slarkin about ! (under construction- will add more)

introduction

Little known to the inhabitants of the dry world, Dark Reef is a sunken prison where the worst of the sea-bred are sent for crimes against their fellows. It is a razor barbed warren full of murderous slithereen, treacherous Deep Ones, sociopathic meranths. In this dim labyrinth, patrolled by eels and guarded by enormous anemones, only the vicious survive. Pitched into Dark Reef for crimes unknown, Slark spent half a lifetime without kin or kindness, trusting no one, surviving through a combination of stealth and ruthlessness, keeping his thoughts and his plans to himself. When the infamous Dark Reef Dozen plotted their ill-fated breakout, they kept their plans a perfect secret, murdering anyone who could have put the pieces together�but somehow Slark discovered their scheme and made a place for himself in it. Ten of the Dozen died in the escape attempt, and two were captured, hauled back to Dark Reef, then executed for the entertainment of their fellow inmates. But Slark, the unsung thirteenth, used the commotion as cover and slipped away, never to be caught. Now a furtive resident of the carnivorous mangrove scrub that grips the southern reach of Shadeshore, Slark remains the only successful escapee from Dark Reef
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SLARK ! slark is my single most favourite character with the game. he has nukes, a passive Heart of Tarrasque for his ultimate, invisibility, point steals AND an amazing set of escapes meaning if your not sticking his shiv to the man that your pouncing away in style.

ok i'm not a super amazing death defying player, i don't rack up stupid high kills and play with my toes for a challenge. but i do (in my opinion) play a damn good slark. so i'll show you how i build him, what items i get and why and best of all i'll keep it short, because long guides are the most painful

skills

Dark Pact- After a short delay, Slark sacrifices some of his life blood, purging negative debuffs and dealing damage to enemy units around him and to himself. Slark only takes 50% of the damage.
Radius: 325
Delay: 2
Total Damage: 75 / 150 / 225 / 300
Mana Cost: 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 Cooldown Time: 9 / 8 / 7 / 6

Pounce - Slark leaps forward, grabbing the first enemy hero he connects with. That unit takes damage and is leashed to Slark, and can only move a limited distance away from Slark's landing position.
Range: 700
Leash Radius: 325
Leash Duration: 3.5
Damage: 70 / 140 / 210 / 280
Mana Cost: 75 Cooldown Time: 20 / 16 / 12 / 8

Essence Shift
Slark steals the life essence of enemies with his attacks, draining all their attributes and converting them to bonus Agility.

Duration: 15 / 30 / 60 / 120
Strength, Agility, and Intelligence Lost: 1
Agility Gained: 3
Cooldown Time: 0.4 / 0.35 / 0.3 / 0.25


Shadow Dance
Slark hides himself in a cloud of shadows, becoming invisible, gaining bonus movement speed and regeneration while not seen by enemies. Attacking, casting spells, and using items do not end Shadow Dance.

Duration: 5.5
Bonus Movement Speed: 30 / 35 / 40
Health Gained per Second: 3% / 5% / 7%
Mana Cost: 120 Cooldown Time: 25




cool so your aware of his abilities now.
if you plan on playing slark i suggest you go make a bot match and spend a game or two focussing alot of attention on his skill shot, Pounce, the timing of dark pact and learn the in's and out's of the map. here's a brief explanation why.

Pounce is an amazing attack with 4 uses-

-makes for an easy escape tactic, the fact you dont need to click a direction makes this easy.

-does alot of damage in an instant, this damage timed with Dark Pact is amazing.

-leashing the enemy is great for when they are on low health, its 3.5s of time to beat on them increasing your agility with Essence Shift.

-scare tactics. like wow its amazing to see someone like Axe or Drow Ranger sit still and let you beat the **** out of them just because they are scared because they can't move away at all. 4/5 times when you pounce they won't fight back.

Dark Pact - its a nice little AoE and the delay is really useful and here is why-

- use the delay to your advantage, pop dark pact on when your just about to pounce, it will activate just as you leash them and deal damage from your pounce. this adds up to about 580 damage within what feels like an instant to the enemy.

- if your being harassed early game use, once again, scare tactics to your advantage. hang back hit dark pact and run forward into the creep wave, timed properly you get creep kills and if it looks as though your going on them the enemy will get just a tiny bit cautious about you when they see the dark pact animation.

Essence Shift - I level this later in the game, its just not needed early game because extra levels only give you a longer duration for the point steal. as slark you plan on taking out your enemies quickly so you really don't need this until your running around beating the bejesus out of every person.

Shadow Dance - everyone loves this ability, most won't fully utilize it. this is the only ability on slark that you can increase the effectiveness of it with an item. Shadow Blade, Soul Booster and a Perseverance all affect the regen aspect of this ability. (see items for info on how and why)

Items

items, they make or break a characters, you'll hear people use the term "item dependant" alot when reading guides and what i've discovered is that every character is to some extent, reliant on items. that said slark is somewhere in the middle. his abilities make him strong enough, the items you buy for him (regardless of the ones i suggest) should only be ones that further increase his effectiveness with his abilities. that said here is the item build.

when spawning the first thing you want to grab is a Stout Shield you will use this later and in the start game when your super fragile having some damage block is essential.
next grab a Tango , Slippers of Agility and last but not least clarity x 2. many people ***** about how many clarities i grab, in my defense i like to be constantly using what abilities i have to harrass, kill or assist constantly. mana and money are only worth something if they are being used.

then buy the following as availible.

Slippers of Agility - this gives you a Poor Man's Shield the shield gives you damage block and increased damage which at an early game (more than likely 2 mins in) you will love.
sages mask - this is available at the side shop also. and gives you mana regen, which combined with clarities gives you alot of mana.

Gauntlets of Strength x2 - buying these alone is silly. however if your following this item build strictly then you should now have an urn of shadows.

Boots of Speed - everyone find these so incredibly necessary, in all honesty I don't, you want to be buying other things with your precious money but if I don't put these in then I'll get spammed with comments like " oh no boots ?" so I'm putting it in for those of you who cant stand for your hero to be with our shoes.

......your not going to like doing this next bit......
next we start really hoarding our money and saving up for 3 orbs. these orbs will pretty much make you an absolute bastard to kill. that's right we are building a Soul Booster

Vitality Booster- grab it first, the order isn't essential but this give you the most health.

after picking up the Vitality Booster then purchase either the point booster or the Energy Booster.

the next bit I leave up to yourself. the items I've chosen aren't the only options available they are just the ones I have found most effective.

Soul Booster - this gives you so many things I can't even begin to tell you how much you'll love it, but coming back to basics your ultimate is totally reliant on your max health. soul booster boosts your max health by a 450HP, not to mention that your also picking up 400 mana.
In short this allows you to spam your dark pact and pounce and then after you'v decimated the entire enemy team, run out of sight and regain your health in a matter of seconds.


Shadow Blade - but wait, you say, I can already go invisible with Shadow Dance. and you'd be correct. but the problem with Shadow Dance is that whilst your invisible in terms of being attacked, they can still see you and after a few kills they will run away. shadow blade allows you to sneak up on them kill burst damage. it also allows you passive ultimate to come into play, giving you yet another escape.

Mask of Madness - many people dislike this on a hero that is such a fragile character. many people also don't get a soul booster, they also fail to realise that the 30% extra damage you take is only applied if they can hit you, which they can't and won't when your under the effects of an active Shadow Dance

Perseverance- totally optionally, turns your Soul Booster into a Bloodstone which just re-enforces all the little goodies that it gives you.

Hyperstone - gives you a higher attack speed which is nice =] I have very little reason otherwise to get this, but attack speed from this and the Shadow Blade makes you a great DPS character.


right, thats it for items, i'll probably go over some of the reason as to why i have these items in this build when talking about tactics.

game progression.

here i'll be going over what you should be doing when.

early game. (1-6) in the early game you should be playing it cautious, use your dark pact to secure creep kills and always keep enough mana to pounce away. i usually go top for slark as the forest there has many nice opportunities to pounce out of, but that for a bit later.
make sure you keeping on top of your item builds, what you need and when you can get it. You really don't have much room for ****ing around and if you get killed when you had enough money to grab that poor man's shield than your putting yourself very much behind.

mid game (6-16)
congrats, you got your ulti and now is the time to abandon caution. find a weak hero on the map, head towards them and let your nearby team-mates know its who your gunning for, to ensure i real good beat down on almost any hero i like to use this combo.......

dark pact, pounce,(dark pact goes off, shadow dance, hit them hard... this allows you to get both dark pact and pounce off on one enemy and the shadow dance straight after makes you unlikely to become the centre of attention for creeps or enemy hero's attacks when in this state. with essence shift giving you so much of there skill points you should be able to take them down pretty easily. whilst helping push and gank, work hard on your farming. you want to get that lovely Soul Booster as soon as possible so you can really start tanking enemy hero's whilst your beating them silly.

late game (16-25)

by now you should have the better part of your items, if not all of them. this is where you shine, where you run at the entire team of full health enemies and shiv them into tiny pieces, no seriously if you have the items mentioned in this build chances are you stand a decent chance against multiple hero's.

do this like so.

activate Shadow Blade then run towards your enemy, lets say you have 2 of them in mid. quickly check which one has less health, even when hero's are all at full health you will always have one with a lower amount. auto attack this enemy, you now have dealt your base damage plus the 150 you get from the shadow blade. then hit dark pact and pounce them, at this distance it should be almost impossible to miss. at the moment we are about 2 secs into your 2v1 scenario and you've dealt 730+ base damage, not to shabby.
then follow up by completely ignoring the other guy there. instead go into shadow dance and activate your Mask of Madness keep pounding on hero one. you'll find he's gone relatively quick. now turn your attention on hero 2, your at full health and he took minor damage from dark pact but he's probably feeling ok. you should also be able to repeat this process, remember to not ever activate MoM unless your under shadow dance. then runaway, your mana and health should be full by the time you find another idiot who dares get in your road.

Bro's and Ho's

Bro's

Centaur Warrunner - centaur is awesome to lane with, giving you a stun, aiding your movement speed and you two can dish out so much damage within seconds.

Spirit Breaker - his movement around the map makes you two an effective team.

Lina - all those awesome nukes and her single stun is so much easier for her to use when you have hit the enemy with pounce.


Ho's

anyone who can get off multiple stuns or slows is a big threat to you. a nuker with a stun like Lina, Tiny, or even Lion will be a massive pain. thats not to say you can effectively counter them by playing smart and getting around the nukes and stun.

in short you dont want to be messing with the enemey for more than a few seconds. its essential to keep your health up and getting hit early in a 1 v 1 with a nuke will screw over your fight over.