General DiscussionSlark as hard carry

i cant exactly say that hes a hard carry, he has strong survivabiity(regen from his ult, which is easily countered by dust) has a superb chase/ escape skill(pounce) a decent nuke(dark pact) however he lacks the stuff of what hard carries posses, a pure steroids. i argue that essence shift cannot be considered a steroids or pure damage booster because he relies on many auto attacks on enemy heroes which later on he cannot rely on due to the enemy team going in groups instead of solo, additionally he has below average stats gain on all points.
(this is an opinion please dont flame me)

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dust is easily countered by timing pact. the best counter to slark is either gem or book.
i disagree on the enemy sticking part tho, like every hard carries, if you dont have a bkb, always wait for your team's tanker to take all the pouding then come in from behind and begin attacking while the enemy is distracted on other members of ur team

killing one or 2 enemy is enough stats for u to kill the rest of them. it's even better if they buy back, u can immediately cut them down and gain more stats..

Hes a gimmicky carry in my mind, like an Alchemist. His stat growth is below average like his, and he has that ability or two that can either make or break him.

As an offlane against another solo (tri against carry/jungle on the other side) I'd say where his value may be the greatest.

Better played as an offlane vs solo/dual safelane

He is complete shit lategame (without a big advantage already), its once he hits level 6-mid game that he shines.

i wouldnt say a "hard" carry either, but from several games i have witnessed, he SHOULD be labeled as a carry(semi-carry to be exact). A hard carry farms a lot during the first ...30 minutes, helps the team only when there is a severe situation to deal with... Everything is about peaking asap. Meanwhile slark gets his ultimate, gets some nice boots, maybe some utility items etc. and is ready to rampage. Majority gold for slark comes from killing and ganking(so essentially killing). In many ways he is like nightstalker.

And he is shit lategame without advantage- but that is actually right for almost ANY carry in the game.

No, the difference is that hard carries scale far better with items/levels. Slark peaks mid game where he can gank nonstop, his death pact and essence shift are relevant. Also no gem at this stage. As the game progresses, pact becomes almost nothing other than debuff, and essence shift scales like shit in comparison to basically all flat DPS multiplier (and AoE/multi-target) or bash, not to mention people will certainly have gem at this stage too.

ie. to beat a farmed PL/void/tiny ~40 minutes in, slark needs to have a lot more gear

slark has potential cant wait too see him in cm

lets just say slarks potential is lower than the most feared hard carries, such as the likes of spectre, syllabear(12 slots is nothing to joke about)and faceless void. he just doesnt have the potential to carry a team. i mean a faceless voids ultimate grants you guranteed 4-6 seconds on the targets with no counter whatsoever. slarks ultimate is countered too easily by mere dust and gems thus making his actual only disable useless(disable as in the sense where he cant be attacked) as in cm or competitive.... i cant see him being any use except for being a ganker.

he is more like a hit and run carry i suppose, dust can be purged by pact, thus only book and gem are the best counters. people dont usually go book, and the gem carriers are normally easy to take out.

during middle game, slark can easily jump in and steal a few hits and kills, then runs away.

i have once played slark until the late game, even void could not stop me. he chrono'ed every1 except a lion and me, thus his chrono is wasted. i stole some hits from the supports, and beefed up my agi and armor.

when everybody died, 2 bought back, at that time i had like 280 base damage, killed the support (good timing with pact) and destroyed void head on (i had 300 base damage , go figure)

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cool story bro

So bad as a hard carry. It is semi-carry hero.

he is a semi carry, he doesnt need farm to own, just bounce, hit, dark pact, pounce again...

same shit as riki, both r annoying and cant be dealt with unless ur team is playing dota and not sega..

the carries job is to keep momentum and push down towers while slashing at the enemies health, slark cant do that as well as carries such as the likes of lycan

slark is played as a hard carry since ancient times

Hard carries go uber farm, they need at least 2 core items to do actually do something in the game, and u will never see them winning a game before minute 30 unless they r fed by some way

slark can easily win early game, he hits rly hard, and if u r not a retard to get, and u go dark pact + pounce maxed at lvl 9, u can easily kill almost ANY hero, dark pact is 7 sec cd, and pounce is 8 sec cd

you cant kill anyone with that skill build you need at least 2 levels of essence shift

no one at all
http://dotabuff.com/matches/95776952
i went solo mid, and i feeded on SF, just pounce and dark pact, he is dead, no need for essence shift, i get only 1 early lvl of essence shift at lvl 3 or 4, not more

lol mid slark is a different story you need full level shift or you cant even get near to creeps

ok, essence shift is best lvl for slark
and wut would it do for u in the laning phase?
oh u hit him, WOW, his hp is lower by 19, WTF, how can he make it in the phase, if u manage to hit him once, he will hit u thrice

Hes not a hard carry.

i gotta agree with the majority here. definitely not a hard carry but, he cant be ignored as a semi carry. hes just a hero you have to shut down early and you will have no problems late.

I always build shadowblade as core on slark, the ganking potential skyrockets and squishies are obliterated even more so than they already are. I tried building hard carry a few times, but the hero's true role is ganking and generally just being a pest. Against co-ordinated teams, you often see gems/sentries after the first gank and always grouping up. Slark isn't very strong against 5 man dota because like other invis characters people just automatically hate him and focus him.

ITS OK GUYS, WE GOT TEAM WIPED, BUT WE KILLED SLARK!!!!

He's one of my favourite hero's to play if not my favourite, but if you don't get that early advantage, unless the other team throws it's very difficult to get back to even footing in a game.

Hard carry in the right situation sure, but against the super carries he doesn't compare in potential. As far as gankers go though, Slark can snowball faster then any character in the game.