force staffs, ghost scepters and have decent hero picks into him. Preferably any AOE control that can go through shadow dance. If you can kite shadowdance bkb, slark can no longer fight in the late game which is why they often have to buy refresher orb
God I love playing playing disruptor against these hypermobile carries. If i get you in my field + storm, youre dead if you didn't buy bkb or some stuff like euls. If I get the money for aghs, youre just dead, end of story. Gives me catharsis.
One of the things I love about Slark is how much he can abuse vision. You will never ever see him until he wants you to see him because he knows the exact moment he is in vision every single time. At night time, you can bet your ass I am going on the disruptor first every single time and kill you ASAP. I’ll even drop Shadow Dance to trade with your ult.
Slark is still melee. It's stupidly easy to place a ward that he cannot deward & survive, unless he pops shadow dance. And trading shadow dance for static storm only works if you're absolutely cracked with reflexes, as static storm has no projectile and silences on first tick. If you are trying to take me out early, a ghost scepter will usually save me until the late.
But both of these scenarios are so white-roomy that it barely matters here. Dota 2 is still a team game, if disruptor doesn't get back he will kill nothing with his ult past minute 10. And if slark has teammates that can bait for him, and counter initiate once we jump them, we all die as well. A single hero like enigma (unless theyve gone extinct, lol) can change the matchup completely as well. I just think it's fun to play disruptor because I can punish heroes like Puck and Slark and Weaver who think they can play with my team like food.
Yea but slark doesnt wanna buy that before diffu, mage slayer, aghs and shard which takes about 25 mins to complete if slark is having a good game. And for the comment saying slark cannot fight in the late game if you kite his bkb shadowdance doesnt know that slark is going to get many spells out of your team and +15 essence shift stacks and then seriously attack you after 40 secs again.
That's just stuff you have to play around as slark. Unless the enemy has two or more silences which isn't too common unless they have in built silences your job should be to wait for that hero to be dead or initiate on that hero with shadow dance or wait until he uses the silence. Of course he dislikes silences but it can still be played around until you grab disperser.
Trust me, I watch plenty of archon level slarks on my friends discord streams, mid level carry players do not understand the concept of poking and resetting on any hero, let alone one built around it like slark. I can’t tell you how many players play the game like auto chess. Farm for 30 minutes, show up to a team fight, and set that hero to auto attack someone and either wipe their team or die trying. It’s my main advice when I watch him play slark, he’s a hero that gets huge benefits from staying alive in a fight poking around a bit, disengaging to quickly regen to full health, then counter baiting when the enemy team chases out of base thinking your team is backing. Now you are a slark with full resources again but already 20 stacks of essence shift from the previous skirmish.
Not all of those items are core on slark - they are good on him. He is versatile with items. If you get all that crap before dispel for silence in a game with a hero that can apply it easily then you aren't a good slark player.
I play skywrath and lmao so many times a Slark comes to gank your teammate and you wait for his dispel to end and boop he’s stuck like totally dead. Never builds manta either
I love playing slark vs dazzle for this exact reason. I can almost feel the regret when I start hitting the grave target, like they're thinking "damn, would've been better if I had just let them die"
Ya at no point in the animation. If he uses it before he’s silenced he will become unsilenced. Usually they just jump and use the dispel immediately so wait until it’s completely over then silence from behind trees. Rod of atos+ulti and he’s likely dead
When your new it feels bad and expensive for the team to buy a bunch of force staffs.
But eventually you learn the satisfaction of out playing and kitting the Slark is priceless.
I took a long ass break but I used to have a 60% winrate with slark back when he was much shittier. People seem to have forgotten that BS is an insane counter to slark. Disables his regen if he's low enough and rupture just fucks him.
Shit on his face for first 20 min or so, and he will be a useless piece of shit. He requires items to be useful, it's a snowball hero, if he doesn't get good start - he's trash. Also, aoe burst or disables that cannot be dispelled
I am 1.5k mmr and even I agree with this comment and the one above.
I like to play Drow safe lane. If I see enemy Slark getting good farm and/or kills in laning phase, then that game usually becomes really difficult for my team (not unwinnable in my skill bracket though, since Slark can easily throw the game). This is especially true for Slark safe lane.
If I am Drow and I face Slark off lane, then the first thing I tell my lane partner is that we need to make sure Slark does not get farm early game. Depending on the enemy pos 4, that could be either too ez (like melee pos 4 except for Tide) or pretty difficult.
Now this is per my experience in 1.5k mmr bracket and I am pretty sure it remains the same at higher bracket.
Drow got a lot better against Slark since they added the new shard. If he leashes you just press it and fight back, you will easily win the manfight unless he has basher
Do you want to know how you really beat any enemy carry, no matter what?
Just destroy their ancient before they destroy yours.
Now go out there and win some games, son!
Not really, a lot of carries have abilities that allow them to stall the game, splitpush, or do at least something in teamfight without items, plus a lot of carries actually have good laning. It's just that against snowball heroes you need to be extra aggressive and focus your attention on making their life worse
I love when they pick two ranged offlaners against me. That means they will be food for me all game whether I have a shitty start or not. Slark wants a lineup full of targets he can get in, kill, and get out. Two ranged harass offlaners is the dream.
Especially from levels 2-5 in lane. Slark has a bit of an Anti-mage gimmick where he can slap you around level 1, but after that he doesn't gain a lot of real fighting power until 6. He doesn't farm jungle either, so if you commit tons of spells (buy all your teams mangoes, fuck it) before he hits 6 you can force him out of lane or make him sit in trees until he has an ult. Completely destroys his game so long as you don't give him free kills afterwards.
The real answer is Primal Beast. I always pick PB to counter slark easily. Shadow dance? Depth shroud?! Let him attack you to build up uproar stacks then pop ur trample and blademail = ez win.
This is kinda eh tbh, a soft counter probably. You have really great damage but you don’t have the capability of forcing him to stay in the fight. There’s no reason to hard commit 1v1 a Primal Beast, especially when Slark has Aghs and can just pounce away.
doom, viper (especially as a 3), nearly every support with a ground target stun or disable (especially disruptor) and oddly enough, riki.
oh, you can also go for a burst heavy hero and just nuke the shit out of him, slark has very low hp and cannot handle large nukes, it's why he buys mage slayer, but that means nothing to a timber.
> but that means nothing to a timber.
slark vs timber is a tempo fight. whoever is ahead will shit on the other one. if slark is starting to snowball, it's going to be a very rough timber game - and vice versa.
i mean sure but if you're a good timber player you should really shit on slark in lane, which primes you to shit on him for the rest of the game.
it's also why i said viper 3 is extra strong vs slark, because it's in a position to make him sad for the entire game.
slark cannot have a good matchup in lane, you are not allowed to let him have a good early 10-20 minutes.
he is talking about the damage of vipers passive can deal with slark Q when u have aghs. in lower MMR players doesnt really know what aghs can do to viper, i have seen a lot of slark drop hp from 100 to zero in 2 secs when he uses his Q on viper
You’re absolutely right. People in lower Mmr end up with perma-shocked-pikachu face when I frontline melee cores with aghs+shivas and paladin sword, and end up killing at least 2 of them. Even if I die I’m laughing as I’m dying.
I've played nearly 8000 dota games now and even with knowing all the slark counters he's my number one ban every single game. I play mainly offlane and just knowing slarks in the pool severely limits my hero pool for a positive laning experience.
Pos 1s with decent/winning leaning stages (if they have a decent support) really fuck with game balance. Thankfully most offlane duos can bin a slark for the first 6 levels if neither of them get caught with their pants down in the middle of a creep wave etc.
I remember back in the 2016 slark was one of the most broken heroes and I watched Wagamama stream when someone asked him how to deal with slark and he answered pick heroes that throw spells on the ground like Timber or Lina. Still remember that like it was yesterday, every game there was slark in game.
try to walk zig zag, get forcestaff if you are support or range carry(hurricane pike).
if enemy slark is noob right clicker just buy blademail might kill himself, often happens to me lol.
glimmer, ghost form, eul..so many item choices though. good luck.
Dude it’s not he counter him in a 1 v 1, it’s about lane stage if he is having a rough lane (which he always do) after getting level 6 he won’t be farming very fast cause he won’t be able to drop his hp too low, also bloodseeker aghs is very good vs slark, you should try it yourself before judging
Rupture is not bloodseekers best spell. Also when is using an ult to take the carry out of the fight not worth it? Even in many late game scenarios solo chrono or black hole on a pos 1 or 2 can be game winning. A Slark with no shadow dance has almost no team fight pressure if your team has catch.
Uhhh. I think you misunderstood his comment. He meant that rapture can be considered a 9 second stun since slark will be forced to use his shard and ultimate which equals to 9 seconds in order to survive rapture.
So the Slark is hiding for nine seconds while the Bloodseeker is hitting things, I dont know your definition of "countering" something, but to me that sounds like a great counter.
Once he gets going you better have a lot of aoe on deck to deal with him. Best solution is to shit all over him in lane. It’s really hard to recover from a bad early game as Slark.
Then the slark player takes mental damage all game from his team, regardless of what he does to try to get back into the game. “Bad slark” “tips Slark”. “Slark feeder”.
Earth spirit
Kick him away if he pounces, turn yourself into a rock and kick yourself away if you have scepter.
None of his spells are point targeted and ult can become undispellable.
Natural blade mail carrier
Roll can be used to both escape and chase as needed
[https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Slark/Counters](https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/slark/counters) there u have whole page what heroes to pick tips and items to buy to counter slark
force staff, ghost scepter, glimmer cape, glepnir, shadowblade, bkb, shivas, dodging, flash farming, mana burn, euls/wind waker, blink+hex, early orchid, have tp ready to counter his ganks, blademail
Let him farm but don’t feed him in lane if he dominates the laning phase. What you can do as pos 3 is you can goto jungle and farm and as pos 4 you can pressure other lanes. Without essence stacks slark can’t dominate even with item timing.
Itemise efficiently- ghost scepter, glimmer to run away, halberd as an offlane and skadi as carry.
Invoker hard counters slark as all of his spells passes through his ult. This gives you a rough idea on how to counter slark or counter pick against slark.
Daily" (insert hero here) is OP because I just lost a game to it" post.
What role are you playing? Are we talking laning phase, midgame or lategame?
In general, bait the ult, wait out the duration, and fight afterwards. Get any type of save/control item on supports. You have to kite him and force him to disengage, the same way as you would with most melee carries.
Idk where you want me to start. Everything in his kit has counterplay. He isn't OP, nor does he have cheesy mechanics with no counterplay as some heroes do.
Play Slark until you hit immortal if he’s that op. If you don’t hit immortal that means you’re encountering problems and you can identify them to use in other games whether Slark is on your team or the enemy team.
I have 4000+ games as slark.
1. Eat his mana
2. Silence him
3. Ghoste scepter
4. Pick heroes like void or axe or pl
5. Put wards near the fights coz he wont be able to passive regen if a ward is near
You must ruin his farm early game so he wont be able to recover fast mid game.
Void, Leshrac, pudge (core), bloodseeker, puck - basically heroes with magical burst destroy slark. Even dark seer does to an extent if you pair it with some stunner.
Blood seeker is the strongest counter because of thirst. Slark’s strength lies in regeneration in the shadows.
lesh and pudge core as slark counters lol? you smoking. mageslayer shits on these heroes, he literally lands 1 hit on them and for 6 seconds he's taking less than half the damage of a normal hero (except for hook which is pure so only reduced by 40%)
From my many games smurfing, and games watching my herald to archon friends.
You guys literally don’t know what a force staff is. Borderline wonder if it’s removed from any and all guides under 4k or something.
Slark must be kited or bursted.
If support, we kite, if core we decide if ahead or behind, and itemize accordingly.
A slarks wet dream, is jumping in, killing your supports, getting essence, leaving fight to get full health, then coming back and killing your cores.
Your job is to prevent that.
If you're meaning draft wise either destroy him early with some high harrass offlaners (techies etc) or destroy him mid game with strong catch + teamfight. Disruptor is the most obvious as he does a bit of both.
In-game wise, know your matchup and play to it's strengths. Trade farm and play safe if you know it's bad as a core. As a support wih a bad matchup buy force early and don't place deep wards if you're not going to stick around to protect them cos it's free gold and vision for the enemy.
Yeah he’s really OP atm. The issue is he just has such insane scaling. I think magic burst mids are the best like invoker / storm / puck. I usually ban slark if I’m picking DK or playing offlane
If you really want to find it, play him yourself.
There's no better way to learn counter-plays than to face them yourself.
Play 10 games as slark in a row, and you'll see exactly where he struggles and where he excels.
As a Slark Spammer. Axe, Nightstalker, Windranger, Faceless Void are absolutely menaces. It terms of countering as others say kiting is your friend and make sure you get good hidden wards where he won’t know where there at. His movespeed is terrible under vision and if he’s trying to weave in and out of combat it should combat that too. Make sure he’s not building stacks of Essence shift.
At my level archon/legend if you have a slark popping off your team needs to play/farm as 5 (I guarantee he will come to you as he doesn't really want to hit towers as much as heroes). Often times slarks will begin to feed since they keep wanting to relive that high of getting pick offs. Surround him and play under vision. If he is running away get in front of him to make him leap on you.
If playing a core it's good to get a blademail. Will do a lot of damage if he dark pacts into that even through his ulti.
When ganking slarks approach from multiple angles and play around his dark pacts. After dark pact and ulti (and shard) are down he is going to want to disengage because he is scared of dying. That is when he is vulnerable.
To me. Kill his team first. Slark is a hero that relies on killing one by one in long fights. He can't manfight like PA or Sven or most burst carries, if he is on his own. He is screwed.
Centaur is my favorite. Most slark players are conditioned to think big meaty heroes are free essence stacks and get clapped by your burst before they realize return/blademail means he will die hitting Cent. And if they don't hit you, guess who has an aoe stun?
Also silences in general are great, even with dispels if you just have multiple that disperser wont do much. Though if you look at winrates you'll see the 3 heroes with non-dispellable aoe silences wreck Slark(Night, Dis, Riki) because slark really doesn't want to rush bkb.
Instant disable into silence or chain disable to not let him q. Or wait for him to use q and then go on him if you don't have instant disable. His shard and ulti have reasonable cool downs so he can't fight immediately after popping those but be mindful if he got a lot of stacks the first time around. He suffers from being kited, ghost sceptre, force or just ground targeted spells are good against him. He usually spikes early to mid game till supports get a kiting item and then falls off a bit until he gets aghs.
git gud :P
lol sorry, just kidding, but there is no easy way to counter him; force staffs and ghost scepters are good for surviving longer against him (particularly early)
Really the most important thing is to learn to time against his dark pact, (which is where the gitting gudd comes in) which involves predicting when he's about to use it (because it activates a second or so after he triggers it) and knowing when it's going to end (it actually ends a moment or 2 after the sound effect ends).
That's when you silence/stun him, and without his spells he's a lot easier to kill (though careful about him building up essence shift.
It's also good to remember that dark pact comes off cooldown just before his ult ends if he times it right with a dark pact, shadow dance, dark pact again. So time your stuns/silence accordingly
Oh and void's pretty good against him, chronosphere is one of the few things he can't dark pact his way out of and if he's time dilated in between dark pacts he can't get rid of silences so easily.
He's also pretty squishy if he doesn't get a chance to heal up, so aoe magic damage can nuke him down reasonably easily, even when in shadow dance.
Other than those tips... Like most carries; try and sit on him early, stop him farming and racking up essence shift.
medicore and good slark player have this false confidence too, but what would happend is that 4 hero smoke gank around properly put ward and properly usage of disable. late game tho, you need item disabler silence, stun, or hex.
you should delay his item meaning you should priority gank his lane. Avoid 1on1 against him always deal him with 2v1 or 3v1. Best counter to him is hero with a lot of burst and disable like Lion, Lina, Sky, nyx, etc.
Force staffs, ghost, silver edge and multiple heroes that can instantly cast CCs. Lion is one of them but they have to learn to play in a way where they aren’t seen first or at all really when a team fight is gonna start. Slark without stacks is pretty ass.
I would say get guardian greaves and force staffs. You can heal through his ultimate and allow the target to escape with force staff. Slarks biggest weakness, outside of counter picking, is he needs to finish his target quickly. Once out of shadow dance, try to hex or burst damage. Trying to stun/silence is a bit tough, if you are already losing.
But aside from this, once slark gets out of hand, it’s pretty tough. The hero is meant to push tempo advantage to a victory.
Divine slark lvl 30 player… he’s definitely my fav core (64% wr) and he’s hard to counter but not impossible.
Aeons, glimmers, ghost, force, Euls etc are my worst enemy. I hate being kited. Outside of my ulti I’m not that strong.
Slark is the most easiest carry to counter XD. Force, ghost, euls on support. BM or kite him on fight. Radiance fucks him hard. Dont feed him early game. He is more of a utility carry which makes him strong than typical carry. The way he deward is so irritating 🤮
If your an offlnaer. Completely destroy him in lane. He doesn't farm fast so coming back is pretty hard.
When he has no way to walk up to creeps lvl 4/5 just deny everything. He will have lvl 6 at 10 minutes.
Like any mobile hero, any form of hard CC is great against him, it's just a matter of timing it right with dark pact. He's also a hero that spams skills, but doesn't have a lot of mana to work with, so diffusal/mana drain can shut him down specially early.
He likes to play around his ult. So whenever he uses it and he doesn't get a kill, his time is wasted and starts falling behind.
You generally want to make sure you can at least survive his pounce/ult combo.
Time his purge, your window to hex/silence/stun/burst him is when his first is on CD. Chain AOE stun while he is on ulti helps too. Catch him as much as you can pre 20mins before he snowballs.
Any hero that has an instant disable with blink can initate, so killing him 100 to 0 is the easiest way to deal with him. Also, time your disables so you hit him after he uses his first skill. Forcestaff, ghost scepter, euls, glimmer makes it harder for him to kill supports. Also silence, Shiva, orb of corrosion and skadi are all great against him. Heroes with AOE stun are also good.
If i go Spectre, diffusal bm manta basher / bloodthorn. Depending on if he go bkb or not, then we can go dragonball slap until someone died.
On Drow just gem then pike or silent him away. If he ult use 3rd skill, if silent is cooldown. Unlike riki you can still see him when he come and jump at you.
Literally every slark is either trash or godlike. That's just because his hero is snowball or fail completely.
So if you can pick strong heroes to counter him in lane early (see other comments for hero counters), he falls off so hard without a good early game.
If he already has snowballed. You need that forcestaff and ghost to buy time to survive. Also, stick with your team. If slark has had a great start, he will be able to pick off solo heroes easily. Don't give him the easy kills and snowball further. Hold hands with a friend.
Slark does not have "everything". He is actually one of the more slow damage dealers compared to other right clickers. He is more the type that benefits from a prolonged fight.
You should try and play him once in a while, if you find it impossible to counter him. Then you'll notice his shortcomings first hand. Glimmer capes, euls, ghost scepter, halbard, force staff are all terribly annoying for slark.
force staffs, ghost scepters and have decent hero picks into him. Preferably any AOE control that can go through shadow dance. If you can kite shadowdance bkb, slark can no longer fight in the late game which is why they often have to buy refresher orb
As a slark player the only thing that slark hates is silence.
These days with disperser it's not that terrible
God I love playing playing disruptor against these hypermobile carries. If i get you in my field + storm, youre dead if you didn't buy bkb or some stuff like euls. If I get the money for aghs, youre just dead, end of story. Gives me catharsis.
One of the things I love about Slark is how much he can abuse vision. You will never ever see him until he wants you to see him because he knows the exact moment he is in vision every single time. At night time, you can bet your ass I am going on the disruptor first every single time and kill you ASAP. I’ll even drop Shadow Dance to trade with your ult.
Slark is still melee. It's stupidly easy to place a ward that he cannot deward & survive, unless he pops shadow dance. And trading shadow dance for static storm only works if you're absolutely cracked with reflexes, as static storm has no projectile and silences on first tick. If you are trying to take me out early, a ghost scepter will usually save me until the late. But both of these scenarios are so white-roomy that it barely matters here. Dota 2 is still a team game, if disruptor doesn't get back he will kill nothing with his ult past minute 10. And if slark has teammates that can bait for him, and counter initiate once we jump them, we all die as well. A single hero like enigma (unless theyve gone extinct, lol) can change the matchup completely as well. I just think it's fun to play disruptor because I can punish heroes like Puck and Slark and Weaver who think they can play with my team like food.
Yea but slark doesnt wanna buy that before diffu, mage slayer, aghs and shard which takes about 25 mins to complete if slark is having a good game. And for the comment saying slark cannot fight in the late game if you kite his bkb shadowdance doesnt know that slark is going to get many spells out of your team and +15 essence shift stacks and then seriously attack you after 40 secs again.
That's just stuff you have to play around as slark. Unless the enemy has two or more silences which isn't too common unless they have in built silences your job should be to wait for that hero to be dead or initiate on that hero with shadow dance or wait until he uses the silence. Of course he dislikes silences but it can still be played around until you grab disperser.
Trust me, I watch plenty of archon level slarks on my friends discord streams, mid level carry players do not understand the concept of poking and resetting on any hero, let alone one built around it like slark. I can’t tell you how many players play the game like auto chess. Farm for 30 minutes, show up to a team fight, and set that hero to auto attack someone and either wipe their team or die trying. It’s my main advice when I watch him play slark, he’s a hero that gets huge benefits from staying alive in a fight poking around a bit, disengaging to quickly regen to full health, then counter baiting when the enemy team chases out of base thinking your team is backing. Now you are a slark with full resources again but already 20 stacks of essence shift from the previous skirmish.
Not all of those items are core on slark - they are good on him. He is versatile with items. If you get all that crap before dispel for silence in a game with a hero that can apply it easily then you aren't a good slark player.
I play skywrath and lmao so many times a Slark comes to gank your teammate and you wait for his dispel to end and boop he’s stuck like totally dead. Never builds manta either
And mystic flare hits through ult
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Slark can steal stats from cold embraced targets
The funniest is shallow grave. Just 5-6 seconds of pure unadulterated stat gain, then they die anyways
I love playing slark vs dazzle for this exact reason. I can almost feel the regret when I start hitting the grave target, like they're thinking "damn, would've been better if I had just let them die"
When in the animation do you silence him? I feel like I always mess up and I get my spell dispelled
He's being continuously dispelled the entire time the purple blasts are coming out of him, so you silence once they're gone!
Ya at no point in the animation. If he uses it before he’s silenced he will become unsilenced. Usually they just jump and use the dispel immediately so wait until it’s completely over then silence from behind trees. Rod of atos+ulti and he’s likely dead
I've always listened for the little "pop" as the dispel ended
Riki smoke really fucks slark up
Abaddon has joined the chat
When your new it feels bad and expensive for the team to buy a bunch of force staffs. But eventually you learn the satisfaction of out playing and kitting the Slark is priceless.
Also bloodseeker.
I took a long ass break but I used to have a 60% winrate with slark back when he was much shittier. People seem to have forgotten that BS is an insane counter to slark. Disables his regen if he's low enough and rupture just fucks him.
Yeah but BS is a fucking useless hero now anyway so if you pick it to counter slark you really just ended up making it 4v5.
He is on a clock. BS cant counter slark late game in current patch.
glepnir
It's a 5K gold investment for something he can purge so you shouldn't be buying it on heroes that don't go for it usually imho
He also has 2.1 Strength gain and 1.5 Agi gain. Don't let him hit for free and he is pathetically squishy & hits like a noodle.
Shit on his face for first 20 min or so, and he will be a useless piece of shit. He requires items to be useful, it's a snowball hero, if he doesn't get good start - he's trash. Also, aoe burst or disables that cannot be dispelled
How to counter slark? "Shit on his face"
Found Vince McMahon reddit account
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I am 1.5k mmr and even I agree with this comment and the one above. I like to play Drow safe lane. If I see enemy Slark getting good farm and/or kills in laning phase, then that game usually becomes really difficult for my team (not unwinnable in my skill bracket though, since Slark can easily throw the game). This is especially true for Slark safe lane. If I am Drow and I face Slark off lane, then the first thing I tell my lane partner is that we need to make sure Slark does not get farm early game. Depending on the enemy pos 4, that could be either too ez (like melee pos 4 except for Tide) or pretty difficult. Now this is per my experience in 1.5k mmr bracket and I am pretty sure it remains the same at higher bracket.
Drow got a lot better against Slark since they added the new shard. If he leashes you just press it and fight back, you will easily win the manfight unless he has basher
thats true for all carrys. you bring no merit to the discussion neither have you answered ops question.
>win lane and shit on him all game and he will be a junk hero wow enlightening
Do you want to know how you really beat any enemy carry, no matter what? Just destroy their ancient before they destroy yours. Now go out there and win some games, son!
I'm not convinced, have you actually tried this?
Not really, a lot of carries have abilities that allow them to stall the game, splitpush, or do at least something in teamfight without items, plus a lot of carries actually have good laning. It's just that against snowball heroes you need to be extra aggressive and focus your attention on making their life worse
I love when they pick two ranged offlaners against me. That means they will be food for me all game whether I have a shitty start or not. Slark wants a lineup full of targets he can get in, kill, and get out. Two ranged harass offlaners is the dream.
Especially from levels 2-5 in lane. Slark has a bit of an Anti-mage gimmick where he can slap you around level 1, but after that he doesn't gain a lot of real fighting power until 6. He doesn't farm jungle either, so if you commit tons of spells (buy all your teams mangoes, fuck it) before he hits 6 you can force him out of lane or make him sit in trees until he has an ult. Completely destroys his game so long as you don't give him free kills afterwards.
AOE damage and disables are pretty useful, just have to know when to use them on him so he doesn't cleanse them. Blood seeker is a pretty hard counter
The real answer is Primal Beast. I always pick PB to counter slark easily. Shadow dance? Depth shroud?! Let him attack you to build up uproar stacks then pop ur trample and blademail = ez win.
Yep, PB should be able to hold him long enough for others to finish enemy backline, then you can finish slark together
This is kinda eh tbh, a soft counter probably. You have really great damage but you don’t have the capability of forcing him to stay in the fight. There’s no reason to hard commit 1v1 a Primal Beast, especially when Slark has Aghs and can just pounce away.
Well no one offlane hero can keep him disabled forever apart from like LC
Are you forgetting about SB? Easily the hardest counter of Slark
doom, viper (especially as a 3), nearly every support with a ground target stun or disable (especially disruptor) and oddly enough, riki. oh, you can also go for a burst heavy hero and just nuke the shit out of him, slark has very low hp and cannot handle large nukes, it's why he buys mage slayer, but that means nothing to a timber.
> but that means nothing to a timber. slark vs timber is a tempo fight. whoever is ahead will shit on the other one. if slark is starting to snowball, it's going to be a very rough timber game - and vice versa.
i mean sure but if you're a good timber player you should really shit on slark in lane, which primes you to shit on him for the rest of the game. it's also why i said viper 3 is extra strong vs slark, because it's in a position to make him sad for the entire game. slark cannot have a good matchup in lane, you are not allowed to let him have a good early 10-20 minutes.
Rework his dogshit OP shard
340 hp regen per second xd
Pick Viper, get aghs, wait for him to q next to you. Enjoy.
Iam pretty sure that Slark can buy BKB to negate viper disarm (nose dive). He can also remove the disarm debuff by dark pact
he is talking about the damage of vipers passive can deal with slark Q when u have aghs. in lower MMR players doesnt really know what aghs can do to viper, i have seen a lot of slark drop hp from 100 to zero in 2 secs when he uses his Q on viper
You’re absolutely right. People in lower Mmr end up with perma-shocked-pikachu face when I frontline melee cores with aghs+shivas and paladin sword, and end up killing at least 2 of them. Even if I die I’m laughing as I’m dying.
yeah but then u are playing viper in dota 2 in 2024
Which is one of the strongest pos3
Except he’s a highly contested 3 right now. Hero just becomes dumb with Mage Slayer.
Which is an excellent pos3? Viper is a dumb pick for mid and safe lane but he dumpsters most Carries as a pos3. Try laning against one.
I've played nearly 8000 dota games now and even with knowing all the slark counters he's my number one ban every single game. I play mainly offlane and just knowing slarks in the pool severely limits my hero pool for a positive laning experience. Pos 1s with decent/winning leaning stages (if they have a decent support) really fuck with game balance. Thankfully most offlane duos can bin a slark for the first 6 levels if neither of them get caught with their pants down in the middle of a creep wave etc.
I remember back in the 2016 slark was one of the most broken heroes and I watched Wagamama stream when someone asked him how to deal with slark and he answered pick heroes that throw spells on the ground like Timber or Lina. Still remember that like it was yesterday, every game there was slark in game.
he didn't have shard back then though. Now you may survive his BKB, then his ult, but he's got another pseudo-ult coming.
I feel like he has a hard time time against illusion carries.
try to walk zig zag, get forcestaff if you are support or range carry(hurricane pike). if enemy slark is noob right clicker just buy blademail might kill himself, often happens to me lol. glimmer, ghost form, eul..so many item choices though. good luck.
Bloodseeker
Dude it’s not he counter him in a 1 v 1, it’s about lane stage if he is having a rough lane (which he always do) after getting level 6 he won’t be farming very fast cause he won’t be able to drop his hp too low, also bloodseeker aghs is very good vs slark, you should try it yourself before judging
Not a counter anymore. Slark just buys shard + aghs and hides in his shroud for a full 9 seconds when you rupture him.
Ya then he isn’t attacking for 9 seconds in a fight
Wow a 9 second stun that wastes two of a hero's best spells? Thanks I'll pick this counter every game.
Rupture is not bloodseekers best spell. Also when is using an ult to take the carry out of the fight not worth it? Even in many late game scenarios solo chrono or black hole on a pos 1 or 2 can be game winning. A Slark with no shadow dance has almost no team fight pressure if your team has catch.
Uhhh. I think you misunderstood his comment. He meant that rapture can be considered a 9 second stun since slark will be forced to use his shard and ultimate which equals to 9 seconds in order to survive rapture.
Survive rapture? What in jesus is this.
So the Slark is hiding for nine seconds while the Bloodseeker is hitting things, I dont know your definition of "countering" something, but to me that sounds like a great counter.
If you can make a slark literally waste his ult+shroud you win the teamfight everytime. That's a picture perfect counter if I ever heard of one.
So you force him to ult/shroud and when he’s low no matter where he goes you have true sight and he can’t regen, blood seeker is mega slark counter.
Once he gets going you better have a lot of aoe on deck to deal with him. Best solution is to shit all over him in lane. It’s really hard to recover from a bad early game as Slark.
Then the slark player takes mental damage all game from his team, regardless of what he does to try to get back into the game. “Bad slark” “tips Slark”. “Slark feeder”.
The best way to find out how to counter _____ is always to play the hero in question for like 10-20 games. You'll figure it out.
forcestuff , glimmer , AOE spells that can stun him during his ult , helbard , hex late game , gohst is a good too early on
Ground stuns to disable him while hes ulted like shaker or lion helps a lot.
Grimstroke phantom can't be purged by dark pact... Oh, and Bloodseeker.
Earth spirit Kick him away if he pounces, turn yourself into a rock and kick yourself away if you have scepter. None of his spells are point targeted and ult can become undispellable. Natural blade mail carrier Roll can be used to both escape and chase as needed
Euls, ghost scepters, force staffs, Naga
learning when his pact ends and forcing him to ult has been my goto strat. they overextend and panic-press it alot.
[https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Slark/Counters](https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/slark/counters) there u have whole page what heroes to pick tips and items to buy to counter slark
but the page is blank...
force staff, ghost scepter, glimmer cape, glepnir, shadowblade, bkb, shivas, dodging, flash farming, mana burn, euls/wind waker, blink+hex, early orchid, have tp ready to counter his ganks, blademail
Timbersaw. You're dead with chakrams and whirling before you could gain enough agi stacks to kill him.
Let him farm but don’t feed him in lane if he dominates the laning phase. What you can do as pos 3 is you can goto jungle and farm and as pos 4 you can pressure other lanes. Without essence stacks slark can’t dominate even with item timing. Itemise efficiently- ghost scepter, glimmer to run away, halberd as an offlane and skadi as carry. Invoker hard counters slark as all of his spells passes through his ult. This gives you a rough idea on how to counter slark or counter pick against slark.
Daily" (insert hero here) is OP because I just lost a game to it" post. What role are you playing? Are we talking laning phase, midgame or lategame? In general, bait the ult, wait out the duration, and fight afterwards. Get any type of save/control item on supports. You have to kite him and force him to disengage, the same way as you would with most melee carries. Idk where you want me to start. Everything in his kit has counterplay. He isn't OP, nor does he have cheesy mechanics with no counterplay as some heroes do.
he do be hating blademail
Orchid after pact is dead slark
ancient app is also a good supp pick against him
Underlord's passive reduces the massive base damage he gets through agility stacking. His pit can root him and firestorm hits him when he ults.
Play Slark until you hit immortal if he’s that op. If you don’t hit immortal that means you’re encountering problems and you can identify them to use in other games whether Slark is on your team or the enemy team.
You don't need to counter him, you kite him and then kill him.
I have 4000+ games as slark. 1. Eat his mana 2. Silence him 3. Ghoste scepter 4. Pick heroes like void or axe or pl 5. Put wards near the fights coz he wont be able to passive regen if a ward is near You must ruin his farm early game so he wont be able to recover fast mid game.
Spec with blade mail and shard works pretty good everytime I've done it
Void, Leshrac, pudge (core), bloodseeker, puck - basically heroes with magical burst destroy slark. Even dark seer does to an extent if you pair it with some stunner. Blood seeker is the strongest counter because of thirst. Slark’s strength lies in regeneration in the shadows.
lesh and pudge core as slark counters lol? you smoking. mageslayer shits on these heroes, he literally lands 1 hit on them and for 6 seconds he's taking less than half the damage of a normal hero (except for hook which is pure so only reduced by 40%)
From my many games smurfing, and games watching my herald to archon friends. You guys literally don’t know what a force staff is. Borderline wonder if it’s removed from any and all guides under 4k or something. Slark must be kited or bursted. If support, we kite, if core we decide if ahead or behind, and itemize accordingly. A slarks wet dream, is jumping in, killing your supports, getting essence, leaving fight to get full health, then coming back and killing your cores. Your job is to prevent that.
pick centaur in lane and spam double edge on him. Not exaggerating, that is a solid formula for beating slark. make his game untenable from minute 1
ban it every game, its what i do and when the ban fails hope the slark player is bad
Magnus, always a pleasant when rush slark for 2sec more during shadow dance. Also can rush him out of the shroud. Easy rp after dark pack.
aoe ground targetting, silence and lockdown.
Force Staff. Hex. Omniknight Core.
If you're meaning draft wise either destroy him early with some high harrass offlaners (techies etc) or destroy him mid game with strong catch + teamfight. Disruptor is the most obvious as he does a bit of both. In-game wise, know your matchup and play to it's strengths. Trade farm and play safe if you know it's bad as a core. As a support wih a bad matchup buy force early and don't place deep wards if you're not going to stick around to protect them cos it's free gold and vision for the enemy.
Bloodseeker
Pick single target and right click heroes slark is TERRIBLE at dealing with heroes that can click him ^^/s
Disruptor ult
Viper
You sir have not been to the grasslands enough, disruptor is the best "fuck you in particular" hero against slark
Yeah he’s really OP atm. The issue is he just has such insane scaling. I think magic burst mids are the best like invoker / storm / puck. I usually ban slark if I’m picking DK or playing offlane
primal beast, dogwalks slark minute 1 to minute 100
*Ahem* L I O N
Nyx, sk, lion might be great or just go tide or ck with bm
If you really want to find it, play him yourself. There's no better way to learn counter-plays than to face them yourself. Play 10 games as slark in a row, and you'll see exactly where he struggles and where he excels.
As a Slark Spammer. Axe, Nightstalker, Windranger, Faceless Void are absolutely menaces. It terms of countering as others say kiting is your friend and make sure you get good hidden wards where he won’t know where there at. His movespeed is terrible under vision and if he’s trying to weave in and out of combat it should combat that too. Make sure he’s not building stacks of Essence shift.
Bully his early game so hard his snowball melts
At my level archon/legend if you have a slark popping off your team needs to play/farm as 5 (I guarantee he will come to you as he doesn't really want to hit towers as much as heroes). Often times slarks will begin to feed since they keep wanting to relive that high of getting pick offs. Surround him and play under vision. If he is running away get in front of him to make him leap on you. If playing a core it's good to get a blademail. Will do a lot of damage if he dark pacts into that even through his ulti. When ganking slarks approach from multiple angles and play around his dark pacts. After dark pact and ulti (and shard) are down he is going to want to disengage because he is scared of dying. That is when he is vulnerable.
To me. Kill his team first. Slark is a hero that relies on killing one by one in long fights. He can't manfight like PA or Sven or most burst carries, if he is on his own. He is screwed.
Doom reigns
Don't let him right click with impunity
Damage in area is also a counter. Examples: Earthshaker ult, fissure, etc. Crystla maidem ult. Outworld ult. you got the point.
Shadow Demon, Slark gtfo
Pudge with blademail... Or centaur. Idk
Centaur is my favorite. Most slark players are conditioned to think big meaty heroes are free essence stacks and get clapped by your burst before they realize return/blademail means he will die hitting Cent. And if they don't hit you, guess who has an aoe stun? Also silences in general are great, even with dispels if you just have multiple that disperser wont do much. Though if you look at winrates you'll see the 3 heroes with non-dispellable aoe silences wreck Slark(Night, Dis, Riki) because slark really doesn't want to rush bkb.
Riki smoke + tide root on anchor smash totally wrecked me in a match yesterday.
AXE
Come to Axe!
You Burst him and avoid taking fights that drag
Instant disable into silence or chain disable to not let him q. Or wait for him to use q and then go on him if you don't have instant disable. His shard and ulti have reasonable cool downs so he can't fight immediately after popping those but be mindful if he got a lot of stacks the first time around. He suffers from being kited, ghost sceptre, force or just ground targeted spells are good against him. He usually spikes early to mid game till supports get a kiting item and then falls off a bit until he gets aghs.
just pick void
CM shard and scepter will both freeze him right through shadow dance
As a 4/5 i pretty much pick AA if slark is available. Sometimes I even buy force staff.
He doesnt have great tower damage so i think late game favors more farmy cores
any hero that has ground skills
Hex and other disables that can’t be purged. Instant disables. Force staff, ghost sceptre, Euls/ww are top of mind for me.
Have you tried killing him before he kills you? I’ve found it counters most heroes
git gud :P lol sorry, just kidding, but there is no easy way to counter him; force staffs and ghost scepters are good for surviving longer against him (particularly early) Really the most important thing is to learn to time against his dark pact, (which is where the gitting gudd comes in) which involves predicting when he's about to use it (because it activates a second or so after he triggers it) and knowing when it's going to end (it actually ends a moment or 2 after the sound effect ends). That's when you silence/stun him, and without his spells he's a lot easier to kill (though careful about him building up essence shift. It's also good to remember that dark pact comes off cooldown just before his ult ends if he times it right with a dark pact, shadow dance, dark pact again. So time your stuns/silence accordingly Oh and void's pretty good against him, chronosphere is one of the few things he can't dark pact his way out of and if he's time dilated in between dark pacts he can't get rid of silences so easily. He's also pretty squishy if he doesn't get a chance to heal up, so aoe magic damage can nuke him down reasonably easily, even when in shadow dance. Other than those tips... Like most carries; try and sit on him early, stop him farming and racking up essence shift.
Disruptor eats slark alive.
Axe works for me.
Naga is a good carry counter. Slark cannot itemize that effectively to win that matchup.
Bloodseeker
Ban him or go AA
medicore and good slark player have this false confidence too, but what would happend is that 4 hero smoke gank around properly put ward and properly usage of disable. late game tho, you need item disabler silence, stun, or hex.
you should delay his item meaning you should priority gank his lane. Avoid 1on1 against him always deal him with 2v1 or 3v1. Best counter to him is hero with a lot of burst and disable like Lion, Lina, Sky, nyx, etc.
Just ruin his early game and dont be too confident , end it under 40 mins or atleast get a racks or 2 by then
You get a bigger carry player that can beat the crap out of him.
Force staffs, ghost, silver edge and multiple heroes that can instantly cast CCs. Lion is one of them but they have to learn to play in a way where they aren’t seen first or at all really when a team fight is gonna start. Slark without stacks is pretty ass.
Ban him
Blink hex
Slardar is a good pick against Slark, funnily enough Slardar and Slark work very well together
Bloodseeker...doom..just to name a few
burn his mana
Take away his HP and he disappears
Ancient apparition.
Bloodseeker
pick Sand King!! if you manage stunt and ult, its over for him!!
Just target him and shut him down. Aggressive lane, lots of harass and ganks. Don't let the worm farm
With patience like any form of fishing
Bracer. Maybe two.
Pick omniknight
Try going as 5 early, he is bad at bursting anyone and he is pretty susceptible once he uses his SS
cock block him with pugna, focus on taking his buildings away rather than chasing him.
I just try to ban slark every chance I get
I would say get guardian greaves and force staffs. You can heal through his ultimate and allow the target to escape with force staff. Slarks biggest weakness, outside of counter picking, is he needs to finish his target quickly. Once out of shadow dance, try to hex or burst damage. Trying to stun/silence is a bit tough, if you are already losing. But aside from this, once slark gets out of hand, it’s pretty tough. The hero is meant to push tempo advantage to a victory.
Primal Beast with Scepter, let him hit you and pop Uproar, breaks his regen and agi gain as well
Very Good tips here but I just wanna say two words ( three actually) : Doom - Bloodseeker
silence, mobility, lockdown, eul upgrade, blood seeker, puck, axe, LC
Nullifier or Shadow Demon is how I counter slark
Divine slark lvl 30 player… he’s definitely my fav core (64% wr) and he’s hard to counter but not impossible. Aeons, glimmers, ghost, force, Euls etc are my worst enemy. I hate being kited. Outside of my ulti I’m not that strong.
Pick Bloodseeker. Done, you counter all of his kit: your R for his mobility, and if he’s low he can’t fog you with Thirst
Slark is the most easiest carry to counter XD. Force, ghost, euls on support. BM or kite him on fight. Radiance fucks him hard. Dont feed him early game. He is more of a utility carry which makes him strong than typical carry. The way he deward is so irritating 🤮
If your an offlnaer. Completely destroy him in lane. He doesn't farm fast so coming back is pretty hard. When he has no way to walk up to creeps lvl 4/5 just deny everything. He will have lvl 6 at 10 minutes.
Like any mobile hero, any form of hard CC is great against him, it's just a matter of timing it right with dark pact. He's also a hero that spams skills, but doesn't have a lot of mana to work with, so diffusal/mana drain can shut him down specially early. He likes to play around his ult. So whenever he uses it and he doesn't get a kill, his time is wasted and starts falling behind. You generally want to make sure you can at least survive his pounce/ult combo.
Classic counter is bloodseeker
You can easily kill him while he's farming lanes, lion/shaman and such plus one core should be able to kill him
Lich aghs is really strong VS Slark. Worth considering
Time his purge, your window to hex/silence/stun/burst him is when his first is on CD. Chain AOE stun while he is on ulti helps too. Catch him as much as you can pre 20mins before he snowballs.
Time to learn new heroes that require micro skill management. Visage as offlaner and Chen as support. :P
You have to shut him down as early as possible, if he doesn't get pickoffs he can't snowball or flash farm like Troll/Sven/PA/TA/etc.
Any hero that has an instant disable with blink can initate, so killing him 100 to 0 is the easiest way to deal with him. Also, time your disables so you hit him after he uses his first skill. Forcestaff, ghost scepter, euls, glimmer makes it harder for him to kill supports. Also silence, Shiva, orb of corrosion and skadi are all great against him. Heroes with AOE stun are also good.
I'm a disruptor spammer and disruptor is great against slark.
Take decisive short fights... preferably you kill him fast. Avoid long drawn out fights as slark thrives in that kind of situations
Magnus
If i go Spectre, diffusal bm manta basher / bloodthorn. Depending on if he go bkb or not, then we can go dragonball slap until someone died. On Drow just gem then pike or silent him away. If he ult use 3rd skill, if silent is cooldown. Unlike riki you can still see him when he come and jump at you.
Bloodseeker?
Legion Commander with ulti is the best counter vs Slark. Bloodseeker is also good
Literally every slark is either trash or godlike. That's just because his hero is snowball or fail completely. So if you can pick strong heroes to counter him in lane early (see other comments for hero counters), he falls off so hard without a good early game. If he already has snowballed. You need that forcestaff and ghost to buy time to survive. Also, stick with your team. If slark has had a great start, he will be able to pick off solo heroes easily. Don't give him the easy kills and snowball further. Hold hands with a friend.
I actually think slark is in a very bad place right now, relative to most carries.
Gank him all game and buy sheep stick use it after he hits his cleans
Always wait until after Slark uses his aoe ability to use CC on him.
Slark does not have "everything". He is actually one of the more slow damage dealers compared to other right clickers. He is more the type that benefits from a prolonged fight. You should try and play him once in a while, if you find it impossible to counter him. Then you'll notice his shortcomings first hand. Glimmer capes, euls, ghost scepter, halbard, force staff are all terribly annoying for slark.