Guardian of the deeps!, a guide to Slardar

Intro

Slardar is a melee semi-carry hero who, thanks to his ult, can beat the **** out of squishy heroes and make tanky heroes so much easier to kill.
He's very tanky and can become a monster if given enough farm.
He is fun to play and relatively easy.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Very tanky, with high base armor and nice str gain
- Can permastun foes
- Due to his sprint can escape foes with ease
- A great counter to invi-dependant heroes, such as riki and bounty hunter.
- Can make tanky heroes much less of a threat

Cons:

- His stun has a relatively low AOE, thus can be hard to hit without a blink
- Relies on luck to bash and permastun
- As any carry, will fall late game if you can't farm enough.
- His escape/chase mecanism makes him take more damage
- Very low manapool in early and mid game

Skills

Slardar's first skill is sprint. It's pretty straightforward: makes you run quite faster, but you take 15% more damage when active. Lasts for 20 seconds on all levels.


His second skill is his bread-and-butter, slithereen crush is a small 350 radius aoe stun, that lasts for 2.5 seconds on the last level, with an increasing manacost and 8 seconds cooldown on all levels. Great for initiating a 1v1, or even a 1v2, but not really good for a full blown teamfight initiation.


Slardar's third skill and only passive is bash. It is identical to Void's time lock. Increasing chance and bonus damage with each level.


And that leads us to slardar's ultimate: amplify damage. It places a debuff on a single enemy, that gives true sight (bye bye riki), and a whopping 20 armor reduction on the last level and lasts for 25 seconds. With a 25 mana cost and 10 seconds cooldown, it is higly spammable, even with slardar's amazingly low manapool

Gameplay

Early game!

This is a very simple game stage: just stick to farming and try not to die.
I know this is easier said than done, but with sprint you should be able to escape most gank attempts, or even get some kills, but remember, if you're chasing a kill, never overcommit, it can mean your death, and that's gonna mean delayed items.
Try to get you vanguard as soon as possible, as it loses its effectiveness as times goes by.

Mid game!

So you've made it into mid game, and if all went well, you should have at least a blink dagger.
Now you evaluate the game: can my team survive without me? Will I die too much if I start to really commit to teamfighting?
If you answered yes to both, then keep farming, if not, it's time to go chase some kills.
Your blink + crush combo makes for a good initiation tool on small ganks, and tagged enemies will drop so easily, and at this stage, just one bash can make the difference in getting a kill or getting killed.
And as always, remember: it's better to get out alive without killing anyone than getting a kill and getting killed right after!
Your next item should be an armlet, it's cheap and easy to make, so it has to be done my mid game.

Late game!

Oh the late game, the carries paradise!
If your team hasn't lost yet, it means you have at least 2 more big items (Heart, Satanic, Assault), and you're probably balling hard now, so go rape the other team and be happy.
But never put yourself in bad spots, a dead carry can cost your team the game.
Nothing much about this stage, teamfighting and pushing should be constant, and you should always be there!

Items

Starting items are pretty straightforward: three branches for stats and tangos + salve for regeneration. The choice between stout shield or quelling blade is up to you, if you feel confident enough on your last hitting, go for stout, if not, a quelling blade will more than pay for itself after a while.

Deffensive items

- A vanguard should almost always be picked up, because it gives you some tankability and some nice regen. The damage block is great in the earlier stages of the game.

- Black King Bar is a must-have for any right clicking carry, and slardar is no exception. It makes your teamfighting so much easier when you can just bash away without worrying about disables

- Helm of the Dominator into a Satanic the best lifesteal item in the game, coupled with the damage and str gain, it means much more durability in teamfights.

- Heart of Tarrasque is one of the best items in the game, as it gives you insane health and strenght, and an amazing HP regen when you're not in battle.

Offensive Items

- Blink Dagger is a must have for Slardar. It makes your stun garanteed, and your chasing/escaping much easier. I have seen people argue that sprint can replace a blink. Well, it can't. A blink into crush is much more menacing than a sprint into crush. If your enemy has any escape mecanism, not blinking can mean a lost kill.

- Armlet of Mordiggian is a great item, as it gives you some nice HP regen, attack speed and damage, and when activated its bonus are even greater. It does drain some HP per second, but since slardar is quite tanky, and with lifesteal and your hp regen, it should be no problem.

- Assault Cuirass is both an offensive and defensive item, as it gives you more armor and attack speed, and also generates an aura that buffs your allies armor and reduces your enemie's.

- Mjollnir gives you insane attack speed, and more AS means more bashes. It is an orb effect, but since it's not always active it stacks with lifesteal (it just won't lifesteal when the lightning procs)

Situational Items

- Desolator gives you some nice damage and combos well with your ult, giving you more armor reduction power. I'd prefer having desolator on a teammate rather than on myself, but you can consider it if the enemy team has an amazingly tanky lineup.

- Heaven's Halberd is a nice combination of tankyness and evasion. I usually pick this up when the other team has a hard hitting carry, since the activate ability desarms the target for 4 seconds.

- Blade Mail. Are you getting heavily focused? A blade mail can be a viable pickup if the other team has some glass cannons (Drow, sniper, riki) that can kill you before you have a chance to stun them.

- Drums of Endurance is one of those "I'm losing and I need something cheap" items. Gives you some nice stats and a good aura. Again, I'd much rather have it on a teammate, but it is something to consider.

- Medallion of Courage because you can't have enough armor reduction.

- Monkey King Bar is the item to go if the enemy team has evasion, like brewmaster or PA, or any halberd/butterfly holder.

- Daedalus is a great damage source, and it gives you a chance to deal 2.7x critical hits. Works wonders with your armor reduction ultimate

Avoid these at all costs

- Shadow Blade. Sure, it gives you some nice damage and AS, but it's such an expensive item that can be countered by a lot of cheap ones. Not worth the purchase.

- Battle Fury is a good item, and I really like it, but it just doesn't work on slardar. Use the money to get yourself a vanguard and a blink and be much more effective.

- Sange and Yasha is just meh. It can be a hate on my part, but I really don't like this item at all, too much money for some stats and a bad slow.

- Basher/Abyssal simply don't stack with your own bashes, useless.

Friends and Foes

Basically anyone with a guaranteed stun can be a great lane partner for Slardar, some examples are:
Ogre Magi (I wouldn't recomend him though, since going dual melee on a lane can be dangerous);
Crystal Maiden;
Vengeful Spirit;
Tusk;
Slowers such as Venomancer are also amazing.

When the lane phase is over, Slardar being a semi-carry, his best partners are carries who can deal massive amounts of physical damage, that will be amplified due to his ultimate, ranged heroes work better, since you can just initiate and they lay down the beating.
Sniper;
Drow Ranger;
Clinkz;
and so on...


Foes of Slardar are the heroes that: can run away from him and still deal some good amount of damage, mana burners, damage amps (combined with his sprint, any other source of damage amp can **** you up nicely), doom (he's a counter to anyone!), here are some examples:
Storm Spirit;
Anti Mage;
Doom;
Nyx Assassin;
Clinkz (His invi makes him so fast that even with sprint catching up to him is hard);
Shadow Demon.

That's it!

Hope you liked this guide.
I'll be adding more sessions soon, but I don't really have enough time right now.
If you have any questions or suggestion, just comment below and I'll answer them.
Thank you for you time!