slardar hero guide

Slardar, the Slithereen Guard Guide by Dky

Written by admin on September 11th, 2008 This guide was provided by Dky, thanks.

« The surface world will be mine, and I’ll start with dotathe swimming pools. »
Updated for 6.52x

The mighty king of the Naga race, Slardar was awoken from the depths of the sea after the invasion of the Burning Legion. Finding the world consumed by chaos, he found it a perfect opportunity to strike down the hated Night Elves. Allying with the scourge, Slardar uses his immense strength and power to stun and crush his enemies, and his mighty trident can cleave the strongest armor with ease.

Too many people don’t understand Slardar very well, nor do they understand what is his real strength; I will try to change this with a precise argumentation.
What do we need to master him?
- Good last-hitting and denying skills.
- To be able to block and pull creeps.
- To know every single hero in the game.

Index:

I. Slardar

1. Stats

2. Skills
II. Amplify Damage : mathcraft
III. The build

1. Skills

2. Core items

3. Items to consider

4. Items to avoid
IV. Strategy

1. Lane control

2. The art of Slardar

3. The art of chasing

4. Teamplay
V. Replays
VI. Q&A
VII. Conclusion

● ● ●

I. Slardar

As I said, many people don’t understand what is his real strength, and this is because they doesn’t understand what is the main problem of any melee hero.
This isn’t very complicated: they simply have to be close to their target to land physical attacks. It mean that they have to run between each hit, which drastically reduces their damage output and, hence, their effectiveness during a very large part of the game.
There are 3 solutions to solve that problem:
1. Good ally. An example of this is the idea behind the Viper / Sven lane: the ranged slow help to land more physical attacks.
2. Good spells. Some heroes like Rexxar can rely upon their spells.
3. More mobility. That can mean more MS or more blink, and this is exactly why you can see S&Y on Bounty, MoM on Void and Sven…
Slardar is lucky enough to have a spell that increases his mobility, but many people don’t like it because it make him frail. We’ll see later how we can deal with that.

1. Stats

Range: 100 | | Move Speed: 300 | Primary: STR
Str: 21 + 2.8 | Agi: 17 + 1.9 | Int: 15 + 1.5
Damage: 51 – 59 | HP: 549 | Mana: 195
HP Regen: 0.88 | Mana Regen: 0.61
Attack Speed: 1.41 (+ 17% IAS) | Armor: 4.4

His base stats are good, but that doesn’t make him good in early game since his spells don’t do much damage.

2. Skills
Bash
Gives a chance that an attack will do bonus damage and stun an opponent for 1 second.
Level 1 - 10% chance per attack, 40 bonus damage.
Level 2 - 15% chance per attack, 50 bonus damage.
Level 3 - 20% chance per attack, 60 bonus damage.
Level 4 - 25% chance per attack, 70 bonus damage.

- The bonus damage is magical, so it doesn’t synergize with Amplify Damage. It’s reduced by magic reduction, so at lvl 4 it deals 52.5 damage, unless the enemy has more magic resistence.
Sprint [T]
Slardar increases his movement speed dramatically, but takes 10% bonus damage. Lasts 25 seconds.
Level 1 - Increases speed by 10%.
Level 2 - Increases speed by 20%.
Level 3 - Increases speed by 30%.
Level 4 - Increases speed by 40%.
Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 45

- Every single type of damage is amplified by Sprint: magical, physical, chaos, divine, etc.
- A damage over time spell (DoT) will get amplified if you activate Sprint.
- Armlet’s degeneration isn’t amplified.
- Frenzy doesn’t stack with Sprint: one will overwrite the other.
- It can’t be purged, nor it can be dispelled by Black King Bar and Repel.
- Vanguard’s and Stout Shield’s block is applied before the amplification.
Slithereen Crush [R]
Slams the ground, stunning and damaging enemy land units 350 AoE around Slardar. Slows enemy units by 20% for 2 seconds afterwards.
Level 1 - 50 damage, 1 second stun.
Level 2 - 100 damage, 1.5 second stun.
Level 3 - 150 damage, 2 second stun.
Level 4 - 200 damage, 2.5 second stun.
Mana Cost: 80/ 95/ 105/ 115
Cooldown: 8

- It’s magical damage.
- The slow also reduces the IAS.
- The stun has an AoE of 350, the slow an AoE of 360. If the enemy is only affected by the slow, it will be for 4.5 seconds.

Screenshot of the AoE:

Amplify Damage [G]
Amplifies physical damage against enemy units by reducing their armor. Lasts 120 seconds on creeps and 30 secondes on heroes. Can track invisible units.
Level 1 - 5 armor penalty.
Level 2 - 10 armor penalty.
Level 3 - 15 armor penalty.
Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 10

- Reveal invisibles units.
- Goes through Repel and Avatar, but is also dispelled by it..
- Cleave’s damage aren’t amplified.

II. Amplify Damage: mathcraft

We need to understand how armor works to understand why Amplify Damage is such a powerfull spell. The damage reduction that come from positive armor increase linearly; concretely it imply that we can have in between 1% and 99% of damage reduction. Negative armor’s damage amplification is calculated is calculated with another formla, which form a logarithmic (the opposite of exponential) curve. Thus a hero with -9999 armor does not get 99% more damages.
As a consequence reducing too much enemy’s armor isn’t interesting, because as you goes on negative values the percentage of damage gained for each point of negative armor start to reduce. The 2 following tabs show with curves what I am explaining with words. The first one is by Blaow and the second one by ICallBotSolo:

(click to enlarge)

This is totally clear with this quote of ICallBotSolo:
Just to point out some extra numbers about %increase in damage for reducing by 5 armor:
Reducing from 30 to 25 armor: 12.00% increase in dmg
25 to 20: 13.64% increase in damage
20 to 15: 15.79% increase in damage
15 to 10: 18.75% increase in damage
10 to 5: 23.08% increase in damage
5 to 0: 30.00% increase in damage
0 to -5: 26.61% increase in damage
-5 to -10: 15.42% increase in damage
-10 to -15: 9.81% increase in damage
-15 to -20: 6.55% increase in damage
Lines aren’t as clear as numbers, so I calculated how much damage we gain with Amplify Damage and with or without Cuirass in the following board. You see how much damage you deal (in percentages) for each value and how much damage you gain (in « % dmg increase » columns) for every reduction.

To summarize, we can highlight the following values:
- a malus of -5 increase Slardar’s damage output by approximately 30% (decrease as you get away from 3
- a malus of -10 increase Slardar’s damage output by approximately 60% (decrease as you get away from 7
- a malus of -15 increase Slardar’s damage output by approximately 100% (decrease as you get away from 11 armor),
- a malus of -20 increase Slardar’s damage output by approximately 140% (decrease as you get away from 14 armor). armor), armor),
Needless to say, Amplify Damage is an absolutely amazing spell. Remember that it’s not only +100% damage for you, but for all your team! The total damage inflicted car be by far superior to what can do Sven with God’s Strength for exemple. Beside that point we can see that Cuirass is obviously an awesome item for Slardar.
The above tab is kinda small, since it is relatively common to have more than 20 armors nowadays. So I created a bigger table, which calculate up to a malus of -40 for a base armor of -20 to 50. It can be found here.
Useful links:
- Armour and EHP guide (by SsxDoTS): for all mathematics formula about armour.
- The Stygian Desolator Explained (by Blaow): really interesting as it show concretely how reducing armour is effective.
- Any mistake ? : Malle and DonTomato patiently answering to my questions (thank you again guys!). You can find on this topic all the formulas you need to create a table.
III. The build 1. Skills 1. Slithereen Crush
2. Sprint
3. Slithereen Crush
4. Sprint
5. Slithereen Crush
6. Amplify Damage
7. Slithereen Crush
8. Sprint
9. Sprint
10. Bash
11. Amplify Damage
12. Bash
13. Bash
14. Bash
15. Stats
16. Amplify Damage
Slithereen Crush is maxed as soon as possible for obvious reasons. Sprint is maxed along with it because having a lot of MS allow to hit much more often a moving target, which give more chances to bash. Doing the opposite and taking Bash in first isn’t effective because it deprive Slardar from having a relatively good escape mechanism without making him able to bash effectively.
If your lane mate is lacking a reliable slow or bash or if you are on a really defensive stance you may eventually end up maxing Sprint before Slithereen Crush, as having more MS can be sometimes interesting in those circumstances. It is all about in-game judgement though.
2. Item build Slardar has a weak early game and not any innate ability to farm. Therefore we are looking for a cheap but effective build. Core items

No surprise. Those items gives a total of (with Armlet activated) 1007 HP, +69% IAS and +103 dmg. There is not any ideal build order, though we can notice 3 main orders:
- against harassers an early Helm of Iron Will can be interesting,
- against nukers it is better to get more HP (thus bracers) as soon as possible,
- against weak enemies early treads increase nicely Slardar’s ability to be agressive.
Not any other build gives as much as HP, dmg and IAS for such low price. In any case you always have to carry a TP.
Items to get afterwards

With Amplify Damage, Sprint, Armlet and +103 dmg, Slardar is strong but may end up being a glass canon. He can tank but not always enouth effectively to be able to chase afterwards. To solve this problem we must choose in between Heart, Cuirass and Black King Bar. Heart : must be purchased when the enemy has too many spells to prevent Slardar from specializing his defense. Cuirass : it gives approximately as much as HP against physical attacks than Heart, but not any against spells. Thus it must replace Heart only if enemy’s team rely upon physical attacks. Beside that, Cuirass gives of course more damages than Heart (cf. the armor table). Black King Bar : it is only against well coordinated nukes and disables that Black King Bar is absolutely needed, and since this point is relative to the enemy’s you’re facing I suggest you to listen more to your feeling than to any theoretical argument. Sometimes enemy’s disables can be dangerous enough to force you to get BKB before Armlet.
Sometimes you may feel strong enough to start to work on a damage item. It is almost alway an error. You must keep in mind that Slardar is a bad farmer. He needs to anticipate enemy’s carries takeoff rather than being (stupidly) lured by Armlet’s short domination.
Luxury items

Desolator : as it is proven in the mathcraft section, reducing too much armor isn’t interesting, as the effect start to decrease at -5 armor. But if you’re playing against some agility heroes supported by a Mekansm, they will have around 20 armor, and with Amplify Damage, Cuirass and Desolator they will have -6 armor, which is still an interesting value, especially because agility usually carry in late game, so every percentage gained on them is important. You should get it over Buriza only if you are playing with another physical damage dealer. Buriza : Amplify Damage only amplifies physical damage. And Buriza is the best way to increase it. Satanic : if you go for Buriza, Satanic is an excellent option since high damages + lifesteal synergizes well. It’s good to know that the lifesteal is increased by the armor reduction. 3. Items to consider
Hood of Defiance: As I said above, Slardar can’t really specialize his defense (to magic/physical), because Sprint make him vulnerable against both physical and magical attacks. Even against an magic-oriented line-up, he will have to tank creeps and towers during chasing. Hood is, of course, a good option, but only an good, against an extremely specialized line-up or a couple of heavily fed int heroes. Boots of Travel : Sometimes, the teleport is just needed, especially when the game turn into a push-fest. In those case, it can be interesting to get BoT. Dagger : Slardar is an hybrid hero. He is a semi-tank, semi-DPS and a chaser as well. As a semi-tanker with an excellent AoE stun he can be used as an initiator when it is absolutely needed, though it shouldn’t happen often. 4. Items to avoid
Bottle : Slardar doesn’t need it to refill his mana since his spells are extremely cheap and he can’t gank effectively before mid game, and Armlet cover his lack of regeneration. Many other heroes benefit a lot more from the bottle and as there aren’t many runes, Slardar shouldn’t be getting it. Radiance : Slardar isn’t a good farmer (he can’t rush it, and the effectiveness of Radiance decreases in late game), and he doesn’t need the immolation aura to deal damage when he chase, thanks to Sprint. Vanguard : Vanguard is much less interesting than Armlet in early and mid game and doesn’t cover Slardar’s need of HP afterwards. Basher : Slardar doesn’t need more chances to bash, as long as he hit often his target. It’s better to get more IAS to improve his natural bash, since it increase much more his damages. In addition, damages from bash are magicals, so it doesn’t synergize with Amplify Damage. Monkey King Bar : same story: the bonus damage (from the ministun) is magical on melee heroes, so it doesn’t synergize with Amplify Damage. Mask of Madness : as I explained, MS is what we need the most to be an extremely efficient ganker. Sprint give 40% more MS, MoM only 15%. Of course it give more IAS, but it is better to play with Sprint and some IAS items as the MS difference is too good to be ignored. Sange & Yasha : like Vanguard, S&Y is much less interesting than Armlet in early and mid game and doesn’t cover Slardar’s need of HP afterwards. Click on the Hidden button for in-deph analys.
As I already said S&Y is a terrible item for Slardar. By itself it is good, but in does not solve Slardar’s survivability problems throughout the game, as it is proven by the following calculation:
Slardar lvl 25 with Treads (strength) + Black King Bar + Armlet + 1 Bracer + 1 item (considering the last slot being filled up with a TP)
S&Y
HP : 3000
EHP normal : 6780
EHP spell : 4000
DPS : 347,7
HEART
HP : 3661
EHP normal : 7790
EHP spell : 4881
DPS : 310,8
CUIRASS
HP : 2696
EHP normal : 8193
EHP spell : 3594
DPS : 325
As we can see we are basically trading 1000 EHP for approximately 35 DPS. It is enouth to take on Heart or Cuirass over Sange & Yasha, though the pieces are much more expensives.
IV. Strategy
As I said earlier, Slardar’s early game is one of the worst in the whole game: he is a melee hero without any good initiating spell and with low magic damage. So, this section will be mainly about surviving in this part of the game.
I will indicate in what part of the game each strategy is mostly used, rather than dividing rigorously them in three parts called Early, Mid and Late game.
1. Lane control First of all, the lane control. This is exactly what Slardar lacks. I’ll quickly point out what is the best strategy to employ, rather than being exhaustive, because there are already excellent guide on lane control on this forum. Here are the link:
- Maju’s Guide to Lane Control
Picking a lane
I’ll never repeat this enough: Slardar is weak in early game. Because of that, he need to pick his lane extremely wisely. If you are Scourge, go top, and if you are Sentinel, go bottom. This is because the meeting point of the first wave is naturally near your ally tower in those lanes, hence it’s easier to keep it here.
But this isn’t your only criteria when you choose a lane. It can be interesting to swap lane if you’r facing some extremely dangerous early heroes or chain-nukers. You must absolutely go in the easiest lane, and if you can’t, just don’t take any risk: keep out of their range, block creeps and pull neutrals to fight under your tower: that will prevent them from keeping you out of exp range.
Your lane partner is also extremely important. Choose a good supporter or a strong early hero who can carry you to mid game.
Creep blocking (Early to Mid game)
This is probably the most important part of the lane control section, because this strategy isn’t explained in any lane control guide. Blaow and MaJu explain how to block creeps to fight nearer the ally tower. But they doesn’t explain 2 things.
First, it is bad to block too much when you are in top lane (scourge side) or in bottom lane (sentinels side), because the meeting point is naturally near the tower. Hence, if you block too much, the tower will attack the 1st wave, and your creeps will counter-push too much, and you will be vulnerable for the next wave.
Secondly, creep blocking doesn’t have to be used only on the first wave. If you are owned in your lane, it can be interesting to back to your own next wave to block her. It will be more clear with a screenshot:

I’m facing Viper and Veno with Slardar (yeah: stupid ally leave me alone). Of course, I can’t approach the creeps without dying instantly. Hence, I turn back to block the next wave (not any of the enemy creeps is gonna die, so there isn’t any point of experience to gain here: I’ll not loose anything). If I do well, the next fight will be under my tower, where I’ll be at my advantage.

Protect the Tower (Early to Mid game)
Of course, you will need to protect your tower to survive. For that, there are 2 strategies:
- attack the enemy creeps when they start to attack the tower,
- click on the enemy heroes while you are near his creeps.
Both methods will force the enemy creeps to follow you (known as drawing aggro)… So they will stop attacking your tower.
2. The Art of Slardar Slardar’s role and how to pick him
As you may have guessed, Slardar is an hybrid hero. He is a semi-tanker because his innate ability to tank (as a strength hero) is decreased by Sprint, a backup-carry because his skillset make him dangerous with the right stuff, and of course a chaser.
When should we pick him? As an hybrid hero he can be picked along with a lot of different line-up, because he can fit relatively well many roles. As a consequence I will tell when he must not be picked:
- when your team has already one extremely weak hero in early game (like Spectre), or already two relatively weak heroes in early game (like Furion or Terrorblade*),
- when your team is lacking physical damage (which mean that you are playing with many intelligence heroes and that you should pick a full carry like Terrorblade).
Besides that, of course you can pick Slardar as a counter to a couple of invisible heroes (SA, BH, etc.).
* In early game Furion has no HP nor damages and do nothing beside casting Sprout… And Terrorblade is « relatively » weak because he can jungle, unlike Spectre, which make him easier to play. Sprint (Early to Late game)
Sprint must be used wisely. Since it makes Slardar frail, it must be used as late as possible during a fight, but I won’t comment too much here because it’s all about experience.
The most important thing is, maybe, to never ever chase when the spell’s duration is about to end. It’s never good to be too far in the enemy territory alone with a poor MS. So, there is a little tip to solve that issue: the spell last 25 seconds, and the cooldown 45 seconds. Hence, the shadow will cover approximately the half of the icon when the spell will be about to end. Like this:

Keep an eye on it when you chase!
Intimidate (Early to Mid game)
This tip is pretty fun, but must be used moderately. Amplify Damage costs only 25 mana and has a really short cooldown, and is usually casted as a prelude of a gank or so. If you cast it on the opponent, he will probably be scared and will back until it’s finished: 30 seconds of peaceful farming for you! Of course, if you abuse it, he will get the idea and not be scared anymore. But again, this can be good for you if he doesn’t back when you really want to gank him. Against a skilled enemy you must be sure that (at least) one of your ally is missing from the enemy’s minimap, because otherwise they are not going to be scared at all.
Did you say mindgame?
How to use Amplify Damage (Early to Late game)
Don’t wait for the battle to start to cast Amplify Damage: anyway, it cost only 25 mana, hence you can spam it. The cooldown is short enough to allow you to affect 2 targets (if you are really quick, you can affect 3 targets, but this isn’t realistic imho).
You usually should use Amplify Damage on the enemy’s most dangerous heroes. It is usually his main carry but not always. An evil disabler like Rhasta should be, for example, always focused in first. It is also interesting to cast it on the enemy’s initiator. It will be hard for him to do his job if he’s amplified, unless his team has got a real advantage. It can be interesting to cast it on some others heroes like Pudge when you are pushed in mid and when you don’t want to be hooked in the forest… Those particular cases are more about experience, so I will and cannot describe them all. In fact, every single game should be treated as a particular case, because the hero that you need to kill the most to win the battle can vary a lot.
During the laning phase and you might also want to keep some heroes amplified in order to avoid their backstabbing. I am of course thinking about those invisible heroes, ie. lvl 6 Nerubian Assassin, Stealth Assassin, and so on.
Neutral creeping (Early to Late game)
Remember that the mana cost of Amplify Damage is cheap enough to use it on neutrals. It can be useful to quickly kill centaurs, furbolgs, etc. Combat management (Mid to Late game)
You will get more and more items as the game goes on. More IAS means more Bash, which means less attack from the enemy. As a consequence it can be sometines very interesting to focus, during teamfights, the enemy’s carry to prevent him from damaging your team. And remember: farming is a duty. An underfarmed Slardar is extremly weak. Don’t miss any easy last hit, because every single moment of peace is a gift of your team and must be treated as such with respect. 3. The art of chasing The following advices are extremely common but are also, in most cases, ignored. However they are extremely important and effective for Slardar. He needs, in order to chase effectively, to control a lot of things in the same time. As a consequence the art of chasing is completely under the sign of the control. Control enemy’s cooldown and mana (Early to Late game)
It’s important to know enemy’s spell status (cooldown / mana pool) before engaging in a potentially dangerous situation. You must not chase, for example, a red HP Sven which has his Bolt almost ready when you are mid HP. A good chaser must know every single hero and must be able to evaluate the state of their mana pool and of their cooldowns before and especially during each fight.

Control Slardar’s positionning and attack animation (Early to Mid game)
Physical attacks in DotA Allstars are like a spell: they have a cooldown, and it’s length is relative to the IAS. An enemy that is stunned by Slithereen Crush while fleeing is going in a precise direction. It is important go ahead in this direction while the physical attack is on cooldown, in order to be ahead rather than behind him when the stun’s effect end up. Slardar’s extremely good attack animation allow him to attack quickly each time the physical attack is ready during the ride. Control the minimap and the fog of war (Early to Late game)
It is extremely important to check the minimap as often as possible while chasing. If too many enemies disappeared in the fog of war near the location your target is bringing you to, stopping the chase is the best thing to do. You must be able to evaluate how much time each hero needs to reach (and help) your target.

Control Slardar’s trajectory (Early to Late game)
Don’t get blocked by your creeps. Never, ever. Firstly because it is an offense to Sprint’s greatness, and secondly because it make you waste your time. On a more serious note, you must be able to anticipate enemy’s creep movement. As a chaser Slardar often meet enemy’s wave while there is no allied creep around; thus they move toward him and can end up being on his way, which can screw up the chase. You must anticipate enemy’s creeps trajectory in order to avoid them. This is also true for heroes.

4. Teamplay Slardar is not absolutely weak in early game. His main problem is his terrible lack on lane control. By himself, he has good base stats, a nice strength gain and an amazing AoE stun which, in despite of not doing a lot of damage, is extremely long. Slardar’s ally must compensate for his lack of lane control as well as being able to be aggressive, in order to benefit from the power of Slithereen Crush. Being laned with an extremely passive babysitter like Warlock is good for Slardar, but not perfect. Best allies

Lane controllers
Try to lane up with a hero that have a good lane control and that is eventually able to be agressive. As I already said, being laned with a passive babysitter is interesting but not perfect.
High physicals damages heroes
Amplify Damage increases physical damages, so later in the game it’s a good idea to be with those heroes who benefit from it.
Support heroes
Who doesn’t like to play with those guys? A well-timed Repel can be deadly for your opponent, for example.
Physicals spells
It’s good to know which spell deal physicals damages to adapt a line-up to Amplify Damage. Important: the complete list of spells sort of damage can be found here: Guide on every Hero’s Skill/Spell damage type.
Physicals Items
A good way to adapt items to Amplify Damage is to get physical damage over magical damage. This basically saying: get everything you want except Mjolnir / Maelstorm and melee Monkey King Bar, as there are no others DPS items which deal an important amount of magical damage. Radiance (the only other DPS item which deal magic damages) hasn’t the same utility so I don’t take it into consideration here. Worst enemies

Disablers
Exactly as everybody likes to play with a good support hero, nobody likes to play against a good disabler. This is especially true for Slardar, because being disabled for 5 seconds with Sprint activated is a serious pain.
Lane controllers
They rape you even more than they allow you to farm when you are laned with them. Try to avoid them as much as possible in early game. V. Replays Sentinel:
Scourge:
Replay 1 : kinda fun game which show perfectly how Slardar can be devastating with Armlet and Amplify Damage. I did a lot of mistakes but whatever, we really did not take it seriously because the game was over from the beginning.
Sentinel:
Scourge:
Replay 2 : another stomp, but on High Level Room 2 this time.
Sentinel:
Scourge:
Replay 3 : an IHCS game with H4nn1, LevenT, Puppey, GunZ and NS. The Slardar player is unknown, do some mistakes, end up being underfarmed, but is still kinda good. The game is somewhat boring though.
VI. Q&A « My main confusion with your guide is what role you are taking, carry or tank? If your going tank then there is no reason for you getting sprint early…..if you are the carry then you shouldnt be runnning around the map and ganking, unless your backup carry. » (Suizida)
Slardar is a hybrid hero. Played as a tank, he isn’t good, because his spells aren’t good, so he rely on physicals damage and for that he need Sprint. As we know, Sprint prevent him from tanking too much. Of course, he can sometimes, simply because I give him an extremely large HP pool, but this isn’t his main job. His main job is to gank, because Sprint synergizes extremely well with Bash and Amplify Damage. He’s a semi-tanker, excellent ganker and backup carry if he farm well. That’s a lot, and yeah this can be confusing.
Anyway, I think that the tank concept is pretty outdated. If you don’t deal enough damages, the enemy team will ignore you; to tank well, you need to attract them, and for that you need to be irritating. Without Sprint, Slardar is efficient only when the enemy don’t move, and not as much as many other heroes. This is clearly not enough to be irritating. Tanking is more about a good balance between damages and HP.
VII. Conclusion The conclusion of the first version of this guide was a bit outdated as I was answering to a debate that is over now. But it summarizes a lot of good points and is just cool, so I will quote it.

QUOTE

For sure, this isn’t the most common Slardar build. I’m pretty sure that many people will not even bother to read my arguments. They will reply to flame, and we’ll have to debate.I’d like to remind to those people some facts:
- People from this forum flamed S&Y for ages. MYM & IHCS players started to use it successfully on Void, TB, Bounty… Some minds are still closed.
- Those same people hated Mask of Madness hard. One excellent Void guide (by nekdolan) has been flamed for 1 year, and then many pros started to use the same build in the MYM Pride tourney. So who was right ? The guy who has been able to think by himself.
- Treads have been flamed for years. Many arrogant people accused every single “treads” guide to be noobsauce, and then pros started to use it. With the new buff, they are even more popular.
- Battlefury on Mortred is still an omfg debate, but heh, check this replay. What do I want to say? I want to say that authoritative arguments (X player do like this so it’s the best way to play, pro don’t do like this so this is bad, etc) are absolutely useless and are disproven by facts. Seriously, how many time does I have to read “This is garbage” – end of story. No argument, just self-confidence. Usually by people who doesn’t even tested the build in-game.
As I explained, my build provide an extremely large HP pool to use Sprint in safety. This spell allows you to get in or out of the range of almost every single hero in the game in 1 or 2 seconds. This is awesome. Bash will never ever work if you cannot hit your target regularly. The IAS is a solution ONLY if your target doesn’t move, or have an extremly inferior MS. This is a purely unrealistic situation for a major part of the game.
Oh, and I guess that I have to say more about me: I’m an IHL / HL1 / cw player. I’ll bring you some replays as soon as possible (I’m writing this guide because I can’t play at the moment), and my arguments aren’t only theoreticals.