Let's talk about Slardar

Slardar...

In my opinion he is one of the better heros in DotA 2 right now, but recently I have not seen him picked very often, and why is that? He has a reliable stun, a strong bash, an okay active, and a Black King Bar piercing armor reduction.

So why is he not picked very often? Let's talk about his skills...

Sprint is honestly is not the best skill. But it works really nicely with all his other skills, allowing him to kite, chase and initiate. So it's not terrible.

Slithereen Crush is an AOE stun that also slows and deals damage. The damage is Black King Bar piercing, but the stun is not. It really a good nuke if amplify damage is applied.

bash is a 25% chance passive stun that deals a bonus 120 damage!!! also adds an average 6/12/20/30 to his attacks. He even gains the bonus life leech from lifesteal of the bonus damage from bash.

amplify damage. Okay so this pierces spell immunity even though it can be dispelled from the activation of a Black King Bar or Omniknight's Repel. It removes 20 armor, and gives true sight, with a 5 second cooldown, 25 second duration, and a small mana cost of 25. It's really a great ultimate.

So why is'int he picked more in pro games, and even pub games. I have not seen him in so long, except when I play him.

Just wanted to hear the thouhts of you guys.

The reason he isn't picked up very often in pro games is that while he is good at what he does, there are other heroes that simply outclass him.

Safe lane Carry: Will often lose to most mid-game carries and late game carries unless you completely and utterly snowball out of control, which happens rarely.

Mid: Will lose pretty hard to the likes of Viper, Mirana, and Storm Spirit.

Offlane: In a solo situation you're going to be in trouble vs. an aggressive tri with strong disables. I think one of the best ways to run Slardar, if you ever do run him, is to run a duel hardlane with maybe a Wisp, or Rhasta. But that's just my opinion.

Plus in most cases you pick him to be a durable initiator with a nice AOE stun. But in all honesty if you need that in your draft I would pick a Centaur Warrunner over a Slardar in most cases. He is tankier, has a more reliable initiaition without requiring a Blink Dagger (although I would hope you would pick one up on him), and has better lategame potential.

-BK

Except as situational support I don't really see Slardar being a pick over other heroes.

The main reason is that he farms slowly, while it isnt as bad as a chaos knight without wisp, a troll warlord will still just outfarm him, while slardar will have to find multiple kills with a blink to make the pick worth it.

You see him occasionally in professional games along with shadow fiend mid and a venge in a minus armor strat.
I do think he can be run mid though, yes he is melee but so are other heroes that we occasionally see. He has good armor and decent run control along with an AOE stun. This way you can run your phisical damage hero like weaver in the safelane. He cant lane against heroes who punish melee's like sniper though.

You can't compare him to Centaur Warrunner , sure both heroes have essentially the same stun but the similarity ends here. Centaur is a pure utility/initiator hero, Slardar is more of a snowballing carry. Slardar isn't a walking blink-stun, his ult is really good and he's got some solid carry potential especially in 1 v 1 manfights.
His only weakness is that as a carry his teamfight presence is pretty limited, so he's mainly a hero for punishing split push IMO. Rat dota heroes like Nature's Prophet, Clinkz, Broodmother or even Meepo are his best food.

Thing is, he really depends on finding a lot of kills because indeed he's pretty terrible at farming creeps. Generally snowball-dependent heroes like this are not very good in competitive which explains why he's not picked more in pro matches, however they can can be great in pubs.

True, he's not a reliable enough carry to play him safe lane. He can mid, but indeed heroes like Viper, Sniper or whatever will harass him extremely hard in the early game ; he'll destroy them once he gets his blink though so it kind of evens out, athough admittedly it's still better to not lane against them if you can avoid it. But I honestly think offlane is the best place for him, because of how easily he can kill supports while they try to zone him or pull camps (far better than a BH for example).

He's a legit hero, but I think his main weakness is kind of the same as Bounty Hunter, he's really a hero for roaming for pickoffs with your team during the mid game, and I think the meta is pretty inert/ricing oriented and I don't think he fits that well.