Slark, DotA 2 guide and preview. Slark (also known as Murloc
Nightcrawler in DotA) is an agility melee hero from Dire/Scourge added
in Dota 2 15 nov update.
He’s a gank oriented hero with chasing abilities combined with Stealth
which makes him a deadly opponent. Slark can easily dominate early games
via his high damage nukes, stat stealing ability, he can remove
negative buffs and attack while being invisible. Check out Slark!
Slark Stats:
Slark Abilities:
1.
Dark Pact (Hotkey: C)
After a short delay, Slark sacrifices some of his life blood, purging
negative debuffs and dealing damage to enemy units around him and to
himself. Slark only takes 50% of the damage.
Mana cost per level: 55 / 50 / 45 / 40
Cooldown per level: 9.0 / 8.0 / 7.0 / 6.0
Ability: No Target
Damage: MAGICAL
Delay: 1.5
Radius: 325
Damage: 75 / 150 / 225 / 300
2.
Pounce (Hotkey: E):
Slark leaps forward, grabbing the first hero he connects with. That
unit takes damage and is leashed to Slark, and can only move a limited
distance away from Slark’s landing position.
Mana Cost Per Level: 75 / 75 / 75 / 75
Cooldown Per Level: 20.0 / 16.0 / 12.0 / 8.0
Ability: No Target
Damage: Magical
Distance: 700
Pounce Damage: 70 / 140 / 210 / 280
Leash Duration: 3.5
Leash Radius: 325
3.
Essence Shift (Passive):
Slark steals the life essence of enemy heroes with his attacks,
draining each of their attributes and converting them to bonus Agility.
Cooldown Per Level: 0.4 / 0.35 / 0.3 / 0.25
Agility Gained: 3
Other atrribute loss: 1
Duration: 15 / 30 / 60 / 120
4.
Shadow Dance (Hotkey: D)
When used, Slark hides himself in a cloud of shadows, becoming
invisible (attacking, casting spells, and using items do not reveal
Slark). Additionally, when not visible to the enemy team, Slark gains
bonus movement speed and health regeneration.
Mana Cost Per Level: 120 / 120 / 120
Cooldown: 25.0
Ability: No Target
Duration Per Level: 5.5 / 5.5 / 5.5
Bonus Movement Speed: 30% / 35% / 40%
HP Regen Per Level: 3% / 5% / 7%
Slark Spell/Abilities Build:
Level 1-5: Pounce (Level 3) & Essence Shift (Level 2)
Level 6: Ultimate – Shadow Dance
Level 6-13: Max Pounce, Max Essence Shift, Max Dark Pact and take Level 2 Ultimate.
Level 13-25: Attribute Bonuses and take Level 3 Ultimate.
Slark Item Build:
Starting of Game:
- Quelling Blade (Helps you farming creeps)
- 2x Tangoes (Helps you in lane)
- 3 Ironwood Branch (for stats)
Early Game:
- Power Treads (convert it to Strength)
- Magic Wand (If enemy team has spell casters, get it ASAP)
- Ring of Basilius (For some mana regeneration)
- Some Ironwood Branches (Branches FTW)
Mid Game:
- Mask of Madness (attack speed for more agility steal)
- Yasha (522 Movespeed 24/7)
- Cranium Basher (to chase those bastards)
- Dust of Apperance (Don’t let Windwalkers get away)
Late Game:
- Abyssal blade (for disable)
- Black King Bar (to become fearless against Blademail carriers)
- Monkey King Bar (damage is always good, gives mini bash and counters evasion)
- Heart of Tarassque
- Butterfly (For evasion and attack speed, don’t make it when enemy team has MKB)
- And other 100000000 other damage items. Just kiddin, you can make Buriza too!
Slark Strategy Guide:
Slark is a bouncing frog, he can’t stay at one lane and farm all the
time. The main role of Slark is to gank every enemy that is on the map
as soon he turns Level 6. While playing Slark, you have to keep your
mind active, your eye must be on minimap all the time, tracking the
movement of enemy heroes. Slark is a very powerful hero in the start, if
you fully utilize his skills abilities, you can have your team end the
game within 25 minutes (talking about pub games).
When the game starts, gather the 2 Tangoes, Quelling blade, GG
branches and move to the lane, Slark is a fragile hero so you to be
careful while farming. Your goal is to last hit every creep and farm the
Power Treads (staring items) as soon as possible. During the first 6
levels, keep looking for an opportunity to Pounce on the enemy heroes
for a bonus kill. For e.g. when enemy creep dies and enemies go back a
bit, try to trap them with your Pounce. Once they’re stuck for 2
seconds, your ally hero, creeps will hit them and it might give you a
nice First Blood!
As I told you, you main goal is to farm early items, when you get
PT/RoB/Magic Wand and your ultimate. Now it’s time to roam all over the
map for kills. Find and kill the fragile heroes, like Traxex,
Shadowfiend who have no stun and keep away from disablers such as. Lion,
Lina etc. You can kill those nukers/disablers too but you have to play
active. Here’s a scenario for killing Lina, the Slayer.
Lina is on the top lane, farming creeps with full HP and Mana points
and you see her with your jealous eyes. Now, you have your Slark with
everything FULL. What you gonna do? You go behind the trees, and
approach her (cast Pounce of course) when the creeps are low or dead.
It’s pretty obvious she’s gonna stun since she’s trapped then Dragon
Slave and Lugna Blade for instantly killing you but that ain’t going to
happen. You immediately cast your Dark Pact and Shadow Dance for
your defence and start hitting her. What happens? The Lina stun and
Dragon Slave hits you, but you don’t get too hurt because you have high
regeneration and Dark Pact removed stun buff from your status. You’re on
full HP hitting Lina and She dies.
So the thing is, You have to play like Stealthy like an Assassin to
pwn your enemies, you dodge their stuns/disables with Dark Pact on right
timing, remaining invisible while attacking. When you get a few kills
in the start, some random guy in the enemy team notices your might and
buys True Sight (Dust of Appearance) to counter your invisibility from
your ultimate. Remember! It’s also a negative buff which can be removed
by Dark Pact, so no worries.
But it gets serious when they buy Sentry Wards or Gem of True Sight.
You’ve gotta do something for that because as soon you turn visible to
the, they’ll cast all the nukes on you to vanish your hero. By the time
they get GEM you’ll probably have mid game items like Cranium Basher,
Yasha, Mask of Madness etc.. So now your next target is to avoid True
Sight.
In most cases, you can not stay hidden because enemy teams stays
together after equipping GEM. In that case, Team clash is must to drop
that GEM and you’ll have to prepare for it. Since its a team battle,
obviously you’re going to get disabled. So, you have to make something
to survive and attack during the battle. Now, you think of Black king
bar? Ain’t gonna work because, you get killed from hits even after
activating it so it’s pretty useless. In this situation, Manta Style is a
good item and grants you some time for attacking heroes. You can
consider Linken’s Sphere too, if you’re playing against Nyx Assasin,
Rhasta or Dagon carriers.
As a Slark, your Job is not to initiate team battles. Your have to
stay low-profile and murder 1-2 heroes discreetly during team battle or
during One man show ganks. I usually prefer the One Man Show style,
going into 3 heroes, killing one and get away. Keep an eye on disablers
for stuns, they’re your worst enemies, 1 hex and RIP. Also, Do Not Ever
go into towers for a single kill. You might kill the hero but you’ll
also die because tower hits. Use Dark Pact wisely and its like a
mini-bkb. When you’re on low HP during a fight, just walk back for few
seconds and your HP will fully regenerate then join the battle again.
The above mentioned late item builds are mediocre builds, you can always
experiment your own items builds. Slark is fun-to-play hero only if
you adopt aggressive style. Late game is not really a choice for this
Murloc Nightcrawler.