General DiscussionSlark question

item build:
starting:
3 branches, 2 slippers and tango

core: (get this and start ganking?)
PMS, Wand, brown boots, OOV

Extension:
tread->shadow blade/blink->basher->skadi->abyssal

correct?

if i got pounce level 2 should i start playing agressive at my lane?

None is correct. "Correct" skill builds doesn't exist.

Since Matrice is a very high skilled player, and has deep understanding of the game he goes for what he thinks is the best and most optimal for the game.

I suck as Slark, but if you're new you should probably go for the common max Pounce first build.
4-4-1-2 at lvl 11.

Skill builds come down to a few factors...Judge the game early and try to tell if it's going to be a gank game(pounce) or a team fight(dark pact) game or a game where you are able to flash farm(dark pact).

Also essence shift should never be a priority, but you should have a point in it early. Yea I see matrice maxed it first in the competitive game but, I'd really have to see how it was used to be able to suggest it. Unless you're virtually always in fights from minute 1 to game end, I just can't see it being that great(and someone else will be doing a lot of the damage/lockdown in the early game).

Your skill build in the early will come down to how threatened you feel in every game. Your first point should be...Dark pact if you feel you really need to break cc at level 1...Pounce if you feel you'll need to be able to get out of something for some reason(ice shards, cogs, etc)...Essence shift if you don't feel threatened at all and feel you will be able to harass(laning against melee). After that, it's like what I said earlier, go for what the match needs once the laning phase ends. (note: this is all about your first point, you should have all 3 skills by level 4 for sure, if not level 3)

As for positioning items, if you don't get positioning items, you better focus on movement speed(yasha at the very least). Its quite viable when you're pretty good at aiming your pounce correctly, and allows you to become more tanky early on(positioning items don't provide stats D: ). Though keep in mind they do come in handy as escape tools as well. Being invisible or in the trees for a couple seconds can make a world of difference in a fight once you're level 6.

If you manage to get 3-4 stacks of essence shift through natural harassment taps, that is your opportunity to go on your opponent. Unless it's a tri-lane, you shouldn't struggle much to get the kill as long as you land the pounce. And in cases of dual lanes...well you can pull out 1v2s if you started at 4 stacks. If you're combined with a lane partner that can lock down, you can go at any time once you have both pounce and essence shift(well don't go under tower or anything but you know...).

Starting items...again comes down to how threatened you feel. If you feel threatened start with a pair of slippers and build them into PMS, if you feel you can be aggressive early, then start with slipper and a ring of protection to build into a basillius(going for RoA if you can find a time to collect the parts). Otherwise grab your favorite regen and fill up your inventory with as many branches as you can.

Early game items, I've always been on the fence about an OoV...if you feel it's effective go for it. Treads are definitely the boots of choice. Wand if your matchup seems to suggest it, otherwise just let the branches sit as you fill up the inventory. After that pick up your mobility/positioning item(Yasha related, MoM, Blink, Shadow Blade), then grab something to get you damage(basher's great), and then something to make you tanky is the general route. (note: don't go overboard on tanky, and if you go SnY, don't go Skadi...yes they stack, but you don't need them to as you move pretty damned fast on your own). Butterfly is of course your luxury. And all of this...subject to change depending on the match but it's a decent starter point.

None of those two build are my usual one
My one is sy skady butter cuirasse abysal tread (even though i can consider building a second butter instead of assault -as last item-)

I sometime get dagger though, to get those splitpush potm that can only leap in tree + tp, when they see a slark at less than 2k range from her.

Very rarely, i add a tarasque instead of butter, or a hex instead of cuirasse.

^
May i ask a favor?
Please play slark once in near future so i can download your replay, merci!

@butterboys and dipshit
ty for the info! ill use the beginner skill build first

I don't consider playing slark again till they darkpact remove bloodrage of bloodseeker. Now that bloodseeker is a bloodcheater, it comes from annoying to play against as slark to impossible.

So unless enemy team fast pick their heroes, i will not pick slark.

Don't get me wrong, i was loving to play against bloodseeker, as it was giving some more good challenge, but now it's just plain boring and idiot matchup. I think i feel the same frustration now for this matchup, as bad slark player used to have before last buff of bloodcheater.

Edit: the maxed essence shift is what allow you to 1v1 some annoying offlaner, such as timber -it makes the matchup very tied- or tidehunter, if i remember correctly, i was killing tide just with the essence shift, cause i was literaly doing 0 damage on him, between kraken and anchor smash.
And last but not least :Dark pact early maxed isn't for teamfight, it's to farm !

matrice how do u manage to farm 11 cs/minute while still having the highest hero damage out of all your 4k trash teammates

damn it's like u can't even miss a single last hit or something lol

with which hero ?

there is no specific item build for slark

there is no specific item build on any hero for that matter

but my slark build is usually pms > bottle > boots > stick > ptreads > orchid > lothar > bfly/abyssal/hex or whatever i need depending on the game.

offlane, i just rush blink to hunt down supports and if i'm safe lane, you can remove 'bottle' from my mid item build.

with wisp, i just build w/e i want

@ matrice ur most recent terrorblade game

i need to watch some of these replays because i can't imagine doing so much with a hero who's admittedly not great at fighting (compared to taking towers)

Well, in that tb game, my ally started pretty early to 4 ball, so i had more or less all creep of the map for me + was there in everyfight thx to travel

@Yfay, I can give you a couple of tips on items that work for me:
Starting: Shield, tango, 3 branches.
Early: Wand, aquilla, PT, lothar/dagger.
Mid+situational: S&Y, basher, maelstrom, bkb, orchid.
Late+situational: Skadi, butterfly, cuirass, mjollnir, abyssal.
Regarding skills situational, but i max pounce and pact so i can nuke herows with low hp pool, 1 point in shift cuz its a good passive.
Regarding playstyle, very aggressive , you need to look for early kills in order to snowball.
@Psychedelica, terrorblade jungle is very stronk, i believe thats how matrice plays him. I tried it like 4 or 5 times and i think i lost only once.

that game, i played it lane (cause doom wood) but well, with rubick we crushed gondar, but yeah usually i play tb wood, and have better result than the laning one.

Do essence shift stacks drop off independently like bristles ult? Or does one hit refresh the whole duration for all stacks?

it drops off independently like bb's ulti

#askVAIKISS

i usually build:

PMS -> OoV -> Treads -> Bottle (when needed) -> SB/Blink -> Orchid/Yasha -> Skadi -> Basher -> whatever

I guess it would be op if it didn't.

And orchid is sweet on slark the problem is it does nothing to help you survive but it fixes all your mana issues and gives a lot of offensive stats. I almost think it'd be worth rushing against any team with a blinker. Can void/am/qop/storm blink out of leash? If they can't, you land a leash, hit em a few times, the orchid silence, they probably can't escape. Void gets picked a lot, I might start emphasizing orchid more.

Also don't forget bkb. Still pretty essential vs teams with tons of disable as I learned the hard way. Once my ult wore off I was fish food.

matrice...I think you'd be surprised at dark pact's teamfight ability when paired with a magnus/dark seer xP

As for the maxing essence shift, would you really say you needed the extra levels? I mean all you're really doing is increasing the duration of the stacks(let's not kid ourselves about the cooldown).

As to leash blinking, yes you can blink out of it. Leash doesn't actually lock you to an area, it lowers your movement speed as you get away from the center(eventually dropping it to 0, not matter how high your movement speed is). Though orchid does make for some amazing burst when combined with the leash/pact burst.

@dipshit, bloodseeker can run out of leash if he has more than 522 i believe. And ofcourse when there is an antimage or qop that can carry the enemy you need orchid. But honestly, most of the time i am feeding off supports and other squishy heroes thus i don't really need to worry about losing to AM who is farming bf at min 30.

maxing dark pact first allows you to pick up supports easier, but its not mandatory
its not for fights either because you'll lose so much hp, so you basically jump in, use dark pact and instantly pops your ulti, whereas if you have your essence shift maxed before, you can wait some more time before you pop your ulti (if needed at all)

keep your dark pact for the purge ability, when you see someone is going to stun you (like sven/venge stun), active it and by the time the stun reach you, you'll get unstunned

slark skillset is very good and also versatile, you can build him almost in any way you want. i've seen Black^ going 4-1-4 (farming Slark though, he used the leap just for escape purposes as he was not engaging fights).

if you are snowballing, i'd go for 1-4-4 because you'll keep the stats for more time (2 mins instead of 15 secs!!!!), and this shit is so OP early-mid game. BUT for playing like this you gotta have more control of the hero, its a bit harder because you lose burst dmg, yet you gain amazing armor, dmg and attackspeed which is great for those mid-games fights.

Yea, both AM and QoP can blink out of Slark's leap, so thats why you pick Orchid, to prevent that

Yasha is a great item for snowballing and even greater with maxed essence's shift, you can later upgrade it to SnY or Manta (very situational tho)

i put my hands up in the air sometimes

1-4-4 is the most horrible build ever on slark
There's three reasons for essence shift max :

Playing versus retard.

Playing an 1v1 lane against heroes such as timber / tide.

Playing versus ultra retard.

If you are in case 1 and 3, you can basically do w/e you want
If you are in case 2, you'd have to max dark pact, cause those heroes or the team comboed with them will never allow you to participate in fight properly.

And no, darkpact is not for teamfight, it's sure it gives great aoe damage, but losing 300 hp out of 1000 suck ball, especially if you are not 11 yet.

Edit: As far as i know they fixed bloodseeker running out of kinetic que leash

"And no, darkpact is not for teamfight, it's sure it gives great aoe damage, but losing 300 hp out of 1000 suck ball, especially if you are not 11 yet."
It's only 112.5(half to self and then 25% natural resist) which if you're popping your ult immediately(for whatever reason) you won't notice anyways.

yeah indeed, but 225 hp when you only have barely 1k is still way too much when you are not 11 in a team fight

You ult will only heal you for ~120 hp in a fight you cann't go in fog
Do you really think a mele hero can go fighting with only 900hp?
When everyone has his ultup, you'll lose those 900 hp even if they don't focus you

I'm strictly speaking about playing with a team that is all about that frontal burst, a.k.a. the enemy team won't survive. Viability outside of that, yea it's pretty bad.

Slark is in no way a teamfighter, and i don't know about maxing essence shift, man. 1 point in it is enough for me, as i would rather be able to nuke a support rather than leech stats and let him escape, plus the purge is very useful.

Yeah slark initiating a team fight usually doesn't go well. As soon as ult is down you get blown up.

@Sunrise, if slark is solo, maxing essence shift is here to fuck the opponent in lane, (if you cann't do it with dark pact/pounce maxed)

And since you are solo, and winning your lane, you xp pretty fast, thus those 3 early level of essence shift doesn't harm too much when laning stage is over, and using a maxed darkpact at that point allow you to flash farm, and xp even faster to get a maxed pounce.

(not to mention that you earned time for this, cause you fucked the offlaner yourself, and your team delayed opponent triple, since it was triple versus triple)

@matrice Most of the times when i solo and they have 1 or more disables i have to be careful untill lvl 6 and can't trade hits with them. If slark is solo 1x1 with someone then it makes sense to max shift as you trade hits with your opponent, you are right here, and you also have more experience with slark.

Another question:
How to deal nuker early game?
How about if you accidentally died twice early game?
What do you do to come back?

Avoid nukers you can't kill before they blow you up. If you die, well, sometimes you can afk farm a bit with purge to get some needed items like a s&y is cheap and does a lot for you mid game. But usually you die cus you were stupid or dived so try to coordinate some ganks with your team to catch back up.

You max out Darkpact first then pounce. . Doesn't matter what case I get 1 lvl of pounce and max darkpact first.

Dont pick slark when enemy has bloodseeker. I mean it can work buts its alot harder. Darkpact damaging you doesn't mean much cause ur ulti can regen ur hp really fast.

You can only start hunting when you reach level 6.

even if you die 2 times that doesn't mean gg wp. you just gotta pick off some easy target and get back a little advantage. slark is a a snowball hero and you need that little advantage in order to have an easy game.
@alucard, i dunno i depends on the game i guess but i always think that pounce>dark pact early game cuz a little less cd on the jump could save ur ass or help you chase down that kill.