The Aggressor
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explanation:
lets you threaten any enemy early on with pounce and shift, and a little later pact... with shift and a well timed pact and some assistance from your lane partner, you can make a kill pretty easily. with the new cooldown, damage, and range improvements, this role is more attractive than before.

comments:
my personal favorite. this of course in no way invalidates the other roles slark can play.

The Caster Killer
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explanation:
against casters you may need to avoid trying to use conventional means to last hit. a dark pact adds 75 damage to the creep you're going to last hit, this may surprise a lot of harassers and make the last hits go smoothly. getting hit not at all and losing 35 hp is a lot better than getting hit once or twice by a harasser.

if you have the short lane you might fear getting ganked so in that case you get pounce to escape at level one instead of pact. if you have the long lane then you can get pact at level one.

another idea if you plan to pull creeps is to get pounce at level one so that you can knock down trees. you can also use it to escape if you get creep jacked. this is particularly effective at bottom lane...it will grant you more flexibility in timing for pulling, so basically you can pull sooner than usual. as for dark pact, it can be very helpful against some pushers such as venomancer, broodmother.

when ready to kill an enemy you might only get 1 or 2 hits at best in with the spells the casters could throw at you. so another 75 damage from pact is worth more than a maybe ~38 damage from shift. if still not convinced, consider it another way:

you can take shift at level 8 without much upset if you really need it, but taking it at level 1 or 4 is something you'd only really do if you found yourself face to face with a hero or two that is very weak against essence shift. the extra levels of pounce will improve damage and cooldown, so in the metagame of dominating last hitting and denying...you can't use shift against the many ranged caster heroes that are trying to make a lot of last hits and denies. trying to do so leaves you far too vulnerable. focus on the easy/no risk kills and then make up for the ones you let them have by killing them with your pact and pounce combination. that's your plan with this role. keep that in mind.

comments:
you might not believe how good this skill leveling method is at killing casters until you try it.

The Swamp Monster
type a:
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type b:
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explanation:
early pact levels give you the gold you need for more mega items. the stats levels mid game while avoiding leveling up pounce and shift give you a ton of hp, turning you into a monster tank.

now this other variation considers pact and pounce extra levels to be a waste of enhancing his general attack power. more levels in stats and shift pay off more in making slark a stronger attacker. less spell damage here, in fact you don't care about the spell damage in this build. one nice thing about this build is you should probably always have mana to use your ultimate.

now the the primary effect of slark's skills will not change much by leveling them up. so obviously, you still get ultimate's invis, still get the +19 damage through shift, still get 3.5 seconds of chain, and what is it now 1 second of spell debuffing or something like that. feel free to reason out what skills can be neglected and make up your own monster stats skill builds.

comments:
even though you can make up your own variations for this role, i recommend you try one or both of these skill builds first. they're very strong.

Essence Eater
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explanation:
higher levels of essence shift for higher levels of defense that you must penetrate. this was an arguably stronger role before the attributes went from 4 stolen to 3 stolen. it is however, still practical, although it takes more patience to play. you have to encourage your allies to learn to survive long duration fights, so that slark can gain more and more agility. you can get dark pact at level 4, 5, or 7 without upset in the role. at any rate, you max out pounce as soon as you can because the cooldown reduction helps you take advantage of your shift+shroud combination. you make hit and run attacks. if you can't quite kill an opponent, you can make a get away and try again later, possibly with a different target and/or under different circumstances. at the very least, you'll have more agility, and they'll have less of their attributes, as well. and less hp. a variation of this role might be to act like it's the aggressor role, only swap shift for pact. that's for you guys who gotta have your pounce maxed out by level 7.

the point is that you use your ultimate to regenerate, while your shift keeps your agility at a decent level, and the hp of your opponent low(if they didn't die yet).

comments:
this is a somewhat 'classic' way of playing slark. but it's no longer necessarily about fighting a lot of 1v1 fights. there are a lot of heroes who have proven themselves capable of taking on slark 1v1 and winning. plus, in the current metagame of public games, if enemies take slark seriously, they attack him with all force possible. to that end, this role is about stealing as much attributes as possible, and then when the time is right, make your kills. encourage your allies to join in with some teamwork item such as urn of shadows or vladmir's offering.

Starting Items

Core Items

Extension Items
get one or more of these before, during, or after your core, depending on the game.

Situational Items
get one or more of these when and if you need them. experience is a good teacher in this area. this isn't an exhaustive list. use your imagination.

Luxury Items

End Game Items

There may be many different choices for end game items. it is up to each player to decide what end game items they will get. I will often win a game before i can build a single luxury item. but if the enemy doesn't give in quite so easily, your inventory might look like one of the following setups.

The Quick Killer

The Crusher

The Oblivion Bringer

The Combat Murloc

The Death Express

The Unsquishable Frog

The Pursuing Shadow


The Killing Darkness

No end game item build for slark is perfect. Go with whatever items will work for the game you're in.

Highly Recommended Items

vlads is generally regarded as the ultimate weapon on slark, and believe it or not, bloodstone is the ultimate shield on slark. it protects him from gold loss and gains him exp, and heals his allies when he dies and revives him faster. it also makes sure he always has mana for his ultimate and pounce. vladmir's offering gives percentage based damage increase, which skyrockets when slark's passive gets pumped up. on top of that it gives aura based lifesteal which stacks with all other lifesteals and even gives a pinch of armor in an aura and a pinch of mana regeneration in an aura and a pinch of life regeneration. it keeps him rolling in battle, rocking all the enemies. and if they by some miracle manage to bring you down, bloodstone brings you back up quicker, and minimizes the death.

as for monkey king bar, it's the best way to handle ANY evasion problems. you need to deal with those if they come about, or you WILL regret it.

crow blade, ravenblade, slark blade, purple blade, abyssal blade, whatever you call it, this new item was made just for slark. they get pounded and before they can make an escape or defeat you, you give them more essence shift beatdown for another 2 seconds. wonderful. with all this plus extra damage, critical strike might be a good idea.

Early Game

Frequently asked questions

lane style?
general rule of thumb is play cautiously...if your ally makes a headdress of rejuvenation, fantastic, then you can be more aggressive, otherwise...just take a look at what your enemy is doing. if they're only melee, then feel free to harass them like crazy while getting as many last hits as you can or at least preventing his last hits. nowadays there's at least 3 ranged heroes so get used to sneaking up and last hitting and then backing off frequently. if the ranged heroes are really giving you a tough time with their auto attacks, get a poor man's shield, if not, then either get a magic wand for standard mana and hp replenishment, or get yourself an urn for emergency heals and for teamwork purposes. if your early game is a breeze, just skip your defensive item altogether and finish your core or work on your first extension/situational item.

picking your lane
whichever lane your allies don't want is probably best. another option is to avoid or confront certain enemy types depending on which lane they're in.

which partner?
any ranged hero that can follow slark's lead. a stun or a nuke is preferable but not necessary. a ranged hero is better than a stun. damage amplification skills like vengeful's howl of terror or witch doctor's maledict are priceless. see chapter 6(VI.) for tips about working with regular partners of slark.

Laning Phase

use your night sight to your advantage and scout the rune spot near your lane frequently. this might give you an edge over your enemies. you usually don't need wards yourself but pay attention if your allies have some. try to pull creeps if you can and get some early last hits, your starting strength is rather impressive so your hp regen is not too shabby. just don't get hit hard 1v2 much or get caught in worse odds. if you have just melee hero enemies, then consider chilling at the creep fight every wave and attack the enemy hero whenever he comes close. if your ally is equally aggressive, then you might be able to score a kill or two relatively easily. this will make getting your treads and getting to level 6 a breeze.

Mid Game

Frequently asked questions

do i roam now?
when you hit level 6, your lane enemies might start getting really nervous around you. they might choose to try to make extra gold ganking someone else and come back later with dust. if they do that, then you can either follow them around or go into the forest and start farming for your items. another option is going from lane to lane and going after heroes that are weak/alone/vulnerable and/or mopping up creeps with dark pact.

what will I do in clash?
it depends. is the enemy after you as an instigator? or are you coming in and aren't the focus? you can either get away by pouncing or using ultimate or just walk away. or, you can dive in, pact right away after or as you pounce if you're going after a caster, and maybe even ultimate if you're really worried, and take 1 guy out. tell your allies to wait around for half a minute, and use your urn(if you have it) on anyone hurt. then make the clash happen again. repeatedly taking one guy out at a time might be the safest way to battle, although it might frustrate some of your allies. if you aren't in any danger then don't bother using your ultimate. your pounce and pact have pretty good cooldown, and if you get lifesteal you can fight for quite a while as long as you're not focused down.

what will I do if i'm ganked?
tell your allies to push since their lane enemies are ganking you. the last thing you want is for your allies to rush to your aid when you don't need it. you're slark... you just need to pact and ult and maybe even pounce and you're out of there. if they're chasing you all over the map, you might not get much done, but as long as your allies aren't stupidly trying to rescue a murloc that doesn't need rescuing, your team will do fine. just make sure you don't run out of mana. a magic wand or vlads will do a lot to solve your mana troubles.

Ganking Phase

you've got a lot of different options as slark for the ganking phase. you can get team items like urn of shadows, vladmir's offering, and bloodstone. or you can go for a more solo commando style of playing slark and be the ganker extraordinaire and get attack speed and movement speed items and be the one man ganker. alternatively, you can try to go for a mix of the two roles. generally speaking you want to be flexible, but sometimes the enemies' strategy is very transparent and you can be a redundant little bastard frog who is very predictable and that's ok too.

Late Game

Frequently asked questions

what is my role, anyway?
you're a killer. that's all you're good for. you're not a carry(despite how many idiots tell you). you're a terrible support. you can tank a little, but the more you tank the harder it is to kill, especially if you're tanking disables or aoe, or the worst of all, slows. so the best thing for you to do is just be a killer. you can kill while you tank, kill while you support, or even kill while you kill. but you'll never be good at either tanking or supporting, and you'll certainly never be able to carry. if icefrog restored slark's permanent agility gain, then things would be different. so survive as best you can while killing as best you can. you don't have to get the actual kill, an assist is just as good, assuming the killer ally of yours didn't die. slark is a very morale dependent hero, so try to pick him in lineups where you can easily dominate early.

what luxury items do i get?
by late game it's usually best to balance out your weak points. get agility if you need more attack speed before battles, or get hp or lifesteal if you need some more staying power in battles.

what about situational items?
well here things can get tricky. sometimes the enemy is really hard to kill so you need to get the item that will help you do that. sometimes you have to get an item just so you won't be useless. try to get the item that will nullify the enemy's advantage over you AND allow you to kill them.

Team Push Phase

team push time comes, ask your allies not to tower dive over and over again. towers aren't nice to slark since his ultimate is useless while in range of one. ask them to let the creeps do the pushing. just turn the end game into a gigantic battle of miniature pushes combined with miniature ganks. slark with his 522 ms and 2 minutes essence shift and relatively low cooldown abilities thrives in that sort of environment.

has Maledict which is powered up by Essence Shift. Consider getting Orb of Venom to empower your Witchdoctor ally even further. He can also save you from certain kinds of deadly traps with his stun if the need arises, since usually those traps are involving multiple heroes going at you which will probably all get stunned repeatedly. Despite how great Maledict is, it's still recommended you max out the stun first, as usual. Just don't build your heroes too squishy(mostly looking at you, Slark), or when you make a mistake, it might hurt.

has mighty curse which takes away str from enemy heroes...much like your shift. His damage amplification ultimate is a fantastic team fight ability. He's the primary target almost always, meaning that Slark should have little difficulty farming agility in a big team fight. And if Slark does fall first, Dirge will have farmed a lot of strength. Consider getting Battlefury for both Slark and Dirge, so that enemy will be damned whether they go for Dirge or not.

Tresdin, the Legion Commander's ability to increase an ally or his own attack speed is highly underrated. The Ability might not be global, and the manacost might not be great, but it is comparable to troll warlord's ultimate ability. Meaning that it is an excellent spell to cast on Slark. Likewise, his other spell is very good too for Slark. If the enemies gather together against Slark to push him down, the more, the merrier! Legion Commander's spell deals more damage to them. Legion Commander's attack speed spell is like a free Mask of Madness, without the movespeed. Encourage Tresdin to skip the passive early on, it should pay off. Also, Tresdin's style of play is similiar to your own, build attack speed and damage items and then power through with your passives and ultimates to bring the enemy down, while they can do little against you.

Invoker works well with a lot of heroes, but Slark's ability to draw enemy heroes from other lanes to him really helps Invoker have an easier time landing meteor strikes and other skill shots, because after all, Invoker will have more targets to hit. Also, pounce is great for holding an enemy in place for his lava minions or whatever else Invoker has up his sleeve that doesn't work so well with the enemy running away from him. Furthermore, Alacrity is a blessing on Slark if used with precision, even if Invoker didn't level up Exort.

A hero that specializes in Magic Damage, and a silence(and a curse) to keep the enemies from nuking(or even attacking effectively without a counter) Slark while he attacks. He moves around fast at night, and sees well at night, and enhances Slark's own night sight advantage by prolonging the night. His night powers greatly enhance Slark's own killing powers.

A ranged hero that can see almost as far as Slark can at night. She has silence, and slow, keeping enemy from running away from Slark so easily, or using teleporting moves to get away. She's tough on her own, but with Slark around acting as her bodyguard, she's going to be even harder to bring down. It is recommended that you get an orb of venom since her arrows no longer slow the enemy attack speed. Also, your pounce should help her to keep them off of her, somewhat. Since they're on a leash, she can walk outside of its range. One of Slark's major concerns is enemies getting away with teleportation spells, or enemies nuking him with aoe spells through his ultimate. Drow Ranger helps to solve both of those problems with her silence ability, which can hit multiple heroes for up to 6 seconds. At level 10(or so), she's already stronger than Nortrom is at level 16. Granted, the spell might not be global, but the spell has a relatively good cooldown to make up for that.

Now this is an interesting ally. He sees good at night, like you, and he has a trapping spell, like you. Whatever you're not focused on, he's probably focused on, and vice versa. You're both excellent killers, and you both have one of the same major weaknesses: big area damage spells, like Queen of Pain's ultimate. With the both of you with your 1800 sight range night and day wandering around(well, more than 2 of you since he has clones), you're going to find threats coming at you a lot easier and be better able to prepare against them.

A ranged hero that specializes in Magic Damage, and a ministun which could be used like a bash. Luna has everything Slark lacks. They just complement eachother perfectly. A well-rounded fighting force. She can also see far at night, like Slark.

Lord of Avernus can help Slark with his supportive abilities. Not only that, Slark benefits a lot from Lord of Avernus' Frostmourne. They have a lot of nuking power between them, and their passives can be really strong, too. Recommend Urn of Shadows,(or other cheap mana regeneration item) Blademail and/or Lifesteal(for you both) and maybe a magic wand for good measure to keep their mana up and to keep the enemy from squishing you too easily. Mostly you just have to fear hard core ganks. He protects you very, very well, but can also run away(or fight) well on his own if you have to bail on him.

This guy can help observe the map. He's a map control artist. And Slark loves map control. It helps him with the passive part of his ultimate. Also, Slark benefits a lot from Beastmaster's aura, as does the rest of the team. He's a team fight blessing for Slark.

If you want a free battlefury, look no further than this guy right here. Not so seriously...if Slark and Magnus are of opposite sex, i'd recommend breeding them... Anyways, Magnus' empower does wonders on Slark after a hard day's work of sweeping up supports and tanks, and it's time to take on the carry. Also, Magnus' dive can help to isolate opponents, and the bottom line is, if the enemy won't give Slark many 1v1 opportunities, Magnus can still help Slark bring some serious fight to the frontlines with the empower ability. And Magnus himself is pretty strong for fighting those big fights, himself, what with all of his abilities being area-based damage abilities.

Any time Dark Pact doesn't get the job done, there's also Repel. Any time Dark Pact doesn't get the job done, there's also Purification. Any time Essence Shift doesn't get the job done, there's also Guardian Angel. Any time Pounce doesn't get the job done, there's also Degeneration Aura. So, bottom line? If the enemy is outplaying Slark, that's fine, just don't let them outplay the both of you when you work together. But seriously, try to outplay them, anyway. Yeah, Omniknight's abilities really back up Slark nicely.

Ax and Slark work out ok for aggressive assaults on the enemy. Ax draws the fire while Slark puts out the pain. Slark's pounce is recommended at your first hero level, this will help Ax's spinning to deal damage to the enemy, they'll be trapped if you pounce them just right, and they won't be able to get away. Of course, it's going to work much better at level 2, with his call and your essence shift. Call is not mandatory, but it does help Slark land his pounce very easily and sets up Ax's spins very nicely.

She's got her damage amplification, which is beautiful on Slark, then she's got a nice stun and armor reduction. Very good for physical attackers like Slark. Plus, she is a ranged hero. Remember to pounce for her if the enemy tries to kill her. You don't want to lose the many benefits she brings. Consider getting Urn of Shadows to keep her around nearby you.

Wisp can fuel Essence Shift well with Tether and Overdrive combination. Think of him as a free yasha.

Fuel Essence Shift like never before with Troll Warlord's ultimate ability. And he comes with his own bashing and more tricks for more attacking mayhem.

This guy keeps the enemies running of of mana, and maybe even low on health. Easy pickings for Slark. Essence Shift loves it when the enemies don't cast so many spells on Slark. Last Word happens to synergize pretty well with Dark Pact, since it delays their casting of their next spell, meaning that the cooldown of your own Dark Pact spell sometimes feels a little shorter.

Enough good things can't be said about Rhasta. He has amazing potential for a hero and can be played a wide variety of ways. And his disables are really good for any agility allies he may have...including Slark.

His electric fence thing is pretty good, sortof like pounce, but a little less reliable(matter of opinion, i guess) but much stronger as it hits multiple enemies, although it by itself does no damage. So that redundancy with Slark can really get on the enemies' nerves. Then there's his ultimate, which has silence along with it, which is great with pounce for against only one opponent, or against more than one.

This mean night elf chick doesn't look like much, but like Slark, she can really draw a crowd of enemy heroes. This can help take pressure off of Slark momentarily so he can use Dark Pact on some forest monsters or enemy troops, gaining a lot of gold and from there, getting some items to help bring the fight to the enemy properly. Further, like Thrall, her traps with Slark's traps can get redundant for the enemy, and if they're having trouble with the traps, you will have excellent map control. And Slark loves map control, for it helps the passive of his ultimate.

Pudge is pretty good for surprising anyone. The two of you can work on pouncing and hooking and scaring the crap out of your opponents. You're both killers. You can either work together and tackle stronger enemies together, or you can work seperately and thereby establishing map control and keep weaker enemies weak more efficiently. His ultimate works much like one of Rhasta's disables, and it's useful for Slark against certain slippery enemies, and Slark's Pounce synergizes nicely with Pudge's Rot.

His aura is really good. Just be sure to be attacking the same guys. And learn to follow the Chieftain's lead. He's the leader, not you. Whoever he attacks, you attack. Otherwise, the aura he has will be unlikely to work on your target. His aura amplifies both magic and physical damage...meaning...it's basically like every other damage amplification thing out there. So use it as often as you can to get the most out of it. You can even get Ethereal Blade to hit some guy trying to kill Tauren Chieftain, if you like. Mainly, though, it's useful for your physical attacks. The enemies losing str should drop like flies under the weight of your attacks and the Chieftain's aura. Necronomicon, Vladmir's Offering, and Desolator are all acceptable items for you to build towards if Tauren Chieftain is on your team, although it might be better if he's the one making at least some of those items, particularly the Necronomicon. And regular items work good, too, especially anything with attack speed, including Maelstrom, which adds magic damage.

This guy can get a free freeze off of your pounce, if you can agree to an appropriate timing window to use your abilities in. Then there's his ultimate, which can wipe some red hp enemies, which are not so hard to create with Slark's Dark Pact ability. Consider getting a battlefury or radiance to enhance the effectiveness of Ancient Apparition's ultimate.

A strong new hero. He has his entangle which can tangle not just one but three enemies, which is sweet combined with aoe abilities, like your Dark Pact. Watchout that you don't build your heroes too squishy, and practice your escape moves quite a bit. Manta Style can make you both considerably stronger and harder to kill at the same time, and is highly recommended. Many enemies will run from a hero with illusions, but they can hardly do that if they're trapped, now, can they?

can buff all his allies, including himself with the armor that gives the melee attacker a slow to his ms and as. not fun at all. most your damage is in physical strikes and besides the slow he has armor given to the attacked unit. might want an ethereal blade against this guy, or just stack ims and ias items.

is a pretty good nuker too. if he's called his allies into a group hug then they're all going to be slowing you while they attack you. solution? same as with lich, pretty much. if you can get fed off his ultimate then that might be a sweet revenge.

has untouchable...her slow spell works against you but it's something you can pact out of, and she'd need to target you, which she would have trouble doing if you're in your ultimate. if she's your only concern you might need to get both ethereal and dagon(not really a good idea), or else pile on the ias, that or find a big fat str hero to feed you some agility before you take her on, and get a perfect pounce on her.

would make a class s slower, except that his shard can be killed. the annoying part about it is that slark cannot easily kill it. you'll need a buddy with range to kill it for you. he's a pretty good nuker and a trapper. i'd recommend just teaming up 5vX against him. rolling into 5 heroes isn't exactly in a decent tuskar's gameplan.

is a heaver nuker in addition to her slow. but thankfully she needs to target you with her slow for it to work on you. trouble is it lasts a long time and makes it a peice of cake for not only her but her allies to nuke you and maybe even trap you.

is a tough opponent to handle. she has silence which can potentially put you out altogether. her arrows are fiercely aggravating since they hurt llike crazy and disable your movement speed. i would recommend taking her by surprise and consider getting butterfly and linken's(she's commonly paired with stunners). manta might seem like a good idea, but it's really not going to help against her. orb of venom, on the other hand, could be useful, as well as bkb, and basher.

can slow you from quite the distance...but it's negligable. then we also have his ultimate, which stops your ultimate from working....eww. his freeze spell works if his ally is facing you 1v1...so remember to look to back off if you're in that situation. overall he's not too tough but you might need the hood of defiance for raw regeneration and spell resistance. especially if he's not the only nuker, since his slow amplifies spell damage...and don't forget he can give his allies and himself spell damage on their physical attacks with his cold wind spell.

isn't a very common pick, and i have trouble against him because it's hard to see his model. on top of that he sometimes uses lothar's edge. i would simply recommend observer wards to keep tabs on him via the minimap. he's mostly a burst dps machine, so if he owns your face off with his ultimate, just run away and hope to live another day.

can be tricky to play against with that dagger. she can be anywhere, anytime. make good use of your ultimate to detect if you're in her vision. if you've gone for the bloodstone core then you could make a really good gem bearer. gem is wonderful against her. she's one of the few invis heroes where it's really the only true sight thing you want against her. increased ias is kindof worthless when your target is constantly hiding...and dust has a rather pathetic cooldown, and asking your team to carry 5 dusts one for each hero is crazytalk...you might as well just farm a bloodstone/manta style/heart/skadi or whatever and tack on a gem. you might consider asking an ally to farm an assault cuirass if they are planning to be the gem bearer...since it will reduce her armor and increase your allies' armor...which should give her headaches.

also has a curse on the targets he slows...maybe. it's a new skill which also damages :/ great fun. butterfly/ethereal blade are nice choices here since he is a natural basher. consider a radiance/obs wards since he might be hunting in packs with his allies since he has the best ultimate in the game.

is sneaky and has a lot of hp. and his ultimate is frustrating. i would recommend manta to counter his ultimate, and consider going for the crusher's end game items to take him down.

has a pretty nasty disable for you, he also can drain your hp at a very alarming rate. consider getting ethereal blade or armlet of mordiggian against him.

has a very annoying disable, which happens to mess up your dark pact really bad. there's no right way to defeat him. just keep your cool and don't let him bait you, if his allies have a lot of nasty tricks, too. because he's a great setup for other heroes to trap you. max out your pounce early, you're going to need the 8 cooldown.

is rather monstrous for even slark to handle. he's a tank with breath of fire, and at level 11+, he's pretty strong. recommend going hp items to tank the aoe, and maybe some items that would help chase him so you can finish him off with your essence shift. the pursuing shadow end game item build would be a good example of an item set that may work well against him.

is pretty nasty by trapping you, or protecting his allies. he can also make for an irritating ally. his ultimate can sometimes hurt a lot and he might follow up with teleport+dagon, which makes trying to make kills on his ally frustratingly difficult at times. best thing to do against him is be patient and not get too riled up. try to focus on killing him above all other heroes if he really starts trying to cause trouble. consider getting a radiance to farm up his treants.

has some pretty wicked nukes, and has truesight to reveal you. not too much to say about fighting him except that you might want to get a hood of defiance, and that you can try stalking him often early/mid game while he's still squishy to prevent him from actually using his ultimate on your buddies and getting farmed. once he hits level 17+, he starts getting tougher and tougher to bring down. if that happens and he's a problem, recommend getting some mana burning items.

has armor reduction nuke that hurts slark bad, plus she has illusions which screws up his essence shift. consider getting maelstrom or battlefury to deal with her. be careful with that net of hers, it's great for letting her ally smack you, not just her.

is pretty good against you sometimes. his wards in general get in the way, and can kill you. he also has a lot of disables to make it really hard for you to fight. consider getting black king bar so you can avoid being hexed. other than that, remember that he's usually built quite squishy so going caster killer role would be a good idea.

can carry sometimes, and his ultimate is no joke, quite brutal. he can also stun you with impale, drain your mana...and even hex you. black king bar highly recommended against him. it not only prevents you from being hexed but also doesn't let him zap you with his ultimate while it's active. linken's is another item to consider getting if he's proving to be quite the problem. just remember that he's usually not that tough, so caster killer role can help you out here, usually.

is pretty strong against slark. recommend high hp items so he doesn't kill you instantly. other than that, play smart and try not to let him farm your allies. try to 2v1 him or better, if possible. consider getting heaven's halberd or sange and yasha against him. orb of venom could be pretty clutch, as well. another great item to beat him with would be slark's blade, the abyssal blade.

is crazy strong against slark as he comes with disarm. also, he could block his allies from being pounced, at the risk of being pounced himself. his ultimate is crazy strong against slark and is annoying for slark since oftentimes his agility isn't ideal for taking down the egg. play smart and don't bite off more than you can chew. more importantly, get your allies to help you out. he's kinda hard to take on alone. his recent phoenix swarm change makes it easier to dodge that nuke he has to aim, so that's pretty nice. other than that though, he's got a lot of weapons against you, so keep your guard up and get your allies to work with you against him.

has a great time dealing dps, and has great nets, and has clones, and can even try and get away with poof. to top all that scariness off, he has 1800 sight range, just like slark. slark basically has no advantages against this guy. there are a variety of ways you can deal with him...one is to get a lot of lifesteal and get manta style and go for his original meep. you can get agility from that one. another option is to use battlefury to bring him down to size. you can also try boosting your agility on his allies. vlads is helpful, as is critical strike. he's got so much DPS you have to either lifesteal him like crazy while focusing on his original meep, or kill him within about 5.5 seconds of your ultimate. another idea is to go arcane boots and refresher orb to defeat him...but don't count on that working all that well if he gets a gem. and if he gets a gem anyway...say your prayers. seriously, take it away from him.

is a lose, lose situation for slark. if you can dark pact away his illusions, great. better than attacking them, since they won't feed you agility. try to let some ally fight him for you can see which is his true form. try to catch him in a pattern of behavior...consider getting obs wards so you can see his sneaky true form lurking in the fog of war. and tack on some dust or get a necronomicon so you can detect him. a radiance can work as well. a battlefury might seem like a good idea, too...but he can fight your ally while you waste time with his images. sometimes you need to focus on putting him away before he puts away your allies and to do that you just need to be smarter than him and attack his true form. definitely ocnsider picking up a bottle and get an invisibility rune so you have plenty of time to figure out where he is. you can try doing the pounce+pact combination to finish him off if he tries windwalking away from you. just don't forget, on top of all this, he has that cursed slow...don't forget to pact it off, and a venom orb can help in finishing him off, also.

has some ridiculous aoe, and can escape from you. kind of the problem with him is his entangle...bkb may help against him. new hero so not a lot to say on how to beat him. of course slark's weapon the abyssal blade is great against him. be CAREFUL when pouncing him as if you do this he can use his ultimate and get about 3.5 seconds of invulnerability in addition to the regular invulnerability his ultimate gives him. i think this is a bug but despite my complaints to icefrog this feature is still there. you have been warned.

can make it hard for you to use your spells, obviously. recommend orb of venom. sange and yasha can also be very good. heaven's halberd might be useful, as well as abyssal blade. don't underestimate abyssal blade against magina. consider getting mask of madness to hit him harder while you're in your ultimate. watchout for his ultimate if you have mages on your team.

was just introduced into captain's mode. he seems really strong...but he's pretty squishy. the hardest part is the size of the illusions which makes it hard to target the real one, even if you know which is the real one. i recommend just running away from him while he's in metamorphosis. pounce away and come back and fight him when the odds are in your favor.

is a disabler extraordinaire. he can come from out of nowhere and pop you good. diffusal on him is pretty scary. recommend anti magic items such as manta, bkb, and linken's sphere. mostly, he's pretty squishy. but sometimes his ultimate really throws you for a loop. invulnerability is consider getting abyssal blade so you can put him down for the count.

has a slow that doesn't last long, but it's enough for people to capitalize on with whatever they got to throw on you. mostly what you want to do is don't fight against too many slows. get mkb and lifesteal(vlads recommended) so you can fight her properly. running doesn't help, and attacking her is no good. just avoid her until you're farmed up. and don't rely on the minimap. it lies for her.