Sando's Guide to Dazzle

Thanks for the comments, no unfortunately Shallow Grave doesn't work on Eggs...that would be OP (nobody mention Song of the Siren here...)

I did mention max Shallow Grave builds here, but I think this tends to be the exception rather than the rule. Don't get me wrong, it's a great spell, but that major levelling advantage is purely around usage rather effect - depends whether you'll be using it very frequently or not.

You tend towards max Poison Touch builds as it just makes it so much more effective in most situations, but yes, you should always be flexible in what you level depending on the situation. Maxing any skill first on Dazzle is ok, and I'd definitely recommend having all 3 normal ones available at level 3.

Great guide, +1

Only thing i would mention is with Shallow Grave. I used to be a member of the max Poison Touch/ Shadow Wave camp, but the cooldown decrease, and range to a lesser extent, you get on leveling Grave is too much. I think my standard build at lvl7 is 1-3-2-1 (or 2-3-1-1 depending on lane). After this i either finish it off, or level one of the others, but having the cooldown over 30 seconds just doesn't seem enough for me.
This doesn't really hurt your laning, as your autoattacks are so good early, but it makes you much more useful for fights, counterganking and TP saves. Though, if you go for the full ganker build i fully understand maxing Poison Touch first. I just think that, at a minimum, Grave should be second.

He is a brilliantly fun hero though. 2 of my most memorable games i played were on Dazzle
http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1398743183 we went pretty hard on the minus armour strat here! But it was a blast. The teamfights were hectic, knowing where to throw everything, and where to save the Grave for... I dont think my eyes have darted around the screen as much!

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1241516222 this one was a riot. Everyone randmed and me and my friend (on the Disruptor) decided after getting 3 early kills against the solo offlane Ursa (Haha, yeah) we would start roaming. The lanes were mad. We had carry Venge, Mid Storm (not unusual, i realise) and Offlane KotL. We were 4-1-3/3-1-4 after not long and just caused havok! Obviously, they started coming into it later, but the Ursa was the only one causing a problem. So if i graved the buy he blinked on we could kite him after that. Get ahead on this guy and he is a blast.

Anyway, TL;DR, great hero, great guide. Maybe consider leveling Shallow Grave earlier for the cooldown though.

You're talking about Shadow Grave, right?
I was gonna ask if you could cast it on the Egg.

Great Guide! +1

One thing i have learnt from playing dazzle, i was in a match with a phoenix and i thought dropping it on phoenix's egg would keep it alive long enough for it to explode, this can't be done.

Just in case you have never had this situation come up before. :P

I was just reading the General Rules and Guidelines... It seems to me that Sando is "Build Spamming," or "creating guides faster than superman." What do you think, Sando?

This was meant to be a compliment.

An awesome guide like always! Keep up the good work! Also +1

S-god always delivers +1

Wow another great guide Sando

+1 from me.

Are these available in-game?

Thanks Bunkansee!

Haha well I am starting to run out of heroes I can play who I can write guides about...might have to learn some new ones. Only immediate ones that come to mind are Jakiro and maybe one about "avoiding basic mistakes". Not sure how they're gonna come about yet.

As for Axe - I don't know if he'd make me change a Dazzle pick - sure the Shallow Grave thing can be problematic, but you're soooo strong laning/pushing against him - Shadow Wave is horrible for him - with his 2 armour and the way he likes to get attacked by multiple creeps, that's 240 - 24 damage at level 1, he doesn't need to get many of them to the face before he decides to play passive. Later in the game it's still very nasty for him. Worse... Stout Shield and Vanguard's damage block doesn't work against it. It's one of those counter-counter things.

Great guide!

What are you going to do once you've made guides for every hero? ;)

Overall it's a great guide, it's neat and really helpful. Although you mentioned in the guide, you might want to add Axe as an enemy, as well as ally, because he can kill you very easily, plus like you said, Culling Blade goes through Shallow Grave so you lose your form of protection.

Anyway, it's your guide! Great job! +1