Slark: Nightcrawler - Snowballer!

Slark is a far better offlane hero. If you don't feel like making a completely different guide, could you at least mention that he is great in for offlane? Ty, and +1 for the comprehensive guide.

Its a very nice guide,only thing i can say is that you should add Outworld Destroyed as hard counter for slark on midlane,that Astral Imprisonment just kills every chance slark has to even try to farm vs OD,and you should add Orchid as a counter to Weaver,he cant ult under orchid,and is squishy enough to get bursted down before orchid ends :)

wow, i'm impressed, this guide is very comprehensive, it would be great if Slark were a hard carry! really, Slark is not a hard carry, so don't play him that way.

Mana burn does buff your hit per mana burn. Diffusal is basically concentrated for the charges, which enhance your ganking ability. The Diffusal, itself doesn't act a lot while mana burn is taken into consideration, but as you look, Manta Style does work well with Diffusal Blade and can add up a lot. Mana dependant heros like Morphling, Skeleton King, Invoker & Skywrath Mage suffer a lot during combat against a ganking Anti-Mage which is Slark. Try it out, you will like the Diffusal Blade most likely. I did.

Although, gameplay matters from person to person, and yours maybe more well suited towards the Shadow Blade ganking style.

i enjoyed the read. thanks for posting. thumbs up. Haven't tried Manta style. Will give it a whirl.

Re: diffusal blade/and re: Az7y note on mana burn. I don't think as slark you care about mana burn. Your targets should be gank targets so they are gonna die - and quickly. You don't care about their mana or them losing a bit of mana. Thus mana burn in a fights is not needed IMO. I'd spend the money on another item instead.

I still like S&Y early for (a) the slow; and (b) your speed; then the stats

I've almost finished it. Thanks you for telling me about stat point. :)

its ok i guess

I have tried to make it clear, that I prefer the Agility build, since that directly gives him damage, armor & attack speed.

Diffusal Blade helps you getting easy pick offs. Removing Ghost Scepter & other buffs, if needed. Mostly, in high skilled pubs, you most probably find it very challenging to pounce, considering the players will always try to juke, according to your movement. Diffusal Blade can provide easy pounces & good follow up, if you already have pounced. It works the same for Riki, although for Riki, it's much better since the backstab hurts more.

Manta Style helps you in a lot of ways. I, myself, am against Sange and Yasha over Manta Style, reasons being.

1.] Manta gives you more stats. Slark is all about stats.
2.] Slark has a good combo for the Manta Style illusions to make it's use. Pounce + Dark Pact + Manta Style will ensure that your illusions are constantly hitting the target at high speed, and the target can't move away for the specific time.
3.] Diffusal Blade and Manta Style combines into a mana burn machine, just like the Anti-Mage. It can prevent high nukes from popping up in the ganks, since the hero had less mana, than he expected himself to have.
4.] Manta Style can counter the only counter to Slark, which is Orchid Malevolence. Considering Silence is pretty much the one and only perfect counter to Slark.
5.] Essence Shift gains you high agility from the gank. More agility items, Power Treads, Diffusal Blade, Butterfly and bonus from Essence Shift, it all makes your illusions extremely strong, since illusions deal the damage depending on your Agility itself, not total damage.

Butterfly : A good overall item, but can be replaced by early B.K.B or Basher depending on situation.

Eye of Skadi is always good, since the slow gets you kills, but, mostly, the HP pool [[Eye of Skadi] gives is tremendous. You simply can roam like you have a full Heart.

Abyssal Blade or Skull Basher are not good early game. They do not scale well, unless you have high attack speed. It can be bought as a 5th or 6th inventory.

Any kind of Lifesteal should be restricted. It's just a waste of inventory slot & money, unless it's late game. Slark does not necessarily need lifesteal. He depends more on his ultimate & off-vision regeneration. I never really required Lifesteal in any games, until the very late phase, where you're going inside 5 people, with 1 of them carrying a gem. It's only viable as a 5th or 6th slot.

I'll explain about item significance today in my guide, as I've done in my other guides. Check out my Queen of Pain, Shadow Fiend or Lifestealer guide, if you can. They're pretty neat, I think.

I understand your P.O.V, but Essence Shift & Dark Pact; I can explain very easily.
Firstly, Essence Shift steals stats from your opponents. That ability is generally good, when you're in the ganking/carrying phase. Also, that ability does not 'Scale' well.
Only it's duration scales. Does the Agility gain scale on levels? Does the stat-steal gain scales? Does the cooldown really matter for you attack speed, in early phase, considering your attack speed is quite low? Nope.

On the other hand, Dark Pact, it's a 40 mana cost, 300 damage nuke. Tell me a single nuke in the game which has 40 mana, and can deal 300 magic damage [225]. I don't remember such a single ability, except Centaur's ability which doesn't require mana cost. This ability, combined with four levels of pounce will crush any hero, in the beginning phase of the game. It's cooldown is extremely low at early levels & can be spammed twice or thrice in the same gank, if you're chasing someone through the map. I've been playing with maxing Essence Shift when I started the hero, but realized that if you're going Mid, it's way better to max the Dark Pact, since that's going to secure you kills, not your agility gain for a longer duration.

I understand your suggestion, but this has already looked up by me. Dark Pact maxing early before 2,3,4 levels of Essence Shift is the right way to go.

Despite the fact that the Guide is unfinished, what is already there could use some work. You should better organize the Items section as at the moment, I have no idea which ones you're trying to suggest. Also, your skill guide is not very good. The maxing of Pounce was smart, but you always should max Essence Shift before Dark Pact. Sure, one early point in Dark Pact is fine, but Essence Shift after Pounce is the widely accepted choice. It's Agi boost (which will last for 2 minutes at max) will, in the hands of a skilled player, do more damage overall than Dark Pact without the self damage.

Good luck with the rest of the guide!

Stat points fixed! Good observation.

Yes. It's taking a lot of time than expected, although I'll finish it up by a couple of days! I'll quote to you as soon as I'm finished, would like to hear your opinions on it.

You forgot about stat points in skill build, can't rate guide, cause most of it isn't complete, gonna do it later.