Drow Ranger Guide - How she is supposed to be played

Thx for the Plan B man :o saved my ***s!!

I'll try to help you out a little on this one Rode. So first of all, you raise a valid point, Manta is not the best on drow, I often find myself skipping it for other items before finishing it out just because I have nothing else I MUST have. However, the illusions do benefit from precision aura, and Yasha is amazing on drow, so eventually it is beneficial to upgrade it and get a little more stats. The active is pretty useful for disjointing/removing silences, but know that you aren't getting it just for illusions.

Could someone please explain me why Manta is considered a core item on Drow? Manta illusions have neither precision aura nor marksmanship. They have only Drow's base stats, which are some of the worst in the game. How is Manta supposed to increase your damage? Yasha is pretty good because of the movement speed but I really don't see the point of upgrading to manta... SnY can be half-decent for the strength and the racecar build, but honestly why not just keep a naked yasha?

Made some adjustments to the guide because of the recent 6.79 update. This mainly affected the Precision Aura (made it stronger imo) and slightly increased the ult-canceling-radius (makes Drow more vulnerable). Also it removed Drow's precious 1700 nightvision so I had to rewrite that part. And since Tango and Healing Salve became more expensive, the original starting items became too expensive by 3 gold. So I wrote about the alternatives you can get.

Also Ethereal Blade is now a no-go. It seemed that it was very much usable because you could still manually cast Frost Arrows while in ethereal form. With the 6.79 patch, you can no longer orb-attack (such as Frost Arrows) while your attack is restricted (such as ethereal and frostbite). So Ethereal Blade isn't really a viable option for Drow anymore

I am glad to see the overal quality in Drow guides has been increasing since I started writing my own. I wrote this guide mainly because there were no good up to date guides. 99% had Shadow Blade listed as a core item and the skillbuild was often terrible (picking stats early on and therefore neglecting Precision Aura and Silence until at least level 8).

I never read about dominating neutral creeps before (although I missed the fact that R-Conqueror mentioned it in the comments of his first guide before I wrote my own), never saw anyone mention the passive "stealth detection" and no-one was up to date enough to mention the v6.77 nerf that just cancels your ult when an enemy is too close which is your biggest weakness.

Also most guides were so much focussed on increasing damage that survivability was neglected. I made that mistake myself as well in the beginning. As I learned from you guys, I editted it in the guide and others followed. Black King Bar is now pretty much a core item in most self-respecting guides.

Now there are more good guides in which Shadow Blade is often only listed as a situational item. Skillbuilds tend to make more sense, dominating creeps has become common knownledge on Drow and her biggest weaknesses (gap closers/nukers) are more often mentioned as heroes to avoid.

I've played a game where an opponent chose Drow and was laning with Vengeful Spirit and exactly following the guide. As only I knew how to counter them a bit, they snowballed and the two of them pretty much won the game for their team. Although I lost, I felt a sense of satisfaction. I'm just glad that it seems that I may have played my part in developing a new approach to Drow that is more fitting to her possibilities.

I just removed my explanation of Ethereal Blade from the item section. This item does offer some nice teamfight possibilities in certain line-ups but its game mechanics are quite complicated. I have to test the compatibility with BKB, Manta Style and other items first before I write about it merely based on the experience of other people. But since I don't have enough time to test the upcoming weeks I might also wait until at least I'm sure which of their sometimes contradicting stories is correct ;)

In this I have my hopes on R-Conqueror who brought my attention to this item in the first place. He wrote about it in his own guide and is still testing it quite a bit. If he has his final findings, I might publish them in my own words with his permission.

Well, thanks for pointing this out, because I've never really tested this. I'm not fond of Diffusal Blade on Drow, so I never really played with it and therefore never falsified what I wrote. I'll edit it in my guide
[EDIT] Just did. Since this makes it a far less viable option, I rewrote it a bit. Thanks again. It may be my guide, but it's people like you that helped to make it this good [/EDIT]

Have to point it to you mate but ranged illusions can't burn mana, only melee can.

@Hooligan,
Your post is hard to read since you hardly use any interpunction, but I'll give it a shot. Positive criticism is always welcome and I'll try to reply accordingly.

Morbid Mask is in my situational section, because it can be a very good item on Drow. As mentioned, the lifesteal is a bit more, the movement speed makes for a nice escape mechanism while the attack speed can be useful to melt towers or regain your hp when fighting creeps in a safe area.

HotD is better in most cases though. The reason I buy it early is the survivability it offers along with the posibility to control neutral creeps, which can boost your DPS and/or survivability depending on the creep. This way it is very cost efficient. 20 damage, 5 armor and creep control all at the price of only 950 gold extra. Great item early game and because of the creep control, it scales well into late game. Better than MoM. And when you've bought everything else you wanted to have, you can upgrade it to Satanic, while MoM can't be upgraded any further.

Shadow Blade isn't exactly my favorite item on Drow and Force Staff is only helpfull when you chose Drow against gapclosers since they counter you pretty hard. But since you shouldn't pick her then, it's highly situational. I wrote the guide for pub indeed. Pro's hardly use Drow and there would be little I could learn them ;)

Drow is rather easy to play, but quite difficult to master. When I started playing Dota, before the nerve in v6.77, she was a great hero to help me learn the game mechanics, since there was little I had to think of when playing her. Only two, rather straighforward active abilities and a lot of damage. Before 6.77 the agilitybonus from your ultimate was only halved when an enemy came too close. Now the bonus is totaly cancelled, making her more vulnerable to gap closers. So yes, she is quite a bit harder to play then she was when I started. But she still is considered to be a bit noob friendly since her abilities are so much straightforward.

However, I must admit that playing her isn't all too easy. Her bad attack animation makes last hitting a bit difficult at the start, she is now quite easily countered from up close, is quite vulnerable to magic and to be truly effective with Manta Style (using the illusions well and being able to use the split second immunity it gives), Black King Bar (for beginners it's easy to forget to activate is at the right time) and Helm of the Dominator (micromanaging the creeps you control isn't always that easy) is does require a bit of training. So she is easy to play but a bit hard to master.

1.)ok this is great guide as soon as i seen you buy morbid mask i was thrilled it is my favorite item for drow early game cause it gives you possibilty to go jungle which means better farm as soon as she reaches lvl 6 but i dont get why you go for helm of the dominator she doesnt need it so early i would rather go for some usual items like shadow blade force staff or manta you as a carry have to be rady to fight by min 25 you have to have some DPS Power already if not at least have some attack speed since she gets DPS from her ulty to throw 950 gold just to buy HotD is slowing you down rest of the guide is ok one of better iread you wrote it for pub because if someone is playing on higher lvls than he shouldnt aactually need guide
2.)I found one small usual mistake that happens to many players you said in pros-section that she is easy to play i disagree on that-i would say she is simple to play there aint no active abilities you really have to use except silence and frost arrows in team battle might not be decisive in team battle thou you should use it but what i am saying and it is very contradionary to many players is:DROW IS NOT NOOB OR BEGINNERS HERO-she is very squishy and takes a lot of skill to build her up farm and kill noob players mostly dont know when to farm so they usually get destroyed when plaing drow you have to have a lot of feeling for her you need to know when to go farm to lh when to push and when you are ready for team fight+adapt your items that is it ghood guide i am very criitcal about this small things that might seem irelevent sry for that but you said you want criticism so there it is no bad feelings just the way i look at all guides good explanations for items and for plaing her

Ok ok... I really had a very good Dazzle support last game... but... 21-0-9.

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