General DiscussionIs there a clear winner in a SF v. Storm?

laning stage goes for sf, early push goes for sf, midgame goes for storm, very late - dunno.

SF is favored in a Storm vs SF lane, while Storm is able to kill SF once he reaches level six. A skilled Storm player can win against an SF, but the trick is to not die until you reach six and can kill SF.

Both guys are susceptible to early ganks. However, Storm has the upper hand during the earliest part of the laning stage, then SF picks his pace up with souls, owns him until level 6 at which point storm has a clear advantage. However, in terms of early damage output, SF beats SS by a far. But he has no hard disable, unlike SS, so it's kinda comparing apples to oranges. SS might have greater effective damage than SF, even if SF has 36 souls, because he can more easily get into position to damage people.

SF can't easily burst down SS without the help of others, and SS needs mad reflexes and juking skills to easily survive everything SF throws at him. But when the team comes into the picture everything's blurred out. Lategame boils down to how much farm they've had, a storm with a hex and shiva's won't be bursted down that easily by a sf with only desolator, and especially not if he's not silenced/stunned. Then you have to factor in setup, obviously if SF gets a perfect ult on top of storm he'll kill him, if storm disables SF and lets his team burst him down storm's gonna be much more effective, etc.

Dota's not 1v1 at all so you can't even compare those heroes 1v1 in the laning stage, as you can't fully factor in pre level 6 ganks entirely, which, mind you, always hurt SF more than they hurt ss, since SF won't have damage to dominate the lane, although likewise storm really needs that level 6, so they might be even, even on that ground. But then you also have to factor jungle stacking to determine whether sf can comeback from a bad start, and then it AGAIN boils down to what you have on your team and what they're actually doing. You can also stack jungle for SS to fully recover him from a bad start, obviously (as seen in TI5), but it's a bit less important to him during the laning stage (sf can't properly outlasthit without those souls, especially since his mana pool's really shit early on so he can't just spam razes).

full slotted storm can do a lot more than a full slotted sf. If you have a full slotted storm on the opponent side, your team has to stick 5 man all the time or risk getting picked. Whereas a full slotted sf doesnt pose that threat. But in terms of damage, full slotted sf does more damage in team fights tho.

If you're a noob playing other noobs, just use BS. srs.

against a storm i would safely pick sf and know that ill get farm in lane.
sf is better in lane and mb early mid game, but storm is better the later the game goes

yes sf

sf wins the matchup, but if your support are decent roamers it wud be good to add 2~ points in vortex so you can kill the sf with +1s, if you get a bit of momentum he will suffer

I think SF wins the matchup fairly easy provided player equal skill and no help from teammates. Also SF is a power spike and at some point he will deal incredibily damage. Tho, as the game goes on I think Storm is better.

but yeah, mid, if I wasnt the most horrible SF player, I would pick vs a storm. But right now no reason, Leshrac is just better

just as kitrak said , SF can win most of his matchups if he gets early souls lvl 1-2 thus is pretty common that he gets some help from supports early on

^

It depends.

As someone who played SF pretty much over 2500 times combined, I'll tell you my point of view.

Same skilled players(lowmmr) > probably SF, since in my opinion, in laning phase, Storm is HARDER to master.

However, anything above 3.9k in MMR, this could actually go both ways.

Storm got edge before SF hits level 3, because of his passive and remants, which provides him good haras up against Shadow FIend.

In order to even things at least, first, SF needs to get few souls and level 3. Or, he needs to get his level 1 shadow raze, against Storm.

Once SF gets his souls and level 3, due to superior range/dmg/nuke, he'll outlane storm until lvl6.

A lot of SF players tend to yolo-kill storm before level 5, which results in FB for storm. They just underestimate power of remants/passive/2nd ability on him.

This often happens in lower mmr (2.5-3.1k mmr)

Getting killed as SF against Storm is something you can't afford. If Storm hits level 6 before you, you'll end up pretty much dead.

Also, getting fast magic stick against Storm as SF is really good. It provides enough surviability to land short raze and few more attacks, which can at least kill him with you beign dead aswell..

^

Yeah, but as SF player I almost never get stick on him.

I'd sugest stick, but just because SF is squishy as fuck, and it's really good against storm players(esp good ones).

When I was 4k, playing mid against Storm players used to be way different, since there was a Storm players that actually know how to play Storm.

So Stick was actually "must-have". For me back then.

However, after losing here and there, I ended up once again in 3.6k, which is pretty much where I feel confident enough not to go stick, not to get treads and rush SB..

it just works here.. one sucesfull gank as SF results in paying off that shadow blade so much, esp. after getting a tower as a bonus.

When I get close to 4k again, I'll probably have to change a build, since players tend to rotate/gank/smoke/counter naked SB(sb-rush) waay better then mid-high 3k players do.

And overall, high 3k/low 4k players just lane better. Know heroes better, etc.

For example, for last week I've been stacking with my 2k/low 3k friends and been playing up against the Storm pretty often.

It's just pure out-playing for me, there. They're just mehanicaly worse compared to my Shadow Fiiend, which results getting out-laned even before level 3, which shouldn't happen.

They also go wrong builds on Storm..

So, my point is it all depends on skill levels.

can't imagine whata good 5.5k+ Storm player would be able to do to me tho.

I've never played against some really solid Storm. If someone is 5k+ MMR and wants to waste like 30 mins to try out with me 1v1 Storm vs SF, feel free to notice me here, and add me.

I promise I'll do my best. : - P

Both are glass cannon.
Mostly depend on the laning phase, my worst hero is SF so i cant say a lot about this.
But a good SF player may get stick or maybe an extra wraith band to survive against storm at level six.
In most case, i think SF will win since he can cs easily with his raze and harrass storm during laning phase.
The key on winning this match up is definitely a successful ganking by support on either side.

yo op, based on my experience, sf always dominates ss in mid, i dunno

there is absolutely nothing storm can do to sf in lane phase. nothing, or even after tbh

I once saw rtz stream when he played storm vs sf and he had help for first 2 levels from his support which zoned out sf. From then on he just snowballed like madman and killed whole map.

yeah but we talk about sf vs storm, not storm + lion + es vs sf

slightly edge for sf. but if both are low farm, storm win by level 6.

If ever there's one more gang for one, then it's clear win for this one.

thanks guys.

@MVP im gonna watch some of your SF replays. I'm trying to improve at him/ in general

shadow friend wins lane -> gets stick + belt and now cannot solo die to storm

he also farms way faster until storm gets a very high charge bloodstone

Seems like storm is a lot stronger than sf late game tho.

isnt it better to get stick before bottle? its what I see arteezy doing against storm usually