Forget getting your initial core items in the match. Sents and Dusts are your core items now, with Gem as situational.
Spark is op. But will never be nerfed because in the pro scene he sucks. Dota needs to be balanced around the average pub player not the pro scene. It would be make a lot of people's experience with the game so much better. I know I will get told I'm noob though for saying this.
in my bracket, we ganked the shit out of him at laning phase. in best case scenario, he will have his inventory consisted only of thread+sb at 20 minutes. the worst case scenario, we "accidentally" die under tower while ganking him lol.
Pls just pick bs abd start ganking him and only him after Ur ultimate because he is either gonna run base or jist die to bs :)
if you bully slark enough in the lane phase he'll do nothing for the rest of the game, if you did it, make sure he don't farm for the rest of the game and start pushing towers, fuck his space of farm however you can, if you're chasing him make sure to stay in front of him so he can't jump and run, keep your stuns until he uses his purge, after taht he's really vulnerable, and BUY FUCKING SENTRYS,enjoy your ez +25
pop wand and tp before basher is reliable if ur ogre or warlock. push as 5 with detection down, fuck with his laning phase, stay safe
just stay safe as supports, sit under tower if you have to. if slark doesnt snowball he will lose mid/lategame to a hero like luna or sniper
I see alot of vague tips but I'm 2000% sure that your best friend here is mana burn - this means 3 heroes basically (I'm a support main like you) KOTL, Nyx and Beastmaster. KOTL'S Mana Leak and Blinding Light destroys slark. Also his Q means that you can harass Slark and his low health pool early game without him being close enough to hit you for essence shift. Nyx is also fantastic, mana burning him significantly reduces his effectiveness in teamfights, if Slark can't Pounce or Shadow Dance, he's pretty much useless. Also setting up stuns for Spiked Carapace is easy because that limits his ability to use Dark Pact to damage you or purge stuns cos he'll be stunned. Beast Master is also a solid pick providing you go Necro with him as support. His Roar is fantastic in locking a Slark down and separating him from the rest of his team, with Necro you can burn Slark's mana with the archer and deal 400 damage if Slark kills the warrior. The true sight provided by Necro also is a great advantage. Finally the last hero who works wonderful against Slark is simply Zeus support. Max W first. Rush bottle (there are 5 runes now). After bottle get your arcanes, after your arcanes go for Veil, after Veil get blink. Zeus high burst damage works wonders against Slark's low health pool. Zeus' W true sight also means you won't go poor buying for sentries although you should still get them. Easy burst damage against Slark, easy true sight.
even if u disrupt his laning stage, he'll go jungle and farm better than laning stage. If u try to gank him there, u may kill him but u may also die pitifully in the enemy jungle. One way or another he will get his sb, sabre and basher. Even if u use sentries, he diminishes the distance between u and him very fast and most probably kill u. I dont see any solution but perhaps AA, but his ulti is too unreliable. Even if u hit him, he'll just retreat, wait, and comeback with full hp. Ofc u can wait while he fully uses his 1st skill to stun him, but by that time u already lost 75% hp
no, slark is absolute dogshit if u punish him in lane.
you do not have to kill him a single time. you just have to kick him out of lane.
if youre playing support, pick bounty or kotl and just run at him at level 1/2. spam illuminates, rape the support, then hit the slark.
slark is really good in 2v1/3v1 situations and gets raped by dual lanes. he is incredibly level dependent and hes super weak in general pre-level 12.
@Kitrak: While what you've described is absolutely true in 5k+ where people punish bad timings and the opponent's bad laning phase, the reality is, in normal skill and even all the way through low VHS (say, up to about 4.6k or something), people can't close games out or push so slark can come back really easily because he won't get punished all that much. He can get treads and shadowblade at 18 minutes and it isn't late because his opponents also happen to be bad at farming, and play like retards. So even with bad timings, against bad people, slark can still wins, he's gonna eat the advantage the other team has had by killing people who can't position to save their lief.
slark is just a garbage hero by design
i dont get it. if u know exactly wat to do against slark (buy sentries and place them around the map, pressure him in lane, have a defensive support) what the fucks the issue. do u just not use ur brain when ur playing dota or wat
even if the rest of ur team feeds him u can beat him 1v9 because hes just gonna run around and u can pick any slark counter and win the game because he can never kill u
he cant "solo kill almost any hero," if u have a tp scorll he cant kill 70-80% of the heroes in dota and if ur a supprot u can just buy a glimmer cape or euls or ghostscepter and ull never die to him
You tp out and don't die to slark, good. You tell your teammates to always carry tp, and that they have no excuse not to be carrying tp bcs of backpack addition, yet they keep a shared tango in inventory until min.25 and push solo as kotl and get picked off again and again. Slark gets silver edge, skadi, bfly, bkb, abyssal and BoTs, from killing your team solo farming the jungle. You try to take a fight, you lose 12 lanes of racks, slark gets 4 rampages in the process, you afk in base, team reports you because " we can still win this" enjoy low priority :(
I feel like slark and Riki just go unpunished in 2k, because either your team picks supports, but they rush Aghs and refresher and all those fancy items and don't touch detection except for min 1. Where they buy 1 obs, or you pick support and team doesn't capitalize on vision and let them go untouched, which leads to them snowballing out of control
u can just pick LC or something and rape the slark in lane and for the rest of the game and at that point u are totally able to controlt he slark from start to finish and the only reason u lose to the slark is that ur bad
glimmer is definitely a must item vs slark but take care your team dont have invis heroes allrdy
spending gold on detection and glimmer cape is actually the way to handle him. but if he buy a gem, then the game got significantly harder. but in overall, just dont wander around solo, cuz even carries can be picked on by slark 1v1 (on equal farm, ofc)
He is my defacto ban hero on my list. He can be countered but team work is very much needed. You can still see OP Slark steam roll everyone in 7k matches.
After first ban Slark I would next ban Pudge.... just because he is the most played hero prior to MK this patch.
Regards
Gecko
I find it funny how everyone smartasses how you just buy a tp against blood seeker and the hero can't do anything, but then people try to fight slark when it's absolutely impossible (he gets an early treads and sb, and bursts you down) instead of just tping.
^well, he isn't if you're running at people at 1000 ms with 400 damage, sure, but if you want to gank somebody while nobody is low HP, and you don't happen to have a handy support with a disable or something, people can just TP out, this means you need to pick your ganks wisely as bs in the early game
still, that being said, it's worth rupturing antimage just so he goes to base, he will think 'oh good god, it's great, I survived', but you just forced a pre-bfury antimage to TP away from his lane
i dont understand why do people keep feeding against this hero relentlessly to the point where he takes entire team to take down
he was already bad previous patch i believe, now he's even worse and people STILL lose to him
I just love comments saying: "punish his laning stage", "just pick lc / bs", "chain stun him ez", "buy sentry lol". Of course every hero can be counterable
Otherwise slark would have like %80-%90 winrate. OP is trying to say that slark is slightly stronger than avarage hero. Chain stunning literally counters every hero ingame, and doing it is not easy. yet slark has more advantage against stuns or other disables. Your q purges stuns - hex - euls - silence and your W disjoints stuns that are projectile. Punishing laning stage also counters every hero ingame, yet slark has more advantage than other heroes coz he already has aoe spell to farm in jungle so u dont need to get bfury to farm. You dont need to go to base every minute to heal yourself coz you already have a free tarrasque. The funny party about this hero is, he can escape at %5-%10 hp then after 10 seconds he comes back with full hp and kills you. A pu$sy hero that has 4 escape skills (with sb) that can also use them to rape enemy team. Has invisiblity that even a gem doesnt work against and u're suggesting sentries... He can purge silence by casting a spell (a bit ironic isnt it?) And has 8 seconds invulnerability (2 sec dark pact + 4 sec ult + and onether dark pact) didnt work? you still have your W and your sb.
just a reminder that author of the above post was complaining against aw nerfs in 6.88 and considered 7.00 visage balanced
^ i didnt. i said 6.88 visage was op asked why valve buff him even more in 7.00 and nerfed him back in 7.01. At least I accept my favourite heroes being op ( meepo and visage) And aw is dead no denying that (%45.54 winrate above 5k mmr and %35 in 2k mmr)
Slark is treated like any other carry that is item and level dependent. Ruin their laning phase and group up and push.
Get wards, increase your vision, stick with your carry fight together, be patient, disable him. He can get really strong if you left him to fight continuously. You can curb his farm all you like but if you let him take your team out 1 by 1 then you have a problem.
Slark is a Pubstomper. No Question.
He likes uncoordinated enemys a lot, has most usage if the enemy retarded as fuck and try kill him 1vs 1, they look on map(Oh fuck there is a Slark i have to help!) but its almost to late to help ur mate and u gonna go feed him 1 by 1, he gots stacks and will be stronger and stronger. If u have a good teamplay AND the right Counters! (AA Ult, AOE stuns, silence and most underrated a carry who kills him in 1vs1...AM,VOID, CK with ult, well Farmed PL are the best in my Opinion cuz they have escape tools or a heavy bunch of illusions...slark cant deal with a crono)
if u a sup:
1.Coordinate your team.
2.animate the Carry to pick a hero who can manfight him!(not Ursa)
3.get Vision
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Throughout my games in 7.01 i came to the conclusion that Slark is really overpowered and the perfect hero to raise mmr in soloq.
He can farm very fast and dispell almost every stun with is Q.
When you gank he just has to use his W to escape. It also helps him to kill you because you cant run away (not even jump or skewer)
He can spot every ward and solokill almost every hero. Dont even want to talk about his ultimate and this liferegen
He just snowballs out of control to fast. everyone who thinks hes not good, tell me why he has a ~30% pickrate
As a main support player i am sick of Slark,
can you guys please give me tips to counter him and tell me how to play vs him ?