2009's DotA Cram School - Nevermore / Shadow Fiend [FPVOD English Subbed]

Hello beloved viewers. Thanks and welcome to this week's new DotA Cram School.
I've been on a bit of a vacation recently. Though I'm not a student anymore, I still get excited when summer hits.
Hopefully after some rest, I'll be able to bring everyone even better VODs.
Today's featured hero I personally believe to be the sexiest hero in the DotA roster.
From his hero role to his abilities to his appearance to the feel of controlling him, he is a very appealing hero.
All that aside though, the hero's been in contention as of late. It's true that he's no longer well suited to the current map version.
BKB's fixed 10s duration changing to 10-9-8-7-6-5...
The development of a host of "imba" carries...
and the introduction of a range of new competitive playstyles.
SF has indeed not adapted well.
We often see this scenario in pubs where somebody randoms or picks SF, and he's immediately marked for death by the enemy team.
The SF will quickly fall into the cycle of death...
He'll TP out to a lane, get ganked, revive, TP out again, farm 2 waves, then get ganked again, etc...
BKB up by 30m, he'll discover at that point that his magical damage and physical damage output is insufficient to kill anyone.
This sort of SF easily leads to lost matches.
I usually run through the basics of the hero at this point, but SF is a hero that I'm sure most people are familiar with, and I've already made a previous FPVOD with a Lothar's-style SF, so I'll skip it this time and jump straight into 2 matches.
This first match is a stack with xiaoluo.
There's an interesting situation here. I thought that the randomed phoenix would team up with the batrider to lvl1 FB me.
Sun ray at lvl1 is a pretty strong ganking ability, and combined with sticky napalm could've easily picked me off. Luckily he's repicked.
This is a 2-man stack with xiaoluo. I randomed SF and was certain a teammate would spot chicken so I set off with a 853g build off the bat.
These teammates are players who've tagged along with us for a few matches now.
Why did I go wraith band? It's primarily to stack a bit of a damage advantage, so that I can last hit more confidently.
There are other builds though. Personally, I don't advocate bottle or boots first with an 853g SF.
I don't like magic stick either. I think that stats should be a priority, because last-hitting is so crucial to SF at this early stage.
Stability is the name of the game for early levels SF.
I've eaten a tango, wanting to trade some hits with him.
He decides not to trade with me.
At lvl3, SF vs bat, you should really try to harass him a bit.
This is because bat at this point is likely to face rush and try to kill you.
When he goes on you, you must land those razes.
Raze -> autoattack -> raze -> autoattack... made him burn his health pot.
It's important to try and keep his HP bar from being full.
Missed that raze.
If bat goes on you with full HP, it's a mortal threat.
Speaking of SF, my feelings about this hero are tinged with some regrets.
This may seem a bit strange, as I've plastered SF all over my youku homepage background, but I'm pretty regretful about this hero.
The reason... goes back to when I first started playing professionally with EHome.
At that time, there were only 2 major clubs in China.
Ah... bit embarrassing. I thought my boots were on the way, but I must've mistapped 's'.
Least I got the haste.
My last-hitting hasn't been that great.
I'm continuously checking his status. This is a bit of a vulnerable period for me.
I've bought boots and magic stick. I don't really want to push out far from my tower, but at the same time I want to harass him down.
Because he's already run out of consumables, so I want to kick him out.
Ahh... smoke gank.
Fire off a raze, invert direction.
3 sources of slow: Tide's gush, sticky napalm, and wildkin tornado.
No way I could've blocked that.
For SF's early game, you have to practice caution. If there's creeps under the tower it should be safe to TP in and collect farm.
Managed to get that wagon's XP.
Back to EHome... in my previous team AVNC, I played the solo mid position, captained, and was responsible for b/p.
To be honest though, my understanding of dota was extremely rudimentary back then.
I thought that if I mastered solo mid sufficiently, I could build an advantage for my team.
Playing a carry, I could easily cultivate item superiority later on in the game.
At the time, I only played 2 heroes; SF and viper.
Once I joined EHome... one point was that my SF was considered enough of a threat that it would frequently get banned.
Another point was that once we started attending foreign tournaments, I didn't get the chance to use SF at all.
We would run DC on dazzle babysitting LongDD's spectre or DK, playing safer.
So during that time I wasn't able to... ahh, why another smoke?
It's alright, I b'ed quickly, and have boots and 7 charges on the magic stick.
They decide to break it off.
2 consecutive smokes in the laning phase is very dangerous for SF.
A bit scared, so I'm pushing the lane out. Interested in seeing the 6m rune.
It should be at bot. There's no way that bat can contest.
My luck isn't bad. Got regen.
Early game you shouldn't try to play too aggressively or risky as SF, unless there's a large skill gap with your opponents.
Play stable. Focus on your denying and control the creep equilibrium, assemble your core items.
If things aren't going well, you can give up on the bottle and just go pt, bracer, items like that.
Buff your survivability and increase the chances of pulling off reverse kills.
If a teammate with a stun/hold comes to help out, it's very easy to score kills with SF's burst magic and physical damage output.
So... for 2008, I wasn't able to create any memorable play with SF.
There was little opportunity to use the hero.
In 2009, I formed my own team. Our strategy was focused around the tri-carry concept.
Basically for any match that involved SF, I would handpick him.
But for that version, the key was ZSMJ's play as hard carry.
The main purpose for SF was to push out lanes quickly creating a lot of pressure on lanes and towers.
and getting that BKB up, so as to help the team survive midgame engagements into the lategame. That was basically his designated role.
Our team's use of SF wasn't really able to show off his special strengths.
Notice that I haven't gone bottle, opting for faster treads.
There's a couple of reasons for this... ehh... slowed by enchantress.
Shift-queued off the haste rune, trying to juke the centaur.
Oh... bat's here too. He's got lasso.
Gotta be careful of that. Turn around, fire off 2 razes with frostbite, and he's dead.
Z raze her. We can see that enchantress's str growth is really low.
I've got my pt too, so my attack speed isn't too bad.
raze, auto, dead.
So haste netted me 3 kills. Ahh I missed the raze but there should be a chance here.
Haste has worn off, but I can still chase a bit. Auto once, raze.
Ok... reviewing this, because hero control is pretty important for SF.
I shift-moved not wanting to stop even for a moment due to centaur stomp.
My first instinct wasn't to raze the enchantress down, because I wanted to get the full picture before I committed.
CM helps me hold down bat, I adjust my aim a little and immediately double-raze.
With the aid of pt AS, I chase down enchant.
Panda timely arrival means that tide is an easy catch too.
Looking back on this skirmish, really decent teamwork.
I salve up and turn around wanting to kill morph.
My long raze doesn't land, and haste has already dispelled.
My second raze connects.
Eat stick charge, switch to INT treads, and auto-raze finish him.
Pretty key to this engagement was that I was able to complete my treads early.
So everyone, when your early game with SF isn't that smooth, try to stack up your stats with stuff like treads and magic wand.
These will all bump up your chance of reversing kills.
Secondly, when you pick up a rune like haste, you have to scope out the situation and know where high threat heroes are positioned.
If I had been lassoed by bat, that would have been game over for me.
It seems like I lucked out. Bat had probably just finished a round of jungling, so his firefly was on cooldown.
Causing him to get caught by CM's frostbite and razed to death.
Neither enchant or tide had any hard disables either (tide was 5), so it was a lucky situation that netted me 4 kills.
I guess this is a point of attraction for many people; SF's burst damage, both physical and magical grows very quickly.
So the question is how best to apply all that damage.
In a situation where there is little CC or mortal threat, you really have to maximize your DPS output and pick off heroes asap.
Here, I saw that WL has picked up an invis rune. So I bait myself out a bit.
It was already very clear that tide and bat were thinking of going on me.
I carefully avoided using razes to collect CS.
If I had burned a raze on creeps, I would've missed out on this fantastic double kill opportunity.
There's really some times when using SF that you need to have some foresight or imagination.
Due to the design of the skill and the need to predict movement, you have to raze boldly and with imagination to maximize impact.
Thanks to the earlier chain kill and these assists, my early development is smoothly guaranteed.
This weaver... was probably vs xiaoluo's invoker at bot lane. He was suppressed badly.
Invoker had help, so it was technically a 2v1.
A weaver in the hard lane against invoker in the easy lane is a tough matchup.
With the added help of a support, weaver would be pummeled pretty badly.
Morphling has treads and aquila, tide over here has hit 6.
For skill build... enchant slowing me.
I concede the lane.
Through judicious use of raze to collect creeps and heroes and towers, farming up that quick BKB is critical.
If you can farm up treads and BKB before the 20m mark, teammates don't have any cause to criticize.
It will create an undeniable advantage in midgame teamfights.
Treads-BKB SF at the 20m mark has respectable damage output.
I'm conservatively farming here at mid lane. There are teammates at top and bot, so I can only farm here cautiously.
If it's really untenable, I'll move to jungle. All in the interest of getting that BKB asap.
Once I've farmed BKB, the match should play out very predictably.
Tide and enchant haven't smoked up again to come mess with me.
After farming a bit of jungle, returned to mid to farm these creeps.
I'm ready to TP in to help.
Switch to AGI treads. I decide against defending, because tide's ult is up, and it's too risky to tangle before my BKB is complete.
This item build I'm sure everyone has seen before. IMO, it's really the safest way to build him this version.
It's the 3 items that really let SF's fighting potential come out...
1) BKB, 2) butterfly...
3) well the third item you have to check the situation
If you really want to maximize your DPS output asap, you can add MoM after the butterfly.
If you want to show off flashy plays, you can add blink dagger.
Ahh... xiaoluo's invoker is dragged away by a hasted bat.
He's gone with orchid first this match, and dies quickly.
Tide immediately ults after TPing in.
I ult... it's lvl1 but I'm close proximity. Use up my wand charges and kill bat.
Everyone can see... if I had BKB up for that fight, we definitely would have come out ahead.
But without the BKB, SF gets face rushed, and the outcome is inevitable.
Ravage, a nuke or two, some dps by enchant and bat... it's must-die scenario for SF.
It's too bad I didn't level up... ahh... xiaoluo tornado-EMP, deafening blast. He's chaining his spells well.
ehh... I guess it's not too bad. I managed to take down bat.
I guess this is a simple way to play SF. Treads and wand. Do your best to take down as many people as you can when they kill you.
Other things to consider would be to analyze the enemy's position.
If the enemy team is overextending, try to join the fight in a safe manner.
If you don't think it's safe to attend, then hurry up and push out the lane.
Take advantage of as much of the map's resources as possible, to rush out that BKB.
Things become much easier after BKB.
Then after butterfly, I like either dagger for more agile play, or MoM for the obscene DPS.
Or you can go the cookiecutter HotD, to transition into a late game satanic-based DPS build.
They can all work well.
Alright... I've achieved my objective for this match, which was to complete BKB before the 20m mark.
Because I didn't go bottle, I also shipped out a clarity and salve to top myself off, because I'm interested in committing to a full fight.
Xiaoluo is pretty fat too, completed orchid and phase boots.
Our team has a lot of confidence in us, so they let him fully use bot lane's resources and protected us well.
Both relatively fat. Thanks to those earlier kills I was able to get out a faster BKB.
Enchant is caught out of position. Raze her twice and panda finishes with blink-clap.
Ahh... tide does a point-blank ult, not realizing I've already got my BKB. Immediately kill him with my ult.
Throw a couple of razes killing off morphling.
This is a pretty simple way of playing things out after BKB.
Let the enemy team initiate onto you, committing themselves fully, then BKB-ult, follow with auto-raze-auto-raze-auto-raze, to burst everyone down.
If the enemy team can't answer this move head-on, then the match turns firmly in your favour.
SF after winning a 5v5 engagement, particularly with a TP, is very efficient at clearing waves, killing roshan, or downing towers, whichever you decide to do.
SF is just a hero like this. I haven't switched to agi treads, and I'm already outputting close to 200 per autoattack.
Not really interested in diving right now.
xiaoluo buys back.
Our panda and invoker both died.
This panda, GC178, is really pretty decent. Both games, he's picked panda, soloed hard lane, and went mana boots -> blink dagger.
It's pretty conducive to winning, because panda is really quite strong this version.
xiaoluo scores another kill with his orchid + EMP.
After that fight, I decided not to go home, instead TPing to bot, noticing that there was a lot of farm there.
I'm also conserving my mana, not using raze to clear the creep waves.
This is so that I can clear both the lane, and then the jungle here at bot.
The revised jungle has greatly buffed jungling efficiency.
What with the change that corpses no longer block spawns.
For a hero like SF... if you enter a cycle of winning teamfights then clearing the jungle, you can quickly farm up that butterfly and dominate the match.
I've observed PIS's SF recently, and he does this skill build where he puts a single point into aura then switches to stats.
This style can be pretty useful.
If there aren't really any heroes on the enemy team with low base armour, and you feel like you need the stats to buff hp for survival and mp for farming efficiency...
then 1 point into aura then stats can be decent.
Man... he's got another haste?
Top tower is about to go down...
I guess the bat wanted to deny this tower... too bad.
Let's take a look at where the enemy team is... the top river ward showed some movement I think.
Once SF gets BKB, you can pretty confidently farm pushed lanes.
When people try to gank you, unless it's a blink batrider or something, you can pretty nonchalantly avatar and TP out.
This means you can push deeper into enemy territory and make use of their resources including the jungle.
I'm a big fan of this, because a team's resources are limited. If you can venture into more dangerous areas to farm, there's more net gain for your team as a whole.
Xiaoluo isn't doing so well. He's been playing kinda riskily this match.
We've already played quite a few matches this session.
He's been pretty good tempered so far...
We see these guys after killing xiaoluo, are moving top to ambush us.
Even though the creeps are pushed, let's play a bit safer.
If I can save my 9-second BKB charge, might as well save it, and use it when the situation really calls for it.
So we're lvl14 now, with an eaglehorn at 22m.
That's the sitrep for this match...
3 razes, panda's blink clap and drunken haze...
Because panda went mana boots, he's got plenty of mana, and haze is probably leveled up by now.
Last hit this tower.
Speed up my acquisition of butterfly.
It seems that xiaoluo has been targeted by the enemy blink bat.
whoah... he just straight up ults.
Tide's right here. His ult is up. Morph has popped his BKB.
We can see SF's firepower is pretty considerable right now. Together with infernal's flaming fist, almost killed enchant.
Ahh... I didn't check whether tide was a replicate or not, and just BKB-ulted. Althought it's just lvl2, the impact is pretty apparent.
Their formation is shattered. Weaver escapes, enchant runs away, but her vector isn't so great.
Tide ults, but with BKB my hp is well above 1000, and all of their supports have already been scattered, so it has little effect.
Their damage output is nil. Quickly get rid of the bug. Tide is still feeling rebellious.
But morph is afraid to follow up.
As well, I've got a 15-charge wand, so it's easy to reverse kill.
Finally hit 16 now, lvl3 ult.
Butterfly is as good as complete too.
Basically, it's a done deal.
Side-circle, scoping out the battle.
Bat... I tried sniping him with long raze, but missed.
I complete my butterfly using their store.
Picked up a mask of death as well.
Viewers probably want to know whether I intend to build HotD or MoM.
If you want to play more stably, then you should go HotD because you can turn it into satanic.
But actually, MoM is really pretty decent.
Weaver taking a ton of damage from my autoattacks... finish him off with 2 razes.
I BKB-ult, eat wand charges, and try to fight, but I was tagged by weaver's bug for quite a long time.
So my armour was probably reduced a ton.
Well... the match at this point has pretty much lost any educational value.
Why is butterfly such a suitable item for SF? I've thought about this question quite a bit.
Firstly, SF has very sufficient innate +damage and -armour.
The main thing he's lacking in is attack speed, and butterfly is an excellent source of that.
Of course, AC is also good for that, but...
The main reason is that once BKB is up, SF can pretty much ignore magical damage.
During the magic immunity, SF's high DPS output can really shut down most casters.
Therefore, SF fears big physical damage attackers that can face rush him.
For example, a BKB slardar or a BKB PA... heroes like that.
In situations like that, butterfly's 30% evasion is pretty crucial.
That's why this sort of item buildup has become pretty standard.
I encourage everyone to try it out and experiment.
There are some other styles that I can recommend...
One way is to go straight for ghost scepter. PT -> ghost scepter.
I find it to be exceptional in some matchups.
For example, when you're going up against a clinkz or barathrum, who are getting really fed and can solo kill you easily.
It provides okay +all stats, and if you go for a blink after, the headroom for micro and juking is incredible.
+stats is something SF can always make use of, and you can unleash razes and ult when you go ethereal.
Here I kill off morphling with xiaoluo; he didn't get the chance to turn on morph str.
This style of SF is just really conventional and plaid. You're like a mobile tower.
So that build I was talking about, with pt, ghost, blink, then ethereal blade later... is one I really enjoy.
Ok... enemy team taps out, so that's it for this first match.
[dota2 beta key giveaway results]
This match is a solo pub. I solo-queued so making sure to keep my temper in check.
Keeping things low-key, I pick SF, and buy chicken.
Something annoying is that a teammate (via shared control) learned shadowraze for me.
Everyone knows that lvl1 raze is pretty mediocre. Almost every SF will usually take necromastery at lvl1.
I've got to play pretty conservatively now... especially seeing as I've only got 4 branches, tango, salve.
It's imperative that I build up my core items quickly.
Looking at the enemy lineup: slark, tiny, centaur, morphling...
Seeing this lineup, everybody will no doubt quickly come to the conclusion, BKB.
Yup, BKB still for this match.
This enemy lineup is pretty dependent on magical damage, including slark, and including morphling for the early half of the game.
If you see face rush-type then do consider that build I discussed earlier, pt, ghost, blink.
People might ask if I have a 3rd, very violent build...
In my earlier FPVOD, ahh... good thing I did a decent job blocking, otherwise a tragedy would surely occur.
We've got a bracer-first tiny and a centaur sitting on a haste rune at bot.
These 2 heroes are pretty threatening for me early game.
Tiny vs SF... if the SF's control is poor, he can easily lose the lane.
This is because tiny's ability to close the gap on SF feels a bit more immediate and violent than say batrider.
The centaur could grab the haste any time, so I studiously keep an eye on the minimap.
If he disappears, I must immediately retreat under the tower.
Ok... he's finally given up on me. It's a good thing that I controlled creep equilibrium up to this point.
Hmmm... missed a last hit using 's' control, strange. (TL: using stop command spam with your hero's autoattack AI to last hit enemy creep closest to you)
Speaking of that 3rd item build... the 2 builds prior are pretty classical.
For third build... hmmm... I guess it'd have to be boots of travel. There are some matchups where you can still go for BoT.
Starting off with some minor stats buffering, BoT, then add blink/BKB/etc. as the situation demands.
Ahh.. bit embarrassing here. Tried to level up raze, but misclicked.
Quickly turning and firing off a raze feels kinda nice. Oh!
What a fluke... I'm in there mixed with a bunch of creeps and I still get tossed.
There's a chance of killing him with 2 razes.
I turned back a bit late... but I guess he wouldn't have died anyways. He did start with a bracer after all.
My early last hitting... 5/2 at 2min, not ideal.
And I've also burned my salve.
455 gold... ok, I've checked tiny's status, and he's depleted his mana. Teammate is signaling me...
That the rune is at top.
Ok, I've farmed up my bottle.
Ehh.. missed that creep?
For this matchup, I've decided to go with bottle. Facing tiny, I don't think boots are that useful.
I'd rather get the bottle and engage in a bit of attrition. Just checked out top rune spot.
It's invis.
Tiny has more than a 100 mana... he's not exactly helpless.
If there's a chance to burn off some of his HP, do it.
And sometimes, kill opportunities do present themselves.
Especially, in a ranged vs melee scenario. SF isn't too shabby at suppressing melee; he has the potential.
Ok... got the bottle.
I'm just about to go collect that invis rune, but right now is a bad time... seeing as there are a lot of creeps.
This raze, I tagged the hero, but didn't nab the creep.
Early phase, last hitting hasn't been that smooth. Ok... managed to get these creeps.
I've hit the critical lvl5, let's take a look at tiny. He still has only 1 ability's worth of mana on tap.
But we can observe that bot lane's centaur has disappeared from the minimap yet again.
So I decide to back off a bit and go for top rune. Didn't miss that many creeps anyways.
The XP loss isn't too significant.
This way.. I've secured a safer position.
Tiny rushes me...ahh, centaur is here, immediately pop that invis rune. Nice, he didn't get off double edge on me.
Managed to dodge that bullet. WR tps in to help. Fires off a powershot.
Ahh... my 1st raze didn't kill him. 2nd raze finishes the job.
Bottle up, centaur is following me closely. Fire off a raze.
Reverse direction... ahh, got blocked by the creeps a bit.
Still, WR's support hit the spot.
So attention to details is key... I noticed that centaur was missing from bot, probably on the way to mid.
I calculated that the XP loss wouldn't be too severe so I went to grab the invis rune.
The skirmish ended up in my favour. We managed to kill of tiny first, and he's the major threat that I'm most scared of.
Since he died first, he's fallen behind in XP, which means that I can hang around at mid for a longer time.
Ahh... tiny-centaur combo: tiny tosses centaur onto the WR, centaur immediately stomps, double edge, tiny runs up with an avalanche.
A super long range quadruple chain nuke.
It's a pretty sick pub combo.
Whoah... they're trying to do it to me too. Got lucky though.
I think I was overextending a bit, thinking that their combo couldn't kill me.
Because looking at tiny's mana... he couldn't chain both abilities.
Didn't expect tiny to want to throw centaur under the tower so badly.
so 5min boots + bottle, it's not considered slow.
I'm goingto continue to scrape together my core items... oh... they're at it again.
I'm out... this time I concede defeat.
Right now... this is the phase of the game where SF can most easily get destroyed. When the enemy gankers blossom at a certain level.
SF can get chain-killed and throw the game. 6min rune.
Managed to get an illusion rune.
WR drops by again... centaur is nowhere to be seen, so he's probably somewhere at top river.
Tiny probably thought rune was top. 1 raze, 2 raze, WR scores the shackleshot, 3 raze, auto him to death.
So... centaur was at bot. I'm lvl7 now, raze maxed.
I'm going to bait the centaur with a glimmer of hope.
I've already considered my HP and decided that he can't instagib me.
Again, partnering with WR, managed a double kill.
That skirmish... tiny was full hp. He ate 3 razes, powershot, and a shackleshot.
Plus my illusion-boosted autoattack, before he died.
Killing a full hp tiny in the early game, really is no easy task.
But SF's damage potential is there. As long as you can maximize your use of raze with imagination, then you can pull off some really imba moves.
There's a small detail here. After returning to the fountain, I buy 2 tps, but I don't immediately TP out.
This is a safer way of doing things.
I don't like it when there's few waves, and teammates already occupy the lane, and you TP out there.
Over here, I see an opportunity.
Snipe centaur with a C raze. Z, X razes on tiny, WR's powershot.
I've got treads, no sweat. I think tiny was trying to toss me back.
Another double kill.
WR wants to use my bottle. This engagement... just blindly TPing out is a very unwise way of doing things.
Especially when the game is not firmly in your favour and when there aren't that many creeps under the tower to be farmed.
Also, when there's already a teammate there, and you TP in to kick him out or compete for cs, that's pretty impolite.
If I had decided to TP out immediately, then I would've missed out on that double kill opportunity.
Well so far... despite somebody skilling me up wrong, and having to cover chicken cost. The opening has been pretty decent.
I've got 5 kills, pt and 1400 gold.
If an SF can put together pt, wand, and bottle by 8min, then he's pretty much up to my standards.
First night, and you get the rune, you'll probably have a good game. At least you won't lose horribly.
Right now my progress is very smooth.
PT, bottle, wand, plus an ogre axe. Even if I switch to INT treads, I'll still have above 1000 hp.
I'm going to head bot now to challenge this fattening morphling.
A few moments ago, I saw that he had no mana, but now, he's complete perseverance and has mana.
Score both razes, harass his health down somewhat.
This kind of situation, we can say that I've already secured an advantage at mid.
The next problem to deal with is this farming carry at bot.
Their lineup actually isn't too bad. They can play a pretty strong 4+1 around the morph.
With plenty of crowd control.
I pop my DD, and morph waveforms, but he didn't go very far.
WR! Shackleshot! Raze and he's gone. Plenty of burst at this point.
Centaur has immediately TPed in.
He's double-edged me.
But my movespeed is higher than his. Centaur wants to escape. Lina's here!
Just double raze directly... because I knew that's the path he would want to take.
Lina hits me with a dragon slave, probably wants to LSA me. She's taken out by my ult.
I noticed that slark had arrived, so that's why I popped the ult, to try and make him back off a bit.
Tagging him with a near requiem + Z raze is pretty damaging.
lvl10 SF with 1000 hp... there's a lot of micro you can do.
Kunkka helping me out here. It's a good thing I burrowed into woods to TP, otherwise a single tiny toss and I'd be dead.
This was a profitable exchange. First off, we managed to disrupt morph's development.
Hmmm... despite getting killed by us, he's still pretty fat; pt, perse, RoB.
OTOH, I didn't die, and I'm now 1000 gold richer.
I'm nearing fed status myself.
At this rate, this SF can be considered to be pretty fat.
If I can get BKB before 15min... then this SF can fully dictate the flow of the match on his own terms.
Putting in effort, there's a good chance of achieving this.
Seeing that the enemy heroes ahave vacated bot, I switch to INT treads, double raze one-shot the creep wave to and quickly move on to a different farming spot.
This is probably SF's most scary attribute.
He can clear creepwaves in a flash, creating lots of pressure on enemy towers.
Over here, tiny's picked up a haste.
No rune for me. Oh... looks like someone stacked the camp... very nice.
It's close... that 15min BKB is very close.
Slark is here at top. NS gets killed at bot.
I see that both of these guys aren't carrying TPs.
Should I farm neutrals? Going on these 2 at top is out of the question...
As for bot lane... morph is crippled. Ok, I'm headed bot.
Although it seems like the chasing/finishing phase of the fight, SF isn't well-suited for this stuff. He doesn't have exceptional mobility/chasing, nor does he have any disables.
I've come anyways.
Ahh... I run smack dab into a wave of creeps and am spotted immediately. WR decides to go straight in.
I decide to circle around the long way. Get creep blocked a bit. Raze!
Doesn't kill him... adjust my position. Raze! Auto once, and he's gone.
Ahh... it's this situation again.
Centaur wants to stomp me, but he doesn't get me.
Torrent from kunkka. I noticed on the minimap that slark is cutting in from the left.
So these 2 guys still ended up grabbing TPs and joining the fray at bot.
I decided against turning back to raze centaur.
Centaur + slark circling again. Goblin shredder is stopped by a stun, and is focused down.
That must suck for him. He was midflight when he got caught by the stun.
That's one way to counter shredder's combos.
Okay... so I've still got the chance to complete my 15min BKB.
There's 2 reasons... I'm within 10 seconds of the next rune spawn, and there's also some waves at mid.
Only 400 away from BKB.
That's why I decide on delaying returning home, instead coming to mid to push out the lane a bit.
2700 gold... the fight is pretty intense at bot.
WR is killed off. The enemy team's counterattack is pretty successful.
Ahh... beautiful. Got a regen.
Admiral's combo doesn't connect with anyone.
They've turned around to kill off the kunkka.
I reckon he overextended a bit.
Coco rum's effect is prolonging his life a bit. Ahh... laguna blade.
So... we've still got 4 enemy heroes. I'm gonna pop my regen and observe for a sec.
Shredder! Beautiful! lol my raze catches both of them.
Shredder right there... baited a ton of hate. I stayed hidden in the trees. Neither of our heroes had any disables.
SF is a hero that needs some preconditions (time and space) in order to output his DPS.
If the enemy spots you they're not just going to stand still and let you blow them away. That's why you need to be a bit sneaky.
It's best to seek out positions or situations where the enemy is unaware of your presence to unleash your DPS, making use of terrain and vision.
For example, if I were to rush this morph head-on, it's be exceedingly difficult to kill him.
I would require teammates' disables.
Turn around and fire off some razes... I manage to get all of them off, they're not interrupted by his stun.
I pop my 15-charge wand and trade hits with him. He can't do it. Finish morph off with one more raze.
Beyond godlike. I'm not sure if everyone understands why morph wasn't able to overpower me.
Oh... another beautiful shackleshot.
Lina. Dodge the LSA.
I see that there's Lina and centaur.
Centaur has looped around the long way hoping to catch me.
Lina has also tried to intercept me, but she doesn't find me.
I kinda want to kill this lina.
lvl6... I've got 4 wand charges. Ok! Both razes score. One more autoattack and she's out.
When you're ahead, I still recommend that everybody max out presence of the dark lord.
If you're behind, and need the hp/mp, then get stats.
The math behind the skill is pretty strong.
Morphling had RoB and perseverance, facing off against a treads SF with lvl4 aura.
He was completely unable to win the autoattack exchange.
This is a scary aspect of SF.
With PT in the early, early-mid game, nobody can stand toe-to-toe with him in a physical damage exchange...
err.. well I can't say nobody, but his physcial DPS is pretty exceptional.
My profits from the fights at bot are pretty huge.
By incorporating some small tricks and details into my hero control, I killed a ton of people.
So I'm not just a fed SF, I'm an SF that can show off now.
I guess everybody can clue in as to what I'm going for now.
So... there's a couple of routes I can take now.
One way is to maximize DPS, and enjoy that luxurious feeling of killing people in a couple of hits.
Another way is to just BKB, then add a dagger.
I thought about it for a moment before I went blink.
Enemy team wants to start ganking again. Shredder trying to juke.
They should have run out of disables, ahh... shredder goes down.
I immediately TP and pop invis rune. Seeing a ton of people, I have to decide who to initiate on.
Slark I guess... he's been shackled.
One autoattack, raze, activate BKB, another raze.
I wanted to ult immediately, but the enemy team had already scrambled.
So... blink, then ult.
Follow up with a raze, auto, take out centaur.
Personally, I think that getting dagger after BKB is better than getting it before BKB.
Otherwise we run into that issue I've been talking about...
where SF tps out, clears a wave or 2, is promptly killed, tps out again, farms a wave, killed again, etc.
Then finally, after a cruel 30 minutes, complete his BKB.
Things are bleak by then. Butterfly is a distant stranger to you. An SF that can't farm up a butterfly is not a good SF imo.
This ancient spawn, SF really loves.
With a really fed SF, all you have to worry about is picking up that butterfly. You don't need to analyze the match too hard.
If you can simply guarantee that your butterfly comes on time, isn't delayed by anything, then the match is basically a done deal.
Because SF's butterfly is such a key item... I guess it's comparable to Spectre's radiance.
Just with the BKB as a premise. 5 heroes at mid.
Let's stick around for a bit... see if teammates are coming or not.
Morph is tossed over.
I'm feeling a bit vulnerable so I activate BKB immediately.
Since my BKB duration is still quite long, I'm just going to fight this out.
Not to mention, I've still got a DD.
Slark backs off.
Teammates have arrived.
They've cautiously activated glyph.
Activate DD, and check out the situation. Slark tried to leap out to escape, but he leaped straight into shredder.
My autoattack is very damaging. I've got no BKB and no ult.
Kunkka ults.
I'm committing fully then... trying to find a nice angle of attack. Lina tries to stun me, but she misses.
Because my positioning is pretty decent. Blink over and kill off centaur.
And burn down tiny with very high DPS.
There should still be lina. Blink over and ult.
Ahh.. this lina... she couldn't react fast enough. Seeing SF suddenly blink in, she didn't have enough reaction time to stun me.
For most players, there's not enough time to think, so the first reaction is always to retreat.
And well... SF's ult is pretty hard to juke.
I think I could have executed that better actually. Seamlessly blink-ulting would've been more damaging.
Over here slark has leaped onto me. This many people have jumped on top of me.
Pop BKB. When you activate BKB on SF, there's this really strong feeling of freedom, of struggling/breaking free.
Blink over... uhh... they've revived.
I got killed by lina's dragon slave.
SF... hmm how do I say this... I believe that SF is a hero that anybody aiming to become a professional level player needs to study.
Because he can stimulate your passion for dota and draw you into the intricacies of play.
Ehh... how come it seems like the situation has suddenly drastically shifted? Seems like I can't afford to die..
NS buys back, tps to bot.
The drums duo, one on WR, one on NS. It seems like WR has been surrounded at bot.
NS arrives. The silence doesn't go on slark, but instead on tiny.
I hurriedly tp bot to help out. NS gets taken out.
I guess I need to play a bit carefully and farm up that butterfly.
For SF, as we've already discussed, BKB and butterfly are very core items.
He utilizes these 2 items to maximize his DPS output.
But the crux of the hero is still mastering his many little details of hero control.
For example, the time gap between successive razes.
I've already talked about this in my previous video, about how to a perfect triple chain raze.
How to get out the most razes in the shortest time. You can feel this when you're playing SF; whether or not you're chaining your razes perfectly.
Of course, there's a very old-fashioned way of doing it... 'zz-xxx-c'
So by tapping those keys quickly you can throw out quicker razes.
I decide not to rush forward with my team, because I predicted that the enemy team would retreat.
So I stayed put to replenish soul count.
Looking at the previous scenario, I needed to calm down my play anyways, so last hit some creeps.
After blink or BKB ult, the pattern and tempo of follow-up razes and auto-attacks can really show you the difference between a high-level SF and an average SF player.
Some SFs achieve an effect, leave an impression that is distinct from your usual SFs.
It obviously depends on internet connection quality too.
Seamlessly chaining attacks, razes, and movement together...
Once you hit that level of play... you'll become very confident in not just SF, but your DotA play as a whole.
Over here, torrent catches 2 heroes so I immediately BKB-blink-ult.
Tiny is instagibbed, raze-auto takes out lina.
Turn around and see that there's still centaur.
No problem, auto him dead.
There's still morphling. He waveforms short, wanting to kill WR.
2 autoattacks, 1 raze takes out morph.
This teamfight I think I blinked a bunch of times.
Twice, I think.
Blink dagger really has an innate usefulness.
5300, butterfly is imminent. Ehh... this slark missed his leap.
Otherwise, I might really have died.
Well.. maybe kunkka's torrent might have saved my life.
This is one of SF's embarrassing points... even such a fed SF can still die so easily to a little slark.
... without ult up, without BKB up.
I better get my butterfly.
Thinking about what items to get after...
I signaled rosh, and kunkka was running towards rosh, but actually, I'm still about 200 gold off from butterfly...
WR is panicking though, so we just rosh.
Originally, I wanted to finish butterfly, and then go rosh.
Doing roshan right now is pretty high-risk. We can see kunkka really doesn't have any tankiness.
This kunkka is playing very devotedly, he tanked rosh to a sliver of hp.
I actually wanted to get kunkka to take the aegis.
Ok... completed butterfly.
Let's check out 26m rune.
Ooh... regen, my luck is really good.
They're skirmishing up at top, but this round I don't have much interest.
If I go buy a tp, I would need to sell my bottle.
Also, I have the option of staying at bot, and pressuring the lane.
It's not a bad option. Just assembled butterfly.
If I push into their base by myself, I can probably demolish rax faster than the enemy team can.
So I decide to just push bot.
Hmmm... not sure with this pushing speed... I think I might have to join the fight at top... or not, I'll stick with bot.
If my raze execution was bit better... oh well, I wasn't expecting to suddenly run into morph.
If I had auto-raze-auto-raze'd with flawless micro... I guess everyone might find it strange that I keep on talking about perfect this, flawless that.
Well... that's because a normal attack has both damage point animation and backswing animation.
Perfect micro would involve using your casting animation (damage point) to cancel your attack animation (backswing) and then using your attack animation (damage point) to cancel your casting animation (backswing).
Animation canceling is a basic concept.
I can't defeat my replicate... 100% health, 50% damage.
Oh well... I've drawn them back from their push, so it's all good.
I still haven't adjusted my attitude back yet... in order to make the best videos.
I really want to return to the attitude I had when I first started making videos, when slick and flashy play was king.
Then I can make the most entertaining videos.
The 28m rune isn't here. What else should we farm up?
Given the current situation, I think some more aggressive items would be best.
With the platform of BKB + butterfly, it should be comfortable going any item.
For example, MoM + SnY?
Or how about... an AC wouldn't be bad. Butter + AC.
Ethereal blade, MKB/buriza... these are all excellent choices.
They've started another brawl up at top.
I guess me and the morph messing around really didn't interest him.
Without HotD, I can't really sustain myself that well.
When I'm playing SF, I really like the look of his projectile. After lifesteal orb though, it looks really bad.
After butterfly, this sensation of auto-attacking people, I really like.
Didn't get the rune.
So they're 5-man push, while we have one man down. I've got aegis, BKB, ult.
I get ambushed. Immediately BKB-ult. Their reaction was a bit slow. Neither tiny nor centaur immediately stunned me.
I blink over and triple raze.
All 3 connect. Tiny is taken out, and another autoattack finishes off centaur.
It may have been a 4v5, but the power of a butterfly SF is pretty apparent.
Morph waveforms, tps.
Shredder takes him out with a nice combo. He's assembled his core items as well.
As for me, thinking about it... I decide to spend all of my available gold.
I've already told you this before, but I really like to spend all my gold at once.
That way I can realize specific timings of maximum impact.
Bought a sacred relic.
Well... with relic you can only build 3 items: radiance, divine rapier, abyssal blade.
Since I've got aegis, going rapier shouldn't backfire too hard.
My hp is insufficient, still have to back off.
There are still preconditions when you want to show off.
Upon inspection, I notice that NS picked up an urn, so I ask him for a charge.
Morph annoyingly replicates me again, and it escapes.
Centaur?! Don't know what's going on, but he's killed off in an instant.
Enemy team has become unsettled.
After seeing the big item advantage, their morale is probably low.
WR has gone desolator.
That's interesting... that's a total of -12 armour... err... wait, it should be -11 armour.
Morph gets X'd back outside.
And... he dies in 2 hits.
Downing the tower is very quick too.
I didn't think kunkka would catch slark with a torrent.
Slark sure runs fast.
And he had magic stick... so I wasn't able to snipe him.
It's alright though, super high DPS quickly levels mid rax.
Time for me to collect heads? Centaur is taken out by shredder, attack tiny once and it's really damaging.
This lina still wants to kill me.
She dies in 3 hits. Dodge slark's leap...
With that, the enemy team GGs, and this is the end of this week's episode. See you all next week!