Asian Girls | Dota Guide and Strategy

Introduction

Have you ever felt the ultimate power and strength to dominate and crush every opposition at DotA?

This guide will show you the shortest way to achieving this - the usage of Slardar, one old ImBAaa that remained almost unchanged in the 6.xx series. Slardar was one of the very few heroes that not just evaded the nerf-stick but even got buffed. Do you know what in DotA can make me really sad and angry? Someone failing with Slardar, one of my favourite heroes ( if not the favourite ), the hero I pick when I want to win a game. This is why I write this guide, to help people stop executing bad stomps, to learn how to utilize Slardar so they never need to catch up with Sprint and of course to feel the might of the trully fascinating and defeatless Slardar. The purpose of this guide is to provide a good ( I hope ) guide on Slardar. ( PieMonger’s Guide to Slardar was closed for some reason and the other guides on Slardar that I saw scared me so I wrote this guide. ^^ ) Credits for improving the guide go to the 6th Hero Guide Contest judges who helped with their reviews and pre-reviews.

Note! Some of the .gifs might seem odd and dull, you are warned!

About Slardar:

The mighty king of the Naga Race, Slardar was awoken from the depths of after the invasion of the burning legion. Finding the world consumed by chaos, he found it a perfect opportunity to strike down the hated Night Elves. Allying with the scourge Slardar uses his immense strenght and power to stun and crush his enemies, and his mighty trident can cleave the strongest armoUr with ease.

Initial HP: 549
Initial Mana: 195
Initial Armour: 4.4
Initial Damage: 51-59

- High initial stats except for mana pool……

Strength gain per level: 2.8 - Not impressive for a Strength based hero
Agility gain per level: 1.9 - Good
Intelligence gain per level: 1.5 - Well, ok……

Before I go on with the skills and the item build I will try to summarize where lies the strenght of Slardar. As a general rule Slardar is a hero which true potential lies in mid and late game and happens to get focused fired a lot because enemies know that they will get owned into the ground if they do not. If you did well early on, did not die, farmed well or even scored a kill and if you obtained the core items, the game is half won for you. The most difficult part for Slardar is early game, later on Slithereen guard is one unstoppable beast if you use him correctly and I tried to explain this as clearly and consice as I could in this guide. Do not expect to get 1 000 000 : 0 with Slardar. Slithereen Guard is first - an initiator ( gang and battle ) and second - a tank which means you will hardly get kills ( if any ) and will die a lot because you will get focus fired most of the time.

Skills:

Sprint

Slardar increases his movement speed dramatically, but takes 20% bonus damage.
Lasts 25 seconds.

Level 1 - Increases speed by 10%.
Level 2 - Increases speed by 20%.
Level 3 - Increases speed by 30%.
Level 4 - Increases speed by 40%.

Cooldown: 45 seconds.

One very controversial skill and a double-edged sword. This is the reason why some Slardar players feed so much. The bonus damage taken ruins this skill. Even the movespeed buff for 50 mana can not compensate this. It may rapes public games, against decent players it is a suicide. If you practice the essential tactics for Slardar you will not need this skill for any purpose. I happen to see many players getting Sprint and MoM which does not stack since they are based off of Berserk active skill. Do not make me cry, you could not choose a worse item for Slardar than MoM, really. If I am to choose between Mask of Madness and Sprint I will take Sprint. Always.

Slithereen Crush

Slams the ground, stunning and damaging nearby enemy land units. Slows enemy units by 20% for 2 seconds afterwards. 350 AOE

Level 1 - 50 damage, 1 second stun.
Level 2 - 75 damage, 1.5 second stun.
Level 3 - 100 damage, 2 second stun.
Level 4 - 150 damage, 2.5 second stun.

Cooldown: 8 seconds.

The infamous stun of Slardar. The damage is not spectacular but the cooldown is amazing and the AOE of this skill is bigger than the AOE of any other War Stomp based skill ( Hoof Stomp from Centaur Warchief - 305 AOE).

Bash

Gives a chance that an attack will do bonus damage and stun an opponent for 1 second.

Level 1 - 10% chance per attack, 50 bonus damage if Bash occurs on that attack.
Level 2 - 15% chance per attack, 60 bonus damage if Bash occurs on that attack.
Level 3 - 20% chance per attack, 70 bonus damage if Bash occurs on that attack.
Level 4 - 25% chance per attack, 80 bonus damage if Bash occurs on that attack.

This is ,well,……Bash and it is always a good thing to have when you chase or fight. This and Amplify Damage make Slardar a potent fighter. Deals 80 bonus damage at level 4. Too bad melee bashes deal magic damage, imagine how good it would be if the Bash from Slardar dealt physical damage……The stun duration will not be negated by magic immunity. However the bonus damage will not be dealt……

Amplify Damage

Amplifies physical damage against enemy units by reducing their armor.

Level 1 - 5 armor penalty.
Level 2 - 10 armor penalty.
Level 3 - 15 armor penalty.

Cooldown: 10 seconds.

This skill is based on Faerie Fire from ladder, even the icon is the same ( how come a jelly finger creature like Slardar got hands? ). It greatly increases your physical damage potential. -15 Armour decreases the EHP of your enemies by 90% of their MHP. Gives vision of irritating heroes like Stealth Assassin and Bone Fletcher and better damage potential which can only be compared to that of rough DPS heroes. It also costs 25 mana, has 10 seconds cooldown and your allies benefit from it. Did I hear ImBAaa?.

Skill Build:

Level 1 - Slithereen Crush
Level 2 - Stats
Level 3 - Slithereen Crush
Level 4 - Stats
Level 5 - Slithereen Crush
Level 6 - Amplify Damage
Level 7 - Slithereen Crush
Level 8 - Stats
Level 9 - Stats
Level 10 - Stats
Level 11 - Amplify Damage
Level 12 - Bash
Level 13 - Bash
Level 14 - Bash
Level 15 - Bash
Level 16 - Amplify Damage
Level 17-20 - Sprint
Level 21-25 - Stats

Any particular and adequate reason why you skip Bash?

Well, before you hit “Add Reply” let me tell you why do I get Stats instead of Bash. First, Slardar happens to have one of the worst early games ever because the hero gets harrassed too much. Second Slardar is melee and does not have items to assist the placing of Slithereen Crush early on. Third, Slardar also runs out of mana easily especially if you have problems landing stomps efficiently ( which happens quite often if you do not have experience in using this skill). Stats will help in surviving and in controlling your lane. Most of the time early game you will be last hitting, yes, Bash helps for last hitting but is it really necessary to have it? No, it is not. You will be hardly fighting heroes at that stage of the game and even if you do chances that you score a Bash are low since the best you can get after a Slithereen Crush is 3 hits on the enemy which, combined with the low attack speed early is not enough. It would be better if you have more mana for a Slithereen Crush and HP to endure range harrass - something that hurts Slardar very bad. Stats will save you the money you would spent for a second Ring of Regeneration or Ring of Health in case you leveled up Bash in favour of Attribute Bonus. Which drives you away from silly items like Vanguard. Which is good.

I will give you one fact that you can not deny, ever. Remember this?

Bash is luck and luck does not exist, therefore Bash does not exist. What are you trying to level up then? ^^ :).

Sprint?

Sprint is mostly a trash skill. The increase damage taken makes this skill useless both in chasing and in team battles since Slardar tends to get focused a lot. Sprint only makes getting rid of Slardar easier. Decent players will just disable you and kill you. Why do I suggest leveling this skill then? First because you can make use of the awesome bonus movespeed to run from lane to lane when you are not fighting any heroes. It actually gives you movespeed close to maximum and allows you to take large distances in moments making Boots of Travel not so needed mid-late game but rather late game only. Second, Slardar can make use of this skill if you go tanking build to negate the bonus damage taken. I mean late game, when your HP hits 2600+ and you have armour / spell damage reduction improving item you can freely use this to crush opponents. Then you do not have to worry about HP since you will have tons of it anyway. Which makes Slardar a psycho, tough hero with awesome movespeed for 50 mana and low cooldown and big duration or in other words “gg”. Which is good.

Core Item Build:

In case you have problems with survivability - or or

Bracers - A must have early game, a needed boost since Slardar have troubles laning early game and because the strenght gain of Slithereen Guard is not spectacular.

What about starting items? - The choice mostly depends on you. In most of the cases 1-2 packs of Ancient Tango of Essifation will be enough for early game survival. However, if you are going against a hard nuker lane Ring of Regeneration will be a better investment since you will need to regenerate all the time. Also Ring of Regeneration is an ingredient for Hood of Defiance which is a good option if you die easiliy to those nukers. In this case do not hesitate to buy another Ring of Regeneration and to complete Hood of Defiance before Kelen’s Dagger of Escape. Stacking as many Gauntlet of Ogre Strength / Circlets of Nobility is viable if you accept to be ganged at level 1 ( which is gay ).

Kelen’s Dagger of Escape - Your main tool. It takes aways your clumsiness, allows you to chase efficiently, to initiate battles and to make spectacular ninja gangs. With the help of Kelen’s Dagger of Escape you will hardly ever miss with Slithereen Crush and almost never need Sprint. It also functions as an escape mechanism, but its most important advantage to other items is the ability to place Slitheeren Crush deadly, with greatest accuracy in terms of possitioning and efficiency.

Just Boots of Speed or Power Treads?

Power Treads will be really good when playing a public game where map control and organized pushing are rarely seen. Boots of Travel is really good when dealing with unadequate enemies who does not know how to stop pushes, push themselves or how to stop a mobile hero with Boots of Travel ( in most of the public games ). Sprint will negate the need of Boots of Travel in a public game to a degree that makes Power Treads viable to get. You can Sprint around the map at maximum movespeed with ease without worrying that you will be late to defend your base since in most public game enemy team pushes are not just rarely seen but also inefficient. In inhouses however Sprint will not cut it and you will need Boots of Travel and the mobility it gives. In inhouses you will farm severly slower than you would in a public game which means that you will need a Kelen’s Dagger of Escape as soon as possible. Power Treads will only slow your Kelen’s Dagger of Escape more. Yes, they give good IAS but you can not afford yourself to get Kelen’s Dagger of Escape later because of this. If you so painfully need IAS get an early Hand of Midas or a Hyperstone. Boots of Travel is better than Power Treads so it is better to upgrade Boots of Speed into the haxxor TP bootz……

Troubles with survivability - the third Bracer, Hood of Defiance or Vanguard? - If you are on a hard feeding spree, have really big troubles and you die often do not hesistate to fortify yourself with another Bracer or Hood of Defiance before you get Kelen’s Dagger of Escape. In most cases two Bracers are enough, but some times situation forces you to buy the third Bracer. When you are facing a really powerful enemy line-up of heroes with strong nukes ( most of the line-ups), just another Bracer wil not cut it. In this situation you can consider getting Hood of Defiance even before Kelen’s Dagger of Escape and especially if you have a Ring of Regeneration or if you have died some times ( or when allies begin spamming “OMGZ, stup feeding nubzor” : )). If you are against some serious harrassers which do not allow you to last hit, stacking regeneration ( 2 x Ring of Regeneration or Ring of Health) is much more beneficial in case you decide to leave your lane later than expected because you may have no enough packs of Ancient Tango of Essifation to endure the prolonged harrass from the enemy. Vanguard is a good item in case you have troubles with physical damage dealers and especially if you are inclined to tower dive and, of course, if you are unable to tank well ( feeding, lol! ). In this case you will most likely have your Kelen’s Dagger of Escape delayed a lot since you will need Vanguard as soon as possible. This means you will have to wait some time before the hax blink usage begin.

Hand of Midas? - If you, by any chance scored first blood or if you are farming well you can take Hand of Midas. I will not lie you, this will not happen often but if it does Hand of Midas is a good investment. The IAS helps Bash to occur and enchance your physical damage against a unit with Amplify Damage debuff greatly. However in the recent versions of DotA the game tends to get shorter and shorter for Hand of Midas to be of a good use. Leave this for the carry heroes like Visage or Bone Fletcher……

So this is all? OMG, NEWB!

This is all Slardar needs to be efficient till very late game. Slithereen Guard is not a noob-friendly hero, what is vital for your success with Slardar are the techniques not some pretty and useless items.

Long list

2 x Ancient Tango of Essifation / Ring of Regeneration / Gauntlets of Ogre Strength or Circlets of Nobility

2 x Bracer + Boots of Speed

——Optional: Hood of Defiance / Vanguard / Bracer

Buy Kelen’s Dagger of Escape

Early game strategy:

Starting the game……:

Make sure there is a chicken on your team, take a RoR or Tangoes or Gauntlets of Ogre Strength / Circlets of Nobility and go top if you are playing on the side ot the Scourge or bottom if you are playing on the side of the Sentinel. The prefered team mates are heroes with a good slowing or stunning ability, preferably ranged heroes to help in lane controlling since melee heroes suck at this and Slardar is not an exception. A good slowing ability or stun can help you land Slithereen Crush and as early as level 7 you can score a kill with your ally. The range hero will carry the early game for you, cover you and will help you a big time early game. Provided with the additional stats you can handle your lane and even dominate it if you use Slithereen Crush correctly. Last hitting with Slardar is pretty easy due to the high base damage and fast attack animation (faster than most of the melee heroes) and it is easy to get used to.

Advanced Strategy

Always watch your opponents moves and know their game play. For example - when they come close for a last hit, what risk they can take, are they aggressive or passive - Check the Mind Games guide in the Miscellaneous Guides Section for more information on this. If you have troubles with over agressive opponents, that try to bait you so you waste your Stomp, you can fake stomp them. All you need is fast fingers so you can cancel the animation of Slithereen Crush as it is playing ( shortcut “S” ). One way is to wait them come then use Stomp and then rapidly press “S” before the spell is executed. Another way is to charge to them and get close, press “R” and when Slardar rises up the trident immediately press “S”. Most people will even not realize that you did not used Slithereen Crush since many act like they are on script - they see the animation, they think you really executed a Slithereen Crush ( this is difficult to explain, many people may misunderstand me here ). They will let you attack, thinking that you wasted your stomp. This will win you 1-2 seconds and 100-200 distance to catch up with them, till they realize what actually happened. Which is what you are waiting for, so you stun them and they get owned. This is one pretty nasty trick and many people do not learn from their mistakes and often get into the trap.

Till level 6 play safe, last hit and occasionaly deny creeps. Once you get Amplify Damage level 1 start spamming it on the enemies. This way you have vision of what they do and at the same time they are constantly vulnerable to physical attacks. Do not stay too far from your creep wave, 200 units away from them is a good distance. Whenever you see the enemy melee hero coming close to creeps to execute a last hit, stomp and whack them. If you are close enough you do not even have to move to place a Slithereen Crush against a melee hero. However if a ranged hero harrass you do not try to charge at them since they will just run, wait for your ally ranged hero to slow / stun them for you. This move is very damaging combined with Amplify Damage and even more damaging if your tower hit the enemy also.

Advanced Strategy

If an enemy is stupid enough to fight near your tower wait till his last creep is on 1/2 of its HP, charge at the enemy and use Slithereen Crush. This way your tower, your creeps, you an your ally will hit that hero under the effect of Amplify Damage which in most cases will ensure you a kill .

By level 8 you should get 2 x Bracers and Boots of Speed. With Boots equiped, you will have easier time to stomp slow enemies ( Crystal Maiden or Morphling without Boots ). From there on you will be saving for Kelen’s Dagger of Escape.

To kill or to last hit?

Do not be too agressive since tower diving is not advisable early game. What I described was meant to be used to defend yourself, not to attack. Focus of last hitting and surviving, there is plenty of time to be aggressive once you get Kelen’s Dagger of Escape. I advise you to use Slardar together with a good lane controler like Lich or Pugna so you make full use of your stun early game mid game. With their good farming and lane domination capabilities you will not get outleveled and you will not die often early game which is the worst thing that can happen to a Slardar player. If they feel like playing aggressively early, wait for them to initiate do not be the one to make the first move.

Mid game strategy:

Blinking dentists with tridents? Did you say ownage?

If you have done well early game, you should have obtained 2 x Bracers, Boots of Speed and Kelen’s dagger of Escape by level 11. If you have troubles farming - died some times early game or got outleveled you may try to pick an idle lane an farm. In case no lane is safe go to neutral creeps and acquire money there. WHen you farm Kelen’s Dagger of Escape the fun begins. Provided with it your gameplay changes from the peaceful last hitting hero to a one psycho ninja ganging evil dentist. Make sure you keep in touch with your allies and ask if your team needs a gang anywhere on the map. Make sure you have enough mana for Amplify Damage / Blink / Slithereen Crush combo so you do not fail.

Utilizing Kelen’s Dagger of Escape - the way to crush the tooth fairy:

Now it is the time to fulfil your role as a gang initiator. The process is simple. Find a suitable victim for your gang and coordinate your actions with your ally. When both of you are ready, cast Amplify Damage on the victim, immediately blink next to the hero and cast Slithereen Crush. After 2-3 hits their Hp will be lowered from max to half and will give your ally time to cast his/her stun/slow so you finish the hero off. Nothing screws people more than a big, Strenght based blinking hero that knocks off heroes in seconds.

Bash their ambitions out?

Kelen’s Dagger of Escape has many uses. It allows you to escape from bad situations and even to chase. The the cooldown of the active skill of this item is 22 seconds which is really not much. Provided that you stun the hero for 5-6 seconds ( if a Bash occurs ) on your own and with the help of you allies you can hit the enemy for around 10 seconds. This leaves 12 seconds till Kelen’s Dagger of Escape Cooldown so you can chase the enemy if they by any chance survive after your combo. This is again a double-edged sword since you can get disabled and die easily if you try to chase past towers. Doing this or not depends on your own judgement .

Team Battles

Your role in team battle is that of the initiator. Cast Amplify Damage on the hero that your team is going to focus ( most of the time it is a disabler like Rhasta or Enigma) and blink in the center of the enemy team ( but close to your primary target ) so you get them all stunned. They will most likely focus and disable you after this so do not hesistate to run if needed.

Slardar similarly to dentists likes ganging. A lot…..

Gang is what you should do all the the way till very, very late game. This will ensure level advantage and will net you some kills. However, if your gangs were not successful or if you got ganged yourself it would be better if you focus on getting gold from lane creeps or neutral creeps. I suggest you get tanking items like Heart of Tarasque and this, hopefully, will give you a come back.

Late Game Strategy:

Stick to your team and make sure you constantly cast Amplify Damage on your enemies. You should have obtained some gold trough ganging or neutral creeping. What items to get later varies - Heart of Tarasque for survivability, Radiance for AOE damage or Hyperstone to increase your DPS or even Boots of Travel to improve ganging. Your role is pretty much the same at this point - initiate battles and whack enemy heroes away with your high damage output and stunning capablilties and of course with ninja blink Stomp. Now it is more worth to cast Amplify Damage on tanking heroes because reducing armour will hurt them more due to their higher hp. Level 3 Amplify Damage decreases the EHP of your enemies by 90% of their MHP ( which is higher for tanks ).

Sprinting between lanes:

With Sprint on together with Boots of Speed you will reach 510 movespeed which is 10 movespeed away from maximum. This means you can cover every distance in 11-14 seconds which negates the need of Boots of Travel to a certain degree. This will work great in public games but in inhouses Slardar would be better with Boots of Travel. If you have taken Power Treads this will be the only way to travel around the map since you will fill all your slots late game and there will be no space for a Scroll of Town Portal. When you reach the desired destination in most cases Sprint will last for 4-5 seconds more so you wait a little make sure you do not enter the battle with the bonus damage received debuff on. 1-2 seconds of getting extra damage is not so deadly late-game since you have higher HP, but it still hurts so use this skill wisely. I think it is common sense not to use this skill in the beginning of the battle.

In late game your killing potential will remain as dominant as it was in the earlier stages of the game. An Amplify Damage / Blink / Stomp combo will not be sufficient to kill low HP heroes easily, so you have to chase them. This is the point where you can use Sprint to finish them off. In late game you will have the EHP to negate the bonus damage taken from Sprint. This is some bad news for the enemies. So they can not kill you and can not run from you. Which is pure ownage. Which is good.

Mechanics of Slithereen Crush:

Slithereen Crush is based of War Stomp from ladder ( a skill from Tauren Chieftain ). The AOE is 350 damage and stuns heroes for 1.0/1.5/2.0/2.5 seconds. What differs this skill from other War Stomp based skills is the trigger that is set after the release of the stomp. Immediately after the stun a dummy unit casts Thunder Clap ( askill from Mountain King from ladder ) with 1 damage ( I am not sure about this ) which slows units for 3.0/3.5/4.0/4.5 seconds. Consider yourself lucky if you hit the enemy with Thunder Clap only since the AOE is 360. (10 range difference!)

Using Slithereen Crush during a chase ( very important for newbies ):

Mort Zone - The zone in which should be your enemy so you execute a successful Slithereen Crush. If they have Boots of Travel cut the zone by 10 ( you can see how much is this by looking at the difference between the Stomp and the Thunder Clap zone ) and by 20 when they have Sange and Yasha. This is done because they may run out of your range till Slithereen Crush casts because of their high movespeed.

Failure Zone - If you execute a Stomp when the enemy is in this zone in most cases Slithereen Crush will not cause any effect on them unless they stop moving for some reason while you cast Slithereen Crush. Needless to say some arrogant enemies will taunt you whenever you miss with Stomp and some of your allies will flame you. Practice is they key to utilizing Stomp, do not get discourage if you miss sometimes with it but make sure you do not miss a lot.

Having a team-mate with good lane control early game……

Generally every ranged team mate with a stun / slow works well with Slardar provided that they have decent last hits / denies and play aggressively enough ( they should initiate early). Later, Slardar can work with every hero with some form of disable /slow without worrying about initiating anymore ( you will be the initiator with Blink / Slithereen Crush combo ).

Pugna and Slardar

One kick-ass combo that has always been viable. When Pugna uses Decripify you can catch up with the enemy and land Slithereen Crush while Pugna blast their heads off with Nether Blast and incredibly strong physical attacks due to Amplify Damage. Pugna will ensure that your early game will be a breeze due to the good laning capabilities of that hero.

Lich and Slardar

Lich is may be the best lane mate for Slardar rivaled only by Pugna. Frost Nova spam and Dark Ritual will ensure great lane control. Frost Nova allows you to land Slithereen Crush and Frost Armour will enchance your tanking capabilities a lot.

Vengeful Spirit and Slardar

Vengeful Spirit is one good lane mate for Slardar since basicly she is a lso an initiator but differing from Slardar she is ranged and has a ranged stun which can make landing Slithereen Crush much easier. Swap is useful and easier to execute with Amplify Damage ( vision ).

Getting outleveled and outfarmed

Once Slardar reaches late game he is unstoppable, however being outleveled and outfarmed hurts Slardar the most. That is why your lane partner and the additional stats are so important. They will make your early game a lot easier which with Slardar is a half won game. Naturally Slardar has no enemies equal in power, except disablers but they hurt everyone anyway……

Enchantress against Slardar

The most horrible team opponent against you is Enchantress. Impetus will rape you and Untouchable will make you almost useless against her. Nature Attendants will negate almost all the damage you did to her. Also, she can just get a Satyr Trickster / Forest Troll Priest to dispel Amplify Damage for her. Avoid her and change lanes if possible. In case you can not change lanes, stack up regeneration and hope she does not know how to orbwalk you to death.

Keeper of the Light against Slardar

Ezalor has to potential to make you utterly useless with just one Mana Leak. Also Keeper of the Light has superior lane control and can replenish mana to allied nukers so they can make the situation even worse with constant spell spam. Stacking regeneration is one decision to survive early Illuminates.

Leviathan against Slardar

First, Tidehunter has a nuke to rely on early and Gush is better than Amplify Damage till you get to level 11. Also it is quite possible that will fulfil his role of initiator buite better than you because Ravage has bigger AOE ( but has bigger much bigger cooldown ). Leviathan has higher strength gain, but the worst thing is that Kraken Shell will dispel Amplify Damage, making it very difficult to take down Tidehunter. Generally Tidehunter is superior to Slardar till late game, but if you reach that far Slardar gets better.

The most efficient choices:

or

Assault Cuirass - After some good deal of testing Assault Cuirass came out to be the best item for Slardar among the new items and probably the best item to get after the Core item build. First you will benefit greatly from the armour bonus which will increase yours and the EHP of your allies a lot ( Armour Aura ). The armour reducing aura will stack fully with Amplify Damage and will attract attention to you which will help you fulfil your role as a tank. The attack speed bonus will really help with Bash and will negate the need of Power Treads. It may be costy but you will benefit from every single ingredient and besides this the ingredients are not so expensive ( 2300 Gold - Hyperstone ) for a late game choice. This item is really a good investment if you are doing well and if you are acquiring gold at a good rate.

Hood of Defiance - This item is a must have for tanking and you will most likely need this as soon as you complete the core build ( you can also get it before Kelen’s Dagger of Escape if the situation is that bad……). It will be really useful for enduring strong nukes from early to late game and you will be taking punishment a lot so getting this is vital for your survival throughout the game.

Sange and Yasha or Stygian Desolator? - Whether to choose Sange and Yasha or Stygian Desolator depends mostly on the enemy line-up. If your team is focused around nukes and disables and you need to finish the game as soon as possible Sange and Yasha is the better choice since the cheap stats in a single item will be of great use if you rely on a decisive push before late game. Its good choice after the core build - it will give you useful buff to HP, movespeed and attack speed and will give you Maim also. It is really useful if you are not confident when using Sprint or in case you want to go around and solo heroes. However, if your team focuses on phycial damage and DPS. The combination Amplify Damage + Stygian Desolator + Assault Cuirass makes up to -26 Armour on a single target and -11 armour on every enemy. Heroes with spells that deal physical damage will rape every opposition with the reduced armour - Bristleback is one good example. Desolator is exceptionatelly useful if you can not farm up for Assault Cuirass and is the best choice if you are looking for a replacement.

Wait, Buriza-do Kyanon amplifies your damage better than Desolator!

This is not exactly true in fact. After this paragraph there is some mathcraft about this from Virot2. Also, Stygian Desolator is much cheaper and also your allies will benefit from it, making it the best DPS item for Slardar.

The adequate choices:

or

Heart of Tarrasque or Satanic - Dying rapidly to focus fire? Fortify yourself with a Heart. It will also allow you to use Sprint without worrying that you may get disabled and owned. Sprint is an ownage skill in this case. In case you have taken the Assault Cuirass / Desolator build Satanic will be quite beneficial in case enemies allow you to hit and you do not get disabled the moment you initiate. With the armour reduction your physical damage output will be quite high, resulting in greater life leech. Combined with the attack speed buff from Assault Cuirass ( Hyperstone is an ingredient in it ) and with Unholy Frenzy you will be pretty much able to tank huge amounts of damage in case enemies does not prevent you from focusing your physical damage output on a target.

and

Boots of Travel and Radiance - Boots of Travel are a viable choice to improve you map control and to make ganging more intense. Also movespeed never hurt when stomping running targets. Radiance is a top item for strenght heros and improves your cash flow and usefulness in team battles.

The decent choices:

or

Black King Bar or Linken’s Sphere - Get this if you are having troubles with disablers which is likely to happen because of you hight damage output. WARNING! Avatar does some very ugly things to your model, making it very big and causing it to sink into ground and emerge every 4 seconds.

Royal trash public games items

Cranium Basher

Basher is an awful and useless item. Permabash does not help in killing enemies faster like Buriza-do Kyanon or Hyperstone. You would be better killing heroes faster rather than stun locking them forever. Permabash is useless for anything beside 1v1.

Mask of Madness

Mask of Madness has been dead since 5.84. Get used to this at last. The build already denies the usefulness of Sprint till very late game, why would you want to take an item which is essentialy as trash as Sprint. ( you take bonus damage when you activate Frenzy ) For your information Sprint is 100 times better than Frenzy because: First, no one ever fights Slardar 1v1, so they run and when they run movespeed is better than attack speed. “BUT WOOKIE STUN-LOCKING BEAST FTW, FTW?” No, permabash is also trash as stated.

Long time ago Slardar used to have Storm Bolt instead of Sprint ( OMG! ). Needless to say that was too ImBAaa even back then and instead of Storm Bolt Slardar gained Sprint which was preserved till now except the cooldown got lowered. Did you need that skill back then? No, thanks a lot. Even now this skill is questionable, then it was out of discussion because the mana costs of Slithereen Crush and Amplify Damage were higher. Slardar used to have one severly powerful AOE stun named War Stomp for 3.25 seconds but in 6.20 it was replaced by the current Slithereen Crush which has much smaller cooldown, bigger AOE and much longer casting time. In 6.41 Amplify Damage was buffed so it now costs 25 mana at all levels.

I have been writing this, making .gifs and screenshots for 6 hours and I am fed up with Slardar for today. May be tomorrow I will get you a replay.

Slardar.

This is a DCE game played from a computer club ( internet cafe as you call it ) and there are some laggy moments in the game. I miss around 5-6 stomps due to lag ( and lameness also ) for a game that lasted and hour and twenty minutes. The game would have been much easier and shorter if it was not the passiveness of Queen of Pain in the lane early, that Warlock that actually plays pretty bad ( like 3 Shadow Words on me for the whole game, retarded dual Inferno usage and ignoring stunned heroes in favour of creeps and moon wells) and the lack of a decent view on the game by my allies in many situations - slow if any reactions in team fights, excessive farming and so on……However they did well although it seemed like everyone is playing by himself / herself. There are some nice Stomps in this game, efficient intiating moves and some hilarous moments on the left ramp mid where I and Techies defended or the spinning around the trees near the second bot Scourge tower. My stats was not impressive since I got focused fired all the time but some good stomps really gave the team great advantage. I went for Sange and Yasha after the core build but it did not really helped that much, may be Heart would have been better ( if they were not so greedy and left me an Aegis of The Immortal ).

Before I throw the stupid overused phrases and jokes in your face I want you to answer a question. What are guides for? Teaching people, showing off, wasting time or having fun? Yes, all the four together can make one write a guide. What some people seem to misunderstand is that guides do not prove anything, they are written to help people not to help the guide-writer to gain artificial fame and respect…… The first guide I wrote ( you remember it pretty good ) was written because I wanted to help people take control of this weak hero. Yes, old Bristleback was a trash hero, I knew no one will ever take a guide for this hero seriously. Some people tried to help me, others just flamed and even now some people accept me as the guide-writer of that “lame bristeback guide”. I was new to guide-writing although I have been playing DotA for 2 years back then in a private pvpgn server. It may sound hilarous but I came to Strategy sub-forums from Suggestion sub-forums. My builds are based on my experience with the hero. The number of replays of “godly players” I have seen can be counted on the fingers of two hands ( I am not sure this is the correct expression ). The current guide represents a build that I have been using since 5.84, a build that never failed, I am writing this guide to help people play Slardar at least decently. ( In this paragraph I did not mean to offend anyone, I just state my view on guide-writing. )

I hope this guide helps people understand Slardar better. Pick Slardar and own……NOW!……
I hope you like it.