ShadowFiend : The Pubstomper.

btw i can't download your replay , is there any way i can download it?

Oh man, loving the mom addon along with necro and presence maxed out first.I'm also using this and absolutely stomping.

Quite frankly, I'm not bad at razes, but this build is so much fun, it gives you tremendous farm potential in killing enemy heroes as well in jungle, lanes, ancients.You don't even need mana.

Nothing against your build. If you're a good ShadowFiend, it's not for you. It's for people who are not good at Razes. Going in, with this alternative build can really boost your ShadowFiend in a different way. Playing a hero the same way as dictated, is, infact, monotonous. This works fantastic with middle-leveled players, as long as your team doesn't consist of 4 carries. You're not going to sit there, after level 8. You're going to gank. And even before that, you're definitely going for runes, just not bottle-them. Haste is a definite gank. Double-damage & illusion for CS & rune-spot respectively. If the other MID has bottle, the least you can do is steal his runes to control his spams, against you & your team.

The name & description of the guide itself suggests that it's an only PUB build, where you can destroy the opposition with highest output of damage, in the game. No other hero in the game can give that kind of damage with so less inventories, with physical hits. No. Not even an Ursa or Huskar.

I've played this build against far superior players. It pretty much works, except if there's a harassing INT hero, with wards up, against you. It worked with me most of the times, in good level matchmaking. The ID, which you saw, is developing. I have created that for the soul reason of playing while I am in low priority.

The armor reduction while it does help get last hits, that's not what helps you get last hits. It's the increasing number of souls that build up, once you start getting souls and build momentum, it becomes much easier to last hit regardless of spec. Using Shadowraze to farm is literally no problem since I rune***** as best as possible, it's not hard, you push your lane and quickly go for the bottle and back.

Sorry if this comes out conceded but the number of matches really don't matter if all you're playing is low-level matches, I just watched a couple of your games where you had great scores and the mid-laners literally gave you free-farm/souls. BH sits back or goes invis while you took almost every single LH/Deny. A pudge missed point blank while you were at 7o'clock and he shot at 10o'clock direction, if you understand. I would be at the same amount of games played or even more if I didn't have to work and do other activities. The games you lost was when the other mid-laner put pressure.

I know how this build will go since I've played Shadowfiend for awhile aleady, you will lose your lane against decent players. I'm not talking about just farming, everything that is involved with middle lane you lose except for CS which you can still get with a regular build. You have greats amount of damage if you went for a standard build, and you take the tools that you have and utilize them. You don't go mid to farm like a hard-carry, you cause mayhem with AoE destruction so your hard-carry can do that later since you're suppose to utilize all your assets Shadowraze, ult and auto-attacks.

To whomever else is reading, go ahead and try the build, if it works great but don't expect to win at higher level games.

Edit: Az7y make paragraphs, it was hard to read through the wall of text >_>!

Last hitting is never a problem with this ShadowFiend. Ofcourse, you can't keep nuking creeps for last hit, but then, the armor reduction makes it so easy to last hit, the 40 damage is equal to almost 50+, just at level 2, or so. And yes, the non-bottle guy, it's easy to gank him. Got to worry a lot, in the beginning of the game. But about ganking, your goal is Mask of Madness + Power Treads. Get those two items, and ganking is not at all a problem. Your 1 hit costs as much as your Shadowraze. A 300 NUKE, is almost as equal to your 1 HIT. [Your damage is around 170, at that time. A 300 damage nuke, is reduced a lot with armor & magic resistance of the opposite team. Hence, the affect is almost as equal to 250, while your 170 affects as much as 250, due to the reduction, level 4] As I said, it will not always work with against a good team. It definitely is risky. If there's a mid-solo-Invoker, you're risking a lot with this build, but someone against with a low damage, who can't stun + damage you at the same time, you're getting definite free-farm. And ShadowBlade isn't necessary. You can get B.K.B, if you're against nukers. But that will just reduce your DPS by a little, which is not advisable for PUB. And yes, it's an only PUB ShadowFiend. It will work effectively in a sidelane too, considering you are getting decent amount of last hits. Afterall, you don't need to rune-whoring, so getting in a side-lane doesn't damage your farm a lot. I'm a 1.3k + games played-player. Hence, my matchmaking level is not that low. I still manage to get away with this ShadowFiend build, with 75+ win rate, after this build. I pretty much can say that it will work in any level of pubs, unless it's against really good players who know how to cut the S.F. It's a secondary build, not the best, but an alternative. Give it a try, once or twice, you'll know what I'm talking about.

The problem with no Shadowraze build is that you're not a threat early-mid game, none whatsoever and that's where Shadowfiend shines the brightest. Your base damage is terrible without good/max souls and with no razes you're going to be relying a majority your damage on right-clicks. Not until later stages of mid-late game where Shadowfiend's right-click starts to do more than Shadowraze.

When you gank you hope to land at least 2, the 3rd shadowraze is an extra "candy" and with proper setup you'll definitely land all three (Phase boot helps with this). Even if you only land 2 razes, especially on a running target, that's more damage you'll do in about 5-10 seconds of auto-attacking. You simply do a lot more damage even if you land 1 Shadowraze and shadowfiend is squishy, any decent team will shut SF down with-out BKB. You're going to need to position yourself well and hope you get all your auto-attacks in. Once teams realize that you went shadowblade, they'll dust/gem and you're again shut-down.

Outside of battles, with your build, you're going to hope the other lanes are doing well and that you get as much farm as possible before mid-game starts. Shadowraze is also there to help you get some farm during that very early start of cs'n. Any mid-laner that knows how to stop a SF will try to deny you as much as possible and shadowraze helps with getting farm while harassing at the same time. If you're not runewhoring or trying to bottle rune at all, that leaves the enemy middle lane free to do whatever they want.

Point is you'll defnitely do more damage with Shadowraze than without early-mid game and it opens for a lot more opportunity to actually get a kill whether it's from ganking or teamfights. I haven't rated yet but that's the problem with this build, you're not going to be a threat at mid-high level games. A single stun will shut you down and having a BKB will help you survive for 5-10 seconds. Carries don't do as much damage until it hits close to late game unless your team did a terrible job at slowing down his farm.