Silencer the #1 Librarian in DotA

add their pugna pls because his nether ward kills you because u cant cast spells becuse you get damaged

I tried following this guide to get better at Silencer. While following it I had a 25% win rate (Awful). Being almost completely ignorant to Silencer (one of the few hero's I couldn't play, or at least never learned) I didn't know much about his abilities. Once I deviated from this guide I realized *You don't need glaives of wisdom for INT steal anymore*, then I remembered they changed this several months to a year ago. It was at this point that I checked the date of the guide and it is expired.

So moral of the story is; this guide may have been good 2 years ago, but, after several games the only good it did was miss out on kills. Once I began experimenting with my own builds I began to win much more and create a stronger game impact. I'm going to have to down vote it due to misinformation that has been expired for years. As someone completely ignorant to how to play Silencer it did nothing more than get me killed.

For a while, I considered Silencer as one of the worst heros in the game. Incapable of supporting as good as my favorite hero ( Crystal Maiden ), and inferior to almost every other carry. Probably because I always used CotS to harrass, and it's not really until I read this guide and decided to try out harassing with Glaives and Last Word that I've really seen the power Silencer is capable of. I love this build. Although I still don't consider silencer a "true" carry, he's definitely not a position 5 character, and probably not even position 4! This guide has a made a huge, huge improvement to my Silencer, and I'll try to write out a a decent reply for you.

1. The harassment given out by Glaives is very, very powerful. I had a spirit breaker and a shadow shaman hugging their tower out of fear the entire laning phase. What started out as a " Oh yea, I'm spirit breaker, IDGAF" turned into "OH GOD, SILENCER!!! #*$@#@" I literally barely saw them, occasionally peeking out of the FoW to try to get some xp or something, and my Riki had free farm. One thing I will say is that I recommend waiting until Last Word is lvl 3 to begin using it as your primary harass, since it causes more damage per mana point than Glaives does. At any rate, the laning phase ended when the entire team ganked my lane. Oh well...

2. I truly believe Silencer is purely an offlane hero. His powerful harassment is best used to disrupt the enemies hard carry's farm, and potentially get some early kills off the babysitter. He's just not item-dependent enough to take any other lanes IMO, and other heros can babysit better. So I agree with your laning idea. ^^

3. Expect a few players to demand you support. Make sure you show them up by achieving a Godlike streak or better thanks to your 100+ pure damage. In all seriousness though, I do believe it's ok for Silencer to buy a ward or two/dust of appearance if it's necessary, but he should definitely not commit to any support item. He should also not have to buy the courier imo, since the earlier the null talisman and treads, the better. I main Crystal Maiden. Hard supports job is to invest all their money into support items and boots. Just from personal experience.

4. This is a really important point for me. I honestly believe you should try out Aghanim's Scepter on Silencer. It is really, really powerful. The extra second really matters, and both CotS will stack together from what I hear, making it a massive health and mana loss. I'm not sure if it does or not, the enemy team was wiped out too fast for me to notice. Pahaha. At any rate, I believe it should come after the Force Staff, and it's definitely a situational item, since Scythe of Vyse is an equally powerful item. Whether you get it before or after the Scythe is entirely up to you, and the enemy lineup/advantages. But it's definitely worth a mention.

5. I believe that it's highly important for all Silencer players to remember that although they're not a true support, they're also not a position 1 or 2 hero, and that they should avoid taking the farm from the true carries. I believe Silencer is a hero that should avoid jungling, and should definitely focus on getting kills. Just remember you're rather squishy and to avoid overextending.

6. Does Eye of Skadi stack with his Glaives? I keep forgetting to try it out in a bot match...I really do believe you should make a mention of whether it does or not in his build, because I can still see it being useful by switching back and forth between both unique attack modifiers...it'd be odd, but it might work as a very late game item.

Anyways, I love this guide! It's just too awesome playing Silencer now :D.

Nice guide! Silencer is one of my favorite heroes. I wish people understood just how strong he can get when building for damage. With a VS or DROW to buff you, it's easy to melt people late game when you have 30-40 bonus int and the gear that usually goes with it.

I almost always go Rod of Atos after treads/talisman. The bonus HP is really welcomed into mid game. Part of silencer's mid game is staying alive long enough for things to die and give you those stacks! This is more of a personal matter, but I'm not a big fan of force staff.

Here's a couple of my better replays :)

Mid Vs Pudge (great matchup!) BH took a while to get online. FV was a bit new apparently.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/195671118

Laning (vs Tide I think)
http://dotabuff.com/matches/161708208

This one was a loss - couldn't really counter DP once she got fed.
http://dotabuff.com/matches/182737898


I've tried a couple different builds, but I find it nice to build an orchid after Atos. The attack speed and damage helps you carry, and the extra silence lets you really dominate a particular person who can change the game (i.e. Warlock or Tide). A Linken's Sphere is interesting. Gets you some nice stats (the mana regen is welcomed) and some durability.

Really decent guide, although i enjoy rushing Rod of Atos right after the Power Threads, cause it really gives anything i would ever want in terms of stats, along with a great active. Or sometimes, i like to go Dagon for the fantastic early-game it provides.
Ah, and people seem to bash me when i use the carry build, but +1 for sure!

Looking for Silencer replays? Here's one from a low-level game

Match ID: 186659005
Silencer: 11-1-13 :P
Int stolen: over 40

My 1. game as silencer (save the couple of practice matches against bots)so I'm pretty satisfied.

I support my friend who plays lifestealer on Dire bottom. We have some difficulties against Slark and Husakar (those two are actually quite nasty to lane against) but we win in the end because our team is more coordinated and has a good Vengeful Spirit as support which allowed me to farm damage/utility items.

Peculiar items: I rush Void Stone before boots to spam Curse of the Silent (CotS) because I notice that the enemy doesn't react to CotS. Then I get Shiva's Guard instead of Sheep Stick which turns out to be the right decision as Clinkz and Templar Assasin both try and duel against me which doesn't work out so well for them thanks to my 60 % damage resistance (and some team support). A good example of how badass Silencer gets with enough int stolen and some items.

Silencer works really well against Templar Assasin: CotS melts away her refraction shields and if she goes invis you can still get her with CotS (thanks for the tip, BTW). Also note how many disarms there were during the game thanks to Last Word, Silencer is confusing to play against if you don't understand how CotS and LW function. Since he is not picked a lot you can punish the enemy for their ignorance - which I did.

P.S: How do Global Silence and Last Word silence work with invis units: If you last word them while they are visible can they use a spell to go invis and stay invis while they are silenced? Does Global Silence reveal units that are invisible at that time (I guess Riki should become visible)?

P.P.S: I think you should mention that when using Last Word if the enemy you cast it on becomes white that means that they are not only silenced but also disarmed.

P.P.P.S: Here's a high-level pro game with Silencer http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cVeRECY1FuM

This idea is kinda viable, but mostly for trolling. If you get heavens halberd on silencer you get another 5 second disable which has amazing synergy with orchid, health, evasion, and complete trolling ability. The ability to render someone completely useless for about 10 seconds (if you stack with global silence and last word) while they sit in team fights crying is absolutely hilarious. :D

Very good guide. I've recently fallen for Silencer hard and this is really going to help me play him better. I particularly like that W-attack playstyle you explain. Much more effective than toggling the auto-cast.

As for the item guide, also insightful. The use of TP scrolls to get to teamfights and let Glaives steel Int is great, as well as the pros/cons and all-around situationality you describe for Mek. Some suggestions for possible substitutions if more tankiness is needed, other than the previously debated Vangaurd, are Blade Mail and Hood of Defiance. I prefer the later, just to give Silencer some magic resistance with his HP regen. It has a certain symatry.

I'm wondering if Force Staff might be replaceable with Shadow Blade. The intel and Hp regen is lost, but the attack speed and damage more than make up for it in my opinion, and the escape/chase is more. . . well I guess not really effective because it can be countered, whereas Force Staff can't; I just find that double tapping the Staff hotkey and zooming forward a little, still barely out of range of pursuit, is so less satisfying than disappearing and running at increased speed to the safety of a team or tower.

Now, with the ability build, I feel like there is a lot of room for personal preference. Someone already mentioned using more CotS, something I like to do. But other than that, with the global silence I found that the mana increase was rather rediculous for a single second longer duration. Instead of putting my lvl 11 point into it, I wait until 15 and 16 to level it to max in one jump. Usually by this point in the game the itme build gives enough mana pool and regen to handle the massive expenditure.

On a related note with the ult and a possible addition to the item build, I think Silencer is a great hero for Refresher Orb. Think about this, instead of Shiva, Orchid, BKB, or Eye of Skadi, all of which are valid and useful, going for Refreasher gives the ability to silence the entire enemy team for 12 seconds seems much more devastating to me. This more solidly places Silencer in the support catagory, yes, but I thought I'd bring up the idea. I thought it was a pretty good one.

Thanks for the build, adn the place to talk about this hero! +1

I think your biggest mistake is in your analysis of Mekansm. Mekansm offers a ton of tankiness. It's great for a soft carry. Especially if it's a role getting a lot of early money; Mekansm offers a huge advantage in early skirmishes! My blog has a comparison of a Mek to a Vanguard. And I think that a Mek is strictly better than a vanguard. So it's a great answer for adding toughness to your soft carry.

Was reading the guide and agreed so much that I made an account and +1'd.
Much of the reading such as mekanism being debatable is solid point. (I never, NEVER get mek on silencer).
One confusion though, why wouldn't you max your Curse first? I know it's very situational, but curse can dish out a lot of damage early game especially against heroes such as drow ranger, viper, sniper, riki, or any other hard carries or heroes without spammable spells. Despite the new Last Word, I've had many games where Last word failed me in getting some kills that I would've gotten with curse.
For instance, If you got to lvl 7 with last word maxed, the chances are, heroes will get away taking only 300 (last word) + 200 (glaives) + 120(curse) damage.
However, if you maxed curse, the damage output is different.
150(last word) + 200 (glaives) + 390(curse).
and of course, curse deals AOE damage, meaning it has much more utility in lane, essentially crippling the opposing lane's ability to... well, to ANYTHING.
Maybe I'm just a curse lover in pub matches, but I strongly suggest that you consider maxing curse of the silent first, just to test it out.

Thank you so much for this guide.

A little bit ago I read through the other Silencer guides here, but I noticed most of them were outdated and didn't give much information on the way I like to play Silencer. (The harassing Semi-Support transitioning to Semi-Carry)

So yeah. Really helped me out. ++Rating

Hey, appreciate the guide, it's very well done.

Been on a bit of a winning streak with Silencer last few days and had a nice game today, and thought you might want the id for the replay (69216591), name is the same as this one.

I'm just a beginner, but it went generally pretty well.

Thanks again for the guide.

Cro