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This is an excellent guide, and I love the formatting and .gifs, but I would recommend taking the Q (shadow strike) as either the first or second ability. I find it to be really useful for defending yourself and scaring/harrasing enemy heroes, and especially helps if you are slow to start farming (from being ganked or whatever).
People who can think don't read guides. Guides are for a set-in-stone item and skillbuild that ******s can follow mindlessly.
I read guides precisely because I CAN think. I never played the original dota, and started playing Dota 2 a month or so ago. Sadly, I didn't come out of the womb knowing every hero in dota, with an innate knowledge of how to play them like a pro, how to counter them, and what item is best versus any given opponent team-comp.
When I get a hero I've never played before, the first thing I do, after reading the spell descriptions, is alt-tab out and look at the top-rated guides on the hero to get an idea where to start. A well written guide, with a real discussion of the hero, is very helpful in a case like mine. It's even more helpful when other players chime in, and give constructive feedback in the comments, pointing out alternatives, patch changes, etcetera. It saves a newb like myself an incredible amount of time and frustration in getting up to speed.
In this game there are reasons to do everything some demand different situations to occur. Ranking shadow strike @ 4 is a very viable option and there are times when its perfect and times when its not needed. The advantage to not getting it at for is having an increase in survability by having a shorter cd blink and a longer blink. Not only that early game she suffers from a lot of mana problems trying to add more combos makes it worst till you have the items.
Now I'm not saying don't get it because that is completely wrong it depends on the lane your in who your up against and how the game is going for you ill try my best to add all these different situations in the guild however the game changes with so many different things that I gave a general look, but you have to base your choices on what is happening in the game and adapt can't follow any guide strictly to what it says and be viable most of the time in higher level play.
Kirb thx for your input I appreciate it. I think I will add a skill build with shadow strike as it is a strong build depending on who you are facing it has its pros and cons just with any build and they are times it should be taken and they are other times the build i suggest should be taken as well. I will add that skill build and the item build that would go with it in this guide as well and explain when it is useful to use this build.
I started off with a general build here, but I do want to make this a complete guide and still need some more time to do it and comments like yours will help me do this just reminds me that I need to show more builds than just the simple one I shown here.
On a side note just want everyone reading to known in Dota 2 there is never a set item or skill build that is just the best everything is situational and have to be willing to adapt to that situation with both your items and skill builds if you want to play this game effectively so never be pigeon hold into one build keep your mind open, and I will listen multiple builds in the near future to help with that.
Gyro yes this is one of the things i need to add to the written its in the video guide explaining it. Few reasons actually one for farming, burst damage, but also big part is for helping rune control. Being able to push the wave before the rune spawn gives you a big advantage either getting a rune uncontested or making them loss exp and gold. So leveling up the E just gives you everything you want, you do miss out on the slow early on but that's manageable.
You are describing the classic style of Queen of Pain mid play, wherein she was a fairly weak mid that was effective if she managed to outplay her lane despite not really deserving to off low stats/ Scream of Pain being bad Rank 1/2.
Nowadays, this hero has been buffed so much (+5 Intelligence, +5 base Damage, Shadow Strike much better cooldown/damage, Scream of Pain isn't as bad early on, and lastly a much better Aghanim's Scepter) that the skill build you are using is pretty much obsolete. Do me a favor and, the next time you see a hero like Pudge, Beastmaster, Tiny, Kunkka or Shadow Fiend mid (melee or pathetic early on), use this skill build:
Q/W/Q/E/E/E/E/R/W/W/R/W/Q/Q/Stats/R
...And tell me how it goes. Chances are if you last hit/deny normally and throw out Shadow Strike every time they approach to last hit, you'll be having the easiest lane of your life. Shadow Strike is leveled to Rank 2 for its cooldown scaling, as a 16s cooldown nearly matches the duration and forces opponents to respect it when using Bottle or Healing Salve. New Queen of Pain with Rank 2 Shadow Strike is so embarrassingly strong mid that I feel it's ill-informed not to advocate it.
Gyro yes this is one of the things i need to add to the written its in the video guide explaining it. Few reasons actually one for farming, burst damage, but also big part is for helping rune control. Being able to push the wave before the rune spawn gives you a big advantage either getting a rune uncontested or making them loss exp and gold. So leveling up the E just gives you everything you want, you do miss out on the slow early on but that's manageable.
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People who can think don't read guides. Guides are for a set-in-stone item and skillbuild that ******s can follow mindlessly.
I read guides precisely because I CAN think. I never played the original dota, and started playing Dota 2 a month or so ago. Sadly, I didn't come out of the womb knowing every hero in dota, with an innate knowledge of how to play them like a pro, how to counter them, and what item is best versus any given opponent team-comp.
When I get a hero I've never played before, the first thing I do, after reading the spell descriptions, is alt-tab out and look at the top-rated guides on the hero to get an idea where to start. A well written guide, with a real discussion of the hero, is very helpful in a case like mine. It's even more helpful when other players chime in, and give constructive feedback in the comments, pointing out alternatives, patch changes, etcetera. It saves a newb like myself an incredible amount of time and frustration in getting up to speed.
...base your choices on what is happening in the game and adapt...
People who can think don't read guides. Guides are for a set-in-stone item and skillbuild that ******s can follow mindlessly.
Now I'm not saying don't get it because that is completely wrong it depends on the lane your in who your up against and how the game is going for you ill try my best to add all these different situations in the guild however the game changes with so many different things that I gave a general look, but you have to base your choices on what is happening in the game and adapt can't follow any guide strictly to what it says and be viable most of the time in higher level play.
Rank shadow strike at 4. No reason not to.
Jungling.
+1/rep :)
I started off with a general build here, but I do want to make this a complete guide and still need some more time to do it and comments like yours will help me do this just reminds me that I need to show more builds than just the simple one I shown here.
On a side note just want everyone reading to known in Dota 2 there is never a set item or skill build that is just the best everything is situational and have to be willing to adapt to that situation with both your items and skill builds if you want to play this game effectively so never be pigeon hold into one build keep your mind open, and I will listen multiple builds in the near future to help with that.
Gyro yes this is one of the things i need to add to the written its in the video guide explaining it. Few reasons actually one for farming, burst damage, but also big part is for helping rune control. Being able to push the wave before the rune spawn gives you a big advantage either getting a rune uncontested or making them loss exp and gold. So leveling up the E just gives you everything you want, you do miss out on the slow early on but that's manageable.
You are describing the classic style of Queen of Pain mid play, wherein she was a fairly weak mid that was effective if she managed to outplay her lane despite not really deserving to off low stats/ Scream of Pain being bad Rank 1/2.
Nowadays, this hero has been buffed so much (+5 Intelligence, +5 base Damage, Shadow Strike much better cooldown/damage, Scream of Pain isn't as bad early on, and lastly a much better Aghanim's Scepter) that the skill build you are using is pretty much obsolete. Do me a favor and, the next time you see a hero like Pudge, Beastmaster, Tiny, Kunkka or Shadow Fiend mid (melee or pathetic early on), use this skill build:
Q/W/Q/E/E/E/E/R/W/W/R/W/Q/Q/Stats/R
...And tell me how it goes. Chances are if you last hit/deny normally and throw out Shadow Strike every time they approach to last hit, you'll be having the easiest lane of your life. Shadow Strike is leveled to Rank 2 for its cooldown scaling, as a 16s cooldown nearly matches the duration and forces opponents to respect it when using Bottle or Healing Salve. New Queen of Pain with Rank 2 Shadow Strike is so embarrassingly strong mid that I feel it's ill-informed not to advocate it.