Silver Edge is not OP

So ive seen that there is sort of an idea growing here that Silver Edge is OP because it 'completely makes certain heroes useless', which i think is not the case. So instead of derailing threads where the item seems to keep getting mentioned i thought id make a thread where i make some points and where the discussions can happen.

[*] The item has a very limited amount of heroes that its good on. Good as in you dont need another item way more too, the only hero whos buildup doesnt really get interfered much with wanting to get the new Silver Edge is Slark, and the old one messed with every buildup cause Sange is so mediocre.
There are even very little heroes that regularly get Shadow Blade.
Slark being the most common, but on other heroes its often outshined by Blink Dagger. And then even slark would really like a blink some games.

[*] Its clunky to apply since you need to hit an autoattack on a non magic immune hero.
Which is hard since much of the common heroes are melee, and then even a Kunkka for example doesnt always want to attack the target directly, or a Slark or Tiny wants to rather clean up an easier to kill support/utility/teamfight hero instead of starting of the fight by a core.
The Shadow Blade part (positioning and suprise factor) and break are on a same cooldown, therefore you need to be able to use both at the same time. So if you cant go in beforehand because of true sight you have to save the active for during the fight when you are visible, so you only use the break part and mediocre for the cost stats.
Compare it to an item like Heaven's Halberd, which stops heroes from attacking. Its more usefull against offensive passives like Mortal Strike cause you disable all damage completely. With the tradeoff of being shorter against melee heroes and purgable by Black King Bar but being instant cast from longer then most heroes attack range.

[*] It doesnt actually disable heroes.
So they can still minimise the time that they can actually be attacked after being affected. Either muliple heroes have to be in position to Kappa talise on those 5 seconds, or the hero can escape/buy time phantom assasin anti mage Lifestealer or stunning the hero with the damage Dragon Knight Sven Wraith King. As opposed to an Orchid Malevolence before BKB or Scythe of Vyse. Or they are just still relatively tanky and hard to bring down like a Spectre or Bristleback.

Regarding the heroes that get Shadow Blade and one point I see coming already: every hero would like to have one and stats/damage/AS are good in everyone. That's true. Which is also true, though, is you need other stuff more in most heroes, probably, specially if you're not in an not organized pub. Blink Dagger is almost always better for the initiation/mouvement part, and filling two slots with the same purposes isn't always possible (even if it happens for some heroes). Then if you still waste the money for the Break, like you said, nice, 5100 gold for 5 seconds of break.

Let's just see this sample of heroes: would you rather have a SE or a Blink Dagger on Juggernaut, Wraith King, Sven, Luna, Ember Spirit, list goes on? What happens if they are against someone with passives is they play around the specific hero, not going SE.

Also: the list of heroes that actually get screwed by the item, not as in just "oh no damage for some seconds", but really screwed, specially if the item is bought early: Phantom Assassin, Spectre, Huskar, Bristleback? That's not nearly enough to say that a item that counters them is OP.

I'm not even going to respond to this thread, since I've already answered the exact same arguments in other threads before already. There's really nothing new here.

It's not OP, yes. Just too good for what it is. Hell, I'd buy it on a support that can get too rich too fast like Keeper of the Light if given some space. It's extremly good to split push on him and the upgrade just make sense for the damage reduction on the enemy carry or passive disabling.


It's not just about the break here, again. The damage reduction is insane for 5 seconds. That's where your gold goes.

I'd agree with some of your points Timm - it isn't always easy to land a break on a single target in the middle of a fight, especially with illusions, detection etc breaking things up. The best way I find is probably not to start the fight in invis, and just activating it mid-hit. Sure, it's balls to the wall all in, but the most reliable way.

Blink / SB has been debated a lot, I'm sure we all know the arguments for / against utility vs extra damage etc.

I would say there's a lot of heroes where SB can make sense, especially in pub games, and one thing that often goes unnoticed is the effect SBs have on enemy supports. You buy a 2.8k item, they probably have to spend at least 2-3k gold over the course of the game to counter it, on heroes who probably didn't have a lot of cash to begin with.

humor us and do a short version for the sake of actually showing them in the thread discussing the item.


but then again compared to a hex. yes you have a different buildup and its slightly more expensive bla bla but when it comes down to what it does hex completely disables a target with instant ranged cast and is way more useful against the vast majority of heroes.
What does not OP but too good for what it is mean btw? Doesnt that just mean OP?

I agree with this completely. But you're talking about Shadow Blade, precisily: just that and your supports have to waste all their money in detection. Now, Silver Edge is no different in that regard, except you pay more money to get more stats and a break ability. And it's the break that some people claim that it's OP. Like Wulf said, the damage reduction. It is indeed pretty big, but then again, you do that on this one target, granted, but like Tim said, you could do the same with Scythe, that no one claims is OP. Or you can do that and always put this hero out of the fight until the point where the rest of his team deal with you and the hero still has impact because he can use his abilities and items, besides still having half his damage (not mentioning timings, ofc you need to get it before the enemy carry is out of hand or there is no use in breaking him at all, I've felt that myself playing).

The buildup is too good and gives you no reason not to buy it, but it's not necessary to have. Thing is Shadow Blade is good, this thing is better, but it's just there. You don't have to get it ever time, and most certainly you don't have to think about upgrading as soon as you got the Shadow Blade.


Also, this can be ranged as well, if used by a ranged hero. Hex doesn't disable passives anymore either. Break does. At this point, they're too different to compare. Both serve a certain purpose, but one has the build-up advantage over the other, while the other one has the advantage of fully disabling one hero for it's duration, albeit shorter.