Polaris Guides Presents:

Introduction

Hello. Welcome to my guide for using Shadow Fiend. It's my first time making a guide so please if there's any feedback please be nice. If you have any advice to make this guide more presentable, do say so
Anyway. I'm gonna share to you what knowledge I have with Shadow Fiend.

Thing You Need to Know With SF

Shadow Fiend is an all-around role based hero. Meaning he can have a lot of roles. Early game, he is a Nuker and in Mid Game-Late Game, an Initiator and Carry. Shadow Fiend's main role is to farm up his core items that enable him to farm and gank simultaneously.

Pros and Cons

All heroes always share similarities. A few things to learn with Shadow Fiend from here:

Pros

• A multi-role hero that excels in almost anything.
• Unstoppable force once farmed
• Early game damage develops per deny/last hit
• Big AoE from Requiem of Souls

Now for the Cons:

• Easily killed by ganks
• Easily kited
• Loses bonus damage from Necromastery upon death
• Has no escape mechanisms except from Shadow Blade(he can't escape with Blink Dagger because of the 3 second cooldown that resets per lethal damage taken)which is still easily countered by Dust of Appearance, Sentry Wards, Gem of True Sight.

When to Pick/Not to Pick Shadow Fiend

When to pick him:

1. When an ally picked Enigma(I'll explain later).
2. When there is no Pudge on enemy team.
3. When an Initiator is lacking.
4. When you have good setters.

When not to pick him:

1. Pudge and most importantly, Razor.
2. When enemy team has a team composing of disablers.
3. When your team already has two or more carries(happens almost every ****ing time).

Best Friends and Sworn Enemies

Well here're your best buds that can help out Shadow Fiend the whole game:

Yeap, Enigma, your top one helper thanks to the setup with Black Hole, you can just dagger in and pop out your Requiem of Souls without having that worry of losing Black King Bar's durations.

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Another good friend is

Yeah. Being the only hero with a Tri-Stun helps a lot. Aftershock's effects give a stun to Enchant Totem and additional seconds to the stuns from Fissure and Echo Slam. This Gorilla(once a man-bull) can just dagger in and pop his stuns enabling yourself room to dagger in as well and pop Requiem of Souls without having to lose a duration from your precious Black King Bar.

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Magnus. No need to explain. Let him Reverse Polarity then just dagger in and yeah.

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Well now here are his main problems:

Yes. Razor. As much as we all do know, he may be a meal to you early, but once it starts getting late, you're attack damage will be too late as well. He is vulnerable to your nukes early as well but become more and more useless since Razor builds a Vanguard and Black King Bar a his core items after his precious Shadow Blade.

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Another one to keep an eye out for:

Just like Razor, Pudge stacks an unbelievably good amount of Magic Resist and strength each time a hero dies near him thanks to Flesh Heap. Beware of Meat Hook, one hook spells Doom but in another form rather than silence. This one can put up that Hook+ Dismember combo on you that definitely OHKO's your black ***(no racism there). Certain Doom yes I know my friend.

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Another weakness:

Yes. Even if Shadow Fiend is on fire(originally), Batrider has more fire with a higher temperature. Batrider's usual techniques are suicidal but he still survives: Blink Dagger in, cast Firefly and then Flaming Lasso the biggest threat on the enemy team, sadly that's you. Though he is squishy, even one stack of Sticky Napalm kills.

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Yes. One surprise attack and you're dead, unless you have Satanic which can turn the favor of that fight. What's 45% Life Leech equal to 250% Lifesteal?

Why Dagger for Initiation rather than Shadow Blade?

Many of you found this not to be obvious but, seriously, Shadow Blade initiating is sadly a suicidal attempt when playing with amateur/professional players. You see, while yoy are farming up Shadow Blade/ Blink Dagger, by the time you get it, you're already level 9-12 which means you already have Presence of the Dark Lord and you can't skip one level since the debuff is also quite useful. The point here is, you are still visible while invisible because the debuff radius is shown on enemy screen causing them to just run away rather than stay where you want them to be. But always remember, building both items is vital, Dagger for Initiation and Shadow Blade for escape/chase.

Closing remarks

I hope you guys enjoyed this guide. Leave a vote if you like it. Remember, I'm wanting to receive feedback. Thank you for spending precious time here.