General DiscussionI just cant play shadow fiend

yea laning against sniper is cancer
i dont think you should be losing lane against alche though

of course. i dont mean to lose. Tell me how to deal with them please. That is the entire point of this post.

first of all don't go eul and blink for fuck's sake. I see that on a sf and it makes my blood boil. blink is fine if u know how to use it without feeding; euls is retarded

its true euls blink is not good atm. you need to try to snowball from the lane by pushing their mid tower quick. it takes time to understand what you can or cannot do with this hero and you develop that by just playing more and more against other different heroes. and btw sf has fucking sick kill potential in lane once u get your raze lvl 2 :)

against alch just try to deny every creep in acid spray or you can run at him and kick him out of lane with razes and theres nothing he can do about that

but what do i know i feel like my ability to play the hero lowers geometrically every 5 games

Shadow blade after dragon lance

Dragon lance after boots, lol

Deal with ta? Dont get in line with her
With alch? Pull the creep
How to win? Use ulti to oneshot ppl early game or sorry i was wrong destroy the enemy ancient

The people you're having trouble vs with the exception of alch is basically SF's "soft counter" list. Laning vs them will be a stroke of luck that you're better than them if they have any idea what they're doing. You also will need to add qop to that list because any good qop will keep SF tower locked with blink dagger spam.

First, do what people have suggested here. Stop building euls on SF. That build hasn't been any good for some time.

I would suggest going a different item order than they suggest too, but then again I play a more "booster" style SF where I'm killing the entire enemy team game after game.

Vs Sniper: Any good sniper is going to be using shrapnel very early to control the lane due to our low hp and the narrowness of the ramps. You either have to get him to use his shrapnel in a bad place (you can bait depending on how your poking has gone so far) or you have to just get really good at pulling the creeps to your side and then last hitting under tower. Just be wary once he hits 6 unlike you who keeps going razes and necromastery, he will have his ult to killshot you with should you forget he's now 6 and added a huge ez nuke that lets him finish you off any time he harasses you below 200 health or so. The real pain vs this hero is that because of shrapnel's fast recharge time, he doesn't really need a ward and can kill/harass you without one because he provides his own vision.

Vs QoP: Any good QoP will lock you at your tower with dagger spam and blinking. Luckily these require that she wards your side well and can be easily stopped unless she wants to blindly blink your way. If she does these blind blinks up the ramp, the only way to control things will be with your knowledge of creep aggro control. You have to last hit almost under tower to have any chance, but you should still be able to farm.

Vs Viper: Viper tries to play like QoP and Sniper but will ultimately fail at both because his attack provides no vision like shrapnel and no significant damage over time spam damage like Qop dagger. Just draw creep aggro towards your tower and last hit away. If he tries to rush you with attacks, harass with your 700 range raze and a few auto-attacks. Viper is truly not a threat if you aren't losing vision of him and letting him sneak up on you or something.

Vs Alch: There should be no competition here. Alch straight-up loses horribly to SF. Razes and faster last hitting is your answer if you're having trouble.

Vs Tinker: Tinkers can play a number of ways but the most annoying for SF to deal with is probably laser + missile combo spam. Once again creep aggro knowledge can save you. If the tinker is foolish he will go for march first which allows you to really farm with razes and auto-attacks. If he's smart, he will have double nuker combos waiting and you'll be getting missiled almost every time you're visible period and lasered every time you get close. You have to bait his laser so it doesn't cost you too many last hits. I actually like going Bottle >> Boots >> Raindrop and even if you have a really bad first 5 minutes, you should manage those 3 things easily. It stops the nuking combos from having such kill potency for a bit.

vs Lina is just like vs a march tinker. She may auto-target you with her dragon firewave but until level 3 it has little kill potential and she will just waste tons of mana. She's not that huge of a threat imo until 6.

The main pointers I would suggest with SF are: "last hit faster" and master creep aggro management. He can be stopped by nukers but he also can outplay the nukers if the player simply can last hit better than the enemy. He's the King of Mid for this reason. The better the player, the more he can outplay the soft counters and get out-of-control "powerful." Can you get at least 35 last hits before 5 minutes every game? How about 80-100 last hits by 10 minutes? If you go shadow blade quickly, is it FINISHED by 8 minutes reliably? If you can't, these are the things you need to be any good at sf. He needs farm and FAST. He's a glass cannon to the max.

My preferred build on him is Bottle >> Brown Boots >> Shadow Blade (8-9 minutes is a MUST) >> Treads >> D Lance >> Deso/MKB/Bloodthorn >> BKB/Linkens/Aghs >> Hurricane Pike >> Butterfly/Skadi >> Silver Edge >> Boots of Travel >> Moon Shard
I change it based on the match-up needs but that's most games I'll follow an item pattern like this. You need to manage 600+gpm and 800+xpm every game with him or he's not being played right. He can flash farm very quickly and can kill almost anyone early game unless your team has fed them really hard for the first 10 minutes.

u win most 1v1s apart lina tinker sniper

https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3232758444

my first ever SF game, i dont play mid at all

SF is braindead easy to play. i cant imagine playing him without an early sb and bkb though

wish dotabuff comments could be upvoted. Thanks [A]bove! A detailed explanation like that goes a long way towards furthering my understanding.

neither can i, so i don't.

i dont think you should be proud about normal skill normal gamemode sub-500 gpm sf game

why not? i never played the hero and i barely play mid at all GIVE ME VALIDATION GOD DAMN

same like me !
everytime i play sf enemy always come to me 24/7 and pick counter...
well i think sf is hero that really predictable

The answer is always "Do better than your opponents". 30+ last hits by 4 minutes kind of farm is very scary at anything below vhs and you should be able to harass your opponents out of lane simply by attacks that are too strong for them to deal with.

SF directly translates good laning prowess to kill potential and increased laning presence. Those first 5 minutes and then the next 5 after that are the most crucial to the pace of the rest of his game. You can outplay your counters in the hands of low level players.

^yeah gl surviving 4 minute night of endless gank XD
i really hope sf become popular again so i can gank mid easily with riki
and i really know to well sf player is egoism and always look down on others XD

I know the weakness of all lower level players: They're all Dunning Kruger n00bs.

^yeah gl surviving 4 minute night of endless gank XD

Go to Dotabuff > Heroes > SF. I'm not that good an SF player but the site really helps me regarding item builds. Also, watch complete gameplay videos of people who are good at SF. Another important thing: learn to tread switch. It's really important for an SF as it allows more razes and faster farm.

I also had phases where I rush BoT, rush Midas-MoM, and rush Aghs on SF. Word of advice: don't try them.