash once again.

More information can be found in this pseudo-random-distribution article
http://www.playdota.com/forums/showt...7407#post97407

Items in the article are listed in following fashion:
P(E): 0.25 C: 0.08474 N: 12 E: -0.00000643

Where P(E) is the pseudo probability to proc the ability, C is the actual probability on the initial attack & the rate of increase, N is the number of attacks it takes to be Guaranteed a proc, and E is the error of this pseudo-random distribution in comparison to using the actual random distribution.

Amplify Damage (Ultimate)


Gives your team sight of enemy (including revealing his unit if invisible) and reduces that enemy's armor, making him much easier to destroy.

Level 1 - Reduces target enemy's armor by 5
Level 2 - Reduces target enemy's armor by 10
Level 3 - Reduces target enemy's armor by 15

Mana Cost - 25 (all levels)
Cooldown - 10 seconds (all levels)
Duration - 30 seconds (all levels)
Cast Range - 700 (all levels)

Some notes on Armor Reduction from D-A:


In summary of the spoiler box above, the greatest gain in damage from armor reduction is from 10 to -5 armor, increasing your damage by nearly 70%. Reducing from 15 to 10 as well as from -5 to -10 is less than a 20% gain, and since most heroes will have between 5 and 15 armor late-game, maxing Amp Damage is always a good idea; the benefit is really good.

You should Amp enemies with the following priority:
#1 Enemies who can go Invisible
#2 Enemy Melee DPSers / Carries
#3 Enemy squishy spellcasters
#4 Enemy currently closest to your physical dpser

Gaining sight:
I just wanted to add a note that gaining sight of an enemy is a HUGE advantage, although there are several caveats of such an advantage that are good to keep in mind.

• Since Amp costs so little mana, try to use it as often as possible, to keep tabs on enemies and make them frail and easy to gank.
• While looking to keep Amp on as many people, you should also remember to keep enough mana for Stun and Sprint if you will need them soon. Don't screw yourself out of a kill by burning mana over-amping!
• Also, keep in mind that Amp does not have a huge cast range, and it is ALMOST NEVER WORTH IT TO DIE just to amp an enemy. Extreme exceptions to this would be if getting the Amp will net your carry an easy kill, if it will net the enemy losing their carry, or if it will keep a harassing invis unit from hindering a large allied team fight or push.
• One great thing to do is to Amp an enemy fleeing up a hill, as this will give you information on incoming ganks / state of base tower defenses, as well as make chasing much easier for you and your allies!
• Remember that many enemies will (smartly) change their behavior when Amped. They will attempt to hug towers to avoid being easy gank food, and they will avoid running through the woods alone. Use this to your advantage! If you want your enemy to tower hug (allowing you to farm) or run back through the lane (again, giving you control of the woods to farm, ward, etc), Amp the enemy and wait for them to react. If they don't, punish them for not fearing you and take them out!
• Lastly, though, keep in mind that some of the cleverest enemies will turn the shared vision against you as bait! They might make themselves appear vulnerable, only to have their allies (your enemies) waiting just beyond the shared vision for a counter gank! Be weary of an enemy smarter than the average bear that might play such a trick by keeping an eye on your minimap and getting your team to use wards for good map control!

Early Gank/Mid Push			Traditional			Hard(er) Carry
1. Slithereen Crush			1. Slithereen Crush			1. Slithereen Crush
2. Sprint			2. Sprint			2. Stats
3. Slithereen Crush			3. Slithereen Crush			3. Slithereen Crush
4. Sprint			4. Sprint			4. Stats
5. Slithereen Crush			5. Slithereen Crush			5. Slithereen Crush
6. Amplify Damage			6. Amplify Damage			6. Amplify Damage
7. Slithereen Crush			7. Slithereen Crush			7. Slithereen Crush
8. Sprint			8. Sprint			8. Bash
9. Bash			9. Stats			9. Bash
10. Bash			10. Stats			10. Sprint
11. Amplify Damage			11. Amplify Damage			11. Amplify Damage
12. Bash			12. Bash			12. Sprint
13. Bash			13. Bash			13. Bash
14. Stats			14. Bash			14. Bash
15. Stats			15. Bash			15. Stats
16. Amplify Damage			16. Amplify Damage			16.Amplify Damage
17. Sprint			17-24. Stats			17.-23. Stats
18-25. Stats			25. Sprint			24.-25. Sprint

Skill Build Explanation:

We will rely on Crush to stun throughout the entire game, so it is maxed first. This part of the build is unquestionable. If you're doing something else, you're doing something wrong. Max it, please, for everyone's sake (but your opponents, of course ^^)

Sprint will not maxed, as the final 10% speed is not really necessary; we're already going to be a lot faster than everyone else, and are highly mobile with Phase Boots (and even more so if we're buying MoM or Yasha). In the Ganking and Traditional build, however, we take it to level three as quickly as possible, as we want to be roaming the map as much as we can from that point forward.

Bash can be tricky to know when to take and how much of it to take. As was outlined in the skill description above, the difference in the pseudo-random distribution between levels 3 and 4 is rather minor, meaning that, like sprint, we can put off the 4th level if we really need to.

Amp is taken whenever available as the armor reduction is hugely beneficial in almost any scenario. An exception to this rule might be if your team has many spell-based damage dealers, in which case you could skip the 2nd and 3rd levels of Amp for extra stats or Bash to keep you helping out with stunning.

This is the build to go with when your team:

• Needs help ganking early,
• Is already heavy on carry, or
• Has a lot of pushing potential via summons

An extreme example lineup this might apply to:


With CK and Furion being decent gankers, and TB and Brood rounding out a very push-heavy, carry-heavy lineup, the proper banning of some AoE nukers and the pickup of a Pipe/Mek by Furi would make this lineup extremely difficult to deal with. Here, Slar would be constantly moving from lane to lane, along with Furion, ganking heroes left and right with the setup of Sprout->Force Staff(see item build)->Crush. The combination of Furi's summons /push support, the images/spiders, and your Amp, Crush, and Vlads would allow you to push easily in the midgame, allowing TB to farm while the rest of you put heavy pressure on the other team to play very defensively.

Lanes would be:
Short: Furi & CK
Mid: BM Solo
Long: Slar
Jungle: TB

This is the build to go with when your team:

• Has a fairly balanced team that needs could use a general purpose gank/stun/dps boost, or
• Picked Slar to hunt and kill Invis units and didn't quite fall into the extreme criteria of the other builds.

An extreme example lineup this might apply to:


Here is a competitive lineup I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a standard Slar build go to. The team has good tank from Skele and Dirge, as well as good Carry power from SF Skele and Dirge. Warlock acts as great support, and Dirge can use his heal and tombstone to push nicely. Here, Slar would help in ganking all lanes, as well as increasing the DPS of all heroes involved (as everyone has good physical attacking in this lineup).

Lanes would be:
Short: Dirge & Slar
Mid: SF Solo
Long: Warlock & SK

This is the build to go with when your team:

• Is short on carry-power, or
• Can already gank really well

An extreme example lineup this might apply to:


This lineup's has no true carry, with Tide and PotM being only kinda close, meaning you need to pick up your share of the slack. Tide Puck PotM and Lion are all excellent gankers, also, meaning you can lane more and roam only when you're needed. You also have a lot of Physical DPS between you, PotM and Tide (and Puck isn't too bad, actually, and not too busy casting after initiating). So, this would be a typical lineup to find Slar in.

Lanes would be:
Short: Tide & Puck
Mid: PotM Solo
Long: Lion & Slar

mantle

Phase



hyper
plate mail
chainmail

Ogre Ax
Hammer



vital boost
RoH
stout
vanguard

Skill Build			Starting (600 gold)			Next(In Order)
EARLY GANK/MID PUSH:						=>,,
			Continued:			,=>
TRADITIONAL:			x3,			=>
			Continued:			, =>
HARD(ER) CARRY:			x3,			,or,=>
			Continued:			=>,

			Target Inventory by Level ??:			Total Cost:
EARLY GANK/MID PUSH (Lvl 10):						~4150
TRADITIONAL:						~5300
HARD(ER) CARRY:						~5900

Justification:
The Early Gank build aims to start picking people off as soon as possible, which is why we go for early regen items and our key moneymaker, Force Staff. We will use the Force ^^ to help with initiating by either moving our opponents towards us or by hiding in the trees and forcing ourselves into the enemy to get the jump on them. We'll be poised to start pushing early on, with our opponents constantly dead and under-leveled.

Tradition calls for a Slardar ganking as much as possible while simultaneously becoming a beefy contender for the late-game. In order to gank and chase, we choose Phase Boots to burst through the creep waves, and we'll use a Bottle and the runes as our source of regen. Quelling Blade is optional here, but helps to get yourself to an Armlet as quickly as possible.

The Hard(er) Carry build aims to stay strong into the late-game. For this, we will take advantage of Quelling Blade to help ourselves farm a bit early, and wait to start ganking until we get our Armlet finished and get our levels of Sprint right around level 10/11.

Skill Build			Through Midgame
EARLY GANK/MID PUSH:			=>,=>
			=>=>
TRADITIONAL:			=>
			=>
HARD(ER) CARRY:			=>, =>,
			=>,=>

			Target Inventory by Level X(below):			Total Cost:
EARLY GANK/MID PUSH (Lvl 17):						~11800
TRADITIONAL (Lvl 20):						~14400
HARD(ER) CARRY (Lvl 20):						~18100

Justification:
Vlad's will help our Mid Push put the pressure on the enemy base fast, getting our allies improved armor, mana regen, and all melee some lifesteal. We then move to grab Travels to make our pushing as mobile as possible, and finally work towards the new, improved Manta Style that will have us knocking down what remains of the enemy bases.

The older-than-dirt (not really) combination of MoM/Armlet becomes our primary target for our Traditional build, giving us a lot of burst damage. Even though MoM's bonus MS doesn't stack Sprint, it does give us good IAS and Lifesteal to offset Armlet's degen.

Priority for our Hard(er) Carry falls on getting some lifesteal to offset our Armlet use. We will then grab Yasha to help us chase down enemies, as well as proc our Bash even more. We then grab AC, which gives us serious IAS and keeps teamfights very uneven with the armor auras. Finally, we grab the new wonderkin Manta Style, as it is just all-around badass.

ALL BUILDS:

As usual for BKB, if you're finding yourself having to get into the thick of things to get your stun off only to be chain disabled by the opposing forces, BKB is your best bet. The damage and STR is perfect for you as well. Shoot for this by level 13-16, immediately after finishing your core, in either of the two builds.

Try to anticipate needing it based on the lineups. If your team doesn't have a ton of disable and the other team does, chances are you will be needed to initiate a lot of the time, splashing and bashing. You'd rather get this BEFORE you have serious chain disable problems rather than AFTER ^^

TRADITIONAL & HARD(ER) CARRY

SnY became a much more viable option recently, with the removal of the recipe cost. If you are facing a team with little/no blinking and have a gank-heavy team, this may be your best bet around lvl 11-12 to help your team seek and destroy, not to mention helping out your HP slightly and giving you some added AS to help Proc bash and MS that makes skipping Sprint's higher levels a smart thing to do.

EARLY GANK / MID PUSH
=>
Hood and Pipe can be viable options on the Early Ganker build if you foresee getting nuked to death when ganking and your team could use the Pipe against bigtime AoE spellcasters for pushing later on. You're not particularly well suited for Pipe, however, as it puts a strain on your mana pool. Probably a good idea to finish this before Vlad's, if you're going for it.

ALL BUILDS

Orchid is a viable option for Slar mostly due to his early game mana problems and his role as a damage amplifier. Farming Oblivion Staffs for Orchid is one of the easiest build-ups for an item in the game, and Slar benefits greatly from the +40 damage adn +30 attack speed. You likely won't need all the mana Orchid provides, but if you're in serious mana trouble early and foresee good use of a Silencing Amp Damage in the mid to late game, Orchid is a reasonable option.


HARD(ER) CARRY

While the MS bonus does of MoM does NOT stack Sprint, this item can provide an early AS boost to the Carry build that also helps to offset Armlet's degen and provide a few extra bashes. Get this when you don't think you need the extra armor from HotD (maybe you went with Phase Boots) and don't think you'd be making it to Satanic very feasibly.

MID PUSH & HARD(ER) CARRY

While BFury does provide some needs to Slar (Regen to keep ganking, damage, and farming help), it will also rob your carry of a lot of potential farm and push the lanes harder than you might like. If you are struggling to grab your keystone items, and feel like Perseverance will help keep you out and fighting, the Mid Push build wants to push the lanes, and Hard(er) carry build will be HELPING the carry farm (as you are the carry ^^), so either of these two builds might benefit from a Battle Fury. In my honest opinion, it is sub-optimal, being trumped by other regen (Vlad's, Hood, consumables, bottle) and damage/push items (Manta, Armlet). It isn't the worst choice you could make, though

HARD(ER) CARRY

HoM should come before Treads in the Semi-Carry build only if you know you will have to carry very hard for your team, and only if you can farm it by the 10th - 15th minute. The IAS is certainly not wasted on Slar, and if it means getting to your Luxury items that much faster, it is worth the early-midgame setback.

Note that the situation in which you would have to be a Hard carry for your team would be rare as Slar; your team would be completely devoid of any other semi-carry, and have enough ganking not to need your strong ganking services early on.

ALL BUILDS

This item is extremely situational and rarely called for. The reason is that the "sweet spot" for maximizing damage to a hero is debuffing their armor to around 0 to -5; all further armor reduction is met with diminishing returns on the damage amplification you deal.

Situations that call for Deso would be:
An enemy high-armor carry/tank (DK, TB, AC carrying hero X, Shiva carrying hero Y)
A very high amount of physical DPS on your side (As the armor reduction will amplify everyone's damage)

See these mechanics guides over on D-A for more information on armor reduction and diminishing returns:
"Sweet spot" of Deso
Armor and EHP

ALL BUILDS

Blink Dagger is popular on many heroes with an AoE stun, as it allows you to get in range of your foes and land your stun with ease, initiating the battle. However, Slardar is not the tankiest hero, and takes amplified damage when using Sprint, making him a better secondary stunner than initiator. Furthermore, Slar can make good use of Sprint and Phase to get in range of people to initiate (if he really has to), and use Force Staff on the Early Ganker build to further assist in positioning yourself/teammates/enemies. The only use I might recommend for Blink is in positioning oneself while chasing when the opponent tries dodging your setup for a stun, but even this can be avoided with enough practice and mind games.

Bottom line is the money spent on this would be better spent, but if your team MUST use you to initiate, you could consider Dagger purely for your AoE stun. I don't personally recommend getting your team into such a situation though; just pick a better initiator ^^

Note: Remember not to activate Sprint while blinking into the center of the group you're initiating! You will take extra damage and moving faster is not really going to help you out when you're surrounded (partly why I recommend against Dagger on Slar: Negative Synergy between Initiating and Sprint). Instead, wait for the fight to begin to break up before activating Sprint and chasing down enemy stragglers that run away from their allies

This item should be your first luxury item choice, as it provides a lot of useful things and has a reasonable buildup for your hero. The Hyperstone should be your first priority to increase your bashing. Couple that with the increased attack speed for your allies and the decreased armor for your foes (including buildings!) you have a strong late-game teamfight and pushing presence that should help lead you to victory.

Note that the +5 armor for your team does not stack Vlad's, and the -5 armor for your enemies may be overkill (though it's really nice for buildings), so if your team doesn't have a lot of physical DPS or the other team doesn't really have much armor, this may not be the best item, in which case...


Satanic is great for the extra STR that helps you tank and deal more damage, as well as the Active that can be an instant heal for Slar. The Hard(er) Cary build greatly benefits from all of these things, and since you're already grabbing HotD for some Lifesteal, you're already 1/3 of the way to this item!


To help in tanking as much as possible, the 965 hp, high regen, and damage boost HoT provides is a welcome addition to your item build. Grab this to keep yourself in the middle of the fight, bashing away at your foes and keeping that -armor Ulti on them to knock them down quickly.

Don't need the mana Shiva's provides, a few Nulls or Force Staff early should be the maximum of your needs. Yes, the armor helps you tank and the -AS for the enemy is very useful, as well as the slow, but let someone else grab this (i.e. an Int hero). The gold is much better spent for Slar, rather than wasting it on Int he doesn't need at all.


While Slar is a chaser and a dpser, he needs IAS for bashing; the high damage of Rad is not quite as useful. Let someone else who'd be a better Rad carrier grab this one as well.


Eye is still wicked expensive and, thus, impractical to farm. You don't need the slow to chase, as you're plenty fast and have stun/bash, and as a melee hero, you can't get another orb in addition to this. You're better off with Lifesteal, SnY or Deso.


IAS and Chain is good for farming in the unlikely situation where farming is the goal, but the Agi bonus is mostly wasted, as you gain no damage from it. You can do better for the money (better off with Midas if hard-carrying IMO).

Take the long lane if at all possible (bottom for Sent, top for Scourge). Partner up with a ranged stunner/harasser that you can chain your stun with or will keep you safe enough to farm a bit.

Have your partner focus on getting the denies while you focus on sneaking up for last hits.

Heroes you want to have in your lane

Opportunities to nab kills will be few and far between, but if you can loop around the forest to initiate or have your partner stun long enough for you to run up and chain stun, by all means take them.

Call for ganks or tp into other lanes, sprint up behind and combo off. People run away from amp damage so try to coordinate casting of it w a stun, followed by immediate run behind and stun yourself. Remember to animation cancel stun for some extra hits / possible bash.

Switch your treads (str to power through tower, agi if dpsing to look for extra bash(?), int when chasing if need more mana for extra stun) See below for more information on Switching Treads.

Always keep amp on the two primary targets and invis units. Try not to be first one into fights, as you can sprint in and stun and aren't usually tanky enough to soak damage.

Note to self: add screenshots here!
Just give a brief overview for new players on what it means to wait for an ally disable to finish, so as to not waste time for potential free hits

Timing comes with practice, and it is usually better to err on the early side, so as to allow no opening for your enemy to escape. Add notes on making sure to know ~ how long disables last, what enemies will escape easier than others, etc.

When fighting a losing battle with Armlet on, start to run at about 500 hp / enough to survive a disable from your opponents.

Get out of range of danger and immediately deactivate Armlet. You'll have 1 hp left. Hit sprint as soon as you can, and if anyone come to chase from out of the woods etc., pop your Armlet for an instant ~400hp (Note: number?)

If feeling very safe from opposing chase and can take an opponent 1 on 1:

When the opponent begins to stop chasing, come back towards him. When he turns around to re-initiate, pop Armlet back on, and you'll instantly have ~400hp (Note: number?). Stun and whack once or twice, making sure to stay out of range.

Note to self: Take screens or perhaps make a video of how to do this.

Before going in for a gank, try to hit a creep once or twice (or a few times, depending on your level of bash), as it will increase your chances of getting a bash sooner.

Choose the opportune moment to start your gank.

Routes to gank through trees in.
Note: Screenshots needed here.

To stun effectively, position self behind opponent to block path. Stop attacking when close to stun cd, get ahead of them again, block more. This helps allies catch up/help out, and keeps enemies further away.

Note to self: add screenshots here!

Remember, if you activate Phase and Sprint AFTER, your phase will be cancelled! However, activating in the reverse order will stack the MS bonuses! Here, we will be activating Sprint AFTER we use Phase, then using Phase to get through waves only. It is not ideal movespeed gain, but it does give us the best chance to initiate / follow up an ally disable. Just follow these simple steps!

1. While near but behind the creep wave, if an ally has just disabled an enemy OR if you wish to initiate chain disable on an enemy, activate Phase Boots and run up to an opponent, stunning them (wait for full duration of an ally stun to Crush). Note that you may get stunned before reaching them, which is okay, you've gotten them to run back at least

2. Have your lane partner chain disable, if they can. Either way, whack away until the opponent is about to leave stun, in which case you should try to move in front of them and hopefully avoid any AoE spell they may be spamming onto you for when they wake up (of course, if they have a targetable disable, you'll be SOL, but that's okay, still getting them to retreat is good)

3. Use Sprint to stay in front of the enemy, phasing to avoid oncoming creep waves. Stun when available, and finish the buggers off ^^

Remember the order of switching goes Str->Agi->Int (Note: Check this)

This is what I recommend doing:

Get behind the enemy with your Str treads activated & hit once, then stun (unless a bash comes out, in which case hit again before stunning)
Switch to agi treads to get an extra attack in while stunned.
If low on mana, switch to Int treads and chase to get that extra stun in, otherwise chase with Str treads and finish off after another stun.

While chasing, watch out for the artful dodgers of the world, especially those with high movespeeds. You have ??? seconds to hit stop after hotkeying your stun to cancel it and continue chasing. Don't let those slippery surface-dwellers get away!

While not the worst backswing ever, Slar's Crush does waste precious time after casting. Immediately after the splash effect & stun come out, you should right-click your enemy to start attacking him/her, gaining an extra attack (or perhaps even two) that may spell the difference between a kill and a woulda-coulda-shoulda runaway (or maybe a kill that costs you your life tower-diving)! This is true of many other heroes, so always keep it in mind!

Note to self: Take screenshot of cast point

More information can also be found at:

PlayDota's learn section

Note to self: play a few games with each build inhouse/tda/garena

I welcome those who try these out with success to post replays as well, I will add any good ones ^^

Scarpe - Borrowed basic layout of Nortrom Guide to get started
Corsair July - Needed to mention Desolater, Idea to hide things in Spoiler boxes to save space
Dark Kenshi - Idea of delineating space with the solid underscore line
Subseven - Mentioning Blink Dagger as initiation option
Lycan - Anchor tag idea from his Advanced Guide. Working with me on Phase and Magic Wand.
EcceLex (aka Dxy) - Allowing me to use his armor mathcrafted table, as it is quite key ppl understand the diminishing returns of it.

Hello Readers!

My name's Will Buck, but I typically go by the handle FrozenStorm2k51. I answer pretty well to Will, Bill (even though I've never gone by Bill, I'm just used to ppl getting it wrong :P), Frozen, and Storm, so feel free to call me by any of those names, I don't terribly prefer any one to the other when I'm online ^^

Currently, I'm a Computer Sciences and East Asian Studies Major, gunning for a Bachelor of Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, home of the Badgers, a reasonable amount of partying (more for some than others) and a lot of progressive, liberal people. It's a great place for college life! I love DotA and games in general, as well as watching and playing a lot of sports (basketball, baseball, football, and volleyball most often) and playing / watching trivia games, especially on movies (Scene It for X360 is pretty beast, love it ^^). Though I wouldn't call myself competitive, I do love all things competitive, especially when knowledge and strategy is involved in the competition. Playful mindgames are always a good time Otherwise I'm a pretty laid-back, tolerant, calm person, and enjoy chatting on subjects of games and movies. This is sounding like a Dating Game application, so I'll cut to the more important things.

I've been playing DotA for almost 6 years now, working my way up from several years of pubs to finally finding some more competitive communities. I play most of my games on TDA, clan Inhouse wars, and Garena currently, though I have signed up for DotaLeague and I'm hoping that pans out well. I also participated in one season of CAL-O (Season 8, the second to last, Winter 08-09), on a team that did fairly well but did not make the playoffs (I think we were like 3-4 W/L with 1 forfeit win). I also regularly watch replays of some of the more competitive matches (i.e. F4F, CEVO, WCG) and have been especially into Tobi-Wan-Kenobi's shoutcasts over on Gamestah as of late. So while I am not a pro player myself, I strive to be on the highest level I can while still juggling work, school, and other programming projects.

I'm hoping to get into game design one day, so don't be surprised to see me around the Suggestions or Balance forums here, gathering knowledge and exercising as much problem solving / creative ideas as I can in the hope that it will aid my career one day (plus I love DotA, that doesn't hurt ^^)

Feel free to drop me a line when you like, I love hearing from people and giving feedback on other people's ideas of changes to the games or strategy options!