Drow Hurts... The Consistent Carry

Alright, this guide is about to be archived, and I will release a new guide that will be better, I am working on it as we speak.

R-Conqueror

When can we expect an update to the guide? As you've mentioned, in the current form it is a bit incomplete. I'd like you to update it with the suggestions and comments you got from us. Now the guide isn't bad, but there is so much more potential that is left untouched.

You're welcome and I'd like to read the updated version ;)

Thank you very much for your extensive feedback, I appreciate it. I have not updated this guide in a while, but as I am playing in higher tiers my outlook on Drow is evolving more towards my second build as well. So I will soon try to make it a more complete guide, and definitely will put your advice into consideration.

thanks again,

R-Conqueror

Pretty ok guide. Although I make some different choices myself, I can see that you thought about your choices and I appreciate that. The guide itself is a bit brief and could be a bit more complete with details, but the things you say make sense often enough.

Having said that, I personally think Drow often shouldn't be played mid. When practicing against bots I may pick mid to gain XP fastest, but against other players, I wouldn't advice mid. An important part of playing mid is rune control and for that you'll need a Bottle. But as you don't use that much mana and have other possibilities to regen your HP, you don't benefit as much from a bottle as some other heroes do. That may be the reason you did't list a Bottle as an item you should get. But if your opponent can freely control the runes when you're playing mid, he gets an advantage you don't want him to have. So unless you have a roaming ganker like Bounty Hunter, Vengeful Spirit or alike in your team that comes across the runes frequently and can benefit from a Bottle, you'd probably give mid to another hero who benefits more from rune control.

So I'd play in safe lane, bringing me to the second and better build. It's better because you don't pick a Shadow Blade in your second build. You already mention you shouldn't get it when there are other invisible heroes on your team, and rightly so. I would go a bit further by saying that in most cases, you shouldn't buy this item. Although at a low skill level it may have its uses, better players can counter your 3K item pretty easily and almost for free. Even worse, a Dust of Appearance will slow your movement speed by 10%, making it even work against you when countered well. Yasha is a better pick in most cases. Cheaper, gives nice stats and movement speed and builds into Manta Style to give you even better stats and survivability.

Something else that's better in the second build is the skill buildup. Since Frost Arrows scale so well, you want to max them asap. So at level 7 instead of level 8. The stats you pick in your first build may suit you well, but getting a point in both other skills is more important. Precision Aura may only give you 4 or 5 bonus damage early on, but it applies to all ranged heroes. Makes last hitting/denying/harassing a bit easier. Personally I swap Silence and Precision Aura around, because at level 2 you probably won't need the silence that much yet, especially in safe lane. While the aura helps you farm, which is especially useful early game. But that's just a minor detail.

I wouldn't really agree with Monkey King Bar as a late game core item. Because of your aura, you may want to focus on getting extra damage through agility (also boosting your attack speed, armor and bonus damage). Also, since you already have Daedalus (which is a nice damage booster that you certainly can have on Drow), it loses effectiveness. You can't trigger both the mini stun from MKB and the critical strike from Daedalus, for as far as I know. So having both will decrease their separate effectiveness. It's highly situational, because you'll only need it against Phantom Assassin and Butterfly carriers. PA is such a hard counter to Drow since she can get up close, cancelling her ult. And since Drow is squishy, one crit can intakill her. Just don't pick Drow when the enemy team has a Phantom Assasin. Otherwise you probably won't even make it to MKB, since the game might be over before that. You can get Monkey King Bar against Butterfly carriers though. Just don't build it otherwise and spend your gold more wisely.

I wouldn't upgrade to Satanic that early either. Helm of the Dominator is a great item on Drow, because of the neutral creeps you can get through it. When upgrading, you lose this ability. You will get an arguably better active in its place, but it may be better to upgrade your other items to their max first. So get Butterfly before you upgrade to Satanic for example. And if you buy Black King Bar, you'll probably need it far before you buy it now... If you didn't list the items in order of purchase, you might want to state that.

You use a lot of colour in the guide which might improve readability. But since I can't discover a consistent pattern in it, it decreases the readability for me at some points.

What I do like about the guide is the mention of the neutral creeps you can get through Helm of the Dominator. Especially the Alpha Wolf and Centaur Khan. You've mentioned them in the comments, you may want to put it in the guide itself, because this point is often overlooked. When I wrote my own guide, I thought I was original by the mere mention of this, because I never read it in a Drow guide before. But I didn't read your guide... This point in itself is a very valid argument to get a Helm of the Dominator and use it to its maximum potential. Just put it in the guide itself.

I also like the chapters about "Turtling" and "Overextending". They give your guide an edge on many other guides. Sometimes things aren't working out the way they should and the Turtling chapter can help in those situations. As most parts, it might be a bit more details may be useful, but it's ok as it is. And about overextending: often people will become greedy when things are going well and try to kill at the enemy fountain or just stall ending the game to farm even beyond their needs. It's good to remind them that the objective is to destroy the enemy ancient and they should pretty much focus on that.

So as you can see, there are certain things I agree on and other things that I would do different. But for the mere mention of using neutral creeps to your advantage may be worth a +1. Also the second build is pretty good, so I just voted you up. As I just wanted to give the feedback, I went through the efford to writing this twice, since my browser crashed the first time around :) Anyway, guide is ok. Try to use the feedback to your benefit.

Yeah, fair enough.

At level 2, her average damage is 55. If you were to put in a level of Precision Aura instead of stats, your bonus damage from your 27.9 agility(level 2 with circlets) would be a 3.906 increase in damage. So that is why I wait till level 4 to get precision aura(inpreparation for Marksmanship), because 2 Str and 2 agi/damage/0.28 armour and 2 int means a lot more to me than just 3 more damage at lvl 2. Does that clear it up?

Thanks for reading,

R-Conqueror

Now I'm not saying you have to get it level 1, but shouldn't you get one point into aura to help with last hitting? Even with the two circlets her average damage is only about 53 (at level 1).

I do see your point about the slow, I may change that in the build. Regardless, Skill builds are very dependent on what is happening in the game, the two builds I have are simply designed to be helpful in a general since, I do not even follow the same build every game.

Again, thank you for the feedback

R-Conqueror

I noticed that most of what I said from build one was in fact in build two. I just have a hard time seeing why.

Yes, you do get more damage from leveling up aura to 2 before you get the ult, but the actual damage gained is 4 (at the point of level 6). So really, it just comes down to, in my opinion anyway, wich is more useful for ganking (the first build is a mid build, is it not?)

11% slow with 4 more damage (and let's just pretend the lane you are ganking has 2 battle ready ranged heroes, to say they benefit from this as well)

OR

24% slow with your already monster 98 damage (on top of the heroes who are in the lane who will now more likely be able to get some attacks off because of the slow)

Both situations have a silence, since the build is identical otherwise.

I guess it just comes down to preference. You are going to hit like a truck so long as you stay 375 units away from the enemy. The aura scales extremely poorly, the slow does not. I personally would want more base attacks from the enemy being less able to flee, vs a small increase in damage that is negligible based on everything else you already have.

I just feel the way the skill builds are formatted, they would be better in the reverse position, safe lane farming taking the aura for last hitting... (although taking the aura means you really have to focus on lane control if you want to safely farm the wave)

Hello, thanks for the feedback, I'll try to explain some of my choices. Lets start with lifesteal. HotD has several uses, lifesteal being the first. Lifesteal is not just for killing creeps, but can be invaluable in team fights. When I say, "stay in the lane longer," I mean that Drow will be able to survive big encounters without having to return to base all the time. If you are low on life after a big battle, you can just go into the jungle and regain some hp. Secondly, you can dominate a creep. My main choices are either a centaur(hoof stomp and attack speed) or an alpha wolf(30%more damage!). Another adavntage is that you are able to Rosh with lifesteal, which is invaluable in a game. Also, I definitely agree that Shadow Blade should not be gotten when you have other invisible heroes on your team, which is why I have Yasha under the build 2 tab,and I will edit my guide to mention it. I do not recommend have treads on strngth early game, and the extra level of Precision Aura makes sure that you get the most out of your ulti at lvl 6. However, I did include more levels of frost arrows in the alternate/side lane skill build.

Thanks for reading

R-Conqueror

I never consider Lifesteal core on any hero, and that includes drow.

However, Helm of the Dominator is a good pick up for Drow relitively early ONLY if you know how to shift-queue move jungle creeps to automatically stack the ancients on either side of the map. This will give drow a huge influx of gold quickly.

saying "I want lifesteal so I can stay in lane longer" doesn't really work for me. Building a Hood of Defience from a Ring of Heath is equally effective at keeping you in lane (and since magic is strongest mid-game and this is in fact a mid-game build, it works out better against normal team compisition, I feel)

^^^ This is not saying "build a hood on drow", simply stating that getting Helm of the Dominator in the mid game for the lifesteal and not for the creeps is generally a bad idea.

Also, on Lothar's Edge, I would add that while it is a good item, enemies needing to already expend money on invisibility makes it a very weak item for cost. If you have Riki, Mirana, Bounty Hunter, Broodmother or any other hero with natural invisibility, Shadow Blade becomes less effective. Just a suggestion. Yasha, when Truesight is on the enemy team, tends to do better in my opinion (and builds into Manta Style)

On the skill build, I do question why you have 2 points of Perciscion Aura by 5, and not just leaving it at 1, since (assuming you complete your wraithbands and are on AGI treds [which is unlikely] and assuming level 6) you will have increased the potency of the aura from 14 to 18 (you should have 98 AGI at that point). An extra 4 damage (which let me remind you pushes the lane) vs 13% more slow on frost arrows, especially when talking about gankingk, is very important to consider. To all their own, but the slow does scale very well, while the percision aura does not.