Silencer The Carry : A guide to teach people to shut the fuck up (in progress)

Introduction

Part of the seventh and final generation of a carefully designed pedigree, Nortrom was bred by the ancient order of the Aeol Drias to be the greatest magic user the world had ever seen. He was the prophesied one, the culmination of two-hundred years of careful pairings, a war-mage who would bring glory to the order, and destruction to their sworn enemies, The Knights of the Fold. Raised with other young mages in a hidden cantonment among the hills of the Hazhadal barrens, the order's preceptors waited for Nortrom�s abilities to manifest. While the other students honed their talents with fire, or ice, or incantatory spells, Nortrom sat silent and talentless, unable to cast so much as a hex. As the day of final testing approached, he still hadn�t found his magic. In disgust, the preceptors berated him, while the children laughed. �You are no mage,� the head of the order declared. Still, Nortrom did not slink away. He entered the day of testing and faced down the young mages who had mocked him. And then his preceptors learned a valuable lesson: a lack of magic can be the greatest magic of all. Nortrom silenced the young mages one by one and defeated them in single combat, until he alone stood as champion of the Aeol Drias, in fulfillment of the prophecy.
-Lore

Hello everyone. This is my first guide, and I have decided to write it mainly because I really enjoy playing Silencer and I find him a really fun, so I decided to share some of my thoughts regards playing this hero.

Pros / Cons

Pros

• Deals pure damage.
• Great potential for scaling throughout the game at all stages.
• Permanent Intellect steal.
• Counters casters through silence.
• Global Silence great for initiation and team fights.
• Powerful early game harass.
• Can orb walk.
• Can lock-down a single target to death with assistance of Orchid.
• Above average strength gain for an intelligence hero.
• One of best agility gains for an intelligence hero.
• One of the few heroes with a disarm.
• Can start support and transform into carry later game.

Cons

• Not the best carry or support
• Squishy without armor and hp items.
• Long cooldown on ultimate.
• Requires focus and active play.
• Often gets focused team fights.
• Doesn't have a stun, slow, or heal.
• Needs to kill or participate in kills (be within 900 range) to steal intellect.
• Relatively low intellect growth 2.5
• Harassment is not effective vs. heroes with low mana cost and spamable spells.
• Can be countered with silence and spell immunity.
• Disarm not reliable.
• Average movement speed and lacks an escape mechanism.
• No true AoE.

When To Choose Silencer?

Work in progress

Item Build Guide

The given build of items will address the main weaknesses that silencer has:

• low hp
• no escape
• low armor

Early Game Phase


At the start of the game, purchase either Headdress or Ring of Regen. This will give you the regeneration needed to stay in lane. After than purchase Sage's Maskx2. This will give you 100% mana regeneration and allow you to have near 100% up-time oncurse of the silent to harassment, and it builds later on into Orchid Malevolence
After this, you are going to purchase Boots of Speed. At this point, I would prefer to rush Shadow Blade since it allows you to escape (stealth) thus saving you gold, chase, stay in 900 radius for int steal even at low hp, and ambush your enemies in addition to the attack speed it provides as well as damage. Once you are done with Shadow Blade, finish your Power Treads

Some people would ask, why Shadow Blade, not Force Staff or Blink Dagger? Well, Force Staff does provide regeneration and intellect in addition to push which is nice of course. However, you are buying the Headdress or the Ring of Regenfor regeneration, and intellect on it isn't that great and it is not a reliable escape, so the benefits provided by Shadow Blade are better. As far as Blink Dagger is concerned, yes its cheaper and lower cool-down, but it has no stats, and it's useless if you are under attack so vs melee its pointless.



Mid Game Phase


As Silencer, you mid game begins once you completed the item in the early game section, mainly, because now you have Shadow Blade helping you stay alive and actively participate in ganks. At this point, you are going to need a slow as well as get more tanky. Therefore, you are going to start by purchasing Rod of Atos which provides you with a 60% slow for 4 seconds on relatively low cool-down. Start with Vitality Booster which you keep on yourself and then purchase 2 Staff of Wizardry that will be kept in your stash as you wont have space for them.

The next item you will purchase is Orchid Malevolence. It is a great item that provides you with a lot of things you need and it synergies perfectly with your skills. It gives you nice attack speed and damage for in addition to intellect which further boosts the damage of your Glaives of Wisdom. You already have the Sage's Mask so just finish it. Another great thing about Orchid Malevolence is the 5 second silence plus damage amplification. But that's not all. We will use the silence from Orchid Malevolence to give us a disarm. First, use Last Word, then use Orchid Malevolence. This will silence target for 5 seconds preventing them form casting anything and proc the silence plus disarm from Last Word giving you an 11 second silence with 6 seconds disarm. If you add your ultimate to that, you have effectively silenced a target for 17 seconds.

Once you get Orchid Malevolence and Rod of Atos, you should have plenty of damage with your Glaives of Wisdom. What you need at this point is more attack speed and armor. First things first, you purchase Hyperstone. This will turn you into a glaivie-machine gun and things will start to melt before you thanks to the Glaives of Wisdom pure damage that ignores armor and resistance. Purchasing Hyperstone completes your mid game facilitating your transition to the endgame phase.


End Game Phase


Once you have purchased all the items in your early ad mid game phase, it's time to put the icing on the cake. At this point, you got all the damage and attack speed you need, thus, what is left is fixing your hp and armor problem.

Since you already have Hyperstone, use it to finish your Assault Cuirass. This will gave you a tremendous boost to you attack speed. Furthermore till will completely solve your armor problems. In addition, Assault Cuirass provides you and you teammates with any armor and attack speed aura, as well as reduce armor aura on your enemy. Overall its a great item.

Once you got Assault Cuirass, the last thing to do is fix your HP. This is done by purchasing Heart of Tarrasque. This will give you tons of HP and regeneration.

Some people will ask, why Assault Cuirass not Shiva's Guard? well, they give the same amount of armor. However, Shiva's Guard gives you intellect as well as attack speed slow and active slow blast. Shiva's Guard is a good choice, but it think that Assault Cuirass is better since it benefits all your teammates and gives you insane attack speed. Furthermore, you already have a slow from Rod of Atos.

At this point, you should be pretty scary with all your items and all your kills and assists. You should probably have around 50-70 intellect stolen resulting in around 220-250 pure damage each hit with these items.

Items Discussion

Power Threads



+8 to selected attribute
+30 Attack speed
+55 Movement speed
Cost: 1400

Your boots of choice. The attack speed is nice. You probably should keep them on strength till you get heart as your HP isn't great. Feel free to switch them to intellect version once you purchase Heart of Tarrasque for extra damage.


Shadow Blade



+22 to Damage
+30 Attack speed
Cooldown: 28 seconds
Mana Cost: 75
Cost: 2800

Active: Shadow Walk - Makes you invisible for 14 seconds, or until you attack or use an ability. While invisible, you move 20% faster and can move through units. The invisibility has a 0.3 second fade time. If you break the invisibility with an attack, you will deal 175 bonus Physical damage.

Shadow Blade is a great item for Silencer since it allows you to escape from potential ganks and team-fights. It also allows you to chase your enemies thanks to the 20% speed buff and to ambush them. Furthermore, it allows you to stay close to enemies killed by your teammates for intellect steal even when you are at low hp thanks to stealth. The added damage and attack speed further boosts your killing potential.


Headdress



+2 All Attributes
Passive: Regeneration Aura - Grants +3 HP/sec Regeneration to nearby allied units within a 750 AoE.
Cost: 600

Headdress gives you a minor stats gain as well as regeneration aura for you and your teammates allowing you stay longer in lane. This can be built further on into Mekansm though I wouldn't go since you are not playing as support and building Mekansm would delay your other items. In extreme cases you can build it.


Ring of Regen



+2 HP/sec Regeneration
Cost: 350

Ring of Regen gives you regeneration to stay in lane, and can be used an alternative for Headdress if you want to buy your Sage's Masks faster. Saves you 250g allowing you to buy your first Sage's Mask from the side shop at about the time the first wave of creeps engage.


Rod of Atos



Active: Cripple - Slows the target's movement speed.
Movement Speed Slow: 60%
Range: 1200
Duration: 4 seconds
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Mana Cost: 50
+25 Intelligence
+350 HP
Cost: 3100

Rod of Atos is a great item for Silencer since it fixes one of you main weaknesses, which is a lack of slow. With low mana cost and low cooldown, it is pretty much spam-able making it easier for you to chase your enemies. Furthermore, it boosts your survivability through raw HP, as well as it boosts your direct damage through intellect in addition to your Glaives of Wisdom damage. Think of it as a ranged equivalent of a vanguard, its very cost efficient and not hard to build.


Orchid Malevolence



Active: Soul Burn - Silences target unit for 5 seconds and amplifies the damage it takes by 30%.
Range: 900
Cooldown: 18
Mana Cost: 100
+25 Intelligence
+150% Mana regeneration
+30 Damage
+30 Attack speed
Cost: 4125

What's better than having two silences? That's right, three silences! Orchid Malevolence gives you 55 damage as well as boosts your Glaives of Wisdom damage on top on decent attack speed and mana regeneration. This item completely solves any mana issues you could possibly have and allows you have Glaives of Wisdom on auto cast. Furthermore it's really easy to build up with all components under 1000g. In addition, this item amplifies all damage taken by 30% for 5 seconds. In other words, [orchid malevolence]] essentially adds 3 points of damage for every 10 taken by a target in a 5 second window. This can be good for shutting down a troublesome enemy.

But wait! there is more! You ca use the silence from Orchid Malevolence to give yourself a disarm. First, use Last Word, then use [orchid malevolence. This will silence target for 5 seconds preventing them form casting anything and proc the silence plus disarm from Last Word giving you an 11 second silence with 6 seconds disarm. In other words, with this little baby, you can make you someone shut the **** up for a whole 11 seconds! Add to that your ultimate and you have effectively silenced a target for 17 seconds. Amazing, eh?


assault cuirass



+10 Armor
+35 Attack Speed
Passive: Assault Aura - Grants attack speed and armor to nearby allied units, and decreases armor for nearby enemies. The bonuses from Assault Aura do not stack with similar bonuses from Aquila Aura, Basilius Aura, Vladimir's Aura, or other Assault Auras.
Radius: 900
Bonus Attack Speed: 20
Bonus Armor: 5
Armor Reduction: 5
Cost: 5350

With Assault Cuirass all your armor problems are solved. Furthermore it gives you powerful damage boost thanks to the high attack speed it offers. In addition, it gives your teammates attack speed and armor, and increases the damage taken by your enemy due to armor reduction. Therefore, not only do you become more tanky and deal more damage, you support your team as well.


heart of Tarrasque



+40 Strength
+300 HP
Passive: Health Regeneration - Regenerates 2% of the bearer's maximum health per second. If the bearer takes damage from a player or Roshan, this effect is disabled for a short amount of time. Does not stack with Health Regeneration from any other Heart of Tarrasque.
Cooldown: 6 (melee) / 4 (ranged)
Cost: 5500

Heart of Tarrasque gives you massive HP boost and crazy regeneration. With this, you will only see the fountain again in your dreams! Or if you are dead...or if the courier is dead :D