Even with that Night Stalker buff, I still think he’s better as a 4. All you’ll ever need on the guy early game is a level or two and an urn, and the Scepter will come eventually. Being a more viable offlaner is great for mixing up drafts though.
You can also try running him mid as was the case way back when. The only variable is skill build but that’s situational anyway.
NS mid is pretty outdated at this point. Too much wasted farm potential. Maybe in 6.86 we’ll see a return of ganking mids?
Thanks for making me hate one of my favourite heroes, guys…
Since I am a super casual player (I don’t go in depth with strats), what can you tell me about
- Tusk
- CK
- Troll Warlord
Not sure what you’re looking for in terms of depth/strategy so I’ll keep it simple.
Tusk: was a top tier offlaner but was nerfed. Still good. Ice Shards manipulate terrain, and Snowball is great for initiating or saving people. Combine both for strong gank potential. Sigil is great in team fights for its large AOE movement and attack speed slow. Walrus punch stun goes through spell immunity.
Chaos Knight: snowball hard carry. Great with a good start. Awful when playing from behind. No farming abilities and farm accelerator items (Maelstrom, Midas, Battlefury) are not good on him. Has some mana issues. Pretty underpowered.
Troll Warlord: was top tier a couple patches ago, but now is pretty bad. He can stunlock people with Battle Trance and Berserker’s Rage, but his nerfs and the buffs to other heroes have made him not very good. Often needs BKB or he’ll be kited or chain CC’d. Chain stunning people with bash is still fun though!
do you guys do in houses?
As far as I can tell we all do our own thing.
I don’t think we even have enough people to do any kind of inhouse.
I’d be down for one if I was better and had more heroes under my belt.
I like how people always say stuff like “Well hero XY is pretty bad at mid/carry/offlane.” Talking as if they were playing EG or VG in 5 minutes, just passing by to let us know about their competitive knowledge.
In the end most of us play pubs where you can carry with a fucking Tidehunter or even Crystal Maiden if you know what the heck you’re doing.
Also everybody always says a hero sucks until pros prove them wrong.
I remember a guy here saying that that the supposed Sniper “nerf” (when they changed his shrapnel) would be the death of him and that he’s still worthless, then 3 weeks later pros start picking him and suddenly the consensus is that Sniper is overpowered.
Or people asking for Storm Spirit nerfs even though the fucking hero hasn’t been significantly changed since he was ported to Dota 2.
Same like in SF where people were like “Rose is weak” and when Louffy won EVO with her he was suddenly carried on the back of a broken character, and later it was due to him having an easy road to grand finals.
Loads of horseshit.
If you believe in a character or strategy, try it out yourself since the general public’s opinion on matters is just parroting what they hear and see from professionals.
Too bad about Warlord. Was one of my faves from Dota1. Especially cause you could stack bashers lol
And I agree with CK… Mana issues. And definitely not a character that can do anything when behind.
Why do I like the crappy ones…
To be fair, a lot of pros or ex-pros/personalities thought the Shrapnel change was a big nerf to Sniper. People that thought it was a buff were definitely a small minority.
But yes, in pubs any hero can be viable since pubs are very unorganized, but that doesn’t mean some heroes are stronger or weaker than others. You can definitely still win playing as CK or Troll, but it’s harder. At the same time, you definitely increased your chances to win by spamming Leshrac mid prior to the patch.
You can’t win as CK in pubs. Don’t listen to this guy.
CK is a good character that is one of the hardest snowballers in the game, but you need to get a good start. And to get that good start, you need a really good person helping you in lane, and you need a really good person staying WITH you in lane. That’s not happening in pubs.
u wot m8
you can win with any hero in pubs. i just never said how long it would take. 
CK Wisp is hella legit … if you have a Wisp who knows what to do.
I honestly think CK is pretty pickable, especially since he hurts so much more.
CK is great from 0-15 minutes but incredibly meh from 15-35, which is where a lot of the game happens right now. The deck is super, duper stacked against CK right now.
Yeah for sure. You don’t first pick the guy at all.
So anyway, after playing some school inhouses, I’ve concluded that the most relaxing hero to play is Spirit Breaker. Farm-independent, easy to play. See hero charge hero. Hope you get a bash (and you probably will with the new pseudo-random chance, just not 3 in a row). Ult if off cooldown. Charge out if in trouble. Makes retarded dives possible. What’s not to like about the guy?
I liked true random bash better on SB (when playing as him of course).
It makes solo kills with SB tougher but generally you should have someone backing you up anyway.
gonna start tinkering about with soul ring lothars terrorblade now that they threw conjure illusions into the dumpster
That sounds like a clowny build that won’t really work… unless you get a dagon or something. Haha. I guess Icefrog wanted to bring Terrorblade’s split pushing ability closer in line with Phantom Lancer (i.e. needing to stay near your illusions to split push properly). With that change, it leaves only Naga as the true illusion based split pushing hero, but her weakness comes down to taking a very long time to come online than PL or TB.