How To: Slark, the Nightcrawler

why no suggest shadow blade !!

Also i think the best build is:

Pounce: 1, 3, 5, 7
Dark Pact : 2 , 8, 9, 10
Essence Shift : 4 , 12, 13, 14
Shadow Dance : 6, 11, 16

I play him super aggressive, constantly popping Pounce because the skill is too good.

I find that the best build on Slark is Abyssal Blade and Shadow Blade. You don't even know how helpful these both are.

i am a slark player and i will like to say create a optional build to max out pounce and shift first instead of getting dark pact (Hit and run or chasing build) , dark pact combo with pounce is good only when u have sufficent hp and mana. I tried plenty of times getting pact before shift but end up having a difficult time managing the low mana. Anyway good guide +1 for effort ^^

I'm new to Slark and I like this guide, but I'm quite confused about something.

Why do you recommend leveling Dark Pact before Pounce? Pounce only does 7% less damage, with the tradeoff of such huge versatility. It can be used to escape, chase, or just hold an enemy down while the rest of the team surrounds. And on top of all of that, it doesn't hurt Slark.

Dark Pact has an area of effect, but normally if there's more than one hero around I'm hesitant to damage myself. I find that I mainly use it in a 1v1 fight, immediately following the pounce.

Great guide +1

Personally I prefer early levels in pounce and shift, only putting 1 point in dark pact at level 2 until much later. Its an awesome skill to remove disables early game but takes away too much HP if maxed early whereas early pouce levels lowers the cd saving your *** more often than not :@

I enjoy getting a Battlefury later on too if you are doing well. You steal stats for very long when shift is maxed, naturally increasing your damage and picking up battlefury allows you dish out that damage to more than just 1 enemy. Adds a lot to the team fight

And just a special mention, picking up linkin's sphere makes you almost as hard to kill as a weaver

Hope it helps :)

Love the guide. I really enjoy the variety of play styles that you have included and how colorful this page is! However, I don't believe that you have a realistic idea of the potential of Slark. Honestly, this guide really sells him short.

Some advice that I have, as an extremely versed Slark player. Yasha is an amazing addition to his kit, but Sange is not. As a matter of fact, there's tons of items in here that you have labeled as necessary that are situational at best.

Items that you don't need in most games:
S&Y
BKB
Vlads
Hood of Defiance
Blink Dagger
Ethereal Blade

S&Y is basically the ultimate noob item. It gives you awesome stats, but is generally useless. That gold can be put to better use, say Manta Style.
BKB can be game braking when the enemy has the correct team comp. But in nearly every case, it's unnecessary. Linken Sphere will generally do the trick for you.
I don't mean to make this next part sound aggressive, but the addition of Vlads to this kit makes me believe that your image of Slark is completely wrong. Vlads has no room in this hero's build. From what I can see, you're building Slark to get in a fight and stay there. I'd suggest that you try to build him as more of an assassin. Slark is meant to jump in, kill one, disappear for a few moments, then jump back in and kill another, and so on. Your vision of him is someone who just right clicks down the entire team.

I'd strongly suggest that you look into adding Orb of Venom as one of your core items. It's so cheap and so useful on this hero. You can sell it later in the game when you need the inventory space. Alternatively, you can build it into an Eye. I very much believe that Butterfly should be one of your core late game items. The evasion and damage increase allows you to pick off even the largest of foes.

All in all, I believe that you have some improvement to make with this guide. Good luck.

I find your lack of Skadi rather disturbing. Anyway, good build. +1

This guide has pretty much every conceivable Slark build that works in any remotely skilled pub bracket except for a Shadow Blade based one. I feel like the initiation Shadow Blade provides for ganking and the attack speed along with the fairly considerable damage given by it make it a good addition to his skill set while also making him even harder to kill.

I also think his boots choices are more open than just treads, I've experimented with phase boots as well as early BoTs and find that they both work about as well, as long as I pick up an early drums to help with his lackluster stat gain.

That's about it, otherwise fantastic guide, +1

I just tried to play carry slark, you need to stack agility items; Diffusal Blade, Butterfly, Ethereal Blade, Yasha. Get like 5 hits on the enemy, and you'll be attacking twice a second